Josh Marshall noticed something peculiar in Sean Spicer’s presser today.
Note that in Sean Spicer’s initial discussion of the Flynn matter, he clearly did not say that Flynn had misled the President. The consistent refrain is that he misled Vice President Pence “and others.” He also went to great lengths to say there was nothing substantively or legally wrong with what Flynn what Flynn did. The issue is entirely one of communication between Michael Flynn and the Vice President “and others.” Spicer said the President lost confidence because of Flynn’s lack of truthfulness with Pence. It is no accident that there is no mention of Flynn misleading the President.
This is the way people talk when they know they’re going to be screamed at if they say otherwise. See also “The White House’s Rapidly Shifting Story on Firing Flynn.” The White House is trying to say that the so-called president both knew and didn’t know what was going on with Flynn.
Spicer says the so-called president was informed of the issue some time back — January 26 or thereabouts — and knew “instinctively” that Flynn hadn’t broken any laws. But this Friday the SCROTUS denied knowing anything at all about the Flynn situation. Now we learn that he knew about it and was not deceived, although other people were deceived. Too bad about them, I guess.
But if D.T. were not deceived, and Flynn goes down for violation of the Logan Act, or worse, wouldn’t that make anyone not-deceived but who kept him around and covered it up several more days also culpable?
I have a headache.
Someone came up with SCROTUS – “So-Called Ruler of the United States”.
Regarding violations of Logan or anything else – don’t hold your breath. DOJ will never investigate, much less bring charges.
Some stuff looks obvious to me – hinted at here. I do not think Flynn approached the Russians on his own. IMO, he was directed when Obama applied sanctions to reassure the Russians by Trump in order for Trump to ingratiate himself with Vladimir. Flynn, they say MUST HAVE KNOWN that his conversations would be recorded by various intelligence services. However, if you agree with my hypothesis, Trump said it will not matter because the White House controls those agencies. And this we know as a fact – the intelligence agencies DID inform Trump weeks ago that Flynn was in violation, and Trump did nothing.Trump is Emperor.
Now look at the Trump tweet today in the context of my theory.
The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc? 9:28 AM – 14 Feb 2017
Trump believed he had this in a bottle an his thumb was on the cork. When he failed to act on Flynn’s illegal negotiation, it was leaked. BY WHOM??!!!! Look at the facts. Only US Intelligence and the Kremlin had the recordings of the conversations – and I don’t think the Kremlin leaked.
Trump has just today discovered that he can staff the agencies AT THE TOP with loyalists but the agencies themselves will continue to be staffed with people devoted to justice, education, science and the environment. The media is quite willing to provide to the public, through the media, the information – even highly secret information – that the WH wants to withhold.
Trump isn’t running a small private business staffed with loyalists. He’s running a bureaucracy and many of the bureaucrats are loyal to the MISSION of their agency – not the lackey Trump appointed. Wholesale purges will be challenged in court – I have serious doubts that Trump can counter the inside leaks, not just from within the WH, but from the agencies who will resist the directives of his appointees.
Look for a draconian version of the Sedition Acts from Congress directed exclusively at federal employees.
All hail our Dear Leader, t-RUMPLE-Thin-Skin!
Or, after he’s shot a couple of hundred rounds of perfect hole-in-one golf, and a gets a few executions under his (long, fat) belt, he’ll be known as ‘Our Dear Leader: Dim Ol’ Derpl’
He is the Presidential version of “Schrodinger’s Cat.”
He knows all!
And at the same time, like Sargeant Schultz, he can claim, “I know nothing! NOTHING!!!”
If the Republicans weren’t so besotted with their long held (wet) dreams (ICK!!!), of screwing over everyone who isn’t part of the top 1% out of every penny – of which every cent is to go to the top of that list, no matter the body-count, sick, uneducated, homeless, etc… – they might look in the mirror and see the most treasonous, traitorous, evil bunch of MFing bastards since the Tory’s and Secesh were the cause for battle cries!
And, to remind them, those caught probably wished they had died long before the events that brought their demise.
But their dreams of punching every granny right on her tumor, or throwing starving children a breadcrust, only to kick them in their distended bellies, and being able to walk like the royalty they imagine themselves to be, spitting and defecating on minority people on the street, clouded whatever tiny morsel of judgement that they might once have had!
Our Republicans/conservatives are now a “Sixth Column” – for the powers of evil and Fascism!
REMEMBER, MFER’S:
KARMA IS A STONE COLD MOTHER-FUCKING BITCH.
Off Topic – The Freedom Caucus in the House and Rand Paul in the Senate have tonight come up pith a ‘Replace’ bill and they are pressing the leadership to immediately repeal, presumably through reconciliation.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/rand-paul-mark-sanford-obamacare/index.html
“The measure would allow insurers to sell a wider array of policies, including those with more limited benefits and lower premiums. It would let Americans sock away $5,000 in health savings accounts (HSA) tax free, up from $3,400 this year, while also enabling those who buy their own coverage to deduct the premiums from their incomes. It would protect those with pre-existing conditions as long as they had continuous coverage.”
