The Tiny Scandals and Trials

[ponchi101]

The SCOTUS should be one organism of the US GOV which should be filled with people of unquestionable brilliance.
Scalia, Thomas, Kavanaugh.
So: The APPEARANCE of corruption serves to justify voter suppression. And how would voter suppression achieve erasing that appearance, which would then not be APPEARANCE but actual corruption because you did not let many people vote?
Then again, he once went years without asking a single question in a SCOTS hearing.
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I know you were being facetious but, who MEMORALIZES G.H.W. Bush? What kind of people are you running into?

[dryrunguy]

I know you were being facetious but, who MEMORALIZES G.H.W. Bush? What kind of people are you running into?

I wasn't being facetious. I'm serious. After all of the trauma caused by Trump, many people look back on George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush with a not-so-subtle hint of longing--even among my fellow filthy liberals. Nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court may very well be the most harmful and destructive legacy of the first George's administration.

[ti-amie]

Absolutely the worst people.

[JazzNU]

I'm offended every time I have to read about this fake asshole. The cultural appropriation is highly offensive and the media isn't helping.

[ponchi101]

I am offended too, but mostly by the stupidity.

[ti-amie]

Opinion: How Republicans will sabotage a full accounting of Trump’s insurrection
Opinion by
Greg Sargent
Columnist
Feb. 24, 2021 at 11:30 a.m. EST

Let’s state this at the outset. If you think the chief obstacle to a full accounting of the mob assault on the Capitol is generalized partisanship, rather than the ongoing radicalization of the Republican Party, then you’re utterly clueless about the reality of this political moment.

Democrats and Republicans are battling over the makeup of a commission that is supposed to examine the Jan. 6 attack. Congressional leaders — led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — are now haggling over what the legislation creating it will look like.

This has caused some hand-wringing about whether a “bipartisan” accounting into the attack is possible, one similar to that produced by the 9/11 Commission, the model for this one.

But it’s hard to see how a bipartisan accounting on the insurrection is possible, especially if it is going to include a full reckoning with Donald Trump’s role in it.

I’ve got new detail on what’s at issue in the argument over the commission, and it appears to involve the scope of what will be examined.

Republicans object to the commission

According to a senior Democratic aide, Republicans are objecting to a key demand by Democrats: that the commission have a very broad purpose.

Democrats sent Republicans some draft language that would define the commission’s purpose very broadly, to include an examination of everything that led to the attack and to the effort to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, the aide says.

“It should be very broad, looking at all factors leading to what happened,” the aide told me.

But in response, McCarthy sent Pelosi a letter suggesting the language defining the purpose must have “no inclusion of findings or other predetermined conclusions,” the aide says.


This is frustrating Democrats, because their language did not suggest anything about predetermined conclusions, only that it should look at all factors leading to the attack, the aide tells me.

Democrats asked GOP leaders to provide their own suggested language defining the commission’s purpose, and have not received anything thus far, the aide continues. “You have to have a clear purpose,” the aide tells me. “Otherwise there’s no point to having the commission.”

A spokesperson for McCarthy noted that some of the Democrats’ proposed language in the commission legislation quotes findings recently reached by the FBI director and an intelligence threat assessment.

Those findings, among other things, are that domestic violence extremism is partly motivated by racism and that more future attacks may be partly inspired by “false narratives,” i.e., the lie that the election’s outcome was illegitimate. I was unable to determine why Republicans object to this. But all this points to where the real sticking point will likely lie.

Republicans can’t allow a full accounting

It’s hard to see Republicans permitting a full accounting that includes a look at the role that Trump’s weeks of incitement played in the attack, or at the role that the lies about the election’s illegitimacy played. After all, Republicans themselves spent weeks feeding those lies themselves.

This may be coloring another aspect of the dispute — over who will sit on the commission. Democrats have proposed an arrangement in which the four congressional leaders appoint two members each, with the White House choosing three more. That would mean seven Democrats and four Republicans.

But Republicans are insisting on equal representation. And this aspect of the dispute is drawing disapproval from the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, who say that an imbalance inevitably will taint the findings.

As one told Kyle Cheney, the only hope is to keep partisanship out of the new commission, which will be challenging, due to the “depth of the division and the poisonous toxicity that exists today.”

