Now Which Republicans Will Follow Her Lead?

.@RepCummings is a champion in the Congress and the country for civil rights and economic justice, a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued colleague. We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership. #ElijahCummingsIsAPatriot https://t.co/2LG8AuQrHh

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 27, 2019

And who in media will denounce FoxNews? (and who in the GOP will separate the party from this "strategist"?)

Here's the Fox & Friends segment that inspired Trump's tweets about Baltimore (h/t @MattGertz) pic.twitter.com/SugkHzbK5D

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 27, 2019

As long as they only change Democratic votes....

James Clapper just said on CNN that he believes the Russians have the ability, if they so choose, to actually manually change votes — in the voting machines — in 2020.

This is the second time I’ve heard this said this week.

— John Aravosis 🇺🇸 (@aravosis) July 26, 2019

...right, Mitch? Oh, and state's rights, too, huh? Can't have the federal gummint tellin' us how to count our votes, can we?

But if Russia does it? Well, at least it ain't Washington....

Me and Thee

When — not if — he says the N-word, or it comes out that he did, he and his enablers will find a way to say that the target deserved it, or that it’s justified. It will then become a rally chant. There is no red line, people. The only line left is each individual’s moral compass. https://t.co/Bd0UBNd1YC

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) July 18, 2019

I remember George Wallace and Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms and Bull Connor. Trump is no better and, being POTUS, not a Senator or Governor or Police Chief, is much worse.

Slow news day

“We...looked through his public comments and tweets for this week, and found an avalanche of personal attacks and statements at odds with reality...” https://t.co/zhwbgGaSmy

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 27, 2019

Follow the power:

Don’t forget: Cummings just received this week the authority to subpoena Ivanka and Jared’s email / communications >>> https://t.co/fcjDEFJXr9

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 27, 2019

Future's so bright...

Beginning to think his understanding of politics *may* not be how he presented it here. https://t.co/LSPZa5KWbt

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 27, 2019

We're getting tired of all the winning!

POTUS claimed his issue with the Squad was how they talked about America. Cummings district is part of America. https://t.co/LF5YrsvvxF

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 27, 2019

Unfit to Lead

Drop everything you're doing and watch this....

cc: @VictorBlackwell pic.twitter.com/N9ZWttHSzd

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 27, 2019

The Love Which Dare Not Speak

NADLER says that the House Judiciary Committee is "in effect" holding an impeachment inquriy, which he and colleagues say isn't necessarily formally voted upon.

Several collleagues call it an "impeachment investigation."

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 26, 2019

The harsh part of harsh reality

Am I way out of the box to suggest that, maybe, the House shouldn't take 5 weeks off at this particular point in history?

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 25, 2019

Fundai$ing is a bitch. You want to keep a Democratic House? It's all about the Benjamin$, bay-bee!

Knows Not That He Knows Not

TRUMP on the Russia investigation: "This is an absolute catastrophe for our country ... this was treason, this was high crimes, this was everything -- as bad a definition as you want to come up with. This should never be allowed to happen to our country again. pic.twitter.com/x1dAJMF8sP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 26, 2019

He knows the Constitutional grounds for impeachment, but he doesn't know that he knows it.

He has no idea what the Constitutional grounds of treason are. He just knows he's in trouble. He doesn't know what yo do about it.

Because This Is How Extradition Works?

Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

we don't need laws, just manly men who do the right thing!

Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American Community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers. Treat Americans fairly! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

(You either laugh or cry.)

I, For One, Welcome our Millenial Overlords

“The Democrats are experiencing a clash of generations. As in all such clashes, each side thinks the other is delusional.” https://t.co/OQOZEfCSZi

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 25, 2019

It's about time.  Lorry nose, the Boomers never lived up to their promises.  Maybe our kids will do better.

Truly the Internet Operates on Outrage

It's fascinating to watch this little burble of Twitter outrage. Weary does not mean feeble. Old does not mean ineffectual. Old age doesn't have a negative connotation, to me. But it definitely seems to, for others? Fascinating. https://t.co/oBzm7At5iV

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) July 25, 2019

Took sides on this myself; and I stand by it.  But as age makes me want to sleep a bit more, and strut a bit less,  I agree "old age" has no negative connotation, and shouldn't.  I recall Yeats, who early in life described himself in presumed old age as "old and gray and full of sleep," and in one of his last poems denounced "old age which is tied to me as to a dog's tail."

So true, so true....

But Mueller is the man on decline, everyone. The optics. https://t.co/54M5gyxXAc

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) July 25, 2019

 

"You're the Puppet!"

Devin Nunes did his homework pic.twitter.com/Y8DzGoMlMM

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 24, 2019

You can't even see Hannity's hand up Nunes' backside; but you know it's there.

This Person is My Hero

This is the presidential seal Trump stood in front of at his speech to Young Fascists...er, sorry, Turning Point USA teens.  The two-headed eagle (echoing Russia's national emblem) clutches golf clubs instead of arrows in one claw.

Here it is again:

I can't read the motto above the eagle, but it is NOT "E Pluribus Unum."

And since a picture is worth a thousand words:

USA Today says the banner says, in Spanish, "45 es un titere,", which they translate as:  "45 is a puppet."  Using Spanish is a special touch of genius.

Good times, good times.

It's not like they're innocent or anything!

Story on the American teenager who finally got out of CBP detention center after 23 days: he tells Dallas Morning News conditions were so bad he lost 26 pounds and almost accepted deportation to Mexico https://t.co/ebwN4w8Xk8

— Amanda Katz (@katzish) July 25, 2019

Nothing to see here, move along:

"Generally, situations including conflicting reports from the individual and multiple birth certificates can, and should, take more time to verify," the statement read. "While we continue to research the facts of the situation, this individual has been released from ICE custody. Both CBP and ICE are committed to the fair treatment of migrants in our custody and continue to take appropriate steps to verify all facts of this situation."

