The Commentariat -- November 28, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Jonathan Chait: "... the New York Times and Washington Post both have new stories [linked below] about Giuliani pursuing business deals with Ukrainian government officials at the same time he was lobbying them on Trump's behalf.... The first and most important thing to understand about these deals is that there is no possible set of mitigating circumstances that might make the negotiations remotely ethical."

Sabrina Caserta of the AP: "The beloved balloons flew, but lower than usual, in a windy Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade after an anxious weather watch. Wind had threatened to ground the giant inflated characters. But officials announced less than an hour before Thursday's start time that the balloons could fly, if in a down-to-Earth way. As the parade continued -- even while city emergency officials sent out a public alert about wind gusts -- handlers struggled with some balloons and pulled them close to the ground. Meanwhile, winds did keep giant balloons out of Philadelphia's Thanksgiving Day parade."

Yanan Wang of the AP: "China reacted furiously Thursday to ... Donald Trump's signing two bills aimed at supporting human rights in Hong Kong, summoning the U.S. ambassador to protest and warning the move would undermine cooperation with Washington. Hong Kong, a former British colony that was granted semi-autonomy when China took control in 1997, has been rocked by six months of sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations. Thousands of pro-democracy activists crowded a public square in downtown Hong Kong on Thursday night for a 'Thanksgiving Day' rally to thank the United States for passing the laws and vowed to 'march on' in their fight."

~~~~~~~~~~

Or Something Like This. Painting by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, ca. 1914"Everything You Learned about the First Thanksgiving Is Wrong." Maya Salam of the New York Times: The main course was venison brought by Wampanoag men, there's no direct evidence the Pilgrims ate turkey, and they didn't call themselves Pilgrims but "separatists." The separatists didn't come seeking religious freedom; they came to set up an entrepreneurial theocracy. And Squanto spoke English because he'd been captured by an Englishman & sold into slavery years earlier (even that story is complicated & essential parts of it unknown). Mrs. McC: In other words, the "Pilgrims" were a lot like many present-day Americans: insular, religiously intolerant & avaricious. Pass the sweet potatoes corn meal mush, please.

Also not necessarily historically accurate:

Trump Vows to Save "Thanksgiving." Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "The Trump-Fox News Feedback Loop was on full display Wednesday morning when ... Donald Trump's favorite morning show backed his patently absurd claim that liberals want to change the name of Thanksgiving -- an idea he obviously got from Fox's recent round-the-clock 'War on Thanksgiving' coverage. At his Tuesday night campaign rally in Florida, the president insisted that 'some people' want to change the name of the holiday and 'don't want to use the term Thanksgiving,' likening this supposed anti-Thanksgiving sentiment to another infamous right-wing media invention. 'And that was true with Christmas. Now everybody is using Christmas again. And remember I said that,' Trump declared. 'Now we're gonna have to do a little work on Thanksgiving. People have different ideas on why it shouldn't be called Thanksgiving. Everybody here loves the name Thanksgiving and we're not changing it!' During Wednesday morning's broadcast of Fox & Friends, the hosts appeared to give credence to the president's conspiracy, all while sidestepping the role their network had in planting the idea in his head." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Somebody please tell me what I'm supposed to call today's holiday now that it's not Thanksgiving anymore. "Thursday"? ~~~

~~~ Update. The Thanksgiving war is real. I lost an uncle at the battle of Cranberry Hill. He was going upriver on a gravy boat that got ambushed by Col. 'Cornbread' Stuffing's men. Bones everywhere --- he died of heartburn. Tried to hold on until Black Friday but just couldn't. I'll be thinking of him tomorrow when I go shopping for all those overpriced bargains. -- Forrest M., in today's Comments

New York Times: "Two major storm systems have paralyzed large parts of the nation just ahead of Thanksgiving. Though the storms were weakening, holiday travel issues were likely to continue into the weekend." The story is being updated. The Weather Channel's main page has links to a number of weather horror stories, to a travel forecast, & of course to the weather outlook for your, uh, Thursday or whatever, & beyond.

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: In case venison is not your entree today & you are asked to carve a turkey, there are quite a few YouTube videos advising how to do it. The Washington Post has a story with helpful graphics on the art of bird-carving.

