1) It's a lie. The Republicans had 3 witnesses in the House hearings (Hale, Morrison and Volker; 4 if you count Jonathan Turley);
2) The Republicans just voted to refuse to allow Trump any witnesses in the Senate.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
The nerve
1) It's a lie. The Republicans had 3 witnesses in the House hearings (Hale, Morrison and Volker; 4 if you count Jonathan Turley);
2) The Republicans just voted to refuse to allow Trump any witnesses in the Senate.
Trump's best trade deal
"I donate 100% of my President's salary, $400,000, back to our Country, and feel very good about it!" Trump tweeted Aug. 16.
Politifact
Suggestion
After 2020 election, if Trump is "reelected", impeach again (yes, they can do that), but this time, have at least 10 of the possible impeachable offenses listed in the articles, and let it play out as long as necessary. Let them howl. They are never going to credit any Democratic move anyway, and they aren't going to cooperate on a "bipartisan" level for anything if Trump holds the White House.
Also, impeach all federal judges who were seated with an "unqualified" rating by the ABA.
Also, voters: flip the Senate.
In the meantime, since Republican senator Lamar Alexander said Democrats proved their allegations and what Trump did was wrong, draw up a censure proceeding.
Also, impeach all federal judges who were seated with an "unqualified" rating by the ABA.
Also, voters: flip the Senate.
In the meantime, since Republican senator Lamar Alexander said Democrats proved their allegations and what Trump did was wrong, draw up a censure proceeding.
Coronavirus? You're on your own, because Trump cancelled national readiness
It goes without saying that anything Obama did, Trump will undo.Since the great influenza pandemic of 1918, the United States has been spared terrifying epidemics. Americans now are epidemic voyeurs. They watch YouTube videos of China’s struggles. They see the government attack its epidemic by building a 1,000-bed quarantine hospital in a single week, lock down cities larger than New York or Los Angeles, ramp up 24/7 manufacture of face masks and protective gear, deploy its armed forces medical corps to treat ailing citizens, send enormous convoys of food and supplies to anxious citizens of Wuhan, and release terrifying, growing tallies daily of its swelling patient populations. They look in horror at panicked lines of masked people waiting to learn if their fevers are caused by the deadly disease, at bodies lying on cold floors in overcrowded hospitals, and at people crying out from behind their masks for help. And they ask, “What would the United States do? What would the White House do?” The answers are not reassuring.
[...]
In the spring of 2018, the White House pushed Congress to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Under fire from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the government’s $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.
In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced.
[...]
[T]he Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is
[...]
Surveying the largest drug store chains in New York City on Wednesday, I found that all were sold out of medical face masks and latex gloves, as is Amazon. Searching online for protective masks reveals that dozens of products intended for use to block dust and particles far larger than viruses are garnering brisk sales—and none available that can actually prevent viral exposure.
[...]
On Jan. 29, Trump announced the creation of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force, an all-male group of a dozen advisors, five from the White House staff. Chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, the task force includes men from the CDC, State Department, DHS, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Transportation Department. It’s not clear how this task force will function or when it will even convene.
[...]
Meanwhile, state-level health leaders told me that they have been sharing information with one another and deciding how best to prepare their medical and public health workers without waiting for instructions from federal leadership. The most important federal program for local medical worker and hospital epidemic training, however, will run out of money in May, as Congress has failed to vote on its funding. The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is the bulwark between hospitals and health departments versus pandemic threats; last year HHS requested $2.58 billion, but Congress did not act.
[...]
Some massive cities, such as New York City or Boston, have large budgets, clear regulations, and epidemic experiences that have left deep benches of medical and public health talent. But much of the United States is less fortunate on the local level, struggling with underfunded agencies, understaffing, and no genuine epidemic experience. Large and small, America’s localities rely in times of public health crisis on the federal government.
[...]
When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies, none of which were speaking to one another. Basically, the U.S. pandemic infrastructure was an enormous orchestra full of talented, egotistical players, each jockeying for solos and fame, refusing to rehearse, and demanding higher salaries—all without a conductor. To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of “epidemic czar” inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States.
[...]
Building on the Ebola experience, the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department.
[...]
But that’s all gone now.
Foreign Policy
Public health advocates have been ringing alarm bells to no avail.
Klain has been warning for two years that the United States was in grave danger should a pandemic emerge. In 2017 and 2018, the philanthropist billionaire Bill Gates met repeatedly with Bolton and his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, warning that ongoing cuts to the global health disease infrastructure would render the United States vulnerable to, as he put it, the “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.” And an independent, bipartisan panel formed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that lack of preparedness was so acute in the Trump administration that the “United States must either pay now and gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much greater price in human and economic costs.”
