Last Call For It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

Some of the most damning information in the Mueller report involves Trump's orders to go after his enemies. We know Jeff Sessions was fired as Attorney General because he wouldn't intervene on the Mueller probe itself, but we also now know he was fired because he wouldn't lock up Trump's political enemies, mainly Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Mueller’s report released last week brimmed with examples of Mr. Trump seeking to protect himself from the investigation. But his request of Mr. Sessions — and two similar ones detailed in the report — stands apart because it shows Mr. Trump trying to wield the power of law enforcement to target a political rival, a step that no president since Richard M. Nixon is known to have taken.

And at the time Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Sessions, the president was already under investigation for potentially obstructing justice and knew that his top aides and cabinet members were being interviewed in that inquiry.

Mr. Trump wanted Mrs. Clinton investigated for her use of a private email server to conduct government business while secretary of state, the report said, even though investigators had examined her conduct and declined to bring charges in a case closed in 2016.

No evidence has emerged that Mr. Sessions ever ordered the case reopened. Like many of Mr. Trump’s aides, as laid out in the report and other accounts, Mr. Sessions instead declined to act, preventing Mr. Trump from crossing a line that might have imperiled his presidency.

Instead, Mr. Sessions asked a Justice Department official in November 2017 to review claims by the president and his allies about Mrs. Clinton and the F.B.I.’s handling of the investigation into ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia. The department’s inspector general had already been scrutinizing the issues and painted a harsh portrait of the bureau in a report last year but found no evidence that politics had influenced the decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton.

It was unclear what effect the disclosures about Mr. Trump’s discussions with Mr. Sessions could have on the president as House Democrats consider whether to move forward with impeachment proceedings.

Sessions wouldn't do it.

Do you think Trump would have hired Barr if he wasn't willing to start prosecuting Democrats at Trump's command?

Chasing Those Trump Voters Again

Democratic strategists are once again back to "Only more rural white men can save the party from doom".

Former Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly, who both lost their 2018 re-election races in North Dakota and Indiana, respectively, are launching the One Country Project to help their party win back rural voters ahead of the 2020 cycle. Their team looked at rural votes by county and state from 2000 to 2018 and found that if Democrats don't break their performance with rural voters, they're projected to once again win the popular vote but lose the electoral college in 2020.  

Details: Their focus is primarily on Democratic Senate races and the presidential election, but they eventually want to work with races up and down the ballot in these rural areas.

Heitkamp and Donnelly will work with campaigns before the election, giving them messaging, data, polling, and a strategy to break through with these voters who "didn’t feel that we shared their beliefs" in past elections, Donnelly told Axios in an interview.

"Culturally, they’re focused on faith and family and country, and Donald Trump tells them all the time that we’re not, even though we are."

What they're saying: "What we heard on the ground is that the Democratic Party no longer speaks for the entire country," Heitkamp said. "They’ve forgotten the middle of the country and forgot to even show up. Even past Democratic voters didn’t recognize the Democratic Party of 2018."

By the numbers: Their data, shared exclusively with Axios, projects that Democrats' popular vote would increase from +2.1% in 2016 to +3.6% in 2020.

But, using a similar margin that Obama won by in 2012, One Country Project estimates Democrats would end up with just 232 electoral college votes in the upcoming presidential cycle. (Hillary Clinton won 227 in 2016.)

They also project Democrats would be poised to have a better performance in states like Arizona, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas and Georgia.

Assuming these trends among rural voters continue, the team predicts Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire will become even more competitive in 2020.

The reason why Republicans are doing better in those states is massive voter suppression efforts of black and Hispanic voters, not because of "rural white voter trends".

We can do both, but getting rid of the voter suppression is far more important than making Trump voters comfortable enough to maybe not vote for Trump.

Another Hat Lands In The Ring, Con't

And it's the big one for Dems, the one we've been waiting for, good or bad.  Former VP Joe Biden has officially announced his candidacy for president in 2020.

Biden leads off with Charlottesville, Virginia's white supremacist march and why it shocked the nation, a move that frankly I didn't expect from him.

“I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation,” Biden says in the video, showing images of the August 2017 protests by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Biden called those demonstrations “a defining moment” for the country. 

“Our standing in the world, our very democracy — everything that’s made America America is at stake. That’s why I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”

If anything, opening up with this is a clear message to voters in both parties, but Biden still has a ton of baggage to deal with and four decades of a problematic voting record.

Joe Biden's mission in the presidential bid he launched on Thursday is to prove he's not a man out of step with the times. 

He must convince a Democratic Party pulsating with forces of youth, gender and racial diversity that is moving left on health care and college funding to ultimately turn to a traditional middle-of-the road nominee to take on President Donald Trump. 

Biden is an aging white male, a physically expressive old-school pol with a nose for the ideological center who still believes a political opponent is not a blood enemy. 

