Seriously…it’s the best thing going on a Tuesday night: The Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. All are welcomed, so stop by for an evening of politics and drinks.
We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Ok…then check out one of the 250 chapters of Living Liberally, including 23 in Washington state, six in Oregon and three in Idaho. Find a chapter near you. Or consider starting your own chapter.
Scott Pruitt announced this morning that Republicans are planning to make urban air dirtier.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/scott-pruitt-epa-vehicle-fuel-emission-standards-obama-era-announcement-today-live-stream/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Doc doesn’t have to worry about this. Where he lives, he’s breathing nice clean methane from burping cows.
Louisville, KY
Oscar Walters, 68 suspected of beating wife with a heavy flashlight, ordered to drop rifle by law enforcement officers, pointed rifle at officers, fired at officers, no shots fired by officers, taken into custody.
Bet you can guess something about the suspect that might explain the surprising level of restraint shown by first responders….
This is why they kneel #philandocastille
The President’s 2016 Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort is indicted on felony charges of money laundering, tax evasion, and failure to disclose foreign lobbying extending into 2017. Manafort has challenged the Special Prosecutor’s authority under the authorizing statute to bring those indictments.
The challenge is based on three arguments: that the allegations in the Superseding Indictment concern matters that long pre-date the period of time specified in the original appointment order; that DAG Rosenstein, as the “politically accountable official” identified in the statue, cannot grant authority to a Special Prosecutor through an original appointment order that goes beyond a “specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated”; and that the Special Prosecutor may only pursue other matters that arise during the investigation if they have obtained “additional jurisdiction” from the “politically accountable official”.
The Special Prosecutor’s response to the complaint is both thorough and revealing. Not only does it dispose of the complaint, but it gives us a clearer picture of the clockwork method employed thus far in the conduct of the investigation and strongly hints at the expanded nature of the probe. Of course the information contained in the Superseding Indictment itself disposes of the first argument in the complaint. Manafort’s illegal activities were ongoing, perhaps right up until the search warrant was served and his financial accounts frozen last summer.
As to the second argument, the authorizing statute does not require that the “specific factual statement” of matters to be investigated be included in the public appointment order of the Special Prosecutor. This is in keeping with DOJ practice where such public release might serve to notify those under investigation and promote opportunities for obstruction and hindrance. Furthermore, as DAG Rosenstein testified under oath before the Congress, the specific factual statement of matters under investigation by Special Prosecutor Mueller is not included in the appointment order.
And as to the last argument, the response to the complaint includes a highly redacted memo from the DAG dated August 2, 2017 that specifically grants additional authority to the Special Prosecutor to investigate Manafort’s Ukrainian/Russian money laundering operation, his illegal activities within the U.S. on behalf of Ukrainian and Russian interests, and his use of illegal schemes to hide his income from taxation.
I regard the complaint itself as a long shot, but also as a strategic effort on the part of someone fully expecting to be granted a Presidential pardon to get the Special Prosecutor to lift his skirts. In that sense it has been somewhat successful. The memo, and it’s redactions, describe a rigorous and ongoing process of notification and authorization between the DAG and the Special Prosecutor going back to the original appointment order. There are bound to be many more such memos before and after this one. Some of that is indicated within the context of the redacted portions. That suggests that authority now exists, and probably has existed for some time, for the Special Prosecutor to expand the investigation into matters involving the Trump business, and probably the Kushner family businesses, as well as businesses involved with the Flynn family, Sec. Ross, Steve Bannon, the Mercer family, and many others. Unless the Republicans step in to fire the DOJ and halt the investigation, this is going to be with us for a while. And the shredders are going to be melting down this week.
In case you didn’t know, KOMO News is now owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, and is about to become a rightwing propaganda megaphone. The journalists are leaving.
https://tinyurl.com/y94a353y
@3 “Manafort has challenged the Special Prosecutor’s authority under the authorizing statute to bring those indictments.”
