Politics

Rep. Maxine Waters won praise Friday from critics of the cash-for-access U.S. political system amid reports that some Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee are frustrated at her refusal to do raise money...

Well, there you go. Looks like the campaign to take our country back from the rancid orange Jell-O mold is still on track. Politico: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said publicly for the first time...

Slowly we turn, step-by-step, as Wall Street banks have now turned over to investigators thousands of pages of documents related to #TrumpRussia. Banks Hand Over Documents on Russians Possibly Linked to Trump: Some documents are...

Our friend Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post, whom we quoted earlier in the week as a conservative no longer tolerating any Trump supporter, has a piece documenting some fast-moving developments pertaining to Trump’s troubles. Undeniable signs jump out of a story gleaned from the Washington Post According to Rubin, the House Judiciary Committee has gone to federal court seeking an order to compel former White House counsel Donald McGahn’s testimony. McGahn, as you likely recall, seemed ready to testify to congress, but faced serious threats from a White House claiming “executive privilege.” This matters, because according to the story, House Democrats consider McGahn their most critical witness. McGahn witnessed firsthand Trump’s most desperate attempts to rid himself of that meddlesome “people’s House.” It’s right there in the complaint: “The Judiciary Committee is now determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the President based on the obstructive conduct described by the Special Counsel.”… …Let’s dispense with the nonsense that Pelosi is still blocking impeachment. “That process is underway,” the complaint plainly states.’ Wait, what? Pelosi blocking the impeachment process is nonsense? The process is well underway? That might well qualify as news. Of course, the fact that the House wants Executive privilege – as claimed in total by the Trump administration – sent to its room, which in this case is a courtroom, never to return – is not news. But … Let’s analyze. I have told everyone who would listen that litigation takes a tortuous length of time. It also requires several pre-litigation steps, including “oh so reasonable letters” that get mocked by the left as “worthless.” Believe me, nothing is worth more to some judges, whose attitude is often: “What in the ever-living hell are you doing here? (looking at the president’s defense council). “The Committee set out the law plainly in a letter to you and offered reasonable accommodation. Yet here you are, wasting my time.” In other words, those loathed letters matter. Judges actually do not like people who rush to court when the problem may have been solved by … well, a letter. The other thing that matters? Getting your damn ducks in formation prior to litigation. You do not file your complaint until you possess everything you believe you will need to succeed. Only then do you file the initial documents, which allows you to quickly file your “Motion to Win.” (Which don’t exist, except inside giggling lawyers’ heads. Little inside humor there.) The thing that matters most is the news of the day. Pelosi is on board with an impeachment inquiry? Fascinating, since she has done a marvelous job keeping that hidden, to the point where I am still unsure if it is actually true, or a courtroom tactic. Though, I gotta tell you, lying to a judge about your motivations or the facts behind it, is the quickest way to find yourself handed an “Order to lose” signed by a judge pondering whether you need further sanctions. I do not think they’re fcking around here. I find that appropriate, since it seems to me that Trump has been ffff, messing around the entire time. There IS a legitimate reason for executive privilege. A president must be able to discuss policy with his advisors without fear that those advisors will be forced to yak it up all […]

She’s back at it, Susan Collins is. Shaking her head in woe that politics has to enter into (checks notes) her job as a politician. (This puts her hovering between yellow and orange on...

"Homeland Security officials battled the White House for more than a year to get them to focus more on domestic terrorism," a senior administration official has told CNN. The White House repeatedly rebuffed DHS’s...

Jimmy Aldaoud was born in Greece and lived in the United States from the time he was a baby. The Trump administration deported him to Iraq, a country he had never been to and...

Stan Greenberg is a top Democratic pollster. He just released the results of a phone survey that cuts through the clouds of media dust and shows who’s leading the presidential horse race—and why: Most commentators are...

Rep. Elijah Cummings didn’t name names, but when he called for an end to “hateful rhetoric,” saying, “We are all sick of this,” it’s not hard to fill in the big gaping blank there....

Until now, I didn’t know it was physically possible to laugh one’s ass off while also shake in fear. Until lately, I didn’t have to read the “deep thoughts” of Donald Trump Jr. Science will someday isolate the gene responsible for Don Trump Jr.’s triangle shaped brain and head, point on top, obviously). First, the requisite predicate. People who read this site are, by definition, well-informed, intellectually curious and care for others. Therefore, you surely know that any significant campaign contribution to a candidate for federal office, including the President of the United States for godsake, is a public record that anyone – foreign or domestic – can access from anywhere, anytime. In other words, there is no “doxing” a campaign contributor, because it gets published by law. Such obvious common sense hid while Don Trump Jr. wandered onto the set of Fox and Friends, his playpen of choice, to threw up stupid with danger, to all Fox favorites. Donald Trump Jr. told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that the publicly available list of Trump donors that Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) shared on Twitter is the same thing as the hit list the Dayton shooter created in high school. Appearing on his father’s favorite morning program, the presidential son complained about the amount of criticism that his dad has received in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. After saying nothing the president does will satisfy his critics, Trump Jr. brought up Castro, who was blasted by the right this week for sharing a list of his constituents who gave the maximum donation to Trump. Catch your breath, friends. I realize that was breathtakingly dumb. But, I am obligated, as your loyal servant, to set forth why our collective breath threw itself out our chests in a symbolic cry for help. In high school, the Dayton shooter kept a list of people he planned to kill or rape. Apparently some of his classmates knew of the list. It is unclear to me, and irrelevant to the story, whether he actually shared the names on the list with a few in his class. As noted above, Castro tweeted the names of rich, Trump-supporting El Paso resident. You surely see where this is going. Some media outlets on the far right – including Fox and Friends hosted by folks who stared vacantly at the moron in their midst – believed Trump Jr.’s assessment that the acts were equivalent. The implicit message is twofold. That Castro is as irresponsible as a suicidal, murderous maniac. And, that Castrol is putting the donors’ lives in danger because progressive anti-Trumpers are known to associate with each other on 8chan and discuss how to utilize their AR-15s to maximum benefit as a genius act to elect Elizabeth Warren The fact that progressive Democrats are not so obviously associated with mass shootings is not something those who populate the far right care about, nor does Don Jr. who wholly manipulates anyone easy to manipulate. Fox cares only about ratings, stirring up hatred for Democrats is what they do. None of the above care about the truth. You know the conclusion like you know gravity. The “list” complied by the Dayton shooter was private, we cannot even be sure he showed the actual names to […]