June 29, 2019

The similarity between 45 and Hitler.

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/29/this-is-the-week-it-became-accurate-to-compare-trump-to-hitler/

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I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure out how the entire nation of Germany, all of its ordinary citizens living in cities and towns and villages across the country, could have stood by while their own government rounded up people and stuck them in hastily built, disgusting concentration camps, and then proceeded to kill them by gas or bullets or starvation or overwork or disease or simple filth and neglect.

This was the week I think I finally understood it. What happened in Nazi Germany didn’t affect their own lives, it happened away from them, it happened to “others,” to people who were not like them, whom they had been conditioned to hate, and it happened at the direction of a leader they admired and revered. And it happened with the overt or tacit approval of their fellow citizens all around them.

This is what is happening in our country right now, right this minute, right in front of us. We are being shown horrible photographs of death along the border. We are being provided with stories of incredible injustice, like the arrests and prosecutions of people leaving water in the desert for migrants. We are being provided with information like this, from the New Yorker, describing conditions in one of our own government’s camps for migrant children:

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I have been skeptical until now of people who have compared Donald Trump with Adolph Hitler. I’ve scoffed at speculation that Trump will refuse to leave office if he loses the election in November of 2020.

No longer. This was the week that we crossed the line. Things are being done to children in our name that should shame us all. That there is a significant portion of this country, such as the Trump supporter who denigrated and belittled Peter Vu for his proffer of kindness to migrants should give us more than pause. It should scare the shit out of us.

June 17, 2019

This article encapsulates the necessity for officially declaring the start of the impeachment

process. Pinning hopes on voting 45 out of office, to me, is very risky, especially after reading this article.

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/17/so-what-happens-when-donald-trump-refuses-to-leave-office-the-nightmare-scenario-could-happen/

...

One principal talking point of Democrats who are reluctant to begin an impeachment inquiry is that Trump needs to be removed at the ballot box, not by impeachment. The argument is that Trump can't be removed from office through impeachment since Republicans, who control the Senate, will refuse to convict him no matter how much damning evidence there is. Depressingly, that argument has merit. With vanishingly rare exceptions like Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, Republicans have shown that there is no level of criminality Trump could display that they are unwilling to accept, so long as it allows them to retain power.

But that's also why there's a real danger that, if and when Trump refuses to leave office after an electoral defeat, Republicans will go along with it. And why not? They haven't drawn any visible line yet when it comes to Trump cheating or breaking the law. On the contrary, Republicans were already flouting the law in their attempts to retain control over the government even though a majority of Americans have clearly rejected them at the polls. So far, there appears to be no limits to what Republicans will allow, so long as it entrenches their power.

Think about what Republicans were doing even before Trump came along. Gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts predated his candidacy, taking off in earnest after the Republican-controlled Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also flatly refused to hold a hearing for Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, violating all norms and traditions to hold the seat open so a possible Republican president could fill it. This trend goes clear back to the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, in which the Supreme Court's conservative majority handed George W. Bush the presidency rather than allowing a fair and complete vote count in Florida.

Under Trump, Republicans have only become bolder. Robert Mueller's report documented Trump's extensive efforts to collude with a Russian criminal conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 election, as well as Trump's extensive cover-up of that conspiracy. Instead of doing anything about it, Republicans have persistently made excuses for Trump, either lying about what's actually in the Mueller report or drawing false equivalences to legal and transparent choices made by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
...

June 15, 2019

I'll give you three guesses as to who is conniving with 45's administration to threaten Iran...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/06/saudi-arabia-urges-decisive-response-to-threats-against-energy-supplies/

...

“There must be a swift and decisive response to the threat against energy supplies… created by the recent terrorist acts in the Arabian Gulf,” Khalid al-Falih was quoted as saying on the ministry’s Twitter page.

He was speaking at a meeting of G20 energy and environment ministers in Japan after the attacks on Thursday, which sent crude prices soaring amid a tense standoff between Iran and the US.

...

Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, is a bitter regional rival of Iran.

June 12, 2019

I smell a nasty divorce proceeding after Rep. Duncan Hunter's wife changes plea...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/06/indicted-congressmans-wife-will-change-her-plea-to-guilty-report/

"The details of the plea deal she struck with federal prosecutors is unknown, as is whether she is cooperating against her husband."

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After having thrown her under the bus, Hunter's wife is likely to spill the beans on hubby. (I am not sympathetic to her as she seems to have been up to her eyeballs in the illegal use of campaign funds.)

June 11, 2019

Another gem by Nick Hanauer, author of "The Pitchforks Are Coming... For Us Plutocrats"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/?utm_source=pocket-newtab



"Long ago, I was captivated by a seductively intuitive idea, one many of my wealthy friends still subscribe to: that both poverty and rising inequality are largely consequences of America’s failing education system. Fix that, I believed, and we could cure much of what ails America.

