Pathological Liar

[Sandy]

[Joseph Patrick]

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Sorry, but with the widespread support given to the buffoon by Evangelical Christians and conservatives, criticism of Bill Clinton's moral failures is no longer legitimate. Anyone who supported the buffoon had to completely abandon the argument related to the candidate's character and values. And it is fair to note that Bill wasn't running in 2016, though I wish Hillary had connected herself more deeply and directly to his economic policy, which produced the longest, deepest increases in jobs and wages in peacetime, ever.

You'd have to incorporate a relatively skewed standard of evaluating judges to come up with Gorsuch being a better nominee than Garland. The latter is a well rounded, seasoned, experienced judge who has the characteristics of non-partisan discernment of the law that is ideal for a Supreme Court justice. Gorsuch doesn't exhibit those kinds of characteristics in his corporate favoritism, though I think, if he gets on the bench, he'll defer to Roberts on Roe being the "settled law of the land."

Keep an eye on Clinton Watts. This is good stuff.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watc ... 1659587810

[Jon Estes]

[William Thornton]

Gorsuch will be your SCOTUS associate judge...this week. I'm looking for the buffoon, that would be schumer (and now his screwball sidekick the new dnc leader), to be in tiptop circus form. Looking forward to it, actually.

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Got a feeling that all the russkie stuff is going to be a nonpartisan explosion.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

...and just how will susan rice manage to salvage some of her shot-all-to-Gehenna reputation?

[Sandy]

Thanks to David for the suggestion, I was in the mood for popcorn tonight. The most fascinating show on television is Rachel Maddow. You guys who thrive on the pablum of conservative propaganda might find it a bit disconcerting, since she is, after all, a female, and a real journalist who actually deals in facts. It'll take a couple of sittings to get use to a straight up presentation of the facts, coming from where you do, but ultimately, you'll realize that the truth will set you free. It gets better every evening.

[Haruo]

Pray for Russia.

[Haruo]

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

Didn't see that. But I did catch this

http://deadline.com/2017/04/rachel-madd ... 202060390/
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/03/ ... weeks.html

And this

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watc ... 3279043839

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Jim]

[Sandy]

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes have both kept track, and put together a time line and a connect-the-dots chart of contacts between Trump campaign people and Russian "agents," tracing the money trail to Manafort, Tillerson and Flynn, and matching up the Trump campaign announcements of contents of wikileaks dumps within minutes of their release. It's posted on their pages. Maddow has been particularly detailed following press releases and details put out by the FBI, and picked up on Clinton Watts. There's no question that the Russians interfered, or that several Trump campaign surrogates had direct contact with them. Whether Trump engineered and masterminded it, or whether that was left up to some of the crooks and propagandists in his organization remains to be seen. But I think we are going to see some things that will make Nixon and Watergate look like child's play.

It is unfortunate that the political polarization brought about by the extremist right wing media over the past 30 years or so has pushed something as serious as Russia interfering in the election process to the point of affecting its outcome into the same partisan box. There have been fears and speculation ever since electronic balloting was invented about the possibility that results could be hacked, machines programmed to favor a candidate regardless of the votes, or just the fact that while an audit can match up the number of voters with the number of ballots cast, it cannot determine who the person voted for once the ballot is cast. Combine that with dumps of propaganda claiming to be hacked emails of one of the campaigns, (which should have been immediately disavowed and ignored by the Trump campaign at any rate instead of pounced on and comments issued) and this should have been something which horrified both parties. The response, first and foremost, should be to immediately take steps to prevent such interference in the future. This is something that has done permanent damage to our democratic republic, and while security measures can probably be put in place to prevent tampering, the stuff like wikileaks and other propaganda has to be dealth with. I don't deny that I would be pleased with the buffoon and Pence having to resign over this, or be impeached and removed from office, along with draining the whole swamp of crooks and thieves they brought with them, starting with Bannon and Conway, but that's secondary to restoring the integrity of the electoral process.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

Susan Rice just was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell.

She was an NSC Advisor until Jan 20, 2017. She was brought many intel reports in her daily compilations of Intelligence reports - daily events. She said she never searched for “Trump” or “Flynn” for political purposes or as a "witch hunted” (as the RW is asserting). She did confirm that she asked for “unmasking” certain names in those reports - a natural step in reviewing that information. Some of those reports, not surprisingly, had Trump’s name in them. I’ll assume she got that unmasking approved by the FBI or NSA (Obama having no role in that approval). She took no action on the basis of what she learned and she did not “leak” anything. The RW media has leaked this action with the worse suspicions possible. And, importantly, there is no evidence that Obama ordered “wire-tapping” or “surveillance” on Trump (which is the claim Trump made in a tweet one month ago today). Unmasking does not imply active surveillance.

It is the RW media that has brought Susan Rice’s name up to (1) cover Trump’s mistweet and (2) attempt to deflect from the possibility of Trump collusions with Russians in the known attempt Russian meddling in our election. After all, Susan Rice is “radioactive" to the RW press.

[William Thornton]

Rice is known to be at least a willing tool of the political folks if not a known dissembler...but we will see where this goes.

When left wingers shout loudly and repeatedly that there is nothing to see here...there's probably something to see.