All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

Aaaand more for WBE.

● KS-Sen: Republican Rep. Roger Marshall earned some ugly headlines this week after the Kansas City Star reported that the prosecutor who erased Marshall's 2008 conviction for reckless driving was the son of the congressman's business partner. The news comes six weeks ahead of the Aug. 4 Republican primary for Kansas' open Senate seat.

Parts of this story had already been publicized in 2016, when Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp, whom Marshall was running against at the time, ran an ad on the topic. Back in 2008, Marshall was initially charged with battery and reckless driving after a neighbor named Randy Suchy accused Marshall of hitting him with a truck. As part of a negotiation with prosecutors, the battery charge was later dropped. In exchange, Marshall pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was given a five-day suspended jail sentence plus a $225 fine.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who we noted that during his military service, had to be court-martialed in 2004 because he went over the heads of his superiors and wrote an opinion editorial to the New York Times calling for the arrest of three of its reporters for reporting things during the War on Terror that he didn't particularly like.

This demand to deny the freedom of the press by ignoring those higher up in the chain of command apparently taught Tom Cotton nothing, as in 2015, he became the leader of the #47Traitors, which were himself and 46 Republican Senators who tried to sabotage ongoing negotiations between the State Department and Iranian diplomats to create a nuclear treaty by writing a letter to the leaders of Iran that claimed they would just ignore the treaty after the next president was elected (and he talked Trump into doing). Hundreds of thousands of people signed online petitions to see Sen. Cotton brought up on charges for violating the Logan Act, and he still didn't back down, comparing the Obama administration's effort to Neville Chamberlain appeasing Nazi Germany and saying that Secretary of State John Kerry “acted like Pontius Pilate”.

This is but the tip of the iceberg, because Cotton has said that he believes that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had a role in planning 9/11 (he said as much in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN back in January of 2013, despite that idea being debunked by investigators a decade earlier), calling people on food stamps "addicts" who are "abusing taxpayer dollars", tried scaring people away from signing up for the Affordable Care Act because "Russian mobsters will steal your identity", and has no plans to do anything about the United States’ mass incarceration problem, criticizing efforts to reform our criminal justice system in a speech before the Hudson Institute where he said "If anything, we're under-incarcerating." Oh, and after the mass shooting in Orlando, Democrats filibustered the Senate for a vote to keep individuals on the "no fly list" for being a known terrorist from being able to buy firearms and carry out mass shootings, but again, Sen. Cotton votes against the measure, that nine out of ten Americans support. In July of, 2016, Tom Cotton spoke at a panel hosted by Politico at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and gave the alarming analysis that the United States can just intervene in Syria, and should any Russian jets intervene on behalf of their allies in the Assad regime, to just shoot them down, too, because of the AUMFs signed way back in 2001 and 2002 that were meant to fight the war on terror and hunt for Osama bin Laden would also apply to this situation. Were we not clear this guy’s a war hungry nut?

On February 22nd, 2017, Cotton hosted his first town hall since the election of Donald Trump, and seemed rather surprised at how many extremely pissed off people showed up, and that they began chanting “DO YOUR JOB!” at him. Cotton was humiliated after being dressed down by an 7 year old speaker who asked how Cotton could support funding for Trump’s $20-30 billion dollar border wall, but balk at only millions of dollars allocated to fund PBS. At one point, he sarcastically asked how many people had actually been positively affected by the Affordable Care Act to stand up and after hundreds of people in the room stood, dismissed them out of hand. That became harder, of course, when a 25 year old woman with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, who arrived in a wheelchair to point out that even if Planned Parenthood funding provided to the Affordable Care Act was repealed that funds her regular cancer screenings, without hyperbole, that she would die. Cotton told her she’d be fine, and was booed, because no one was buying it. Cotton also seemed to invest stock into the theory that the anger he faced was actually coming from paid protesters sent by anonymous left wing donors (a conspiracy theory peddled by Donald Trump), when he told the crowd, “I don’t care if anybody here is paid or not.”

Two months later on April 17th, 2017, Cotton hosted another town hall, sends the crowd into a rage after failing to explain why he wouldn’t use his powers as a Senator to just use the evidence that was already known and subpoena Donald Trump’s tax returns, since he broke his promise to release them to the public, provoking them to begin chanting, “LOCK HIM UP!” at him. Criticism is apparently something Senator Cotton cannot process, because he’s taken to actually sending “cease and desist” letters to constituents who dare to call his office in Washington, D.C. to complain. No, we’re not exaggerating, he’s this petty.

Sen. Cotton, unlike more cautious Republicans, has tethered himself to the legacy of Donald Trump, arguably more than any other sitting member of the Senate, and hasn’t hesitated to defend him whenever an opportunity presents itself. Literally the day after the 2016 election, Sen. Cotton showed his eager excitement that the United States would, under Donald Trump, return to the practice of waterboarding. Even though the International Red Cross officially designated the practice as torture in 2014, and therefore it would be a violation of the Geneva Convention. But hey, so what about human rights abuses, right? Cotton’s drinking the Kool-Aid so hard he’s even on board with Trump’s plan to crack down not just on illegal immigration, but LEGAL immigration.

