Who Would Have Told Trump to Go Back to Demand a Patronage Relationship with Comey?
Jim Comey made a comment in his testimony the other day I’ve not seen others mention. Mark Warner asked him to explain this comment on patronage from his written testimony.
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President. A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”
When Warner asked Comey to explain this comment at Thursday’s hearing, Comey explained he thought that Trump was belatedly trying to get something from Comey in exchange for letting him stay on his job.
WARNER: Let me move to the January 27th dinner, where you said “The president began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI director.”
He also indicated that “lots of people” again your words, “Wanted the job.” You go on to say the dinner itself was “Seemingly an effort to” to quote have you ask him for your job and create some “patronage” relationship. The president seems from my reading of your memo to be holding your job or your possibility of continuing your job over your head in a fairly direct way. What was your impression, and what did you mean by this notion of a patronage relationship?
COMEY: Well, my impression, and again it’s my impression, I could always be wrong but my common sense told me what was going on is, either he had concluded or someone had told him that you didn’t, you’ve already asked Comey to stay, and you didn’t get anything for it. And that the dinner was an effort to build a relationship, in fact, he asked specifically, of loyalty in the context of asking me to stay. As I said, what was odd about that is we’d already talked twice about it by that point and he said I very much hope you’ll stay. In fact, I just remembered sitting a third, when you’ve seen the. IC tour of me walking across the blue room, and what the president whispered in my ear was “I really look forward to working with you.” So after those encounters —
WARNER: That was a few days before your firing.
COMEY: On the Sunday after the inauguration. The next Friday I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job and so I’m sitting there thinking wait a minute three times we’ve already, you’ve already asked me to stay or talked about me staying. My common sense, again I could be wrong but my common sense told me what’s going on here is, he’s looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. [my emphasis]
Comey explained that — after already having been assured three times that he would remain in his position — Trump raised the issue anew in a private dinner. Comey didn’t say this, but this happened the day after Sally Yates first told White House Counsel Don McGahn that Mike Flynn had misrepresented his comments to Sergey Kislyak. And in that dinner, Trump implied that if Comey wanted to stay in the job he’d been offered three times already, he had to give Trump loyalty.
What I’m especially interested in is what Comey believed elicited this: Comey figured that “either [Trump] had concluded or someone [else] had told [Trump] that you didn’t, you’ve already asked Comey to stay, and you didn’t get anything for it” which is what led Trump to invite Trump for dinner.
Given the timing, it would be interesting all by itself if Trump had decided on his own to get some kind of commitment from Comey in order to keep his job, because it would make it far more likely that McGahn told Trump about Yates’ concerns.
But Comey testified that he thought that perhaps someone else went to Trump and suggested he should go back to Comey and try to demand loyalty to keep his job.
Who?
Does Comey think Mike Flynn did this? Don McGahn (which would be downright shocking)? Or did he think that one of the two people who lingered at the next weird meeting alone with Trump — Attorney General Sessions or Son-in-Law-in-Chief Jared Kushner — made the suggestion?
He didn’t say. But I find the suggestion that Comey believes someone may have — at the same time as DOJ was telling the White House that Mike Flynn was in trouble — encouraged Trump to go make demands from Comey.
Bannon.
Ms. Wheeler herself implies she could be over-reading Comey’s testimony on this. Comey could just have been hedging.
But I don’t criticize her raising the hedge, simply because if it’s the case that ‘someone else’ raised it, AND if that person was Jarod, it would feed into earlier reminders from emptywheel here and on Twitter that Jarod has not been a member of Trump’s inner entourage all THAT long, as well as Trump’s clearly established potential for throwing ANYONE under the bus.
Bingo, Bannon is sure the first name that came to my mind too.
s/Trump to invite Trump for dinner/Trump to invite Comey for dinner/
Ed? [/snark]
(or: QED!)
“I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically” Pretty much explains Comey’s take down of Clinton’s chances of winning. He is an equal opportunity fixer.
[Timing and making the other side blink first]
Comey followed careful plan in leaking memos
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/337202-comey-followed-careful-plan-in-leaking-memos
“So long as he ensured the FBI had its own copy of the memos, and so long as the memos were not classified, Mr. Comey’s actions appear to be entirely lawful,” said Brad Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security and security clearance law.
…
Allies of the president have argued that Comey violated executive privilege protecting his conversations with the president. Kasowitz said Thursday that Comey had “made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president,” suggesting that he broke the law.
But an assertion of executive privilege can only protect an unwilling witness from being compelled to testify — it can’t be used to prohibit a willing witness from speaking, legal sources say.