But “division” is not the problem. Republican radicalization is.

Take the demand for equal representation on the commission. That seems reasonable on the surface, but in this environment, after what just happened, the notion that we can have a commission of bipartisan wise men, all equally committed to a full reckoning for the public good, is just crazy.

The 9/11 Commission’s wise men say the new commission should reach outside Washington to find governors and others to serve. But who will Republicans pick? Can they choose anyone who wants a full accounting into Trump’s role — or into the role of the lie about the election — both of which have been cited as their inspiration by numerous people who stormed the Capitol?

Won’t picking people who want such an accounting be an immediate nonstarter among GOP leaders, most House Republicans and many conservative media figures?


Republicans are just too tied up in what happened themselves. They sustained Trump’s falsehoods about the election’s outcome for weeks, backing the Texas lawsuit to invalidate millions of votes in four other states and then voting to overturn President Biden’s electors in Congress.

On Monday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin declared that the rioters included “agents provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters.” He was until recently the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, yet he’s offering utter nonsense in a serious congressional hearing about the attack.

Meanwhile, numerous state-level Republicans are censuring those diehard Republicans who dared to hold Trump to account for trying to incite the violent overthrow of U.S. democracy.

There may not be a good answer to how to proceed at this point. But no one should pretend the magical level of “bipartisanship” will get Republicans to ever willingly participate in a real accounting. The fact that Republicans are objecting to a broad definition of the commission’s purpose only underscores the point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... -sabotage/

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

I debated whether to put this here or in the "National News" thread. The Chief's comments came during a hearing about 1/6 to I opted to put it here.

[ponchi101]

If this is what patriots do, I guess traitors start their plans with thermonuclear devices in mind.

[ti-amie]

Trump's tax returns given to Manhattan prosecutors
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Trump's attempts to shield his taxes.

ByAaron Katersky
25 February 2021, 11:05

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has taken possession of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, a spokesman for the office told ABC News.

The documents were turned over Monday by the former president’s accountants at Mazars USA. The Trump tax documents run into the millions of pages, a source told ABC News.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Trump’s request to shield his taxes from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

The ruling cleared the way for DA Cyrus Vance to enforce a grand jury subpoena for the records.

Mazars, the former president's accounting firm, told ABC News in a statement, "As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars will comply with all of its legal and professional obligations."

At issue is whether the Trump Corporation artificially inflated the value of Trump's properties to get the best possible loans. Investigators also want to know whether the company presented different values to tax authorities.

There are also questions about hush payments to women who alleged affairs with Trump, which he has long denied.

After the Supreme Court threw out Trump's claim of "absolute immunity" last year, Trump brought a fresh challenge to the subpoena by arguing that it was overbroad and issued in bad faith. Two lower federal courts dismissed those new claims and ordered compliance.

Trump then filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court in October ... and now, four months later, the justices have voted to deny his request to stay the lower court decisions.

Trump said in a statement on Monday following the ruling, "So now, for more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S."

"The Supreme Court never should have let this “fishing expedition” happen, but they did," the statement said.

With regard to enforcement of the subpoena, the DA’s office cited a prior filing: "As we have consistently made clear, we do not believe your client’s claims have merit, and we anticipate that the Supreme Court, after briefing, will deny your request for interim relief, at which point our office will be free to enforce the Mazars Subpoena, regardless of whether your client decides to continue to seek certiorari."

"The work continues," the DA's office told ABC News on Monday.

The office also recently brought on a former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, to scrutinize the material and present to a grand jury.

After Monday's Supreme Court ruling, Mazars told ABC News in a statement, "We are aware of the Supreme Court’s order. As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars remains committed to fulfilling all of our professional and legal obligations. Due to our industry’s professional obligations Mazars cannot discuss any clients, or the nature of our services we provide for any client, in a public forum without client consent or as required by law."

ABC News' Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-tax-re ... itter_abcn

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Somebody has to make some sociological study to find out why the sole solution these people see to any and all political differences is murder the other party.

[ti-amie]

Somebody has to make some sociological study to find out why the sole solution these people see to any and all political differences is murder the other party.

I guess start with toxic masculinity and move on to rage at having to compete on the same level with others they deem inferior and move on from there?

[ti-amie]