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Way, way back in July, I wrote a post here about the "Patriot Cane" — a solid steel cane manufactured for the purpose of assaulting liberals at protests and bludgeoning anyone exercising their First Amendment right to set an American flag on fire. I don't think I ever thought about it again until this morning, when I woke up to find that the Patriot Cane guy was blaming that article for the failure of his business, and that several of his associates would like me, a snowflake, to go back to my safe space. I assume that what they mean by "safe space" in this context would be a place in which I am not in danger of being whacked in the head with a steel cane, and yes, I would like to be there. Always, if I can help it.

But I am not the only one to blame here. The Patriot Cane guy also blames conservatives who did not rally together to purchase his canes in massive quantities for the purpose of spiting me and the hilarious article I wrote here on Wonkette.

Yes, if there is one thing the Left does not do, it is infighting! We're known for it.

One of the responses to this tweet came in the form of a poem from a QAnon person, which I think is pretty special.

As much as I feel for anyone who has been laid off for any job, I cannot say that I would be sorry to see the Patriot Cane go, as I do have a selfish desire to not be hit over the head with a steel pole for not loving Donald Trump. What can I say? I'm delicate like that. I also don't really believe that a Wonkette post from July is the reason he has to lay anyone off — can't imagine there's really a whole lot of crossover between people who read us and the kind of people who would buy Trump-themed assault canes. Or that there were people who were going to buy a Trump-themed assault cane but then saw my post and decided against.

I would think perhaps his canes did not sell because "a cane with which to assault flag-burners and antifa" is just not a must-have item for most people. How big could the "people who go around picking fights with activists but also require a cane" demographic even be?

ANYWAY, this is now your open thread. Enjoy!

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During an appearance at The Texas Tribune Festival that is probably getting way more attention than it normally would because today is pretty boring news-wise (not that we are complaining), Beto O'Rourke tried to shake things up by calling for Donald Trump to resign, or at least for those around him to encourage him to do so.

"The best possible path ... is for this president to resign, allow this country to heal and ensure that we come back together with the greatest, most ambitious agenda we've ever faced, none of it possible while he remains in office," the former El Paso congressman said during a conversation with MSNBC's Garrett Haake at The Paramount Theatre in Austin.

He also said the same thing earlier this week on CNN. It is apparently his new thing that he is going with.

Via The Hill:

"If you looked at the polling on impeachment around Nixon at this point in the investigation, it wasn't the most popular thing in the country. Yet, with the vantage of hindsight, we know that it was absolutely the right thing to do, and President Nixon did the right thing and resigned before it moved to a trial in the Senate," O'Rourke said on CNN. "I'm calling upon those who are close to President Trump now…who right now are complicit in what the president is doing to advise him to do the right thing and to resign from his office."

Please, as if Trump has anywhere near the integrity of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't like it to happen. I would like it very much! I would also like 87 million dollars, a second home in Paris, a first home here (What? I rent.), Tina Turner to come out of retirement, an immediate second season to The Politician to magically appear on Netflix, several horses, and also for this to happen somehow, retroactively:

Or like, maybe I just get to hang out with them? That would be cool. It would also be a lot more likely to happen than Donald Trump going "You know what? That Beto O'Rourke guy is right. I should resign. I will get right on that." Shit, I think we'll be lucky if the man actually leaves office when his term is up. I have my suspicions that he will not.

O'Rourke also said that he plans on staying in the 2020 race until the end, despite the fact that he's polling at like, 2-3 percent, well behind Andrew Yang, whom no one ever even heard of before this year. I'm not gonna say anything, because I get persnickety about people saying that candidates I like should drop out, but I think at this point, a sudden surge to the top is only slightly more plausible than Trump resigning.

[Texas Tribune]

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For years now, the Right has been obsessed by the idea that a large percentage — perhaps even the majority — of people who claim to be liberals are in fact actors who are being paid by George Soros to pretend to be liberals. It's not that we actually care about anything we say we care about, or that we even disagree with the Right on anything, deep down. We are all just in it for all the sweet, sweet cash. If it were not for George Soros and all the checks he hands out, everyone would go around sounding like Rush Limbaugh all the time.

The latest person to be accused of this kind of treachery is 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg. For the last couple weeks, brain geniuses across the internet have been posting various forms of "proof" that Thunberg is not actually a teenager who really cares about the environment, but rather an actress who is being paid to pretend that she is a teenager who really cares about the environment. They are very excited about this theory, presumably because they think that would then mean that climate change isn't actually a problem.

This ridiculousness was "reported" this week by the conservative "news" outlet, DC Clothesline, and relentlessly repeated across social media, to the point where Snopes actually had to debunk it. The evidence they cite is the fact that Thunberg has an IMDB page... because she was in some documentaries about climate change and also narrated a short film, also about climate change. What the actual credits are do not matter, of course — what matters is that it says "actress" on the page.

Below is my actual favorite take on this whole thing, from r/The_Donald, and kind of the whole reason I decided to do this post in the first place.

YES. Her grandfather, improbably, is probably about the same age as George Soros. Sure! George Soros is not from Sweden, but he is from Hungary, and it's the same continent. Who is to say they didn't run into each other at some point? Surely, it is totally possible that they met one time and then concocted a plan to turn his granddaughter into a pretend climate change activist in order to make people feel bad about fucking up the environment and ruining EVERYTHING for Reddit poster "BonafideTarzan."

Another theory put forward on social media is that Thunberg is in fact a child actress from Australia named Estella Renee.

A particularly hilarious Facebook post, via Snopes:

Aspiring Actress impersonates crying child climate activist at UN, impersonator is a sham. Screams "How dare you!" from acting class.

Estella Renee is a very talented shakespearian actress from Australia. She can do Scandinavian accents. She can break down and cry. She can scream "How dare you!". She deserves an Academy Award not a Nobel for impersonating Heidi looking Greta Thunberg, a fictional Character before the UN yesterday, a fake climate activist, a child actor age 15 and 1/2 screaming "How dare you!" straight out of " Streetcar named Desire! ".

Otherwise, she's a sham and a fraud! Her publicist refused to respond to our calls, but NY customs identified her as Estrella Renee, here "to see the sights" at her entry from Australia. Her adult accompaniment signed her into her hotel room as Greta Thungren, but we confirmed she is Estelle Renee. We turned over her illegal false identity to DHS who has confirmed her dual identity, but is still investigating. They are not sure impersonation is a crime.

Yet, what a fraud!!

Also:

These people!

The best though, I think, is the lady who actually linked the damn Snopes article, while wanting to know who paid her.

Does it get stupider? It sure does! Because the whole reason these people started claiming that Thunberg was actually "Estella Renee" is because they got their wires crossed with another conspiracy theory about another teenage climate activist. Estella Brasier, you may recall, is the young Australian girl from the climate strike last week who went viral after speaking to the news.

After Brasier's interview went viral, some jerks found out that she did some acting and even had a profile up on some kind of Australian casting site from when she was 12 (she is currently 14), and decided that this "proved" that she was a "crisis actor." You know, because once you do any acting, you are never allowed to do any activism in your life, unless it is to be a crisis actor.

Hoax-busting site Lead Stories contacted Brasier's father, who was happy to clarify things:

The events of that day are in the public domain and were on every TV station. The ideas and concerns expressed by Estella depicted in that video are entirely genuine, not paid for, she was not acting. Estella is 14 years old. She attends the local creative and performing arts high school, she sings and acts. She is a passionate climate activist and has been one ever since she found out about climate change. Students tend to get worked up and excitable in demonstration/rally situations. She runs an environment group in her school of 1,300 students. Thousands of her school friends are striking and they need no encouragement from adults to do so. It had hit the headlines in Australia because that rally was held in the Prime Minister's electorate before the election. Estella was not expecting to be interviewed by the media that day: it could have been her, it could have been anyone else. She was just standing closest to the cameras. It is possible to be both worried about climate-change and a child actress at the same time.

You guys should know that I, too, attended a performing arts high school, while also doing a whole bunch of activism. Coming out with it right now in case it comes back to bite me in the ass later!

