Trump 13: More Scandal, More Fun. Yay! :/

[SassyPants]

Manafort

Flynn

Sessions

Trump- winning an election that zero predicted-

Anyone see a pattern?

 

[Penny]

I would love it if Ted Cruz was to go down in flames. I have hated him for years. 

[RoseWilder]

But hey, no need to investigate. Nothing to see here. 

[fraurosena]

Steve King of Iowa makes 7.

In this interview he had with MSNBC's Hallie Jackson, he even openly admits to having meetings with Russians himself. Although he does quickly add that they weren't to do with this investigation, whatever that may mean...

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/rep-king-sessions-should-not-recuse-himself-888646211785

Quote

Hallie Jackson: (...) "Do you think that Jeff Sessions should recuse himself (...)"

King: "No, not at all. And there are a number of reasons for that. First of all, the answers to the questions during his confirmation hearing were answered within the context of the questions that were asked by Senator Franken and others, and to, to, for a senator to say 'Oh I haven't had any meetings or discussions with the Russians' on the topic that was raised by Senator Franken, everybody at the table at that Senate has had meetings with different members and representatives of multiple countries, so if there was any concern, any senator would have brought that up then. I'm not concerned. I've had meetings with Russians, and they weren't to do with this investigation. No one has more integrity in this entire government than Jeff Sessions. This is a political hack job, this going after him."

 

1. Ted Cruz

2. Devin Numes

3. Paul Ryan

4. Tom Cotton

5. Lindsey Graham

6. Orin Hatch

7. Steve King

[GreyhoundFan]

"While pundits swooned over Trump’s speech, reporters plugged away at the real story". I can see some Pulitzer Prizes coming out of the hardcore reporting being done by some of the major outlets (WaPo, NYT, etc) about Agent Orange and his sideshow freaks.

Quote

Call it the revenge of the reporters over the pundits.

Tuesday night was a low point for “the media” — if such a multi-headed beast can be described in those two words — as cable-news talking heads gushed over President Trump’s address to Congress.

Will Oremus of Slate put it like this: Trump “managed to speak for an entire hour without sounding like an unhinged demagogue. For that, he was hailed by TV pundits across the spectrum who acted as though he’d just single-handedly defeated the Islamic State and restored the fortunes of the American middle class.”

On CNN, Van Jones’s assessment of Trump’s exploitation of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens’s death in a raid was especially memorable: “He became president of the United States in that moment. Period.” (Maybe he learned that construction from Sean Spicer’s assertions about the largest inaugural crowds ever. Period.)

But Jones, a liberal commentator, was far from alone. Trump had “pivoted.” He became “presidential.” His speech was “soaring” and “inspirational.”

Katy Tur of NBC, for one, was much more skeptical, pointing out that the raid in Yemen was not considered successful by Defense Department sources and that Trump had blamed Owens’s death earlier on the military brass. The fact checkers did their thing, and did it well. Not every news outlet felt the need to praise the president to the heavens.

But it was a bad few hours — an unfortunate departure for the news media, which has toughened up and developed something resembling a spine over the past few weeks. (CNN has done some of the best reporting in these weeks, and its Jake Tapper has been a standout interrogator.)

But as if to say that not all media are created equal, along came two blockbuster stories from two longtime rival newspapers.

First, on Wednesday evening, with an 8:01 news alert, the New York Times dropped its triple-byline blockbuster: that the Obama administration had scattered a trail of bread crumbs, evidently so that contacts between Trump’s associates and the Russians would not be lost to a coverup by the new administration.

Then, with a 9:04 p.m. news alert, The Washington Post published a shocker on the same general subject: that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador to the United States twice and failed to disclose that during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Because of dogged reporting, and to some extent on intelligence-community leaks that Trump has found so outrageous, both stories hit hard.

By morning, Democratic calls for Sessions to resign were being met by Republican calls for his recusal from any investigation. And Sessions, while insisting he did nothing wrong and was misunderstood, made his own statement that he would recuse himself as appropriate. (As Katherine Miller, politics editor of BuzzFeed, pointed out, it contained a non-sequitur: “I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”)

“When our business is at its best, it’s because of great reporting,” said Albert Hunt of Bloomberg View, who was a longtime Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal and later of Bloomberg News. He added that the competition between the Times and The Post — “the two best newsrooms in the country” — reminds him of what happened during the Watergate era, except for the delivery mechanism: digital vs. print. “We used to rush to get the papers to see the latest,” he said.

...

The strength of the Wednesday reporting made the weakness of the Tuesday punditry easier to take for those who care about the media’s credibility.

And it showed once again that the journalistic basics at their best — digging, developing sources and connecting the dots — will always beat glib pontificating.

 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Steve King of Iowa makes 7.

In this interview he had with MSNBC's Hallie Jackson, he even openly admits to having meetings with Russians himself. Although he does quickly add that they weren't to do with this investigation, whatever that may mean...

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/rep-king-sessions-should-not-recuse-himself-888646211785

 

1. Ted Cruz

2. Devin Numes

3. Paul Ryan

4. Tom Cotton

5. Lindsey Graham

6. Orin Hatch

7. Steve King

Ugh.  I need to have a few four letter words with the fuckheads out in western Iowa that keep electing that fuckstick Steve King to Congress.  Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary could run for his seat and those idiots out in King's district would still vote for that fuckstick.  Pardon my excessive use of French here, but that fuckstick angers me so much.

