Trump's Card

[ad hoc]

Nothing's awkward for Trump

[ursus arctos]

It will depend to a large extent on whether his pension can be secured. There are suggestions that a Congressperson could hire him as staff for a week and save it

We also need to see the report they are citing.

But yes, the way it has been done leaves them more open than they needed to be.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Thank you.

[MsD]

Wrong thread.

[ursus arctos]

I'd be ok with the sanitorium outcome, especially if it was in some tinpot dictatorship.

[anton pulisov]

I read that as "santorum outcome"

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://twitter.com/Comey/status/975065073575219200

[anton pulisov]

Comey confirming that he is a bit of a moron.

[Satchmo Distel]

Come(y) again.

[Satchmo Distel]

I'd be ok with the sanitorium outcome, especially if it was in some tinpot dictatorship.

Kinda like the last days of Roy Cohn, as portrayed by James Woods in the early 90s biopic (ironically Woods has turned into the scumbag he played).

[San Bernardhinault]

I know it's been said almost every week of the administration, but right now it feels like we're coming to some sort of crescendo. I expect it will break and we'll go back to the regular order of just destroying the country.

But this week,
with the loss of Tillerson and Cohn,
the possible departures of McMasters and Schulkin
with the sacking of McCabe,
and him saying that he's going to speak out,
and that looking like obstruction of justice
with Republicans beginning to panic after PA-18,
with the FEC now investigating whether the Russians illegally pumped money into Trump through the NRA
with Stormy Daniels now looking like it might be a campaign finance violation
with Trump's lawyer Dowd now arguing for the Mueller campaign to be shut down
with the Republicans shutting down their investigation in the house and then being called out over that by their own side....

All of this coming together, it feels like something's coming to a head. It might just be that they sack Mueller and everyone pretends nothing's happened. But something feels like it's on the verge of happening. It's just too much news in such a short period for it to be just coincidental noise.

[ursus arctos]

This does seem unsustainable, but then we’ve said that before.

Two things that would really run up the heat would be the firing of Mueller and/or the hiring of Bolton as National Security Advisor.

The Cambridge Analytiica story should also have legs.

[Gerontophile]

Kinda like the last days of Roy Cohn, as portrayed by James Woods in the early 90s biopic (ironically Woods has turned into the scumbag he played).

Yeah, and got blown out of the fucking cinema by Al Pacino as the same guy in a different movie.

[Nefertiti2]

As some light relief

[San Bernardhinault]

I didn't really know about the Cambridge Analytica background until just now. The scandal seems to be about illegal use of data scraped off Facebook. But the really interesting background is that the data was acquired by a Russian-American who was in part funded by the Russian government, before it ended up in the hands of the Mercer funded, Bannon-linked company. It's just another link of Russian finance getting into the Trump campaign. It's not a smoking gun on it's own, but how many different ways are there Russian connections now? I'm beginning to wonder if my earlier belief that the Trump campaign was too stupid to be able to actually conspire - rather than just get manipulated - is wrong.

[ursus arctos]

I found the core NYT story to be more illuminating than the piece in the Observer.

As always, Facebook has also acted shamefully

[Satchmo Distel]

The balance has got to be whether the Republicans in Congress feel that their power is slipping away if they do not take action. They are not going to act on ethical grounds.

[anton pulisov]

The balance has got to be whether the Republicans in Congress feel that their power is slipping away if they do not take action. They are not going to act on ethical grounds.

But their moral outrage will surely be awoken should it transpire that Trump was fellated by an intern in the Oval Office.

[ursus arctos]

He's at it again

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/975163071361683456

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's pretty close to the worst yet.

[Tubby Isaacs]

@kylegriffin1
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Jeff Sessions' testimony that he opposed a proposal for Trump's 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Mueller or congressional committees.

Straight talking Southerner.

[Gerontophile]

But their moral outrage will surely be awoken should it transpire that Trump was fellated by an intern in the Oval Office.

Sorry, but no, dear. They are Republicans. Moral is not in the vicinity.

[Eggchaser]

That's pretty close to the worst yet.

His acolytes will lap it up.

[San Bernardhinault]

So, every couple of years I think "I'm going to get involved this time" in localish politics, see how I can actually help out.

Mrs SB tried 2 years ago to sign up to help with the Clinton campaign - in what might be a representative response, the Clinton campaign promptly called her hundreds of times requesting cash, but at no point actually contacted her for physical assistance, or to find out what skills she had to help out with.

So I was wondering if a smaller, more local campaign might be more willing to take help. And I started thinking about the local races for 2018. The CA senate seat is already wrapped up for the Democrats, and isn't really worth worrying about. And I'm just not engaged in properly local electoral politics. So it seems to me that the place to look are the Congressional races.

Of the five districts in the city

CA-51 is by the border, is 70% hispanic, and is strongly Democratic
CA-53 is very urban, and is only 40% white, and is also strongly Democratic
CA-52 covers the north part of the city, reaches into the very wealthy parts of La Jolla and so on, and used to be a swing district as there was money and military making it more Republican. But Scott Peters has won the last 3 races. Most recently by 13 points.

That leaves CA-49, which is Darrell Issa's current district. It's the wealthy north-county beach towns, and part of Orange County. It's very old-school California Republican, but has been shifting. Issa is quitting this year. He won by less that 0.5% last time, and without his incumbency and his millions, you'd have to suspect it'll switch. Doug Applegate, who just missed out in 2016, is a very strong Democrat candidate, and there's an absolute horde of unimpressive Republicans running.

And, finally, there's CA-50. This is the one I think I might help out with. I live about 2 blocks from where the district starts, so it makes sense. But it's an interesting district, too. It heads a long way inland, with all of San Diego's guns-and-god libertarian truck driving nutters who live in the hills. It also contains the very "trailer-park"y city of Santee (previously know as Klantee for its racist politics). Then there are the cities of El Cajon and La Mesa and Spring Valley - these are more interesting, because they have large hispanic populations, but also very large Middle Eastern populations, too. That said, it's deeply Republican. In 2016, Duncan Hunter won 63-37%. Bigger than the recent PA-18 margin that Conor Lamb overturned. This should be just about the safest Republican seat in California.

Yet Duncan Hunter is in big trouble. He's been a very naughty boy, using his campaign credit card for all kinds of personal frivolities, among other things.

So the district has opened up a bit for other Republicans. Carl DiMaio - who is an exceptionally boring candidate, and a tiny-state extremist, but is considered "moderate" purely for the fact that he is a gay Republican; and the mayor of El Cajon Bill Wells are getting stuck into Hunter.

This leaves an outside chance for a Democratic upset. It's still unlikely, but it's something I'd be interested in helping with.

The two main primary candidates on the Democratic side are someone who seems to quadruple barreled first name, a man always referred to as Former-Navy-SEAL-Josh Buttner. And, much more interestingly, a chap named Ammar Campa-Najjar. His grandfather was the head of intelligence for Fatah, and was killed by an Israeli raid in Beirut in 1973. His dad moved to the US, and met his mum who was a Mexican immigrant. Campa-Najjar actually spent some time at school in the Gaza Strip. He worked in the Obama Whitehouse, is backed by the local indivisible, and seems like a genuinely good person. I don't know too many details on his politics yet, so I don't know for sure that he's my kind of candidate. But I like the idea of him, and I can't imagine what kind of racist bunfight we'd get from Duncan Hunter (literally the first Congressman to support Trump) if he was up against a Palestinian-Mexican whose grandpa worked for Fatah during the Munich olympic attack.

[ursus arctos]

Especially if you don't have to go to Santee to do so