And his third try to finally reach the political summit comes at the one moment in American history when such qualities have turned into liabilities. 

But Biden has one huge card to sell to Democrats desperate to oust Trump: He might be their best hope of beating the President, especially in the Midwestern, blue-collar heartland. And his experience and dignity could be the antidote to Trump's rage. 

Biden enters the crowded primary after months of soul searching as a clear but not prohibitive front-runner. 

Invoking America's better angels, Biden is offering experience and a character forged by tragedy to purge the scandals, lies and constitutional chicanery of the current President and to close the societal schisms he has widened.

Again, if Biden is the nominee, he'll have my support in 2020 because Donald Trump and the GOP can go to hell.  If it takes Biden to get him out of there, great.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• The second of three men convicted in the death of James Byrd Jr. has been executed in Texas, Byrd's 1988 death, dragged behind a pickup truck by three white men, inspired new federal hate crime laws.
• White House adviser Jared Kushner is promising to "privately" pressure Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan after appearing on Netflix's "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj" this week.
• Measles cases in the US have hit their highest number since eradication of the disease in 2000, most of the nearly 700 cases are in Washington state and New York.
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a summit that is expected be a direct rebuke to Donald Trump.
• AT&T says 5G mobile internet access pricing will look "similar" to current broadband pricing, with faster speeds of up to 1Gbps fetching premium monthly payments from consumers and businesses.

Last Call For Her Turn

Hillary Clinton takes to the Washington Post to opine on what Dems should do in the post-Mueller report era, and frankly, it's solid, reasonable advice.

First, like in any time our nation is threatened, we have to remember that this is bigger than politics. What our country needs now is clear-eyed patriotism, not reflexive partisanship. Whether they like it or not, Republicans in Congress share the constitutional responsibility to protect the country. Mueller’s report leaves many unanswered questions — in part because of Attorney General William P. Barr’s redactions and obfuscations. But it is a road map. It’s up to members of both parties to see where that road map leads — to the eventual filing of articles of impeachment, or not. Either way, the nation’s interests will be best served by putting party and political considerations aside and being deliberate, fair and fearless.

Second, Congress should hold substantive hearings that build on the Mueller report and fill in its gaps, not jump straight to an up-or-down vote on impeachment. In 1998, the Republican-led House rushed to judgment. That was a mistake then and would be a mistake now.

Watergate offers a better precedent. Then, as now, there was an investigation that found evidence of corruption and a coverup. It was complemented by public hearings conducted by a Senate select committee, which insisted that executive privilege could not be used to shield criminal conduct and compelled White House aides to testify. The televised hearings added to the factual record and, crucially, helped the public understand the facts in a way that no dense legal report could. Similar hearings with Mueller, former White House counsel Donald McGahn and other key witnesses could do the same today.

During Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee also began a formal impeachment inquiry that was led by John Doar, a widely respected former Justice Department official and hero of the civil rights struggle. He was determined to run a process that the public and history would judge as fair and thorough, no matter the outcome. If today’s House proceeds to an impeachment inquiry, I hope it will find someone as distinguished and principled as Doar to lead it.

Third, Congress can’t forget that the issue today is not just the president’s possible obstruction of justice — it’s also our national security. After 9/11, Congress established an independent, bipartisan commission to recommend steps that would help guard against future attacks. We need a similar commission today to help protect our elections. This is necessary because the president of the United States has proved himself unwilling to defend our nation from a clear and present danger. It was just reported that Trump’s recently departed secretary of homeland security tried to prioritize election security because of concerns about continued interference in 2020 and was told by the acting White House chief of staff not to bring it up in front of the president. This is the latest example of an administration that refuses to take even the most minimal, common-sense steps to prevent future attacks and counter ongoing threats to our nation.

Fourth, while House Democrats pursue these efforts, they also should stay focused on the sensible agenda that voters demanded in the midterms, from protecting health care to investing in infrastructure. During Watergate, Congress passed major legislation such as the War Powers Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. For today’s Democrats, it’s not only possible to move forward on multiple fronts at the same time, it’s essential. The House has already passed sweeping reforms that would strengthen voting rights and crack down on corruption, and now is the time for Democrats to keep their foot on the gas and put pressure on the do-nothing Senate. It’s critical to remind the American people that Democrats are in the solutions business and can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We have to get this right. The Mueller report isn’t just a reckoning about our recent history; it’s also a warning about the future. Unless checked, the Russians will interfere again in 2020, and possibly other adversaries, such as China or North Korea, will as well. This is an urgent threat. Nobody but Americans should be able to decide America’s future. And, unless he’s held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and the obligations of his office. He will likely redouble his efforts to advance Putin’s agenda, including rolling back sanctions, weakening NATO and undermining the European Union.

Of all the lessons from our history, the one that’s most important may be that each of us has a vital role to play as citizens. A crime was committed against all Americans, and all Americans should demand action and accountability. Our founders envisioned the danger we face today and designed a system to meet it. Now it’s up to us to prove the wisdom of our Constitution, the resilience of our democracy and the strength of our nation.

