Category Archives: History and Politics

Hmmm…obstruction of justice by FPOTUS?

When you are a self-made millionaire by age eight, you operate by a different set of rules. Because you are so important the ordinary constraints that most people feel do not apply, they apply only to losers.

So when F POTUS fired James Comey, for not dropping the Flynn thing, the next day he celebrated in the Oval Office with Russian officials including the Russian ambassador, the guy Flynn had illegally contacted during the transition and lied about speaking to. When F POTUS met with Putin in Helsinki, no records were made of the meeting, the translator notes were destroyed. F POTUS said he believed Putin rather than his own US intelligence experts, though he later clarified that by saying he actually meant the exact opposite of what he said the day before.

When Robert Mueller was investigating and documenting 140 instances of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign he encountered so much obstruction of his investigation, and so much lying, that he wrote an entire second volume about the obstruction of people like Manafort, Flynn, Stone, although he was very tactful about F POTUS’s refusal to answer written questions. He delicately called “inadequate” F POTUS‘s no answer given for the final long, compound question about Flynn, Comey and the beating heart of his consistently obstructive behavior.

The lying Manafort recently conceded that he had given sensitive polling data on the swing states that F POTUS would go on to narrowly win to Konstantin Kilimnic, a Putin asset. Nothing to see here, Manafort was pardoned, all his crimes now a nullity under the law. But obstruction of justice, which is ongoing, is a very serious crime, perhaps the most serious one of all.

If you successfully obstruct a criminal investigation into yourself, using any means necessary, and all the power of your office, you then give your corrupt attorney general the ability to say that since no underlying crime was proved it is impossible, as a matter of logic and under the law, to have obstructed justice.

If you say so, Bagpiper, you lying sack of shit.

decent Nathan Lane impression, though

Torture Memo author weighs in on Trump obstruction of justice

It’s been a long time, I think, since I referred to someone here as a piece of shit, fucking or otherwise, but if anyone qualifies it’s tenured professor of constitutional law and former OLC stooge (under VP Dick Cheney) John “Torture Memo” fucking Yoo [1]. Here he is rearing his ugly head which I have spared you in this audio clip, as a legal expert on FOX, to tell Fox Nation that now that the government has the stolen documents back, after only 19 months or so of trying, there should be no further investigation because . . . you figure it out, jerk-offs.

Imagine having this proud fascist as your professor of constitutional law at Berkeley University. Foof!

[1] The genius of the secret torture memo, co-authored by Yoo and now lifetime federal judge Jay Bybee, was using a tortured definition of the word “torture” to make every cruel and inhuman technique simply “enhanced interrogation” unless the pain caused was equivalent to something they randomly pulled out of their assholes — the shutdown of a major organ system in the body.

I watched my father’s liver cancer shut down his liver and finally his kidneys and it was extremely gentle. He had no pain at all, his breathing became more and more shallow and then he was dead.

Jared Kushner, boy genius

Asked, on his book promotion tour (the self-serving tome is apparently a bestseller on Amazon) whether his father-in-law had won the 2020 election, graceful Jared did this brilliantly original dance (as reported in today’s NY Times, link at bottom):

“I think that there’s different words,” Mr. Kushner told the talk show host Megyn Kelly during a friendly interview on SiriusXM. He added, “I think there’s a whole bunch of different approaches that different people have taken, and different theories.”

Pressed to say whether Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Kushner demurred. “I believe it was a very sloppy election,” he said. “I think that there’s a lot of issues that I think if litigated differently may have had different insights into them.”

Clearly, it was not the election itself, it was the failure to properly litigate the election, that is, the failure to offer any proof of fraud in any court of law that made the real difference into insights that determine what you call it: sloppy, a steal, a mistake, a fuck up, a mirror image of me, myself and the outsized ambitions apertunant thereto.

The Times book reviewer gushed:

“Breaking History” is an earnest and soulless — Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one — and peculiarly selective appraisal of Donald J. Trump’s term in office. Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering (the “mechanic”) with issues he was interested in.

This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox. Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.

link to full review at [1]

On Wednesday, when asked on Fox News if Mr. Trump made a mistake in taking classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, Mr. Kushner stepped carefully.

“President Trump, he governed in a very peculiar way,” he said. “When he had his documents, I’m assuming he did what he thought was appropriate.”

