Bizarre, Congress, Politics

“You Are The Only Ones Who Are So Into This”: Pelosi Walks Out Of Press Conference After Impeachment Is Raised

For two years, I have written columns about why the Democratic leadership had no intention of impeaching Donald Trump despite winning back the House based in part on that expectation by voters. The problem is that voters still think that the party is serious about impeachment even as the leadership delayed any real moves toward impeachment proceedings. Even with the vote yesterday to commence . . . well . . . something, the Democratic members disagreed on whether impeachment proceedings have begun. The effort still lacks the necessary focus, urgency, and legitimacy to be taken seriously. That point was vividly brought home by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a bizarre and arbitrarily short press conference yesterday.

Pelosi shut down the press questions when reporters asked fairly innocuous questions about the vote and the impeachment process. Pelosi snapped back “I’m not answering any more questions about a possible inquiry, investigation, and the rest.”

In a particularly bizarre moment, Pelosi tried shaming the reporters by asking “Why is it that you are hung up with a word over here when lives are at stake over there?”

It probably has something to do with a vote ostensibly on impeachment that day and the presidency at issue.

77 thoughts on ““You Are The Only Ones Who Are So Into This”: Pelosi Walks Out Of Press Conference After Impeachment Is Raised”

  2. Dear democrats, please impeach this guy. And after you fail he will be your biggest nightmare.

  3. Whoops!

    “Andrew McCabe hasn’t been indicted for allegedly lying to federal investigators, according to an email from his attorney asking prosecutors to drop the probe, a sign that the government’s case against the FBI’s former No. 2 official may be in jeopardy.

    The email is the latest development in days of uncertainty about whether Mr. McCabe, who drew repeated criticism from President Trump during the U.S. criminal probe into Russian election interference, would face criminal charges for alleged false statements he made as part of an internal Justice Department probe into 2016 media leaks.

    A federal grand jury met this week, according to people familiar with its deliberations. The days of closed-door drama without any sign of charges could indicate that prosecutors have encountered an unexpected snafu.

    In an email dated Thursday, Mr. McCabe’s attorney, Michael Bromwich, asked the U.S. Attorney in Washington, Jessie Liu, to confirm Mr. McCabe’s status, saying he had spoken to the prosecutors involved in the case, Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston, earlier Thursday.

    “At a minimum, based on our discussion with Mr. Cooney and Ms. Gaston this afternoon, it is clear that no indictment has been returned,” Mr. Bromwich wrote…..”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/andrew-mccabes-lawyer-again-asks-prosecutors-to-drop-case-11568397719

    1. I see you’re hoping for an indefinite reprieve. (Weren’t you telling us yesterday that LIu was a worthless hack?).

      1. Good luck with that Deep State case you all think will confirm your fantasies. You can’t even get the supposed ring leader up on a speeding ticket.

        I noted accurately that Liu was a political hack. Her worthiness is for her handlers to decide, but I doubt they are impressed by this development.

        1. She’s not a hack, she’s eminently qualified. Your assertion lacked factual support.
          you were provided the following information but you disregarded it. from wiki:

          Education and legal career
          Liu was born in Kingsville, Texas.[3] She received her Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from Harvard University in 1995, with a major in literature, and completed her J.D. degree at Yale Law School in 1998.[3] She clerked for Carolyn Dineen King of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1998–99.[2]

          Liu worked as an associate at Jenner & Block in 1999–2002, as a partner at the same firm in 2009–2016, and as a partner at Morrison & Foerster in 2016–17.[4]

          She served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia from 2002 to 2006.[3] Liu worked at the United States Department of Justice during the administration of President George W. Bush from 2006 to 2009. Her roles included deputy chief of staff in the National Security Division, counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division.[5]

          Liu worked for the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump, and in 2017 became deputy general counsel at the United States Department of the Treasury.[5] In June 2017, President Trump nominated Liu to become the next United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, which is the country’s largest U.S. Attorney’s office, with more than 300 prosecutors.[5] Liu was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote in September 2017.[1][6]

          In March 2019, President Donald Trump said he would nominate Liu to become United States Associate Attorney General, but she withdrew her name from consideration later that month because the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee objected to her nomination, in part because she was “not a conservative enough choice.”[7][8][9]

          Awards and honors
          Liu has received numerous awards. She was named a White Collar Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2015, was named among the Best Lawyers Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in 2011, received a Rising Star Award from the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Washington D.C. in 2011, and received a Service Award from the National Association of Women Lawyers in 2005.[3]

        2. ………….
          “At a minimum, based on our discussion with Mr. Cooney and Ms. Gaston this afternoon, it is clear that no indictment has been returned,” Mr. Bromwich wrote.