Besides, the kid was brown and border adjacent and everybody knows brown people near the border are all carrying fake documents and don't deserve the benefit of the doubt:

 But the boys had to pass through a CBP checkpoint in Falfurrias, about 50 miles north of Edinburg. It was there that CBP agents asked the group to pull over and asked the passengers their statuses.
Marlon Galicia and another passenger lacked legal status. Francisco Galicia told Border Patrol agents that he was a citizen and presented them with a Texas ID, Social Security card and a wallet-sized birth certificate.

But agents doubted the validity of his documents right away, Galicia said.

Agents then took the brothers and another passenger into custody. They held them at the checkpoint for a day and then moved them to a CBP holding facility, where Francisco hoped he would be allowed a phone call.

“I told them we had rights and asked to make a phone call. But they told us, ‘You don’t have rights to anything’,” Francisco Galicia said.

And those conditions on the border that can't be helped because Congress?  Yeah, the cruelty IS the point:

Galicia says he lost 26 pounds during that time in a South Texas immigrant detention center because officers didn’t provide him with enough food.

He said he wasn’t allowed to shower and his skin was dry and dirty.

He and 60 other men were crammed into an overcrowded holding area where they slept on the floor and were given only aluminum-foil blankets, he said. Some men had to sleep on the restroom area floor.

Ticks bit some of the men and some were very sick, Galicia said. But many were afraid to ask to go to the doctor because CBP officers told them their stay would start over if they did, he said.

“It was inhumane how they treated us. It got to the point where I was ready to sign a deportation paper just to not be suffering there anymore. I just needed to get out of there,” he said. 

Brown; border adjacent; all documents are lies, and the U.S. government certainly lacks the capacity to authenticate a birth certificate, right?  Sure, why not treat a U.S. citizen this way?  And make sure to say you were only doing your job!

Twitter Truths to Sleep On

We, the people, decide who governs us. Not some hostile foreign power.

We must harden our election infrastructure, ensure a paper trail, deter and disrupt election meddling.

But above all, let’s recognize that accepting foreign help is disloyal to country, unethical and wrong. https://t.co/r21GArPsRo

— Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) July 25, 2019

I'm begging the American people to pay attention to what is going on. Because if you want to have a democracy intact for your children, and your children's children, and generations yet unborn we've got to guard this moment…this is our watch. pic.twitter.com/ShTZwbQROP

— Elijah E. Cummings (@RepCummings) July 24, 2019

Trump is totally in denial about the real possibility that he could be indicted after he leaves office, berates a second reporter who asks him about it and calls them "fake news" pic.twitter.com/UvRqZDihKq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 24, 2019

Denial looks curiosly like "scared shitless."

Not much, but all we've got

“A fake set of facts that the Democrats used”

“To try and do an illegal overthrow”

How deluded must @realDonaldTrump be to peddle this narrative?

How scared does it make you that he might actually believe these statements?

At what point does this become about competence? https://t.co/c2WLsC7F8L

— Lou Paskalis (@LouPas) July 25, 2019

I want to get upset, but this is the guy who told us his investigators were coming back from Hawaii with the truth about Obama's birth certificate.  And who said he was going to build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it. And that ICE was going to round up millions of immigrants (last count was 35).

And we already know he's stupid. Our only saving grace is that he's equally incompetent.

You Broke It

Amen, brother. https://t.co/r64JZIrHZJ

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 25, 2019

This "rot" in the GOP goes back to the failure of Goldwater, and the people who started then taking over the party. Richard Viguerie wasn't so long ago his direct mail propaganda is forgotten. Every GOP politician who sends out an e-mail fundraising on the hour's news is following in his footsteps, right down to the rabid fear mongering. And Grover Norquist who convinced us paying for government was the problem (remember Reagan, who made that a campaign platform?). The seeds of Trump's complete indifference to government, and insistence the parts of it he doesn't like are a conspiracy against him, are rooted in that history. 

Trump isn't a barbarian who stormed the gates of the GOP Rome. He's your Caligula, the logical outcome of the party's history for the past half-century.  You thought it was working for you when it wasn't Trump making the point obvious (what, Gingrich wasn't enough for you?). But it was working toward Trump from the moment "Landslide Lyndon" was sworn in for the second time.

Suck it up, buttercup, and take ownership for what you have wrought.

News/Gossip

Pelosi rebuffs Nadler on impeachment after Mueller flop - POLITICO https://t.co/fFnWf6OUyv

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 25, 2019

Just to clarify, the above is news.

Soon after the special counsel’s office opened, aides noticed Mueller kept noticeably shorter hours than he had @ FBI. In the past year, as negotiations w/ Trump’s lawyers dragged on, Mueller took part less and less @SharonLNYT @adamgoldmanNYT @noahweiland https://t.co/7vMd2FLglb

— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) July 25, 2019

This is gossip.  There is a difference.

More Truth Told on Twitter

The fact that Mueller wasn't exactly Richard Pryor while delivering his answers doesn't matter a damn. He said the president* is a crook. Everyone in Congress knows it, and they knew it before Wednesday even had dawned. https://t.co/cxTpYMe9rs

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 24, 2019

Well, if there's a new AG....

.@PressSec weighing in after Mueller > https://t.co/ZhSuXxSIpZ

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 24, 2019

...in 2021, that, too, could change.

Good argument for it to change, in fact.