 While the first piece of advice is wishful thinking, as the Republican party is hopelessly and completely corrupted and produced the Trump cancer on the body politic, the rest is absolutely correct.  We do have to get this right, and that means laying out the case with subpoenas and using the tools House Democrats have available.

It also means giving Trump enough agita that he slips up and very possibly commits even more impeachable offenses trying to cover up the mess he's in now.  And yes, it means proving Dems can chew gum and walk at the same time and pressing on the Democratic agenda as a positive alternative to Trump's garbage universe while pursuing impeachment at the same time.

Again, this is eminently solid advice from Clinton.  Will anybody listen or even remember she said this when the "Where was Hillary when the impeachment debate was going on?" inevitably begins?

We'll see.  Mark this one down.

Meat The Press, Con't

Donald Trump's slow vengeance against a free American press who dares to question him continues, this time with his edict banning anyone from the regime attending the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner this weekend.

The White House has ordered Trump administration officials to boycott the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, according to a senior administration official. 

The order was issued Tuesday morning by White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who announced that all Trump administration officials are being ordered to boycott the dinner, scheduled for Saturday night. 

An administration official adds that the order came from Trump personally, though staffers have been trying to talk him out of it. 

The move marks yet another deterioration in relations between the White House press office and the press corps, though President Donald Trump had announced earlier this month that he would be skipping the annual dinner for the third year in a row. The President will instead hold a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the same evening. 

"The dinner is so boring and so negative that we're going to hold a very positive rally," Trump told reporters at the time. 

The usual tensions between reporters and government representatives have escalated to extreme levels in the Trump age, due largely to the President's near-daily attacks against the media. His portrayal of the people who cover him as his "enemy" and the "enemy of the people" has been denounced by historians, press freedom advocates and politicians in both parties. 

Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, responded to the boycott saying: "We're looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present and future." 

I would expect that House and Senate Republicans and their staff will skip the dinner as well.

Trump has always held a special hatred of this event and this is why.




He's all but destroyed it in three years, along with our free press (although to be fair they have done plenty of work in destroying themselves.)  But there's still a lot of damage Trump will continue to do to the media.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Greg Sargent argues that Donald Trump is 100% terrified of former WH lawyer Don McGahn going before the House to testify, because he's got the keys the kingdom...and Trump's jail cell.

Democrats have now subpoenaed former White House counsel Donald McGahn to appear before Congress and testify about his direct involvement in some of the most explosive revelations in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

Trump’s allies, led by Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have ramped up their attacks on McGahn. The New York Times reports that they are escalating for a very specific reason: because they fear that McGahn will help build the case for Trump’s impeachment.

As the Times reports, some White House officials believe the attacks on McGahn are counterproductive. But the most important White House official of all sees things quite differently: 

Mr. Giuliani’s attacks on Mr. McGahn have unnerved some senior White House officials, who have argued privately that the president and his legal team should stop drawing attention to damaging episodes in the report, according to two people close to the White House.

But Mr. Trump has privately complained about the accounts, particularly the ones given by Mr. McGahn, and has said the only way to protect himself from impeachment is to attack Mr. Mueller and Mr. McGahn, the people said.

Why would Trump fear such a thing, if the Mueller report totally exonerated Trump? Because Mueller’s recounting of episodes involving McGahn are profoundly damning, and highlight Trump’s corruption, bottomless capacity for official deception and contempt for our democracy and the rule of law with great vividness.

As Mueller documents, McGahn testified that Trump tried to instruct him to carry out one of his most glaring efforts to obstruct justice — and then to lie to cover it up. After the Times reported that Trump had ordered McGahn to fire Mueller, and then backed down when McGahn threatened to quit, Trump dismissed the story as “fake news.”

Trump then tried to get McGahn to deny this had happened — and even tried to get McGahn to put that in writing. But McGahn refused, claiming the story was accurate.

As Mueller recounts, Trump then demanded this in a face-to-face meeting with McGahn, claiming: “You need to correct this. You’re the White House counsel.” As always, here Trump seemingly treated McGahn as his personal lawyer, not the White House’s institutional one.

In a particularly revealing passage, Mueller recounts that Trump repeatedly told McGahn that despite any recollections otherwise, he never ordered Mueller’s firing. As the report puts it: “McGahn thought the President was testing his mettle to see how committed McGahn was to what happened." In other words, Trump was probing how much he could get away with in pushing McGahn to lie for him.

And then the Mueller report ties it all up in a neat little bow:

The President then asked, “What about these notes? Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes." McGahn responded that he keeps notes because he is a “real lawyer” and explained that notes create a record and are not a bad thing. The President said, “I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes."

Hopefully, McGahn will soon testify to all this — and much, much more — on live television.

