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[Chumley]

Hahahaha what the fuck

Wake me up

 

[~Kinggi~]

In addition to being a Russian stage, he's also a music promoter. I wouldn't doubt many celebrities have met him.

Goldman had better deliver in the next hour. My beautiful moderate mind can't stay awake much longer.

its way too late, whats coming?

 

[Ernest]

>Admit to federal crimes in email.
...

Oh the irony if an email takes down Donald Trump.

 

[Autodidact]

its way too late, whats coming?

Goldman, the NYT reporter, tweeted, "Still reporting" about an hour-and-a-half ago.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Goldman, the NYT reporter, tweeted, "Still reporting" about an hour-and-a-half ago.

wouldnt bother waiting, probably will be weak if they do decide to do it tonight.

 

[A Serious Man]

Rick Wilson thinks Jared is behind this.

Well Jared is incredibly stupid then because he's implicated in this meeting as well. One aspect of this that isn't getting much attention right now is that this is yet another meeting with Russians that Jared failed to disclose when applying for security clearance.

 

[Drkirby]

I would be pretty surprised if they published something at this hour instead of in the morning.

 

[Chumley]

I would be pretty surprised if they published something at this hour instead of in the morning.

Yeah, the oppo will be tomorrow.

 

[Zolo]

Well Jared is incredibly stupid then because he's implicated in this meeting as well. One aspect of this that isn't getting much attention right now is that this is yet another meeting with Russians that Jared failed to disclose when applying for security clearance.

He forgot.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Man, Trump stepping down before the midterms would be pretty fantastic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1974

Ironically Bill Clinton lost a House election that year.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

Man, Trump stepping down before the midterms would be pretty fantastic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1974

Ironically Bill Clinton lost a House election that year.

not enough walton money that year

Spoiler

he met Sam in '83, actually

 

[Chumley]

Interesting theory I saw on Twitter is Jared is doing this to provoke Trump into firing Mueller, under the belief that firing Mueller makes the investigation go away.

 

[Zolo]

Interesting theory I saw on Twitter is Jared is doing this to provoke Trump into firing Mueller, under the belief that firing Mueller makes the investigation go away.

Depends on if the House or Senate will make their own independent investigation as a response. It won't make news about it go away.

 

[Chumley]

Depends on if the House or Senate will make their own independent investigation as a response. It won't make news about it go away.

Can they actually do that if Republicans have the majority in both? What if Republicans all just decide not to?

 

[skullmuffins]

Can they actually do that if Republicans have the majority in both? What if Republicans all just decide not to?

They could block it, but it seems like a risky strategy to leak info that describes actual knowing collusion, then somehow fire the special prosecutor (because Rosenstein sure isn't going to do it and I don't know if Trump could even find anyone else in the Justice department willing to sign off, so I guess he'd have to do away with the special counsel regulation itself), and then hope that enough republicans would be willing to have your back even though it'll surely lead to massive losses in the midterm elections.

 

[sc0la]

Can't believe Trump is not having his ugly son be the fall guy.

This isn't fair.

They are both the ugly son.

 

[Zolo]

They could block it, but it seems like a risky strategy to leak info that describes actual knowing collusion, then somehow fire the special prosecutor (because Rosenstein sure isn't going to do it and I don't know if Trump could even find anyone else in the Justice department willing to sign off, so I guess he'd have to do away with the special counsel regulation itself), and then hope that enough republicans would be willing to have your back even though it'll surely lead to massive losses in the midterm elections.

Not to mention this stuff doesn't just disappear with no investigation, and the possible long-term repercussions of not forming an investigation of someone who all but in legal terms is considered guilty in the future.

 

[JesseEwiak]

When David "Axis of Evil" Frum is defending Hillary Clinton from Jamie "Former New Republic Editor" Kirchick

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/884436087745261569

 

[wutwutwut]

Iron Stache is, or at least pretends to be, a trekkie: https://twitter.com/ironstache/status/884621530919055360

An Ayn Rand fanboy being upset by a trekkie would be just.

