Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[The Romulan Republic]

Don't expect it to stop with Comey, McCabe, etc. either, of course, if its allowed to go that far. They'll start going after less popular, sympathetic figures like controversial ex-intelligence guys, and then they'll work their way up. The end game is arrests for treason of Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic party leadership.

[Dominus Atheos]

This is what prompted these posts, BTW:

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/06/02 ... ck-record/

Boston Herald

By Adriana Cohen |
PUBLISHED: June 2, 2019

Paging James Comey — it’s time to stop tweeting — and lawyer up instead.

Take this beauty he tweeted on Saturday: “Bill Barr on CBS offers no facts. An AG should not be echoing conspiracy theories. He should gather facts and show them. That is what Justice is about.”

This is the same former FBI director who — with his co-conspirators at the highest echelons of the Department of Justice,and Democratic lawmakers hell bent on derailing the Trump administration — peddled the fact-free Russian “Collusion” Conspiracy. A hoax that’s since been disproven by the 22-month special counsel investigation as well as several congressional investigations that all found no such collusion existed between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Even Trump-hating former FBI agent Peter Strzok said in an uncovered text message at the outset there was “no there, there,” but those facts didn’t stop Comey and the Deep State from launching a counterintelligence investigation against the president and his 2016 campaign associates — and spying on them — to help Hillary Clinton get elected.

So not only did Comey fail to verify Hillary Clinton’s and the DNC’s bogus opposition research concocted by Russian informants and a disgraced ex-spy Christopher Steele, who produced the discredited dossier, but Comey appears to also have engaged in election meddling.

Add to it Comey, while head of the FBI, didn’t bother to verify highly questionable and biased news reports about alleged Russian collusion that he and Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and other Trump haters used deceptively to get FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page and others. Instead they used #FakeNewsMedia reports to corroborate the dirty dossier that was planted in the press by Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm the Clinton camp paid millions to take down Trump — in the most underhanded disinformation campaign in American history.

Comey’s FBI also didn’t bother to verify that it was Russia that hacked the DNC server in question. Instead he allowed Hillary Clinton’s highly paid IT firm Crowdstrike tell them it was the Russians who hacked John Podesta’s emails and gave them to WikiLeaks, without ever taking custody of the server and independently analyzing it.

And now he’s telling AG Bill Barr to gather facts?

No doubt Comey’s petrified his role in what appears to be a seditious conspiracy against a presidential candidate and then a sitting president will be revealed by U.S. Attorney John Dunham, who’s currently investigating the investigators.

No tweet from Comey can erase the facts — he’s in big trouble.

Adriana Cohen
Adriana Cohen is a nationally syndicated columnist, TV commentator and Boston Herald radio host. Adriana has written hundreds of columns on diverse topics of interest that are often the front page splash in the Boston Herald and picked up by major media. Adriana is also a regular fixture on national television.

Seriously, it's mainstream now, not just the right-wing nut-o-spere.

[The Romulan Republic]

We've often discussed and argued on this board where exactly the line is in justifying armed revolt against a government. I have taken and still take a cautious approach most of the time, both for moral reasons and practical ones. But it occurs to me that Treason is defined in the Constitution as "levying war against the United States" and "offering aid and comfort to its enemies", and has traditionally only been applied to situations where the US is at war. So by (hypothetically, at least for now) arresting his political and legal opponents for Treason, Trump and Barr would be implying that the US is in a state of civil war, and that his administration is at war with his investigators and political opponents. And all those who stand with them.

The day that Trump arrests someone for Treason for investigating or criticizing him (whatever fraudulent charges he dresses those allegations in), an argument could be made that Trump has thereby implicitly declared the US to be in a state of civil war- because that is the only situation where such charges could legitimately apply. And that Trump by doing so will therefore have given us a casus belli. After all, one can hardly be faulted for waging war when war has already been declared upon you.

One could still argue that armed revolt would not be a practical course of action. And the argument I outline might well not be persuasive to enough people to make a conflict winnable. But it seems to me that at that point, an argument could be made that Trump had effectively declared a state of war against his opposition, that armed resistance would therefore be morally justified as self-defense, and that any further consideration of the question would be purely a pragmatic consideration of tactics and strategy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Pelosi says she doesn't want to impeach in clash with Nadler, says she wants Trump defeated at the ballot box and then imprisoned:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/ ... nt-1355435

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Donald Trump “in prison” as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi met with Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several other top Democrats who are aggressively pursuing investigations against the president, according to multiple sources. Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.