More importantly, Sen. Cotton has been one of the Trump administration’s best obfuscators during the Trump Russia investigation, going on cable news to try and somehow lay blame for it on Ambassador Susan Rice as “the Typhoid Mary of the Obama administration”, because of her supposed role in “unmasking” (don’t try to think about it because it makes no sense). During the testimony of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was to serve as a witness regarding the firing of FBI Director James Comey for investigating the Trump/Russia connection, Sen. Cotton seemed to forgot how urgent the matter is regarding whether or not the current administration may be trying to block their involvement in potential treason, and begin to just playfully ask Sessions if he was a fan of the Jason Bourne movies or James Bond movies.

It wasn’t enough that Tom Cotton voted to put accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, it wasn’t that he was grinning like an idiot after doing so, but after the fight was supposedly over, in October of 2018, Cotton began to posit conspiracy theories about the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, and who it was that revealed her credible accusations of Brett Kavanaugh being an attempted rapist, at first, blaming Diane Feinstein, and then only about a week later, falsely claiming Chuck Schumer orchestrated the whole thing to smear Kavanaugh. (SPOILER ALERT: Like all conservative conspiracy theories, it was utter bulls***.)

Cotton’s so far up Donald Trump’s *** that he actually tried lying to cover for him and claim that Trump never referred to Haiti and a large swath of African nations as “s***hole countries” during a discussion on immigration. When farmers in the rural Mid-West began to criticize Trump for is unnecessary trade war making it impossible for them to do business, he scoffed at their suffering, and said “pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas,” because of course this heartless motherf***er will use our troops as a political prop whenever it’s convenient and the situations are as much apples and oranges as possible.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What do you think?

Perhaps if we had a fully functioning adult as president who put the country's needs ahead of his own and took the virus seriously from jump street, maybe, just maybe things wouldn't be as horrible as they are today. Unfortunately, we have a lunatic in the Oval Office who's brought this country to it's knees with division, racism and chaos, as things stand, the situation with COVID-19 is barely under control (and that's a generous opinion), and heaven only knows how much worse it will get.

[worstblogever]

Tom Cotton’s voting record in the Senate isn’t exactly extensive, because Mitch McConnell doesn’t let things come up for votes… but when you do look, it’s pretty telling:

• February 14th, 2019: Cotton votes to approve the nomination of William Barr to be the country’s Attorney General, even though he was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. (SPOILER ALERT: He’s still crooked as a snake with scoliosis).
• January 31st, 2020: Sen. Cotton votes against witnesses being allowed in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Tom Cotton votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
• February 25th, 2020: Cotton votes for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, an insane piece of anti-choice legislation that would ask abortion providers to try to admit aborted fetuses to a hospital if they were “alive” after the procedure, which is medically impossible given the age that abortions can be performed at.

Tom Cotton is up for re-election this fall, and has clearly shown himself to be tied to Donald Trump to astonishing levels. In August of 2019, the entire world laughed at Trump after he was making noise online about trying to buy Greenland. And as stupid as that was, Cotton is enough of a lemming to support the ideas of the syphilitic madman in the Oval Office like purchasing Greenland.

Even more shocking was as protests against police violence started after the death of George Floyd, Tom Cotton took the opportunity to write an op-ed in the New York Times filled with grotesque authoritarian ideology, including calling for the U.S. military to be deployed against American citizens, and all sorts of suggestions that aren’t just out of third-world dictatorships, but were an outright advocacy for fascism.

Again, he’s up for re-election in November, and with as red as a state as Arkansas is, he’s probably going to win another six year term in office, and remain the scariest member of the Senate… because no Democrats filed to run against him.

Greeaaaat….
 

[Tami]

Inside the White House Plan to Plant Cronies All Over

In a previously undisclosed conference call last year, a senior Justice Department official rejected key aspects of the Trump White House plan to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management, saying moves to abolish the crucial, little-known agency were unlawful. Those steps and others to undercut OPM could pave the way for installing political cronies throughout the ranks of the nation’s 2 million federal civil servants and weaken their protections.

In April 2019, Steve Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel, told senior administration lawyers that it would be illegal to carry out a White House blueprint to dismember OPM, according to notes of the conference call obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan watchdog. That legal “opinion,” as the notes call it, was never shared with a House oversight panel that held two subsequent hearings last year on the White House proposal, according to a congressional source.

President Donald Trump’s firing last weekend of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, shows why civil service protections for career employees are important in shielding them from White House anger. Berman’s office has been investigating Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney. Unlike civil servants, Berman and political appointees lack these protections.

Or take Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He told CNN on April 12 that an earlier, more timely government response to combat the coronavirus could “obviously” have saved lives. That night, Trump retweeted a post with the hashtag “#FireFauci.“

Yet unlike Berman, even if Trump wanted to fire Fauci, Trump “can’t just fire him. He’s a career employee,” Max Stier, who leads the non-profit Partnership for Public Service, told the Los Angeles Times.

