In what can only be described as a predictably corrupt turn of events, new information has come to light about the supremely unqualified Brett Talley, Alabama federal court nominee who has only been a lawyer for three years and has never tried a case. Today the New York Times tells us that Talley “forgot” to tell… Continue reading “Unqualified judge nominee ‘forgot’ to mention his wife worked for the guy who nominated him”
Jeff Sessions is considering appointing a new special counsel to probe things President Trump said he wants investigated about Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
The main focus of Sessions decision appears to be the “uranium one” conspiracy theory which has been an increasing focus of President Trump’s and which he has demanded the Justice Department investigate.
The story was first reported by the Post and then a short time later by the Times. It’s notable to see how each news organization has grappled with what seems to be the transparently political nature of what Sessions is doing. The Post, at least in its original version of the story, all but ignored it. The only mention is a final sentence that reads: “Sessions’s letter is likely to be seen by some, especially on the left, as an inappropriate bending to political pressure.”
So when is Trump going to try to fire Mueller? After all, he’s interviewing Trump’s aides now:
Washington (CNN)White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller has been interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The interview brings the special counsel investigation into President Donald Trump’s inner circle in the White House. Miller is the highest-level aide still working at the White House known to have talked to investigators.
Miller’s role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey was among the topics discussed during the interview as part of the probe into possible obstruction of justice, according to one of the sources.
Special counsel investigators have also shown interest in talking to attendees of a March 2016 meeting where foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos said that he could arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin through his connections. Miller was also at the meeting, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
With the news that Robert Mueller has a copy of the original letter on James Comey’s firing written by Trump aide Stephen Miller and Trump himself, we need to return to the great mystery of that lost hour on the tarmac on Air Force One.
What am I talking about? Well, with a touch of dramatic flair I’m talking about this odd and increasingly odd over time mystery about what was happening the night President Trump came back from his Bedminster villa after a weekend of stewing about James Comey and then fired Comey 36 hours later.
At the time, it just seemed like another Trump era weirdness. Air Force One landed. Jared got off the plane, put Ivanka and the kids in an SUV and then got back on the plane. And then Trump and a group of his closest aides were apparently arguing on the plane for about an hour while the traveling press cooled its heels and wondered what was going on. They never got an explanation. But after about an hour a rather disheveled President Trump got off the plane and went back to the White House. Who was there on the plane with Trump? Stephen Miller.
Go read the rest.
Every day, I wake up and read Twitter before I get to work. What fresh hell faces us today? I think. Boils, frogs, locusts — all of the above?
I sit at my desk in the living room and assess the latest damage. Because it is my job to know things, I know the extreme right wing has been planning this stealth attack on democracy for decades, just waiting for the opportunity for their policy teams to parachute in and destroy what they can. None of this is an accident.
They thought their entree for 2016 was Ted Cruz, but that didn’t work out. Donald Trump was an agreeable puppet, because he needed the evangelical voters they supply, so there you go. They made lemonade. Trump doesn’t understand or care about policy, so he subcontracted it to the extremists.
For once, he didn’t stiff them.
Today, on the first anniversary of the Republicans’ right wing electoral coup (with a little help from their Russian friends), I walked into the voting booth like a zombie. Only 83 people so far in my precinct, so maybe my vote means something. Yes, Philadelphia has a corrupt Democratic machine, but here’s the difference: Democratic officials also do things for ordinary people. They like to fix problems, not create more of them.
Under the circumstances, I’ll take it.
When I was a child, I had a deep and abiding conviction that somehow, in my lifetime, we would live in a society of scarcity: water, food, warmth. As I brushed my teeth, I pictured myself explaining to future grandchildren, “We had so much water, we could let the tap run!” As I aged, I told myself I was being silly. Look at how much we have!
Such is the burden of living with one foot in the present and another in the future. This does not seem so theoretical to me any more. One day, we may all be Puerto Rico.
