Maxine does not yield to defenseless, bullied white male mansplainer.

🙄

'I do not yield. Not one second to you. Not one second.' — Rep. Maxine Waters will never stop reclaiming her time pic.twitter.com/JDwfeEWy4i

— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) May 10, 2018

Damn she’s tenacious. She should give lessons.

and then there’s this tweet about Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer:

https://twitter.com/tsarinaofsnarrk/status/994068136927342592?s=21

She’s right. I want that hat so bad.

Woot! Less than 600 unique page hits to 13 MILLION!

Contrary to popular opinion, I didn’t create a robotic finger that keeps reloading the page. Someone actually reads this stuff. And if you are one of those someones, thank you very much for making it fun to come here and write something (nearly) every day.

Now is the time to pay up.

$13 MILLION DOLLARS.

Just kidding.

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Ok, hear me out, Trumpers, I’ve seen the poll numbers, there are a lot of you who are sticking with Trump to the bitter end over the Mueller investigation. And I get that (actually I don’t but work with me here). You’re tired of hearing about collusion, collusion, collusion. It’s one of those SAT words that no one ever used in a sentence until last year. Like emoluments. Come on, admit it, you thought it was a skin care product, right? I know I did. It sounded like something a lanolin rich soap would give your skin. Ha! Were we wrong.

Anyway, the Mueller thing is getting annoying because the dude is so damn secretive and we haven’t seen anything yet and it just looks like the Democrats are colluding with the FBI to bring Trump down. Trump can’t catch a break. (Well mostly because he does such stupid things but I digress).

Now his lawyer is being harassed and so what if people are paying Cohen large sums of money for access. That just makes those corporations suckers.

But what if that access just made your cable bill go up while simultaneously restricting your access to all the movies you want to stream unless Netflix pays up to get into your house faster than the cable package lineup?

Have you seen THIS??:

AT&T hired Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s shell company in “early 2017.” In February 2017, FCC Chair Ajit Pai had a private dinner with senior AT&T exec John Stankey: https://t.co/EaBwusf61z pic.twitter.com/No3SH5mWWL

— American Oversight (@weareoversight) May 9, 2018

Yeah, collusion with the Russians is one thing. Taking a bribe from a cable company to kill net neutrality and promote your merger to reduce your cable choices is hlike dealing with the devil.

And we haven’t even started on Novartis who wants to make sure that no one drags it to the negotiating table over drug prices to large government healthcare providers like the VA or Medicare or Medicaid.

How are you going to feel when it turns out that all that money was paid to Donald Trump and his buddies in the Republican Party to soak you for more money in cable/internet service and life saving drugs? That’s a bad that you’re going to share with the libtards.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what those polls look like in a few weeks as Michael Avenatti keeps parting the kimono.

Yeah…whatsupwiththat??

Something fishy here.

Novartis paid Cohen $100k-a-month to do…. nothing.

The company paid its actual lobbying firms $12,000-a-month during that same time period.https://t.co/Wn3Uw1EQSJ

— Sam Stein (@samstein) May 10, 2018

Being the resident expert on drug companies, I’ll revisit this later with my own take.

Time to pay the piper.

Trump is going to go down. I think it’s going to happen quickly. I could be wrong. Maybe the Republicans will save him. But I think the sheer weight of all the criminal activities that he’s involved in is going to finally be too much even for the most determined Trumper. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot more to come. I just don’t see how he can continue like this. Now that Novartis and AT&T and who knows who else have been implicated in buying access and helping to pay off porn stars, he’s going to have to resign. Those two companies alone wrote checks for $600,000.00 combined. What did that get them? Elimination of Net Neutrality? A guarantee that the VA wouldn’t get too much of a break on pharmaceuticals?

And don’t forget that both Cohen and Broidy were on the Republican party’s campaign committee. So the whole party could be implicated. What does Devin Nunes want to hide for his buddies in the house?

It’s massive. It’s messy. It’s mortifying in some respects. It’s really hard to comprehend how someone so corrupt and compromised could end up president after getting just enough electoral college votes to edge out the most qualified presidential candidate we have ever had. She is a Girl Scout in comparison.

The whole country should look into its collective soul and make a earnest effort to understand it and let it never happen again. Trump ended an agreement with Iran today that makes the mullahs look sympathetic. He and Congress are planning to strip children of health insurance funds in order to cover the massive hole in the budget caused by those tax cuts. Health insurance companies are going to hike their premiums for Obamacare policies by something like 63% in some states. It’s all coming apart. He isn’t going to oust the swamp monsters. He is the biggest swamp monster of them all. And I suspect the monsters are all going to turn on their own.

Get used to the idea of President Pence. It’s only for two years.

Holy Snot, I can’t keep up!

The details are starting to roll out about what is in Michael Cohen’s files and they are so over the top that there is speculation that Trump is committing as many crimes as possible so that the FBI don’t know what to charge him with first.

