So even if you give zero credibility to any right wing source, that's two mainstream sources of generally left wing persuasion confirming the story. The witness for Ford is not only recanting but claiming she was pressured into it.
I agree with you that most people do not lie on the stand, but that applies as much to witnesses as the accused. Given that the stories told by Kavanaugh and Ford are irreconcilable, either someone is lying or their memories are worse than mine. It seems to me it's clear who we should believe:
If this is a test in credibility I find Kavanaugh far more believable. For one, none of his witnesses are claiming intimidation. Two, he has no ulterior motives. Three, there is nothing but anyone's word that he has done anything wrong, so I have no reason to doubt him at this point in the first place. So far, Kavanaugh has come out of this looking less shady than everyone else, to any fair eye.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware Kavanaugh's supporters have not produced any evidence that anything she said is wrong (beyond the fact that Kavanaugh has a different story). There is though at least some evidence that corroborates her basic story (timing and location of the party in the calendar, past statements by the only other witness and her own past statements).
This is entirely backwards. Kavanaugh doesn't have to prove anything Ford says it wrong. Ford has to prove what she says is right. "Not being proven wrong" isn't sufficient to draw conclusions, or even inferences. The deck is stacked highly against anyone in the position of having to be guilty until they prove themselves innocent.
In relation to this bit of your post, I'm not sure why it looks bad. Kavanaugh has a history in relation to Roe vs Wade and it would be no surprise if Ford was aware of that. If she supports the existing interpretation of the case - and knew Kavanaugh does not - that would provide some additional motivation for her to come forward. It always seemed a bit of a surprise to me that she was willing to put herself into such a high profile and controversial position. If she feels strongly about abortion, that just provides a bit more explanation for why she did so.
Come now, it should be fairly clear what the problem is with having your motivation to make claims against someone is so you can achieve political objectives. Even the journalists can see it. Those political objectives would still exist, and this method would still serve those political objectives, whether or not any actual event occurred. This is equally motivating for a false report as it is for a real one, not so if your motivation is something more pure, like "I want justice for what was done to me."
All in all I just find your analysis of Ford far too generous to the point of ignoring the various elephants in the room. Your analysis of Kavanaugh is just fine though.
As has been said a number of times, the Committee hearings were not a legal case and I don't think 'innocent until proven guilty' is the appropriate standard. Kavanaugh was absolutely required to respond to the allegations against him - and of course he did so. It was in fact the way he responded which so convinced me that he was unfit to serve as a judge. I dislike liars in any public position (as you know that's a major reason I'm so against Trump), but that seems a particularly bad trait to have in a judge. His public statement that he would seek revenge in the future didn't inspire confidence about his impartiality either of course, though I would be more willing to put that down to a momentary emotional overload.
I agree Kavanaugh has no need for an ulterior motive - that's because he has an extremely obvious overt motive (to become a Supreme Court judge). It's Ford where there's a need to search beyond the obvious to find some reason why she might have put herself in a position to potentially end her career (she's not done any teaching since her testimony) and be subjected to threats (she's moved 4 times and hired private security). You may believe that her political motivation provides that and I agree that could motivate a false allegation as well as a true one. However, possessing political views should not be characterized as unusual or suspicious. Many people have political convictions - as Kavanaugh himself obviously does - but I don't see those as likely to prompt this type of allegation by someone with no history of attention-seeking behavior.
My personal view of the alleged assault is that something happened. It's possible that Kavanaugh was so drunk that he doesn't remember that, but I think it's much more likely that he's just lying. It is entirely possible though that from his point of view nothing serious happened - he just tried to have a bit of fun and kiss a girl. She was though younger & more strait-laced and is likely to have interpreted the event much more seriously than Kavanaugh. I do accept though that her political leanings (and specific dislike of Trump) are likely to have led her to exaggerate the importance of what happened.
As I said though, I think the alleged assault is not any longer, per se, the main issue for me. If Kavanaugh had just said he didn't remember the event, but apologized if anything he had said or done had been misinterpreted by Ford I would have given him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think that people who drink to excess or attend rather wild parties in their youth should be barred from serving as a judge in later life. I do think though that people who, in later life, are willing to lie so baldly about past events should be so barred.
This all comes back to what I said a few posts ago, and what I thought you had said you agreed with- there is little reason, if any, for an innocent person to lie. If Ford's accusations are so lacking in credibility at this point that they are no longer even relevant issues, I see little reason to assume malice on Kavanaugh's part, and find a number of convincing reasons why he would not remember details clearly, misinterpret something, etc. Basically, barring proof of intent, I think innocent people should be given the benefit of the doubt.
What a trap Kavanaugh is in. A victim of an increasingly obvious smear campaign, where half the country was turned against him, he clears his name with the intelligence agencies, only for nobody to believe him anyway that didn't already, and even if he had 100% certain proof of his own innocence, if he doesn't prove 100% he didn't lie or at least did not intend to, everyone who already hated him will have their opinions virtually unchanged. He will have to essentially clear himself from an endless barrage of unproven allegations of his bad character, and nothing will ever be enough. No matter how many bad actors reveal themselves in this saga, it will mean nothing.
But, frankly, I just don't see how your views of the alleged assault hold up in light of recent events. Either the witness was pressured, or she is lying. If she is lying now, why should we believe her then? If she's not lying, that sparks a lot more questions.
I thought my post was pretty clear that I think Ford's account is more credible than Kavanaugh's. The point I was making was that he could have chosen to downplay the importance of an incident from ancient history and blame differences in perceptions on drink. Instead he chose a more combative approach and told numerous obvious lies in the process. It's that approach that seems compelling evidence to me that he should not be a judge, irrespective of whether the original allegation is true or not. While it will never be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt the assault allegation, it certainly is possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he lied in his testimony to Congress - hence why I think that's now the main issue.
Leland Keyser has consistently said that she has no memory of the party and I respect her determination to stick to the truth as she sees it - that's exactly what I think everyone should do. That does not of course mean Ford's allegation is not true. As far as Keyser was concerned it would have just been another party. She was not a direct witness and, unlike other allegations made against Kavanaugh, this one was not public knowledge at the time, so there would have been no particular reason to remember anything.
Mark Judge was the only claimed direct witness and his position is that he can remember nothing. That lack of memory has some credibility given that he's written a book explaining how he had regular lapses of memory as a result of drink. However, that credibility comes at a cost to Kavanaugh's wider testimony. The book claims it gives a true account, but with the names of some people and places changed. Unless you believe in bizarre coincidences it would be hard not to wonder about the identity of the 'Bart O'Kavanaugh' featured in the book - and the fact that the behavior attributed to him is inconsistent with Kavanaugh's testimony.
His life was also "ruined" by attaining a lifetime appointment to one of the most powerful positions in the world, where he now quite literally will control what happens to all of us, but in particular, he will now be the sole arbiter of what women are allowed to do with their own bodies, and many of his statements made during the confirmation hearing indicate he is not only not above writing opinions based on retaliation for what happened, but that he is likely to do so based on his own words and temperament.