That’s kind of like Ted Bundy saying, “You can’t prosecute me for those Washington murders because I’m in Florida now.”
@3 “someone fully expecting to be granted a Presidential pardon”
Manafort knows Trump better than most of us, so you’d expect he, of all people, understands the only conspirator Trump’s going to pardon is Trump.
4,
This guy said it best:
Another current KOMO journalist said: “While it’s romantic to be a martyr, it’s more realistic to put a résumé tape together.”
Media law in this area is tricky. But I think if you go back and read the Sinclair statement carefully, absent the political framing and the Shit-Lord Tweeting of President PornHub, it’s really a broad criticism of “all other” media. It isn’t good. It’s definitely a sleazy move. But it also isn’t partisan. So it could be very hard to argue that anyone’s rights are violated.
I sort of respect these people’s frustration. But they work in a fundamentally sleazy business. And every damn one of them already knows that. The money and perceptions of glamour have usually been enough to overcome this kind of squeamishness. It never troubled their principles when the editorial wall was smashed down decades ago in order to run fluff, infomercial segments presented as news in the middle of their broadcasts to promote key advertisers.
Today, local broadcast news consists of cat-up-a-tree/burning-car/GoreTex-in-a-tornado interspersed with “important consumer bulletins” about the latest baby jogging strollers and dick pills. Their web presence merely promotes the aired “reports” along with an aggregation of AP wires that never make the air. They don’t even have reporters assigned to local or state government anymore. They just sit back and wait for the PIOs to invite them to lunch.
I think it’s pretty telling that, at least at first, until the trailerbillies had a chance to figure out who Sinclair was, the Wife-Beaters were as outraged about the coordinated statement as anyone else. Maybe more so, since they automatically associated it with an Islamic plot, “Black Lives Matter” and chemicals in the water, etc.
Marco Rubio wants to protect Florida schoolchildren from the Nikolas Cruz’s of the world. He wants them to shoot up D.C. schools instead:
“It was one week after the fatal shootings at a Parkland, Florida high school, and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was looking to show solidarity with an angry crowd of parents and students in his home state. He told them — and a national television audience — that 18-year-olds should not be able to buy a rifle and said, ‘I will support a law that takes that right away.’
“About 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north, District of Columbia officials could only shake their heads in disbelief. The city already had a law barring 18-year-olds from buying rifles, yet Rubio was the main senator pushing legislation to end that ban, as well as D.C.’s prohibition of assault weapons.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/dc-officials-call-rubios-stance-on-gun-control-hypocritical.html
@7 Interesting that all the major media in Seattle, a progressive town, are rightwing. About the only “liberal media” around here are The Stranger and HA. The domination of the print media and airwaves by rightwing propagandists doesn’t seem to be working, though. Seattle is still a town where it’s hard to find a live Republican.
6,
I think Manafort is still working for President PornHub. It’s just not a triable case. So absent a pardon there’s no earthly reason not to cooperate. Especially since Mueller has shown considerable restraint in his indictments and recommendations of cooperating witnesses. Manafort’s crooked as fuck. He knows it. His whole family knows it. And they’ve known it for many years. Two or three years inside would be a gift compared to the 20 he faces at trial. Unless there’s another option.
His job now is to pipeline discovery to the as yet un-indicted co-conspirators. Discovery in both trials will be under protective order. So the violators have got their go-bags by the door, their passports in order, and their fuck you money stashed securely overseas.
@ 2
First, it was an air rifle and there’s no indication that the officers thought their lives were in danger at the time.
Second, before alleging preferential treatment by the police, maybe check out the dude’s mug shot.
http://www.wave3.com/story/378.....ing-arrest
Maybe you shoulda hashtagged Rodney King rather than Philando Castile.
@ 4
I missed the part of your link in which it was reported that journalists are leaving, Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit.
Maybe they’re joining Alec Baldwin and Matt Damon by exiting the country?
Ya know what all those right-wing media types @ 9 in Seattle are gonna wanna eat, doncha?
