May 29, 2019

I understand Pelosi wanting to dot every I, cross every T, but she must open an enquiry next

Obvious we cannot leap straight to impeachment, but the legal doors and pathways an impeachment enquiry opens up must now be unlocked and thrust wide asunder.

The Rump administration has already shown they will not give one inch, one micrometre on any and ALL fronts.

Either we venture further down the road and equip ourselves with new and more efficacious toolkits of multiple stripes, or we must just accept that nothing much is ultimately going to come of all this, due to the fears of electoral repercussions.

Those fears may very well win the coming days, weeks, months, but make no mistake, if it were parties reversed (and they will be reversed someday soon), the Rethugs would go for the kill shot from a thousand different angles. They would have their millions of thug minions in the streets BAYING for blood. They would be relentless, ruthless, viscous. I have little faith we can adapt any of these necessary traits (as horrid as they may be) to the degree needed to derail this train of lawlessness that is Rump.

May 29, 2019

Trump just tweeted

Donald J. Trump
?
Verified account

@realDonaldTrump
Follow Follow @realDonaldTrump
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Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.

5:37 PM - 29 May 2019

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1133759237136494592

May 29, 2019

WaPo LTTE: Leonard Leo's surge of dark money for conservative judicial nominees (Federalist Society)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/leonard-leos-surge-of-dark-money-for-conservative-judicial-nominees/2019/05/28/5c563592-7e44-11e9-b1f3-b233fe5811ef_story.html

The masterful, brazen manipulation of the U.S.?tax code in favor of financial support for aspiring conservative nominees seeking judicial appointments was brilliantly described in the May?22 front-page article “The activist behind the push to reshape U.S.?courts.” The Federalist Society purports to be a charity, and as a charity says it doesn’t support specific nominees. Yet its executive vice president is deeply engaged in creating and manipulating tax-exempt organizations to channel millions of dollars from unknown sources to support the installation of conservative judges. Congress and professional oversight groups need to investigate the moral and ethical behavior of Leonard Leo and his cohort.

Charles Leo Sykes, Reston

The article about Leonard Leo described how the nonprofit groups he coordinates collected more than $250 million in contributions between 2014 and 2017, many of them anonymous, to support a process that is sharply politicizing the federal judiciary. In a video accompanying the article online, Mr. Leo said, “I think it’s a good thing” that wealthy donors can have this sort of secret influence. Mr. Leo’s hero Antonin Scalia might have disagreed.

In a concurrence to a Supreme Court decision allowing the public disclosure of the names of people who signed a Washington state referendum petition, Scalia opined: “Harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously. .?.?. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

James W. Conrad Jr., Alexandria



The activist behind the push to reshape U.S.?courts


Leonard Leo helped conservative nonprofits raise $250 million from mostly undisclosed donors in recent years to promote conservative judges and causes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/?utm_term=.2f99e876a40e


Leonard Leo stepped onto the stage in a darkened Florida ballroom, looked out at a gathering of some of the nation's most powerful conservative activists and told them they were on the cusp of fulfilling a long-sought dream.

For two decades, Leo has been on a mission to turn back the clock to a time before the U.S. Supreme Court routinely expanded the government’s authority and endorsed new rights such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Now, as President Trump’s unofficial judicial adviser, he told the audience at the closed-door event in February that they had to mobilize in “very unprecedented ways” to help finish the job.

“We’re going to have to understand that judicial confirmations these days are more like political campaigns,” Leo told the members of the Council for National Policy, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post. “We’re going to have to be smart as a movement.”

“No one in this room has probably experienced the kind of transformation that I think we are beginning to see,” Leo said. At a time when Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are rapidly reshaping federal courts by installing conservative judges and Supreme Court justices, few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo.

He is widely known as a confidant to Trump and as executive vice president of the Federalist Society, an influential nonprofit organization for conservative and libertarian lawyers that has close ties to Supreme Court justices. But behind the scenes, Leo is the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges.

snip

May 29, 2019

This interview should tell you all you need to know about Boris Johnson, "a nasty piece of work"

https://twitter.com/eliistender10/status/1131868559259439104



Johnson's 'piccaninnies' apology

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/23/london.race

Boris Johnson has apologised for referring to black people as "piccaninnies" and talking about "watermelon smiles".
During a debate for the London mayoral contest on Monday, the Conservative candidate said he was "sad" that people had been offended but insisted the words had been taken out of context.