First up, that playmate model that the deputy chair of the Republican Finance committee allegedly knocked up? You know, the one that Eliot Broidy paid $1.6 million dollars to? According to this article in New York Magazine, that scenario doesn’t seem to fit Broidy’s MO. But it sure as heck fits Donald Trump’s:

While Broidy’s business dealings are the epitome of the sort of swampy sleaze that Trump promised to drain from federal government decision-making, his home life is by contrast extremely stable, and, to all appearances, quite conventional. Broidy is 60 years old, and has been married for over 25 years to a woman of about his own age, with whom he has had three children. His wife is an attorney who was previously a senior vice-president at 20th Century Fox (she has reportedly been involved in some of Broidy’s more questionable business dealings). While of course it’s not impossible that Broidy chose to pursue a dangerous liaison with Miss November 2010, his biography is not that of a man who has the appearance of a likely candidate to have an affair with a Playboy playmate several decades younger than himself. He is not, in other words, a thrice-married serial adulterer with an established record of sleeping with models, playmates, and porn stars.

There’s more very interesting details that lead away from Eliot Broidy and towards Donald Trump. Read the whole thing.

The second revelations is that Michael Cohen was receiving large sums of money from Russian oligarchs. I know, right? Who didn’t see that coming? But did you know who else he received checks from?

Other entities that Cohen received money from, according to Avenatti, include: pharmaceutical company Novartis; Korea Aerospace Industries, AT&T.

— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) May 8, 2018

That money went to Essential Consultants, Cohen’s LLC set up to transfer funds to porn stars and playmates.

I could see it if Cohen was collecting that money as a member of the Republican finance committee, something he and Broidy have in common. So what happened to that money? What was it for?

And here’s a handy graphic of all these players and their connection to Trump:

Must see: How Russian oligarchs like Viktor Vekselberg (in Avenatti's report) are connected to Trump and each other. Amazing work by @dallasnews >>> pic.twitter.com/cVGjMNbMXQ

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) May 8, 2018

Curiouser and curiouser.

What’s next? Rachel Maddow should stop planning her shows and just wing it from now on.

Roll on

I heard some cries of despair last night when Eric Schneiderman went down. From what I hear of his behavior, you shouldn’t be distressed. His accusers have contemporaneous accounts, they have pictures, they went to doctors. He hit women out of the blue with no provocation. And let’s be clear about this, the only time you have provocation to hit someone is if they come at you first.

The reporting is impeccable. It’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer. I don’t get the impression that they take any joy in doing this. They’re certainly not singling out anyone in the Democratic Party for punishment while ignoring the other side. Are you kidding? Farrow used to work at the Clinton state department. He knows what’s at stake in the political climate. This is not a case of political ratf*cking ala Roger Stone.

If anything, these women were willing to keep quiet for much longer than they should have in order to not jeopardize the investigations against Trump. Otherwise, Eric would have and should have been exposed right after Harvey Weinstein. They prioritized the greater good over their own #metoo moments.

But we have to hold men to a certain standard of behavior or things will never improve. Some of Schneiderman’s accusers say they feared retribution from him and they were particularly mindful of what his energy means to the investigations Schneiderman is pursuing. But a guy like this should lose his job. He should face the same kind of consequences as the women who are too afraid to come forward.

Yes, I feel badly about Franken. I don’t put any of the stuff flung at him in the same category. I would have preferred an investigation. But there is no mechanism in Congress now to hold any representative or senator accountable or give him a fair hearing. That’s the way the Gingrich contingent set it up in the 90’s. The only thing we can do at this point is hold our own accountable.

When it comes to NY AG, the bench is deep. Twitter was all a-twitter last night about appointing Preet Barhara to that office in the interim. That’s probably not a bad idea. But there are other worthy candidates including at least one woman. As long as Andrew Cuomo is governor of New York, there will be a suitable replacement for Schneiderman. We can’t rest of our hopes on one man.

So, don’t shed any tears for Eric, who reportedly strangled a woman after he smacked her face, threw her on the bed and pinned her down with his weight. Strangulation is very serious and is a leading indicator in murder of domestic partners. We can’t excuse it. Ever. He could have killed her.

And maybe we should look at what it is about the AG position in NY that attracts guys who think they will never have to answer for what they do. Remember Eliot Spitzer? What makes them so cocky? What kind of culture is in that department? Cleaning up shouldn’t end with Eric’s resignation. There’s something deeply unsettling going on there.

Now, let’s get the anger and frustration out of our systems, put the blame squarely on Eric, and keep our eyes on the prize this November.

Find a campaign to work for and do something to change this country while you still can.

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This picture in this tweet is unintentionally hilarious:

“Stop in the name of JEEEESUS, I say unto you. Go back to the fiery depth of hades, oh Pele, demon of fire, I cast you out!!”. That having failed, Doug turned and ran like hell.