The next epidemic is now here; we’ll soon know the costs imposed by the Trump administration’s early negligence and present panic.
[...]
On Thursday, the CDC confirmed the first human-to-human spread of the Wuhan coronavirus inside the United States, between a husband and wife in Chicago. While the wife acquired her infection traveling in China, she passed the virus to her husband on return to the United States. Though only six Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the United States, with no deaths, Nancy Messonnier of the CDC told reporters on Thursday: “Moving forward, we can expect to see more cases, and more cases mean the potential for more person-to-person spread.”
[...]
Meanwhile, Trump, asked at the recent World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland how he intended to respond to the epidemic, said the situation was under control and a world away from the United States.
Trump's lawyers: Jay Sekulow - Part 2
Smells like the Trump charitable fund that recently got closed down by the courts.Jay Sekulow, one of President Donald Trump’s lead attorneys during the impeachment trial, is being paid for his legal work through a rented $80-a-month mailbox a block away from the White House.
The Pennsylvania Avenue box appears to be the sole physical location of the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, a for-profit corporation co-owned by Sekulow. The firm has no website and is not listed in national legal directories. The District of Columbia Bar has no record of it, and no attorneys list it as their employer.
But Sekulow, 63, is registered as chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, a non-profit Christian legal advocacy group based in an expansive Capitol Hill row house a short walk from the Senate chamber.
A half dozen lawyers employed by the non-profit ACLJ are named in recent Senate legal briefs as members of Trump’s defense team — including one of Sekulow’s sons. The ACLJ, as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, is barred under IRS rules from engaging in partisan political activities.
The Republican National Committee has paid more than $250,000 to Sekulow’s for-profit CLA Group since 2017, when he was first named to Trump’s legal team as special counsel Robert Mueller was leading the Russia investigation, according to campaign disclosures.
[...]
Charity watchdogs for years have raised concerns about the blurred lines between for-profit businesses tied to Sekulow and the complex web of non-profit entities he and his family control.
[...]
The records from 2008 to 2017, the most recent year available, show that more than $65 million in charitable funds were paid to Sekulow, his wife, his sons, his brother, his sister-in-law, his nephew and corporations they own.
AP News
There's not so much a swamp in Trump's Washington, as a snake pit.Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, said Sekulow appears to be mixing his defense of Trump with his charitable endeavors. The group has issued a “Donor Alert” about ACLJ on its CharityWatch website.
[...]
“Regulators should investigate whether or not charitable resources, such as office, labor, equipment, etc., are being wrongly utilized to benefit Sekulow’s for-profit law firm.”
[...]
A 2005 investigation by the publication Legal Times reported about questionable spending at ACLJ, quoting former employees describing millions in charity funds being spent to support the Sekulows’ lavish lifestyle, which included multiple homes, golf junkets, chauffeur-driven cars and a private jet used to ferry then-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Guardian and The Washington Post reported additional details in 2017, shortly after Sekulow was named as Trump’s lawyer.
Over the 10-year-period examined by AP, the tax returns show nearly $37 million in charitable funds were paid by ACLJ to the CLA Group, the phantom law firm listed on court filings as defending Trump.
[...]
A Brooklyn native, Sekulow graduated from Mercer Law School in Georgia and briefly worked for the Internal Revenue Service before going into private practice in Atlanta with his former classmate Roth in the early 1980s. The pair specialized in buying and selling historic properties as tax shelters, but the business collapsed after disgruntled investors sued them over alleged fraud and securities violations. Court records show both Sekulow and Roth filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1987.
Sekulow quickly remade himself as general counsel for the group Jews for Jesus.
[...]
The following year, records show Sekulow founded the non-profit Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (CASE), a charity “dedicated to the ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, god given rights.”
In 1992, he was named chief counsel at the ACLJ, which was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson as a conservative counterweight to the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union.
[...]
All six of the charity’s paid board members share the last name Sekulow, including Jay’s wife, Pam, and their sons, Jordon and Logan.
[...]
The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance recommends at least five independent board members and not more than one who receives direct financial benefits. Bennett Weiner, who heads the BBB alliance, said it issued an advisory about ACLJ after the organization didn’t respond to requests for more information about its finances.
[...]
Federal law forbids charities from excessively benefiting those who have “substantial influence over the organization.” Owens said both the IRS and state attorneys general should investigate.