 

[skullmuffins]

Not to mention this stuff doesn't just disappear with no investigation, and the possible long-term repercussions of not forming an investigation of someone who all but in legal terms is considered guilty in the future.

Right, so in the event the special counsel gets fired and Republicans completely stonewall the house/senate investigations, we'd go back to people in the intel community leaking damaging stories left and right, and the NYT/WaPo/etc. will keep digging up dirt, Democrats would be screaming and using whatever little power they have to protest Congress's inaction.... I don't see how that situation would be sustainable for any length of time.

 

[pigeon]

When David "Axis of Evil" Frum is defending Hillary Clinton from Jamie "Former New Republic Editor" Kirchick

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/884436087745261569

Frum voted for Hillary. Kirchick writes for National Review.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Why are you all talking about Hillary fucking Clinton and Bernie fucking Sanders again over the last 3 pages. My god.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Why are you all talking about Hillary fucking Clinton and Bernie fucking Sanders again over the last 3 pages. My god.

Every couple days PoliGAF likes to relive the stages of grief.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Why are you all talking about Hillary fucking Clinton and Bernie fucking Sanders again over the last 3 pages. My god.

Reason no. 12,167,822 that parliamentary systems > presidential ones: we actually get an official leader of the opposition/any given party to hold the government to account at all times, rather than an inchoate mess with no clear leadership and a vacuity of ideology that inevitably leads everyone to pine for one of a few previous leaders.

The Democratic primary should be held from the January immediately after the last presidential election.

 

[pigeon]

So: yes, the Republicans might break the norm of not court-stuffing. But they might not. If the Democrats break the norm, the Republicans definitely do. Logic says don't break the court-stuffing norm, since there's then a non-zero chance the Republicans don't break it, and if they do break it, you can break it back anyway and all you've lost by not going first is one Presidential termsworth of Supreme Court rulings going your way, which is only four years.

This is an argument that ignores the iterative nature of government and all such systems. Logically, by this same argument, no matter what the Republicans do, it is appropriate for the Democrats to condone and accept it because the alternative is an unacceptable escalation. It literally is Chamberlain.

It is, but this isn't tit-for-tat, it's fuckopalypse-for-tat. The norm that pigeon is proposing to violate protects the American political system from a *much* bigger political danger than the norm the Republicans just violated now. Filibustering a nominee is peanuts compared to court-stuffing.

The tit-for-tat response is for Democrats to filibuster Republican nominees, which I'm perfectly okay with.

No, the tit-for-tat response to the Republicans violating a norm is not to endorse the new norm. It is to force the violation of norm to be reversed and the gains to be lost, or to violate further norms in order to suppress those gains.

The solution should not be to pack the court nor introduce term limits but to officially codify the procedures that were unofficially followed previously.

This, the lesson to be learned from the past decade or so is that "norms", "comity" and gentlemen's agreements are a dumb foundation for a functioning government.

Norms are fine. Lots of governments rely on them -- as Crab alludes, the United Kingdom is primarily run on norms. American democracy is just fundamentally flawed in very problematic ways that strongly encourage democratic collapse through violation of norms. That's what happened in every other presidential democracy! But the problem is the system and also all the white supremacists, not the existence of norms.

That said, my preferred solution is really to force Gorsuch to step down and be replaced, then to change the judiciary branch so that it can actually function as a nonpartisan constitutional backstop. If that is not possible, we should be willing to violate any and all norms surrounding the judicial branch, since those norms exist primarily to give the judiciary legitimacy as nonpartisan interpreters of the law, and that is not the current state of the branch. It is valuable for us if Americans understand that. Also it's a good idea to say the truth.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

This is an argument that ignores the iterative nature of government and all such systems. Logically, by this same argument, no matter what the Republicans do, it is appropriate for the Democrats to condone and accept it because the alternative is an unacceptable escalation. It literally is Chamberlain.