Nadler pressed Pelosi to allow his committee to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump — the second such request he’s made in recent weeks only to be rebuffed by the California Democrat and other senior leaders. Pelosi stood firm, reiterating that she isn’t open to the idea of impeaching Trump at this time.

“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.

They said she was expressing solidarity with pro-impeachment Democrats who want to hold the president accountable while disputing the idea that it is now time to take that step. Pelosi has long argued that certain conditions must be met before Democrats begin impeachment — public support and strong bipartisan backing, neither of which have so far materialized.

Other Democrats said Pelosi’s comment wasn’t that surprising given her previous criticisms of the president, including saying Trump “is engaged in a cover-up,” that his staff and family should stage an intervention and that the president’s actions “are villainous to the Constitution of the United States.”

Ashley Etienne, a Pelosi spokeswoman said Pelosi and the chairmen “had a productive meeting about the state of play with the Mueller report. They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) were also present for the meeting. Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — a vocal impeachment supporter whose panel is probing Trump’s finances — was not in attendance.

In Tuesday’s meeting, some committee chairs expressed frustration about the appearance that rank-and-file members — rather than party leaders — were leading the caucus’ oversight strategy, including what they do on impeachment, according to one source familiar with the meeting.

But not all committee leaders were supportive of the impeachment inquiry. Both Schiff and Neal argued that if Democrats are going to open an inquiry, they should also be prepared to impeach Trump, which the caucus isn’t ready to do, they said. Cummings also sided with Pelosi, according to a source.

Neal also grumbled about Democrats who have come out in favor of impeachment, saying it puts pressure on members in bordering congressional districts to explain why they don’t feel the same way. House Rules Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) — whose district touches Neal’s — came out for impeachment last week.

The meeting is just the latest example of the impeachment debate that is roiling the Democratic Caucus. Pelosi is facing continued pressure both publicly from some rank-and-file members and privately from committee leaders like Nadler, who are unhappy with the current strategy.

The gulf between Nadler and Pelosi was on full display Wednesday as the New York Democrat dodged questions about whether he and Pelosi were in agreement on Democrats’ impeachment strategy.

“We are investigating all of the things we would investigate, frankly, in an impeachment inquiry,” Nadler said on CNN. He then paused for several seconds when asked if he and Pelosi were “on the same page.”

“When that decision has to be made, it will be made not by any one individual, it will be made probably by the caucus as a whole,” Nadler added. “Certainly Nancy will have the largest single voice in it.”

Pelosi, meanwhile, is trying to publicly project unity — going so far as to defiantly declare Wednesday that “there is no controversy” within the caucus over impeachment.

“Make no mistake, we know exactly what path we’re on. We know exactly what actions we need to take,” Pelosi told reporters earlier Wednesday, hitting her palm on the podium for emphasis.

In reality, the speaker and her top lieutenants have been trying to tamp down a rebellion within the caucus, as close to 60 members have publicly declared they want to begin impeaching Trump.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to stonewall Democrats’ every attempt to investigate his administration, personal finances and charges of obstruction of justice outlined by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Party leaders have tried to relieve some of the pressure by taking more aggressive public action against the White House’s repeated defiance, including scheduling a contempt vote on the House floor next week against Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn.

And Democratic leaders continue to emphasize that their methodical, step-by-step oversight process is working, pointing to recent federal court victories Democrats have secured against Trump’s efforts to block them. Nadler is also still trying to secure Mueller’s testimony before his committee.

But for a growing number of Democrats, including several members of the Judiciary Committee, opening impeachment proceedings is the only recourse.

Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), all members of Democratic leadership and the Judiciary panel, first raised the idea of launching an impeachment inquiry during a private leadership meeting late last month only to be shot down by Pelosi.

Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and other top Democrats met with Nadler separately that night as he again unsuccessfully argued for opening an impeachment inquiry.

Nadler, Raskin and other lawmakers say opening an inquiry doesn’t necessarily result in impeachment and would strengthen their legal case as Democrats pursue Trump in court in an effort to force him to comply with their investigations. But other Democrats argue that the public wouldn't understand the difference between an inquiry and actual impeachment, which would only further muddle the party's message in the run-up to the election.