On top of that, several whistleblower lawyers told The Hill, Comey waited to disclose the memo’s contents until Trump had effectively nullified any privilege that may have existed.
…
Comey also shielded himself from any administrative repercussions by making the disclosures orally, Kohn and others said.
Normally when former officials want to release information, they have to run it past the agency in question in what’s known as prepublication review. But oral disclosures are not subject to that process — and Comey was explicit Thursday that he asked Richman to disclose “the content” of the memos, not the memos themselves.
From what you say it sounds like Comey may have protected himself legally, especially since there is little fervor in D.C. for going after him these days. But, with his surreptitious self serving leaking after a career pursuing leakers, and participation in the Obama administration’s anti-leaker crusade, he has dealt his own credibility a severe blow.
We know we cannot rely on the president’s veracity, but now with the disgruntled ex-employee leaking his own constructed story in the self expressed hope of spurring a special prosecutor we have cause to doubt Comey every bit as much as we do Trump.
Too bad it seems Trump does not actually have recordings of his meetings with Comey. I’d wager we would get a third story entirely.
This is America, man: everyone is entitled to throw away his pretend money on silly hypothetical bets.
Betchya real money there are no tapes, and if on the odd chance there are, betchya that they vary from both liars stories.
I’ll take that bet as to what any tapes, if they do exist, reflect. But agree there are no tapes, so it really doesn’t matter
It is strange because Trump’s arrangements are based on patronage – his lawyers, accountants, advisers, miscellaneous real estate people, politicians and zoning officials, bankers and the like. Perhaps coming from that milieu and having always been the one with the money or the name from which to make it, Trump assumed patronage, with him as patron, was inherent in all his relationships.
The latter word may help, because Trump doesn’t really have relationships, he has opportunities of the moment. The moment tends to last longer in DC than it does when Trump’s horizon is a real estate closing or the dinging of an egg timer. Deals and, hence, relationships, in DC, propped up and revised continually over long periods, last longer than Trump seems able to contemplate.
Trump has appointed a fraction of the people even Obama had appointed by this time. His “learning curve” must have remained flat with so little new data to work with. So, yes, it would seem that someone took it upon themselves to bring the matter up with Trump for him to have tried to reinvent a patronage relationship with Comey. Probably someone with a personal stake. The three mouseketeers – Kushner, Bannon, Sessions – are the most likely suspects.
Kushner andSessions seem the most involved. They helped lead Comey to the slaughter. Sessions would have been closest to Comey, the most knowledgeable of him and his ability and propensity to make life uncomfortable for Trump and his closest advisers.
Sessions, not being the brightest or most courageous bulb in the pack, would have needed encouragement to act and to believe he was safe or secure or desperate enough to act. That’s where I suspect Kushner to come in. Kushner acting with and through Sessions. Kushner, who seems to have even more to lose in a thorough investigation of past and current Russian involvement than the harder to get at Donald.
With everyone watching their asses so closely, perhaps several of them will trip on the banana peels they’ve left strewn about.
[“There was no there there”. Not sure if this lawyer even watched the Thursday hearing and even realized that it was Comey speaking in open session. Allegedly. Wow]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-sees-comeys-testimony-as-complete-vindication–and-his-fans-agree/2017/06/10/b3c72bd4-4d2b-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html
“There was no there there,” said Jay Sekulow, a prominent conservative attorney who is now part of the president’s legal team, which is being led by his longtime attorney Marc Kasowitz. “There was no basis upon which an obstruction of justice charge can be raised by what was allegedly said.”
[What was said, was said. It is public record. There is no ‘allegedly’ about it]
[But he sayeth. Allegedly. See Henry VI]
Suppose he was simply asserting that the conversation as Comey described it (alleged) did not constitute obstruction?
Check:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-reportedly-compromised-a-spy-but-jay-sekulow-dismisses-concerns-as-absurd/
Despite Sekulow’s assertions, Israeli intelligence officers were reportedly “boiling mad” over Trump’s disclosure. The intelligence “was considered so sensitive that the U.S. hadn’t shared it with its closest allies in the so-called Five Eyes…
BTW, I caught my alleged misparse before you posted, just took me a while, and after I did, I saw that you caught my mis-parse too.
The ‘was’ vs ‘is’ thing still bugs me.
My bad, allegedly. I allegedly mis-parsed the Jay Sekulow comments. He may have been referring to what Trump may have allegedly said, not to what Comey allegedly said. Sorry about my mis-parse, I may have allegedly read it incorrectly.