***
I went to the Popeye’s drive-in today and ordered a № 2 spicy, dark meat, string beans, sweet tea. I don’t frequently eat like this, but today is different. Their sweet tea tastes exactly like the strong, overly-sugared iced tea my late mother used to make — so strong, “the spoon could stand upright,” my sister and I used to joke. None of us make iced tea like that anymore; like my siblings, now I drink it weak, and unsweetened.
Today, I want my mother. I yearn for that familiar comfort.
Because our country is slipping away before our eyes, and it will take much more than indictments to fix it by the time the extremists are finished. They have successfully undermined any concept of objective truth; it’s all fake news, a plot. A pedophile ring operated by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta in the basement of a hipster pizza joint. The deep state undermining the rightful king of America.
And now, the right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting is poised to take over 71% of the nation’s media market. You could be forgiven if you get the impression that the merger seems inevitable. (I’m so old, I remember when executive Chairman David Smith got caught having oral sex with a hooker outside my son’s Baltimore apartment.) It will be the closest thing America has had to state-run media.
Everyone thinks it’s other people who are influenced by television and social media. Weak people, not like them. Yes, you’re right. That’s probably why all those giant corporations spend money on advertising; they simply feel like throwing money away.
***
I have been cautioned not to speak of politics to my relative’s in-laws at Thanksgiving. They are Long Island Republicans who voted for Donald Trump. I promised to avoid the subject — “unless they bring it up first.”
I don’t enjoy rebutting Republicans as much as I used to; there is simply no common ground with a world view shaped only by Fox, Breitbart, WND. Now I avoid talking to political civilians, even Democrats. There is no easy way to download all my years of experience and knowledge into their heads and I just sound paranoid and crazy, like Rowdy Roddy Piper in “They Live!”
If you don’t have the sunglasses, how can you see?
By the time everyone else wakes up, it will probably be too late.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge said Monday that President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and another senior campaign aide posed “significant flight risks” a week after they were indicted on charges of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy that emerged from the special counsel investigation. Continue reading “Federal judge calls Paul Manafort ‘significant’ flight risk”
Does everyone remember when Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was outraged beyond all outrage that anyone would DARE to say he talked to Russians or even had any conversations about Russia during the 2016 campaign? We’ve clipped the video where Sessions pulls himself up to his full height of four feet tall or so and in high… Continue reading “Jeff Sessions suddenly remembers talking about Trump-Putin meeting”
That the Republicans started pushing the Uranium One story last week in light of the impending Mueller indictment. Listen to Joy Reid:
Watch @JoyAnnReid debunk the #UraniumOneDeal fake news story on #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/QGPubMmfsZ
— Formerly 'AM JOY' on @MSNBC (@amjoyshow) October 29, 2017
The voter-fraud-checking program championed by the head of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity suffers from data security flaws that could imperil the safety of millions of peoples’ records, according to experts. Continue reading “The voter fraud commission wants your data — but experts say they can’t keep it safe”
And Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is one of the worst:
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of a Justice Department Oversight Hearing, Sessions was pressed by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) as to his legal opinion about the compatibility of so-called religious liberty guidance emanating from the attorney general’s office and the obligations of federal employees who are hostile to LGBT rights.
Citing the guidance Sessions released to federal administrative agencies and executive departments–“Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty“–on the question of LGBT rights, Durbin asked the following question:
Could a Social Security Administration employee refuse to accept or process spousal or survivor benefits paperwork for a surviving same-sex spouse?
Sessions paused, groaned, smirked, and then responded:
That’s something I never thought would arise, but I would have to give you a written answer to that–if you don’t mind?
Durbin replied that he would appreciate such a written response and then asked a similar question. He said, “Could a federal contractor refuse to provide services to LGBTQ people–including in emergencies–without risk of losing federal contracts.”
Again, Sessions demurred and said he’d need to look into it.
This happened in Las Vegas, but the weaknesses in U.S. voting equipment uncovered during a summer hackathon are too important to stay there, experts say: They’re a matter of national security. A new report breaks down the lessons learned at DEFCON 25, which amounted to a concentrated attack—orchestrated in the name of public safety—on the programming… Continue reading “Red alert: Voting machines vulnerable to Russian attack”