Some within the Trump administration have espoused giving the president near-absolute control over the federal workforce, a step that could backfire anytime the White House is held by the opposing political party. According to an internal 2017 White House to-do list, first mentioned by the New York Times and obtained by POGO, one Trump appointee proposed exploring legal theories that the “president [has] inherent authority to dismiss any federal employee,” unconstrained by whistleblower and other statutory protections passed by Congress. That would mark a break with the way America’s system of government has functioned for over a century.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Inside the White House Plan to Plant Cronies All Over

As a federal worker for the last twenty years, this is more than a little worrisome. To be under the thumb of a president like Trump who thinks of himself as a quasi-dictator and wants OPM as part of his fiefdom is damned disturbing. Fortunately, I have the time in needed for retirement and can leave pretty much whenever I want, the only reason I stick around is because I enjoy my job, but that could change in a New York minute if Trump wins in November and continues his meddling, then I'm out.

[GOLGO 13]

As a federal worker for the last twenty years, this is more than a little worrisome. To be under the thumb of a president like Trump who thinks of himself as a quasi-dictator and wants OPM as part of his fiefdom is damned disturbing. Fortunately, I have the time in needed for retirement and can leave pretty much whenever I want, the only reason I stick around is because I enjoy my job, but that could change in a New York minute if Trump wins in November and continues his meddling, then I'm out.

As a state worker, I can officially retire this year. However, I'm lingering to see if the Confederate President or President Biden can undo some of the damage that's been done to my deferred compensation plan from Lord Little Hands shitting on the economy. My pension can't be negatively affected either way though.

Worst case scenario, I stay another year & pad my pension. Go-Go Union/Civil Service POWAH!

[Tami]

Appeals court orders judge to dismiss criminal case against Michael Flynn

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan cannot scrutinize the Justice Department’s decision to drop its long-running prosecution of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and must dismiss the case, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In a 2-1 decision, the court said it is not within the judge’s power to prolong the prosecution or examine the government’s motives for its reversal in the politically charged case. Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his pre-inauguration contacts with Russia’s ambassador before the Justice Department moved in May to dismiss the charges.

“This is not the unusual case where a more searching inquiry is justified,” wrote Judge Neomi Rao, a recent nominee of the president.

Sullivan overstepped his role and committed a “clear legal error,” the court said, by refusing to immediately close the case at the government’s request and instead appointing a former judge to argue against the Justice Department’s position.

--

Judge Rao's ruling in the Flynn case is astonishing in its dishonesty, or ignorance of precedent she cites. Having read it - the foundational precedent she uses - there is no doubt this is a purely political decision. And no doubt it would be reversed by her in a democratic../1

...administration by invoking the *same case* she uses as the primary basis of her ruling. THIS is why McConnel is so dead set on appointing incompetent politicos to the bench - their rulings will be just part of the ongoing corruption of the judiciary.

The main precedent.../2

..Rao cites is US v. Fokker Servs, and she uses this to give the prosecution absolute authority to dismiss charges. In that case, feds struck a deferred prosecution agreement with Fokker, under which the company pleaded guilty - which creates a final judgment of guilt.../3

..the absolute difference between Fokker & Flynn case is that *there was no guilty plea yet.* No final judgment of guilt had been entered. In this case, the judge objected to the nature and terms of the PLEA, and the dismissal of the charges were an incidental dismissal of.../6

Twitter Link

[PaulBullion]

It was a typo. I meant to say fine.

Or maybe your subconscious mind was screaming "DYIN' INSIDE!"

Paging Dr. Freud...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As a state worker, I can officially retire this year. However, I'm lingering to see if the Confederate President or President Biden can undo some of the damage that's been done to my deferred compensation plan from Lord Little Hands shitting on the economy. My pension can't be negatively affected either way though.

Worst case scenario, I stay another year & pad my pension. Go-Go Union/Civil Service POWAH!

"Lord Little Hands". I am so stealing that! HA!

[luprki]

Michael Flynn, a white man pledged guilty to a high crime and don’t even get a slap on the hand.
George Floyd, a black man allegedly past a $20 counterfeit bill gets choked to death.

[PaulBullion]

The markets are significantly down as Wall Street realizes you cannot wish a pandemic away.

[BeastieRunner]

There's about as many masks in that photo as there are POC.

[Tami]

Republicans are wasting no time turning the House Judiciary Committee hearing into a clown show



Democrats ask for the Sergeant at Arms to remove Gohmert from the hearing room because he refuses to stop banging on a table


Louie Gohmert uses his questioning time to thank his wife for not leaving him

[BeastieRunner]

Republicans are wasting no time turning the House Judiciary Committee hearing into a clown show



Democrats ask for the Sergeant at Arms to remove Gohmert from the hearing room because he refuses to stop banging on a table


Louie Gohmert uses his questioning time to thank his wife for not leaving him

The party of Trump everyone.