Yup.
Chick-fil-A to become nation’s third-largest fast food restaurant by 2020, analysts say
According to the QSR 50 rankings, the average Chick-fil-A already takes in $4.4 million annually per unit, a figure that dwarfs its nearest competitor — Whataburger, which takes in $2.7 million per unit per year.
The average McDonald’s and Starbucks pull in $2.5 million and $1.1 million, respectively. Chick-fil-A, however, only boasts a fraction of the revenue-generating locations as McDonald’s and Starbucks.
http://www.foxnews.com/food-dr.....s-say.html
In a few years they’ll be gutting Starbucks locations on Capitol Hill to be putting in Chick-Fil-A stores instead. Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit will be dead by then but even if not he wouldn’t be able to afford to eat there.
@ 7
So it could be very hard to argue that anyone’s rights are violated.
You mean it could be very hard for the argument to be taken seriously.
All y’all HA libbies do around these parts is argue that your rights are being violated by shit like Hillary’s decision not to campaign in Wisconsin. Or by Donald Trump’s preference for hanging out with hot wimenz, instead of with the Massengill-deficient Amy Goodman types that populate the Town Hall lectures in these parts.
The best thing about Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s personal hygiene issues these days is that he can no longer smell Mrs. Rabbit.
Here’s one of the best examples of the Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit Effect:
GE’s stock falls as the lone Dow loser after analyst cuts price target
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ges-stock-falls-as-the-lone-dow-loser-after-analyst-cuts-price-target-2018-04-03
What did Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit say about GE on October 20?
GE is one of my larger positions, and I’m comfortable with the idea of holding onto it. If you presently own it, you shouldn’t panic and sell it, and I think the current share price is a buying opportunity if you have the patience to wait 2 or 3 years for returns to materialize.
http://horsesass.org/o-p-e-n-t.....nt-1347667
What Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit meant to say is it’s a buying opportunity if you have the patience to wait two or three decades if you expected your entry point at $23.83 (closing price that day) to be an eventually profitable one.
Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit: HA’s resident clown.
13,
Wherein a Dumbfuck misses the part where McDonalds is in the real estate business and it’s franchisees are in the food selling business.
Not to worry. His fundamental failure to grasp the basic cash flow principles of a business won’t prevent him from continuing to promote his claims to vast wealth. After all, he has his very own home subscription to Barron’s.
What could possibly go wrong?
“You mean it could be very hard for the argument to be taken seriously.”
Depends on the circumstances. Fact is in a number of significant cases media owners have been successfully sued over compulsory statements, contract provisions, NDAs, and non-competes. I suppose some of them probably even featured evidence like the rapidly misogynistic rage evinced in that Dumbfuck comment.
TIL Gateway Pundit is “Massengill-deficient”.
I did not know that.
Should have been “rabidly”.
But you knew that.
Mass shooting at YouTube headquarters in San Francisco area; multiple casualties, female shooter is dead.
@11 Yeah, cops wouldn’t mistake an air rifle for a cellphone, would they?
Air rifle = Sir, you’re under arrest.
Cellphone = Bang, bang, you’re dead.
@13 “In a few years they’ll be gutting Starbucks locations on Capitol Hill to be putting in Chick-Fil-A stores instead.”
That’ll be a sight to see. Watching the carpenters try to shoehorn a Chick-Fil-A into a Starbucks space.
@14 “The best thing about Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit’s personal hygiene issues these days is that he can no longer smell Mrs. Rabbit.”
What’s far better is I can no longer smell you. I know you’re around from the loud screeching noises, like somebody dragging their claws across a blackboard.
@15 Keep scratching on that cheap violin, doc. If you had shorted GE when I suggested, you could be sawing a Strad in two now.
@11
How fast can you backpedal.
Was he brandishing a weapon? Yes. Did he point it at officers. Yes.
Is he alive? Yes
Tamir Rice was holding a pellet gun. Philando Castille politely said, “I have to tell you officer I have a firearm.” Both of them were dead in seconds. Oscar Grant was not holding any kind of weapon. Neither was Stephon Clark.