This belief system, which I have come to think of as “educationism,” is grounded in a familiar story about cause and effect: Once upon a time, America created a public-education system that was the envy of the modern world. No nation produced more or better-educated high-school and college graduates, and thus the great American middle class was built. But then, sometime around the 1970s, America lost its way. We allowed our schools to crumble, and our test scores and graduation rates to fall. School systems that once churned out well-paid factory workers failed to keep pace with the rising educational demands of the new knowledge economy. As America’s public-school systems foundered, so did the earning power of the American middle class. And as inequality increased, so did political polarization, cynicism, and anger, threatening to undermine American democracy itself.

Taken with this story line, I embraced education as both a philanthropic cause and a civic mission. I co-founded the League of Education Voters, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public education. I joined Bill Gates, Alice Walton, and Paul Allen in giving more than $1 million each to an effort to pass a ballot measure that established Washington State’s first charter schools. All told, I have devoted countless hours and millions of dollars to the simple idea that if we improved our schools—if we modernized our curricula and our teaching methods, substantially increased school funding, rooted out bad teachers, and opened enough charter schools—American children, especially those in low-income and working-class communities, would start learning again. Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease, and public commitment to democracy would be restored.

But after decades of organizing and giving, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong."


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More by Nick Hanauer

Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy
Nick Hanauer
'Middle-Out' Economics: Why the Right's Supply-Side Dogma Is Wrong
Eric Liu Nick Hanauer
Rich Americans Aren't the Real Job Creators
Nick Hanauer

June 10, 2019

Former US attorney testifies before Congress that evidence in Mueller's report sufficient to convict

45 of multiple counts of obstruction.


https://www.rawstory.com/2019/06/boom-former-us-attorney-tells-congress-she-would-be-willing-to-personally-prosecute-trump/


At a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Vance asserted that prosecutors “would have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial” that the president obstructed justice by trying to subvert the Russia investigation.

Vance said that she had reviewed both volumes of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“The facts contained in that report would be sufficient to prove all of the elements necessary to charge multiple counts of obstruction of the evidence,” she explained. “And I would be willing to personally indict the case, and to try the case. I would have confidence that the evidence would be sufficient to obtain a guilty verdict, and to win on appeal.”

May 16, 2019

Here we go again...

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/15/trump-and-bolton-two-fat-heads-with-itchy-trigger-fingers-and-120000-troops/

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Does any of this sound familiar? A body of water called a “gulf” where a ship was “damaged” in an “attack,” and nobody can verify either the attack or the damage. A lying idiot in the White House itching to launch an attack on a regime he hates. A lying national security adviser whispering in the ear of the lying idiot that if we don’t “do something,” our “resolve” will be questioned and we will look “weak.”

Here we fucking go again. Gulf of Tonkin? Persian Gulf? The North Vietnamese? The Iranians? What is this, 1964?

All we need is a bunch of sold-out politicians in Washington D.C. willing to believe black is white, night is day, and up is down . . . ooops! Who’s that I see over there still talking about Hillary’s emails and Benghazi? Why, it’s any kowtowing Republican walking down one of those corridors in the basement of the Capitol where all the TV reporters shove microphones in their faces so they can blather unhinged nonsense supporting the lies of the man in the White House so he won’t Tweet at them tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., that’s who it is!

What’s that you say? The Iranians are attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and re-starting their nuclear program? John Kerry should be arrested and prosecuted because he talked on the phone to somebody in Iran yesterday? The FBI is a radical leftist cult intent on launching a coup against the president of the United States? Overthrowing Saddam was a really, really good idea, and anybody who doesn’t believe it is a lily-livered peacenik?

.......


These mother fu*kers are desperate to distract us from the shit raining down around us.

April 20, 2019

Excellent analysis of the Mueller report for those who, for whatever reason, don't read the whole

thing.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-mueller-found-russia-and-obstruction-first-analysis?utm_source=pocket-newtab

April 20, 2019

A question for the legal beagles here. I watched Rachel tonight and in discussing

Mueller's report, she mentioned the two paths to make 45 accountable; impeachment or criminal charges once 45 leaves office. In describing the criminal charges path, Rachel mentioned that there is a statute of limitations of 5 years from the date of the criminal act (obstruction of justice). Mueller made a point of saying that he is following the DOJ's prohibition against indicting a sitting president. If that is the case, can a valid argument be made that that same DOJ policy justifies the tolling of the statute of limitations?

Any thoughts?

April 18, 2019

Here's the most crucial paragraph from the Mueller report (Rawstory)

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/heres-crucial-paragraph-mueller-report/

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Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President’s ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term “corruptly” sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of “corrupt” official action does not diminish the President’s ability to exercise Article II powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President’s conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not permissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

This paragraph is so important because it lays out why the obstruction portion of the report matters. Attorney General Bill Barr has dismissed the obstruction charges, saying that because Mueller didn’t make a determination about whether Trump committed a crime, it was up to him as the head of the Justice Department to make that call.

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