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.

To write or not to write

I had a girlfriend many years ago, very cute and much younger than me, I was 30 and she was 20. I was the first boyfriend she had who wasn’t a boy and she responded very well to all of my attentions. We had as harmonious a relationship as I could manage at the time.

When she was getting divorced many years later, and needed to be cheered up, encouraged as a desirable woman I suppose, she said to me “if I come to New York will you fuck me?”

My hesitation surely gave away too much, then I told her that I was in a long-term monogamous relationship, sadly, and for some reason my hand wrote on a piece of paper “if I come to New York will you fuck me?”

I folded the paper and put it in my pants pocket and forgot about it. Until weeks later, when it inexplicably showed up on the floor on my side of the bed. Sekhnet picks it up, unfolds it and reads to me “if I come to New York will you fuck me?” I give her a short, sheepish, truthful account of the call. Years later I had dinner with my still very cute younger ex and her very smart, good looking 16-year-old daughter. That was the only time I’ve seen her in all those years that I can recall, except one other time, about fifteen years earlier.

I mentioned to my friend today that there’d been flooding in her area recently and I’d thought of calling her to make sure she was okay. My friend said “and if she said ‘if I come to New York will you fuck me?’“

“I wouldn’t write it down,” I said.

Storyline # 9

Four old friends share a vacation house for a few days. For reasons none of them understand, tensions continue to escalate. Each one unwittingly plays a part in this rising stress. By the third or fourth night, one, feeling provoked by another, reacts in fury. Later, another will lash out in anger.

People under stress get mad from time to time, especially among people they love, who, being safest, are easiest to take anger out on, which sometimes just happens. Hurt feelings heal, hopefully quickly but certainly over time, given patience, kindness and communication.

Injuries to esteem can be traumatic, especially if familiar from earlier life and prolonged. Their pain can threaten, even kill, old precious relationships.

Friends in the grave are no different from friends who are alive and of whom we no longer speak, their righteous hurt become intolerable to us. Except that it’s mainly the other living ones we sometimes can’t forgive.

“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.

Degrees of Paralysis

Feeling paralyzed is debilitating, which fuels the procrastination cycle.  The psychological feeling of paralysis may be a bummer, but it takes pain that keeps you physically limited to really hammer it home. I used to walk for an hour or more every day, usually in the evening; always felt better after a long walk.  I rode my bicycle regularly for many years, always feeling better after a good ride.   Now that it’s painful to walk for more than a minute or two, as I wait to see if the arthritis treatment worked, the doctor is encouraging me to refrain from walking as much as possible (until I feel relief from the third injection of hyaluronic acid, mimicking the knee joint’s natural WD-40).  “Don’t walk for exercise,” she told me two months ago.  I haven’t been, and currently can’t walk much more than a block without sitting down to rest, though I’m apparently still limping two or three miles a day in the course of my daily puttering, according to my fitbit.

If you are by nature a procrastinator, cannot get yourself to make that call, or go to the website to fill out the paperwork, file your taxes, find a new doctor, make an appointment, call a company, prepared to spend an hour on hold and then negotiating, or whatever the goddamned thing is — take solace in the things you can do everyday that will make you feel better.  Physical activity is very important to mental well-being, to maintaining a mild composure.   Go take a walk, if you’re stuck in something you’re thinking about, go outside and walk, it will do you good.  And as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. said “be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.”  No truer words e’er were spoken.