McGahn under oath on national television is going to make for some riveting drama, and Donald Trump will do anything to stop that from happening.

The White House plans to fight a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee for former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify, according to people familiar with the matter, setting up another showdown in the aftermath of the special counsel report.

The Trump administration also plans to oppose other requests from House committees for the testimony of current and former aides about actions in the White House described in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, according to two people familiar with internal thinking who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke of the plans on the condition of anonymity.

White House lawyers plan to tell attorneys for administration witnesses called by the House that they will be asserting executive privilege over their testimony, officials said.

So there's little hope this will happen.  Again, the battle will be tied up in the courts, ideally for Trump past November 2020. 

On the other hand, Trump may decide he'll stop anyone from testifying by obstructing justice again...

Stay tuned.

StupidiNews!

• At least three are dead and 50 missing after mudslides blocked a jade mine in Myanmar, officials say many of the missing miners are presumed dead.
• Texas state Republicans are considering a bill that would allow users to sue social media companies to sue over being moderated on free speech grounds.
• The Justice Department is charging two people in connection with stealing defense secrets from GE for China, according to an unsealed indictment.
• Donald Trump will meet with Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats next week over passing infrastructure legislation, Senate Republicans are already attacking the talks.
• Australian researchers have found that Van Gogh's Starry Night actually does accurately describe turbulent nebula clouds that form stars.

Last Call For It's About Suppression, Con't

If Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments were any indication, we'll soon have a 5-4 SCOTUS decision on the Census question of citizenship that could terrorize millions of undocumented in America as the Trump regime gears up for mass detainment and deportations, and cost blue states several congressional districts starting in 2022.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Tuesday appeared inclined to hand President Donald Trump a victory on his administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, a move opponents call a Republican effort to deter immigrants from taking part.

During arguments in the closely watched case, conservative justices rallied in defense of the administration’s stated justification for using the citizenship question in the decennial population count, while their liberal counterparts remained skeptical. 

The court has a 5-4 conservative majority. Among the conservative justices indicating support toward the administration’s stance were Trump’s two appointees, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, considered the court’s pivotal vote. 

Lower courts have blocked the question, ruling that the administration violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution in seeking to include it on the census form. A ruling by the Supreme Court is due by the end of June. 

Opponents have said inclusion of a citizenship question would cause a sizeable undercount by frightening immigrant households and Latinos from filling out the census forms, fearful that the information would be shared with law enforcement. This would cost Democratic-leaning areas electoral representation in Congress and federal aid, benefiting Trump’s fellow Republicans and Republican-leaning parts of the country, they said.

The census is used to allot seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and distribute some $800 billion in federal funds. 

During extended arguments that lasted about 80 minutes, Roberts and other conservative justices appeared to embrace the administration’s argument that the question would yield better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects eligible voters from discrimination. 

Roberts challenged New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, whose state sued the administration over the plan to add the question, saying citizenship is critical information for enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Roberts also said it is “quite common” for census questions to capture demographic information.

This ruling could very well seal a permanent Republican government for at least another decade, if not longer.  If you think the GOP of today is bad, wait until they start rounding up "illegals" and political foes and using force of the state to punish those would protect them.

It's already ugly.  It's going to get lethal, and fast.  The real issue is that Republicans are counting on this to starve blue states of federal money, and to redistribute dozens of House districts from blue states to red, locking in a permanent GOP majority.

This one's going to be bad, guys.  America may not recover from the Trump regime.

But her emails though, right?

Soccer It To Me, Cincy, Con't

Pretending that Cincinnati's newly minted Major League Soccer team, FC Cincinnati, isn't extremely popular around town is ludicrous, but FC Cincinnati pretending like they're not buying up land around their West End stadium site and throwing black residents out is just as stupid.  Enquirer politics columnist Jason Williams:

FC Cincinnati's stop-and-go roller coaster of spin and parsed words needs to be parked for good.

Will we ever get the actual truth from the soccer club about its West End stadium site plans and what the team wants to do near it?

In January 2018, team president Jeff Berding told WCPO-TV: “Let me stress this: We’re not taking anyone’s homes. We’re going to increase home ownership. We’re going to increase the number of people living in a neighborhood. The notion that we’re somehow going to try to buy people’s homes out, move people out of the neighborhood, that’s just false. That's just made up.”

Today, at least 17 residents have been or are being told to get out of their homes.
Oh, FC Cincinnati would say the people being displaced are renters – not homeowners – and none of them live on the actual stadium site. Those folks live in buildings adjacent to the approved stadium site, properties bought by none other than FC Cincinnati.

Excuse me while I regain my balance from all the spin.

Fact: Whether it's the actual stadium site or adjacent land, if FC Cincinnati owns it, then it's all related to the new 26,500-seat venue. The adjacent land might be used for parking or fan plazas or even new condos, but it's all owned by FC Cincinnati and centers on the club making its new home in the West End.