          A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment.

          Mr. McCabe had been under federal criminal investigation since the Justice Department’s internal watchdog concluded last year that he misled investigators about his role in providing information in October 2016 to a Wall Street Journal reporter. Mr. McCabe has long disputed the allegations. He was fired from his job in March 2018 just a day before he was eligible to retire with full benefits.

          Prosecutors had presented the case to a grand jury in Washington this past week, according to people familiar with the matter. At least 12 members of the jury—which can range from 16 to 23 people—must vote in favor of an indictment in order for it to be returned. It is extremely rare for a grand jury to decline an indictment sought by prosecutors because it only hears the government’s version of events and doesn’t require unanimity. A common joke in the legal profession is that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, if asked.”
          ————————

          I say:

          I DONT KNOW IF MCCABE IS A HAM SANDWICH BUT I THINK HE IS A PIG

          LET THE GRAND JURY AND AUSA DO THEIR JOBS

          McCabe may slip the net of prosecution, that would come as no surprise, what would be a surprise is if any of Hillary’s conspirators would come to justice at all.

          A successful prosecution, depends on things like credible witnesses who maintain their positions. All you need to screw the pooch is for a key witness to recant and then it can botch a whole case. Hence a lot of high profile people go unprosecuted, because folks are afraid to testify for fear of consequences. A lot of people who have testified or even just worked as lawyers against the Hillary team have come up to a lot of trouble (ahem, Kavanaugh)

          That doesn’t mean there isn’t a crime but it just becomes a crime not worth trying to pursue in court. any fool knows this.

          1. We disagree. McCabe is an honorable man with a couple of decades of service to the nation. The president is a pig.

            1. i found this online. i dont know who francis menton is but i like what he wrote. the original at the link reads easier using italics to quote mccabe’s pompous self serving scribblings.

              https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-2-16-comments-on-andrew-mccabe-and-the-fbis-coup-plotters

              Comments On Andrew McCabe And The FBI’s Coup Plotters
              February 16, 2019/ Francis Menton

              Disgraced ex-FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe has written a book, and of course then he’s out trying to sell it. On Thursday the Atlantic published an excerpt. Tomorrow McCabe is to appear on 60 Minutes in a pre-recorded segment, several snippets of which have become public in advance of the airing.

              Plenty of people have already offered up comments. Here are some you might find interesting: Marc Penn at Fox News; Roger Kimball at Spectator USA; Andrew McCarthy at Fox News; Willis Krumholz at the Federalist; Julie Kelly at American Greatness; Byron York at the Washington Examiner.

              Not wanting to repeat what’s already been said, I’ll just offer up a few thoughts. Most important, you really have to marvel at the deep state mindset exemplified by this guy — a combination of ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, and, more than anything else, sanctimony. Sanctimony. The total confidence in his own righteousness and holiness, even as he has wholly lost track of — or is completely ignorant of — all the applicable legal and ethical principles, even the very most basic ones.

              Let’s look at a couple of quotes from McCabe’s book excerpt in the Atlantic:

              The president steps over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he encounters them. Everyone in America saw it when he fired my boss [Comey]. . . .

              On Wednesday, May 10, 2017, my first full day on the job as acting director of the FBI, I sat down with senior staff involved in the Russia case—the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. As the meeting began, my secretary relayed a message that the White House was calling. The president himself was on the line. I had spoken with him the night before, in the Oval Office, when he told me he had fired James Comey. A call like this was highly unusual. Presidents do not, typically, call FBI directors. There should be no direct contact between the president and the director, except for national-security purposes. The reason is simple. Investigations and prosecutions need to be pursued without a hint of suspicion that someone who wields power has put a thumb on the scale. . . . The Russia team was in my office.

              Where to start? “Everyone in America saw” that when Trump fired Comey Trump had “step[ped] over [a] bright ethical and moral line.” Something tells me that you didn’t see that as an obvious “ethical and moral” violation by Trump. Certainly, I did not. And I’m a lawyer who specializes in legal ethics! I know all the relevant legal and ethical principles, and I don’t know of a one of them that Trump even potentially violated by firing Comey. As far as I know, the main applicable rule here is that the President has the absolute right to fire the FBI Director, at any time, for any or no reason. That rule follows directly from the first line of Article II of the Constitution, which provides that “the Executive Power” is “vested” in the “President.” So Trump didn’t do anything wrong that I know of by firing Comey; but how about McCabe, acting as Director of the FBI, claiming that the President crosses a “bright ethical and moral line” by exercising his constitutional authority to fire a subordinate officer? McCabe took an oath to “support the Constitution.” How can McCabe not see that it is contrary to his oath of office to oppose the President’s exercise of constitutional authority?