People often say, when it comes to belief, "eh, whatever gets you through the day" — but if needing to believe that legions of children are being paid to pretend they think not destroying the planet is a good idea is what gets someone through the day, I think they should really just sit down with themselves and reconsider literally everything in their life that lead them to this point.

[Snopes]

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We were never going to get a gun control bill out of this White House. We know that, we're not A IDIOT. But yesterday's news that Donald Trump traded away background checks for NRA cash to fight his own impeachment is a new kind of horrifying. And we're betting that suburban women in Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will agree.

Last night, the New York Times reported that NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre had just emerged from a meeting in the Oval Office with a promise from Trump to "'stop the games' over gun control legislation." And by "games" he means expanding background checks to all commercial sales including at gun shows and online, a plan which was supported by the Vanky Faction at the White House and opposed by her brother DJ and his posse. Sorry, baby!

The first version of the story, appearing at 5pm, referred to "financial" support and an explicit quid pro quo, although it was edited 90 minutes later to remove these.

The current version says, "It was not clear whether Mr. Trump asked Mr. LaPierre for his support, or what that support would look like." But it reports Trump is privately worried that the NRA is running out of cash and might not be able to kick up $30 million for his campaign the way it did in 2016, particularly as it's mired in litigation and under scrutiny by the Attorneys General of New York and DC. We can clear up the Times's confusion as to "what the support would look like" though -- gosh, will it be ad dollars, or will it be endorsements, or will it be political cover for any insane, illegal shit that Democrats kick up during the impeachment inquiry? The answer is YES.

LaPierre denied the Times's report, saying, "The NRA categorically denies any discussion occurred about special arrangements pertaining to the NRA's support of the President and vice versa." But he declined to elaborate on what they talked about, saying, "The NRA is not inclined to discuss private conversations with the President." Let's take a wild guess that this conversation went right into that Osama bin Laden vault next to the incriminating transcripts of calls with Putin and MBS.

If Trump wasn't under water with suburban women before, he sure as hell will be when the next mass shooting happens (God forbid!) and it turns out he sold the gun control bill for NRA cash. Which makes it all the more puzzling that he hit the panic button already, inviting LaPierre in for a meeting which was inevitable going to leak. Particularly when the NRA has almost as much riding on Trump's re-election as Trump himself does.

Yesterday Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee released a report labeling the NRA a "foreign asset" of Russia and accusing it of using tax-exempt dollars to support the private business interests of its leadership. We won't go into all boringass tax law details on a Saturday, but the bottom line is, if Democrats take the White House in 2020 and appoint a real IRS commissioner, the NRA will be in DEEP SHIT. Even deeper than they're already in with NYAG Letitia James. Conversely, the Committee's Republicans gave the NRA a clean bill of health and bought Wayne's explanation that his longterm secretary Millie Hallow just messed up the records by saying that Wayne LaPierre had agreed to foot the bill for that Fun'n'Gunz field trip to Moscow with Russian spy Maria Butina back in 2015.

Check out this statement in the New York Times by NRA chief of staff Josh Powell, who may or may not have strained the gun group's budget even further with his own little #MeToo problem, throwing Hallow under the bus.

In order to facilitate the transfer of funds to [former NRA President Pete] Brownell, Millie falsely stated that Wayne approved of certain expenses when he had not. In fact, Millie apologized to me (and others) later for the misrepresentation.

He's a charmer, ain't he? The point is, the NRA goons need Donald Trump as much as he needs them, so there was no need to hang out a sign announcing that Trump was selling the gun bill for cash to fight the impeachment. But President Pantsload isn't thinking straight lately, so look for a whole lot more of these unforced errors.

TL, DR? Fuck all these gun whores. The end.

[NYT / Politico / NYT, again]

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Donald Trump knew damn well that the Russians hacked our elections, and he invited them into the Oval Office to tell them it was TOTALLY FINE. Yes, this was at the same May 10, 2017, meeting where he told Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov, "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," because "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." Don't worry about the cops, Sergei, hack away! And yes, this is one of the conversations White House lawyers stuck in the double-super-secret code word vault to make sure the American public never learned what a filthy traitor their president was. And yes, this shit is all coming out since the White House, which has always leaked like a sieve, is in total meltdown now that Nancy Pelosi has released the impeachment kraken.

(Although if we had to guess, we'd say this particular love note comes courtesy of "former official" John Bolton, who would have had access to the vault full of embarrassing transcripts and has been very clear that he's going to stick a shiv in Trump the first chance he gets.)

The Washington Post reports:

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

Because Voice of America Radio and open endorsement of anti-corruption groups is exactly the same as hacking and disseminating politicians' emails and flooding social media with propaganda claiming that Hillary Clinton is a racist pedophile.

Four former officials confirmed the story to the Post and said they were disturbed by Trump's pro-Russia bias and predilection to privately excuse Putin's election interference while publicly denying its existence.

"He was always defensive of Russia," said one former senior official, while another told the Post, "What was difficult to understand was how they got a free pass on a lot of things — election security and so forth. ... He was just very accommodating to them."

Also accommodating? Burning our pals the Israelis by passing their spy stuff to Russia in that same meeting. LOCK 'ER DOWN, BOYS.

And White House lawyers were very accommodating to their traitorous boss, making sure to quarantine those incriminating transcripts on the "Bin Laden server" -- so known because it was used to house information of such exquisite sensitivity that leaks might harm national security, not just to hide stuff that might be politically embarrassing. In his complaint, the whistleblower said that the Ukraine shakedown transcript wasn't the only one locked down "solely for the purpose of protecting political sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information."

Guess what else wound up buried in that vault? CAN YOU EVEN GUESS?

Tell us, CNN!

White House efforts to limit access to President Donald Trump's conversations with foreign leaders extended to phone calls with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fam, we are shook. Although, in fairness, Trump's conversations with his Real Daddy Vladdy are personal, so it's UNLEGAL for us to know about because of Handler-Asset privilege.

The Post's source offered a half-hearted defense of the White House's classification practices, saying, "It was more about learning how can we restrict this in a way that still informs the policy process and the principals who need to engage with these heads of state." But CNN reports that, in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi's murder and dismemberment in the Turkish consulate at the hands of Saudi government assassins, Trump's conversation with Mohammed bin Salman was buried so deep no one ever got to see it.

In the case of Trump's call with Prince Mohammed, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one of the sources. Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual, particularly after a high-profile conversation.

Which is all fine, and the president is entirely unbothered by any of it.

These leaks have just begun, and it's about to get much worse as White House staffers wake up to the prospect of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight congressional subpoenas, particularly since Democrats have said they'll use Congress's inherent contempt power to impose fines on witnesses who obstruct the impeachment investigation. And it's not just Donald Trump in jeopardy here. The "White House lawyers" who set up this classification wheeze to hide Trump's perfidy and ignorance from the public have to be doing some serious math this weekend. Lookin' at you, Pat Cipollone! And also ...

GOOD MORNING, JOHN EISENBERG! Adam Schiff is about to make you a star!

CNN's sources say that Eisenberg, deputy White House counsel for national security affairs and a lawyer for the National Security Council, was responsible for locking the Ukraine transcript in the Bin Laden Server. And if that name sounds familiar to you, then you've been spending way too much time paying attention to this and should probably go reacquaint yourselves with your loved ones. (Guilty!)

Remember that story Evan wrote yesterday about the whistleblower first going to CIA General Counsel Courtney Simmons Elwood -- thanks to the Times, which got this scoop, we all know that the whistleblower works at the CIA -- who called up the White House to see if they knew anything about the Ukraine shakedown call getting locked in a vault? Turns out that the CIA's lawyer called up the White House in early August and got ... JOHN EISENBERG on the horn. The Times noted that, "He was already aware of vague concerns about the call." Which ... yeah, no shit he was!

Eisenberg, the guy who locked that conversation up and threw away the key, was "aware of vague concerns" that there might be something inappropriate there?

UH HUH. Here's how CNN described it, referring to Ellwood as "general counsel of the intelligence agency," because they are not the New York bloody Times.