Pelosi has repeatedly said she doesn’t think trying to impeach Trump is “worth it,” arguing that without the public on their side, the best way to beat the president is to persuade voters to kick him out of office in 2020. She and some other top Democrats worry that pursuing impeachment would swamp their legislative agenda and embolden the Republican base, possibly costing them the House next year and ensuring Trump’s reelection.

“I’m not feeling any pressure,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday.

I think that this once again suggests that Pelosi is committed to no impeachment regardless of evidence, which is a deplorable position to hold, and in my opinion likely a strategically-misguided one both in terms of the investigation and winning the 2020 election. She is also lying through her teeth when she says that there is no conflict in her caucus on this issue (and giving ammunition to the third partiers and the Kremlin propagandists holding their leashes, who judge the entire party by its most conservative members). However, the fact that she wants Trump in prison, assuming she is sincere, gives me some hope that this time the Democratic leadership won't just decide that all is forgiven once they take back the Presidency, like Obama did with George W.

I will also note that, as Nadler says, impeachment is not her decision alone. Support is building for at least an impeachment inquiry, and Nadler seems to be getting fed up with Pelosi dragging her feet. If this goes on much longer, she is likely to face a revolt from her caucus that she cannot contain, and the decision will be taken out of her hands (and potentially cost her the Speakership).

[The Romulan Republic]

A new poll puts impeachment support at 45%, with 46% of independents. This is higher than support for impeaching Bill Clinton throughout the Lewinski scandal, and higher than impeachment of Nixon early in the Watergate investigation:

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/45166 ... -impeached

Just under half of Americans say President Trump should be impeached as House Democrats continue to grapple with how to most effectively utilize their oversight powers over the White House.

Forty-five percent of Americans say Trump should be impeached, while 53 percent say he should not be, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday.

The results are divided along partisan lines, with 7 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of independents and 81 percent of Democrats saying Trump should be impeached.

Despite overall opposition to impeachment, Gallup notes that support for Trump’s ouster exceeds that for former President Clinton's throughout the Monica Lewinsky scandal and for former President Nixon's at the beginning of the Watergate controversy.

Trump’s overall favorability rating sits at 41 percent in the poll, staying within the low-to-mid-40s range it has been in for most of his presidency.

The poll comes as House Democrats are engulfed in an intraparty dispute over whether to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Eighty-one House Democrats support beginning the proceedings, with many saying Trump has obstructed justice and that impeachment could help House committees more easily obtain documents and testimony for their own oversight hearings.

However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has thus far beaten back the calls, worrying that impeachment would not be bipartisan and could help consolidate Trump’s base ahead of the 2020 election.

The Gallup poll surveyed 1,018 adults from June 19 to June 30 and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Note that Gallup polls are known for skewing Right.

Pelosi's excuse that it would be unpopular and lead to electoral defeat, always shaky, is wearing very thin.

[Esquire]

Citation for Gallup having a rightwards bias, please?

[Straha]

Citation for Gallup having a rightwards bias, please?

FiveThirtyEight shows a small Republican Lean to Gallup's polls. Not as bad as Rasmussen, but it's there.

[Esquire]

Per 538's definitions, that's specific to estimates of election results, and I'm not at all sure that generalizes the way you want it to.

[The Romulan Republic]

The NAACP's annual convention has voted unanimously to call on the House to impeach Donald Trump:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/politics ... index.html

Washington (CNN)Delegates to the NAACP's annual convention voted unanimously on Tuesday to call on the House to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

The resolution from the nation's oldest civil rights group -- which was gathered for its 110th annual NAACP Convention in Detroit -- does not directly impact any legislation in Congress, but marks the first mass statement from the organization's delegates regarding impeachment proceedings. The NAACP's president, Derrick Johnson, has before slammed the President as racist. In an online statement on Tuesday, Johnson said Trump "has led one of the most racist and xenophobic" White House administrations since the Jim Crow era.

"The pattern of Trump's misconduct is unmistakable and has proven time and time again, that he is unfit to serve as the President of this country," Johnson said. "This President has led one of the most racist and xenophobic administrations since the Jim Crow era. Trump needs to know that he is not above the law and the crimes that he has committed and he must be prosecuted."

The NAACP now joins more than 80 congressional lawmakers calling for starting an impeachment inquiry.

Last week, 95 members of the House voted to keep alive Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green's effort to impeach the President, though it was ultimately killed by the chamber. Among those who supported the inquiry was Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who spoke at the NAACP convention on Monday.