“There *was* no basis upon which an obstruction of justice charge can be raised by what was allegedly said.”
Was is past tense. So his statement may be true and accurate at the time. Even if it is not clear whom allegedly said what. Sure seems like the Trump team is very concerned about obstruction of justice charges.
He better hope there are no tapes.
(still stand by Henvy VI)
Still think your first response above that it was Bannon who instigated that Trump revisit the loyalty issue was right on the money.
Help parse this – by “he” in “he better hope” do you mean Trump or Comey/
Sekulow
Marcy,
What seems to be being overlooked, or not recognized, or left out, carelessly or deliberately, in all the narratives, is that Comey demonstrated ‘Loyalty’ in his actions toward, or for, AG Lynch , Candidate Hillary and Israel during the wane of the Obama Era. There is no question of, or contrast to ‘Honesty’, as has been asserted, notably by Comey, whose only credible association with honesty is the common ‘y’ ending ‘Comey’ and that word (the FBI, ending in ‘I’, has not even that connection to honesty).
So, if we forget, ignore, scrape away, all the overlayering layers of slapped on veneers, wall-papers, mud, blood and bullshit slung, slanged, slopped and spewed over the top, to see the fundament beneath it all, what shows at bottom layer, or line is the Trump Administration seeking assurance from Comey that he would play for them as he played for the previous Administration, and for the ‘Intended’, Ms. Clinton, whose illegal server he excused, whose lawyers he allowed to “edit” its content evidence, who he did not investigate in his Bureau’s “investigation”, and for Israel, whose access to State via Hillary’s server (as well as to Hillary) Comey ignored, did not investigate, let ‘go by’ and so on, and for AG Loretta Lynch, for whom he, Comey, interceded, stepping outside his legitimate role and realm, and for whom he deprecated his Bureau’s already “investigation”, instead of investigation, to a “matter”.
You noted what you designated “lurking” by AG Sessions and Israeli Liaison Kushner at the time of Trump’s private meeting with Comey, which is usually defined “pointed lingering”. It is a method used in purposed communications to indicate agreement, being on board, being behind what will be forthcoming, and such. A form of wink, thumb-up, nod, OK, etc. It would have been Sessions indicating the DOJ was on-board with Trump, and Kushner indicating Israel was on-board with Trump. In other words, Trump was not to be heard talking only for Trump in the private conversation to follow, but for the two “allies” for whom Comey had already demonstrated “Loyalty”, with no squeams for ‘integrity’ apparent, when they were represented by the ‘other side’.
That made the question to Comey, “Will you serve the same ‘allies’ the same way, with the same ‘Loyalty’ as you did when they were represented by the previous Administration?” With Sessions and Kuchner intending to demonstrate that the question was not coming from only Trump, but from them, representing the allies, who, they indicated, would be working with the new Administration.
If you review the basics you will recognize that nothing was being asked of Comey that he had not demonstrated himself willing to undertake and engage in, and had not engaged in already.
By his subsequent actions Comey demonstrated that he was partisan. Thjat he would not play the same he had for Clinton and Lynch and Isriel’s interests through their agencies, for Trump Administration ones.
In those circumstances it was par for any course for him to be fired. Any Administration meeting the same “I will not continue; I will not do the same for you.” attitude Comey apparently exhibited, and has testified he demonstrated, would have terminated him.
There is no big deal, no mystery. With all his blathering about “honesty” and all the rest of the bullshit he has been blowing in his ‘testimony’ Comey has only been continuing to demonstrate himself a partisan, not a career player. Of course Trump, and Sessions, and Israel, who Kushner is Whitehouse Conduit for, broke with him.
Of course, also, they were unhappy to do so; Comey, when he is a willing scum-sucker and swamp-wart is a cfredible and competent scum-sucker and swamp-wart. He would have been exactly what the Trump Administration and Israel needed, if he had that little bit more cast-iron in his character. Being what he is, opposing them, on his own conjuration of ‘moral grounds’ Comey makes the Trump Team look better, while making the petty opposition look more petty.
There is a difference, I think, in following a direct order for something inappropriate (in this case, using the word “matter” rather than “investigation”) and acceding to a “hope” of something similar—making the Flynn investigation go away. In both cases, Comey made sure to document his conversations and keep things away from those who might have conflicts of interest. Yes, he could have done more in the first case—but that does not make his decisions in the second necessarily wrong.
Comey a partisan Democrat??
Hahahahahahahahahaha, that’s really hilarious. And totally nuts.
