Michael Flynn Flips, Tillerson Sticks Around, and Quebec Cracks Down on People Saying Hi: P.M. Links

• 

  Xinhua/Sipa USA/Newscom

  Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI, and has said that he will cooperate in the ongoing Russia inquiry. Read Reason's coverage of the news here.

• The White House is apparently a roach motel.

• More Republicans get on board with a DACA fix.

• Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is keeping his job for now, calls reports to contrary fake news.

• Quebec's provincial legislature passed a motion instructing all shopkeepers to greet customers with the French "bonjour," not the English-French "bonjour-hi" used by many.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has plead guilty to lying to the FBI...

THIS. THIS IS WHAT WILL FINALLY BRING TRUMP DOWN.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

There should be consequences for lying to law enforcement, or else the rule of law is a sad joke.

[creech]

Does that apply vice versa too?

[Tom Bombadil]

There should be consequences for lying under oath in a legal trial. That is all.

[colorblindkid]

I agree, which is why James Clapper should be in jail right now.

[Bra Ket]

Depends. At such times as law enforcement agents aren't behaving as gullible fools who believe the claims of people they are trying to pin crimes on, the lies should not cause any harm. Also the public would be fools for ever talking to them under this absurd system where you can only hurt yourself. Not a great way to set up a system for law enforcement. I'd suggest we just stick to identifying actual crimes with victims. If by your words you cause someone actual harm, then and only then should there be consequences.

[Bacon-Magic glib reasonoid]

Bonjour.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

Ugh, typical government-job-level Britches links with no alt-text.

[Tom Bombadil]

One would think that during fund-raising week, Reason would keep Toonces under the stairs.

[Aloysious]

That's not how you bonjour, Bacon.

This is how you bonjour.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Re my home province of Quebec. Yeh, the parochial hicks like to remind us they exist from time to time. It's par for the course nonsense and I don't think all that binding.

Still. Quebec is very good at embarrassing itself.

[Citizen X - #6]

Quebec's provincial legislature passed a motion instructing all shopkeepers to greet customers with the French 'bonjour', not the English-French 'bonjour-hi' used by many.

Quebecer government knows what's REALLY important.

[BestUsedCarSales]

That's really pretty fucking authoritarian. Quebec is such a cesspool.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I misread that it was just a motion. Still pretty silly, but I'll tone down my usage of the 'a' word.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

They're just trying to protect their culture, you globalist cuck.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Even if you weren't joking you'd be wrong.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Seriously. Quebec has MAJOR problems from a lagging economy to education to corruption (the worst in Canada) but this is what they waste their time on.

Fun fact: One of the guys behind that is PQ leader Jean-Francois Lisee. He and another numbskull once wrote to the NYT letters to the editor to explain their tribal-nationalist vision was in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and the FF.

It was quite the face palm moment.

[BYODB]

Wow...you guys set the bar pretty high for the rest of the world's idiot leaders, I'll admit. Stay sane!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Quebec. Where no one copies us.

[Fist of Etiquette]

White House is apparently a roach motel.

And not the classy roaches you find in Trump towers.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

Grab'em by the vestibulum, amirite?

[Bacon-Magic glib reasonoid]

White House is apparently a roach motel.
Last occupants.

[Citizen X - #6]

White House is apparently a roach motel.

They're the classiest roaches. The best. Believe me.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

The classiest roaches are the Madagascar Hissing Roaches.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Quebec's provincial legislature passed a motion instructing all shopkeepers to greet customers with the French 'bonjour', not the English-French 'bonjour-hi' used by many.

Really embracing their French heritage, and I don't mean the language part of it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is keeping his job for now, calls reports to contrary fake new.

So just report that the president is going to do the things you don't want him to do and he won't do them out of spite.

[Bacon-Magic glib reasonoid]

#fakenew

[Tom Bombadil]

Can reverse psychology defeat 5-dimensional chess? Stayed tuned. Same bat-time, Same bat-channel.