In a column published in the Daily Telegraph six years ago, Johnson mocked Tony Blair's globetrotting: "What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies," he wrote. It also mentioned "watermelon smiles".

snip



Boris says sorry over 'blacks have lower IQs' article in the Spectator

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/boris-says-sorry-over-blacks-have-lower-iqs-article-in-the-spectator-6630340.html

Boris Johnson apologised again over race issues today after he was accused of condoning an article that claimed black people have a lower IQ.

The Tory mayoral candidate came under fire from Ken Livingstone and a leading black lawyer over pieces published in the Spectator magazine when he was editor.

In one, columnist Taki wrote that "Orientals ... have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the other pole." In another, he described black American bastketball players as having "arms hanging below their knees and tongues sticking out".

snip

May 27, 2019

The Anti-Defamation League calls out Politico's Sanders/Money Tree/Mansion trope as Anti-semitic

https://twitter.com/ADL/status/1132685510365863937


ADL
✔
@ADL
In this dangerous climate of rising #antiSemitism, all media organizations have a responsibility to be careful not to perpetuate #antiSemitic tropes, such as those about Jews and wealth.


Politico accused of anti-Semitism over Bernie Sanders illustration, tweet
Publication deletes original tweet accompanying article, which stated presidential candidate ‘might still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor’ after criticism from progressives, ADL

https://www.timesofisrael.com/politico-accused-of-anti-semitism-over-bernie-sanders-illustration-tweet/

May 26, 2019

MO' MAGA BLUES - You Think It's Bad Now? Wait for Next Year's Show Trials

https://www.thedailybeast.com/you-think-its-bad-now-wait-for-next-years-show-trials




I’ve been trying to tell people, with varying degrees of success, that next year’s campaign is going to be—by far—the most ruthless and dishonest campaign that any living American has seen. Some people take me seriously. But most say something along the lines that it can hardly get any worse.

Oh yes it can. It can get a lot worse. And if you want to see how, watch this clip of Corey Lewandowski on Fox News Thursday night, via Josh Marshall’s Twitter feed:

Here’s the transcript, although you really have to study his face and eyes and hear his voice to get the full Weimar effect: “They should be fearful, and I’ll tell you why. The person who has gotten a pass on this so far is Joe Biden. Because I believe that the investigation which was launched came from somewhere inside the White House to greenlight Clapper, Comey, and Brennan to start this investigation into Donald Trump for no valid reason. We now know the State Department, we’ve seen the contemporaneous emails that were put into place after Victoria Nuland did a meeting with Christopher Steele, then notified the FBI this person had no credibility. But it continued. Because it came from the highest levels of the government.

snip


https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1131712683026341896


more video and transcript

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/05/24/fox-business-corey-lewandowski-claims-march-or-april-next-year-james-comey-andy-mccabe-strzok-and/223790

GREGG JARRETT (GUEST HOST): The distraction, as you call it, I think is driven by fear. They fear what is about to happen, the inspector general report is going to come out. And I suspect it's going to be devastating about corruption in the Obama administration, under his leadership at the FBI and the Department of Justice. How they used their positions in law enforcement to target Americans for political reasons, which is a clear abuse of power and a myriad of other crimes: lying to a FISA court, which would not only be perjury, but obstruction of justice as well. And I think they fear what Bill Barr is doing, investigating the investigators. What do you think?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI (FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER): They should be fearful. And I will tell you why, the person who has gotten a pass on this so far is Joe Biden. Because I believe that the investigation, which was launched, came from somewhere inside the White House to green light [James] Clapper, [James] Comey, and [John] Brennan to start this investigation into Donald Trump for no valid reason. We now know the State Department -- we've seen the contemporaneous emails that were put in place after Victoria Nuland did a meeting with Christopher Steele. They notified the FBI this person had no credibility, but it continued because it came from the highest levels of the government and Joe Biden has not answered what he knew and when he knew it of how this investigation began.

And when Attorney General Barr and Mr. [Michael] Horowitz release that report in approximately a month, I think we are going to see additional criminal referrals with [Andrew] McCabe getting another referral, Comey a referral, [Peter] Strzok and [Lisa] Page, James Baker, possibly Bruce Ohr and other people who we haven't even meant as household names yet will have criminal referrals. And I think what we're going to see, Gregg, is in March or April of next year, James Comey, Andy McCabe, Strzok and Paige will be on trial for the crimes they committed against the Fourth Amendment and against this president. But we can't wait.