William Saletan of Slate: "Republicans claim that two private remarks by ... Donald Trump clear him of wrongdoing in the Ukraine scandal. The first remark, supposedly made on Aug. 31 to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, was that Trump would 'never' require Ukraine to do anything for him in order to get military aid he had suspended. The second remark, made on Sept. 7 or Sept. 9 to Gordon Sondland..., was that Trump wanted 'nothing' from Ukraine [Mrs. McC: The 'no quid pro quo' conversation].... But now it turns out that by the time Trump spoke to Johnson, the president already knew he was under investigation for extorting Zelensky. This discovery, reported on Tuesday night [also linked yesterday] by the New York Times, inverts the meaning of Trump's statements to Johnson and Sondland. Trump wasn't telling the truth. He was launching his cover story." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ About That "No Quid Pro Quo" Call. Aaron Davis, et al., of the Washington Post: Gordon "Sondland's recollection of a phone conversation that he said took place on Sept. 9 has emerged as a centerpiece of Trump's defense as House Democrats argue in an impeachment inquiry that he abused his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats. However, no other witness testimony or documents have emerged that corroborate Sondland's description of a call that day. Trump himself, in describing the conversation, has referred only to the ambassador's account of the call, which -- based on Sondland's activities -- would have occurred before dawn in Washington. And the White House has not located a record in its switchboard logs of a call between Trump and Sondland on Sept. 9, according to an administration official.... But there is evidence of another call between Trump and Sondland that occurred a few days earlier -- one with a very different thrust, in which the president made clear that he wanted his Ukrainian counterpart to personally announce investigations into Trump's political opponents.... The way witnesses [Tim Morrison & Bill Taylor] describe a call between the two men in early September ... [is that] Trump said he was not seeking a 'quid pro quo,' but he also relayed a specific demand ... that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally and publicly announce the investigations Trump was seeking." Emphasis added. The Raw Story has a summary report here. More on Sondland linked below.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "As Rudolph W. Giuliani waged a public campaign this year to unearth damaging information in Ukraine about President Trump's political rivals, he privately pursued hundreds of thousands dollars in business from Ukrainian government officials, documents reviewed by The New York Times show. Mr. Giuliani ... has repeatedly said he has no business in Ukraine, and none of the deals was finalized. But the documents indicate that while he was pushing Mr. Trump's agenda with Ukrainian officials eager for support from the United States, Mr. Giuliani also explored financial agreements with members of the same government.... Prosecutors and F.B.I. agents in Manhattan are examining whether Mr. Giuliani was not just working for the president, but also doing the bidding of Ukrainians who wanted [Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch] removed for their own reasons...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~

~~~ Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "These negotiations were in early 2019 -- not long before Giuliani put the prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, in touch with John Solomon, a right-leaning US journalist then at The Hill.... Solomon publicized Lutsenko's claims, many of which Lutsenko later withdrew, winning the prosecutor attention from Trump's circle. Lutsenko used that access to influence US policy toward Ukraine, helping to force the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, who was critical of Lutsenko.... [Giuliani's] negotiation with Lutsenko, while particularly brazen, is just one of many engagements for which the former mayor has drawn accusations of acting as unregistered foreign agent.... Giuliani has never registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. Nor has he registered as a lobbyist of any kind. In various public statements, he has said he doesn't need to.... [His] excuses may not get Giuliani off the hook on foreign lobbying laws. You don't have to be paid to be considered a foreign agent under FARA, a World War II-era law that requires anyone promoting the interests of foreign clients to register with the Justice Department and detail their efforts."