The freshman congresswoman -- one of four progressive Democratic lawmakers of color at the center of the President's recent racist attacks -- told those gathered, "I'm not going nowhere, not until I impeach this President."

The NAACP's statement also comes one day before former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony to the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, which Democrats are hoping will kickstart an impeachment inquiry, the first step in a lengthy process.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also spoke at the convention on Monday, though her remarks made no mention of Trump. She has so far held firm against pushes to launch an inquiry into the President.

The pressure continues to mount on Pelosi.

[Knife]

I wonder at what point, Pelsoi will have a rebellion on her hands.

[The Romulan Republic]

I wonder at what point, Pelsoi will have a rebellion on her hands.

She effectively had a mini one a few days ago, when 90+ reps (more than a third of House Democrats) voted against tabling Green's articles of impeachment (among them some fairly high in the party hierarchy, perhaps most notably Judiciary Committee Chair Nadler). She was able to put that one down, but if support for impeachment continues to grow, she may not be able to put down the next one.

Nadler is the one who could really lead an effective revolt. The Judiciary Committee could decide to open an impeachment inquiry with or without Pelosi's approval, as I understand it.

[Knife]

90 on one limited subject, even though that subject is huge, is not a rebellion. It has to be a big enough block to thwart the establishment Dems from doing other things.

[wautd]

ugh, wrong topic. I blame sleep deprevation due to the heat wave

[The Romulan Republic]

Is an impeachment proceeding effectively already underway?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... 9f03c11269

Has the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry? That question is starkly presented by a petition that the House Judiciary Committee filed in federal court on Friday. It is also answered by that petition. No matter what certain House Democratic leaders might say about the politics of the matter, there can now be no doubt that the committee is engaged in an investigation of whether to impeach President Trump.

Through its petition, the committee seeks access to portions of the report by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that were redacted to protect grand jury secrecy. The panel also seeks grand jury testimony bearing on Trump’s knowledge of criminal acts, Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and Russian connections to his campaign. Finally, the committee seeks grand jury testimony about actions taken by former White House counsel Donald McGahn; this last request probably anticipates the committee’s rumored plans to seek an order compelling McGahn to testify.

It is settled law that House committees can obtain grand jury materials as part of impeachment investigations. So the legal dispute will probably center on whether such an inquiry is underway.

The Constitution itself does not use phrases like “impeachment investigation” or “impeachment proceedings.” This has led some to mistakenly assume that the House is disregarding its impeachment power because it has not yet held a floor vote approving articles of impeachment (or expressly instructing the Judiciary Committee to deliberate on such articles).

But to those who specialize in these matters, that all-or-nothing vision of the impeachment power is mistaken. The Constitution’s text and structure — supported by judicial precedent and prior practice — show that impeachment is a process, not a single vote. And that process virtually always begins with an impeachment investigation in the judiciary committee, which is already occurring.

[Impeachment isn't optional. If the facts point in that direction, Congress must act.]

To understand why, look to the constitutional text. Article I vests Congress with “all legislative Powers.” The House, in turn, enjoys the “sole Power of impeachment.” Because tyrants often seek to conceal and confuse, the power to impeach would mean little without the power to investigate and deliberate. By necessity, the House’s “sole Power of impeachment” therefore encompasses more than final floor votes on articles of impeachment. It also covers fact-finding, hearings and debates undertaken in an effort to reach a sound judgment on whether to accuse the president of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In other words, the impeachment power includes the power to investigate impeachable offenses.

The Constitution imposes few limits on how the House exercises this “sole Power.” Instead, it implicitly gives the House the tools it needs to investigate (namely, subpoenas and contempt citations) — and it expressly vests the House with authority to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” The House thus enjoys near-total control over the procedures by which it activates and wields the impeachment power.

As Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe and I have observed, “there are many ways to initiate an impeachment.” Historically, the House has exercised its power to investigate impeachable offenses primarily through the Judiciary Committee. Every impeachment to reach the Senate since 1900 has been based on resolutions from that committee, and most impeachment proceedings in the House have been initiated (and largely carried out) by the committee.

[Trump isn't just defying Congress. He's rejecting the whole idea of oversight.]