During that call, the general counsel informed Eisenberg and [John] Demers [assistant attorney general for the DOJ's national security division] that there were concerns being raised about one of Trump's phone calls with a foreign leader. Eisenberg invited Demers and the intelligence agency's general counsel to review the transcript of the call, and Demers traveled to the White House the following day to review it. The general counsel of the intelligence agency declined to review the call, according to the official.

Did Ellwood refused to investigate further because she figured out that Eisenberg was in on the coverup? If Demers knew this was coming down the pike in August, how soon did he loop Bill Barr in? Does the timing of this call have anything to do with DNI Dan Coats being shoved out the door the last week of July and his deputy Sue Gordon being pushed out on August 9, leaving (acting) DNI Joseph Maguire in place to receive the whistleblower complaint when it landed on his desk on August 26?

OMG, WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It means we are never getting another day off again, and we're not even mad about it.

[WaPo / CNN / NYT]

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We told you last week that this week's top ten post would probably have a SURPRISE in it, and we did not lie! It was not a surprise to us, of course, because we know all the things.

Longtime readers know that yr Memphis Wonkette right here has a Wonkette Niece named Evelyn, who would you believe it is almost SIX now? Well, her baby sister Izzy was born this past Sunday morning, and therefore you get BABY PICTURES. Also, you may now bestow your thanks upon Izzy, because we are pretty sure her birth is the real reason we are finally impeaching Donald Trump. (True story: We said "Donald Trump" to her and she made a pterodactyl sound. She might have been farting at the time.)

Anyway, you get BABY PICTURES. But you have to read your top ten stories first before you get more!

Before we count down the top ten stories of the week, here is your obligatory money beg, because if you love Wonkette, we need you to SUPPORT WONKETTE. Give us money to keep the lights on up in here! Better yet? SUBSCRIBE MONTHLY! Or up your subscription! Thank you, we love you, you pay our rent.

Also, have you been to the Wonkette Flea Market lately, in order to find some rare finds? We have all kinds of merches, like t-shirts and coffee cups featuring your favorite candidates, and also just Wonkette-branded swag. Maybe there is some you do not have! GO FIND OUT.

Ready to count down the top stories? Yes, you are.

Stories chosen as usual by Beyoncé:

10. Trump GRRRR SO MAD! Let's Read The Whistleblower Complaint That's Making Him GRRRR SO MAD!

9. Chuck Todd Did Journalism On Biden 'Ukrainium One' Story, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH CHUCK TODD?

8. The GOP Knows Damn Well That Donald Trump Ordered That Code Red

7. Trump SCAAAAAAARED

6. Grifty Jacob Wohl Has Some Hot Tips On Being Manly And Whatnot

5. Trump: NO UKRAINE CRIMES! NO UKRAINE CRIMES! OK Here Are My Ukraine Crimes.

4. Trump Crime-Bosses Ukrainian President To His Face On Live TV, Very Legal And Very Cool!

3. NANCY DON'T FAIL US NOW! Your Nancy Pelosi Trump Impeachment Liveblog!

2. Trump Insists That It's Illegal To Investigate His Crimes, Figures That Everyone Will Just Go Along With It

1. This Morning's DNI Hearing Gonna Drive Trump BATSHIT. A Liveblog!

Those are good stories!

Ready for one million more baby pictures?

Happy uncle:

Happy BIG SISTER:

Everybody is happy and healthy and wonderful, so that is the good news. There isn't any bad news, except for how OH FUCK THERE'S TWO OF THEM NOW.

Also, Wonkette Baby/Toddler/Grown Woman Donna Rose, daughter of your editrix, would like to cut into this post real fast to let you know that it's still mostly all about her, so here are some FASHIONISTA pics:

OK that's all, go with God, etc.

Love,

Wonkette

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How did you start your day? Some nice coffee with a scoop of alcohol beverage in it, like usual? Here is how the president of the United States started his day:

Hahahahahaha, he is so stupid. That tweet has been up for hours. Donald Trump, who spelled it "discribing" right there, thinks that apostrophes are called hyphens, and moreover, he thinks that if you add a "hyphen" to a misspelled word, it makes it ... correct?

Giphy

This is not new. Look at this Trump tweet from 2017:

See the big HYPHEN? It means Trump spelled it right.

Obviously we could not let this day pass without acknowledging the new best stupidest Trump tweet ever sent, and it serves as a nice springboard for a post we've been wanting to write this entire godforsaken week. We've been so busy with the actual mechanics of the Trump Ukraine scandal that's getting him impeached, we've had zero time for the funny palace intrigue stories that have been coming out all week.

Short version? Trump is SHOOOOOOK. And the White House is LOSING IT.

Let's just quick-style look at some quotes from White House officials and former White House officials talking to the #FakeNews to tell them how bugfuck that loser really is right now.

NBC News says the White House is in a "total panic" over impeachment. There is a lot of "anxiety, unease and concern," and a "person close to the White House" says, "There's not a lot of confidence that there's no there there." Another person says everybody is "shell-shocked" and they are worried that if this impeachment thing keeps up, Trump might ... wait for it ... "respond erratically and become 'unmanageable.'"

Yes, what a terrifying prospect, that Donald Trump, who is usually so cool, calm and collected, might become erratic and unmanageable. Imagine that.

Giphy

In the Washington Post, Ashley Parker quotes Trump bud Christopher Ruddy, who bemoans the "nuts" people who think impeachment might be good for Trump, and says, "People can't underestimate the amount of bad advice he gets from people who are not strategic thinkers." STUPID IDIOTS. The article quotes Newt Gingrich, who thinks impeachment might be really good for Trump, INSERT PUNCHLINE ABOUT STUPID IDIOT HERE.

White House aides are particularly worried that Trump will be so obsessed with getting impeached, he won't even get to do his big trade deals with Canada and Mexico, because those were soooo gonna happen.

In the words of one former aide, "It may lead to less structured output from the White House."

We will miss Trump's "structured output," R.I.P. all of that.

Giphy

Finally, Roll Call reported this week that the White House is makin' BIG MAD THREATS that if Democrats go through with this imepachment thing, well then, guess what Trump's gonna do, bet you can't guess, THIS IS NOT A THREAT, IT'S A PROMISE:

"House Democrats have destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country by continuing to focus all their energy on partisan political attacks. Their attacks on the President and his agenda are not only partisan and pathetic, they are in dereliction of their Constitutional duty," White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Oh no, Trump might stop doing "achomlishments" and it's all the Democrats' fault for "destroying" that possibility.

We are trying to imagine a world without Trump doing "achomlishments" all the time and ... well ... which "achomlishments" are we referring to, please?

Giphy

OK, Stephanie Grisham, we'll take that dare. Be careful out there on the road this weekend, y'hear?

In summary and in conclusion, President Fucker is fucked, and we cannot stop laughing.

HELL WEEK OVER, HAVE AN OPEN THREAD.

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While we were out on vacation much of the week, we were blessedly unaware that Fox News anchors Shep Smith and Tucker Carlson had had a knockdown-drag-out news/opinion fight over two days, complete with bitter snittiness (Carlson) and a very good How Dare You, Sir, I Say Good Day (Smith). It culminated in a warning from management to Smith that if the News Side kept back-sassing the Opinion Side, Smith would be removed from the air, so don't you believe it at all if you hear Mother Murdoch tell you she loves all her children equally.

On Tuesday, Shep Smith, representing the embattled reality-based side of Fox, chatted with former judge Andrew Napolitano, who said hells yes, Donald Trump asking the president of Ukraine to please look for dirt on Joe Biden was illegal AF.

Napolitano: Trump's admitted contact with Ukraine is a crime youtu.be

This was before the not-a-transcript of the call was released, but just to be clear, Smith asked, the thing Donald Trump had already admitted he'd done was a crime, yes?

Why yes indeed, Napolitano said, it's "the same crime for which the Trump Organization was investigated by Bob Mueller [...] An agreement or a solicitation for assistance for an American campaign, regulated by the Federal Election Commission, where you are seeking the assistance from a foreign government, that's the crime."