              And how about this one: “There should be no direct contact between the president and the [FBI] director, except for national-security purposes. The reason is simple. Investigations and prosecutions need to be pursued without a hint of suspicion that someone who wields power has put a thumb on the scale.” Here McCabe is completely confusing an aspirational discretionary practice intended to protect run-of-the-mill prosecutions with a “bright ethical and moral line.” There is no ethical or moral rule preventing the President from calling the Director of the FBI, and indeed President has the absolute right to call the Director, and to issue orders to him. When the FBI Director says he shouldn’t have to take calls from the President, or obey the President’s orders, is for him to say that he can ignore and overturn the result of the election. No, he can’t. That one is actually an important bright line legal rule, not some aspirational discretionary practice.

              Before this, did you somehow have the idea that somebody who had risen to the level of Acting Director of the FBI would actually understand what might be the most basic constitutional and legal principles applicable to his job? Well, now you know. They don’t have a clue. Instead, all they know is the blind rule of partisanship — we help the guys we perceive to be on our team, and obstruct the guys on the other team. Therefore, an elected Republican shall not be allowed to exercise the powers of the office to which he was elected; and we can prevent that exercise, because we are the holy and anointed ones. How do we know that? Hmmm, we haven’t really thought that one through.

              Then there is McCabe’s discussion of what he calls “the Russia investigation.” McCabe describes it as “the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.” Was it actually a real investigation, or just a pretext to come up with some reason to have the President removed from office? McCabe doesn’t address that subject in this piece. Certainly, he gives no reason for us to believe that this investigation was real. But, without offering any reason why this was a real versus pretextual investigation (did you have anything other than the Steele dossier?), McCabe nevertheless makes clear that the single most critical thing to him in his new job was that this particular investigation must continue even if he gets fired:

              After Comey’s firing, the core of my concern had to do with what might happen to the Russia case if I were to be removed. I convened a series of meetings about that investigation—including the one interrupted by the call from the president—in which I directed an overall review of every aspect. . . . I wanted to protect the Russia investigation in such a way that whoever came after me could not just make it go away.

              So a few thousand dollars of Russian Facebook ads somehow became the total preoccupation of the Acting Director of the FBI? Or was this really about an effort to figure out a way to remove the President from office? Over to the New York Times, which has an article on Friday quoting from a separate McCabe interview, with the headline “McCabe Says Justice Dept. Officials Had Discussions About Pushing Trump Out.”

              Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy F.B.I. director, said in an interview aired on Thursday that top Justice Department officials became so alarmed by President Trump’s decision in May 2017 to fire James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, that they discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.

              Yes, it’s not just the FBI, but also the top officials of the Justice Department, who get “alarmed” when the wrong President tries to exercise his clear constitutional authority to fire someone. Rod Rosenstein is one of them, of course. And he’s still there!

              Finally, I just want to point out that it was on May 25, 2017 — in the immediate aftermath of the Comey firing (May 10) and the Mueller appointment (May 16) — that I offered up my own hypothesis of the situation: that the whole “Russia!” thing was just a “preposterous . . . cover story to excuse blatantly illegal government spying on [the] Trump campaign.” Nearly two years later, that prognostication is looking rather good. Except the cover story was intended not only to excuse some pre-election spying, but also to justify a post-election attempted coup.

              Looks like William Barr has his work cut out for him for the next couple of years. There are plenty of people here who should be going to jail.

              1. You should read more about McCabe, but not from right wing sources convinced he’s a Deep State plotter who tried to overthrow Trump.

                Do you understand that the entire IG investigation of McCabe is around an incident in which he confirmed a WSJ article about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation 2 weeks before the election? WTF? That hurt her, not Trump, just like Comey did 2 days before that with his October surprise. WTF is wrong with you?

                As to whether he lied to investigators about this incident? WGAF? In his position he was allowed to issue press information. The entire incident is so murky and inconsequential as to be a bad joke about the politicization of the DOJ, started by SEssions under pressure and with your pals and political hacks Liu and Rosen seeking an indictment for the kind of BS which is handled administratively.

                Did you know, he and Comey were on opposites sides of some of the facts during this “investigation”? Some conspiracy!!

