Recent Comments

1. almost 5 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with meeeeee…

2. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   Do they have a ranking system like the Masons? What special knowledge would a 33rd-degree conspiracy theorist have access to?

3. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   The invention of the ceiling fan was a plot to get Beehive Woman. And there are a lot of ceiling fans in Texas.

4. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   The 1:30 mark is where Trump is talking about China trade. The Bidens come up in response to a different question, at 2:05. As the article states, the public suggestion didn’t come out of thin air, it was rooted in the investigative journalism of Peter Schweizer, The Hill’s resident Biden expert. Lindsey Graham had the best response: “As to asking China to look into Biden, that was stupid. Nobody believes that China would be fair to Biden, Trump, me or you, or anybody. Bad idea. That didn’t last very long. I think that’s a frustrated Trump who feels like there’s two different games, that people in [the media] are never gonna really sit down and talk to Hunter Biden unless it’s a softball interview.”

   Trump publicly recommended a Ukrainian investigation of Hunter Biden, noting the suspiciousness of an allegedly crooked company hiring a vastly underqualified executive. Quoting Bill Maher, “[I]f Don Jr. did it, it would be all Rachel Maddow was talking about.” My personal opinion is that Hunter was both a human shield and (like Chelsea Clinton re her domestic sinecures) a legal-on-paper bridge of influence; I don’t think Hunter has the savvy that crooks look for in criminal accomplices.

   In the phone call he didn’t ask for an investigation into Hunter. “[Joe] Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you ·can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.” Trump is engaging in a little projection here – Biden bragged about stopping what he claimed to be a lack of prosecution/investigation – but his critics engage in projection when they assume that looking into the firing of Shokin would focus primarily on Biden. As I stated above, Square One is verifying the claim that Shokin wasn’t doing his job.

   It appears that Trump is compliant with the MLAT. Each side designates a Central Authority. Ours is “the Attorney General or a person designated by the Attorney General,” which appears to be Giuliani. Treaty doesn’t limit AG’s choice for the post.

5. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   People who are adept at dealmaking do not expend enormous sums of capital for a low expected payoff. Trump has been around long enough to know what an October Surprise is and why they are timed for October instead of, say, a year or so before the election. Scandal fatigue sets in quickly among the fence-sitters. I assumed that the conspiracy theory had the primaries in mind instead of the general because that would make the conspiracy theory less insane, and because that’s the conspiracy theory other leftists have suggested: to keep the supposedly strongest candidate from getting the nomination.

   For the record, what firsthand source backs up the claim that Trump asked for a public announcement of the requested investigation? Or that he wanted Hunter investigated, for that matter? In the phone call he makes a vague passing reference to Hunter and asks that the firing of Shokin be looked into. It is a reasonable request given that the raid on the Burisma founder undercuts the claim that Shokin was slacking off. While the US can ask Biden where he got his info on Shokin (hopefully during impeachment), the firsthand info on Shokin’s activities are Ukrainian, and only Ukraine has the full access to resources to investigate.

6. almost 5 years ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Or maybe sentient AOL disks.

7. almost 5 years ago on Pearls Before Swine

   The aliens might want to check the guano for coronavirus. The bats they come from are a soup ingredient in China. Not even Swedish Chef attempted that entree.

8. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   Estonia will just email hyperlinks to Bernie’s old remarks about the Soviet Union.

9. almost 5 years ago on Doonesbury

   Why would Trump be stupid enough to think such a stunt would sway Democrat primary voters? The mere existence of an investigation is meaningless, especially if there’s no coherent charge against Biden. The only thing that might raise eyebrows Trump can do w/o Ukraine’s help: point out that the Burisma founder was raided on Feb 2, 2016, and that Joe Biden made the first of at least 3 calls to Poroshenko demanding Shokin’s firing on Feb 11. (Lindsey Graham had requested transcripts or readouts of the calls last November.) That undermines the claims that Shokin wasn’t doing his job, unless something extraordinary led him to drop everything during that week. If not that, Biden was either fed false information or he helped to create it. Any of those three scenarios (two of which do not imperil Biden) warrant investigation, and just because Biden is running for President doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate foreign policy concern of ours.

10. almost 5 years ago on Garfield

    Don’t worry Jon, Dick Tracy will handle that robot uprising.