That evening, Carlson brought on his show another Fox News lawyer, Joe diGenova, who explained presidents can't commit crimes, and Andrew Napolitano is a fool, for failing to recognize this basic truth.

I think Judge Napolitano is a fool and I think what he said today is foolish. No, it is not a crime. Let me underscore emphatically that nothing that the president said on that call or what we think he said on that call constitutes a crime and even if he had said you're not going to get the money, it would not be a crime.

Why is it not a crime? It's really quite simple: It is not a crime. Because. Also, Nancy Pelosi didn't really open an impeachment inquiry, because she didn't hold a vote on it, and besides, she isn't the speaker anymore. Trump said so.

Wednesday afternoon, Smith had Napolitano back on, and they rehashed what a "campaign" is and why it can't get "help" from a foreign government, which we understand is a real law somehow. Smith also did some editorializing, saying that one Fox law talker guy calling another Fox law talker guy foolish is repugnant, plus also a lot of other Fox law talkers agree with Napolitano.

You will almost certainly guess who Carlson's very special guest was that night! Yes, it was his own inflated ego and pretended sense of outrage, followed by Joe diGenova, who agreed that it's very "partisan" to talk about the "law" if it doesn't support Donald Trump. Carlson emphasized that he's never had a partisan thought in his life, and it's very unfair to be partisan like "some of our day-side hosts," not that he's mentioning any names.

Carlson was very, very outraged at all the fighting, why can't we get along? But is there any crime? Heck no, diGenova explained, because the Constitution says everything the executive branch does is very legal and very cool:

Now, let me sort of educate Judge Napolitano. The president of the United States is the executive branch under Article II. He is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. He can ask anyone—a citizen, a foreign leader—a question. He can make a suggestion about an investigation because he runs them.

The whole thing ended with Carlson lamenting that all that nasty partisanship from the News Side was making people cynical:

When you dress up news coverage, when you dress up, rather, partisanship as news coverage, and pretend that your angry political opinions are news, you know, people tune out.

Or at least it makes Fox News viewers tune out, because news that looks bad for Donald Trump is not news. Carlson summed up that the viewers, his smart, unbrainwashed viewers who are not partisan, "know dishonesty when they see it."

And Carlson got the last word, because according to Gabe Sherman at Vanity Fair, Fox honchos told Smith Thursday to leave poor Tucker ALOOOONE:

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace communicated to Smith this morning to stop attacking Carlson, a person briefed on the conversation said. "They said if he does it again, he's off the air," the source said. (Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti denied that management had any direct conversation with Smith).

And now no one will ever be dishonest to Fox News viewers again.

[Slate / Vanity Fair]

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New York Times columnist David Brooks, who is the Tom Friedman of David Broders, has finally weighed in on the decision to start impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. The high-minded moral scold, who in August insisted the 2020 election "is about the moral atmosphere in which we raise our children," has retreated to a position of pure situational-ethics pragmatism: Sure, Donald Trump is guilty of trying to bully the Ukraine into helping his campaign, but impeaching him would be bad because Republicans in the Senate would never convict him, and then Trump would proclaim himself the victor.

Far better for Democrats to ignore their constitutional duty, because if Dems decide to drop impeachment, perhaps Brooks thinks Trump won't proclaim victory. David Brooks's logic is bad, and he should feel very bad indeed.

To be sure, Brooks has a lot of company on the Times's opinion page:

Darned liberal media!

Let's review the many reasons moderate Republican David Brooks thinks impeaching Trump would be terrible for Democrats. We'll give him credit for getting one minor point sort of right: Impeachment has the potential to get a lot more public attention than the Democratic candidates running to replace Trump. Brooks is probably right that "Democratic policy debates are going to be obscured" and "Congressional Democrats will become the most visible party leaders," at least during impeachment hearings. Which is a very good reason to hold the hearings this fall, and winter if necessary, and not drag the process too far into 2020.

But we had to laugh at Brooks's fretting that impeachment might result in moderate Democrats finding themselves "further marginalized" in the primary race. Why, yes, if it weren't for impeachment, any of the remaining Tim Ryans might really catch fire.

Mostly, though, Brooks, who usually loves taking quixotic stands against higher education, social media, policy proposals (instead of moral renewal), fancy elitist college-educated sandwich ingredients, and people objecting to racism (if it even exists), is concerned with the practical outcome of impeachment: Trump's guilty as hell, but there's no way 20 of today's Republicans would vote to convict Trump of anything. Therefore doing the right thing is pointless, and impeachment hearings that would demonstrate how badly Trump abused his office would actually be all to Trump's benefit. There might be an "ugly backlash" once Trump was acquitted, you see, as if every waking moment of Donald Trump's life isn't already dedicated to ugly backlash.

Trump lives for backlash and instability. May as well lay out all the evidence of his wrongdoing, so Republicans will be forced to defend it, instead of stepping aside and letting Trump boast that the Dems couldn't find anything wrong with his misrule. Put the fuckers on record.

Virtually all of Brooks's claims about the supposed horrorshow of impeachment can be answered simply by pointing out the same bad things would likely result from not impeaching Trump. "This process will increase public cynicism," says Brooks. Fine. And nobody would be the least bit cynical about a decision to let him get away with asking for foreign help in the election, plus a cover-up, plus a call to execute White House officials who revealed the malfeasance?

Oh, but impeachment could also "embed Trumpism within the GOP." Again, we have to wonder if Brooks has actually looked at his party at all in the last three years. For the sake of American democracy, the more the Republican Party is associated with Trump in the public mind, the better -- he is, after all, the apotheosis of 30 years of Republican dog whistling, paranoia, and shitty economics anyway. Best to dispose not only of the brand, but the party, too.

Brooks at least brings this bizarrely Brooksian claim to the argument: Holding the "president" accountable for his violation of constitutional norms would actually be "elitist." Yes, really: Brooks insists that if elected Democratic representatives impeach Trump, it would send the terrible message to the American People that their votes don't count, because the elitists they voted to put in Congress would be overturning an election "won" by the guy who got 3 million fewer votes in 2016. Worse, if the Senate were to try Trump in accordance with the Constitution, that too would be elitist:

Elections give millions and millions of Americans a voice in selecting the president. This process gives 100 mostly millionaire senators a voice in selecting the president.

Well heck, if David Brooks is saying he'd prefer to get rid of the millionaires in the Senate, we could get behind that. Too bad money is speech, or we might be able to do something about it.

In conclusion, David Brooks is once again wrong and stupid, the end.

[NYT]

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Let's spend some more time on the other great revelation from the whistleblower complaint released on Thursday. Obviously the huge in-your-face thing is that Donald Trump and his henchmen have been trying to extort Ukraine into ginning up fake investigations into Joe Biden and the made-up Ukrainian role in meddling in the 2016 American election, a conspiracy theory that House Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff stated unequivocally on "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Thursday night comes right out of the bowels of the Kremlin. (You think this isn't part of the Russia scandal? This is part of the Russia scandal.)

But the whistleblower complaint also revealed some important stuff about the cover-up aspect of Trump's extortion campaign against Ukraine. What's clear is that after that infamous July 25 phone call, witnesses 100 percent knew something very bad had just happened, something that if it got out ... well, it might be the thing that sends impeachment into overdrive, which is precisely what is happening now. So various officials in the White House set out to hide what had transpired.

"Multiple US officials" told the whistleblower that "senior White House officials had intervened to 'lock down' all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced [...] by the White House Situation Room." This told the whistleblower that the whole entire West Wing that knew about the call was EATED UP with consciousness of guilt.

So, according to White House officials, WHITE HOUSE LAWYERS told them to first take all records of the call off the normal place where they keep those records, and then PLACE THEM ON A TOP SECRET NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC) SERVER.

They put the records on a server that's only for the most classified secret stuff, like whatever covert wars the CIA is currently running (LOL!).

"One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective."

And the big reveal came in the classified appendix to the complaint, which revealed that according to White House officials, this was "not the first time" the Trump administration had stuffed the dipshit's conversations with foreign leaders/KGB handlers on the secret private server.