            2. We disagree. McCabe is an honorable man with a couple of decades of service to the nation

              Note, the partisan Democrats definition of ‘honorable man’ is one implicated in

              1. Allowing Hellary to skate on criminal charges and

              2. Abusing the FISA process in order to get a warrant to spy on the Republican campaign.

              3. In addition to the offenses cited by the inspector-general.

              What partisan Democrats are doing is making it impossible to share the country with them.

              1. Doofus, putting aside there is no evidence of abusing FISA warrants, the decision on Hillary was Comey. Here’s the SC case supporting his reasoning. Enjoy.

                “…In Gorin v. United States (1941),…..Justice Stanley Reed wrote the majority opinion and disagreed that the law was unconstitutionally vague, but only on the very narrow grounds that the law required “intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States.” Only because the court read the law to require scienter, or bad faith, before a conviction could be sustained was the law constitutional. Otherwise, it would be too difficult for a defendant to know when exactly material related to the national defense. The court made clear that if the law criminalized the simple mishandling of classified information, it would not survive constitutional scrutiny, writing:

                The sections are not simple prohibitions against obtaining or delivering to foreign powers information… relating to national defense. If this were the language, it would need to be tested by the inquiry as to whether it had double meaning or forced anyone, at his peril, to speculate as to whether certain actions violated the statute.

                In other words, the defendant had to intend for his conduct to benefit a foreign power for his actions to violate 793(f).

                Without the requirement of intent, the phrase “relating to the national defense” would be unconstitutionally vague. This reading of the statute has guided federal prosecutors ever since, which is why Comey based his decision not to file charges on Clinton’s lack of intent. This is also why no one has ever been convicted of violating 793(f) on a gross negligence theory….

                Members of the U.S. military have been charged with the negligent mishandling of classified material, but not under 793(f). Criminal charges in military court are brought under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not the Espionage Act (although violations of the Espionage Act can be charged under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in military court). The military has extensive regulations that govern the handling of classified material and the failure to follow these regulations is a criminal offense. Negligence can result in a conviction under Article 92 because the test is whether the service member “knew or should have known” they were violating the regulation. But these rules do not apply to any civilian personnel at the State Department and can only be applied to DoD civilians in very limited circumstances.

                Despite what may appear to be the plain meaning of 793(f), the negligent mishandling of classified material is not a civilian criminal offense. A civilian can face many consequences for negligently mishandling classified material, including the loss of their clearance and probably with it their employment, but they would not face criminal charges. For anyone who thinks negligence should be a crime their argument is not with Director Comey but with Justice Reed, the author of the Gorin opinion. Because of that decision, the correct standard is intent, not gross negligence, and the director was right not to recommend a criminal case.

                John Ford is a former military prosecutor and a current reserve U.S. Army Judge Advocate. He now practices law in California. You can follow him on twitter at @johndouglasford.”

                https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/why-intent-not-gross-negligence-is-the-standard-in-clinton-case/

    1. She’s 79 years old and she’s been in Congress for 32 years. She won a special election after having been endorsed by her predecessor (who was sick with cancer and anointed her on her deathbed). She was on party payrolls on and off for a dozen years prior. Long ago, she was a schoolteacher for a brief period. She was a housewife for about a dozen years. She was, in January of this year, the oldest person (bar one) ever placed in the Speaker’s chair (that one would be Sam Rayburn, whose age at the beginning of his last tour as Speaker did exceed her age on 3 January 2019 – by 82 days; Rayburn died 10 months later). She’s been in charge of the Democratic caucus for 16 years. Her deputy has been Steny Hoyer that whole time. Hoyer is 80 years old and has held public office since 1962. Hoyer qualified for a handsome pension in 2004 and Pelosi in 2007.

      No clue why these gerontocrats do what they do. Neither is known as a policy wonk and, unlike Sam Rayburn, they have families. In the other chamber, you have upChuck Schumer, who has been in public office since 1975 and in Congress since 1981. He is 68 years old. Then there is Richard Durbin, who has been on public payrolls or receiving public contractor income since 1969; he is 74 years old and has been in Congress since 1983.

      1. you’re 74, have a networth of less than $500 yet we keep hoping you will wall off these forums

        so there is something for which to be hopeful…

        any. day. now

        1. I gather you’re Diane’s alcoholic grand-nephew. If I’m causing you pain, it’s all to the good.

        2. I think you meant “fall off these forums”?

          Yes, “we keep hoping…”

          “This is absurd x XIII” is real peach.

