BrexTWITtery >>> .
Fine-Back their Grifted Gains?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/schiff-proposes-heavy-fines-for-stonewalling-congressional-probes-59353669605 .
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Why WRONG-wing politicians LOVE the poorly-informed
BrexTWITtery >>> .
Fine-Back their Grifted Gains?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/schiff-proposes-heavy-fines-for-stonewalling-congressional-probes-59353669605 .
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Redactions - protecting ongoing investigations and the guilty
About 10 percent of the special counsel’s 448-page report is blacked out. A bird’s-eye view of the report reveals the pattern of redactions. More is kept secret in the first volume of the report, which covers Russian interference in the 2016 election, than in the second, which covers
The report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was released to the public on Thursday. Its redactions, made by the Justice Department, fall into four categories. They are labeled in the document using color-coded text, with categories indicating the reason for the redactions.
A majority of the redactions, about 69 percent in total, were made because the material related to ongoing investigations.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/19/us/politics/redacted-mueller-report.html .
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html .
The report released on Thursday revealed that his team of prosecutors had found enough evidence of potential crimes to make 14 different criminal referrals to other federal prosecutors.
So far, only two of those have officially been made public.
A majority of the redactions, about 69 percent in total, were made because the material related to ongoing investigations.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/19/us/politics/redacted-mueller-report.html .
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html .
The report released on Thursday revealed that his team of prosecutors had found enough evidence of potential crimes to make 14 different criminal referrals to other federal prosecutors.
So far, only two of those have officially been made public.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
No, Michelle. In a Functional Country, HRC would be POTUS
In a Functional Country, We Would Be on the Road to Impeachment
...........
In a "Functional Country", an antagonistic foreign power and a band of slime-bags could not have installed a transparently crooked incompetent who lost the popular vote.
An occasion for street parties > .
Mueller laid out the evidence for members of Congress to take action against President Trump. Will they?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/opinion/mueller-report-trump-barr-impeachment.html .
...........
In a "Functional Country", an antagonistic foreign power and a band of slime-bags could not have installed a transparently crooked incompetent who lost the popular vote.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Flaw at the heart of democracy
Flaw at the heart of democracy
“The origin of civil government,” wrote David Hume in 1739, is that “men are not able radically to cure, either in themselves or others, that narrowness of soul, which makes them prefer the present to the remote.” The Scottish philosopher was convinced that the institutions of government – such as political representatives and parliamentary debates – would serve to temper our impulsive and selfish desires, and foster society’s long-term interests and welfare.
Today Hume’s view appears little more than wishful thinking, since it is so startlingly clear that our political systems have become a cause of rampant short-termism rather than a cure for it. Many politicians can barely see beyond the next election, and dance to the tune of the latest opinion poll or tweet. Governments typically prefer quick fixes, such as putting more criminals behind bars rather than dealing with the deeper social and economic causes of crime. Nations bicker around international conference tables, focused on their near-term interests, while the planet burns and species disappear.
As the 24/7 news media pumps out the latest twist in the
....
One problem is the electoral cycle, an inherent design flaw of democratic systems that produces short political time horizons. Politicians might offer enticing tax breaks to woo voters at the next electoral contest, while ignoring long-term issues out of which they can make little immediate political capital, such as dealing with ecological breakdown, pension reform or investing in early childhood education. Back in the 1970s, this form of myopic policy-making was dubbed the “political business cycle”.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
The Contaminator & Co
James Comey: How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Bill Barr: Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive this president.
[edited to better reflect reality] "Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them. Sometimes what they reveal is inspiring. For example, James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, resigned over principle, a concept so alien to Crook-in-Chief that it took days for the [dimwitted] UNpresident to realize what had happened, before he could start lying about the man.
But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein [the real targets of Comey's Faustian insights]. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive LIAR-in-Chief and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because LIAR-in-Chief eats your soul in small bites."
But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein [the real targets of Comey's Faustian insights]. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive LIAR-in-Chief and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because LIAR-in-Chief eats your soul in small bites."
......
"You can’t say this out loud — maybe not even to your family — but in a time of emergency, with the nation led by a deeply unethical person, this will be your contribution, your personal sacrifice for America. You [along with more than 50% of individuals on the planet] are smarter than Idiot-in-Chief, and you are playing a long game for your country, so you can pull it off where lesser leaders have failed and gotten fired by tweet.
Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his "leadership", tout his commitment to values.
And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul."
"You can’t say this out loud — maybe not even to your family — but in a time of emergency, with the nation led by a deeply unethical person, this will be your contribution, your personal sacrifice for America. You [along with more than 50% of individuals on the planet] are smarter than Idiot-in-Chief, and you are playing a long game for your country, so you can pull it off where lesser leaders have failed and gotten fired by tweet.
Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his "leadership", tout his commitment to values.
And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul."
[The problem that will remain when the venal RepuGNicans have been removed from undeserved office? Unpatriotic Americans too dim, duped, desperate, and/or deplorable to dump the Russia-installed devil.]
If DUHnocchio were UNpresident in South Korea, he would be incarcerated by now
Neal Katyal: Why Barr Can’t Whitewash the Mueller Report: We have a system in place for our government to uncover evidence against a sitting president. And it’s working.
"Many who watched Attorney General William Barr’s testimony on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which followed the revelation that the special counsel Robert Mueller had expressed misgivings about Mr. Barr’s characterization of his report, are despairing about the rule of law. I am not among them. I think the system is working, and inching, however slowly, toward justice.
When it comes to investigating a president, the special counsel regulations I had the privilege of drafting in 1998-99 say that such inquiries have one ultimate destination: Congress. That is where this process is going, and has to go. We are in the fifth inning, and we should celebrate a system in which our own government can uncover so much evidence against a sitting president.
Some commentators have attacked the special counsel regulations as giving the attorney general the power to close a case against the president, as Mr. Barr did with the obstruction of justice investigation into Conspirator-in-Chief. But the critics’ complaint here is not with the regulations but with the Constitution itself. Article II gives the executive branch control over prosecutions, so there isn’t an easy way to remove the attorney general from the process."
When it comes to investigating a president, the special counsel regulations I had the privilege of drafting in 1998-99 say that such inquiries have one ultimate destination: Congress. That is where this process is going, and has to go. We are in the fifth inning, and we should celebrate a system in which our own government can uncover so much evidence against a sitting president.
Some commentators have attacked the special counsel regulations as giving the attorney general the power to close a case against the president, as Mr. Barr did with the obstruction of justice investigation into Conspirator-in-Chief. But the critics’ complaint here is not with the regulations but with the Constitution itself. Article II gives the executive branch control over prosecutions, so there isn’t an easy way to remove the attorney general from the process."
.......
"Mr. Barr’s deeply evasive testimony on Wednesday necessitates and tees up a full investigation in Congress. Those who say Congress shouldn’t do so because surveys show that the American public is not in favor of an impeachment inquiry must take into account the fact that the American people have been misled by Attorney General Barr’s characterizations of the report and its conclusions. These surveys are therefore not surprising. But there is no more sacred duty for Congress than getting to the bottom of whether our president has taken care that the laws of this country have been faithfully executed."
Maybe so, but those of us fortunate enough to live in functional Western nations guffaw at the "again" in "MAGA".
Friday, August 31, 2018
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