And there’s so much more absurdist comic invention in her comment beyond just that. It’s as if the commenter convened a plenary session of all rwnj talking points then published the minutes of it in the form of her best shot at narrative.
Evangelista: That is a lot of ink to spill to essentially say that Comey wouldn’t play ball simply because he was a partisan Democrat. The man was clearly not infallible, but your assertion here does not remotely pass the sniff test. Just look at 2016.
Evangelista:
9 paragraphs and 77 commas. Very impressive.
Lefty,
Are you a Dem?
I think you secretly like the Con Man.
Comey is telling the truth.
It is pretty obvious
Quit the Party about 5 years ago because of the right wing, DNC, elite, neolib bullshit that culminated with the Dems losing the election last year. Oh, then there were the nearly 1,000 state lege seats lost since 2009 and the neocon warmongering too.
There was no Change achievable from the inside the Party, it was all Same. Watching the Dems corruptly rig the nomination for the only candidate who could lose to Trump, then the campaign about nothing was like watching a Pekinpagh train wreck. Horrifying but fascinating. Watching Hillary lengthen her list of others, including the DNC, that lost the election while excusing herself is entertaining.
I’ve said it to you before, and I will say it again, I have no use for either Trump or Hillary. My fear was that one of them would win, and it was realized.
On Comey telling the truth “Hahahahahahahahahaha, that’s really hilarious.” Sure, just like all disgruntled fired employees who secretly leak their version of events to admittedly seek vengeance, we can believe every syllable. NOT. Wonder how much he wrote contemporaneously and how much after he decided on exercising his grudge? You weren’t all that happy with him when he announced he was looking at Hillary’s emails Huma had sent to Weiner to mix in with his dic pics.
I was encouraged by your recent comments that you were working for change inside the Party. America needs an alternative to the Repubs. A reformed and revitalized Dem party that gets back to its New Deal roots is the way to get there. But you can’t get there from here until you give up the Trump/RUSSIA hysteria.
Your view of Democrats is pre-2008. But thanks for playing.
Hahahahahahahaha! Where were you during the last election? I’m unfortunately very 2017. If you don’t understand that the Dems lost to Donald F#$%^&ing Trump because the neolib elites rigged the nomination for a pill the country liked even less than Trump you’re stuck in the 20th century “new dem” DLC paradigm and part of the problem.
The DNC and the Party are both still in the hands of the losing clique. The Party is sunk in Trump hysteria. It is not making much progress towards state and congressional elections, and we’re already 1/4 of the way to the ’18 elections.
As a harbinger, as it was in ’09, Virginia has off year elections coming up this year. In the Dem primary for Gov the establishment backed candidate voted for Duhbya, not once but twice. The state party favorite for Lt. Gov. comes from the richest corner of the state and brags about being Biden’s chief of staff. Wouldn’t want actual Democrats to represent the Party, just like last year nationwide. The Repubs wiped the floor with the Dems in Virginia in ’09 and followed up nationally in ’10. We’ll see how they do this year.
There were encouraging signs you had come to your senses and were working to make the party a real force again. Silly me for getting my hopes up. Here’s something for you to read if you care to open your eyes. It is by the author of “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497216514&sr=8-1&keywords=listen+liberal
Primary Results, Northam the Dem Party elite candidate (endorsed by the Gov) won. How far right is he? He voted twice for Duhbya. Lt Gov. is Platt, an ex lobbyist for Altria and elite fat cat. On the Repub side Gillespie eked out a win over dingbat Corey Stewart, meaning the right is as fired up as the tantruming Dems. Watch the election this fall as a harbinger nationally, as it was in ’09 when the Dems ran a campaign on nothing that foretold the ’10 national results, ’14 and, sadly, ’16. No learning curve Dems.
Trump and his supporters are cynically trying to cast “leaker” as an exclusively derogatory term. But a leaker can be a whistleblower, a white knight, or merely a government worker fulfilling FOIA requests. The baseline should be that any information or document created with taxpayer money should be publicly accessible. Then there is a long list of exceptions. From what I’ve read, nothing in what Comey leaked seems to be exempt from public disclosure. And since it revealed probable malfeasance on the part of the president, it was most definitely in the public interest that it be disclosed.
This was a proper leak, assuming it’s substantially true (and it is impossible to believe Trump, given his well-documented serial lying, over someone who had no discernible motive and who thoroughly and immediately documented and reported the results of these unexpected and unsolicited private conversations).
