Category Archives: current events

Trump’s ongoing threat

New reporting, Trumpie reached out to Merrick Garland to inform him that the country is on fire and wanting to know what he could do to turn down the heat — outside of turning over evidence, being truthful, not doxxing traitors online, or calling on the most violent of his followers to stop threatening violence against Trump’s ever-expanding group. of enemies, the the ones whose home addresses, names of spouses and children and where the kids go to school has been posted on Trump’s Truth Social network.

Trumpie’s larger point is that he controls 90% of the country’s most volatile, unreasonable, violent assholes, and 100% of our enraged racists, and the other side may well have 90% of the more reasonable, less violent citizens, but we can all agree that it would be a shame if anything happened to this great divided burning country, Merrick, my friend. You know what I’m sayin’, Merrick? Merrick?

Put Cuffari in the stocks

Trump-appointed transparent liar and obstructionist DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari continues to lie and obstruct Congress. His aim is Trumpian — delay, deflect, mislead, omit, prevent production of evidence at all costs. Congress is considering their options for this lying sack of shit, who recently replied with this raft of crap:

He said he has published one review of the Jan. 6 attack and is working on two others. “When those two ongoing reviews are complete, we will be happy to provide briefings about them,” he wrote. . .

. . .“Sharing information about ongoing criminal investigations could impact potential witnesses or others who may be involved in the investigative process,” Cuffari wrote. “To protect the integrity of our work and preserve our independence, we do not share information about ongoing matters, like the information you requested in your letters.

“Similarly, we do not authorize our staff to sit for transcribed interviews with your committee about these ongoing matters,” he wrote. “Once these matters are complete, we will consider a renewed request for documents, briefings, or transcribed interviews.”

https://wapo.st/3QMJnpf

This transparently corrupt asshole, smugly aping the legitimate concerns of DOJ in its ongoing criminal investigations, serves at the pleasure of the sitting president. Biden should immediately dismiss Cuffari and have him placed in the stocks, within sight of Congress, next to Trump megadonor/postmaster general Louie DeJoy. Make them grim examples for the rest of MAGA world. Do it, Joe.

Trump sends MAGA militia after judge who signed Mar-a-Lago search warrant

When the former president leaked his copy of the search warrant to Breitbart, he left in the names of the two FBI agents who signed and served it and the name of the judge who signed the search warrant, after finding probable cause, based on DOJ’s detailed affidavit setting forth all of the reasons why evidence of a crime was probably at Mar-a-Lago. He fingered these three, and their families, for terrifying, physical retribution, as he does (don’t ask Mike Pence, the question, understanably, gives him indigestion).

The next thing I heard was that there was a huge spike in anti-Semitic chatter in White Christian Nationalist world. Turns out not only is Merrick Garland a Jew, but so, apparently is the judge who signed the search warrant to unleash the lying FBI intent on planting and lying about evidence stolen from Trump’s Palm Beach home and resort. As is universally despised dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

So I did a quick search to confirm that the judge was indeed a Semite, and here are the top search returns. It turns out the judge’s name is Bruce Reinhart (no relation to Django) and the first few hits that come up are “Synagogue of Jewish judge who signed off on FBI search …” (yahoo news), Murdoch’s New York Post headline is next “Trump lawyer calls out judge who approved Mar-a-Lago search warrant for…” then Murdoch’s New York Post connects a few more nefarious dots “Judge who approved raid on Mar-a-Lago once linked to Jeffrey Epstein” (oh God, another Jewish pedophile!) we learned from that blurb that Reinhart had also donated to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Something called JTA’s headline “the judge who signed FBI’s Mar-a-Lago warrant is facing violent…” then we get Fox News, moving in for the kill “Florida judge who signed the search warrant allowing the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was once linked to Jeffrey Epstein, according to a report.”

Several things become immediately clear when you do this quick Google search. One: the judge is indeed Jewish and there seems to be some concern at the synagogue he belongs to about unhinged men with guns or some other hateful plan arriving for Shabbat services. Two: Trumpworld is on full offense, already setting out (and searching out) the infuriating story of this biased fuck who not only … well, you know! Three, as we all know now, the guy was linked by reports to notorious pedophile, sick, evil bastard and Jew, Jeffrey Epstein.

And, with that, you know, based on reports, the People rest, and let’s make it a completely fair and balanced pogrom this time, shall we? Haha!

The Espionage Act and Rand Paul’s call to abolish it

Rand Paul (R-Ky) is an immense, reeking pile of excrement, and I say that with all due respect to prickly, eternally aggrieved Doctor Paul. He asked today how we know the FBI isn’t busy planting evidence, adding incriminating evidence to the boxes seized at Mar-a-Lago, how do we know the DOJ isn’t a bunch of liars? That said, his recent attack on the 1917 Espionage Act is not nearly as crazy as, say, his ongoing personal war with Anthony Fauci, or his generally paranoiac worldview.

The Espionage Act, as Paul points out, criminalizes certain forms of dissent in a way that offends the Constitution, the First Amendment specifically. The strict wartime law certainly needs to be looked at carefully and rewritten much better than its current form. The same could be said about Nixon’s 1970 Controlled Substances Act and other laws that are still on the books, laws that were made primarily for political purposes and that we can fairly conclude outlived their ugly origins.