No, this is a dumb analogy and you should feel bad for making it. There are appropriate escalations and there are non-appropriate escalations. Going from filibustering Court nominees to court stuffing is an enormous change in the level of escalation. The analogy here is not Chamberlain, the analogy is "China started a trade war with us and broke that international norm, so let's nuke the fuck out of them!". Your argument is literally Trump-like.

No, the tit-for-tat response to the Republicans violating a norm is not to endorse the new norm. It is to force the violation of norm to be reversed and the gains to be lost, or to violate further norms in order to suppress those gains.

You've not even thought through this. How is stuffing the court going to force violation of this norm to be reversed? Okay, a Democratic president gets four years of deciding all Supreme Court cases. Then they lose, as happens to all parties eventually, and a Republican president comes in. You think they're going to go: "gee whizz, that really taught us, no more filibustering!"? Of course not, they're going to stuff back. And so we end up with a situation where the integrity of the judicial system has completely broken down. Not sort of broken down, like a filibuster; we're talking completely and totally fucked.

Nor do you suppress these gains. Every single significant case will be retrailed every four years. Okay, so your Democratic president managed to get gay marriage passed, great. Well, the next Republican will get someone to bring it to court, up to appeal, and then he'll reverse it. Then the next Democratic president will reverse that, and then the next Republican one will reverse that, and so on. You create a perpetual mess where the solidity of the legal system vanishes overnight. The slow, gradual movement of the Supreme Court means that, even if rights are a while coming, they have a permanency once granted. Your 'proposal' could mean a gay man's marriage and a woman's abortion swapping between legitimacy and illegitimacy every four years, and that insecurity is terrifying. If you think that's a gain, then your ivory tower is at such an altitude it's depriving your brain of oxygen.

The correct response to what has just happened is: filibuster the fuck out of Republican Supreme Court nominee (the tit-for-tat response) until you can get an agreement to codify the process in statute. You could also add term limits if you can get sufficient agreement for it.

 

[Chumley]

Mark Halperin thinks the russians are more likely the leakers than anyone in the WH.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

Why do you have such an affinity for tireless gossip

 

[dramatis]

Why do you have such an affinity for tireless gossip

Everyone is a gossip in here.

 

[pigeon]

No, this is a dumb analogy and you should feel bad for making it. There are appropriate escalations and there are non-appropriate escalations. Going from filibustering Court nominees to court stuffing is an enormous change in the level of escalation. The analogy here is not Chamberlain, the analogy is "China started a trade war with us and broke that international norm, so let's nuke the fuck out of them!". Your argument is literally Trump-like.

This argument fails since you consistently argue for no escalation. What would an appropriate escalation look like, in your view?

You've not even thought through this. How is stuffing the court going to force violation of this norm to be reversed? Okay, a Democratic president gets four years of deciding all Supreme Court cases. Then they lose, as happens to all parties eventually, and a Republican president comes in. You think they're going to go: "gee whizz, that really taught us, no more filibustering!"? Of course not, they're going to stuff back. And so we end up with a situation where the integrity of the judicial system has completely broken down. Not sort of broken down, like a filibuster; we're talking completely and totally fucked.

Nor do you suppress these gains. Every single significant case will be retrailed every four years. Okay, so your Democratic president managed to get gay marriage passed, great. Well, the next Republican will get someone to bring it to court, up to appeal, and then he'll reverse it. Then the next Democratic president will reverse that, and then the next Republican one will reverse that, and so on. You create a perpetual mess where the solidity of the legal system vanishes overnight. The slow, gradual movement of the Supreme Court means that, even if rights are a while coming, they have a permanency once granted. Your 'proposal' could mean a gay man's marriage and a woman's abortion swapping between legitimacy and illegitimacy every four years, and that insecurity is terrifying. If you think that's a gain, then your ivory tower is at such an altitude it's depriving your brain of oxygen.

As I have already said, you are describing a situation in which the judicial branch has failed due to violation of norms, and my argument is that that situation already exists because the relevant norms have been violated. Pretending that norms exist doesn't make them exist! It's a mutual imagination exercise. There is no reason to assume any amount of good faith on the part of the Republican Party, so all of the negative consequences you list above should be assumed to be likely to happen anyway.