[Howl]

A slight diversion from the Russia Connection:  The GOP is flailing about, trying to repeal  Obamacare.  To borrow an old but extremely apt phrase, the GOP doesn't know whether to shit or go blind re: Affordable Care Act.  This (ostensibly) led  to a scene created by Sen. Rand Paul, who marched over to the House side of things, pounded on a locked door in front of dozens of reporters who were there on an unrelated manner and demanded to see a draft of the bill to dismantle Obamacare being developed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  He was pounding on the wrong door, but then alert Democrats in the hallway also started demanding to see a draft of the bill.  Aides in the conference room invited people in to see that, indeed, there was no bill to be found. 

In chaotic scene, Rand Paul demands to see the House GOP's Obamacare repeal bill

Lord love a duck, crazy times on Capitol Hill. 

[RoseWilder]

IndyStar is reporting that Mike Pence used personal email for state business and was hacked: 

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/pence-used-personal-email-state-business----and-hacked/98604904/

Quote

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cybersecurity experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence's are typically less secure than government email accounts.In fact, Pence's personal account was hacked last summer.

But I'm sure the Republicans will act like this is no big deal, since it's only a bad thing when Hillary does something. Fucking hypocrites. 

[SassyPants]

3 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

But hey, no need to investigate. Nothing to see here. 

And they met at Trump Tower- there is no way that Trump was out of the loop.

Effing corrupt liars.

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, Penny said:

I would love it if Ted Cruz was to go down in flames. I have hated him for years. 

If that smug bastard really goes down, I say we drink a toast to his demise. 

[47of74]

2 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

If that smug bastard really goes down, I say we drink a toast to his demise. 

Yeah I'll drink to that!  If it's before my surgery, I'm going to have some Dragon's Milk.

[RoseWilder]

So I'm assuming the Republicans will now be chanting LOCK HIM UP  LOCK HIM UP about Mike Pence and the emails. 

Oh wait, I forgot. He's a Republican. So it's okay. 

[onekidanddone]

10 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

If that smug bastard really goes down, I say we drink a toast to his demise. 

Is there an emoji of the Snoopy dance?

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, RoseWilder said:

IndyStar is reporting that Mike Pence used personal email for state business and was hacked: 

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/pence-used-personal-email-state-business----and-hacked/98604904/

But I'm sure the Republicans will act like this is no big deal, since it's only a bad thing when Hillary does something. Fucking hypocrites. 

That just chaps my hide. He's such a self-righteous prick. I bet he used unsecured wi-fi and/or an unsecured cell phone to access the unsecured personal email. And no Republican will care, because it's only wrong when it involves the Clintons.

[onekidanddone]

6 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

Yeah, sure Sean, we'll take your word for it because you seem like a really stable, honest guy. 

Shut up Spinny Spice. You make Pinocchio look like George Washington.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Shut up Spinny Spice. You make Pinocchio look like George Washington.

LOL, how true. I'm so hoping that Melissa shows up for this weekend's new episode of SNL. Of course, it's not like they don't have plenty of material.

[RoseWilder]

The White House has released a statement from Trump about Jeff Sessions: 

How professional. 

[PennySycamore]

2 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

If that smug bastard really goes down, I say we drink a toast to his demise. 

Well, when Nixon resigned a bunch of us had a celebratory lunch, complete with wine, at the Spaghetti Store in Athens, GA. 

ETA:  Sen. Lindsay "Huckeberry" Graham is supposed to have a town hall at 10:30 at the Brooks Center on the Clemson U campus.  I wonder if it's still on.  A bunch of us resisters are going to be there asking some tough questions.

[RoseWilder]

The plot thickens: 

 

[RoseWilder]

We have another addition to the list: 

Okay, let's review. It's been 27 hours since the news dropped that a FOURTH member of Trump's team communicated with our enemy and let than 8 hours since Sessions made it clear he wasn't resigning. But clearly it's time to move on. Fuck you Rand Paul, you're going on the list: 

1. Ted Cruz

2. Devin Numes

3. Paul Ryan

4. Tom Cotton

5. Lindsey Graham

6. Orin Hatch

7. Steve King

8. Rand Paul

 

[candygirl200413]

I'm so over with how they can do anything and that there will never be repercussions. (Do we have a nickname for Jason Cheffetz?) cause he is STILL investigating Hillary's non-existence email issue.

I'm just so so pissed.

[RoseWilder]

The plot thickens again (sorry, it's too late in the day and I'm too scandal-weary to come up with something wittier): 

And now, for a moment of levity. This tweet sums up how I feel about this never-ending scandal hurricane our country is in: 

 

[JMarie]

Grassley could be the next??

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sticking-with-trump-republicans-resist-call-for-broader-russian-inquiry/ar-AAnJaAX?ocid=spartanntp

Quote

“First and foremost, any talk of resignation is nonsense,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, before which Mr. Sessions testified.

He praised Mr. Sessions as “an honest and forthright public servant,” and thanked him for pledging to send a letter to the committee “to clear up any confusion regarding his testimony.”

 

[RoseWilder]

39 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Grassley could be the next??

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sticking-with-trump-republicans-resist-call-for-broader-russian-inquiry/ar-AAnJaAX?ocid=spartanntp

 

Good call. He's going on the list: 

1. Ted Cruz

2. Devin Numes

3. Paul Ryan

4. Tom Cotton

5. Lindsey Graham

6. Orin Hatch

7. Steve King

8. Rand Paul

9. Chuck Grassley

[RoseWilder]