And for anyone who is attacking Comey, you need to pick an argument and go with it. You cannot say on the one hand that Comey is lying, and also that he’s leaking privileged communications with the president. Can’t be both.
“You cannot say on the one hand that Comey is lying, and also that he’s leaking privileged communications with the president. Can’t be both.”
Oh, it is easy for some to say it. Both could be true, but I seriously doubt either are true. I do not believe Comey lied under oath, nor did he leak any privileged communications.
There is a bigger game afoot.
Indeed. It’s easy and probably common to do both.
That doesn’t mean Comey was lying. It probably means that he acted like a lawyer in his own defense: he gave the facts and the best interpretation of them that favored his own side. That goes to characterization, what the facts mean and what the consequences for them should be, even if the latter was only implied.
Trump, on the other hand, and his whole team haven’t that nuance or professionalism. They just make stuff up. Their track record of doing so is long and sordid.
And lordy is there a bigger game afoot!
:-)
“I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!’”
[Apparently, his tweetness believes that Comey is going to ‘leak’ more ‘stuff”. Me thinks his tweetness should look in another direction as to where most leaks come from. The whitehouse porch would give him a good view, even if you can’t really see Russia from there]
As for the meme going round that Comey was a “coward”, I can’t take it as seriously as do the armchair pundits like Trump Jr. As said above, there is a bigger game afoot, which makes the accusation, like the Trumps, cartoonish and laughable. Players don’t shoot from the hip when the presidency is at stake.
If Comey had been a naif, or dreamt that he was some cowboy hero, and told Trump, “I can’t do that, sir, I’m a Boy Scout,” he would have never been director of the FBI and, he would have been out of a job before he left the building.
Reasonable delay was essential. He was the director of the FBI in direct conflict with the president of the United States about a matter of constitutional import, one that might cost them both their jobs and do the country enormous damage.
Comey needed to reflect on what happened, record it, test his characterization of it with others. He needed to strategize how to respond. He needed to network with others to make any response credible. He needed to protect his data and his temporary access to it (knowing he would soon be out). He needed to set up the record for his successor (and others, knowing that his immediate successor could be more supine than Sessions or Gonzales). He needed to evaluate the record to determine if what he sensed happened was provable, and to evaluate what might be needed to make it so. (Hence, the need for a special counsel’s appointment.)
Comey seems to have done all that and probably more. Then, too, he informed his team and the deputy head of the agency he reported to, the DoJ. If anyone was a coward for failing to act on facts before them, it was Sessions or Rosenstein. It’s team trump that shoots from the hip and often hits their own foot.
Excellent summary. You get an ‘H’. No lame ‘A’ for you!
Oh, and it would have long been obvious to Comey and to all of official Washington that Donald has a negative learning curve. His is not the kind of nimble confident personality that would respond to experience, new facts and sound advice. Especially not about legal and political limitations to his authority. Quite the opposite.
He predictably would have gone off the deep end and unthinkingly acted out to protect himself – no matter how obvious it was that his actions would have the opposite of their intended effect – and publicly humiliate his imagined opponent. When your personal brand is all you have, every threat to its glory is an existential threat that must be met with extreme measures.
We needn’t imagine what Donald would do with the machine that exterminated the Krell; he wears his id like his hairdo. The good news is that he’d never score high enough to make it work.
I guess references to the Krell, their machine, and what Mr. Trump’s id might do with it, had he sufficient mental power to operate it, have been moderated out. Pity.
Don’t know how it got caught up in the filter, but all Krell comments now posted.
And, sadly, I know EXACTLY what you are referring to. One of the few benefits of getting old…..
It could well be that someone suggested he “check Comey out.” I believe Trump assumed that Comey was a loyal soldier because he interpreted Comey’s Clinton email disclosures as partisan intervention in the election. The infamous hug in the Oval Office is evidence of this assumption. Trump simply can not understand that someone would take such actions out of any principle other than fealty, so in his mind, he did not need to give Comey the standard loyalty test.
Someone, or even the whole gang (Bannon, Reince, Kushner and/or Sessions) comes to him and says, “Boss, maybe you got this Comey wrong. He’s acting like some sort of boyscout. Its hard to believe, but that Clinton stuff, it might not be what you think.” Of course, even suggesting to Trump that he might have misjudged the situation would have taken enormous courage, so it was very likely a group effort.
In any case, Trump says, “Oh yeah, you guys are idiots, I’ll haul him up here for dinner and give him the loyalty test.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Lefty, I’m taking away your moniker ‘lefty”. From now on, your “Indy”
I dislike Independents because they argue both sides, and never take a stand.
