Yes basicly

@Nzall Think the Fox rumor has been refuted.

Here's the latest from the LA Times, with expands the victims to 9

The NY Times has obtained a draft of Bolton's book, and it confirms everything we thought it would

(secondary link, due to paywall, NYTimes link in article)

> In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.

> Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.

Those are embedded quotes from the NYTimes. From the blog's author linked above:

> Anyway, you should read the piece – and then reflect on the fact that nothing matters, the Senate will acquit Trump, there’s a good chance he’ll be reelected, and everything is terrible.

Here's a slightly more substantial summary article at the Hill: Bolton book alleges Trump tied Ukraine aid freeze to Biden investigations: NYT

and, in Presidential threat news:

Trump suggests Schiff will pay a 'price' for pushing impeachment

> "Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man," Trump tweeted. "He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!"

"If only someone would rid me of this meddlesome priest"

Fox News poll: Half of Americans say Trump should be convicted and removed

hate to link and run, but I'll see y'all tomorrow

@BradC as much as it seems so, it should matter because when people start thinking it doesn't matter, that's when the joke about God Emperor Trump becomes real

WaPo piece that confirms the NYT story

> Two people familiar with the book, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the project, confirmed that it details Trump tying aid to the desire for Biden probes and details a number of conversations about Ukraine that he had with Trump and key advisers, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They said Bolton is ready to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.

Other observations (not mine, being discussed widely on Twitter):

* Does the fact that the manuscript was sent for classification review mean the full White House (and Trump, and his counsel) knew the contents of what Bolton would say if he was called?

* If so, is this one of the reasons they’ve tried to rush the trial along so it is over before the book comes out?

* Does this make WH Counsel a material witness?

Many more interesting questions, the most imminent is how this impacts the trial this week, and the upcoming vote on witnesses

@BradC thought they was rushing it to a) push it under the rug and b) so that it wont be still going during the State of the Union Address

@BradC lol, naturally

Republicans fear "floodgates" if Bolton testifies

"oh no! We're losing our ability to plausibly deny our deliberate obstruction!!"

Oh the no's!

> Republican sources tell Axios that party leaders and the White House will still try to resist witnesses because, as one top aide put it, "there is a sense in the Senate that if one witness is allowed, the floodgates are open." "If [Bolton] says stuff that implicates, say Mick [Mulvaney] or [Mike] Pompeo, then calls for them will intensify," the aide said.

(as it should be)

John Bolton’s bombshell gives the GOP a glimpse of its nightmare scenario

> The nightmare scenario for the GOP is that they give Trump the quick and witness-free acquittal that he apparently desires, but then information like Bolton’s keeps coming out.

> Romney says it’s “increasingly likely” that there will be enough Republicans to vote in support of calling John Bolton as a witness. He wouldn’t say specifically who

And he'll definitely show up, he has a book to sell!

Actually, my understanding is that's not the nightmare scenario; that was actually the plan all along.

I think the plan was a quick witness free acquittal and then just bury it all

that would be a great grift

Yes, somewhere along the way a non-zero number of senators thought that someone had actually put a plan together to get out of this jam and that plan was constructed by checks notes Trump and Giuliani

The nightmare scenario is that those things come out DURING the trial, making their (pre-ordained) vote to acquit even more obviously partisan and obstructionist than they already are

show up with a yes vote on that and then retire with some new york times best selling book called like "country over party: how one man ended the divisiveness in politic's"

I personally would not hedge my bets on the dumbest people in the room but idk

it's on the best selling list for 5 years

@Unionhawk lol this will 100% happen

@Unionhawk Yep. At this point a vote for witnesses while still voting to acquit would be viewed as "brave" and "independent"

what a f'ing joke

They've set the bar so low that doing the least right thing is suddenly heroic

conservatism is where the money is at

you get to sell books to the fox audience and people at like vox who think that you're good now

In the remote chance he does get convicted it will be extra funny for all those states that decided to forgo the Republican primary, again on the basis that this was a good plan and everything would work out

I mean the RNC can do whatever they want I'm pretty sure

@TimStone could they scrabble something together? Would it just all have to be decided at the convention? Would they choose Pence, or would someone else rise from the ashes?

They could, it would just be funny that they'd have to suddenly do work after planning to not do that

Like it's kind of down to the wire with respect to registration deadlines and whatever right?

Yeah

Which they can just change but I assume those are set to allow time for ballot printing and whatever

@TimStone If they couldn't change the ballot, would they just count a vote for Trump/Pence as a vote for Pence/??

oh, God. Who would Pence choose as a VP? Richard Spencer?

Ohio's deadline is February 18 to register for the primary, Kentucky's is April 20 to register, December 31 2019 to change party affiliation

no I don't know why that date is different let alone earlier than the register deadline

Since this is a primary I don't even think it's Trump/Pence technically, just Trump. But also since it's a primary like @Unionhawk said they can technically do whatever they want

It would presumably be a mess though

they'd probably just nominate donald trump again

who's going to stop them

nobody

@Unionhawk if the Senate votes to remove him, there would be a second vote to disqualify him from office, and that only needs a simple majority

Canada

So, in that case, the constitution could.

