Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

[Thad]

He also fired the head of the Secret Service, which may have had something to do with this: Thumb drive carried by Mar-a-Lago intruder immediately installed files on a PC

The already suspicious account of a Chinese national who allegedly carried four cellphones, a thumb drive containing malware, and other electronics as she breached security at President Trump's private Florida club just grew even more fishy.

[...]

The details came to light at a bond hearing on Monday in a Florida federal court. There, a Secret Service agent testified that the malware Zhang carried was capable of infecting a computer as soon as the thumb drive was plugged in. According to a report published Monday by the Miami Herald:

Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified at the hearing. He stated that when another agent put Zhang's thumb-drive into his computer, it immediately began to install files, a "very out-of-the-ordinary" event that he had never seen happen before during this kind of analysis. The agent had to immediately stop the analysis to halt any further corruption of his computer, Ivanovich said. The analysis is ongoing but still inconclusive, he testified.

I mean, I guess the point of the Secret Service is to protect the president against physical threats and I probably shouldn't expect a bare minimum of computer security competence from them, but...yeah, "don't plug suspicious USB drives into your computer" is the sort of warning that gets blasted out in the Weekly Security Tips company newsletter.

Not that that specific detail likely has anything to do with Trump firing the head of the Secret Service, but I do think it's probably related to the Zhang story, because it makes them look embarrassingly incompetent. Zhang was such an absurdly obvious security threat that if this were a movie, I would naturally assume she was a decoy to distract the guards while the real spy planted the real payload.

I guess I still wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case, but...I can't say as that's what I expect, either. The last few years have made it perfectly clear that real life is full of stories that are so dumb that they'd never make it into even the laziest, most hackneyed Hollywood script.

[Rico]

I mean, allow me to be the 734,982nd person to point out that was half of why I hated Skyfall.

[Thad]

Trump says he is in control of his immigration policy, not Stephen Miller (warning: autoplay video)

It's happening. The press is giving Miller credit for Trump's policy and it's getting inside his head.

This is what happened with Bannon, and I dearly hope Miller is headed toward the same result. I think he's the single worst person in the Trump Administration -- possibly excluding Trump himself, but I'm not even sure of that.

My usual response when Trump fires someone is "uh-oh, who's he going to find who's even worse?" Bannon was an exception. Miller is too. There may be people who are more evil than Miller, and there are certainly people who are more effective. But I think the odds are against Trump finding someone who's both.

Removing Miller certainly wouldn't put an end to Trump's racist policies. But it could leave them less focused and effective. Here's hoping, for modest values of "hope".

[McDohl]

Not sure where to put this, but Ecuador removed Julian Assange's asylum, and he was arrested. There's footage out there of him being hauled out.

I mean, on the one hand, his ratfucking destroyed the legitimacy of the 2016 election, but the reasoning behind the arrest is built to punish whistleblowers.

Oh and related, Chelsea Manning is still in jail.

[Thad]

Yeah, my feelings on the Assange case are complicated. I believe that the rape charges against him are legitimate, and he should go to prison for them. But I think it's also pretty clear that multinational governments aren't actually after him because they're so damn concerned about prosecuting rapists, and whatever my opinion of everything Wikileaks has done, I'm not sure it should be illegal.

If Assange actually, provably conspired to break the law (and I'm not talking about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; fuck the CFAA) then that's one thing. But if he merely made vague comments to the effect of "if you can get me more information, I'll post it," that sounds like a fairly standard behavior for a journalist talking to a source.

Trying to delineate First Amendment exceptions on the premise that Wikileaks isn't a journalistic outlet and therefore not entitled to press protections, or because it selectively released information with the deliberate intention of influencing an election, seems fraught. Assange is a dirtbag, but we should be very wary of unintended consequences here. I've said it before: constitutional rights are one context in which slippery-slope arguments are legitimate and valid.

All that said: if there's evidence that he encouraged people to commit crimes, or accepted bribes to influence the election, then I'm totally OK with prosecuting him for that.

[Mongrel]

Don't forget the added wrinkle that Ecuador possibly revoked his asylum simply because they were sick of his filthy ass in their embassy.

Which is not a great reason to revoke legitimate asylum, but on the other hand, don't shit where you sleep. Especially if you're an internationally wanted man.

[Thad]

Adding: the main accusation seems to be that he asked Manning for a password hash and offered to decrypt it for her. If that's accurate, then that's a legit cause for prosecution, even if he didn't go through with the plan. (The CFAA is overbroad -- see Aaron Swartz -- but grabbing a hashed administrator password and trying to decrypt it, with the explicit purpose of accessing classified information, is a reasonable cause for prosecution.)

[Joxam]

I realize that prison sucks and american prison is especially bad (although federal is perhaps the least bad) but did this dude literally spend 7 years in that embassy for a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 5 years?

[Mongrel]

I realize that prison sucks and american prison is especially bad (although federal is perhaps the least bad) but did this dude literally spend 7 years in that embassy for a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 5 years?

Are we talking about the rape charges or some variation on "spying"?

[Joxam]

American stuff. Apparently his American indictment holds a maximum penalty of five years.

[Newbie]

Well, there is also the whole violation of the terms of his release in the U.K. that occurred when he initially went into the embassy. But I agree that the more powerful motivation is the desire to avoid being turned into an anti-leaking example through acts which occur in violation of his actual judicial circumstances.