In President Richard M. Nixon’s case, the committee formally opened an impeachment investigation in late 1973, hiring a special counsel dedicated to that inquiry and issuing subpoenas. Several months later, with the committee’s efforts in full swing, the House approved a resolution directing the committee to pursue its impeachment investigation. As a leading expert on legislative practice explains, the committee already “had been conducting an investigation into the charges of impeachment against President Nixon under its general investigatory authority.” This resolution merely “served to confirm the delegation of authority from the House to … conduct the investigation.”

In President Bill Clinton’s case, too, the House passed a resolution directing the committee to investigate potential articles of impeachment. There, however, the committee itself had done virtually no work before the House vote — and did virtually none after it. It instead relied on the infamous, salacious Starr report.

Yet Clinton’s saga is the exception. Just as the committee kicked off the impeachment investigation for Nixon, so has it done for several federal judges — including Judges Walter Nixon and Alcee L. Hastings in 1989 (who were impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate), as well as Justice William O. Douglas in 1970 (who was not impeached). In each case, individual House members introduced impeachment resolutions that were referred to the committee for consideration. The committee then opened an impeachment investigation.

Notably, for both of the judges who were removed from office, the committee prevailed in judicial petitions for access to secret grand jury material as part of its impeachment investigation. And in Douglas’s case, the investigating subcommittee obtained swift access to federal tax records for the justice and five others. In all three of these cases, the committee acted only on the basis of an impeachment resolution introduced in the House and referred to it.

The lesson is clear. Consistent with its “sole Power of impeachment” and its prerogative to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” the House can launch impeachment investigations in many ways. It most often does so through its judiciary committee, either based on the committee’s own actions or a resolution directed to the committee; it may also pass — but isn’t required to — a resolution directing the committee to investigate grounds for impeachment.

That constitutional precedent allows only a single conclusion: The committee is engaged in impeachment proceedings and is entitled to access the grand jury material that it has requested.

[Nadler is going to court to enforce Mueller-related subpoenas]

Consider the petition itself. In an official court filing, the committee has described its activities as an impeachment investigation. The committee’s word on that matter should be all but final (and subject to substantial judicial deference). After all, under the Rules of the House for the 116th Congress, it alone has clear jurisdiction over presidential impeachment. “We are exercising our full Article 1 authority and continuing our investigation of the president’s malfeasances,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Friday.

But there is more. On Jan. 3, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) introduced an impeachment resolution that was immediately referred to the Judiciary Committee. Since then, the committee and Nadler have repeatedly and unequivocally expressed their intent to investigate potential grounds for impeachment.

On June 6, for instance, the committee recommended that Attorney General William P. Barr be held in contempt for failing to produce the full, unredacted Mueller report. In so doing, the committee stated that it was “considering whether any of the conduct described in the Special Counsel’s Report warrants the Committee in taking any further steps under Congress’ Article I powers. That includes whether to approve articles of impeachment with respect to the President or any other Administration official.”

Four days later, before a hearing on the report, the committee issued a memo stating that the purposes of its ongoing investigation include “whether to approve articles of impeachment with respect to the President.” In advance of a similar hearing on June 20, the committee reiterated its pressing need for evidence bearing on “whether to recommend ‘articles of impeachment’ with respect to the President.”

The committee confirmed this point in a memo released on July 11: “Articles of impeachment have already been introduced in this Congress and referred to the Judiciary Committee. They are under consideration as part of the Committee’s investigation, though no final determination has been made.” The same day, Nadler stated at a hearing that “the Committee has the authority to recommend its own articles of impeachment for consideration by the full House of Representatives.”

[What would happen if Trump resists an investigation by the Democratic House?]

While these events unfolded at the committee level, the House approved H. Res. 430, a resolution stating that the committee “has any and all necessary authority under Article I of the Constitution” to seek key grand jury material and compel McGahn’s testimony. Given that Article I enumerates the “legislative Powers,” including the “sole Power of impeachment,” the message wasn’t subtle. And it was bolstered by a report accompanying H. Res. 430, which cites the Judiciary Committee’s contempt referral for Barr as an example of using “all necessary authority under Article I” — adding that the committee is investigating “whether to recommend articles of impeachment with respect to the President or any other administration official.”

Pulling this all together: the House has approved a resolution telling the committee to use “all necessary authority under Article I of the Constitution”; a report accompanying that resolution refers expressly to impeachment; an impeachment resolution has been referred to the committee; the committee and its chair have repeatedly said they are investigating whether to approve articles of impeachment; and the committee has now filed a petition in federal court seeking grand jury material on the ground that it falls within an exception applicable to impeachment investigations.

