Throughout the one-term presidency of Donald Trump, he has been implicated in numerous criminal activities. They include making hush money payments to porn porn stars, collusion with Russians seeking to interfere with an election, obstruction of justice, financial and tax fraud connected to his real estate business, swindling his charitable...
misconduct
It depresses me to acknowledge this, but the Republicans’ commitment to blatant and serial lying, and Orwellian “make believe” governing, pose a real threat by overwhelming the public debate and individual’s efforts to stay grounded. While a bit well-worn (and of uncertain provenance), this quote is fundamentally true: “A lie can travel halfway around...
I’m not a vindictive person. I’m really not. Certain things I’ve endured in my life I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, such as depression, debilitating flu, and the Carrot Top Spa Day Experience in Vegas. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Not sure what I was thinking there. That...
Feebs are closing in. Rudy’s electronic devices have now been seized in a NYC raid on his Manhattan apartment (and a Park Avenue office location). Darn that Deep State down by the Four Seasons Lawn Center. The buried lede is that the warrant was blocked under the former guy, but Merrick Garland unblocked...
At home with my elder five sisters I very soon learnt that freedom of speech had consequences, by that I mean that you better had been damn ready to defend what you said. My parents had encouraged the principle that you say want you want, however the wise course of...
Truly a tool, as the Inspector General reports are coming and Previous Guy’s going to be in the barrel. Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S....
Remember when Brett Kavanaugh was embroiled in controversy during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing and we all thought the powerful and seismic testimony of Christine Blasey Ford would move the needle, but then Lindsey Graham started screaming his head off like an absinthe-besotted wood elf, Kavanaugh did his whole oppressed...
Darn those class commitments, aligning us to our political choices in a democracy, made worse by all those folks who knew they were in that Gilded Age. “If the future of the Democratic Party is in the rich suburbs, the future of American politics is another long Gilded Age.” Matt...
Oh barf: Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue took the first steps toward a potential comeback bid by filing campaign paperwork on Monday to explore a challenge against Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock. The Republican’s aides say he still hasn’t decided whether to challenge Warnock next year, though the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported...
Riot declared at 1:49pm. Pence evacuated at 2:26pm. The count is now $3.5 million supporting the 6 January demonstration, up from the $2.7 previously reported. The approach by the House impeachment managers is to not hold the GOP jury members accountable, rather showing how Mitt Romney and VP Pence nearly...
Wow: Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) was caught on tape making cracks about physical violence against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who last year was the target of a kidnapping plot by right-wing militia extremists. He was also recorded spreading lies about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S....
Republicans (not just Trump) have embraced and largely succeeded with a “flood the zone” strategy of misconduct and corruption that, regrettably, can make it hard to keep track of their bad faith, much less hold them accountable. In that vein, I simply wanted to note three instances before they slip away...
As Trump’s one term winds to a thankful close, one of the largest scandals remains seemingly forgotten and bizarrely unexplained. There not only has never been a counter-intelligence investigation into Trump’s connections with Russia and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — but we have learned that this is because that investigation was secretly thwarted...
Throughout all the recent legislative battles about economic and stimulus relief to combat Covid-19, Republicans have made one non-negotiable demand: protections for businesses against Covid liabilities and related lawsuits. Given this centrality, and it’s troubling implications, what does this actually mean? Regrettably, I see little to no explanation in public reporting...
Counting coup involves winning prestige against an enemy rather than doing serious damage. We’re now way past that point. But the latest gesture in search of a coup is today’s Trump meeting with MI GOP legislative leadership. It’s a sedition stunt close to horseshoes and hand grenades. They have just issued...
I have republican family members and I know right-wing fellow workers.I researched for the unions in the South for a decade. I’ve done collective bargaining to protect the health plan of an industrial worker group of several hundred union members who voted almost 100% for Trump in 2016. The...
One of the reasons Trump is so desperate to stay in the White House is that he thinks it will shield him from criminal charges. That questionable DOJ opinion protects him from being indicted by the federal prosecutors while he’s in office, and another questionable move he could make would...
Prior to this reporting, very few SARs had ever been revealed. The FinCEN Files encompass more than 2,100. Will there be folks taking the easy way out after these revelations, but more importantly, will this have an effect on future prosecutions that might even involve Trump and his minions, because...
Donald Drumpf’s campaign chairman went to jail. So did his personal lawyer. His long-time political consigliere was convicted of serious federal crimes, and his national security advisor pled guilty to others. Several Russian spies were indicted in absentia. Career intelligence agents and military officers were alarmed enough...
Trump’s self-fulfilling idiocy still needs to drive his numbers further down. Like punking his gun-toting followers, a desperate Trump thinks that having his GOP RNC acceptance speech at Gettysburg will do for his neo-confederate followers something, something Charlottesville. The Stephen Miller logic probably has more historical revisionist malarkey in the...
Two of the most iconic voices on tv were a part of two of the most famous programs in television history, The Price is Right and Saturday Night Live. Don Pardo, an alumnus of both, introduced a generation of young, wide-eyed, college-age kids to the Not so Ready for Prime...
You know Lloyd, just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber: A conversation between a Republican lawmaker and the leader of a civil rights group at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Hearing on policing reform showcased a common and persistent misunderstanding about implicit bias and how it impacts American society. It also provided...