And yeah, let's get real here. Kavanaugh has ALWAYS been a partisan operative above all else. Spoiler: his confirmation hearings weren't the first time he was accused of lying:
And just to circle back to the beginning - his confirmation hearing wasn't held in a court of law. His presumption of innocence was irrelevant insofar as he wasn't in any specific legal jeopardy. He was in a job interview, and conducted himself in a manner that does not befit holding a life-time appointment as one of the 9 most influential members of the judiciary in the country.
When you're in a job interview, the burden of proof is not upon the interviewer. It's upon whichever party in the interview that lacks power - almost always the interviewee.
So the right thing to do is either for him to step down voluntarily, for him to be impeached for gross misconduct (in more ways that one), or for Democrats to pack the court.
There is no alternative, the Supreme Court is packed with radical Conservative judicial activists. That isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself IF this was the will of the voters, it is not.
One of them was placed there immorally by Mitch McConnell and another was rammed through when he clearly doesn't have the judicial temperament or integrity for one of the nations most important jobs.
These actions when considered together make it easily argued that no decision from this court is valid.
As Justice Sotomayor noted in her dissent to a recent ruling the Supreme Court is doing “extraordinary” favors for Trump.
The Supreme Court is not supposed to be loyal to the Executive Branch. It's supposed to be an independent branch of government an arbiter of law that calls balls and strikes. It is currently a partisan collection of conservative politicians in robes running roughshod over the Constitution with terrible 5-4 decisions.
And just to circle back to the beginning - his confirmation hearing wasn't held in a court of law. His presumption of innocence was irrelevant insofar as he wasn't in any specific legal jeopardy. He was in a job interview, and conducted himself in a manner that does not befit holding a life-time appointment as one of the 9 most influential members of the judiciary in the country.
When you're in a job interview, the burden of proof is not upon the interviewer. It's upon whichever party in the interview that lacks power - almost always the interviewee.
Exactly this. It's important to understand why the standard "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" exists. It's because of the stakes of criminal trials. The state is stripping an individual of their rights. That is very high stakes.
Giving someone a lifetime appointment of immense power is also high stakes, but it is high stakes in the other direction. Which is exactly why the logic needs to be reversed, imo. SCOTUS judges need to have a record of impeccable professional behavior -- beyond a reasonable doubt.
Today was another step on the road to absolute erosion of our system of government. Corey Lewandowski refused to answer any questions under Congressinal subpoena, under oath, claiming Executive Privilege despite having NEVER WORKED IN THE ADMINISTRATION. There is no legal standing for what he did today. But this one is also on the Democrats. The moment this farce started they should have called in the House Sergeant at Arms, held Lewandowski in contempt, and arrested him. This kind of pathetic weakness in the face of an organized crime family running the country is just not going to cut it anymore. It's embarrassing.
Today Trump's raising money in California, tomorrow his EPA will roll back California's ability to regulate it's own air.
He is also now pushing harder on the idea he is going to arbitrarily round up homeless citizens (over 40% of whom statistically are veterans by the way, for the so-called pro-military crowd on the right) and his reasoning seemed to literally be that they are too big a nuisance to rich people.
But back to your point. The State's rights crowd is now saying that California can't have tougher air pollution standards than everyone else. Not that they can't have LOWER standards, but that they can't decide they can have tougher ones. So not only do the residents of California only have a fraction of the voting power of everyone else, they are now going to be FORCED to have dirtier air. I guess to own the libs. It's time to drop this charade about federalism once and for all. The only things "state's rights" was ever about was allowing the former Confederacy to treat their black population as sub-human. They don't give a flying fuck about it in any other regard. Well, that's not true. They also would very much like to make sure they can discriminate against gay people.
The argument they are making is that California having stronger emission standards violates anti-trust law, which simply proves they have no goddamn idea what anti-trust law is.
It's worth reading the LA times article and the editorial referred to in that. In addition to the State's rights issue it also covers the point about antitrust legislation. In brief:
- California currently has the right to set its own emission standards (and 12 other States follow those).
- If the government wishes to change that, the proper route is to go through Congress.
- Instead, the Justice Department has initiated an antitrust investigation of 4 companies which came to an agreement with California about future emissions standards.
- These companies are therefore being investigated for cooperating on how best to meet public policy. If you took that line to its absurd conclusion it would mean that industry bodies would no longer be able to respond to government consultations on the future direction of legislation.
The editorial also refers to the fact that the current government has been doing far less enforcement of antitrust legislation. That's noteworthy in itself as there has been little involvement of politics in the development or enforcement of antitrust law since the Sherman Act of 1890 that codified existing common law (here's a legal article on the historic relationship of politics and antitrust legislation if anyone is interested in details). While there are rational arguments in some cases for not using existing law (for instance if there are plans being made to repeal or significantly change that law) it's a concern if existing law is not being enforced due to a disagreement between Congress and the Executive about what that law should be. Going one step further to abusing existing law for a clearly unintended purpose though should be a real concern for those interested in maintaining the constitutional separation of powers.
We're in a dictatorship, there is no democracy. It's gone.
It's now normal for the Supreme Court to just do whatever the hell Trump wants to do even things well outside his Constitutional powers. Want to steal money from military schools for a bogus emergency? Sure thing Don! Restrict asylum for no reason? Sure thing Don! Allow gerrymandering to screw over voters? Sure thing!
And we got Lewandowski, who has not worked in the administration, lying and laughing and ignoring subpoenas.
We have a politicized department of Justice acting as Trump's fixer and refusing to prosecute criminal acts by individual-1 -the President. Um because some stupid memo says we can't, not a law or anything.
We got the acting DNI ignoring subpoenas and withholding credible criminal acts by the executive branch.
The treasury "shall" by law turn over anyone's tax returns but they refuse.
We have the Air Force and vice president pouring millions of taxpayers money directly into Trump's businesses. Corruption.
We now have Venezuelan or Russian levels of corruption. Thanks Trump, I hate it.
An anti-trust case would be if 4 major telcom companies got together in a backroom and all agreed they were going to charge a price for their internet service that would not fall below a certain threshold to gouge consumers. It's not Ford meeting with officials in California on how best to meet their state laws.
But the argument is going to be "but California has so many people, it's going to force everyone to buy these better fuel-efficiency cars because they won't bother making other ones that aren't anymore". And my retort to that is, when, exactly, on any level does California get to decide anything AT ALL for being the most populace state?? They already have abridged voting power in regards to ALL branches of the Federal government, and now apparently they also can't decide not to poison their own air because their influence is too great that it will affect the cars other states can buy as well. So they are just supposed sit there and have a massive smog problem because Jack-Off McGee in Sioux Falls wants to drive a pick-up that doesn't get better gas mileage. The argument is CONSTANTLY that California is going to "dictate" to the rest of the country. The reality of the situation is that they are, BY FAR, the state that is having their rights trampled on the most.