[Fist of Etiquette]

More Republicans get on board with DACA fix.

They must think they have a shot at their votes.

[Ra's al Gore]

Not guilty.

That's the verdict against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate for the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle

[BestUsedCarSales]

You can find a fun article about that last night if you want to get in on the fun.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

I didn't look; I assumed it's the same kind of comments we see after a terrorist attack.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Eh, mixed. I was only phone posting so I can barely remember what I posted last night. I think I was mostly confused. I remember Sevo and Eddie were defending the acquittal to some extent.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

However sad the whole thing is and whatever punishment you think the guy deserves, the acquittal looks easy to defend. Parallels to the Zimmerman trial jumped out at me right away.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I'm not going to make any call. I'm not familiar enough with it to say, and as Eddie was saying yesterday even if we know all the facts, we do not know the facts that the jury itself knew. So, I don't know. I often choose to pass no judgement in such cases.

That being said, I think that tying this into the immigration debate is weird. I don't think that specific incidents are a great way to think about large scale, complex systems such as immigration.

[BestUsedCarSales]

And my confusion, if I remember right, was mostly about the misdemeanor he was ultimately charged with. Seems really quite strange if the jurors believed everything else about it, that they would still give him the misdemeanor. Like, they should not be convicted of that if he was not convicted of the others. It rings like a weird gotcha clause for ex-cons.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

It is somewhat weird, in that the defense's argument was that he picked up an object not knowing it was a gun, it discharged, and he threw it away. If they buy that, then he was technically in possession of a firearm for a brief period, but not willfully so. It would be dickish to find him guilty for that if they found his story plausible, but my guess is it was a compromise among the jurors so he wouldn't get off scot-free. They did deliberate for six days.

[AlmightyJB]

The justification I just read was basically the bullet ricocheted off the ground before hitting her which calls into question 'intentional' murder which was the charge. I could see reasonable doubt on that. Maybe they should have gone with manslaughter.

[Longtobefree]

Manslaughter was the charge; the judge instructed the jury to consider murder.
Evidently being a bad shot can get you off.
Found or not, it was a gun. He was a felon. A crime was committed the instant he picked it up.

Can I get an amen from everyone who thinks a stolen gun is actually left laying around a public park?

[BestUsedCarSales]

Sure. I will absolutely say that seems very unlikely. But if the story the jury believed was that he stumbled upon a gun just then and it went off, I think gun possession charges do not seem reasonable if that is the case.

This is why I'm confused.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

Yes, the parallels to Zimmerman are there. Yet, the peanut gallery on both sides of the retard spectrum will take the opposite side this time. It is so predictable it makes my cry from boredom.

[Ra's al Gore]

NYT Style: What to Wear to Smash the State
...Min is an artist. For her, this is one of the most unappreciated aspects of black bloc as a style. It's tactical, and practical, and it's also an art form with the effect of building solidarity long after the boots go into the closet. The experience of being enveloped in anonymity helps retain the movement's ideology, after the balaclavas get folded up and stacked in the drawer....

[BestUsedCarSales]

Tactical considerations aside, it's this emotional connection with other members of the bloc that many practitioners highlight the most in interviews. "Uniformity of characteristics" and a visual sense of equality have a way of, as research published in 2015 put it, giving "rise to feelings of solidarity." It's why soldiers and police have uniforms. It's why sports teams have apparel for themselves and their fans, why brands have logos and consistent colorways, why fascists get slightly too-short versions of David Beckham haircuts and pin frogs to their lapels.

It's why nationalists argue for a pure nation.

[Don't look at me.]

Is it ethical to break the law now? Asking for a friend.

[BestUsedCarSales]

If you want my opinion, and you all do everyone does, I would say it is often entirely separate from morality and ethics. I believe we want to imagine that the law is an ethical document, but in reality the vast majority of it is more procedural.

If you roll through a stop sign you broke the law, I would not say you crossed an ethical line. Many, many laws are like this.