At the level of political rhetoric, the House, and especially Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has sent plenty of mixed messages. But when we look at what the House has done — and at what the Judiciary Committee is doing — the message is clear: An impeachment investigation has begun. Where these proceedings will go remains one of the most hotly disputed questions in American politics. There is no denying, however, that they are impeachment proceedings — and that the House is therefore entitled to the evidence it needs to answer the weighty questions before it.

Oh, how I want to believe this.

Whatever the intent, this does seem to be the direction we're going. The Judiciary Committee is considering impeachment proceedings, and the House is seeking the Mueller grand jury testimony specifically on those grounds.

I wonder if what will happen is that the courts will reject the request for grand jury testimony on the grounds that the House hasn't formally opened an impeachment inquiry, which will then either a) give Pelosi the political justification to do it (ie "I didn't want to impeach, but the courts said we had to to get this information"), or else finally provoke Nadler into doing it without Pelosi's approval.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump has gone off on yet another racist Twitter spiel, this time against black Congressman Elijah Cummings and his district in the city of Baltimore, saying that it is a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and "no human being would want to live there."

Yes, that's the President of the United States, describing a major American city.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/28/politics ... index.html

(CNN)The city of Baltimore did not take President Trump's recent criticism of it lying down. Charm City stood up and fought back.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning that Baltimore was a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess," saying that "no human being would want to live there."

The President's rant was directed at Rep. Elijah Cummings, who represents Maryland's 7th Congressional District and recently lambasted conditions at the border.

The President suggested that conditions in Cummings' district, which is majority black and includes parts of Baltimore, are "FAR WORSE and more dangerous" than those at the US-Mexico border and called it a "very dangerous & filthy place."

The city's leaders and residents were quick to defend it. The Twitter hashtag #wearebaltimore was trending Saturday night, with users posting pictures and comments expressing their pride in the city.

"It's completely unacceptable for the political leader of our country to denigrate a vibrant American City like Baltimore, and to viciously attack U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings a patriot and a hero," Baltimore's Mayor Jack Young said in a tweeted statement.

It's completely unacceptable for the political leader of our country to denigrate a vibrant American City like Baltimore, and to viciously attack U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings a patriot and a hero. pic.twitter.com/TJdbST6Md9

— Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young (@mayorbcyoung) July 27, 2019

The Baltimore Sun's editorial board published a response, highlighting aspects of the city they felt the president left out: the beauty of Inner Harbor, the history of Fort McHenry, the prominence of Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the national dependency on the Social Security Administration, which is housed in the city.

"And it surely wasn't about the economic standing of a district where the median income is actually above the national average," the board wrote.
"Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one."

Others called out the city's character: "There's a block party today on my southside street. This is a city of good Americans who deserve more than a grifting, hollow and self-absorbed failure of a man as their president," tweeted author David Simon.

And while they defended their city, some had criticisms for President Trump himself.

Mayor Jack Young, the President of the City Council and other elected officials hold news conference to denounce President Trump's statements on Baltimore this morning. https://t.co/mlr0Ok9Dcs

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) July 27, 2019
"It should be beneath the dignity of the President of the United States, the person who is supposed to be the leader of the free world, to disparage and personally attack a great American city and another great American leader," Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott told reporters Saturday. "Instead of up upholding his oath of office to put the greater good of all American citizens, no matter where they live and who they voted for above all else, that he decided to do the opposite."

Many of the elected officials who spoke out praised Rep. Cummings for his help in the recent developments the district has undertaken, though they acknowledge there is still more work to do.

"We stand ready and willing to work with the President, if he is willing to go beyond tweets, to help us solve some of the problems that are deep enrooting in Baltimore's history," Scott said.

CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

"Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one."

Yeah, that about sums it up.

[MKSheppard]

The Wire is fact.

[The Romulan Republic]

In other news, the DOJ has declined to prosecute James Comey over a "leaked" memo, showing that there are apparently limits to how low even Barr's toadying will go:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... hief-comey

Justice Department officials have declined to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for mishandling classified information, including leaking a memo to the media about his interactions with President Donald Trump, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The decision was made after the department’s independent inspector general referred Comey for possible prosecution, the person said.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been conducting a broad review into decisions and actions by Comey and other Justice Department officials in the early stages of the investigation into whether Trump conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election or obstructed justice.