Mr. Kushner has condemned the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, saying on Tuesday, “It just seems like what they keep doing is breaking norms in their attempt to try to get him.”

His father-in-law has been touting his book as a MUST READ. He’s giving it away as a promotion to those who make a certain sized donation to his omnibus Defend the Innocent Trump from unfair partisan persecution PAC fund.

The friendly venues have mostly spared Mr. Kushner tough questions about Mr. Trump’s role during the Jan. 6 attack. His interviewers have also steered clear of asking about how Mr. Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, whom he defends in his book as a reformer on certain topics.

source [below]

Go, Jared.

Go fuck yourself.

Promoting His Memoir, Kushner Offers Tortured Defenses of Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/us/politics/jared-kushner-trump-book.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUZBCbIRp8_qRmHmfnE2_s-j2XzIG2WVC1CyekPRpSa5kLVIKBkYNh13yieQJUJFo4Tc8FI770VOV1xGU7vq4GYmZ8BLmJsotLjA2lm1NfBDbtgtGK1MTH8eOsnmfixtUzbPjO9C6GOgiYxNU0y98seAFKg3HICwq_AE_ckmYUtmKd8We0pAGsIdyKIvPL3ChRhO9vgbRrU6AQ-W-gxSiiE1JfHqOpGKFMOfAqAGHBv4m8868deMMcUPcv_LB0hfcn9gNYBG22cXFQG6Nxq4PA225KPu8U

[1] Jared Kushner’s ‘Breaking History’ Is a Soulless and Very Selective Memoir https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/books/review-breaking-history-jared-kushner.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUaBCbfWt8ktVqciObOzaN5jGXzJSuUTzkHz-UOH4-a6gLPbLBua54wwi-bQtJbdr8zQfg4hsluA3tQcSj66J2VhMZCZCwvtYO4Wm5x08LBUb1ioWOvMTHlIqIinODh-hiPOmj1UaHZ1HZwdls185EyZkjqjSJTvtrNG-Nw09V92_4zVNstFXpbOn7877S_AA5-Od6GchjW9gE9PupaUjzTltKZgKkSJEQQURmVCSMivhtvrY9UK9gVP63gLh4_ecGYgr0ZD2dgKInBFIROvEs9zUnYURc6upaakNAx

Meet religious right-wing powerboker Leonard Leo

A well-funded movement has been active in this country, starting as a lunatic fringe shortly after 1954’s Brown v Board of Ed decision when an “activist” Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation was unconstitutional in our public schools. The reactionary movement kicked into high gear during the Reagan Administration, when the troublesome Fairness Doctrine was finally removed from the law and television and radio stations no longer needed to present an opposing side in any matter of public interest.

Charles Koch and billionaire friends organized and funded dozens of tax-exempt nonprofits designed to consolidate power in various ways– think tanks to influence public opinion, “grassroots” movements to vehemently and vocally oppose government, a legal fraternity/career ladder to inculcate future lifetime judges with an extreme right philosophy, organizations to bring cases to the Supreme Court that could advance their cause, ending all government regulation of the super wealthy.

Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission was a big one (unlimited dark money in politics is fine). Shelby County v Holder was a big one (unconstitutional to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 anymore). The recent Dobbs decision, citing medieval and 17th century authorities on women’s bodies, and their rights before the one true God, was a blockbuster (not to mention an audacious bit of in-your-fucking-face judicial activism). Talk about yer majoritarian tyranny...

Much of the great progress of the reactionary cause is due to the tireless efforts of a talented fundraiser, ideologue and lifetime judicial appointment maker that few Americans have ever even heard of. Here’s a short biography of Leonard Leo, the hard-right religious zealot who brought us the 6-3 Supreme Court majority. For the love of God, and His only son, Jesus Christ, literally.

“The heat is building up. The pressure is building up.”

The lawyers Trump is still able to hire filed a unique motion in federal court the other day related to his right to retain government papers after leaving office. The judge gave them a few days to fix their filing, since she was legitimately confused about what they are seeking and why they are seeking it in her federal courtroom.

The 27-page filing is replete with Trump’s typical political bombast, including boasts about the power of the former president’s 2022 campaign endorsements and about the Mar-a-Lago estate itself. But it also confirmed aspects of the timeline related to the Mar-a-Lago search, including the fact that the Justice Department issued two subpoenas prior to the search — one for documents on May 11 and another for security camera footage in late June. . .