We have the Air Force and vice president pouring millions of taxpayers money directly into Trump's businesses. Corruption.
Quick note on this:
1. Trump made a deal with the airport prior to him being president about sending and recommending his hotel as accommodation for any flight crews using the airport. Before this deal, due to distance and price it was the last hotel recommended by airport staff.
2. Prior to Trump being made president, the Air Force set up another deal with the same airport for them to set up recommendations for their flight crews who stop at this airport, that for logistic reasons, they were going to use more frequently.
It was the airport who was behind setting up these stays keeping both agreements in place. The Air Force has already said that the perception of this is not good optics and are looking to readdress the situation. They are far from corrupt, just didn’t catch this until the media brought it up.
That said, this whole situation could have been avoided if Trump put all his businesses into a Blind Trust like he was suppose to after becoming president, but then that blind trust would have seen the corruption in his businesses would have probably notify authorities or something.
Guess that wasn’t a quick note but the Air Force wasn’t doing this on purpose to benefit Trump.
We have the Air Force and vice president pouring millions of taxpayers money directly into Trump's businesses. Corruption.
Quick note on this:
1. Trump made a deal with the airport prior to him being president about sending and recommending his hotel as accommodation for any flight crews using the airport. Before this deal, due to distance and price it was the last hotel recommended by airport staff.
2. Prior to Trump being made president, the Air Force set up another deal with the same airport for them to set up recommendations for their flight crews who stop at this airport, that for logistic reasons, they were going to use more frequently.
It was the airport who was behind setting up these stays keeping both agreements in place. The Air Force has already said that the perception of this is not good optics and are looking to readdress the situation. They are far from corrupt, just didn’t catch this until the media brought it up.
That said, this whole situation could have been avoided if Trump put all his businesses into a Blind Trust like he was suppose to after becoming president, but then that blind trust would have seen the corruption in his businesses would have probably notify authorities or something.
Guess that wasn’t a quick note but the Air Force wasn’t doing this on purpose to benefit Trump.
Then what, pray tell, explains the fact that somehow stops at the airport have TRIPLED from 2015 to 2019. A lucky coincidence I suppose?? From 95 in 2015 to 259 in 2019 with 4 months left in the year. "The Air Force said" at this point is not a valid source. I'll remind you who is in charge of the Air Force.
From a CNN article on September 9th:
The number of overnight stops at Prestwick has steadily increased. There were 40 in 2015, 75 in 2016, 116 in 2017, 208 in 2018 and 220 through August 2019.
The Air Force says the reason for the airfield's increased usage derived from a flight directive issued to mobility crews in June 2017 which it said was "designed to increase efficiencies by standardizing routing locations, with Prestwick being among the top five locations recommended for reasons such as more favorable weather than nearby Shannon Airport, and less aircraft parking congestion than locations on the European continent."
I'm fairly certain that June 2017 is INDEED after Trump becomes President, with a 6 month cushion, but maybe I'm losing my mind.
We have the Air Force and vice president pouring millions of taxpayers money directly into Trump's businesses. Corruption.
Quick note on this:
1. Trump made a deal with the airport prior to him being president about sending and recommending his hotel as accommodation for any flight crews using the airport. Before this deal, due to distance and price it was the last hotel recommended by airport staff.
2. Prior to Trump being made president, the Air Force set up another deal with the same airport for them to set up recommendations for their flight crews who stop at this airport, that for logistic reasons, they were going to use more frequently.
It was the airport who was behind setting up these stays keeping both agreements in place. The Air Force has already said that the perception of this is not good optics and are looking to readdress the situation. They are far from corrupt, just didn’t catch this until the media brought it up.
That said, this whole situation could have been avoided if Trump put all his businesses into a Blind Trust like he was suppose to after becoming president, but then that blind trust would have seen the corruption in his businesses would have probably notify authorities or something.
Guess that wasn’t a quick note but the Air Force wasn’t doing this on purpose to benefit Trump.
Then what, pray tell, explains the fact that somehow stops at the airport have TRIPLED from 2015 to 2019. A lucky coincidence I suppose?? From 95 in 2015 to 259 in 2019 with 4 months left in the year. "The Air Force said" at this point is not a valid source. I'll remind you who is in charge of the Air Force.
From a CNN article on September 9th:
The number of overnight stops at Prestwick has steadily increased. There were 40 in 2015, 75 in 2016, 116 in 2017, 208 in 2018 and 220 through August 2019.
The Air Force says the reason for the airfield's increased usage derived from a flight directive issued to mobility crews in June 2017 which it said was "designed to increase efficiencies by standardizing routing locations, with Prestwick being among the top five locations recommended for reasons such as more favorable weather than nearby Shannon Airport, and less aircraft parking congestion than locations on the European continent."
I'm fairly certain that June 2017 is INDEED after Trump becomes President, with a 6 month cushion, but maybe I'm losing my mind.
Yes. It is a coincidence. Who owned what hotels close to said winning airport was not and should not have been a factor in determining this streamlined position.
Once again, the Air Force did not know of the Trump deal prior to signing theirs with the airport. This also explains the uptick of that airport being used more frequently than from 2015. It’s bordering on conspiracy theory to suggest otherwise.
BTW Heather Wilson would have been in charge of this directive I believe as she was the Secretary of the United States Airforce at the time of this decision.
For her wikipage:
While Secretary of the Air Force, Wilson focused on restoring the readiness of the force which had declined after years of combat and budget constraints. She proposed and supported three straight years of double digit budget increases for military space capability and publicly acknowledged that space is likely to be contested in any future conflict. Wilson also guided implementation of acquisition reform to reduce the time to get military capability to the warfighter and increase competition by making it easier for innovative companies to supply the Air Force. Wilson was honored by the Air Force, Army, Navy and Department of Defense for her superior service upon her retirement.
That reasoning makes more sense ‘let’s have a whole bunch of high ranking officials sit in a room right after Trump’s election and determine how he and he only can make a quick buck.’
Now if you want to complain about how the hotel treated some higher ranking personnel more favourably when they stayed at the airport, that is a different story and should have those personnel investigated.
The entire FOX headline is misleading. It is not a matter of the deal initially being signed in 2015 when Obama was President. The issue is the UPSWING in stays, which was ordered in June of 2017 (not mentioned in the FOX article), where the stats went from a few dozen times a year to nearly 300. And I guarantee if we check back next year, it will be even higher and Trump's profit margin on the hotel will have gone up even higher than it already has.
But hey, it isn't just the Air Force. The country we are about to go to war on behalf of had 25 members of the Royal family stay there this year as well. When he said yesterday they "pay cash", he wasn't being funny. No, it's not a conspiracy theory, the whole thing is the very definition of "conflict of interest". In JUST the case of this ONE hotel, one can reasonably question Trump's motives as Commander in Chief. Now multiply this by every one of his properties. But yeah, no one cares. I get it. I'll remind everyone Jimmy Carter sold his f*****g peanut farm to avoid even the hint of impropriety.