That being said, rioting in the streets and destroying people's property is almost certainly unethical. That guy who is proud that he helps villains hide is somehow worse to me than the actual violent actors.

[AlmightyJB]

Like the people who hid Anne Frank.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Truly she was history's greatest villain.

[AlmightyJB]

I can think of no worse.

[Tom Bombadil]

Nikki. Never forget.

[Zeb]

Depends on the law.

[Don't look at me.]

Example please.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Jaywalking. A neutral morality crime.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

Yeah, unless you walking in front of my car makes me be late for life-saving surgery.

[Tom Bombadil]

I always leave the house a half-hour early when I have life-saving surgery.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Selling [insert pain reliever] without a prescription.

Agreeing to sex with an uggo in exchange for cash.

Some more, though I don't endorse all examples.

[DenverJ]

"The law is an ass" - Mr Bo Jangles

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Can tactical not be practical?

[BestUsedCarSales]

There is a style people mockingly called Tacticool.

[AlmightyJB]

Oakley's aren't cool.

[AlmightyJB]

"What to Wear to Smash the State"

Is someone saving all these bookmarks for the next time a D is in office?

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

They don't consult Jeffrey Tucker, article is useless.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

What would Jeffrey Tucker do?

[BestUsedCarSales]

Best dressed State Smasher by far.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

I am sure GILMORE will have something to say about this.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

BTW, BUCS, I was referencing this classic, in case you didn't know.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I didn't realize he was this popular. Also, that guys voice is something.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

With a voice like that, no one will question his libertarian cred.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Huh. I am banned from viewing Jeffrey Tucker's twitter page. That's odd.

[JoeBlow123]

Heh, that article was so incredibly ridiculous. There is solidarity in anonymity. There is power in symbolism.

... I am fairly certain the Nazis were also keenly aware of this as were the Bolsheviks and every authoritarian, militarist dictator in history. I am surprised the NYT published that claptrap.

[Eidde]

"Bonjour, mes amis, welcome to Le Mart de Wal."

[Slumbrew]

Why is Stephen Tobolowsky hanging out with Flynn?

[AlmightyJB]

Can't say hi.

What about Allah Akbar?

[Longtobefree]

Good Question. Are Muslims allowed to say what that translates to in any other languages?

[Tom Bombadil]

It means "All Aboard".

[AlmightyJB]

Obligatory

https://youtu.be/RMR5zf1J1Hs

[BestUsedCarSales]

I originally started learning guitar because of Randy Rhoads, and another guy named Buck Dharma who less people seem to know, but was the guitarist for Blue Oyster Cult who are fucking awesome.

[John]

The media is so vile it makes the McCains sympathetic

http://twitter.com/meghanmccai.....9454021633

[Don't look at me.]

So glad I never started wasting time on Twitter.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Huh, I'm not upset by that dig. I think someone made it here yesterday too.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Yo!

[BestUsedCarSales]

Good job.

[Tony]

What else explains the retiring McCain voting for a bill passed without regular order (his requirement) that is by all accounts a plutocratic shitshow of epic proportions?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Here's another ironic part about the Quebec motion (aside from sending a wrong signal to people), is the state of teaching French in Quebec has never been worse. It's less about the language and more about reminding 'les anglais' who are the majority.

We can but roll our eyes.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

We can but roll our eyes.

But comply or get hammered by Ze Sate.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I'll guarantee you if Lisee comes into my place of business he'll get a 'Hello.'

[Rufus The Monocled]

It is funny that there are Quebecers who think Trump is a populist hick meanwhile they support crap like this.

Which to me is exactly that. Prejudiced and populist hickishness.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Populist hickism is what people you don't like do.

[Ecoli]

Whoa. Them's fightin words for a Canadian, eh!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

calls reports to contrary fake new.

Better than the old fake.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is keeping his job for now, calls reports to contrary fake new[s].