. . .“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home. ALL documents have been previously declassified,” Trump declared.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/trump-files-suit-special-master-mar-a-lago-search-00053196

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post clarified that Trump didn’t have his lawyers include that strong paragraph in his motion for a special master:

“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home. ALL documents have been previously declassified,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform soon after the motion was filed. . .

. . .Three days after the raid, on Aug. 11, the former president’s attorneys attempted to convey a message to Attorney General Merrick Garland from Trump during a conversation with Bratt. That message, according to the filing, was:

“President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”

https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/trump-asks-for-special-master-to-go-through-documents-seized-from-mar-a-lago/

You know, as you do when you want to make sure the guy knows it’s a nice little democracy he’s got here and it would be a shame if something happened to it.

Citizens UNITED!

An Unusual $1.6 Billion Donation Bolsters Conservatives

Unusual, indeed, Grey Lady.

In 2010 the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, ruling 5-4 that corporations have the same right to political speech as any other person and can pay for as much constitutionally protected free speech as they like.   The rationale given by Anthony Kennedy was that transparency about who was donating the money would alleviate any concerns about hidden hands manipulating American politics, since Americans would know who funded various political messages. 

In practice, and under the laws of political nonprofits, the hands of the billionaires who shape our politics, including spending $580,000,000 in “dark money” to engineer the appointment of a 6-3 doctrinaire far right Supreme Court majority,  remain eternally hidden.  One such 90 year-old billionaire made the news yesterday by a generous $1,600,000,000 tax deductible, perfectly legal, gift to Federalist Society superstar Leonard Leo, principal architect of our 6-3 Federalist Society Supreme Court.

 I’ll let Heather Cox Richardson tell this grotesque story, which was reported in yesterday’s NY Times (link above, at top):

Today’s big news is an eye-popping $1.6 billion donation to a right-wing nonprofit organized in May 2020. This is the largest known single donation made to a political influence organization.

The money came from Barre Seid, a 90-year-old electronics company executive, and the new organization, Marble Freedom Trust, is controlled by Leonard A. Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society, who has been behind the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court. Leo has also been prominent in challenges to abortion rights, voting rights, climate change action, and so on. He announced in early 2020 that he was stepping back from the Federalist Society to remake politics at every level, but information about the massive grant and the new organization was broken today by Kenneth P. Vogel and Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times. 

Marble is organized as a nonprofit, so when Seid gave it 100% of the stock in Tripp Lite, a privately held company that makes surge protectors and other electronic equipment, it could sell the stock without paying taxes. The arrangement also likely enabled Seid to avoid paying as much as $400 million in capital gains taxes on the stock. Law professor Ray Madoff of Boston College Law School, who specializes in philanthropic policy, told the New York Times: “These actions by the super wealthy are actually costing the American taxpayers to support the political spending of the wealthiest Americans.”

This massive donation is an example of so-called “dark money”: funds donated for political advocacy to nonprofits that do not have to disclose their donors. In the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) decision, the Supreme Court said that limiting the ability of corporations and other entities to advertise their political preferences violates their First Amendment right to free speech. This was a new interpretation: until the 1970s, the Supreme Court did not agree that companies had free speech protections.

Now, nonprofit organizations can receive unlimited donations from people, corporations, or other entities for political speech. They cannot collaborate directly with candidates or campaigns, but they can promote a candidate’s policies and attack opponents, all without identifying their donors. 

“I’ve never seen a group of this magnitude before,” Robert Maguire of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) told Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, and Drew Griffin of CNN. “This is the kind of money that can help these political operatives and their allies start to move the needle on issues like reshaping the federal judiciary, making it more difficult to vote, a state-by-state campaign to remake election laws and lay the groundwork for undermining future elections.” Our campaign finance system, he said, gives “wealthy donors, whether they be corporations or individuals, access and influence over the system far greater than any regular American can ever imagine.”

source

What could go wrong?

States vs. Feds

Right-wing demagogues are making the same point that the Confederates made back when they were defending their constitutional right to hold other people as property and do with them as they pleased. It’s like the goddamn Civil War was never fought, or won by the forces of the Federal Union. Swastikas and Confederate flags, free speech protected under the First and Second Amendments, States Rights, home rule, local sovereignty! Here’s a beautiful short summary of the basic idiocy of the “States’ Rights” position.