The correct response to what has just happened is: filibuster the fuck out of Republican Supreme Court nominee (the tit-for-tat response) until you can get an agreement to codify the process in statute. You could also add term limits if you can get sufficient agreement for it.

Right, your "correct response" is to do literally nothing and allow the Republicans to gain long term power from their violation of constitutional norms, and just assume they won't go on to violate more constitutional norms. Thanks, Pollyanna.

 

[Dany]

I was hoping for another meltdown this morning

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I was just wondering what would happen if there was a Poll result that showed 78% of Americans did not care if Trump colluded with Russia

so I made the #FakeNews image and tweeted it at him
https://twitter.com/Nazaire73/status/884722583400271873

*I doubt it gets seen, but if it does get seen would his ego RT?

place your bets

 

[Deleted member 231381]

This argument fails since you consistently argue for no escalation. What would an appropriate escalation look like, in your view?

Tit-for-tat - you do the same thing back.

As I have already said, you are describing a situation in which the judicial branch has failed due to violation of norms, and my argument is that that situation already exists because the relevant norms have been violated. Pretending that norms exist doesn't make them exist! It's a mutual imagination exercise. There is no reason to assume any amount of good faith on the part of the Republican Party, so all of the negative consequences you list above should be assumed to be likely to happen anyway.

Honestly, you are actually becoming worrying in your inability to see nuance. The judicial branch doesn't have just two states - failed and not-failed. It can range from 'everything is working great' to 'some stuff doesn't work' to 'everything is fucked'. We are in the second stage. The appropriate response is not to go: third gear, all speed ahead.

If the Republican do violate this norm first, then the Democrats lose four years. Fine. That's bad, but it's not as bad as the world in which the Democrats try at least not breaking this norm and the Republicans actually reciprocate. Note that the Republicans haven't actually broken this norm yet, despite it being enormously to their present political advantage, so, at least so far, it has actually held, and in terms of legislative announcements, we're coming up to the halfway mark.

Right, your "correct response" is to do literally nothing and allow the Republicans to gain long term power from their violation of constitutional norms, and just assume they won't go on to violate more constitutional norms. Thanks, Pollyanna.

They won't gain long-term power from court-stuffing. They'll gain four years of power, then the Democrats do it back (and then the Republicans do it back, and then the Democrats do it back, and so on...). Those lost four years are pretty terrible... but it's not as terrible as the outcomes for the judicial system of entrenched court-stuffing. Not even close.

Like, sure, I think the Republicans will probably break lots of the weaker norms, fine, and I'm willing to take the first move on those especially when the consequences are relatively minor. But breaking this one is dumb. Your entire argument is predicated on the idea that the Republicans will definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, do this, but this simply isn't born out by the facts - I mean, put another way, they're coming up to halfway through a term and they've not done it yet. You need to provide a compelling reason for what's stopping them and why it won't continue to stop them, or your argument just doesn't stand.

I can provide you a spare oxygen tank if you need it.

 

[Siegcram]

Stupid Watergate

That might be too kind at this point.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

So this is how the Senate passes Trumpcare. With everyone distracted by the Trump/Russia scandal.

lol

That's not how this works, you know that

 

[polyh3dron]

I was hoping for another meltdown this morning

The morning is still young. I wish I could be a fly on a white house wall right now so I could see Trump’s aides wrestling his phone away from him or just repeatedly telling him not to tweet. 😂

 

[nature boy]

Looks like the Russian lawyer is digging the Trump grave.

TODAY‏Verified account
@TODAYshow

"It's quite possible that maybe they were longing for such information. They wanted it so badly." -Natalia Veselnitskaya to @KeirSimmons

 

[Zolo]

I know people were making fun of Trump Jr.'s lawyer's statement, but I feel there's not much you can do to defend when your client already admitted to meeting up under the pretext of getting info from Russia on Hillary.