This is why they kneel.
Inherently, a dark skinned person with a potential weapon is automatically a threat to lives. A cracker with could be could be not an air rifle is assumed to hold an air rifle and posing no danger.
Alex van der Zwaan is a non-citizen and a convicted felon.
If he spends any time in the US after his release from a short prison sentence he’s an illlegal alien.
25,
VDZ goes straight back to Holland/UK. He’s done at Skadden so no longer has employment in London. But wife (daughter of Ukrainian billionaire German Kahn) has perm res in UK. He may return to testify in July in Rocket Docket unless Manfort trial is delayed. Can be extradited if he violates the agreement.
The dude confuses me. Proven rainmaker tracking for partnership and he fucks over his firm and its partners to leak the work product to Manafort and Gates for what? Something weird was going on back in 2012. Then in 2017 he lets Skadden counsel represent him at his FBI interview knowing that whatever he says will go straight back to the partners. So he lies? To the FBI? Are these guys the only people left who don’t realize what PRISM is?
He would have made partner in May of this year. Now he’s a convicted felon.
@ 20
An air rifle becomes a non-lethal entity when the cops hear it fired and realize it’s only a pellet gun.
A cell phone becomes a non-lethal entity when the cops hear its ringtone and realize it’s only an iPhone.
Maybe you can ask to see the Louiville cops’ body cameras.
Hey, when Planned Parenthood called for a Disney princess who has had an abortion, they were being metaphorical.
Congressman Darren Soto’s wife arrested at Walt Disney World
The wife of U.S. Rep. Darren Soto was arrested at Disney Springs on Sunday on a charge of disorderly intoxication.
…
She was booked into jail at 10:44 Sunday night, according to the jail’s online database, and was later freed on bond. The charge against her is a second-degree misdemeanor.
“It should be noted that I attempted to calm Amanda numerous times from her agitated state and that even while attempting to speak with her she continued to utter that her husband is a congressman, therefore, she can do whatever she wants,” Heller stated in the report.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com.....story.html
Entitled bitch like her? She’s had an abortion because she can do whatever she wants.
This is probably what Hillary was like back when Bill was Arkansas AG.
@27 “An air rifle becomes a non-lethal entity when the cops hear it fired and realize it’s only a pellet gun.”
You really are a dumbfuck, aren’t you?
White = non-lethal entity
Black = lethal entity
@28 That’s nothing compared to how obnoxious Republicans are when they’re drunk on power.
@11/@27 “First, it was an air rifle and there’s no indication that the officers thought their lives were in danger at the time.”
Some air rifles are more powerful than real guns, and they look just like a long rifle.
You tell me a cop staring down a .22 Beeman R9 with a scope won’t think it is a .22 long rifle: https://www.amazon.com/Beeman-Elite-Combo-air-rifle/dp/B072HM5KYR
You put a wad cutter or hollow point .22 pellet in that Beeman R9 and you can drop a charging coyote if you can get a headshot. Don’t tell me a pellet gun can’t pack lethal force.
Dumbfuck as usual.
How stupid are the Palestinians? At the Good Friday border ‘demonstration’, they neglected to make sure their Hamasshole types kept a low profile.
Israel, and her snipers, took advantage of the stupidity.
The IDF on Saturday night identified 10 of the 15 people reported killed during the violent protests Friday along the Gaza security fence as members of Palestinian terrorist groups, and published a list of their names and positions in the organizations. Palestinian sources later raised the death toll to 16. An 11th fatality was claimed by Islamic Jihad as a member.
Because of this, and because some of the world’s liberal elite still don’t see the Palestinian ‘plight’ for the shakedown that it is, the Palestinians are going to make sure that everyone sees them for the environmental turds that they are, next time around.