~~~ Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Rudolph W. Giuliani negotiated earlier this year to represent Ukraine's top prosecutor for at least $200,000 during the same months that Giuliani was working with the prosecutor to dig up dirt on vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the discussions. The people said that Giuliani began negotiations with Ukraine's top prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, about a possible agreement in February. In the agreement, Giuliani's company would receive payment to represent Lutsenko as the Ukrainian sought to recover assets he believed had been stolen from the government in Kyiv, those familiar with the discussions said.... The people said that another retainer agreement, drafted in March, called for Giuliani Partners to receive $300,000 from the Ministry of Justice for help locating the supposedly stolen assets.... The talks occurred as Giuliani met with Lutsenko in New York in January and then in Warsaw in February while he was also gathering information from Lutsenko on two topics Giuliani believed could prove useful to Trump: the involvement of Biden, and his son, Hunter, in Ukraine and allegations that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 election.... A person familiar with the negotiations described a series of contracts that were drafted earlier this year in which Giuliani would have worked for Lutsenko or separately, the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Hill has a summary of the NYT & WashPo stories. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump was right when about one thing he told Bill O'Reilly (story linked yesterday) while trying to distance himself from Rudy: "Rudy has other clients, other than me. He's done a lot of work in Ukraine over the years." Trump's "Rudy who?" chat with O'Reilly seems to have been a "response" to the NYT & WashPo stories linked above, in that reporters most likely called the White House for comment yesterday. The distancing from Rudy also may mean Trump is keeping tabs on the SDNY investigation of the Three Stooges, and that the investigation is not going well Rudy. BTW, if Trump was so concerned about corruption in Ukraine, why would he hire a lawyer who has "done a lot of work in Ukraine over the years"? Wouldn't that lawyer have been working with corrupt Ukrainians over the years? ~~~

     ~~~ digby: "Put simply, Rudy was doing with Trump what they accuse Biden and his son of doing. Of course. And it's much, much worse since they were simultaneously doing Russia's bidding and putting lives on the line in the war with Ukraine." ~~~

~~~ Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani acknowledged this week meeting with a lawyer for a Ukrainian oligarch who he had previously said he had 'nothing to do with.'... Asked about the discrepancy, Giuliani called CNN's inquiry 'horseshit' and 'trickery,' and said previous responses to CNN were not misleading."

Lauren Egan of NBC News: "... Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that he did not direct his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to have Ukraine dig up dirt on his political rivals, contradicting testimony from several witnesses in the House impeachment inquiry.... [But] public testimony in the impeachment inquiry from multiple senior diplomats portrayed Giuliani as the driver behind Trump's pressure campaign to get Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden and a leading voice in the spread of debunked conspiracies that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump asked Zelenskiy to get in touch with Giuliani in the July 25 phone call that ultimately led to the impeachment inquiry.... In testimony from two key witnesses alone, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for Ukraine, Giuliani was mentioned more than 430 times, highlighting his outsize influence in Ukraine policy.... Giuliani has maintained that there was nothing illegal or improper about his actions, even tweeting publicly about conducting an 'investigation' on Trump's behalf."

Just Kidding, Donald! Karen Friefeld of Reuters: "... Rudy Giuliani called the president this week to reassure him that he had been joking when he told media outlets he had 'insurance' if Trump turned on him in the Ukraine scandal, Giuliani's lawyer said on Wednesday. The attorney, Robert Costello, said Giuliani 'at my insistence' had called Trump 'within the last day' to emphasize that he had not been serious when he said he had an 'insurance policy, if thrown under the bus.'" Mrs. McC: Nice try, Rudy. Trump knows what you have on him.

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "A federal district judge on Wednesday issued a temporary stay of her order that former White House counsel Don McGahn comply with House Democrats' subpoena for testimony. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an Obama appointee on the district court in D.C., granted McGahn's request for a temporary stay while she deliberates on whether to issue a lengthier one to allow him to appeal her decision. The House Judiciary Committee, which had asked the court to enforce its subpoena for President Trump's former legal adviser, said it would not oppose a temporary stay." ~~~

~~~ Update. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Wednesday evening stayed a lower-court ruling that former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena after the administration appealed, arguing the battle poses great consequences for the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an administrative stay while it considers a longer-term order, and fast-tracked oral arguments in the case for a hearing Jan. 3. The stay came after U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington on Monday found no basis for a White House claim that the former counsel is 'absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony,' saying 'Presidents are not kings' and raising the possibility that McGahn could be forced to testify before the House Judiciary Committee as part of its impeachment inquiry."

Gordon Sondland, Sexual Predator. Allegedly. Julia Silverman, et al., of Portland Monthly & Maryam Jameel & Doris Burke of ProPublica: "Three women say they faced sexual misconduct by Gordon Sondland before he was the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and at the center of the presidential impeachment inquiry. They say he retaliated against them professionally after they rejected his advances. In one case, a potential business partner recalls that Sondland took her to tour a room in a hotel he owns, only to then grab her face and try to kiss her. After she rejected him, Sondland backtracked on investing in her business. Another woman, a work associate at the time, says Sondland exposed himself to her during a business interaction. She also recalls falling over the back of a couch trying to get away from him. After she made her lack of interest clear, she says Sondland called her, screaming about her job performance. A third woman, 27 years Sondland's junior, met him to discuss a potential job. She says he pushed himself against her and kissed her. She shoved him away. She says his job help stopped. All three women have agreed to be named in this story. In all the cases, friends, family members or colleagues of the women recall being told about the encounters at the time.... Sondland denies the allegations." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Should be quite a nice Thanksgiving Day dinner at the Sondland residence.