This forum is getting more and more Trump bashing and less and less about real politics. I think I'm going to take a hiatus for a while. Enjoy your sounding board...
The entire FOX headline is misleading. It is not a matter of the deal initially being signed in 2015 when Obama was President. The issue is the UPSWING in stays, which was ordered in June of 2017 (not mentioned in the FOX article), where the stats went from a few dozen times a year to nearly 300. And I guarantee if we check back next year, it will be even higher and Trump's profit margin on the hotel will have gone up even higher than it already has.
But hey, it isn't just the Air Force. The country we are about to go to war on behalf of had 25 members of the Royal family stay there this year as well. When he said yesterday they "pay cash", he wasn't being funny. No, it's not a conspiracy theory, the whole thing is the very definition of "conflict of interest". In JUST the case of this ONE hotel, one can reasonably question Trump's motives as Commander in Chief. Now multiply this by every one of his properties. But yeah, no one cares. I get it. I'll remind everyone Jimmy Carter sold his f*****g peanut farm to avoid even the hint of impropriety.
If in 2015, they were using a wide variety of airports all over Europe, that alone, which none of the other articles bring up, can explain for the large uptick. The flights are less spread out over different airports to just 5.
This forum is getting more and more Trump bashing and less and less about real politics. I think I'm going to take a hiatus for a while. Enjoy your sounding board...
Trump bashing is real politics.
He's the primary force making bad things happen everyday and presiding over a very corrupt and lawless administration.
Congress is not passing laws because Mitch McConnell won't do anything so the Executive branch is using government agencies and executive orders and fake emergency powers to run roughshod over the Constitution.
We are becoming in effect a quasi-dictatorship, so any moment now we'll see what those 2nd amendment types rise up, you know those guys who always crow about how they have their guns to protect against a tyrannical government do something right? Yeah could it be this is more hot air much like the crap about "good guy with gun stop bad guy with gun".
Trump just named a new NSA, hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien. At first glance, he seems like a reasonable choice. So much so that I was wondering what was the catch.
It does seem like he knows how to lay it on with a trowel:
"Robert O'Brien said, 'Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator in history.' He happens to be right," Trump said, according to pool reporters.
Given the usual caliber of Trump appointees, "shameless flatterer" is a breath of fresh air.
This forum is getting more and more Trump bashing and less and less about real politics. I think I'm going to take a hiatus for a while. Enjoy your sounding board...
Sorry to hear that @Balrog99 - your input will be missed. I can certainly appreciate your point of view, but I hope that you can also appreciate that this is not a normal period in politics. Actions like:
- appointing hundreds of judges on a purely partisan basis
- calling fake emergencies to bypass Congress
- not just ignoring scientific advice, but stating publicly it's wrong and punishing responsible scientists
- refusing to obey existing laws
- putting in doubt the system of international alliances followed by the US for many decades
- deliberately undermining the existing rules for international trade
- brazenly using the Presidency to pursue the private business interests of him and his family
are just some of the ways in which the goal posts seem to be shifting in relation to what politics means. You may believe that everything will just go back to normal when Trump leaves, but there are plenty of people who think that's too optimistic. Personally I would prefer to take personalities out of politics, but I don't think that's possible at the moment given the extent to which personalities are driving politics.
One of the issues obliquely referred to above is the balance of powers between the 3 branches of government in the US. I'm struck by the fact that there's a significant parallel with the constitutional discussions in the UK at the moment. The Supreme Court is in the second day of considering the cases on proroguing Parliament and may well issue a judgment tomorrow. They're considering two cases on essentially the same issue, which have been decided very differently:
- the English High Court decided that proroguing was purely a political concern that the courts could not address.
- the Scottish Court of Sessions decided that Johnson's advice to the Queen was improperly motivated and that the proroguing was therefore illegal.
I suspect that the Supreme Court will try and find a middle way. I think it's highly unlikely that they will follow the High Court line as that implicitly accepts the courts have no role in an important element of the constitution (hence undermining their own role). It would also provide an unfortunate precedent that a future prime minister could use to govern without Parliament for a long period. The last time that happened was when King James II prorogued Parliament for over a year and a half - and prior to that Charles I did something similar in dismissing Parliament for 11 years (spoiler - that didn't end well for him).
Following the Scottish line seems a bit more likely, but the Supreme Court judges would be sticking their heads in a hornet nest if they do that. In order to declare the prorogation illegal, they would also be expected to provide guidance on what constitutes a legal prorogation - and I don't think they would be able to write new guidance in such a short time. It is possible though they could refer to an existing standard, such as that used in judicial review (i.e. only intervening if the government took action which no reasonable government could have done). My hunch though is that they will say the courts do have a role in considering prorogation, but not determine in this particular case whether the action was illegal or not (something they could justify on the facts of the case as Parliament has in fact passed the sort of legislation on Brexit that opponents of the prorogation say it was intended to prevent).
Never mind the rape accusation from his ex-wife (and the way it was dropped is not indicative of it never having happened), that he attended sex parties hosted by Jeffrey Epstein, noted (deceased) pedophile and statutory rapist, made a point of walking into beauty contest dressing rooms in hopes of catching underaged girls naked, and talking about grabbing women by the pussy. Also presiding over tearing refugee families apart and indefinitely detaining everyone of any age who crossed the border in a legal attempt to request asylum from political violence in their nations of origin. Never mind appointing a drunkard rapist who never outgrew being a frat boy to SCOTUS.
The main reason Trump dominates conversation here is that the posters are overwhelmingly of a liberal persuasion, and the fact is there is now absolutely no underlying ideology or philosophy behind the Republican Party that isn't based around the idea of trying the hurt liberals as much as possible. The only overarching theme is if it will cause some liberal somewhere pain in their life, to be upset, or shed a tear, it's awesome.
Repealing Obamacare will leave 10s of millions without insurance?? Who cares, it's a liberal program, let them all rot in emergency rooms. Trump and his Cabinet are by far the most transparently corrupt group of people imaginable?? It's fine, he trolls the libs. Liberals advocate for helpless migrants?? We'll show them by literally CHEERING permanent extrajudicial family separation. California voted for Hillary?? We'll show those San Francisco libtards. We'll threaten to deny them disaster funding when their town burns to the ground and force them to posion their own air. I could go on for HOURS like this. The most striking thing about this Presidency is that it is designed at it's core to be a punitive punishment to over half the population.
The main reason Trump dominates conversation here is that the posters are overwhelmingly of a liberal persuasion, and the fact is there is now absolutely no underlying ideology or philosophy behind the Republican Party that isn't based around the idea of trying the hurt liberals as much as possible. The only overarching theme is if it will cause some liberal somewhere pain in their life, to be upset, or shed a tear, it's awesome.
Repealing Obamacare will leave 10s of millions without insurance?? Who cares, it's a liberal program, let them all rot in emergency rooms. Trump and his Cabinet are by far the most transparently corrupt group of people imaginable?? It's fine, he trolls the libs. Liberals advocate for helpless migrants?? We'll show them by literally CHEERING permanent extrajudicial family separation. California voted for Hillary?? We'll show those San Francisco libtards. We'll threaten to deny them disaster funding when their town burns to the ground and force them to posion their own air. I could go on for HOURS like this.