They blame both parties.
Hell no. I’m a Franken Democrat looking for the “Pursuit of Happiness”, not fucking
division and turmoil.
The Dems are not perfect, but their principles are sound.
Lefty is appropriate as I’m way to the left of you elitist, right wing, DLC, neolib, “new Dem”, Repub wannabes. How about we call me New Deal Dem and you BS Fascist? Don’t believe anyone can ever accuse me of not taking a stand. I quit the Dems in large part because I could no longer stand to be required to defend the indefensible, and after a decade of work we determined that change was impossible to achieve from within the Party. Last year confirmed that conclusion was 100% correct.
Your profoundly broad generalizations are vacuous nonsense.
If “division and turmoil” is elitist shorthand for corruptly locking out the young and less affluent (90% of the country) as was done in the primaries last year then the Dems need a whole lot more “division and turmoil” to save them from more disasters. They are not likely to get it from the ossified geriatrics who are, astonishingly, still running the party after the disaster last year. Failure should have consequences, not rewards.
Hahahahaha, “principles are sound” You lost to Donald F@#$%^&* Trump last year by continuing your disparagement of working class America. Dems abandoned their principles in ’72 when along with needed reforms they ditched their New Deal working class base and embraced professional elitists and neo-libs. It’s been all down hill from there. But go ahead ride it to the bottom, that won’t hurt much, but the sudden stop at the end will be a bruiser. 2016 was just a taste of what it will be like.
Unfortunately, the rest of us will suffer for your failures too The Repubs are hopeless, although the recent resurgence of moderates in Kansas is a good sign. That leaves the Dems as the hope for the country, but damned faint hope as long as attitudes like yours are running the show. Why did you lead me on by suggesting you were working for change within the party? You got my hopes up. Sigh.
Cheers, bmaz. That was Leslie Nielsen before his Naked Gun days. There was some choice dialogue. As Trump might have said to Comey after he failed Trump’s omerta test, “get out of here before I have you run out of the area under guard — and then I’ll put more guards on the guards.”
My favorite, though, is Robby asking Cookie, when replenishing his last swig of genuine rocket bourbon, “Would sixty gallons be sufficient?”
Still one of my favorites ever, watch it anytime I see it on TCM etc. And Anne Francis……
“What’s a bathing suit?”
Lefty
Okay. Good reply
We just have a different pathway to improve the low/middle class situation
Librul, Thank you.
Different pathway indeed, up vs continuous down for 40 years.
We have sopped up far too much of this thread. Let’s continue on another day. Expect there is much we agree on.
Regards.
Alas, the ‘Reply’ feature fails to provide ‘contribute’ frames. So here we are:
bmaz,
“Hahahahahahahahahaha”! You made my “partisan” “partisan Democrat” What a surprise that will be to non-Democrat partisans against Trump and Co., like Paul Ryan, George Bush, Dick Cheney and all of the Republican affiliated neo-cons (who did no jump ship to support Hillary — Those who jumped will be embarrassed to have it brought up: Switcher: “Aw, come on! Jeez, it was just a political move!” Hilary: “You didn’t bring enough of your friends with you to vote for me! You made me lose the election! It was your fault!” Switcher: “I swear to God I did not switch to this woman!, someone forged my name!”
No, I did not write that the partisans Comey aligned himself to in the present iteration of his lying, obfuscating, hanging back etc. to put interests ahead of law and Constitution, were party specific.
Abattoir,
I was not able to make sense of your comment, in part for being unable to decipher your typo?/secret-code?, whatever “rwhj”, and in part for finding your assertion of a meeting of “talking points” being called unfathomable. It was not one of your lucid days?
Had I called any kind of a meeting to discuss Comey and Meuller posing as competent, honest, upright, possessed of integrity and all the rest they obviously lack you may be sure that one of my principle (and principled) invitees would have been Colleen Rowley, who has written of her first-hand experience of the characters (or lack of same) of the two mutton-headed mindless-obedients the Partisan Pols of DC are presently cooing heir hearts to orgasms over.
A good source for Ms. Rowley’s information is https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/06/russia-gates-mythical-heroes/ at ConsortiumNews dot com, which provides just about all the links you could ask for to gain the education you need to be a good citizen and rise above the septic-tank-sludge producing what the U.S. is suffering just now for government.
purodude,
I am impressed by your having counted up seventy-seven comas. Just thinking about doing that kind of thing would put me into one. On the other hand, to have the time to waste in doing that sort of thing …. Ahh, It is to dream of…