Read that article earlier today - a good read if anyone has a few minutes.
Shifting direction a bit, the promotion of Scaramucci is interesting. He’s up to something, and probably a full-on media blitz against his perceived nemeses. We’ll probably be seeing some rallies in flyover country in the coming weeks, warning of the End Times unless the people support the Twitter Messiah.
Perhaps I missed it, but I feel like this thread should have references to everything relevant to the Russian investigation and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention the plastic folder of Hillary financials that the lawyer may have left on Trump Jr’s desk. I also don’t think I remember seeing anyone mention the DOJ case for money laundering by Prevezon (that Veselnitskaya was representing) that was settled for a pittance.
Considering the predominate personality in this administration, he’s probably just as racist.
So, you really think that the republicans are so party over country that they would still vote republican after Trump nukes american citizens?
Sadly, I think that you might just be right.
Keep in mind that when Trump talks about pardoning everyone, it’s with the notion that
a) he and all his fellow pardonees will keep their jobs, and
b) run for re-election, while
c) continuing to do all the things that got them investigated in the first place
For Trump, the pardons are supposed to be the ultimate cheat code.
Sounds like what I thought about confession back when I was Catholic. Well, I’m good to go for another week of sinning!
Following is a link to a legal article dealing with the issue of whether the President can pardon himself (and thanks to dasmoocher for citing the Politico article that led me to it):
Pardon Me: The Constitutional Case Against Presidential Self-Pardons
Full disclosure: I have no idea of Brian C. Kalt’s politics, but the article seems fairly unbiased to me. Also, it’s a longish read, even if you skip the copious footnotes which generally provide background to his points. It’s 30 pages, but it’s a dense 30 pages.
I’m curious what Bricker thinks of this. Hell, he’s probably already read it.
Not a surprise, but in an interview with NBC News, Sergey Lavrov said that Trump and Putin may have met even more times than previously reported.
Most of the article (and interview) deals with other topics, such as why Russia is supporting North Korea.
I take nothing Lavrov says at face value, any more than I do with Trump or Putin. Likely there’s some subtle form of disinformation involved.
Yep. He said maybe they went to the bathroom at the same time.
That famous Russian sense of humor 
He was setting the absurd bar, that any chance happenstance of being within fifty yards of each other could be construed as a “meeting”. Lavrov, like Putin, came up in the Soviet era, where humor and irony were potentially fatal. He was being sarcastic, which is about as close as they ever got.
Well he whooshed Sunny Daze pretty well With the help of NBC News of course.
Intel says Session lied about the nature of his meetings he lied about having.
Labrov said that (his metaphor, not mine) just like kindergartners mingle before class, Trump and Putin mingled several times. He didn’t know what they discussed; a bit more than a urinal joust.
Do I think that the Russians are just fucking with us? Sort of. My actual theory now is that they are fucking with Trump. I think they are actively conspiring to continue instability in the US government. At this point, they do that by fostering mistrust of Trump. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see dribs and drabs of destabilizing information ooze forth for some time to come. After the mid-terms, something terminal will leak from Russia about Trump and Co colluding with Russia. They get another 1-2 election cycles of chaos this way, with no responsible leadership preventing their activities in this country.
Trump sure does broadcast his punches, doesn’t he? No doubt his newfound questioning of Sessions is due to this leak.
Quite possible that the Trump camp leaked this to force Sessions out. Get a new AG in to fire Mueller.
Well, here we go.
The Washington Post is now reporting that Kislyak reported back to his superiors in Moscow that Jeff Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with him as the Russian Ambassador, and that US intelligence intercepts reflect that. At the moment, there is zero proof for this assertion.
Now, I detest Jeff Sessions, and I knew the ugly direction Trump’s administration was headed when he picked Sessions as AG. But is this something that actually occurred? Or is this a favor the Russians are doing for Trump in furtherance of Trump’s goal to get rid of Sessions so he can appoint a new AG who won’t be subject to Sessions’ recusal on the Russian investigation? Or is this just the Russians screwing around with us some more?
I don’t understand how anyone can think that Russian interference in our elections and their continued cute relationship with our “president” is anything but traitorous.
If those intercepts are confirmed, Sessions must resign and face the music.
It’s hard to believe Sessions would have discussed such matters without direction from further up. As much as the guy makes my skin crawl, he sure picked a big garbage pile to die on.
If this causes Sessions to resign, Trump gets a shiny new non-recused AG, right?
Ninjaed on edit.
And now Donnie Half-Scoop and Manafort have canceled their appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday.
I’d say Trump is going to the mattresses.
ETA: I guess they’re meeting privately with the committee members first, so maybe not so egregious.
Can’t remember if I said this on this MB or to a friend recently, but I’ll repeat myself: If I were Manafort, I’d be shopping around for friendly Eastern European countries to flee to. Kushner can probably fall back on Israel if he has to.