    2. No she’s worth a lot of votes lost to the left and helps immensely to split up divide and destory the socialist party

    1. Democrats, Republicans, News Organizations, this Presidency, the Juidiciary, Congress, our Country are each doing their version of a Thelma and Louise suicide pack. Thankfully Rep Ipsa will be fine what with Paul and Mespo posting and commenting from their graves

      1. Rich heard this metaphor today on NPR and thinks maybe a bunch of knuckle draggers like me who like Trump can’t listen to the radio and detect his plagiarized analogy. Make your apologies to the British guy, Rich. Waiting.

        1. I can in my mind’s eye see Jill and Natacha driving off that cliff, Darren Wilson sprinting madly after them in one last attempt to get them to do something sensible.

  6. RIP Res Ipsa Loquitur

    The blog is dead save for the same +/- 10 commenters who desperately seek relevance to their sad meaningless retired existence

    1. Tom Nobles – I am neither desperate, sad, or meaningless. However, I am retired and if you take care of yourself, you can one day be my age, too.

    2. “The blog is dead save for the same +/- 10 commenters who desperately seek relevance to their sad meaningless retired existence.”
      ********************
      As you comment here, I assume that includes you.

  7. I desperately wish the Dems would impeach, but they won’t because they know they’ll end up being exposed as frauds. Pelosi knows this very well. It’s much better for the Dems to screech and howl all the way to the election instead.

  8. Nadler is going for the evidence to placed in the Congressional Record. The hearings will do this and build the support that Pelosi is looking for.

    1. Anonymous at 10:47 AM yesterday,
      I thought that Mueller, Weissman, and CO. were “going for the evidence” that the pro-impeachment advocates thought would “build support” for impeachment.
      The long anticipated “smoking gun” turned out to be a cap pistol.

  9. Two hypotheses:

    1. Partisan Democrats fancy Trump must be impeached for paying no attention to the p’s and q’s they insist on and for prospering in spite of contrived sh!tstorms courtesy the media. Can’t have that. People might actually start discussing things we want off the table and might get the idea that our normative judgments are just the world’s a**holes being obnoxious and arbitrary.

    2. Pelosi has gamed this and figures they need swing voters, who are irritated if not revolted by controversy. Usually, the media wing can stick the Republicans with the bill for controversy, but she’s not sure this will be possible if obnoxious clowns like Jerrold Nadler are the ones initiating the controversy. Ergo, the dynamic of public opinion could break against them.

    Keep in mind that there aren’t many people in the Democratic caucus willing to say for attribution that the sort of thing that bothers them (and the trumpery they drape over it) aren’t what the impeachment process is for (or the provisions in the 25th Amendment, while we’re at it).

    1. Or, just maybe, it’s like this:

      1. Trump is and has always been thoroughly corrupt and narcissistic. He is no leader, and everything he does is motivated by his sad, pathetic need for attention and adulation. He cheated to steal the election by providing Russia with information on where the best districts would be for spreading lies about Hillary Clinton on social media, and has done everything possible to carry out whatever agenda Putin wants, in return. That is the truth. There is no “deep state” out to get him, but nevertheless the Faux News disciples want to believe.Facts don’t faze them. Mueller is corrupt. Comey is evil. Media, other than Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and Faux News are the enemy of the people. This is the sick, twisted spin his Administration has put on the truth.

      2. HOWEVER, the American people do NOT like impeachment, no matter what the facts. It backfired badly on Republicans when they did it to Bill Clinton. It makes the entire country look bad to the rest of the world. Pelosi, who is a very savvy politician, knows this, and that’s the only reason she opposes it. Her position: let’s just get that fat, lying misogynist racist out of the White House so that we can turn around the damage he has done. China can, and will, wait him out. They’ll just buy their soybeans, corn, apples, autos, etc. elsewhere. Brazil is ready, willing and able to fill the void. Let’s just hope that the farmers here in the US and the rest of us who’s medication and car parts are imported from China don’t suffer too badly until he’s gone.

      1. Or, just maybe, it’s like this:

        No, it’s not like that, Natacha. You’re damaged goods. Other people are not damaged goods and don’t think like you. Ever.

      2. always been like this Comrade Natacha is так полон дерьма she can’t keep the different stories and what she said before in mind and ends up as usual being an obvious member of the menshevik party.

  10. I know you don’t read these but within 2 hours you proved my concern that your writing is often marred by an implicit bias that I wish you would correct. This morning the first post I got from you had heated and angry rhetoric intended to suggest that the President is not “performing”. The first post started with the headline:”Less than Earnest? Heroic Account Celebrated By Trump at White House Denounced as Fraud” and ended with a virulent statement that “What concerns me is not the embarrassing repetition of a false account by the President. What concerns me is that, after three years, this White House is still struggling to meet minimal standards of performance.”