It appears that Horowitz’s review into Comey’s handling of classified information was spun off as a separate matter and his report on that topic could be completed within weeks.

The decision not to prosecute Comey, which was reported earlier by the Hill, may anger Trump, who has railed against the former FBI director and others for investigating him. Trump’s reaction could pose one of the first major political challenges for Attorney General William Barr if Trump leans on the Justice Department to reverse course and carry out a prosecution.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he hadn’t heard that a decision was made against prosecuting Comey, but “I would frankly be surprised because what James Comey did was illegal.”

Authorizing a Leak

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, after the FBI chief refused to say publicly that the president wasn’t under investigation. After being ousted, Comey took home memos he wrote memorializing interactions he had with Trump. Comey also authorized a friend to leak the contents of at least one memo to the media. The FBI retroactively classified some material in the memos.

Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump suggested in May that law enforcement and intelligence officials who conducted the early inquiry into his presidential campaign should be charged with treason and imprisoned.

"My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on," Trump said in a May 17 tweet. "Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!"

Comey is expected to be criticized by the inspector general over how he handled his memos. But the review’s conclusions and findings are in flux as Comey and his lawyers provide their input to the review team, according to another person familiar with the matter.

Comey said at a congressional hearing that one reason he decided to leak his memo’s contents was to spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump. That happened on May 17, 2017, when former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed to the position.

Mueller submitted his final report in April. He concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Trump for conspiring with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. But he said there was substantial evidence that Trump obstructed justice, and that he couldn’t exonerate the president in that regard.

Also, it really fucking pisses me off to see media outlets repeating the Trump narrative by referring to it as a leak. They were his own fucking memos, and nothing in them was classified at the time (some of the content was classified retroactively, but if we can prosecute people using retroactive laws, we might as well throw out the entire concept of due process).

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump the Musical, courtesy of the Simpsons:

https://facebook.com/TheSimpsons/videos ... on_generic

[The Romulan Republic]

Psychiatrist Allen Frances has sparked an uproar by saying that Trump could be responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.

https://thedailybeast.com/cnn-guest-tru ... han-hitler

A psychiatrist told CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday morning that President Trump may end up being more destructive than some of history’s most murderous dictators. Discussing whether experts should be willing to publicly speculate and diagnose the president’s mental fitness from afar, Dr. Allen Frances claimed it was a “terrible insult” to lump Trump in with the mentally ill, stating that they “have enough problems and stigma as it is.”

“Calling Trump ‘crazy’ hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” he added. “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person.”

Following Sunday’s broadcast of Reliable Sources, Stelter took to Twitter to express regret that he left Frances’ comments go unchallenged, claiming he was “distracted by tech difficulties” and didn’t hear Frances at the time.

I agree that I should have interrupted after that line. I wish I had heard him say it, but I was distracted by tech difficulties (that's why the show open didn't look the way it normally does, I had two computers at the table, etc). Not hearing the comment is my fault.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 25, 2019

A lot of people have been derisively dismissing this, even on non-far Right/Trumpist media outlets. Being charitable to them, they are likely thinking in terms of direct deaths by violence, in which case Trump has (so far) a long way to go to equal Hitler, Mao, or Stalin.

However, if you look at the indirect deaths likely to be caused by Trump' environmental policies alone, then Frances has a point. One might contest the exact numbers, but a lot of people are going to die, at least in part, as a result of Trump's policies. If we include the indirect deaths caused by their brutal economic policies toward Stalin or Mao's total, then perhaps it is fair to count climate deaths towards Trumps. So I think Frances is making a valid point here about the consequences of Trump's actions, and its a shame its getting lost in the backlash.

Naturally, moderates are quickly disavowing him like the cravens they are.

[The_Saint]

Reminds me of a great old saying:

Who's the more foolish? The first fool? or the fool who follows them?

[Eulogy]

This is how Trump rewards those who vote for him:

A 41-year-old Detroit man named Jimmy Aldaoud has died, according to the ACLU. Aldaoud had spent most of his life in the U.S. after being born to Chaldean Christian parents in a refugee camp in Greece.

