Not just a better version of that look, Zoolander had a better relationship with the Malaysian Prime Minister too…
My brother insists that the only good thing to come from the Trump presidency is the Oscar Woody Harrelson will get for the inevitable movie
Here’s how stupid and/or foolhardy Cohen was:
He used the same shell corporation to pay off Stormy Daniels as he did to do other most likely illegal things.
If he had only spent the extra $200 or whatever for another paper corporation, then none of those other things would be as easily admissible as they apparently were.
Cohen is yet another case of Trump selecting for loyalty rather than intelligence or even self-respect.
One of the cable news shows was talking recently about how the Steele dossier has never been “debunked” as Trump keeps claiming-- but while much of it has never been proven, an awful lot of it has been corroborated. This is just one more item from the dossier.
Some reviewer wag will describe it as “John Carpenter meets Luis Bunuel at suggestion of John le Carre”.
When you get away with illegal bullshit hundreds of times with minimal effort, you might start to think you will never stop getting away with it.
The fact is, if these roaches weren’t all connected to the POTUS (or the actual POTUS) they would have continued committing these white collar scams and criminal enterprises for the rest of their lives without consequences.
Normally, consequences are for poor people, especially those with brown skin. Cohen was just doing what they all do, it’s just his misfortune that he got caught up in events bigger than him.
No sympathy, but any notion that he is a lone bungler misses the point. These guys are comically inept because enforcement of white collar crime in the US (and most of the world) is a pathetic joke, and easily ignored.
“Showery with a chance of indictments.”
the whole crime is far more simple (and more serious) than anyone is trying to make it, read this, well worth it because it will all make simple sense:
There’s probably some self-selection going on there too. Anyone intelligent enough to do the job well knows better than to tie their own fortunes to a backstabbing time bomb like Trump.
Can you imagine some Russian project chief seeing his hyper-trolling operation with a posse of American clowns succeed beyond his dreams, and thinking “how can I retro-actively hide all the traces?” … only to get a call from the top saying to leave it, it’s better if they’re found.
Apologists are gonna apologize.
-
- The Secret Service shouldn’t be considered essential personnel during the government shutdown.
-
- The Secret Service should be reassigned to keeping National Parks open during the government shutdown.
0 voters
That is quite possible closer to the truth than not.
This is the best picture that I have seen this year.
Bravo!
Who do you think I’m apologizing for? I’m not saying Trump isn’t awful. I’m not saying he isn’t guilty. I’m only saying that the previous incarnation of this story hasn’t been corroborated after eight months. If I’m mistaken, someone please say so, otherwise this really shouldn’t be a controversial statement.
There seems to be a belief—across the whole political spectrum—that the ‘dossier’ is the key to this whole thing. If it’s proven, Trump will go to prison! If it’s disproved, he’ll… continue being an insufferable asshole, I guess?
That’s far from certain on both counts.
The only people who still seem to be fixating on the Steele Dossier are Republicans who are promoting the ridiculous idea that any leads that arose from paid opposition research can’t legally or ethically be followed up on.
In the two years or so since the dossier was published much of it has been independently verified (including this very detail about Cohen in Prague) while some has remained unverified. NONE of the claims have yet been proven false. But that doesn’t really even matter, because nobody is trying to get Trump impeached based on the content of the dossier alone. It was a starting point for an investigation, not the definitive final report on Trump’s Russia shenanigans.
I don’t get this quote:
“As long as the battery is physically located in the phone, even when it’s turned off, the mobile phone’s approximate location can be detected and tracked. Any attempt to use an app, to get mail, send texts, connect to a Wifi network, your phone and your location will be detected.”
How do you use an app, get mail, send texts, connect to Wifi, with the phone turned off? (sarcasm here)
I don’t get why the 2nd sentence is necessary given the first part, or is the first clause b.s.? (real question)
if the phone is capable of responding to surveillance pings then it’s not really turned off
but lawyers gonna lawyer about this, literally and otherwise
I’m sincerely envious of whatever witchcraft you use to avoid Louise Mensch and her pee tape acolytes.
You’re preaching to the choir here, though it wasn’t even a starting point for an investigation; they were all in progress before the FBI learned of Steele’s work.
Some of it has, indeed, been verified, though a substantial amount of that information was reported publicly before it appeared in the dossier, and I still dispute that this Prague story can be verified. Having watched the authors make their case on TV tonight I feel even more confident about that.
I also dispute that nothing has been proven false. It states that Russia has only had limited success with hacking tier 1 targets, but the State Department, Pentagon, and White House were all compromised in 2015.
It states that Carter Page met with Sechin and Divyekin [sic] and then later confirms that Page met Sechin. I guess it’s possible this is true, but since Page’s HPSCI testimony it seems to be accepted as fact that he didn’t meet them, but did meet whole bunch of other people, none of whom are mentioned in the dossier.
It states that Aleksej Gubarev, Webzilla, and XBT Holdings were responsible for one of the hacks, but Mueller indicted a bunch totally different people and described how it happened in significant detail, none of which resembled what’s described in the dossier.
That last one is particularly interesting because it was an unsolicited tip that came after the election, and it named specific entities in the US which provided an opportunity for legal action to be taken against Buzzfeed. The same thing happened in the UK, courtesy of Alfa Group, Mikhail Fridman, and Petr Aven, who sued Orbis and Steele. Those two lawsuits provided plenty of ammunition for Trump and his allies.
Now consider that Manafort called Reince Priebus soon after the dossier was published and instructed him to use it as a means to discredit the entire investigative process. Also consider that Oleg Deripaska was one of the primary sources, and Manafort was giving him “private briefings” on the campaign.
I don’t know if it was Manafort, Deripaska, one of the numerous intermediaries, or even Steele himself who was distorting things, but it seems highly likely that someone was treating it as a vehicle for misinformation, and in that role it’s been a huge success.
That’s why I get antsy about it.
