When a country has a certain level of corruption, one may see a large number of genuine corruption and bribery cases laid against current and former government officials, ironically. People working at any level of government—even clerks—can be afraid of jail time. At the same time, a job post as policeman or customs official can be bought for many times the average local salary.
Not sure the relevance to the Trump administration, just a local color observation.
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Carter-in-the-box is in a green room somewhere.
This blabbermouth must be driving Trump crazy.
Yeah, the slow screw will have Trump in a panic looking for targets to bomb.
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In spite of the fact that I want Drumpfie and his litter of repulsive, greedy, tone-deaf spawn out of the WH as quickly as possible, my view on it is this: we need to let this drag out for at least 12-15 months to prevent Drumpfie being tarred and feathered and run out of town too soon. If Pence-y gets in too far in advance of 2018, assuming he isn’t caught up in the sweep (and I suspect he’s more or less clueless), then things may calm down and “normalize” on many levels too quickly (people forget too quickly, unfortunately).
We need to keep everyone enraged until 2018, to ensure that this current mis-administration, plus as many of its sycophants and “willing executioners” as possible, are thoroughly and completely loathed and discredited in order to get them out. The more power regained in 2018, the more neutered a Pence Admin would be.
I’m not happy about this, but I see it as the only feasible way. Sigh.
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Well the size and scale of just the incompetency alone swirling around Dense Pence should take him down too.
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I’m not sure of much in this morass besides the general guilt, but I figure in the obvious absence of some rational reason to act like he does it must be something emotional. I’ll bet defense attorneys who work with white-collar crooks have seen his type before, though—thinks he’s smarter than everyone and the rules don’t apply to him. They’re shocked into paralysis when it turns out neither is true. And if what I read is correct the feds have these guys nailed evidence-wise, so there’s no particular rush to make deals. They don’t need to. So maybe they’re just giving them time, letting them make all the mistakes they have a mind to. He says the subject of sanctions “might have” come up? Why would he say that? Seems like he’s just putting his own neck in the noose. I don’t have any insights, I’m just watching this agog and scratching my head.
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Thank you for the summary statement of just about everyone in this administration.
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And stay tuned for the spinoff, In Like Flynn.
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Yes, it’s “these guys”. But who are the others? Who was the second warrant for? Maybe they’re playing Page off against someone, if so who? What about Trump’s sleazebag lawyer? Or someone else? I don’t think it could be Flynn, especially not Manafort, because Manafort might lead directly to you-know who.
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I believe that’s correct, but in addition, he thinks he is using some counter interrogation technique by deliberately looking stupid. Since he isn’t super bright to start with, the effect is jarring. Imagine Homer Simpson deliberately trying to play dumb and you get the idea.
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If only. Of course, if Dense Pence went down, then we’d end up with RAyn. Gaack. It’s a horror show as far as the eye can see…
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I pretty much just want it to be over before he is able to do any more truly irreversible damage beyond those he has already gotten killed in Yemen and, possibly, those Russians that keep mysteriously dying.
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Yes, maybe what’s constraining the authorities is the idea that Trump might invent a new war every day just to distract, so the the end has to be a sudden deluge to minnimize the damage.
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OT - awesome avatar.
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I see nuh-think! I know nuh-think! My main serious question is did the campaign go to the Russians first or vice versa. Evidence is starting to swing to the former. As for the individual cogs and gears, yeesh. To even have a clue you’d have to study all the evidence available as a professional investigator with access to all the transcripts and everything else, and also knowledge of the players involved, Putin’s approach to this sort of subversion, the background with organized crime and the Trump organization, all of that. And every day you’d learn something new that would send subtle waves of clicking relays through the mass of information to change the picture somehow. I figure I’m doing OK if I can keep up with general outline as it would appear on a children’s placemat connect-the-dots picture of a bunny or whatever. With Page and the interviews, I simply figure he’s freaking out and it’s like when you’re upset and you manage to bring the thing you’re upset about up in every conversation—friends, neighbors, somebody who sits down next to you on a plane, it doesn’t matter. You can’t be shut up on the subject. He’s babbling out of terror, basically.
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I tried to find the information on this Ph.D and the work behind it,
it has ‘restricted access’ for some reason and I can’t see who the supervisor was…
Another potential Trump candidate (for Ambassador to the EU), Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, got his CV scrutinized by the Financial Times a little too much: It showed that his purported jobs at Oxford and Cambridge were fictious and found also a nice little court case concerning real-estate in Florida.
https://www.ft.com/content/d1b0453a-fde0-11e6-8d8e-a5e3738f9ae4
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Well, since Putin takes his plays directly from the Mafia playbook–get the dirt on someone and then use it at the best possible time, you could say that Trump “went” to them whenever he got his first bailout. Hemingway either quoted an old Scandinavian proverb or made it up:“When they buy you for something, they buy you for everything.” Trump’s first publicist was hired merely, she said, to get his poll numbers into double digits. Around that time he said he’d be the first to turn a presidential campaign into a money-making venture. So Trump was almost born as Putin’s chattel, and I’d say that HE went first.
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While the scenario you laid out certainly makes sense, I also think it’s pretty likely that the sooner PP is run out of office the madder his diehard voters will be. A year from now, even many more of them will have grown tired of his antics and the not winning. It’s quite possibly he’ll have racked up zero legislative accomplishments and many more scandals, general screw ups, and international incidents. Even they may be screaming, “Uncle!” by that time. In which case, Pence could be a welcome relief from the madness. Instead of being mad as hell about the Russian hacking, the country could very well be too relieved to be rid of PP to take it out on Pence.
I also believe that the sooner PP is led away in cuffs or impeached, the least likely his voters will be to believe the case against him or accept whatever evidence is found. I think they’re far more likely to be angry that the GOP sold him out and never even gave him a chance. Some of those working class white voters who slithered out from under their rocks to vote for PP may go back to ground and others will surely turn their ire against the party. In the end, I see a real possibility of a quicker PP departure leading to rage on both sides of the aisle.
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I dunno, while claiming not to predict anything one way or the other I think it’s at least possible there really wouldn’t be a great backlash of rage at Trump’s getting bounced after the emergence of whatever it was that precipitated the bouncing:
I asked a Senate staffer-what caused Feinstein's reax after being briefed a while back. "They were shown evidence of Trump's collusion".
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) April 20, 2017
Because I think outside the real hardcore fanatics the mass of people who supported him know deep down it’s more a fling than a long-term love affair. Remember being exasperated with Bill Clinton for putting himself in the position of being impeached? I think that’ll be at play. BUT I PREDICT NOTHING just for the record.
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I predict cold hard prison cells for Giuliani, Page and Manafort.
Trust me—I’m a mensch:)
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