Why can't the team just be upfront about that?

Maybe the team is worried about another public relations hit. Too late.

FC Cincinnati stepped into another mess of its own doing when news broke earlier this month that the team is buying three buildings on Wade Street, a stone's throw from where the north end of the new grass field, er, pitch, will be.

A 99-year-old, bedridden women has been told to move from one of those buildings, feeding a narrative pushed by stadium opponents that the big, bad, billionaire team owners don't care.

I believe Carl Lindner III and his ownership group actually care a lot, and this $250 million private investment in a struggling neighborhood is a good thing for the city. But the lack of transparency, the spin and parsing of words coming from FC Cincinnati's front office is overshadowing the good right now.

Had the team been upfront about actually having to displace residents, most fair-minded and objective people would've understood. It's hard to do any massive development project in an urban-core neighborhood without displacing residents.

FC Cincinnati is a private organization and it's free to make deals with other private businesses, as was the case with FC Cincinnati and the Wade Street building owners. But when you originally tell the public no one will lose their homes to make way for the stadium and then pull a fast one, it can erode credibility. And in this neighborhood, the team needs to build credibility along with its stadium.

And the big problem, and why I can't and won't support FC Cincinnati in any way, is because they lied to black people and then bought their homes out from under them and kicked them out.  Jeff Berding and the club figured they didn't have to tell the truth, because who cares about Cincinnati's black neighborhoods, right?  Nothing they can do anyway, not this late in the game.

I admit it was far worse 60 years ago when Kenyon-Barr and Queensgate in the heart of West End were razed to the ground and tens of thousands of black folk lost everything to "urban renewal" and Interstate 75, but the sentiment sure hasn't changed.

We'll see what happens but at this point any credibility FC Cincinnati had left with West End residents just evaporated, and it's only going to get worse.

Courting Disaster, Con't

The good news is that there's extremely generous odds that Trump will commit more public and obvious obstruction of justice in his efforts to cover-up the Mueller report and to stop House Democrats from getting his financial information, but that means an eventual showdown with the US Supreme Court.

The White House has instructed a former official who was in charge of the security clearance process to not comply with a House subpoena demanding his appearance for an interview, the latest move by the Trump administration to thwart Democratic-led investigations into all aspects of the presidency. 

After a day of tense negotiations, the White House late Monday told the former official, Carl Kline, who now works at the Defense Department, to not appear at Tuesday's deposition, contending that Democrats were seeking access to confidential information that should be off limits. 

The move raises the prospect that the House Oversight Committee could seek to hold Kline in contempt, a step that Chairman Elijah Cummings warned Monday he would take. And it's the latest White House effort to stonewall Democratic investigations, coming the same day the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit to prevent an accounting firm from complying with Cummings' subpoena for President Donald Trump's past financial records. 

Michael Purpura, deputy counsel to Trump, argued that Cummings' subpoena of Kline "unconstitutionally encroaches on fundamental executive branch interests," according to a letter obtained by CNN. 

Kline's attorney, Robert Driscoll, said his client would listen to his employer. 

"With two masters from two equal branches of government, we will follow the instructions of the one that employs him," Driscoll said in a separate letter obtained by CNN. 

The flurry of letters capped a day of tense talks ahead of Tuesday's anticipated deposition with Kline, a key witness as part of Democrats' probe into whether the White House mishandled the security clearance process for top officials, including for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. 

Kline, who was subpoenaed to appear before the committee Tuesday, served as the White House personnel security director for the first two years of the Trump administration. A White House official, Tricia Newbold, told the committee that at least 25 individuals had been greenlighted for security clearances despite serious concerns raised during the vetting process -- and alleged that Kline retaliated against her for speaking out.

I know I keep arguing that there's more than enough evidence to impeach now, but giving the Trump regime enough rope to hang then entire bunch only makes the case against Trump stronger.  There's still a decent chance that the Supreme Court won't take up this fight for some time, saying that Congress and the White House should work it out, and this could very well end up being strung along for 18 months or more.

But there's a chance that these fights build up so rapidly on so many different fronts that SCOTUS feels compelled to act sooner.  Chief Justice Roberts doesn't want to be remembered as a villain, but as a Solomon-like figure of wisdom.

I still don't know the outcome though, and anyone who tells you they do is lying.

StupidiNews!

• Canadian officials have confirmed finding the bodies of three professional mountain climbers Sunday after an avalanche last week on Banff National Park's Howse Peak.
• Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain has withdrawn his name from nomination for the Federal Reserve, it's widely believed his nomination would not have survived Senate confirmation.
• Sri Lanka's government is invoking an emergency powers law blaming Sunday's deadly bombings on "international networks" of terrorists, the law gives police broad powers to detain suspects.
• Iran is countering the Trump regime's announcement of ending sanctions waivers for Iranian oil by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, which could block a fifth of the world's oil supply.
• New York state officials have reached a settlement with cable giant Charter, the company will have to agree to merger conditions and pay the state $12 million to fund rural broadband upstate.