Impeachment Then. When Some Republicans Were Heroes. Timothy Smith of the Washington Post: "William D. Ruckelshaus, a pragmatic and resolute government official who shaped the Environmental Protection Agency in the early 1970s as its first administrator and returned to the agency a decade later to restore its shattered morale after its watchdog powers had been muzzled, died Nov. 27 at his home in Medina, Wash. He was 87.... In a long career in government and private industry, Mr. Ruckelshaus was widely promoted as 'Mr. Clean' as much for his uprightness as for his role with the EPA. He cemented his reputation for unshakable integrity when, in 1973, as President Richard Nixon's deputy attorney general, he defied a presidential order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in." Ruckelshaus's New York Times obituary is here.

More on Other Trump Scandals:

Heather Vogell of ProPublica: "Donald Trump's business reported conflicting information about a key metric to New York City property tax officials and a lender who arranged financing for his signature building, Trump Tower in Manhattan, according to tax and loan documents obtained by ProPublica. The findings add a third major Trump property to two for which ProPublica revealed similar discrepancies last month. In the latest case, the occupancy rate of the Trump Tower's commercial space was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11, 16 and 16 percentage points higher in filings to a lender than in reports to city tax officials, records show."

Scott Stedman of Forensic News: "Thomas Bowers, a former Deutsche Bank executive and head of the American wealth-management division, killed himself in Malibu, California, on Tuesday, November 19th, according to the Los Angeles county coroner's initial report.... Bowers was the boss of Donald Trump's banker Rosemary Vrablic, according to a New York Times article in early 2019. Vrablic approved over $300 million dollars in high risk loans for Trump starting in 2010. Vrablic's other clients have included Jared Kushner.... One source who has direct knowledge of the FBI's investigation into Deutsche Bank said that federal investigators have asked about Bowers and documents he might have."

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Michael Flynn..., Donald Trump's first national security adviser, will not be sentenced on December 18 as previously planned, a federal judge said Wednesday, to await the release of an internal Justice Department report on FBI surveillance. Judge Emmet Sullivan agreed with prosecutors and Flynn's lawyers, who asked for Flynn's long-awaited sentencing hearing to be delayed because they won't be fully prepared for it until the DOJ inspector general's report regarding FBI surveillance as part of its early Russia probe is published. The inspector general's review is due out December 9." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday signed legislation offering support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, one week after it passed the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities. The White House made the announcement that Trump had signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act despite protests from officials in Beijing, who complain that the legislation meddles in their domestic matters.... The legislation imposes sanctions on individuals who commit human rights violations in Hong Kong and blocks them from entering the United States." The Washington Post story is here.

Former Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer in a Washington Post op-ed: "... military justice works best when senior leadership stays far away. A system that prevents command influence is what separates our armed forces from others. Our system of military justice has helped build the world's most powerful navy; good leaders get promoted, bad ones get moved out, and criminals are punished.... President Trump involved himself in the [Gallagher] case almost from the start.... The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices." ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer on Wednesday admonished President Trump for repeatedly involving himself in an internal review of a Navy SEAL whose case led to controversy and Spencer's ouster over the weekend. Spencer penned an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he laid out multiple instances in which Trump attempted to intervene in a military review of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was accused and later acquitted of several war crimes." ~~~

~~~ Barbara Starr & Nicole Gaouette of CNN: "Tensions that have been mounting for months between some of the nation's most senior military officers and ... Donald Trump are boiling over after his decision to intervene in the cases of three service members accused of war crimes. A long-serving military officer put it bluntly, telling CNN 'there is a morale problem,' and senior Pentagon officials have privately said they are disturbed by the President's behavior. Dismay in the Pentagon has been building over Trump's sporadic, impulsive and contradictory decision-making on a range of issues, including his sudden pullback of troops in Syria. But now there are new and significant worries, as multiple military officials and retired officers say Trump's intervention into high-profile war crimes cases cannot be ignored."