[Büge]

Oh and related, Chelsea Manning is still in jail.

No longer in solitary, thank g*d.

[Thad]

I realize that prison sucks and american prison is especially bad (although federal is perhaps the least bad) but did this dude literally spend 7 years in that embassy for a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 5 years?

Kind of, but he had no way of knowing specifically what they were going to charge him with.

And as Newbie noted, the US isn't the only place he's facing charges.

[Thad]

The redacted report is out. Barr held a press conference to spin it before releasing it; he actually used the phrase "no collusion" and offered up the legal theory that (1) there can be no obstruction if there's no underlying crime and (2) all the shit Trump did wasn't obstruction; he was just lashing out because he was so upset about the false accusations against him.

The summary Barr released last month appears to be substantially accurate: Mueller found evidence that Russia interfered with the election but insufficient evidence to conclude coordination with the Trump Campaign; he also laid out ten events that may or may not be obstruction, and said that determination is up to Congress.

Barr also appears to be all in on Trump's "investigate the investigators" retaliation, and while I find the motivations disturbing I'm not opposed to such an investigation on principle. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend; I don't trust Comey, McCabe, or the FBI, and while it sure looks from here like Manafort, Flynn, Junior, and others had enough shady contacts with Russians to justify investigating the campaign, I'm perfectly OK with investigating the FBI to make sure it followed due process (at least, in theory; I'm not ruling out the possibility that Barr will interfere with the investigation to get the result he wants).

[Thad]

Couple of highlights of what I've seen so far:

Junior's meeting in Trump Tower doesn't count as colluding with Russia because he's too stupid to have known it was illegal.

Put less glibly: conspiracy requires intent. While the "ignorance of the law is no excuse" canard applies in many circumstances, ignorance of the law *is* in fact an excuse if you're accused of conspiring to break the law. Mueller felt that Junior could very plausibly claim that he didn't know that what he was discussing was illegal, and therefore the case for conspiracy is thin.

Also: there seems to be evidence that the pee tape exists, or that Russians at least claimed it did, though it's also possible that the tape was faked (it wouldn't be the first time the Russian government created phony kompromat using a lookalike). Cohen received a text saying "Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there's anything else." The Russian businessman who sent the text later said he believes the tapes were fake.

Mueller referred evidence to other authorities on 14 different matters. That includes Cohen and Obama-era White House Counsel Gregory Craig. The other twelve have not been made public, so there may yet be other shoes to drop.

[Mongrel]

WaPo runs George Conway OpEd, declaring that "Trump is a cancer on the presidency." and that "Congress should remove him"

Plot twist: George is Kellyanne Conway's husband.

[Blossom]

[Thad]

I'm sympathetic but, I think, a lot more deeply cynical than I used to be.

I'm glad there are people calling for impeachment. I like to think that if I were in office, I'd be one of them.

But it's not just the lack of Senate votes; it's the lack of public support. There's some preliminary evidence that Trump's approval rating has dropped since the report was released, and I hope that continues to snowball.

And honest to Christ, I think all the examples of obstruction in the report pale in comparison to Trump telling the new head of DHS to ignore judges and that he'd pardon him, and I'm deeply disturbed by how that information largely appears to have vanished with the last news cycle. At least House Democrats are investigating that, so maybe it'll come back around.

I'm furious that Pelosi and Hoyer have been as dismissive as they have. I'm not even sure I disagree with "we don't have the votes in the Senate" as justification, but Christ, the "it wouldn't be worth it" crap...what in fuck's name would be worth it, if not this?

I'm inclined to think "keep the drumbeat of investigations going and hope that leads public opinion to change" is the right approach. But it's deeply fucking galling to even have to debate that. There's so much that's utterly and deeply broken in a system where there's even a question of whether Trump should be removed from office that...I don't even know how to finish that thought.

[Friday]

The behavior of the democrats gets a lot easier to understand when you stop thinking of the older Democrats as "left" and start thinking of them as "center-right" because that's what they are.

AOC is left. This board is left. The majority of democrats in office are capitalists that oppose basic income and raising taxes on the rich. They are moderates.

I mean, they're not hilariously, terrifyingly evil like the republicans are. But they are not us. They support the death penalty. They support drone strikes. They support wars in the desert. They support spying on American citizens. They support torture and expanding facilities that practice torture.

Here, think of it this way. Imagine an entire generation of people (we'll call them "Beemers") who have, like, a curse cast on them by an evil wizard. This evil wizard cackles as he finishes his spell and says "NOW! BEEMERS! YOUR POLITICAL BELIEFS WILL BE A NORMAL DISTRIBUTION, EXCEPT EVERYONE WILL SLIDE ABOUT 30% TO THE RIGHT! HAH HAH HAH HAH!"

[Friday]

Democrat: "I support the death penalty because I'm tough on crime"

Literally anyone who has done any research: "okay but it costs taxpayers millions and targets non-whites predominantly (aka it's racist as fuck) and not to mention kills innocent people"

Democrat: "Oh, sorry. I mean to say I support the death penalty because something like 60% of America does and I want their votes and am a spineless fuckhead who only supports social change once the people do, and instead of being a leader and leading the people, I just follow them around as social mores change"