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach

House Democrats will not be trying to impeach Donald Trump anytime soon, it seems.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team told lawmakers Monday that they had no plans to immediately open impeachment proceedings against President Trump and would focus instead on investigations.

In an evening conference call, the leaders described the near-term strategy after the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report last week, with some in the Democratic Party pressing for the House to initiate steps to oust Trump.

According to three officials on the call, leaders told rank-and-file lawmakers — who were scattered across the nation, back in their districts for a two-week congressional recess — that investigative committees would continue their inquiries and see where they lead.

Even House Financial Services Chairman Maxine Waters, who last week warned that “Congress’ failure to impeach is complacency in the face of the erosion of our democracy and constitutional norms,” did not push the matter. Instead, the California Democrat, a vocal Trump critic who is probing the president’s business practices before he won the 2016 election, made a point of clarifying that she is not pressuring lawmakers to join her effort.

The call came just hours after Pelosi appeared to tap the brakes on impeachment discussions, arguing in a letter to her colleagues that while Democrats would hold Trump accountable for his actions in the Mueller report, they could do so without initiating impeachment hearings. The California Democrat wrote that Congress “will scrupulously assert Congress’s constitutional duty to honor our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution and our democracy” by investigating the president.

“Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the president has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds,” Pelosi wrote.

But the speaker offered a word of caution on impeachment — a step pushed by some 2020 presidential hopefuls, most notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in the days following the Mueller report. Without ruling out the concept altogether, Pelosi noted “it is … important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”

“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi said, trying to strike a note of unity.

She added: “As we proceed to uncover the truth and present additional needed reforms to protect our democracy, we must show the American people we are proceeding free from passion or prejudice, strictly on the presentation of fact.”

So that's it, then.

Democrats are still acting like there's a non-impeachment solution to Donald Trump, and they will spend the next however many months looking for it.

As Trump grinds those efforts to a halt and slow-walks them through the Supreme Court, we'll be left cleaning up the mess of Trump's daily assaults on rule of law and his continuing normalization of his kleptocratic regime.

Perhaps we'll see a series of televised hearing where House Democrats lay out the case, but they will be drowned out in televised Senate Republican hearings where Obama administration officials and Clinton campaign people are grilled as traitors.


Still, Pelosi is basically asking us to trust her.  For now, I don't think we have a better choice until we reach the point we're taking to the streets.

We'll see.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The Trump regime is suing to block the release of Donald Trump's financial records, saying that House Democrats are purely abusing political power as no doubt Senate Republicans are salivating over the tax information of all Democrats being fair game for 2020.

President Trump and his business sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records on Monday.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.

Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.

For more than a decade, Mazars and a predecessor firm signed off on financial statements for Trump that he used when seeking loans. Some of the statements include frequent exaggerations or inaccuracies and were accompanied by a note from the firm saying it was not responsible for the accuracy of the information.

The Oversight Committee on March 20 asked the company for copies of “statements of financial condition” and audits prepared for Trump and several of his companies, including the one that owns the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The panel also requested supporting documents used to produce the reports and communications between the firm and Trump.

The company said last week that it “will respect the legal process and fully comply with its legal obligations.”

Lawyers for the president and the Trump Organization previously wrote in a letter to Mazars’s counsel that an expected committee subpoena “would not be valid or enforceable.”

Not easy being Mazars, I guess.  If they don't comply with Cummings, they face contempt of Congress.  If they do comply, they face a guaranteed FBI raid and Justice Department prosecution.  Either way, this is going to the Supreme Court, and it's a coin flip as to who wins this fight, it's all going to come down to how Chief Justice Roberts feels that day.

Stay tuned.

 

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The Trump regime's gaslighting is getting out of hand, they believe they've achieved total victory and from here on it should be smooth sailing and a steady stream of Democrats going to prison and immigrants going to camps.

President Trump on Sunday continued to wage an attack against special counsel Robert Mueller, calling his investigation's report a "hit job" and claiming it was written by "The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats."

"The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats who wrote the Mueller Report were devastated by the No Collusion finding," Trump tweeted Sunday morning. "Nothing but a total 'hit job' which should never have been allowed to start in the first place!"

Trump added in a separate tweet that Democrats' investigations into him and his administration would cost them in the 2020 election.

"Despite No Collusion, No Obstruction, The Radical Left Democrats do not want to go on to Legislate for the good of the people, but only to Investigate and waste time," he said. "This is costing our Country greatly, and will cost the Dems big time in 2020!"

Trump's minions are spreading the gospel of absolution over Easter.

President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said while he would have advised the Trump campaign to avoid Russian help, he thought there was nothing wrong with a campaign taking information from Russia. 

"There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians," Giuliani said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." 

Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper if he would have taken information from a foreign source, Giuliani said, "I probably wouldn't." 