We repeat: This was NOT THE FIRST TIME the Trump administration did this.

Immediately we have so many questions, so many things for Congress to investigate (and yes, Adam Schiff said last night on the Maddow program that this is absolutely in their purview to investigate):

1. WHAT?!

2. But this isn't fucking classified information! (Sorry, not a question, we guess some of these are going to be exclamations.)

3. Really? A secret server? If we feel an earthquake today, should we first check to see if the epicenter is Chappaqua, New York, and Hillary Clinton fell on the floor laughing SO HARD she literally made the earth shake? Also, is she OK?

4. Who the fuck had access to this server? Who the fuck did this for Donald Trump? He does not know how to use "computer." He did not do this himself. Who's covering up Donald Trump's traitor behavior?

5. And which "White House lawyers" ordered this?

6. Oh yeah, and what the fuck else is on that server, if this isn't "the first time" Trump has had records of his horrifying foreign agent anti-American chit-chats stuffed on the secret server meant only for the highest codeword-level intelligence? Talks with Vladimir Putin? The Saudis? Kim Jong Un? Erdogan? WHO ELSE? (By the way, the Kremlin has weighed in to say Trump better not publish any transcripts of his Putin calls like he did with his Ukraine call, you hear that, Donald?)

For a couple of these questions, we already can start to find some answers. The White House told CNN that National Security Council (NSC) lawyers ordered it. True? Dunno, they're liars. Maybe it was NSC lawyers, maybe Pat Cipollone's shop was involved, maybe that's kind of the same thing. Regardless, it needs to be investigated. (Also, we need to know if previous White House counsels were involved, like Emmet Flood and OH HEY, DON MCGAHN, YOU THINK CONGRESS HAS FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU?)

It should be noted that Deputy White House Counsel John Eisenberg, who it seems was the first at the White House to hear about possible whistleblowers freaking out about Trump's Ukraine call, is actually more precisely the deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs, which means he's part of the NSC. Of course, Cipollone, as lead White House counsel, is invited to NSC meetings and is basically part of the NSC. So really, these fuckers are all connected.

WHO DID IT? Who gave the order, and who hid the sausage? Because, you know, that shit wasn't classified, and this shit isn't legal. And oh GOD, what are they hiding for the Criminal-In-Chief?

This would be a good time to note that a healthy handful of White House lawyers went to prison after Watergate. We are just saying.

The Wall Street Journal did some journalism on this secret server, and found that it is the real deal. Housed in the #Pizzagate basement, it was most recently used by Hillary Clinton to hide 33,000 secret yoga emails in Ukraine HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WE MAKE JOKE.

But yeah, it's the real shit.

It is the most tightly controlled of at least four different computer systems used by the National Security Council staff, they said, and contains the most precious of American secrets: U.S. covert actions in other countries and counterintelligence probes aimed at finding spies within. [...] One is used for unclassified communications. A second, run by the Pentagon and known as SIPRNet, is for information up to the level of "secret." A third system is for even more sensitive data, designated TS/SCI, for "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information." Finally, there is the most sensitive system, managed by the NSC's Directorate of Intelligence Programs. It is, officials say, a "standalone" system disconnected from other networks, and the data it contains can be retrieved only by those who have "code word" access to individual programs.

And that's where Trump's Ukraine call was put, along with God knows what other Trump treason evidence.

The New York Times adds more:

Accessing that special database requires enhanced desktop computer software not granted to all National Security Council officials. In extreme cases, agency aides must physically enter the offices of the intelligence directorate to read documents stored in the system.

Who had access? Who did it? And who in the White House is probably trying to destroy the evidence right now as we type this?

We are just asking questions. And we fuckin' need answers.

[Wall Street Journal / New York Times]

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Paul Ryan, the weasel who walks like a man, was the most feckless House speaker in modern history. However, now he's finally achieved true power. He's on the board of Fox News where he works to make the world a more terrible place. He just joined in March but he's already thinking he can depose Donald Trump. Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair described how the suits at Fox are already plotting a "post-Trump future." Ryan is reportedly urging Fox to "decisively break with the president."

"Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it," an executive who's spoken with Ryan told me. (Ryan did not return a call seeking comment.)

This is rich, just like Ryan these days. He makes 50 percent more money sitting on the Fox board than ever did in Congress. Maybe he also has 50 percent more of a spine. When he was speaker, Ryan actively enabled Trump, because Trump managed to sign his name on Ryan's granny-starving legislation. He frequently boasted about his great working relationship with the "corrupt human tornado." (I love you, Hillary Rodham Clinton.)

Paul Ryan on his relationship with President Donald Trump www.youtube.com

If Ryan is "embarrassed" by Trump's bigotry and overall grossness, he should feel positively chagrined about his involvement with Fox News. He never seemed to find time to read Trump's racist tweets but he must occasionally watch Fox's prime time lineup. It's a white supremacy pastry with an asshole cream filling.

Ryan probably hangs with the almost (but not quite) respectable "news" side of the cafeteria. They're like the nerds at a college that only stays open because of the lucrative football program with regular NCAA violations. "Never Trump" conservatives and even moderate Democrats love Shepard Smith, Andrew Napolitano, and Chris Wallace. But these "serious" men have minimal influence on Trump's deplorable base, and Trump's base is what terrifies and ultimately controls Republicans who want to win elections. Profile in courage Jeff Flake claimed Thursday that "at least 35" Republican senators would vote to remove Trump ... if it was a private vote. But Trump's impeachment isn't the ugly person Republicans can fuck all night and pretend not to know during the day. They've got to introduce Trump's impeachment to their friends. That's not happening.

Paul Ryan on government funding, relationship with Trump youtu.be

Ryan tried to bail on Trump after the "Access Hollywood" tape, which was repulsive but admittedly not treason. He asked him not to come to Wisconsin for a campaign event, and you normally don't have to bother telling a New Yorker to stay out of Wisconsin. CNN claimed Ryan dealt Trump a "withering blow" when he said he'd "no longer defend" the Republican nominee. He planned to officially "divorce himself" and the party from Trump after Clinton won. Fortunately, Trump had the more valuable Vladimir Putin endorsement.

Ryan is just a simple guy who wants to cut the social safety net and joyfully listen to the sickening thud as poor people hit concrete. He'll make the ultimate sacrifice and work with an orange gangster if that's what it takes. Now he wants to put the well-mannered Republicans back in charge.

You'd think Ryan would've learned not to jump the gun after his embarrassing 2016 backtrack. Republican voters stood by Trump post-"Access Hollywood," and Ryan tweeted his support for the Trump/Pence ticket the weekend before the election. Six months later, he publicly thanked Trump for the opportunity to deprive Americans of health care. He even said Trump was more "engaged" than any other president with whom he'd served, including Republican George W. Bush.

Paul Ryan Thanks Donald Trump At White House: 'Today Was A Big Day' | NBC News www.youtube.com

Sherman quotes a source at Fox who says the network must remain "loyal to Trump's supporters even if the network has to break from the man."

"We need to represent our viewers," the source said. "Fox is about defending our viewers from the people who hate them. That's where our power comes from. It's not about Trump."

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the monster Fox created and fed a steady diet of grievance for more than 20 years. Trump himself is the prototypical Fox viewer who believes the modern world is out to get them. You can't separate the man from the con. Sean Hannity might privately tell people the current allegations against Trump are "really bad," but he'll still do his part to convince old white people across the nation that Hunter Biden is the true killer. Paul Ryan should just cash his check and shut up.

[VanityFair]

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Rudy Giuliani is the real whistleblower! Just ask him, he'll tell you.

"I'm the real whistleblower," he screamed to Politico, "If I get killed now, you won't get the rest of the story." Hours earlier he barked at The Atlantic's Elaina Plott, "If this guy is a whistle-blower, then I'm a whistle-blower too." Then he went back on Laura Ingraham's Conspiracy Laundrette to uhhhh ... who the hell knows what's happening here.