"It's quite possible that maybe they were longing for such information. They wanted it so badly." -Natalia Veselnitskaya to @KeirSimmons

Wow.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Looks like the Russian lawyer is digging the Trump grave.

Time to see if his hate of leakers surpasses his love for Russia lol

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Russian lawyer said she was asked to attend a meeting at Trump Tower because the campaign was looking for financial information to use against the Clinton campaign (which she says she didn't have). Manafort and Kushner were also there though she didn't know who they were at the time. Kushner left after ten minutes. Manafort didn't say anything.

She also said she has no connection to the Russian government.

 

[Wilsongt]

Russian lawyer said she was asked to attend a meeting at Trump Tower because the campaign was looking for financial information to use against the Clinton campaign (which she says she didn't have). Manafort and Kushner were also there though she didn't know who they were at the time. Kushner left after ten minutes. Manafort didn't say anything.

She also said she has no connection to the Russian government.

Wrap it up nothing to see here lol

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Senate Democrats have only confirmed 48 of 197 Presidential Nominees. They can't win so all they do is slow things down & obstruct!
6:59 AM · Jul 11, 2017

Yawn.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Interesting theory I saw on Twitter is Jared is doing this to provoke Trump into firing Mueller, under the belief that firing Mueller makes the investigation go away.

Firing COmey blew up in their faces. Why would they think it would be any different this time?

Mark Halperin thinks the russians are more likely the leakers than anyone in the WH.

So in order to vet the source, the Times verified that the Ruskies were tied to the Government and, more specifically, to a campaign to influence the election?

 

[skullmuffins]

Firing COmey blew up in their faces. Why would they think it would be any different this time?



So in order to vet the source, the Times verified that the Ruskies were tied to the Government and, more specifically, to a campaign to influence the election?

1. Yeah. And honestly Republicans get a lot of use out of the Special Counsel, since they can deflect all questions about Russia to the investigation. They'll have to take a lot of direct heat if it's killed.

2. I'm not sure why he thinks they're Russian. The earlier NYT stories on this meeting referenced sources inside the WH, and you'd have to be really skeptical when running with a Russia-sourced story that has the potential to cripple the administration. They're not without motive.

 

[nature boy]

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
Working hard to get the Olympics for the United States (L.A.). Stay tuned!

LOL this is hillarious. Only Paris and LA are bidding, and the IOC report suggests giving both of them the Olympics (one in 2024 the other in 2028).

But of course he's going to take credit for a nothingburger

 

[Rebel Leader]

Wrap it up nothing to see here lol

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Senate Democrats have only confirmed 48 of 197 Presidential Nominees. They can't win so all they do is slow things down & obstruct!
6:59 AM · Jul 11, 2017

Yawn.

You don't neess the dems for that at all

 

[Plinko]

I have to be honest: This whole Trump Jr. thing stinks like a story leaked to then be discredited and make the media look bad later on. The lawyer's story isn't meshing up with Goldstone's, Trump Jr. seems like he's off the rails, etc.

 

[skullmuffins]

I have to be honest: This whole Trump Jr. thing stinks like a story leaked to then be discredited and make the media look bad later on. The lawyer's story isn't meshing up with Goldstone's, Trump Jr. seems like he's off the rails, etc.

Their stories aren't meshing because they're lying to cover their asses, it's not well coordinated, and they need to change their story every time a new tidbit drops to account for the new public information. How can you set up a fake story to smash down when the principle party immediately confirms pretty much the entire story on the record. "Oh, stupid fake news media believing statements I and my lawyer issued!"

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I have to be honest: This whole Trump Jr. thing stinks like a story leaked to then be discredited and make the media look bad later on. The lawyer's story isn't meshing up with Goldstone's, Trump Jr. seems like he's off the rails, etc.

You think NYTs wouldn't make sure this was a rock solid story before pushing it?

Jr seems like he's off the rails... because he's off the rails. He was insane before this went down.

 

[lush]

 

[PBY]

So - in the short term - nothing's gonna happen huh?

Not sure what I was expecting tbh, but I assumed more would happen.