> Schiff must release the IG report, without changes or tampering, which is said to be yet further exoneration of the Impeachment Hoax. He refuses to give it. Does it link him to Whistleblower? Why is he so adamant?

Or, more specifically, even if the GOP insisted on nominating him, votes for him couldn't count

I mean eventually this gets old right? People have to want a better excuse than "The President complains about things entirely in the executive branch"

@TimStone What's the IG report again?

@Nzall A highly-anticipated report from the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice finds no evidence of political bias in the launch of the initial FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, but is highly critical of FBI officials for “basic and fundamental errors” in how parts of the investigation were carried out.

FBI doing FBI things

article contains link to the (redacted) report, produced by the (executive branch) DOJ Inspector General

Long story long, Trump is blaming Schiff for not releasing the unredacted report... which... isn't even his branch of government???

That or Trump is just a moron

Wait... I may have hit upon something here...

Stop the presses!

@BradC So essentially report says the FBI was in the right to investigate the Russian interference into the Trump election campaign, but they were sloppy in the execution?

@Nzall The sloppy details are down in the weeds of exactly how they presented and justified the FISA warrant rationialle. Which, isn't nothing, I guess, but is a pretty narrow process criticism. Far, far from "the FBI has had it out for me from the beginning" deep state paranoia we've heard from Trump forever

And even with the FISA application, the broad opinion is that the errors likely wouldn't have changed the FISA judge's ruling in the end anyway. So even THAT is being over-played by some on the right as a "see, they had it out for Trump" when it really isn't

but I'm not an expert. If you want to dive really deep, check out some of the articles on the report at LawFare, some of them very critical of the mistakes that were made during the FISA process

I'd recommend especially Benjamin Wittes' analysis of the FISA findings, and David Kris' technical deep-dive on the same

But all that is like, 13 layers deeper than Trump's tweet demanding Schiff release the unredacted IG report, which is just... wrong in a 100 ways

GOP senators angry new leaked details support case against Trump

> That bombshell revelation from a former top Trump aide adds fire to the very heart of Democrats' argument against Trump: that he abused the office of the presidency by illegally withholding military aid to Ukraine for his own personal political gain.

> However, Republican senators appear to be angrier that Bolton's book leaked before they could acquit Trump than they are about Bolton's allegations.

Checks out...

> Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported Monday morning that "several Republican senators had angrily called the White House," which had a copy of Bolton's manuscript for weeks. While she didn't name the angry senators, Haberman said those senators felt "blindsided" and were upset because "Mr. Bolton's account flies in the face of the rationale the president’s lawyers have offered the Senate for his actions."

Trump lied? :O STOP THE PRESSES

if I am REALLY generous I could read Haberman's tweet as saying that GOP Senators were legitimately upset that the White House attorneys had knowingly lied during their defense (which is true).

But come on, we all knew they've been lying all along

Bolton’s testimony would be devastating. Not even Republicans could look away.

eh, I think this underestimates the ability of Republicans to cover Trump's ass to save their own

@BradC Yeah I think it's much more about the fact they weren't in on the lie and couldn't judge their exposure ahead of time, heh

Which, once again gestures broadly why anyone didn't see that coming is beyond me

@TimStone Right. That they might have worded their objections slightly differently if they realized they'd be exposed so quickly

lol today is John Roberts' birthday

> Trump: "Nothing was ever said to John Bolton."

"Look no one ever talked to him or his big stupid mustache"

From Ars' Warcraft 3 retrospective:

> "We went to Fry's Electronics to do a signing of the boxes. People were just asking us questions as they're passing through the line, and they're like, 'so what are you going to do next?' I'm like, 'Oh, probably the expansion.' And Mike Morhaime was standing behind me. He was like, 'Dave, could you not announce products that are not announced yet, please.'" -Dave Fried

:D

The news of this being that it comes out tomorrow, even though I'm not buying anymore sob sob

Thankfully it will be like the Starcraft remaster where I can play along on my original copy.

This is really stupid: Washington Post suspended a reporter after her tweets following Kobe's death

She posted a tweet with a link to an article about Kobe's rape accusation

Then, after fans sent her violent threats, she posted a screenshot of her inbox showing the threats

Supposedly she was suspended for that screenshot, not the original link

But I say that if you send threats to a reporter using your real name, you deserve what you get

And I think Kobe's rape accusation (and his sort-of "admission" to the facts of the case) is something we ultimately do have to face about his legacy

Op-ed written by Joe Biden: Trump is worst possible leader to deal with coronavirus outbreak

> Pandemic diseases are a prime example of why international cooperation is a requirement of leadership in 2020. Diseases do not stop at borders. They cannot be thwarted by building a wall. We cannot keep ourselves safe without helping to keep others safe as well and without enlisting the help of other nations in return.