Israel’s Hadashot TV news also reported Tuesday that Gazans were piling up thousands of tires to burn near the border in another mass protest planned for Friday, in order to create black smoke which would hinder IDF snipers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-issues-security-recommendations-to-members-in-gaza-protests/?
And if that doesn’t work,
Marchers were also being told to carry mirrors to angle at and thus dazzle the snipers.
Now the snipers know to shoot the assholes with the black masks and the mirrors.
Stupidity should, and will, be painful.
@32 Didn’t know you were so sensitive about the environment, doc. I was under the impression you were more of a Zinke type guy. As for the “shakedown” bit, yeah, when you’ve been conquered, subjugated, and had your land stolen from you, shakedown is all you’ve got left. Even paupers and slaves have to make a living.
The Israelis probably could save a lot of money just by issuing these guys a monthly social security check. Cheaper than a standing army. After all, we keep peace in our country by buying off the militia types with disability checks.
Does godwin always cherrypick the soundbites that support his vicious misogyny?
Same story….
“In a statement, Darren Soto said his wife has been treated for depression for years and recently stopped taking medication “in accordance with her treatment plan and under her doctor’s [supervision].’’
“Yesterday, she drank too much and reached an argumentative state with a family member, which led to arrest,’’ Soto said. “She deeply regrets her actions and takes full responsibility for them. Amanda and her physician will be reviewing her mental health treatment, immediately.’’
Just wondering, does godwin have a pattern of supporting mental health as an excuse when it comes to gun violence?
Bob can’t blame this one on the Lesbians.
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Prosecutors-Man-forced-girl-to-watch-killing-of-12802721.php
Bob seems to like to put down Palestinians due to connection with terrorism….but Today’s modern day Republicans like to be terrorists themselves.
Do as I say and not as I do….and I don’t do as I say, but do as I say don’t do.
@34 “Does godwin always cherrypick the soundbites that support his vicious misogyny?”
You must be new here. Yeah, that’s his M.O., when he’s not in the barn blowing the horses.
@37 I certainly don’t support Palestinian terrorism, and it’s not in their own interests, because it discredits them and their cause, and makes it much harder to sympathize with their plight.
However, only a sick fuck gloats over demonstrators being picked off by snipers. And every time a car runs over a protester, Mrs. Dumbfuck has to wipe the drool off his chin.
@27
They let him brandish it and point it.
Because he’s white.
I’m beginning to suspect the loon finally got himself lynched. SAD!
Trump’s top infrastructure adviser is leaving to “pursue other opportunities.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/top-trump-infrastructure-advisor-dj-gribbin-is-leaving-white-house.html
Liberal candidates have been shut out of Wisconsin’s state supreme court for 23 years. That streak ended tonight. And Scotty Walker is sweating popsicles.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-democrats-win/index.html
@43
It’s weird and deeper than just a big win by a kind of progressive candidate. Dane county, the second most populous in MN that usually is about 70% D is 80% D in this ff year special election. The kinds of low turnout affairs that usually help the Republican.
Fired up Democrats in WI I guess.
In a state that went Trump by just over 20,000 votes having that kind of Blue Wall swamping the rural GOP vote is a big, big problem for the future. Like California big. Like, “You can maybe hold onto one or more of the legislative houses for a while but the GOP won’t elect another governor or President or Senator for a very long time big.
Bye Scott.
We lost a good one yesterday that probably went unnoticed here in the PNW.
Arnold was never really a Republican. Well he was, but in the 1970s vein where funding education wasn’t “communism” and wanting to keep kids off the streets as a means to reduce crime and school drop out rates by funding community organizations was a money saving idea.
I met Bonnie Reiss through my wife and worked with her a bunch of times. Shortly after we moved out of LA (My wife is a PNW native) I worked with her for the last time on the campaign for Governor. She pushed a moderate R Arnold to the left on many issues and I know she got the last R California Governor for the foreseeable future elected because of her gentle pull to the left. Her influence on CA environmental policy during Gov. Schwarzenegger’s time can’t be overstated.
Farewell.