~~~ Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: "Donald Trump is a war-crimes enthusiast.... Although Trump was talked out of authorizing torture by his advisers, the president's ardor for violations of the laws of war has manifested itself in his decisions to intervene in war-crimes cases.... In four separate cases since the beginning of his presidency, and for the first time in the history of modern warfare, an American president has aided service members accused or convicted of war crimes, against the advice of his own military leadership. The clearances eroded the rule of law, as well as institutional safeguards against authoritarianism and the politicization of the military. But they were also a rational extension of Trumpist nationalism, which recognizes no moral, legal, or institutional restraints on the president worth upholding, and which sees violence against outsiders as a redemptive expression of national loyalty." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Shocking Report Will Reveal Barack Obama Is Not a Master Spy. Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The Justice Department's inspector general found no evidence that the F.B.I. attempted to place undercover agents or informants inside Donald J. Trump's campaign in 2016 as agents investigated whether his associates conspired with Russia's election interference operation, people familiar with a draft of the inspector general's report said. The determination by the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is expected to be a key finding in his highly anticipated report due out on Dec. 9 examining aspects of the Russia investigation. The finding also contradicts some of the most inflammatory accusations hurled by Mr. Trump and his supporters, who alleged not only that F.B.I. officials spied on the Trump campaign but also at one point that former President Barack Obama had ordered Mr. Trump's phones tapped.... The finding is one of several by Mr. Horowitz that undercuts conservatives' claims that the F.B.I. acted improperly in investigating several Trump associates starting in 2016. He also found that F.B.I. leaders did not take politically motivated actions in pursuing a secret wiretap on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page -- eavesdropping that Mr. Trump's allies have long decried as politically motivated. But Mr. Horowitz will sharply criticize F.B.I. leaders for their handling of the investigation in some ways, and he unearthed errors and omissions when F.B.I. officials applied for the wiretap, according to people familiar with a draft of the report." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: C'mon, you-all were sure Barack was down in the bowels of Trump Tower just a-tippity-tip-tappin' them wires. Drat! Turns out it was not Barack in the basement with a bug. Another Trump conspiracy theory bites the dust. (Well, okay, Trump probably won't give up on it. Stay tuned for Sean Hannity's report on Michael Horowitz, deep-state mole for George Soros & the international liberal cabal.)

Mark Walker & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "An examination of Federal Emergency Management Agency data and records demonstrates the degree to which the recovery from Hurricanes Maria and Irma on America's Caribbean islands has been stalled compared with some of the most disaster-prone states on the mainland, leaving the islands' critical infrastructure in squalor and limbo.... That disparity underscored how a federal government in Washington has treated citizens on the mainland, with voting representatives in Congress and a say in presidential contests, compared with citizens on the islands. Further complicating the recovery are issues of corruption, often amplified by President Trump and, islanders say, questions of race." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Tim Apple Is Doing Putin's Bidding. Chris Welch of the Verge: "When used within Russia, Apple's Maps and Weather apps now list Crimea as being a Russian territory. The move, reported by BBC News, is the latest example of Apple kowtowing to a government's demands to keep its devices and services in good standing. The company faced significant criticism in October for removing the Taiwanese flag emoji from the iOS keyboard in Hong Kong. This latest change stems from Russia's roundly condemned annexation of Crimea in 2014. It only applies when Crimea is viewed or searched for with Apple Maps inside Russia; elsewhere in the world, Crimea isn't labeled as Russian territory."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

C’mon. And you call yourself a liberal? Every lib knows that we don’t use the word Thanksgiving anymore. Now it’s called “Kill all the white Christian invaders and sell their women to Indians as sex slaves Day”

But Thursday works just fine. Me, I’m gearing up for the War on Groundhog Day (Free Punxsutawney Phil!) and the War on Pardoned War Criminals Day.

[Akhilleus]

That being the case, I would like to wish all RC denizens a happy, (ful)filling, and tryptophantic Kill All the White Christian Invaders and Sell Their Women to the Indians as Sex Slaves Day. May the day’s heritage of religious intolerance, land theft, and genocide not interfere with your god given right to scream at the refs during whichever pigskin extravaganza you choose to fall asleep to.