It's not just liberals he has hurt and is going to hurt.
That's what's exasperating.
There are more conservatives in California than there are in like a dozen Red states combined.
Across the nation people will die without healthcare coverage by Obamacare and the protection of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Republican states have court cases trying to throw out these protections. People will die.
Trump's loosening water and pollution regulations. Poisoned water and air affects us all. Why does he want to poison the planet? Why not leave things alone? He's corrupt he wants money.
Look, the Republican party is a big party of grifters and liars. It's the party of the elites - big fossil fuels, big business, lobbyists, their agenda is constantly pushing tax breaks for billionaires and corporations - that's it.
Sorry if that hurts people's feelings to hear the truth outside the conservative echo chamber. Most people live in the real world and these regressive policies affect them personally and hiding from that fact won't make the truth go away.
Well I hate to beleaguer the point here, but THIS is why in a forum about politics we can't catch a break. For the last 2 or 3 days, this story about a whistleblower complaint that the House Intelligence committee was flat-out not being allowed to see was simmering under the surface. Those with some knowledge in this field said to brace for impact. The whistleblower was blowing the whistle on the President:
More liberal hysterics you say?? Maybe so. But if that's the case, why are they moving heaven and earth to prevent Congress from getting any information about it?? You know all those years Republicans accused Democrats of being traitors to this country?? Trump is every manifestation of that fever dream in REALITY multiplied by at least 10.
The main reason Trump dominates conversation here is that the posters are overwhelmingly of a liberal persuasion, and the fact is there is now absolutely no underlying ideology or philosophy behind the Republican Party that isn't based around the idea of trying the hurt liberals as much as possible. The only overarching theme is if it will cause some liberal somewhere pain in their life, to be upset, or shed a tear, it's awesome.
Repealing Obamacare will leave 10s of millions without insurance?? Who cares, it's a liberal program, let them all rot in emergency rooms. Trump and his Cabinet are by far the most transparently corrupt group of people imaginable?? It's fine, he trolls the libs. Liberals advocate for helpless migrants?? We'll show them by literally CHEERING permanent extrajudicial family separation. California voted for Hillary?? We'll show those San Francisco libtards. We'll threaten to deny them disaster funding when their town burns to the ground and force them to posion their own air. I could go on for HOURS like this. The most striking thing about this Presidency is that it is designed at it's core to be a punitive punishment to over half the population.
Exactly. Say what you will about the tenets of Bernie's socialism or whoever among the Dems, their policy dreams would help poor whites in West Virginia just as much as the coastal cities. In fact, a broad-based expansion of means-based social welfare will tend to benefit folks in red states more than blue states, just because of the existing income disparities.
Analysis of this latest story from TPM. In short?? We now know why Dan Coates was fired, and Bill Barr is at it again:
For days we’ve been hearing about the standoff between Chairman Adam Schiff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence over a whistleblower complaint. Josh Kovensky walked us through some of the details this afternoon. Now The Washington Post has escalated the story dramatically by reporting that the complaint is about President Trump himself and centers on a “promise” he made to foreign leader. The complaint was filed on August 12th. So this is all quite recent.
There’s a lot of discussion and context in the Post article. But that’s the central reported detail. It’s not clear who the foreign leader was or what was promised or really anything else. The additional key detail is this: the complaint from the unidentified whistleblower was submitted to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. He determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be a matter of “urgent concern”, a legal standard that requires reporting the matter to Congress.
Obviously, anyone in the government can file a whistleblower complaint. They can be frivolous or nonsensical. But the Inspector General determined it was serious and of a pressing nature. Atkinson was nominated to the position by President Trump in 2018 but he appears to be a career government lawyer. He worked at DOJ for 15 years prior to his nomination.
The decision to withhold the information from Congress was made by acting DNI Joseph Maguire, who’s in that position after the dismissal of Dan Coats. But the Post suggests that it’s not actually Maguire’s choice. The Department of Justice told him to withhold the information from Congress.
Here is the key passage from the Post …
"Defenders of Maguire disputed that he is subverting legal requirements to protect Trump, saying that he is trapped in a legitimate legal predicament and that he has made his displeasure clear to officials at the Justice Department and White House.
After fielding the complaint on Aug. 12, Atkinson submitted it to Maguire two weeks later. By law, Maguire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within seven days. But in this case, he refrained from doing so after turning for legal guidance to officials at the Justice Department.
In a sign of Atkinson’s discomfort with this situation, the inspector general informed the House and Senate intelligence committees of the existence of the whistleblower complaint — without revealing its substance — in early September."
So it appears that in the guise of legal guidance the DOJ instructed Maguire not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson took matters into his own hands, informing Congress of the existence of a complaint while not sharing its substance, in deference to the DOJ’s legal guidance.
Bill Barr runs the Justice Department. He protects Donald Trump. Period. So the DOJ’s role here is little mystery. It is worth noting here that this is a case in which there are legitimate constitutional issues. When it comes to classified information, the whole system is a bureaucratic system to operationalize judgement’s which are nominally the President’s. That’s why the President can actually declassify information by the very act of sharing them. It was his decision to make them secrets in the first place. He’s just changing his mind. Those who believe in maximal presidential power think the President’s authority is basically unconstrained dealing with foreign leaders. Bill Barr is one of those people. And he also wants to protect Trump from the rule of law. So Barr’s jurisprudence and personal corruption point in the same direction.
One final point. The Post article is sourced to “two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” That’s odd. This only happened about a month ago. Former officials shouldn’t really know anything about this unless somehow they were in the loop and retired like last week or something. That’s not totally implausible as people seem to be being pushed out of the ODNI in the wake of Coats’ departure. But it sounds (and this is just speculation based on news experience) that this information is being pushed out into the public realm using ex-officials as intermediaries. In other words, people on the inside think something is wrong and they’re using go-betweens with high level clearances to get the information public. Again, this last point is speculation. But I think it’s a logical surmise.
It sounds like something pretty serious is up here.
"By law, Maguire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within 7 days". Then the DoJ steps in and stops it. If Bill Barr is stopping this information from reaching Congress, assume it's as bad as it can possibly be. I think I've been proven right about Bill Barr enough times to be taken seriously on this. When Trump calls in his fixer, you can assume it's serious. Again, this is another law they are IGNORING. The complaint was reviewed by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (whose job it is to weed out bogus claims) and deemed it serious. If it's NOT serious, the White House and DoJ can PROVE it isn't serious by following the law and turning over the complaint to Congress. But they aren't doing so. You decide why that might be.
This forum is getting more and more Trump bashing and less and less about real politics. I think I'm going to take a hiatus for a while. Enjoy your sounding board...
"Ugh geez you guys. I can't belive you are calling out someone's documented illgeal activity, corrupiton, and blatant lies. I cannot stand it when people are being held accountable for their actions. I'm out."