You can bet that the moment Tillerson heads for the door, Trump will say "See? I told you that the reports were all fake! All fake news!"

Quebec's provincial legislature passed a motion instructing all shopkeepers to greet customers with the French 'bonjour', not the English-French 'bonjour-hi' used by many.

"We have to do what it takes to stamp out the proliferation of fake greetings which is dividing this country!"

[Tony]

I was told by my French instructors how important it was, in French-speaking places, to say "bonjour" to hotel people, shop clerks, etc. But even after becoming fairly fluent I was a nervous person when I first stayed in Paris and could barely order metro tickets. After a couple days of smiling meekly at the hotel clerk who would always announce "bonjour!" crisply as I entered the lobby, she started to sour on me, exactly as my instructors had warned. I do love the French but I am more at home with the eyes-down coldness of New Yorkers. French-Canadians in my experience are all shifty.

[Tom Bombadil]

" But even after becoming fairly fluent I was a nervous person when I first stayed in Paris and could barely order metro tickets."

You were fairly fluent but couldn't order metro tickets and were too afraid to say "Bonjour"? Your pretend story about gong to Paris is boring. Your therapist is going to be disappointed. #Sad.

[Tony]

It was a story about my extreme social anxiety. I hadn't discovered day drinking at that age.

[Brian]

Makes sense: people with mental health issues often skew left, especially anxiety.

[The Last American Hero]

Having a t-shirt that says "L'etat, c'est moi" is not being fairly fluent in French.

[Tony]

I LOLed, so points.

[Tony]

Pronounced "pwa."

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

Re: Tony,

I do love the French but I am more at home with the eyes-down coldness of New Yorkers.

"Ghostbusters! What d'you want?!"

[Square = Circle]

I do love the French but I am more at home with the eyes-down coldness of New Yorkers. French-Canadians in my experience are all shifty.

^ This is the guy who comes here every day to call us racists.

[Tony]

Only the philosophical-historical origins of the policies you support. The actual racists are usually told to go back to stormfront, thankfully.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I do love the French but I am more at home with the eyes-down coldness of New Yorkers. French-Canadians in my experience are all shifty.

I do business in Canada and have since made a lot of Canadian friends and connections, and as such, am becoming more generally familiar with the intricacies of Canadian culture. It's my understanding that the Quebecois do love their borders.

[Ecoli]

Nice story. "Eyes -down coldness of New Yorkers": nice turn of phrase.

Good job, Tony. Today, at 4:21 PM, I like you.

[Sevo]

"At least eight people met or corresponded with Russian officials or business people during the 2016 presidential campaign and transition."

The NYT finds this newsworthy.

[The Last American Hero]

I dunno, I like the weasel word "transition".

[Sevo]

I was also pleased they included "officials" and "business people". I'm pretty sure the later includes anyone on the wait staff at a restaurant.

[Tom Bombadil]

Let this be a lesson.

Do not dip your ladle into the gravy train until after you are sworn into office.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I hope that the NYT continues to push the US into a hyper-isolationist position as events continue.

[Ecoli]

Jacque Pepin is French, the real sort, from France. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.

[JFree]

Good article over at Naked Capitalism about how antidepressants are accumulating in fish (via our urine) and turning them aggressive and homicidal.

https://goo.gl/35g7cV

Golly - I wonder if there's a correlation between mass murders and psychotropic medications among humans? Or if pharma will allow that story on TV in between their ads?

[Sevo]

I think I'll wait to see that confirmed in a place called 'naked communism' just for balance.

[JFree]

In humans, the 'side effect' is called 'akathisia' - or more accurately 'homicidal/suicidal akathisia'. And the extreme examples are linked to mutations in CYP450 proteins - which fish also have for the same functions (metabolizing toxics) - and are the reason for the cryptic 'don't drink grapefruit juice' warning - and is why Mayo (but not most doctors) does a CYP450 test.

But hey - I'm sure pharma adsmass media will keep you informed.