I don’t feel too sorry for anyone who lost their houses to Pele. They chose to locate them on an active volcano. No one who built didn’t know the risks. It comes with the territory. Maybe the state shouldn’t allow building there. It would save everyone a lot of trouble.

I’ve been to Kiluea twice, once as a child and once in 2009 where I walked one of the craters. Volcanos are awesome. They are also hot and dangerous. Don’t build on them because you can’t count on an exorcism to turn the lava away.

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I’m fancying a walking vacation in Scotland. Is anyone out there interested in coming along?

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It’s nice in Pittsburgh today. Sunny, warm, a beautiful morning. The light is glinting off the river. The water just over the other side of the road meanders and makes its way to the Mississippi and connects us to the rest of the Midwest and the south. Enjoy.

A little afternoon music

Boccherini. This is the Nocturne that includes the duet from Master and Commander, one of the best naval sailing movies ever.

Enjoy.

American Performance Art with Guns

Just watch

#ThisIsAmerica
Childish Gambino

Mesmerizing. Disturbing. Violent. Beautiful. Tragic. Materialistic. Melodic. Chaotic.https://t.co/jET1KfgRvx

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 6, 2018

This pretty much sums it up

https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/993135012139667456?s=21

And then there was Whitewater where the McDougals were already indicted before the investigation began. No indictments for the Clintons.

And then there was Paula Jones which was a wild goose chase that managed to catch a very small “lack of candor” that didn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

So, you know, there’s that…

A Dangerous Blame Game

Does anyone else get the feeling that the federales are closing in on Trump? I’m curious about what Cohen has been doing for Trump that Trump can’t reveal to his lawyers. And why did Cohen need 16 cell phones? Even if half of them are bricks, that’s a lot of cell phones.

I’m going to take a guess that Cohen was doing his job as a fixer and was using the phones to set up payments of hush money to people like Paul Manafort. That would be witness tampering, right? Or maybe all the people whose lives were negatively affected by Trump are coming out of the woodwork, looking for more payoffs. They see that Stormy and Karen don’t need to stick with the NDA. Why not?

But I’m worried now. Because it appears that Ron Rosenstein and Robert Mueller do not think that Trump is above the law. In fact, it looks like they think we live in a country where we favor the rule of law over the rule of men or a man. That’s how it’s been for 250 years and our country is admired the world over for its justice system, even if its reputation has been tarnished.

It actually shouldn’t have gotten this deeply involved. If we were talking about any other president in American history, his behavior and crimes would have been checked by Congress. But this Congress is owned by some very wealthy people and they like having two branches of government giving them exactly what they want.

Parts of the justice department rebelled in 2016. I suspect that had more to do with the macho hatred of Hillary Clinton than the love of Donald Trump. And what is the goal of the justice department? Enforcing the law. Hillary as president would have been ultimately frustrating. The Clintons might take advantage of their fame and sell it for access but that’s not illegal. That’s just good business if that’s your goods. With Hillary, they could have dragged her in front of dozens of grand juries, congressional hearings and spotlights to testify and they wouldn’t have found anything. It would have made their lives feel meaningless in the end.

But Trump gave them hope. He’s so corrupt and tied to Russian mafia and the Kremlin and hot women and money laundering that its almost like a never ending banquet of all their favorite foods. There’s a little something for everyone: espionage, white collar crimes, blackmail, extortion, seedy sex, Russian prostitution, bank fraud, etc, etc. Is there treason? I’m not sure. But there’s definitely misprision which leads to high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Justice Department lives for this stuff. This is what Trump and Co. underestimated. They had a Sally Fields “they LIKE me!” moment but they misread what Rudy was able to do with some sexist jerks in the NY field office.

If I were to make a biology analogy, I’d say that the FBI and the Attorneys General and their offices are like the immune system. It might take a while for it to become fully engaged but once it detects that foreign invader, it releases the macrophages and killer T cells. The branches and locations cooperate with each other.

That’s what’s happening, Trumpers. The body has detected self vs non-self. It’s now cleaning up. It was designed to do that. There’s nothing a Hillary supporter could have done to start it or stop it. That’s how our system works. No man is above the law. We will see how vigorous and durable the system is shortly.

But there is a giant looming problem coming up. Trump and his media affiliates have told their audiences that the Democrats in the justice department and Congress are trying to overturn the results of the election. This is laughable. The Democrats are politically out of power right now. There is literally no branch of government they have even the slightest amount of control over. The media ignores the 65 million of us that voted for Hillary. If there is any entity that could overturn the results of the election, it’s the government itself.

Nevertheless, Democrats and women and every other currently out of power group will get blamed for what happens next because we are cheering it on. The difference between executing the investigation, arrests and impeachment, and having any power to initiate them will be lost on the common Trumper. Trump himself has made sure of it.

They would do anything for him. That’s a big problem. Because they have guns. And we have a guy with a personality disorder threatened and casting around for someone to blame.

Maybe we should consider packing some heat.