The president's personal lawyer went on to show screenshots of his texts with Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker. Which is a weird flex for a guy who spent years screaming that Hillary Clinton had to be LOCK HER UPPED because she stored official communications offsite, but Rudy's got his reasons. Namely, he wants to make goddamn sure that everyone in America knows that he was on an official government mission to get the Ukrainians to prosecute Joe Biden, not just freelancing. And if he has to murder every pixel in America to do it, so be it!

We think Rudy is trying to discredit the whistleblower's claims that the State Department was working to "contain the damage" from Rudy's Ukraine fuckery, because all the attaboys from Volker and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland are SCIENCE PROOF that he was working hand in glove with the Foggy Bottom Boys.

Leave aside for the moment the questionable value of a law school recommendation from a demented, old has-been who believes that hearsay rules apply to congressional proceedings and has apparently forgotten the admission against interest, party opponent, and business records exceptions to the hearsay rule. This is an unorthodox way to defend your client against charges that he coopted the levers of the federal government to orchestrate a smear against his political opponent. Although perhaps we are just incapable of grasping the fifty-dimensional chess game afoot here. Unlike Rudy, who is A HERO. Just ask him!

"It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I'm not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero," Giuliani shrieked to The Atlantic.

Giphy

There are a dozen excellent articles out today about Rudy's insane Ukrainian adventures and how we got to a point where the president of the United States believes the most gobbledygook insane 4chan hoaxes about Ukraine having the DNC server and NO RUSSIA! NO RUSSIA! UKRAINE IS THE REAL RUSSIA! But it all basically boils down to competing Ukrainian political factions jockeying for position by trying to get in good with the country's most important ally. And while America's career national security and diplomatic people could navigate the waters in a country rife with bribery, corruption, poisonings and forgery where the winning party often throws the losers in jail, addle-pated teevee lawyers like Rudy were easy marks.

Here's the origin story of the Ukrainium One scam, per Politico:

The scandal unfolding this week in Washington can be traced back to November, when a private investigator approached Rudy Giuliani claiming to have information about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, according to an account provided by the former New York mayor. Giuliani declined to give POLITICO the name of the investigator but said he was an American citizen, the head of "a very, very large investigative agency," and a former colleague of Giuliani's at the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York. Giuliani said the investigator approached him on behalf of a client who wanted to relay damning allegations he had heard.

Oh, really, the New York Field Office? The guys who were leaking to Rudes about Hillary Clinton's emails and trying to gin up an investigation into the Clinton Foundation based on lies they wished were true from Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash? Shocker that!

And Rudy, who was by then making his living grabbing cash from very bad men across the globe, was only too delighted to hop on that crazy train if the destination was Biden Goes Down Town. The entire Western world wanted corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin removed, but if Shokin would say that the real reason he got booted was to help Hunter Biden, then Rudy was happy to believe it.

"A large number of prosecutors in Ukraine, a lot of them could be considered corrupt," Giuliani told Politico, justifying his Skype chats with the disgraced former prosecutor. "I'm not going to tell you that Shokin wasn't corrupt, that he didn't take bribes here and there, but he wasn't good at it." He went on to explain that somebody actually competent at corruption would be rich by now, so Shokin must have been a lousy criminal, and thus a credible source.

If the replacement prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko (not an actual lawyer, possibly an actual torturer) was willing to fabricate charges against the US Ambassador to Ukraine, charges he later retracted, Giuliani was happy to believe it as long as Lutsenko made noises about prosecuting Biden. And when he stopped making those noises, Giuliani furiously accused him of flipping to protect the former Ukrainian president. If the (then) US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was blocking visas for the shady characters feeding him the lies about Biden, then she must be IN ON IT, and he used his contacts to get the State Department to fire her. And if anti-corruption groups produced evidence against Paul Manafort during the campaign, then they must be puppets of George Soros.

NONE OF THIS IS TRUE, no matter how hard John Solomon thrusts his stubby little editorials into that chicken. But if all you watched was Fox News, or if Breitbart was your primary news source, you might well believe it. Steve Bannon and Peter Schweizer clearly know the whole thing is a con, but Rudy and Donald fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. And now, they're going to pull Mike Pompeo, and Mike Pence, and God knows who else down with 'em. Because those craven little whores, those heat-seeking missiles for Trump's ass, weren't strong enough to stand up and say NO. Pompeo knew the Biden scam was bullshit, but he still lent the resources of the State Department to Rudy's Ukrainian adventurism. Pence knew that Trump wasn't withholding the funds for Ukraine because he was deeply concerned about corruption, but he still delivered the message. They all knew this was a shakedown, and they all went along with it anyway.

AND NOW, THEY'RE FUCKED. Thanks, Roger!

[Politco / The Atlantic / WaPo]

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The Trump administration announced yesterday that, for the third year in a row, it would be cutting the number of refugees admitted to the US, this time to just 18,000 for fiscal 2020. That's down from a target of 110,000 in 2016, Barack Obama's final year in office (when we actually admitted only 97,000). The cap on refugee admissions is the lowest in modern history, despite an ongoing international refugee crisis that has left almost 71 million people displaced around the world. It's just the latest move in Stephen Miller's agenda of eliminating both legal and illegal immigration.

The administration claims the large number of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border leaves it no choice but to slash refugee admissions, although refugee admissions and handling asylum requests are totally separate processes. Really, this is about restricting all immigration, and especially about pleasing the racist immigrant-haters who love Trump the most. Anything else the administration says is pure bafflegab.

The 18,000 refugees will be divided up thusly, according to a press call with reporters:

The Trump administration will reserve 4,000 refugee slots for Iraqis who worked with the United States military, 1,500 for people from Central America and 5,000 for people persecuted for their religion, senior administration officials said. The additional 7,500 slots are for those who are seeking family unification and have been cleared for resettlement.

That's a change from previous methods of divvying up refugees, which allocated refugee admissions by the region they came from. The 1,500 total for Central Americans is ridiculously low, particularly since hundreds of thousands have fled persecution and gang violence in the region.

In addition to the new lower numbers, Donald Trump signed an executive order that would allow state and local officials to reject refugees in their jurisdictions. That's being framed as an effort to make sure local governments "approve" of refugee resettlement, but of course it's just another gift to xenophobes.

"State and local governments are best positioned to know the resources and capacities they may or may not have available," the order said, "which maximizes the likelihood refugees placed in the area will become self-sufficient and free from long-term dependence on public assistance."

Gotta pound on that claim that refugees are all on welfare, when in reality they tend to use public assistance for a short time, and then soon pay more in taxes than they get in benefits during their first 20 years in the US.

Mark Hetfield the chief executive of HIAS, the Jewish nonprofit that helps refugees from all over, called the executive order an attempt to "allow governors and mayors to imitate [Trump's] own refugee ban, state by state and town by town." It should certainly get plenty of votes from people who were already planning to vote for Trump. Shouldn't be long before we get news of some town council voting to make their town a "sanctuary city for AMERICANS," hurr hurr. HIAS, we should note, was the organization the Pittsburgh temple shooter thought was responsible for "replacing" white Americans with migrants from Central America and the Middle East, so please ignore the nice refugee advocate.

As an additional fuck-you to refugees who had already been approved for admission to the US, the administration froze arrivals of new refugees for several weeks while it prepared to roll out the latest reduction. Refugee admissions will start again on October 22. Reuters notes that while brief suspensions of refugee arrivals have happened before, "the weeks-long halt has left many refugees who had already booked their flights stranded."

The State Department also issued its own statement claiming "The current burdens on the U.S. immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large number of refugees[.]"

Refugee advocates note that, since there's a huge backlog in admitting refugees who have already jumped through all the hoops of UN and US vetting, there will be very little flexibility for the US to allow in any people fleeing new wars and crises. But that's not our problem, because fuck the rest of the world. Not helping people in crisis is exactly what Trump and Miller want, because the people who come to Trump rallies see no difference between refugees, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and Iraqis who worked as translators for US troops -- they're all dangerous Mexicans and Islams who want to kill us all, and why are we even allowing in 18,000 of the lazy takers?