“This is an apparent web of organizations that seem to exist to pay compensation to Sekulow and his family members,” said Owens, who is now in private practice. “That pattern clearly raises questions for those entities that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) as to whether they’re operating for a public benefit or the private benefit of Jay Sekulow and his family members.”
[...]
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, is investigating the potential abuse of charitable funds raised by the organizations tied to Sekulow. Spokeswoman Laura Brewer said it was unclear when that probe, begun in 2017, would be complete.
Part 1
Whiney Ass and his henchman
There's some real desire to get to the truth and administer justice there.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.), aided by White House liaisons, exercised a behind-the-scenes campaign in the chamber to keep his members from panicking and breaking en masse from Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell’s office even advised the president’s legal team throughout the process on which arguments were important to be made on the floor to resonate with certain undecided senators.
WSJ
That's a first. He must have been pretty nervous.Mr. Trump stayed largely on the sidelines, heeding advice he had received directly from Mr. McConnell to give fence-sitting Republican senators—who were wary both of crossing the president and appearing browbeaten by him—the space to make their own decisions.
Mob boss.But he engaged in some political saber-rattling with tweets about the need for a speedy trial resolution and criticism of Mr. Bolton, which was amplified by conservative allies in the media.
[...]
Trump recalled that Mr. Bolton once told him he wanted to be national security adviser because he worried he couldn’t win the Senate confirmation required for many other senior jobs.
“I should have seen that as a red flag,” Mr. Trump said, according to an aide in the room. “But instead, I did the guy a favor, took him at his word that this was a good fit, and this is what he did to me?”
Some friend.In a private meeting at lunchtime Monday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) made an impassioned speech to his colleagues about the need to hear from Mr. Bolton.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) floated the possibility of bringing in Mr. Bolton and a witness who would appeal to Mr. Trump.
Mr. McConnell’s message to senators then was to stay calm and be patient. He had framed the handling of the trial as a bigger threat to the party’s Senate majority than to the president.
[...]
White House officials spoke out against Mr. Bolton, as did Trump allies in the Senate. Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who considers Mr. Bolton a close friend, patrolled the Senate hallways gripping a printout of talking points matching those pushed by the White House.
That part's true. But the plan to save them was a Democratic party one.On Tuesday afternoon, all 53 Republican senators gathered in an ornate room near the Capitol Rotunda. Mr. McConnell was clutching a card—apparently a tally of Republican votes on the witness question—marked with “yeses,” “noes” and “maybes.”
He told them the vote count wasn’t where it needed to be, according to people familiar with the meeting, and struck an ominous tone, saying the future of the country and the Constitution were at stake.
How do you make a legal case against witnesses?Mike Lee of Utah, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, all lawyers, made the legal case against witnesses.
In fact, McConnell doesn't give a shit about Trump, any more than Trump gives a shit about him. They use each other for their own ends.McConnell kept up his cajoling on Wednesday, repeating his argument that the trial wasn’t just about the president, but about preserving the GOP Senate majority, and the sooner it ended the better.
Which was the same as saying she was voting against.McConnell met that morning with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who was one of the handful viewed as potentially in favor of calling witnesses. “I’m not going to be discussing the witness situation right now,” she said afterward.
Those are the kinds of statements that get actual witnesses in jury trials eliminated during voir dire. I don't need to hear witnesses, I already know how I'm voting.Toomey, who had earlier floated the idea of calling witnesses for both sides, shifted position, telling reporters he didn’t believe that new witnesses could change the outcome of the trial.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Ms. Collins said Thursday evening that, as expected, she would vote for witnesses. But later Mr. Alexander, while terming Mr. Trump’s actions on Ukraine inappropriate, said he saw no need for witnesses.
On Friday around lunchtime, Ms. Murkowski said she, too, saw no need for witnesses, effectively scotching the prospect. Senators on Friday afternoon narrowly voted 51-49 not to have witnesses, the first impeachment trial in U.S. history to exclude them.
UPDATE:
That's exactly what it is. Seeing anything else is willfull distortion.
Let the punishment begin
Boy, I bet Mitt's sorry he's gonna miss that.Leaders of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday night formally disinvited Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) from attending the event next month over his vote to approve additional witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial.
[...]
The conference, which is scheduled for the end of next month, is one of the largest conservative gatherings in the country that has emerged as a top meeting place for some of President Trump’s highest-profile supporters.
[...]
"The 'extreme conservative' and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020,” tweeted Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, which puts on the annual GOP confab.
[...]
Among this year’s speakers are GOP personalities Diamond and Silk, Candace Owens and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
The Hill
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
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