"I wasn't asked," Giuliani said. "I would have advised, just out of excess of caution, don't do it."

Trump believes he's gotten away with the crime of the century.

Just days after the release of the highly anticipated Mueller report, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday the investigation found Trump committed no crime -- and even predicted another term for the president.

"The job of a prosecutor is to gather evidence and decide whether to indict or to decline to indict. They declined to indict," the White House counselor said on “This Week." "The president is not going to jail. He's staying in the White House for five and a half more years. Why? Because ... they found no crime, no conspiracy. That was the central premise."

Until the Democrats make it clear impeachment is coming, Trump is 100% correct, and he most likely will be reelected.

StupidiNews!

• Sri Lankan officials have lifted curfew after eight explosions killed several hundred and injured hundreds more as churches and hotels in the country were attacked by terrorists.
• Police in Northern Ireland have released without charge two men in connection with the shooting death of journalist Lyra McKee last week, police say they are still searching for the shooter.
• The Trump regime says it will end waivers on sanctions for any country buying Iranian oil on May 2, oil prices worldwide have spiked on the news.
• Exit polls in Ukraine show TV comic Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won an overwhelming victory in Sunday's presidential runoff election, taking more than 70% of votes.
• Toyota is investing another $1 billion in ride-sharing giant Uber's self-driving car technology, this marks the third time the automaker has invested major capital into autonomous vehicles.

Sunday Long Read: Proof Is In The Pudding

Happy Easter to all who celebrate, I'm taking the day off but leaving you with a bittersweet story from the LA Times about Lent, love, and a family recipe for capirotada.

Easter is this Sunday, which concludes my favorite food holiday: Lent.

Cuaresma for Mexicans is a time for reflection and penance — but it’s also 40 days of gluttony. Have fun with your fish fries, fellow Catholics: We Mexicans are gorging on tortitas de camarones, shrimp fritters served alongside grilled cactus and doused in a fiery chile de árbol salsa. On gorditas stuffed with refried beans and cotija, dolloped with crema. I especially loved my mom serving crispy potato tacos from a pan filled with bubbling manteca as if she were pulling dishes from the sink.

And the showstopper: capirotada, the layered bread pudding that’s the de facto Mexican dessert for Lent.

Every family bakes their own version; Mexicans on social media fight about whether it should include cheese (duh), nonpareils (of course), coconut flakes (maybe) or apple slices (no).

My mom’s is the best, of course. She uses queso añejo from her home state of Zacatecas for a salty touch, and sprinkles a judicious amount of raisins and almonds. The finished product doesn’t look elegant: bumpy and brown, and put into Tupperware once it’s cooled down. But her capirotada is sweet and earthy, crunchy (because of the fried bolillo slices she uses) and mushy (those bolillos get soaked in cinnamon-spiked syrup).

Cultura y amor in a baking pan.

The only thing I never liked about capirotada is its seasonality. From the time I was a kid, I’d beg Mami to make it throughout the year, a request she has always refused.

“Nomás se hace para Cuaresma,” she’d always scold — only for Lent, and that was that.

Once I became an adult, she took pity on me and prepped enough Lenten dishes to tide me over the year. I have enough goodies in the freezer to let me survive whatever comes after the Big One. And this spring, I dug through my freezer and found a small bag of capirotada, from a batch my mom made two years ago. I don’t think I’ll ever eat that one, though, because it’s from the last batch Mami ever made.

She is about to enter hospice, with weeks to live.

Ask your family for those recipes, guys.  Keep them and use them when you get them.  Pass them on.

Have a Happy Easter and I'll see you in the morning.

The Drums Of War, Con't

Having been at least temporarily halted in his desire for war with Iran and/or Venezuela, the Trump regime is now backing the newest proto-strongman on the block, Libyan "Field Marshal" Khalifa Hifter.

President Trump on Friday abruptly reversed American policy toward Libya, issuing a statement publicly endorsing an aspiring strongman in his battle to depose the United Nations-backed government.

The would-be strongman, Khalifa Hifter, launched a surprise attack on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, more than two weeks ago. Relief agencies said Thursday that more than 200 people had been killed in the battle, and in recent days Mr. Hifter’s forces have started shelling civilian neighborhoods.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement a few days after Mr. Hifter’s militia began its attack that “the administration at the highest levels” had made clear that “we oppose the military offensive” and “urge the immediate halt to these military operations.” Most Western governments and the United Nations have also condemned the attack and demanded a retreat.

Mr. Trump, however, told Mr. Hifter almost the opposite, the White House said Friday.

A militia leader who has given himself the title of Field Marshal, Mr. Hifter, 75, has long sought to portray his fight for power over Libya — including his advance on Tripoli — as a battle against “terrorism.” In the statement on Friday the White House said Mr. Trump had called Mr. Hifter on Monday to endorse that campaign.