    THen this article with a much softer headline and far less strident statement about Sen. Pelosi: “In a particularly bizarre moment, Pelosi tried shaming the reporters by asking “Why is it that you are hung up with a word over here when lives are at stake over there?”. What you SHOULD HAVE SAID in the Pelosi article (IF you were truly intellectually fair and balanced) was: What concerns me is not (just) the embarrassing repetition of a false account (of crimes suggesting impeachment and a dismissal of the Mueller Report they said would be definitive and damning) by Pelosi and the Democrats. What concerns me is that, after three years, this (Democrat Party and Pelosi’s committee chair Nadler) are still struggling to meet minimal standards of performance (and instead trying to create false news and smears in an attempt to “resist” a duly elected President.)”

    It is time to stop smearing the President and start objectively evaluating the political environment we are in. Members of the Press will focus on absurd issues of markers meant to keep people safe, but ignore that US is thriving, the economy is outstanding and the citizens of the US are the free-est people in the world. Stop your smears and logical fallacies about a duly elected president.

    3. SBG: Trump is a joke, both here and abroad. The economy is more due to the efforts of Barak Obama who reversed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. What, exactly, did Trump do that qualifies him to take credit for the economy? The tax cuts? They went to the wealthiest 1%, who used the money to purchase stock options, not to build more plants or hire more people. Many factories have closed since his occupation of the White House. Environmental roll backs? All that does is pad the pockets of polluters and create pollution that will kill people. He never has had any agenda to bring about the 3% annual growth number he made up. Now, due to his ego, which he thought would cause China to back down and do whatever he wanted, he has started a trade war. He’ll either back down or put us into a full blown recession, of which there are already signs on the horizon.

      Where did you get the idea that the crimes found by Mueller are false? Mueller has documents and sworn testimony. Trump did not cooperate with Mueller, and Mueller never got any tax returns or financial records. Mueller did get dozens of indictments, guilty pleas and convictions. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, is serving prison time for crimes in which Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator. Mueller found no less than 10 instances of obstruction of justice. These are facts, and if you were a patriot instead of a disciple, it would upset you that the POTUS colluded with a hostile foreign power to steal the election and then abused the power he wrongfully obtained to avoid being brought to justice. Flynn and Manafort are disgraced liars. Trump’s scandal, which affects all of us is exponentially worse than Bill Clinton lying about an affair with an intern.

      What, to you does “duly elected” mean? He LOST the popular vote, and only squeaked by the Electoral College because his campaign provided key polling data to Russians which they used to spread lies about HRC in key districts. The majority of the American people did not vote for him and have not approved of him since he started occupying the White House and started pretending he is the leader of the free world. He doesn’t deserve respect. He deserves scorn. He and Moscow Mitch McConnell will not allow the Secure Elections bill to come to a vote. They don’t work for us—never did.

      Does it bother you that every time Trump doesn’t get his way or can’t bully someone he launches into a pathetic grade school level tirade of name-calling? How about the unprecedented number of departures of key administration and cabinet members, and the historic number of unfilled positions? Does that sound like leadership to you?

      SBG: these are facts, not smears, and, yes, they make him look bad because he IS bad.

          1. This is true, because, I can’t force myself to read her rambling, blathering, hate filled screeds against the Donald. I much prefer to read your succinct and cogent posts than hers.
            And where is Peter? I miss his worthy contributions.

            Natch, I will not miss. Donald, narcissist, aboard, etc etc. same old same old. boring and usually irrelevant.

            1. There’s no point in reading Natch’s posts. They never vary in their level of vitriol and hatred. Should come with a health warning, in fact.

              1. Foxtrot,
                I disagree. When Natacha pretends to be a bitter, crazed, hate-filled woman who has gone bananas over the the fact that Trump is in the White House, it’s worthwhile to read her posts for the humor.

          2. When she starts out with a prize like ” The economy is more due to the efforts of Barak Obama who reversed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.”, no one is motivated to undertake a line-by-line reading of one of her rants (which are, by the way, hideously repetitive, almost as if she had a series of macros to compose them).

            1. TIA is guaranteed to ignore the obvious and irrefutable if it offends his Dear Leader. The economy – except for the sugar rush from writing $1 trillion in hot checks – is moving along as yet uninterrupted on the trajectory of the longest period of growth since WWII, which began in Obama’s 1st term. Only a fool like TIA would believe otherwise. I doubt even his Dear Leader – as ignorant and vain a fool as has ever been president. – believes otherwise.