@BradC I think it's a bit more nuanced than most people think though. From what I read in multiple articles, Kobe had a thing for choking, and though the accuser did start out consenting (she went along with the hug and the kiss and groped his penis), it appears to me like when he suddenly started choking her, she no longer consented. There's also the caucausian semen and pubes that were found in her underwear the day after...

Many sexual assault victims still really identify with that in connection to their own experience, and its a pretty clear counter-note to the more recent #metoo trends.

So for many people, his death and the flood of reporting bring up quite a mixed history

ow

Paternity test confirms King Albert II of Belgium is the father of Delphine Boël

impeachment trial is starting in the Senate. all channels, many livestreams on Youtube and elsewhere

only 22 hours and 5 minutes remaining for Trump's counsel (rolleyes)

Ha, they're going to completely ignore the Bolton bombshell.

"we only respond to testimony and transcripts, not speculation"

I'm sure this defense to keep Bolton from testifying will go great given the President basically tweeted earlier that he totally should

Ken Starr is up for Trump's team

> Ken Starr lecturing Congress on the lowering of the standard for impeachment is like Wile E. Coyote lecturing Congress on the safe use of explosives - @sethabramson

Executive Privilege Cannot Block Bolton’s Testimony

Ok, now he's just fucking lying to us

(Claim that the impeachment clause implies a violation of law)

> People are pointing out the obvious irony/hypocrisy of Starr decrying the normalization of impeachment, but the deeper messager here is pretty clear, though not quite stated: We're absolutely going to impeach the next Democratic president. - @chrishayes

> BREAKING: Supreme Court votes 5-4 to allow Trump to immediately apply the public-charge rule to asylum applicants on the southern border. - @stevenmazie

Ha. The "common law of presidential impeachment". There is no such thing.

> The idea that we have less evidence of criminality here than we did in the Clinton impeachment is LITERALLY STANDUP COMEDY - @sethabramson

Gah, he keeps pointing out that the House members didn't swear an oath like the Senate did. IE, "they're big fat liars"

Of course ALL members of Congress swear an oath to the Constitution

oo, too tiny. Quote from Bolton's publisher, denying they coordinated with NYT for the release of material from BOLTONS NEW BOOK, AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER AT ONLINE RESELLERS EVERYWHERE

WaPo op-ed criticizing WaPo for suspending Felicia Sonmez over Kobe Bryant tweets

Ken Starr lamenting impeachments happening “all too frequently” is the death of irony

@TimStone which is something Trump is saying now on the news

don't remember the exact quote but it was on the lines of "Bolton is making stuff up just to sell a book, can't trust him"

which is what you expect of Trump, though this time rather than picking him up and throwing him into the Bus Trump's just gently pushed Bolton onto the road before. still the chance that trump kneecaps him so he get hit bu said bus by calling him *look up current term* a never-trumper

@TimStone "this plan is written on tea-towels emblazoned with the Trump Hotel Motif.....and they are written in Gold Sharpe"

@TimStone i'd still find it funny if Trump got impeached for trying to dig up dirt on a guy he wont run against (assuming Baiden doesn't become the presidential nominee)

@BradC "flies in the face of the rationale the president’s lawyers have offered the Senate for his actions" in other words, they are upset because it points out trump's lawyers are lying to them?

@BradC there is still a way to save their own asses and that's to all band together and throw Trump under his bus

@Memor-X Yep. Which they already should have known, because they're carrying water for Trump's lies just as much

@Memor-X Sigh. I keep hoping they might eventually see that as the only remaining choice, but... you know

@puzzlepiece87 expansion for Warcraft 3? is this from a decade ago or is only the base game being re-mastered and Frozen Throne is getting re-done and sold separately

@BradC only if you are above the law

@BradC even more reason to have a Democratic President who is nice and clean and who is open about everything they do

Dem President: here's my tax returns, my banking account showing everything i brought, notice the $30 subscription to PornHub i've had since i turned 18. my down payments on my private check is custom stripper pole and my Internet History

@BradC this the thing about how immigrants/refugees have to be able to support themselves financially to be granted a visa?

@Memor-X Yes. The problem is that there are clauses about people already having their own health insurance and things like that, which are entirely unrealistic

Plus it gives them yet another excuse to turn whoever they don't want away (namely, anyone except tall rich white people from Norway)

Here's an NBC article about it

> In the past, that was largely based on an assessment that an immigrant would be dependent upon cash benefits. But the Trump administration proposed to broaden the definition to include noncash benefits, such as Medicaid, supplemental nutrition and federal housing assistance.

The ruling today simply lifted the injunction, the original lawsuit can still proceed.

Luke O'Neil is an extremely good writer and now I'm angry

unrelatedly @TimStone