So fine, Rand, let’s not prosecute Mr. Trump pursuant to the Espionage Act. Obstruction of justice fits Trumpie and his gang much better anyway.

Grey Lady breaks more bad news for team Trump

Great reporting, headlined: Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned, with a sub-headline only the NY Times is capable of:

Raising questions, indeed, about precisely how forthcoming Trump’s lawyer signing a false sworn statement was!

Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/politics/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUaACbIRp8_qRmHmfnE2_sgnGL7NG2eTT9Z1OUbAoWMvkLEead5ZtI3mjqRRZlBLLorDrRU_9NoAnZMGUOus4fW39MMOTk0ooa-GTg4hJ7AU-totGXjMTj8dbYnmPjusUrXdTa5D6bU0yYlc15joYB3Ng3_gQx-zabDFO9y2td8zK1hUsg8HWFcEXHM6_r4CBx-O8GEZwXf6GQ2W-JZWTLSlb2M-u5KMVUSWR-dEiQJsStr48hcOdgXIK_1MxUlHcH9ir4SAWFqR5y7sESlbyo8Kx90zFsLYdD8-g

Beautiful bit of poetic justice

Reported by my sister, Amy Goodman:

If Trump is proven to have mishandled classified documents, he could be guilty of a felony. In 2018, then-President Trump signed a bill upgrading the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, while increasing punishments for those who mishandle classified information.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/12/headlines/wapo_fbi_searched_trumps_residence_for_classified_nuclear_arms_documents

GOP members of House Intelligence Committee call for transparency and accountability for unfair DOJ raid on their boss

The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee held a news conference to challenge the Department of Justice for its decision to use “the most extreme measures” to recover evidence of what a federal judge was convinced is probably related to a federal crime. The committee members, speaking in measured tones, are outraged that the DOJ has not given them an urgent National Security reason for the search and is not immediately releasing the search warrant and inventory, (two items already in Trumpie’s hands and that he could have released at any time, but petty to mention [1]) as well as everything else related to the FBI search. They are united in their measured outrage over this outrageous attack on a man who, they say, has willingly and fully cooperated with every illegal partisan witch hunt against him. They are also troubled by the presence of a possible informant, one they say they are entitled to know the identity of.

Fox News has largely swung their influential allegiance in the 2024 presidential election toward Florida strongman Ron DeathSantis (as he’s called by half of the population of Florida) and away from besieged, compromised, damaged Teflon Don Trump. However, Rupert Murdoch is deeply committed to his far-right worldview, fascism is far preferable to majoritarian tyranny disguised as democracy to a billionaire with Murdoch’s extreme beliefs.

So here’s Fox’s live coverage of the Republican membership of the House Intelligence Committee demanding answers from Merrick Garland and the politicized, highly partisan DOJ. Other Congressional Republicans have already made it clear that when they take control of the House Garland’s going to be on the hot seat along with Biden, Harris, Schiff, Nadler, Schumer, Pelosi, Hillary and all the rest of the scoundrels they oppose for not letting them make America great again. Those Benghazi hearings, and the calls to lock her up related to Hillary Clinton’s emails, they’re promising, are going to look like yer proverbial child’s play compared to what they’re threatening against so-called elected Democrats if they take control of Congress in 2023.

In this news conference they demand answers- – why not a subpoena, why this extreme step? What is the specific urgent National Security reason that could legally justify this extreme step? DOJ, part of the (Unitary) Executive branch is riding roughshod over Congressional oversight by a co-equal branch, WTF? They want the identity of the informant, the spy, (the Rat, in Trump- speak) and they are very serious in demanding all of these answers. Serious as a heart attack.

I made it through the first six minutes, noting the obvious reason for no subpoena, that a subpoena for these exact items has already been defied by the former president, months ago, after many months of negotiation with his lawyers. He is the former president who instructed his loyalists to defy all subpoenas and fight them in court. His third AG, Barr, insisted to Congress that it was reasonable to believe Obama had “spies” in place during the transition, which helps explain why Mike Flynn’s lies to Pence and the FBI about illegal contacts with Russia, and his undisclosed paid work for the Turkish strongman, were “immaterial”. Barr also whipped up baseless fears of massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, before things at the White House finally went off the rails and he had to get the hell out of there to avoid facing criminal charges himself.

The long list of GOP grievances and demands presented today in relation to the FBI search is a tissue of the same stuff, nonetheless interesting to hear them set it out with a straight face, and the great moral indignation which is their hallmark. Their presentation will no doubt be very convincing to millions of “low information voters” who are already upset about what appears to be the brutal, baseless crucifixion of their charismatic, persecuted leader, a man of the people millions of Fox viewers faithfully love.

[1] Garland held a rare press conference yesterday during which he called bullshit on Trump. He announced that DOJ has gone to court seeking judicial permission to release copies of the search warrant and property inventory that Trump already has and is already legally free to release to the public. The federal judge in that case has given Mr Trump until 3:00 p.m. today to either oppose the DOJ or agree to it and allow those two documents to be released to the public, by DOJ.