May 26, 2019

NYT - The Day Christian Fundamentalism Was Born (May 25th, 1919)

How a meeting in Philadelphia changed American religion forever.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/the-day-christian-fundamentalism-was-born.html?searchResultPosition=1

For many Americans, it was thrilling to be alive in 1919. The end of World War I had brought hundreds of thousands of soldiers home. Cars were rolling off the assembly lines. New forms of music, like jazz, were driving people to dance. And science was in the ascendant, after helping the war effort. Women, having done so much on the home front, were ready to claim the vote, and African-Americans were eager to enjoy full citizenship, at long last. In a word, life was dazzlingly modern.

But for many other Americans, modernity was exactly the problem. As many parts of the country were experimenting with new ideas and beliefs, a powerful counterrevolution was forming in some of the nation’s largest churches and Bible institutes. A group of Christian leaders, anxious about the chaos that seemed to be enveloping the globe, recalibrated the faith and gave it a new urgency. They knew that the time was right for a revolution in American Christianity. In its own way, this new movement — fundamentalism — was every bit as important as the modernity it seemingly resisted, with remarkable determination.

Beginning on May 25, 1919, 6,000 ministers, theologians and evangelists came together in Philadelphia for a weeklong series of meetings. They heard sermons on everything from “Christ and the Present Crisis” to “Why I Preach the Second Coming.” The men and women assembled there believed that God had chosen them to call Christians back to the “fundamentals” of the faith, and to prepare the world for one final revival before Jesus returned to earth. They called their group the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association.

A Minneapolis Baptist preacher named William Bell Riley organized the meetings. A tall, austere and uncompromising man, Riley was a natural-born crusader, who rarely saw a religious fight he did not think he could win. Under his leadership, the event drew participants from all around the county. Contrary to popular stereotypes, the centers of fundamentalism were in the nation’s major northern and western cities — New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle — and not the rural South.

The men and women at the conference were all white. On questions of race, fundamentalists defended the status quo. African-American and Latino Christians, even when they shared the same theology as their white counterparts, were systematically excluded from fundamentalists’ churches and organizations.

snip

May 26, 2019

Steve Bullock coming up in a bit on Saturday Night Politics with Donny Deutsch on MSNBC

https://streamfare.com/msnbc.html

May 25, 2019

If Barr is given a complete list of all our covert Russian assets, it is going to be a bloodbath.

It will end up on Putin's desk quicker than a bucket of KFC lasts on Air Force One.

This is flat out a



I cannot believe what is happening to our nation and the world. This has 'smash the entire geo-political, geo-military chessboard' potential. We are all in profound danger.

May 25, 2019

Russia's dangerous new ploy: US trading Ukraine for Venezuela

Russia is peddling a dangerous new narrative: Washington should trade Ukraine for Venezuela.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/445488-russias-dangerous-new-ploy-us-trading-ukraine-for-venezuela

This is Moscow’s most recent front in its war against Ukraine. Wolodymyr Zelenskii’s inauguration as Ukraine’s new president has not stopped Russia’s attempts to destroy Ukraine’s independence, democracy and integrity. Now it’s playing out in Washington.

The narrative goes that Washington should give Moscow a free hand in Ukraine — in return for Moscow supposedly giving Washington a free hand to unseat Venezuela’s venal and criminal Maduro regime. This narrative also argues that Washington should simply extend the New START Treaty for five years, while resuming arms control talks with Moscow.

The Russian narrative contends that President Trump, believing himself exonerated by the Mueller report, can now freely improve relations with Moscow. Not coincidentally Vladimir Putin shares this narrative. Therefore, Washington should seek to improve these relations and retrieve them from the supposedly dangerous impasse into which they had fallen. Allegedly, only churlish members of the media, unregenerate Russophobes and foreign policy commentators oppose this development.

Unfortunately, this approach is morally indefensible and strategically disastrous. Let us remember that Russia’s armies (including so-called separatists, who are really Moscow’s auxiliaries in Ukraine) invaded the Crimea and the Donbas and committed the most naked aggression since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Putin would also undoubtedly try to leave these “separatist” forces in the Donbass and Crimea to destroy any basis for independent Ukrainian statehood.

snip