@ThacoBell: To be fair, I'm reasonably certain @Balrog99 doesn't object to the mere presentation of Trump administration misdeeds; the issue is that most of this discussion concentrates on it. It doesn't bore me, but I can definitely see why someone else might get weary of the subject and want to hear about other political events.
AG Bill Barr says the President can't be indicted for any crime because some sticky note from the 1960s says so.
The only way to hold him accountable is impeachment but he is stonewalling ANY investigation that might be material to an impeachment.
His crooked Justice Department will not ever charge him or investigate him and the Republican controlled Senate is not interested in doing its job either.
What we are left with is a dictatorship, an unaccountable lawless truth averse President.
Comments
I thought my post was pretty clear that I think Ford's account is more credible than Kavanaugh's. The point I was making was that he could have chosen to downplay the importance of an incident from ancient history and blame differences in perceptions on drink. Instead he chose a more combative approach and told numerous obvious lies in the process. It's that approach that seems compelling evidence to me that he should not be a judge, irrespective of whether the original allegation is true or not. While it will never be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt the assault allegation, it certainly is possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he lied in his testimony to Congress - hence why I think that's now the main issue.
Leland Keyser has consistently said that she has no memory of the party and I respect her determination to stick to the truth as she sees it - that's exactly what I think everyone should do. That does not of course mean Ford's allegation is not true. As far as Keyser was concerned it would have just been another party. She was not a direct witness and, unlike other allegations made against Kavanaugh, this one was not public knowledge at the time, so there would have been no particular reason to remember anything.
Mark Judge was the only claimed direct witness and his position is that he can remember nothing. That lack of memory has some credibility given that he's written a book explaining how he had regular lapses of memory as a result of drink. However, that credibility comes at a cost to Kavanaugh's wider testimony. The book claims it gives a true account, but with the names of some people and places changed. Unless you believe in bizarre coincidences it would be hard not to wonder about the identity of the 'Bart O'Kavanaugh' featured in the book - and the fact that the behavior attributed to him is inconsistent with Kavanaugh's testimony.
And yeah, let's get real here. Kavanaugh has ALWAYS been a partisan operative above all else. Spoiler: his confirmation hearings weren't the first time he was accused of lying:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaughs-ken-starr-work-he-violated-justice-department-policies.html
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article214604235.html
When you're in a job interview, the burden of proof is not upon the interviewer. It's upon whichever party in the interview that lacks power - almost always the interviewee.
There is no alternative, the Supreme Court is packed with radical Conservative judicial activists. That isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself IF this was the will of the voters, it is not.
One of them was placed there immorally by Mitch McConnell and another was rammed through when he clearly doesn't have the judicial temperament or integrity for one of the nations most important jobs.
These actions when considered together make it easily argued that no decision from this court is valid.
As Justice Sotomayor noted in her dissent to a recent ruling the Supreme Court is doing “extraordinary” favors for Trump.
The Supreme Court is not supposed to be loyal to the Executive Branch. It's supposed to be an independent branch of government an arbiter of law that calls balls and strikes. It is currently a partisan collection of conservative politicians in robes running roughshod over the Constitution with terrible 5-4 decisions.
Exactly this. It's important to understand why the standard "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" exists. It's because of the stakes of criminal trials. The state is stripping an individual of their rights. That is very high stakes.
Giving someone a lifetime appointment of immense power is also high stakes, but it is high stakes in the other direction. Which is exactly why the logic needs to be reversed, imo. SCOTUS judges need to have a record of impeccable professional behavior -- beyond a reasonable doubt.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-17/trump-california-auto-emissions-clean-air-act-waiver
He wants to bring this back, LA 1956:
He is also now pushing harder on the idea he is going to arbitrarily round up homeless citizens (over 40% of whom statistically are veterans by the way, for the so-called pro-military crowd on the right) and his reasoning seemed to literally be that they are too big a nuisance to rich people.
But back to your point. The State's rights crowd is now saying that California can't have tougher air pollution standards than everyone else. Not that they can't have LOWER standards, but that they can't decide they can have tougher ones. So not only do the residents of California only have a fraction of the voting power of everyone else, they are now going to be FORCED to have dirtier air. I guess to own the libs. It's time to drop this charade about federalism once and for all. The only things "state's rights" was ever about was allowing the former Confederacy to treat their black population as sub-human. They don't give a flying fuck about it in any other regard. Well, that's not true. They also would very much like to make sure they can discriminate against gay people.
The argument they are making is that California having stronger emission standards violates anti-trust law, which simply proves they have no goddamn idea what anti-trust law is.
It's worth reading the LA times article and the editorial referred to in that. In addition to the State's rights issue it also covers the point about antitrust legislation. In brief:
- California currently has the right to set its own emission standards (and 12 other States follow those).
- If the government wishes to change that, the proper route is to go through Congress.
- Instead, the Justice Department has initiated an antitrust investigation of 4 companies which came to an agreement with California about future emissions standards.
- These companies are therefore being investigated for cooperating on how best to meet public policy. If you took that line to its absurd conclusion it would mean that industry bodies would no longer be able to respond to government consultations on the future direction of legislation.
The editorial also refers to the fact that the current government has been doing far less enforcement of antitrust legislation. That's noteworthy in itself as there has been little involvement of politics in the development or enforcement of antitrust law since the Sherman Act of 1890 that codified existing common law (here's a legal article on the historic relationship of politics and antitrust legislation if anyone is interested in details). While there are rational arguments in some cases for not using existing law (for instance if there are plans being made to repeal or significantly change that law) it's a concern if existing law is not being enforced due to a disagreement between Congress and the Executive about what that law should be. Going one step further to abusing existing law for a clearly unintended purpose though should be a real concern for those interested in maintaining the constitutional separation of powers.
It's now normal for the Supreme Court to just do whatever the hell Trump wants to do even things well outside his Constitutional powers. Want to steal money from military schools for a bogus emergency? Sure thing Don! Restrict asylum for no reason? Sure thing Don! Allow gerrymandering to screw over voters? Sure thing!
And we got Lewandowski, who has not worked in the administration, lying and laughing and ignoring subpoenas.
We have a politicized department of Justice acting as Trump's fixer and refusing to prosecute criminal acts by individual-1 -the President. Um because some stupid memo says we can't, not a law or anything.
We got the acting DNI ignoring subpoenas and withholding credible criminal acts by the executive branch.
The treasury "shall" by law turn over anyone's tax returns but they refuse.
We have the Air Force and vice president pouring millions of taxpayers money directly into Trump's businesses. Corruption.
We now have Venezuelan or Russian levels of corruption. Thanks Trump, I hate it.