              1. The ‘fool like TIA’, unlike Walter Anon1 / JanF Mitty, has been schooled in the rudiments of macroeconomics and microeconomics.

                Economic development has long-term trends driven by stochastic technological developments and the social milieux fostered by policy. Nothing Obama did or did not do is going to effect the former and his initiatives in regard to the latter likely had injurious effects (though not necessarily ones of a scale and specificity you can detect). Regime uncertaintly, malinvestment and crony capitalism aren’t ace policies.

                As for the intracyclical effects, again, nothing there. The most consequential driver is monetary policy. A series of monetary policy adjustments were put into effect in the latter part of 2008 before Obama took office and the salient officials implementing them were the same cast of characters before and after. The only thing Obama would get credit for is not going in half-cocked and making wholesale changes in the dramatis personae at the Fed. None of his predecessors did that, either, so it’s arbitrary to give him kudos for that.

                The efficacy of fiscal stimulus on output is circumstantially variable, but, as a rule, the latter is fairly insensitive to the former (just not completely so). Obama largely ignored the counsel of people like Martin Feldstein (who recommended speeding up replacement of military equipment) and signed a massive porkulus bill that consisted of a set of Democratic caucus wishlists stapled together. Never let a crisis go to waste. The current regulatory environment being what it is, the capacity of this sort of thing to have any effect at all on output and employment without lead times measured in years is minimal. Output levels stabilized in May 2009, just weeks after the bill was signed; it had no effect in that time frame.

                As for emergency response, every single element in the package had been put in place by the time Obama took office. The quartet responsible in the last months of the Bush Administration was Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Sheila Bair. The quartet responsible later was Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke, William Dudley, and Sheila Bair. (Dudley had been one of Geithner’s direct reports at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). The one person that was shown the door with dispatch was Christopher Cox, who had chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bush’s Comptroller of the Currency remained in office until the summer of 2010.

                The Obama administration did have some riffs, such as diverting TARP money to bailout the auto industry as a courtesy to the United Auto Workers. Reorganization through an orderly bankruptcy process was certainly an option in that case, but you can’t do that if you want to rape secured creditors (the Chrysler bondholders) to pay off your clients.

                Casey Mulligan has delineated the ways in which other Democratic policies (e.g. raising the minimum wage) and adding more uncertainty to the cost of benefits programs with the Obamacare initiative impeded the recovery of the labor market.

                And your forgetting that the rate of increase in real gdp per capita from 2009 to 2017 was the slowest of any recovery cycle on record. There’d been a stepwise decline in economic dynamism over 40 years. Nothing the Democratic Congress did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 changed that. Made it worse, in fact.

                Two major initiatives of the Democratic caucus in Congress were revisions to health care finance (now a mess) and revisions to financial sector regulation (which Barney Frank devised by holding bull sessions of lobbyists in his office). Frank was as implicated as anyone in the previous regulatory catastrophe. It says something about the Democratic caucus that he was in charge of the process. The resulting bill was hopelessly complex, addressed no systemic pathologies, and made bankers even more dependent on discretionary decisions of regulators (many of whom are lawyers of the sort who couldn’t make sense of Henry Markoplous’ presentations on Bernard Madoff Securities). What the bill did do was make businessmen more dependent on Democratic pols to intervene for them. How convenient.

                1. TIAs tries to cover his stupid myopic partisanship with a filibuster, which largely irrelevant or wrong. Without wasting my time down in weeds he has planted, we had choices in 2008, 2009, and fortunately made the right ones. If he doesn’t know, the Great Recession was not only the worst since 1929 but a worldwide event against which we can measure our relative success. No, the favorite GOP canard about the relative slowness of the recovery does not apply with this level of crisis. The facts are that outperformed the rest of the world in our recovery, except Germany, with whom we were neck and neck. The rest of the world, including the UK practiced austerity, as idiots like Feldstein and the GOP favored and remained mired in stagnation almost up to the present.

                  As to TIAs ignorant and typical partisan attack on the Stimulus – does he oppose Trump’s stimulus, needlessly passed during a period of growth? – not only do better analytical organizations than he – CBO and Moodys to name 2 – score it as an important part of our quick recovery – see above – but it was meted out fairly to blue and red states – I can speak with first hand knowledge of the 100 teachers jobs so saved in a neighboring red county in a red state – with full transparency through an online tracking system of funds and projects. Did I mention that 1/3 of it was in the form of immediate payroll tax cuts.

                  TIA is good at GOP talking points, but that is the party that cares only for tax cuts for the rich and has now led us into the two worst financial collapses of the last 100 years. Why don’t you read something from the people who get this right?