Although Aldaoud’s parents are Iraqi, he had never been to the country, had no family or friends there and did not speak Arabic. It appears that his death was related to him being unable to obtain insulin for his diabetes. A video posted to social media in the days before he died found Aldaoud homeless and vomiting. There were also reports he may have been dealing with mental illness.

“Immigration agents pulled me over and said I’m going to Iraq,” Aldaoud says in the video. “I said, ‘I’ve never been there. I’ve been in this country my whole life, since pretty much birth’ … They refused to listen to me.” A family friend of Aldaoud’s said he and his family arrived in the U.S. when he was six months old.

“I begged them,” he said of his experience with ICE. “I said, ‘Please, I’ve never seen that country, I’ve never been there.’ However, they forced me.”

“Jimmy Aldaoud … should have never been sent to Iraq,” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said in a written statement. “My Republican colleagues and I have repeatedly called on the executive branch to cease deportation of such vulnerable people. Now, someone has died.”

The Trump administration has ramped up deportation efforts in Detroit, where hundreds of Chaldean Christians have been begging not to be sent back to Iraq, where they fear persecution and possible death in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for Christians.

Chaldean Christians facing deportation have spoken with reporters about feeling betrayed by the Trump administration. Many of them voted for Trump in the 2016 election following his campaign promises to take the plight persecuted Christians seriously.

“There’s a tremendous amount of anxiety in the community,” Martin Manna of the Chaldean Community Foundation told Politico. “Iraq’s not a safe place for many of the people who are being sent back.”

Guess they can count on the Orange Furher to keep his promises, eh? His impeachment can't come soon enough.

[The Romulan Republic]

Impeachment? Justice won't be done unless he stands trial for crimes against humanity, along with Pence, Sessions, Kelly, Barr, the heads of ICE, Border Patrol, and Homeland Security, and the CEO and board of every company running his concentration camps. And until his assets are seized and distributed among his victims, who should all be granted citizenship immediately by way of compensation.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://mediaite.com/tv/scaramucci-call ... -insanity/

Former White House Communications Director — turned vocal Trump critic — Anthony Scaramucci appeared Bill Press’s podcast Tuesday and raised his recent attacks on his former boss President Donald Trump to a whole new level.

Press asked his guest if he agreed with frequent Trump critic (and husband to Senior White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway) George Conway if he agreed that people should raise questions about the president’s mental stability and that officials should consider invoking the 25th Amendment.

“A thousand percent,” Scaramucci replied, adding “I don’t understand how elected public servants of the longest-standing Republican democracy in existing world history, a 243-year-old Republican democracy could have this sort of full-blown insanity on display and not act.”

He then went on to note specific examples of what Scaramucci clearly note as behavior unbecoming of the highest office, perhaps most personally, Trump’s use of the presidential Twitter feed to attack private citizens, most notably, his wife.

While it’s not terribly unique to hear Scaramucci criticize his former boss and ideological ally, calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked because the sitting president is unable to serve due to his “full-blown insanity on display” is certainly a new level of disparagement from the former White House Communications director.

Listen above via Bill Press Pod.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

I know Scaramucci's a scumbag too, and probably saying this at least partly because he's pissed that Trump fired him, but Jesus, what does it say when fucking Scaramucci's sounding like the sanest person in the room?

[mr friendly guy]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/459 ... order-wall

The Trump administration is moving forward with its plan to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects, notifying congressional leaders and lawmakers whose states will be impacted by the shuffle.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper called congressional leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Tuesday to detail the decision to reprogram the money away from military construction projects and to the border.

Schumer, who has projects in his home state that will be impacted, panned the decision as a "slap in the face" to members of the military.

I didn't realise Mexico had taken over the US military.

[mr friendly guy]

Relax guys, the US won't be in a recession because every is rich.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... cy-873239/

Trump Says a Recession Isn’t Possible Because Everyone Is Rich
The president and his economic team went into damage control on Sunday after a week of reports that economic downturn could be on the horizon

President Trump isn’t worried about the economy. No really, he isn’t. Everything is going to be fine. Seriously. All of that talk of a recession last week and over the weekend, spurred by a few ominous market indicators, a sputtering global economy, and Trump’s continuing trade war with China, was overblown hype peddled by forces that want nothing more than to make the president look bad. After all, how bad could things really be when we’re all so rich?

“I don’t think we’re having a recession,” Trump told reporters on Sunday in an attempt to quell fears over a potential market crash. “We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they’re loaded up with money.”