But the argument is going to be "but California has so many people, it's going to force everyone to buy these better fuel-efficiency cars because they won't bother making other ones that aren't anymore". And my retort to that is, when, exactly, on any level does California get to decide anything AT ALL for being the most populace state?? They already have abridged voting power in regards to ALL branches of the Federal government, and now apparently they also can't decide not to poison their own air because their influence is too great that it will affect the cars other states can buy as well. So they are just supposed sit there and have a massive smog problem because Jack-Off McGee in Sioux Falls wants to drive a pick-up that doesn't get better gas mileage. The argument is CONSTANTLY that California is going to "dictate" to the rest of the country. The reality of the situation is that they are, BY FAR, the state that is having their rights trampled on the most.
Quick note on this:
1. Trump made a deal with the airport prior to him being president about sending and recommending his hotel as accommodation for any flight crews using the airport. Before this deal, due to distance and price it was the last hotel recommended by airport staff.
2. Prior to Trump being made president, the Air Force set up another deal with the same airport for them to set up recommendations for their flight crews who stop at this airport, that for logistic reasons, they were going to use more frequently.
It was the airport who was behind setting up these stays keeping both agreements in place. The Air Force has already said that the perception of this is not good optics and are looking to readdress the situation. They are far from corrupt, just didn’t catch this until the media brought it up.
That said, this whole situation could have been avoided if Trump put all his businesses into a Blind Trust like he was suppose to after becoming president, but then that blind trust would have seen the corruption in his businesses would have probably notify authorities or something.
Guess that wasn’t a quick note but the Air Force wasn’t doing this on purpose to benefit Trump.
Then what, pray tell, explains the fact that somehow stops at the airport have TRIPLED from 2015 to 2019. A lucky coincidence I suppose?? From 95 in 2015 to 259 in 2019 with 4 months left in the year. "The Air Force said" at this point is not a valid source. I'll remind you who is in charge of the Air Force.
From a CNN article on September 9th:
The number of overnight stops at Prestwick has steadily increased. There were 40 in 2015, 75 in 2016, 116 in 2017, 208 in 2018 and 220 through August 2019.
The Air Force says the reason for the airfield's increased usage derived from a flight directive issued to mobility crews in June 2017 which it said was "designed to increase efficiencies by standardizing routing locations, with Prestwick being among the top five locations recommended for reasons such as more favorable weather than nearby Shannon Airport, and less aircraft parking congestion than locations on the European continent."
I'm fairly certain that June 2017 is INDEED after Trump becomes President, with a 6 month cushion, but maybe I'm losing my mind.
Yes. It is a coincidence. Who owned what hotels close to said winning airport was not and should not have been a factor in determining this streamlined position.
Once again, the Air Force did not know of the Trump deal prior to signing theirs with the airport. This also explains the uptick of that airport being used more frequently than from 2015. It’s bordering on conspiracy theory to suggest otherwise.
BTW Heather Wilson would have been in charge of this directive I believe as she was the Secretary of the United States Airforce at the time of this decision.
For her wikipage:
While Secretary of the Air Force, Wilson focused on restoring the readiness of the force which had declined after years of combat and budget constraints. She proposed and supported three straight years of double digit budget increases for military space capability and publicly acknowledged that space is likely to be contested in any future conflict. Wilson also guided implementation of acquisition reform to reduce the time to get military capability to the warfighter and increase competition by making it easier for innovative companies to supply the Air Force. Wilson was honored by the Air Force, Army, Navy and Department of Defense for her superior service upon her retirement.
That reasoning makes more sense ‘let’s have a whole bunch of high ranking officials sit in a room right after Trump’s election and determine how he and he only can make a quick buck.’
I know Fox, but it’s legit (with other news sources like WaPo linked in the story):
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/air-force-deal-with-airport-turnberry
Now if you want to complain about how the hotel treated some higher ranking personnel more favourably when they stayed at the airport, that is a different story and should have those personnel investigated.
But hey, it isn't just the Air Force. The country we are about to go to war on behalf of had 25 members of the Royal family stay there this year as well. When he said yesterday they "pay cash", he wasn't being funny. No, it's not a conspiracy theory, the whole thing is the very definition of "conflict of interest". In JUST the case of this ONE hotel, one can reasonably question Trump's motives as Commander in Chief. Now multiply this by every one of his properties. But yeah, no one cares. I get it. I'll remind everyone Jimmy Carter sold his f*****g peanut farm to avoid even the hint of impropriety.
If in 2015, they were using a wide variety of airports all over Europe, that alone, which none of the other articles bring up, can explain for the large uptick. The flights are less spread out over different airports to just 5.
Trump bashing is real politics.
He's the primary force making bad things happen everyday and presiding over a very corrupt and lawless administration.
Congress is not passing laws because Mitch McConnell won't do anything so the Executive branch is using government agencies and executive orders and fake emergency powers to run roughshod over the Constitution.
We are becoming in effect a quasi-dictatorship, so any moment now we'll see what those 2nd amendment types rise up, you know those guys who always crow about how they have their guns to protect against a tyrannical government do something right? Yeah could it be this is more hot air much like the crap about "good guy with gun stop bad guy with gun".
It does seem like he knows how to lay it on with a trowel:
Given the usual caliber of Trump appointees, "shameless flatterer" is a breath of fresh air.
Sorry to hear that @Balrog99 - your input will be missed. I can certainly appreciate your point of view, but I hope that you can also appreciate that this is not a normal period in politics. Actions like:
- appointing hundreds of judges on a purely partisan basis
- calling fake emergencies to bypass Congress
- not just ignoring scientific advice, but stating publicly it's wrong and punishing responsible scientists
- refusing to obey existing laws
- putting in doubt the system of international alliances followed by the US for many decades
- deliberately undermining the existing rules for international trade
- brazenly using the Presidency to pursue the private business interests of him and his family
are just some of the ways in which the goal posts seem to be shifting in relation to what politics means. You may believe that everything will just go back to normal when Trump leaves, but there are plenty of people who think that's too optimistic. Personally I would prefer to take personalities out of politics, but I don't think that's possible at the moment given the extent to which personalities are driving politics.
One of the issues obliquely referred to above is the balance of powers between the 3 branches of government in the US. I'm struck by the fact that there's a significant parallel with the constitutional discussions in the UK at the moment. The Supreme Court is in the second day of considering the cases on proroguing Parliament and may well issue a judgment tomorrow. They're considering two cases on essentially the same issue, which have been decided very differently:
- the English High Court decided that proroguing was purely a political concern that the courts could not address.
- the Scottish Court of Sessions decided that Johnson's advice to the Queen was improperly motivated and that the proroguing was therefore illegal.
I suspect that the Supreme Court will try and find a middle way. I think it's highly unlikely that they will follow the High Court line as that implicitly accepts the courts have no role in an important element of the constitution (hence undermining their own role). It would also provide an unfortunate precedent that a future prime minister could use to govern without Parliament for a long period. The last time that happened was when King James II prorogued Parliament for over a year and a half - and prior to that Charles I did something similar in dismissing Parliament for 11 years (spoiler - that didn't end well for him).