                  1. TIAs tries to cover his stupid myopic partisanship with a filibuster, which largely irrelevant or wrong.

                    Thanks for the exercise in projection. Been an education.

      2. The economy is more due to the efforts of Barak Obama who reversed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

        In addition to knowing nothing of the law, Natacha knows nothing of micro- or macro-economics.

      3. Natash – Your arguments are all logical fallacies and more of the lies and smears you have been spoon fed by the media. Dems/liberals lied for 2 years (Schiff,Shumer, Pelosi, et al) stating every day that Donald Trump was a traitor who colluded with the Russians. WHAT A PIECE OF C–P! And of course, Mueller proved that the Dem liars were just smearing and lieing for 2 full years. I understand that people like you can be duped so easily but it’s just sad. And to address some of your other issues: Unfilled positions are mostly unfilled because the Dems have blocked them when historically all Presidents had them approved. There is no unprecedented departures – this is entirely typical. Liberals have lied over and over about Justice Kavanaugh, Covington Catholic, Papadapoulos, Flynn, etc. But a sheep public like you are can’t even see when you are being duped. The economy is booming, finally minoriities and women are getting jobs and wages are rising. But it’s people like you who are duped into beleiving the lies and who love to spread smears are hurting the US.

    4. Did you say “free” no “free-est.” Seriously? Free to what, pay taxes to support clearly antithetical,illegitimate and unconstitutional principles of communism such as affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, rent control, social services, forced busing, minimum wage, utility subsidies, WIC, TANF, HAMP, HARP, Dept.’s of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Obamaphones, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.

      You just said that, “free.” You have got to be bull——- me. You have no concept of the magnitude of the actual freedom the American Founders provided in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Per fundamental law, government exists only to facilitate the maximum freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure. The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional and individuals are ENSLAVED and FORCED to pay for central planning, control of the means of production (i.e. unconstitutional regulation), redistribution of wealth and social engineering.

      I absolutely do not believe you said “free” or “free-est.” The Constitution and Bill of Rights does not say that Americans should be the “free-est,” it says Americans ARE free, PERIOD, the government is severely limited and restricted and no branch of government has any power to deny that freedom – yet they have.

      Try reading Article 1, Section 8 – Congress can’t tax for redistribution of wealth or individual welfare and Congress can’t regulate anything other than commerce among the states. It says the right to private property is unqualified in the Bill of Rights and is, therefore, absolute.

      DANG!

  11. I just spit my coffee up when I saw the image of Pelosi in the Youtube video link you provided, reminding me of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music.

    botched plastic surgery x 20

    1. The people who say the 25th Amendment should be invoked against the president are perfectly at home with her syntactical labyrinths.

    2. Why does she have such a deep tan? Are the lights that hot in her office?…because ya know, all she does is work, work, work to rid America of gun violence, bless her heart.

          1. My jokes fall flat. She doesn’t actually own that house. Just holding out an example of something of which she could avail herself. (Pricey, but handsome).

            2. TIAXIII…. No, no….Nothing wrong with your wit….very sharp. I just haven’t consumed enough espresso this morning.
              I tell my husband that if he wants people to be sure that he’s joking in an email, he should put a smiley face or LOL.
              He would rather chew glass. In short, it aint gonna happen. 😊

        3. DSS – Pelosi and her husband own a vineyard in Napa. Laura Loomer took 3 illegal aliens and set up a tent on her front lawn there after Nancy said illegals were welcome everywhere. They got arrested.

          2. Mr. Schulte,
            A compromised was reached, and Pelosi agreed drop charges against the illegals, provided that they register to vote as Democrats within 30 days.

        4. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QfL-SSzLMdk/maxresdefault.jpg

          “DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH” for thee, but not for me. Pelosi WHITE POWER! Surprised none of Nan’s family members display the white power hand symbol. Maybe behind their back, out of camera sight?

          How many dark skinned illegals do you think live near Nan’s house, or any of her family members?

    3. with her exponential number of costmetic procedures, those financial resources could have been put to better less narcissistic use like employing the homeless and immigrants for starters of SF, and paying them to clean up the sh!t

    4. I hear they’re remaking “Escape from L.A.”. Remember the first thing Snake Plissken had to deal with after being sent over the barbed wire? SURGICAL FAILURES.

      Just a thought, in case Madam Speaker wants to do a reverse Schwarzenegger and explore acting after Congress.

    5. i thought i just heard her say “why F#@^ would you….”

      did she drop the F bomb or just having pronunciation difficulties?

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