No Subsidies
No Medicare Expansion
Philisophically, no rich people paying for health care for poor people. Whatever you can afford, you can have. Keep the ‘pre-existing’ condition requirement of Obamacare in place with continuous coverage. If it lapses, you’re SOL & dead a s a doornail.
Strategically, the repeal bill is 100% BS. Rand Paul know the democrats will never vote to kill Obamacare in the Senate. However, the Freedom Caucus will count it as a win if they defund the subsidies and kill the Medicare expansion. The purpose of the reform bill is to claim the democrats blocked a workable replacement. The Freedom Caucus and Rand Paul know that defunding alone will create chaos. Obamacare standards will stay in place because they can’t be repealed by reconciliation. So ‘junk’ policies and across-state-lines policies won’t be sold – the industry will still be required to sell real insurance. It won’t be affordable w/out subsidies and millions, including republicans, will lose coverage.
Here’s the internal war with the GOP. Activism (hat tip to y’all) has made the GOP members of the House and Senate wary. They are afraid to meet voters at home, and terrified they will be held to account when health care access goes to sh*t. In typical DC fashion, they want to do nothing until voters aren’t paying attention. So, it comes down to republicans who believe they can win the blame game v republicans afraid they will lose the blame game. Indecision in Congress has the Freedom Caucus and Heritage Foundation blowing a gasket. In January, Heritage tweeted:
“#NoExcuses: Congress must repeal Obamacare now.”
Heritage is terrified that the GOP Congress will leave but rebrand Obamacare w/ subsidies remaining. At the moment, Paul Ryan wants to leave Obamacare alone because he wants to use his majority in attacking Medicare and Social Security before he tackles Obamacare. He and Trump promised a ‘better, cheaper’ answer than Obamacare and they can’t do it and they will be caught in the failure almost at once. So they want to do it last, after they have landed the other, bigger prizes. The Freedom Caucus and Heritage won’t wait.
The only prediction I feel certain about is that health care access will unravel this year. Even if Congress does nothing, insurers are pulling out of the exchanges and HHS will do nothing to keep a klunky system working. GOP voters expect a pony and they are going to demand action to solve health care. It hits full crisis this year.
A great article from a few days ago, The Madness of King Donald:
Of course Dear Leader can never be found to be in error.
“That first press conference when Sean Spicer was sent out to lie and fulminate to the press about the inauguration crowd reminded me of some Soviet apparatchik having his loyalty tested to see if he could repeat in public what he knew to be false.”
A long time ago, I noticed that I could determine if a person supported the war in Vietnam by the way they pronounced the name of the country. I didn’t make too much of it at the time, it was too easy to ascribe it falsely, to ignorance. But, I think it was a marker, a shibboleth. The same is true of Iraq, “Ear-rak” means opposed to military action in the Middle East and “Eye-rak,” means in favor of it. (Q.v. the way the Brits pronounce “Agincourt,” it’s a way of taking possession of the turf.”) It’s also allows the propagandists to judge their handiwork.
We are in a strongly tribal environment, and the ability to assimilate propaganda, the ability to reconcile the tension between it and the truth provides a measure of loyalty on a lot of levels. The distance between the truth and the distortions that you accept is an indicator of “commitment” to the cause.
Of course this recalls Voltaire’s observation., “Those who can make you believe absurdities, and make you commit atrocities.” Trump has appropriated some of the “best people” from Breitbart, presumably, with this end in mind.
The intelligence community released the fact that they have been able to verify some of the elements of the “dossier on Trump.” Could this be a warning shot across his bow, or am I desperately searching for a ray of hope?
Do you know what we’re missing at this time, in this country?
Feather-beds!
Oh, there’s plenty of tar sold at Home Depot – and even good ol’ fashioned Mom & Pop hardware shops…
But if “We the people” had access to feather-beds, we could ‘tar-‘n-feather’ every DC political creature – lobbyists’s included – and every state Governor and legislature yokel, and pound one another back’s in joy, after we rode them out of town, all hot & sweaty, and stinkin’ of tar-‘n-feathers, out on a rail! (Plenty of rails availiable – YEAR ROUND!!!).
And think of the embarrassment of this, for the assclown’s family and friends!
Sadly, ‘tar-‘n-styrofoam-peanuting,’ and riding them out on composite rails, lacks the abuse, derision, and mockery, out of the message we want to get accross.
Sad…
How sad…
Excellent comments and great links. Might I just note a few points of humor. When I read a headline yesterday about Flynn being sacked because of credibility and trust issues I just cracked up. If trust is the coin of the realm, get cash up front from this crew.Â
Here in flyover country we have a new legislature which is trying to fix a six year old case of maladministration. On a local TV PBS airing the other evening one of the Reps. commented that getting a fix done was hard because it was difficult to get honest and accurate information. The fantasy world of Grover Norquist and Arthur Laffer I guess just don’t give you much of that to work with. I suppose anyone trustworthy has found employment outside the bureaucracy by now. It’s just another one of those Karma things.
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