Following the Scottish line seems a bit more likely, but the Supreme Court judges would be sticking their heads in a hornet nest if they do that. In order to declare the prorogation illegal, they would also be expected to provide guidance on what constitutes a legal prorogation - and I don't think they would be able to write new guidance in such a short time. It is possible though they could refer to an existing standard, such as that used in judicial review (i.e. only intervening if the government took action which no reasonable government could have done). My hunch though is that they will say the courts do have a role in considering prorogation, but not determine in this particular case whether the action was illegal or not (something they could justify on the facts of the case as Parliament has in fact passed the sort of legislation on Brexit that opponents of the prorogation say it was intended to prevent).
Repealing Obamacare will leave 10s of millions without insurance?? Who cares, it's a liberal program, let them all rot in emergency rooms. Trump and his Cabinet are by far the most transparently corrupt group of people imaginable?? It's fine, he trolls the libs. Liberals advocate for helpless migrants?? We'll show them by literally CHEERING permanent extrajudicial family separation. California voted for Hillary?? We'll show those San Francisco libtards. We'll threaten to deny them disaster funding when their town burns to the ground and force them to posion their own air. I could go on for HOURS like this. The most striking thing about this Presidency is that it is designed at it's core to be a punitive punishment to over half the population.
It's not just liberals he has hurt and is going to hurt.
That's what's exasperating.
There are more conservatives in California than there are in like a dozen Red states combined.
Across the nation people will die without healthcare coverage by Obamacare and the protection of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Republican states have court cases trying to throw out these protections. People will die.
Trump's loosening water and pollution regulations. Poisoned water and air affects us all. Why does he want to poison the planet? Why not leave things alone? He's corrupt he wants money.
Look, the Republican party is a big party of grifters and liars. It's the party of the elites - big fossil fuels, big business, lobbyists, their agenda is constantly pushing tax breaks for billionaires and corporations - that's it.
Sorry if that hurts people's feelings to hear the truth outside the conservative echo chamber. Most people live in the real world and these regressive policies affect them personally and hiding from that fact won't make the truth go away.
More liberal hysterics you say?? Maybe so. But if that's the case, why are they moving heaven and earth to prevent Congress from getting any information about it?? You know all those years Republicans accused Democrats of being traitors to this country?? Trump is every manifestation of that fever dream in REALITY multiplied by at least 10.
Exactly. Say what you will about the tenets of Bernie's socialism or whoever among the Dems, their policy dreams would help poor whites in West Virginia just as much as the coastal cities. In fact, a broad-based expansion of means-based social welfare will tend to benefit folks in red states more than blue states, just because of the existing income disparities.
For days we’ve been hearing about the standoff between Chairman Adam Schiff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence over a whistleblower complaint. Josh Kovensky walked us through some of the details this afternoon. Now The Washington Post has escalated the story dramatically by reporting that the complaint is about President Trump himself and centers on a “promise” he made to foreign leader. The complaint was filed on August 12th. So this is all quite recent.
There’s a lot of discussion and context in the Post article. But that’s the central reported detail. It’s not clear who the foreign leader was or what was promised or really anything else. The additional key detail is this: the complaint from the unidentified whistleblower was submitted to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. He determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be a matter of “urgent concern”, a legal standard that requires reporting the matter to Congress.
Obviously, anyone in the government can file a whistleblower complaint. They can be frivolous or nonsensical. But the Inspector General determined it was serious and of a pressing nature. Atkinson was nominated to the position by President Trump in 2018 but he appears to be a career government lawyer. He worked at DOJ for 15 years prior to his nomination.
The decision to withhold the information from Congress was made by acting DNI Joseph Maguire, who’s in that position after the dismissal of Dan Coats. But the Post suggests that it’s not actually Maguire’s choice. The Department of Justice told him to withhold the information from Congress.
Here is the key passage from the Post …
"Defenders of Maguire disputed that he is subverting legal requirements to protect Trump, saying that he is trapped in a legitimate legal predicament and that he has made his displeasure clear to officials at the Justice Department and White House.
After fielding the complaint on Aug. 12, Atkinson submitted it to Maguire two weeks later. By law, Maguire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within seven days. But in this case, he refrained from doing so after turning for legal guidance to officials at the Justice Department.
In a sign of Atkinson’s discomfort with this situation, the inspector general informed the House and Senate intelligence committees of the existence of the whistleblower complaint — without revealing its substance — in early September."
So it appears that in the guise of legal guidance the DOJ instructed Maguire not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson took matters into his own hands, informing Congress of the existence of a complaint while not sharing its substance, in deference to the DOJ’s legal guidance.
Bill Barr runs the Justice Department. He protects Donald Trump. Period. So the DOJ’s role here is little mystery. It is worth noting here that this is a case in which there are legitimate constitutional issues. When it comes to classified information, the whole system is a bureaucratic system to operationalize judgement’s which are nominally the President’s. That’s why the President can actually declassify information by the very act of sharing them. It was his decision to make them secrets in the first place. He’s just changing his mind. Those who believe in maximal presidential power think the President’s authority is basically unconstrained dealing with foreign leaders. Bill Barr is one of those people. And he also wants to protect Trump from the rule of law. So Barr’s jurisprudence and personal corruption point in the same direction.
One final point. The Post article is sourced to “two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” That’s odd. This only happened about a month ago. Former officials shouldn’t really know anything about this unless somehow they were in the loop and retired like last week or something. That’s not totally implausible as people seem to be being pushed out of the ODNI in the wake of Coats’ departure. But it sounds (and this is just speculation based on news experience) that this information is being pushed out into the public realm using ex-officials as intermediaries. In other words, people on the inside think something is wrong and they’re using go-betweens with high level clearances to get the information public. Again, this last point is speculation. But I think it’s a logical surmise.
It sounds like something pretty serious is up here.
"By law, Maguire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within 7 days". Then the DoJ steps in and stops it. If Bill Barr is stopping this information from reaching Congress, assume it's as bad as it can possibly be. I think I've been proven right about Bill Barr enough times to be taken seriously on this. When Trump calls in his fixer, you can assume it's serious. Again, this is another law they are IGNORING. The complaint was reviewed by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (whose job it is to weed out bogus claims) and deemed it serious. If it's NOT serious, the White House and DoJ can PROVE it isn't serious by following the law and turning over the complaint to Congress. But they aren't doing so. You decide why that might be.
"Ugh geez you guys. I can't belive you are calling out someone's documented illgeal activity, corrupiton, and blatant lies. I cannot stand it when people are being held accountable for their actions. I'm out."
Trump’s Attorneys Now Arguing That No Prosecutor Can Investigate A Sitting President
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-lawsuit-cy-vance-mazars-subpoena
AG Bill Barr says the President can't be indicted for any crime because some sticky note from the 1960s says so.
The only way to hold him accountable is impeachment but he is stonewalling ANY investigation that might be material to an impeachment.
His crooked Justice Department will not ever charge him or investigate him and the Republican controlled Senate is not interested in doing its job either.
What we are left with is a dictatorship, an unaccountable lawless truth averse President.