Maddow argued yesterday that the AMI confession puts the three miniTrumps in the hot seat.

… Read the rest

The US Senate just did what Trump has repeatedly refused to do.

The Senate cast two historic votes Thursday to end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war effort in Yemen and condemn the Saudi crown prince as responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, delivering clear political rebukes of President Trump’s continued embrace of the kingdom.

The unanimous vote to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for Khashoggi’s murder reflects the extent to which senators of both parties have grown tired of Trump’s continued defense of Mohammed’s denials. It also puts significant pressure on leaders in the House — where the president’s Saudi policy is a much more partisan issue — to allow members to cast a similar

I can’t tell if this is hilarious or terrifying.

https://twitter.com/BCDreyer/status/1073055434339217408

Talking Points Memo cautiously prods the suspicious object:

The Department of Homeland Security sounded a bit like Cookie Monster or The Incredible Hulk in a press release Wednesday detailing how the agency has spent the roughly $1.67 billion allocated to it for fence and wall construction and renovation over the past 19 months.

“DHS is committed to building wall and building wall quickly,” the release read. “We are not replacing short, outdated and ineffective wall with similar wall.  Instead, under this President we are building a wall that is 30-feet high.”

To me it sounds like Natasha and Boris in Rocky and Bullwinkle but that’s probably because I’m not … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Seth on He thinks the people would revolt.

As was obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention since Bush the Lesser’s misbegotten reign, Republicans rule as though divinely mandated despite (or, rather, because of) their having failed to secure a mandate, and they gin up their supporters to revolt whenever they don’t get their way.

People have already forgotten that Obama faced two organized, armed revolts during his tenure, instigated by the Bundy clan (klan?) and inspiring thousands of their fellow rubenicks to join them in spirit, and dozens in person. These revolts amounted to an insurrection that hasn’t been properly dealt with, especially given the wisdom of the juries involved.

The next Democratic administration, … Read the rest

Ian Bushfield of the BC Humanists Association writes:

Section 296 of Canada’s Criminal Code said:

Offence

296 (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

Question of fact

(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel.

Saving

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.

As Jeremy Patrick wrote in his PhD dissertation, the provision has been

Originally a comment by Pliny the in Between on “Flynn Entrapment”.

Counterpoint: Ok, so a guy who was NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES pulls a classic Louis Renault and claims that he is shocked – SHOCKED I SAY to learn that lying to the FBI is a crime.

I’ve come up with a metric to help:

1-who does background checks on all candidates for sensitive positions in the US government?

a-The FBI b-The FBI c-The FBI d-a,b and c

2-True or false, the following was part of the SCOTUS ruling in Brogan vs The United States: “Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government’s right to ask questions — lying is not one … Read the rest

Elinor Lipman sends a poem:

I do not like that Cohen guy,
I would not like to testify.
Not in New York, not in D.C.,
Not on the stand! You let me be!
I will not help a refugee,
I would not, could not save a tree.
I do not need a Chief of Staff!
(Send resumé and photograph.)

— Elinor Lipman (@ElinorLipman) December 13, 2018

… Read the rest

Oh ffs.

A court filing shows the ugly tactics employed by James Comey’s FBI: https://t.co/Q1wMsmR3D4 via @WSJOpinion

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) December 13, 2018

This shit must have been dictated over the phone by Trump and then put into coherent English by someone at the WSJ. It reeks of Trumpism.

Of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s many targets, the most tragic may be former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The former three-star general pleaded guilty last year to a single count of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Now we learn from Mr. Flynn’s court filing to the sentencing judge that senior bureau officials acted in a way to set him

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on But they didn’t tell him he shouldn’t lie.

I’m not a big crusader for the rights of criminal defendants, but it’s amazing how, throughout this whole process, conservatives have been discovering their outrage at stuff that they couldn’t be bothered to bat an eye about before.

Investigators tried to lull a non-custodial* suspect into a false sense of security instead of warning that they were in legal jeopardy and should get a fucking lawyer? SHOCKING! (*-If you’re not in custody, i.e., free to leave, then Miranda doesn’t apply. Cops like to be very vague on that point — they want you to think that you have to stay and answer their questions, … Read the rest

https://twitter.com/GhostfaceKHZ/status/1072701167656935424

What I’m saying. Did he think they’d be cool with it if he lied to them?!

I feel bad for this poor, uneducated rube the FBI agents entrapped in this way. How could this schmo possibly understand the national security apparatus he was up against?

So. What did this guy do for a living?

— Derek Kerton (@derekkerton) December 12, 2018

Yes, Michael Cohen was Trump's personal lawyer, but more recently he was Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee. The Deputy Finance Chair of the RNC was just sentenced to 3 years in prison for felonies committed during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) December 12, 2018

Michael Cohen made the right decision to

… Read the rest

Yesterday’s late news was weird – Michael Flynn is complaining that the FBI agents who interviewed him didn’t tell him he shouldn’t lie to them.

Wut?

Did he think the FBI would be cool with it if he lied to them? Did he think they were interviewing him just for practice?

Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, asked a federal judge late Tuesday to spare him prison time for misleading investigators, and they suggested that the F.B.I. agents who interviewed him last year at the White House had tricked him into lying.

…

But the lawyers offered no explanation for why Mr. Flynn lied to agents about conversations he had during the presidential

Fox News headline right now:

Trump did NOT violate campaign finance law, despite what prosecutors say

You have to laugh. “Who ya gonna believe, some prosecutors or Fox News??!”… Read the rest

Via Screechy at the Miscellany Room: frat boy gets stern “tsk tsk” for four counts of sexual assault.

Even though Jacob Walter Anderson was indicted on four counts of sexual assault, the ex-fraternity president won’t spend a single day in prison.

Instead, a plea agreement allowed the former Baylor University student to plead no contest to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint.

That means if the 24-year-old successfully completes three years of deferred probation and pays a $400 fine, his criminal record will be wiped clean of the charge, CNN affiliate KWKT said.

Wow, a whole four hundred dollar fine. That should keep the prosecutors in paper towels for a good three months.

The plea agreement between Anderson’s defense