[Reuters / NYT / Quartz / Image: "Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan, 2013," by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Creative Commons license 2.0]

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As the House moves forward with an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, pundits and "experts" have pointed out the many risks for Democrats. Peter Trubowitz, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, reminded us that Republicans "in 1998 lost the House after impeaching Bill Clinton." That depends on how you define the word "after." Republicans lost some seats but kept the House and gained the presidency in 2000. They didn't lose the House until 2006. A similar outcome for Democrats isn't a "risk," it's a boon.

Now deleted tweetTwitter

The New York Times took the impeachment question to the public. It interviewed two dozen voters across the country -- roughly the turnout for a special election. Times reporters found them "elated and wary, unsure and already exhausted." Before Trump, they were inspired. Now they're sad and tired. The article itself is like a 1970s sci-fi film set in the future: There are no black people present. The Republicans they spoke with have stuck with Trump through Russia, Stormy, and "Access Hollywood." They even forgave his brief career as a rap artist. They were generally "unmoved by the possibility that Mr. Trump committed impeachable crimes."

"I think it is an absolute joke," said Reggie Dickerson, 54, a pipe fitter and timber worker who lives in Eastern Kentucky.

Dickerson isn't actually a new voice on the subject. He was first interviewed for a piece about Trump's loyal base back in 2017. He's a registered Democrat who voted for Trump to "upset the fruit basket." He believes Barack Obama "destroyed our way of life." He blames the former president for the Iranian flag he saw hanging in a car repair shop and the overall existence of immigrants. He's unlikely to ever vote for another Democrat again, no matter how old, white, and male the nominee is.

The Times quoted Dickerson in an article about the Kentucky governor's race that ran in June. It seems like they should try to quote new people, especially if as reporter Sabrina Tavernise suggested in a now deleted tweet, the intent is to the speak to "swing" voters. None of these Trump supporters are tossing their keys into the electoral bowl.

Donna Burgraff is a registered independent from Andersonville, Tennessee. She's presented as having voted for Obama in 2008 before "swinging to Trump." The Times doesn't bother to tell us if the "independent" Burgraff voted for George W. Bush or Mitt Romney. It would help to know if Obama's historic election was the actual outlier and she's otherwise a reliable Republican voter. She was quoted in a Times article about supposed Obama/Trump voters in May. An associate professor of education at Ohio University, Burgraff claimed she finds Trump "boorish" and all but admitted he's sexist and racist. She voted for him anyway and has no regrets because his tax scam put an extra $400 a month in her paycheck. She also voted to re-elect Republican Brad Wenstrup during last year's blue wave midterms. She is probably voting the straight Republican ticket in 2020. Why are we talking to her? And why in God's name is the Times talking to someone like Trisha Hope?

Trisha Hope, who has been to 23 Make America Great Again rallies around the country and compiled a collection of Mr. Trump's tweets in a book, said that she saw "nothing improper" in the publicly released version of the call, and that the formal move toward impeachment had strengthened her support.

The woman's been to 23 MAGA rallies! But she doesn't own all the bootleg recordings so the Times considers her just a casual fan. Hope will likely be at Trump's side in his underground bunker long after Melania and Ivanka have bailed. These folks are all straight from what Hillary Clinton correctly called Trump's "basket of deplorables." Calling them "swing voters" is a flat-out lie. Trump would approve.

Twitter

Tavernise's "whoops, I didn't mean actual swing voters when I said swing voters" response isn't helpful. The Times still spoke to Trump fanatics like Trisha Hope. She has a scrapbook of his tweets. We think her views are fairly well fixed. Even if there are "normal" Trump voters out there who might consider abandoning him, the Times is screwing up the reporting that would help them make the change.

I don't like to appeal to the authority of dead white guys who rode slaves to the office but a major point of impeachment was to put a check against a demagogue. Despots are often popular with the masses. The impeachment process prevents Congress from having to assassinate power-mad leaders on the Senate steps. What the public -- even actual swing voters -- thinks about impeachment shouldn't matter. What matters is how many impeachable offenses Trump has committed (hint: it's a lot). Our leaders need to actually lead. Not hop to the will of voters who are mostly uninformed and likely to remain so for as long as Dean Baquet is running the Times.

[New York Times]

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The New York Times got a big scoop on the whistleblower! No, not their name, address, favorite color, and a list of the routes they take back and forth to work and their favorite places to get an iced coffee cross-referenced with nearby cliffs that are easy to push a car over, but we're sure they'll publish that by lunch.

No, it's actual important news about the process our American hero whistleblower went through to tell the truth about what President Foreign Agent Traitor was really up to with Ukraine. The cover-up has been going on much longer than we knew.

The big reveal is that very soon after the infamous July 25 phone call where Donald Trump tried to extort the president of Ukraine into ginning up fake investigations into Joe Biden to help cheat Trump into a second term, the White House managed to find out there was a whistleblower, and that the whistleblower had complaints.

Like a week later.

Yes, apparently about a week after Trump's traitor call, the whistleblower complained to the intelligence agency where they work, as they had been previously detailed to the White House and became privy to what Trump was really up to. And since the Times just blabbed it out there -- and because the Times claims the White House already knew this information -- we'll just say the agency in question is CIA and the general counsel's name is Courtney Simmons Elwood. You know, hypothetically.

So the whistleblower went anonymously to Elwood with a limited version of the complaint, at which point she, like the intelligence community inspector general, had to figure out if there was a "reasonable basis" for the complaint. Turns out other people had already been saying very worried things about the Trump Ukraine traitor phone call!

So Elwood called the White House (!) and spoke to John Eisenberg, who is a deputy White House counsel, and whom the Times describes as Elwood's "counterpart at the National Security Council." And wouldn't you know it, but John Eisenberg had already been hearing rumblings at the water cooler about the fucked up call!

Anyway, together "[t]hey decided that the accusations had a reasonable basis," she, the CIA general counsel, and he, a lawyer from Trump's White House. So they called Bill Barr's Justice Department. (!!)

Again, at this point, we must remind you that the whistleblower complaint is about the president of the United States abusing his office and pissing all over national security for his own personal gain, and that Attorney General Bill Barr is listed in the first 100 words of the complaint as a person who is involved in the crime, allegedly.

OF COURSE they called the Justice Department!

Anyway, they talked to John Demers, who runs the national security division at Bill Barr's Roy Cohn Shop of Horrors, and Demers took it to Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Brian Benczkowski, who runs the criminal division. (Remember Benczkowski? The hack who got to run the criminal division at DOJ, even though his most recent gig after leaving the Trump transition was as a lawyer representing the Russian Alfa Bank, which was all up in the Trump-Russia scandal? Sure why not!)

GUESS WHO FOUND OUT THEN? NO GUESS!

assets.rbl.ms

BILL BARR FOUND OUT THEN!

The Times says Barr was "briefed," but did not actually "oversee the discussions about how to proceed," according to their source. No word on what sorta phone calls he made to the White House to say "DADDDDDDDDY! THE DEEP STATE IS TATTLING ON YOU! SNITCHES GET STITCHES!"

Anyway, the Times reports that about two weeks after making the initial complaint, when the whistleblower found out Elwood called the White House to tell the White House about these high crimes and misdemeanors committed at the White House by the guy who lives at the White House, he/she got LI'L BIT WORRIED and decided to do the official whistleblower thing -- read the complaint here! -- at which point intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) Michael Atkinson determined that yes, this is credible and urgent and terriblehorriblenogoodverybad, so he kicked it upstairs to (acting) DNI Joseph Maguire, who ...

CALLED THE FUCKING WHITE HOUSE AND THE BILL BARR CHOP SHOP WHERE JUSTICE GOES TO DIE.

So let's review! The White House and Justice Department started to become aware of a whistleblower a week after the July 25 phone call, which is way before August 12, when ICIG Atkinson received the initial complaint. Don't y'all think that brings up a bunch of new questions about the timing of former DNI Dan Coats's "resignation" and the subsequent FUCK YOU I'M GONE letter from career official Sue Gordon, who by law was supposed to become the acting DNI in Coats's absence? We think so. Of course we thought so when Liz wrote that story on September 16, because we are ALWAYS (often) RIGHT!