[Akhilleus]

Not sayin’ Marie should post it, but if wanna see how truly needy for attention and thoroughly insecure Fatty is, check out that picture he tweeted of himself with his sneering puss photoshopped onto Rocky Balboa’s body. This is worse than juvenile. And while the Foxbots might delight in this as another Trumpy “joke” (ha-ha, such a card, the most humorless president since Nixon), we all know there’s a real smell of desperation and narcissism hovering about all theses “manly” and phony displays of physical and/or military prowess, something he possesses not in the least.

Sad.

And now I’m really thankful for Democrats who are trying to show up this fraud and traitor and crook for what he is.

[PD Pepe]

Early Thanksgiving (or Fowl Day) morning:

Ring! Ring!

Trump: Yeah?

Operator: It's Giulliani on line 2.

T: Who?

O: Rudy Giulliani on line 2

T: I don't know any Ruby Julie Annie–-who is she?

O: Mr. President: It's not a she, but a he and I believe with all my heart he's your lawyer.

T: I don't believe I have a lawyer with that name––I...

O: You know what? Let's connect you with this person you don't know and see how it goes.

G: Morning old chap–-thought we could have a bit of a chat and...

T: You fucking piece of mouse turd calling me on the direct phone line on Thanksgiving Day when I'm pretending I'm fancy free and getting myself ready for rounds of golf and telling everyone I know nothing, haven't seen nothing, don't know squat about nothing ––my lips are sealed as yours better be or you'll be smelling gasoline under you know what!

G: Bus? Keep in mind, bro, I got insurance.

T: And that you can stick where the sun don't shine. You open your trap, you little shit, and I'll....

O: So sorry, Mr. President but that person you don't know just hung up. Have a happy Thanksgiving, sir, and as my grandma always told me, keep smiling even though your heart may be breaking.

Tick tock

[Forrest Morris]

The Thanksgiving war is real. I lost an uncle at the battle of
Cranberry Hill. He was going upriver on a gravy boat that got
ambushed by Col. "Cornbread" Stuffing's men. Bones everywhere---
he died of heartburn. Tried to hold on until Black Friday but just
couldn't. I'll be thinking of him tomorrow when I go shopping for
all those overpriced bargains.

[Victoria]

Wait. Trump wasn't being juvenile with that buffbod added; this is clearly a heartfelt adoration of Putin. Remember when Putin rode shirtless on a horse? Trump was just letting Putin know how much he loves him.

[Ken Winkes]

Will kinda miss Thanksgiving. Lot of fond memories there but if to remain a proud liberal scumbag I have to leave it all behind, I guess I'll have to learn to be OK with Just Thursday. Will try it out at the family gathering of other liberal scumbags later today and see how it goes over. Will let you know.

In the meantime, may you all have a happy Whatever.

(As type this on my Mac, each stroke reminds me of Apple's perfidious treatment of truth. Another Change-the-Facts-Anything-for-a-Buck lesson, probably negotiated on pretty-boy's {thanks, Victoria} Putin's behalf by the Pretender's personal Wilbur. It is a perfect Sign of the Times.)

[Marie Burns]

The Photoshopped pic Akhilleus refers to above is here -- and many other places. Pathetic. As one wag pointed out, "Rocky beat the Russian."

[Ken Winkes]

Bea,

Just looked at the photoshopped Pretender pic and wished I hadn't.

What happens when we extend the confines of a child's playpen to the world at large?

I thought I knew when Bush II and Darth Vader were in charge of too much of it.

Silly me. I had no idea.

[Ken Winkes]

Wish I'd been there to witness this good Thursday news (about Wednesday).

https://www.newsweek.com/ken-cuccinelli-forced-leave-dubliner-pub-after-martin-omalley-shames-him-immigration-policies-1474592

[Ken Winkes]

A rose-colored view of Thursday via Vox:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/27/20984462/thanksgiving-poverty-health-crime-literacy-good-news

[Bobby Lee]

As a suggestion for an alternate name for Thanksgiving, may I propose "Shopquinox", the day ushering in the holiday shopping season.

[Gloria]

Obviously frump has taken a leaf out of killary’s playbook and has murdered the potential tattletale Bowers. Obviously.

[Marie Burns]

@Gloria: I hate it when I don't get what must be a literary reference. Please tell me it's about "Star Wars" or "Batman" or something else I couldn't possibly get. Don't let it be Chaucer or Christopher Marlowe.