Mr. Trump called “to discuss ongoing counterterrorism efforts and the need to achieve peace and stability in Libya,” the White House said in the statement. “The President recognized Field Marshal Hifter’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.”

Analysts said Mr. Trump’s endorsement would embolden Mr. Hifter and hamper United Nations efforts to call for a cease-fire. It could also increase the likelihood that his regional sponsors like Egypt or the United Arab Emirates might intervene on his behalf, as each has in the past in Libya.

The policy reversal came as a surprise in part because Mr. Hifter’s forces also appear to be losing ground. His promises of a quick victory have proved false, and his forces appear outmaneuvered by those aligned against them. Most analysts say that he has little hope of exerting his authority over all of Libya any time soon, so his continued campaign may only prolong the country’s instability.

In the meantime, the battle for Tripoli has now diverted the attention of most of the Libyan militias that had been engaged in combating the fighters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, said Frederic Wehrey, an expert on Libya at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It is nuts,” Mr. Wehrey said of Mr. Trump’s statement. “Even judging by the hard-nosed American goals of stabilizing the flow of oil and combating terrorism, this is completely shocking.”

Mr. Trump’s endorsement is the clearest evidence yet of his preference for authoritarianism as the best response to the problems of the Middle East, a sharp departure from the professions of support for democracy by previous American presidents of both parties.

And that's the real issue here.  Trump wants strongmen loyal to him and what the US can offer.  It's a laughable sentiment considering he yips around Putin ankles most days, but I think it's because he wants to build his own cadre of bullies because the man in the Oval Office wants most to be the man in the Kremlin.

Depressing as that is.

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Early polls in the wake of the redacted Mueller report find Trump back at his lows for the year and only headed lower, I would think.

The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.

The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, is the first national survey to measure the response from the American public after the U.S. Justice Department released Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report that recounted numerous occasions in which Trump may have interfered with the investigation.

According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.

America's opinions of Trump are also dismal and possibly getting worse.

The poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed that “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” and 58 percent agreed that the president “tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration.”

Forty percent said they thought Trump should be impeached, while 42 percent said he should not.

The poll responses were sharply split along party lines, with Democrats much more critical of Trump than his fellow Republicans.

For now, impeachment is still on the table for the American people.

Democrats should pay attention.

Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Another week, another arrest of a monster spurred on by Trump who wanted to kill Democrats, especially black Democrats.

Federal authorities today announced that John Kless, a 49-year-old resident of Tamarac in Broward County, called three Democrats at their Washington, D.C. offices April 16 and left voicemail messages threatening murder. The lawmakers included California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

In all three messages, Kless referenced his hatred for Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — repeatedly calling her a "towel head" and a member of the Taliban. In his message to Tlaib's office, Kless referenced Omar's recent "some people did something"comments about 9/11 — a statement Omar made to argue that all Muslims should not be punished for the actions of the few who committed the attacks. But conservatives have taken Omar's comments entirely out of context to falsely argue that Omar was diminishing the impact or tragedy of 9/11.

"It was your Taliban bitch, the one who opened up her fucking towel-head mouth about how 'some people did it,'" Kless allegedly said in his message to Tlaib. "You know what? She's lucky she's just getting death threats, bitch. So are you. All right? You're lucky they're just threats, motherfucker, 'cause the day when the bell tolls, whore, and this country comes to a war, there will be no more threats. Your life will be on the fucking line."

Kless allegedly continued to say the following: 

No one wants to fucking hear you or that other little whore. I'd like to take that bitch and throw her right off the Empire State Building, that fucking whore. Tell her to shut her fucking mouth. You fucking fuck her all the time probably. So tell her to shut the fuck up, all right? From one towel head to another. You stanking, fucking, smelly, fucking bitch. Fuck off. I wish all of you the worst. You can go fuck off in life. Fuck you, and fuck Mohammed too, you bitch fucking cunt.

Kless also allegedly criticized Swalwell's stance on gun control. Kless reportedly said if Swalwell enacted gun-safety laws, someone would kill the lawmaker. He also called Swalwell a communist.

"The day you come after our guns, motherfucker, is the day you'll be dead," Kless said, according to a federal indictment. He added, "You're gonna die. Don't wanna do that shit, boy. You'll be [on] your deathbed, motherfucker, along with the rest of you Democrats. So if you want death, keep that shit up, motherfucker."

Kless repeatedly used the N-word to refer to Booker and called him a "monkey," according to court records, adding he wanted to kill black men like the senator. "You're a fucking disgrace," Kless allegedly said. "We need to kill all you motherfuckers, man, every fucking one of you, man." He added that the terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia — in which a white supremacist drove a car into progressive protester Heather Heyer — killed only "one fucking person." He then said Booker should tell his "colleague with the towel on her head to shut up about 9/11."

Wonderful man.

Really is a race at this point to see if Capitol Police and the FBI can keep Democrats safe from Trump fans.