Anyway, the point is that it was always a cover-up. What Maguire said before Congress on Thursday about BLAH BLAH BLAH "classification review" BLAH BLAH BLAH he simply had to go to the White House and the Justice Department BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH ... it's all bullshit. The White House and the Justice Department found out ages ago.

Now, the Times does allow that this unprecedented situation (Maguire kept telling Congress it was "unprecedented," and yes, we agree that a president asking a foreign power to help him steal an election on a call that was supposed to consist of congratulations to the new president of Ukraine is unprecedented) is exposing some of the limits of our own laws:

"I always advise whistle-blowers against going to general counsels because the general counsels have to report the matter," said Dan Meyer, the former executive director of the intelligence community whistle-blowing program and managing partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey's Washington office. "They are like tuna in a shark tank."

Oh well, better luck next time, American Hero Whistleblower.

The rest of the article is the Times coming right up to the edge of doxxing the whistleblower and executive editor Dean Baquet giving his very good explanations for why he thought that would be a good idea on the same day Donald Trump told a group of American diplomats that the people who shared information with the whistleblowers were basically spies, and know what we did back in the old days with spies and traitors? We MURDERED 'EM. (Trump didn't say that part. It was implied.)

Our point is don't read the Times article, as Wonkette just told you all the good parts, and now you don't need to.

[New York Times]

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Damn, this week has been a long month.

In the midst of the Ukrainium One shitstorm, it can be easy to lose track of all of the other things going on. A bunch of states are suing Trump. Trump is suing a bunch of states. A whole bunch of other people are suing over a whole bunch of other terrible things. So totally normal politics and very stable geniuses with a dash of late-stage syphilis and a heaping teaspoon of PCP. #2019.

So anyway, here are all of the other places where Trump is fighting with states, civil rights organizations, and other assorted people trying to bring some goodness and light into the world.

Trump Tax Returns: Trump v. Vance

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance wants Trump's tax returns. Trump asked a federal judge to say he can commit as many crimes as he wants. Everyone is arguing about whether a sitting president can be criminally investigated or indicted.

Vance's subpoena to Trump accountant Mazars is on hold while Judge Victor Marrero considers Trump's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. Vance has filed a motion to dismiss, arguing this case is about a state grand jury proceeding and belongs in state court. Meanwhile, the DOJ is trying to decide whether it wants to get involved. It says it will have an answer on that by October 1.

Vance sent a letter to the court indicating the parties had reached a "temporary agreement." Mazars doesn't have to produce the documents requested by the subpoena until either two days after Judge Marrero rules or Monday, October 7, whichever is sooner.

Whatever Judge Marrero decides will inevitably be immediately appealed to the Second Circuit by the losing party. The losing party of the Second Circuit will probably ask SCOTUS to step in. SCOTUS will toss Trump's salad. Repeat.

Trump Tax Returns: Trump v. California

California enacted a well-meaning but probably unconstitutional law requiring presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to get onto the ballot. Because something truly terrible must lurk within the pages of Donald Trump's tax returns, he immediately sued. Last week, a federal court enjoined the law since, like we said, it's probably unconstitutional.

Endangered Species Act: California v. Bernhardt

California is leading a coalition of 18 state attorneys general and New York City suing Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to try to stop the Trump regime from gutting the Endangered Species Act. The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges the administration is ignoring science and the needs of endangered species in order to boost corporate profits.

At a press conference, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said his "suspicion is that the Trump administration has misread the Endangered Species Act [...] they've chosen to prioritize endangering endangered species, rather than protecting those species."

This is the 61st lawsuit California has filed against Trump since he took office. Well done, Golden State!

Courthouse Arrests: New York v. ICE

If there's a state on par with California, as far as pissing off Trump goes, it has to be New York. Trump was already battling his home state on several fronts prior to this week, and now he can add another one to the list.

New York is suing the Nazis over at ICE for its practice of arresting undocumented immigrants at courthouses. The Legal Aid Society, representing a victim of domestic abuse who is afraid to go to court because of ICE, filed a separate suit challenging the practice.

Courthouse arrests in New York went up 1700% between 2016 and 2018.

When immigrants are arrested in courthouses, they're less likely to come forward as victims of crimes, even when their safety is in danger. Witnesses to crimes don't want to come to court to testify, for fear they'll be deported.

The plaintiffs argue that ICE's policy of arresting people in courthouses makes everyone less safe and puts immigrant communities at risk. The ICE Nazis will inevitably argue that they have an Article II that says they can do whatever they want. Or something.

These cases were just filed, so we may not see any major action here for a while. To be continued ...

Everything else in law world

In addition to the never-ending deluge of Trump cases, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on in the legal world that we would normally be writing about. So here's a summary of just some of the other crazy and terrible shit going on right now.

Honduras Asylum Deportation Case. The Supreme Court gave Trump and his army of deportation Nazis the green light to go ahead and deny everyone asylum two weeks ago, and the deportation Nazis were ready to go. Lawyers for the ACLU and National Immigrant Justice Center pleaded with US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge, not to send their clients back to Honduras to die.

Sutherland Springs Shooting Litigation. Judge Xavier Rodriguez is really fucking pissed off at the DOJ lawyers in this case. They were supposed to name some names and instead just decided not to. Judge Rodriguez stormed out of court, sanctioned the lawyers, made the DOJ pay all of the plaintiffs' attorneys fees, and ordered the DOJ to submit the names by the end of the day Friday.

Once again, no charges for cops who do shitty things. Salvador Sanchez, an off-duty LAPD officer, murdered an intellectually disabled man in a Costco in June. We, as a society, have apparently decided that we don't particularly care when cops murder people, so Sanchez will face no criminal charges.

Senate Republicans pass on judge who followed the Constitution once. Back in July, we told you about how Trump Fifth Circuit nominee Sul Ozerden's confirmation was at risk because he accidentally followed the Constitution one time. Now, Ozerden has officially lost Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. This means Ozerden will have to pick up some Democratic support if he's going to make it through judiciary. (If Joe Manchin were on judiciary, his head would be imploding right about now.)

America's nightmare drunk racist uncle is dodging subpoenas. Everyone's least favorite alcoholic white nationalist, Steve Bannon, is apparently dodging federal subpoenas now. On Wednesday, the FTC unsuccessfully tried to serve Steve Bannon with a subpoena over his role in the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data scandal. According to Politico, the FTC is investigating whether Bannon "engaged in 'deceptive or unfair' use of data gleaned from Facebook."

ICE hates goodness and the Fourth Amendment. The SPLC is suing the US government over ICE once again ignoring that the Fourth Amendment is a thing that exists.

Bowe Bergdahl dishonorably discharged. A military judge dishonorably discharged Bergdahl for his actions when he left his military base in Afghanistan in 2009. In line with recommendations from high-ranking military officials, the judge declined to order prison time.

The Ninth Circuit looks ready to let a climate case filed by kids continue. On Monday, the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in a lawsuit youth activists have filed against the US government, alleging the United States government, the president, and several high-ranking executive officials have denied them their constitutional rights to life, liberty or property without due process of law by destroying the earth. The judges presiding seemed ready to let the case continue.

Badass Greta Thunberg and 15 other badass youth activists are suing 5 countries over the climate crisis. They presented the complaint to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in New York on Monday.

And a whole bunch of crazy shit is happening in the UK. We only understand about half of it, but the gist is that the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament was illegal. As per usual, Boris Johnson responded with a whole bunch of verbal diarrhea. But, we guess, at least Mama England is as fucked up as we are right now?

So ... yeah

Who the fuck even knows anymore? We have officially made it to Friday, so that's cool. But Frigg only knows what's going to happen in the next few hours. The criminals over at the White House love to announce truly terrible things at the end of the day on Friday.

Godspeed, dear readers. May we all one day be able to collectively look back on this time as those weird-ass fucking years when it seemed like everyone was on the same collective, terrible acid trip.

And hey, at least twitter is lit.

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