Also, Larry Ludlow says that the election of Obama proves there is no systemic racism, much like two-handing a glass of water and shuffling down 11o ramps is not a sign of deteriorating abilities. Executive decision on tonight's #DickAward goes to Larry Kudlow who doesn't give a fuck about people dying,...
Received this e-mail yesterday from U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s (D. NJ) re-election campaign: Since the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, the calls for justice have been loud and clear. Now is the time for policy change and legislative action. That's why I'm a partner in...
Here’s the latest news regarding the U.S. Senate race between incumbent U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R. AK) and his challenger, Dr. Al Gross (I. AK), courtesy of the Cook Political Report: Sullivan, 55, grew up in Ohio — a refrain against him in his 2014 race and one that Gross...
Golfing during a pandemic, the three day weekend begins for Trump. x According to the pool report, the White House says that Trump has landed at the Bedminster Landing Zone. Trump is staying at one of his own Trump properties, as he used to do on many weekends before the...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Chris Coons’ (D. DE) re-election campaign: People across our nation are hurting. After the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis (adding to the long list of other Black Americans who have been unjustly murdered), millions of Americans have united in...
(The headline is my own paraphrase, in case that wasn’t clear.) The House managers in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial — Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demings, Sylvia Garcia, and Jason Crow — just wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which they point out that Trump is...
Received this e-mail today from Democracy for America: Yesterday, Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, in conjunction with the Congressional Black Caucus, announced sweeping legislation to reform policing in America. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is an important step forward in re-imagining policing and holding law enforcement accountable...
Show of Farce. Peaceful protest in the day, now earlier curfews. x JUST CONFIRMED: Denver Police seized these guns and tactical gear from two men who showed up to the protest on Friday. One of them, Chevy McGee, tells me he didn't break any laws. McGee is part of the...
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Donald Trump, February 17, 2017 It has been a while (a few years) since I have posted a last Dispatch. I thought though with most (sane) people finding...
81,000 people are still dead and Trump defaulted to his usual bigotry and disinformation blather today in yet another presser-trainwreck. “‘The numbers are fucking terrible,’ another former West Wing official said. ‘There’s massive anxiety in the GOP that he’s gonna take them all down with him.’” https://t.co/bCtKHGlQNH — Daniel W....
Remember that DoJ dropping charges against Flynn is being done in the context of a diversion and a pandemic. There are Mueller investigation files being unsealed. With imminent release of #RussiaTranscripts Fox News is already spinning it as raising doubts about @RepAdamSchiff saying there was evidence of collusion. So, here's...
Remember that DoJ dropping charges against Flynn is being done in the context of a diversion and a pandemic. There are Mueller investigation files being unsealed. x With imminent release of #RussiaTranscripts Fox News is already spinning it as raising doubts about @RepAdamSchiff saying there was evidence of collusion. So,...
When it comes to Biden accuser Tara Reade, I’ve been reluctant to jump to any conclusions. Women deserve to be heard and their stories deserve to be taken seriously. But with respect to Reade’s accusations in particular, a lot of questions have been raised that so far don’t appear to...
Expanding our voting-by-mail procedures is an absolute imperative and a moral no-brainer in the midst of a national pandemic. I also am completely unsurprised that President Trump and federal and state Republican leaders are increasingly not just opposing such a common-sense measure, but demonizing it and falsely associating it with...
Seems another economic victim of the coronavirus pandemic is Fox Business propagandist Trish Regan. Fox has decided to fire her. The good news for Regan is that she’s eligible for unemployment compensation! Oh wait. As someone who has been fired from a job, I discovered that obtaining unemployment is dependent...
There were those who warned us about Dr. Robert Redfield when Trump appointed him to the be director of the CDC, and the coronavirus pandemic and the American governments abysmal response to it are proving Redfield’s critics right. However, Redfield has been able to keep his head down and not...
This explains the CDC cuts, some of the incompetence and delays, plus why Redfield tends to let Anthony Fauci correct Trump’s lies. x This is the head of the CDC. He backed Trump up on blaming Obama today for lack of testing kits for Coronavirus. I smelled something fishy and...
Man-child wreaks revenge by reassigning WH and NSC personnel in anticipation of the next outrage. Trimming the NSC staff in certain areas will allow for fewer witnesses when, not if, the next bit of Trump criming happens. x Trump has “discussed removing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the IC…...
It has been shocking to watch Republican House members and Senators uniformly condone President Trump’s act of seeking foreign interference in our election to his benefit. An obvious explanation, yet somehow undiscussed, is that many of the same Republican House members and Senators themselves have also sought or participated in foreign interference in our...
After a 16 hour question and answer period, it took until the second to last question for the issue to be fully realized and the Republicans’ bad faith to be nakedly displayed in its full contempt. What we heard was that President Trump could not be impeached and removed for attempting to interfere...
Yep, sounds right: x Chicken Kiev ðÂÂÂðÂÂÂMitch refuses to budge on witnesses despite Bolton's Ukraine bombshell Tuesday's front page: https://t.co/fqqBWSkI2Y pic.twitter.com/5pak4WsG4x â New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) January 28, 2020 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will likely not be cock-a-hoop over the New York Daily News Tuesday front page....
Not to be confused with Leeroy Jenkins, and with much arm-waving Alan Dershowitz affirmed that the House has charged IMPOTUS* with impeachable offenses, despite declarations to the contrary. He also tried to apply a critique that trashes the recently revealed Bolton book in his speech to the Senate. x Dershowitz asserts...