Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

The Justice Department, recognizing that Trump's "special master" nonsense is a ploy to stop the entire classified document scandal investigation in its tracks, is now playing Bonus Overtime Hardball, issuing dozens of subpoenas against Trump regime crooks on the other big investigation into Trump's criminal wrongdoing on January 6th.

The Justice Department has issued about 40 subpoenas over the past week seeking information about the actions of former President Donald J. Trump and his associates related to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to people familiar with the situation.

Two top Trump advisers, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman, had their phones seized as evidence, those people said.

The department’s actions represent a substantial escalation of a slow-simmer investigation two months before the midterm elections, coinciding with a separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents at his residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

Among those the department has contacted since Wednesday are people who are close to the former president and have played significant roles in his post-White House life.

Those receiving the subpoenas included Dan Scavino, Mr. Trump’s former social media director who rose from working at a Trump-owned golf course to one of his most loyal aides and has remained an adviser since Mr. Trump left office. Stanley Woodward, one of Mr. Scavino’s lawyers, declined to comment.

The Justice Department also executed search warrants to seize electronic devices from people involved in the so-called fake electors effort in swing states, including Mr. Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser, and Mr. Roman, a campaign strategist, according to people familiar with the events. Federal agents made the seizures last week, the people said.

Mr. Epshteyn and Mr. Roman did not respond to requests for comment.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who promoted baseless claims of voter fraud alongside his friend Rudolph W. Giuliani, was issued a subpoena by prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said on Monday. Mr. Parlatore said his client had initially offered to grant an interview voluntarily.

The subpoenas seek information in connection with the plan to submit slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump from swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 election. Mr. Trump and his allies promoted the idea that competing slates of electors would justify blocking or delaying certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a new line of inquiry, some of the subpoenas also seek information into the activities of the Save America political action committee, the main political fund-raising conduit for Mr. Trump since he left office.

 

Merrick Garland is sick of your shit, Donny.

Insurrection Investigation, GOP Edition

House Republicans are promising that there will be a "real" January 6th investigation, if they take control of the House, focusing on how everything was Nancy Pelosi's fault or something for not doing a better job of oversight of the Capitol Police.

Even after some of their members took heat for downplaying the violent reality of the Capitol attack, House Republicans are sticking with their take on Jan. 6, 2021 — pivoting away from Donald Trump and toward security failures.

GOP lawmakers, if they flip the chamber in November, are planning to use their new power to search for more answers on security lapses related to the siege by Trump supporters and how the Capitol Police has adjusted in wake of the breach. Republicans also want to look at restructuring the secretive board that governs the protection of the Capitol complex.

While past investigations by the Senate and Capitol Police inspector general have thoroughly explored many of those areas and made a laundry list of recommendations to bolster security, not to mention a forthcoming report from the Democratic-run Jan. 6 select committee, House GOP lawmakers are determined to run their own, Trump-free inquiry.

It’s a contradictory turn for a conference that has struggled for a successful message defending Trump against revelations already uncovered by the select panel, instead largely urging Washington to move on. But after two years of being on the outside looking in —Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled his picks from the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of them — House Republicans are eager to flip the script.

“I think it’s been very well-documented that there were significant intelligence and communications failures on Jan. 6. It’s not the first time we’ve had those issues,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who voted to certify President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win, said in an interview. “We have to stop that.”

Though House Republicans have stayed almost completely out of the ongoing Jan. 6 probe, they’ve quietly laid the groundwork for changes to the Capitol’s security apparatus that would take effect much more quickly than the investigations they plan to mount.

For example, they want to get rid of the metal detectors installed around the House floor after Jan. 6 that have fueled GOP ire and resulted in hefty fines for lawmakers who tried to dodge them. They are also eager to reopen the Capitol complex, which still has restrictions in place after shuttering at the start of the pandemic. Armstrong noted while many of his colleagues will look back at Jan. 6, his focus is on how the building operates moving forward on a “general 11 a.m. on a Wednesday.”

But more central to the party’s 2023 plans is a report, slated for release later this year by a group of Republicans led by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — who is eyeing his own jump to leadership — that urges changes to the management and structure of Capitol security.

Banks, who supported pro-Trump election objections, said that the report he’s helming “will make recommendations to the next speaker … on how to provide better leadership and oversight of the Capitol Police.”

 

House Republicans are very eager to roll back all the Capitol security improvements, because after all, it's not like MAGA terrorists would attack the building if Republicans were in charge of the House. They're no longer necessary, you see.

Also, they want to "reform" the Capitol Police and make sure they can never be used against, say, MTG waving a gun around at Democrats on the House floor. And hey, what if Democrats need arresting?

Gotta keep those options open, you see.

Democracy in Danger, Con't

A new Axios/Two Americas Index poll finds that roughly a third of Americans are very, very much into fascism these days in both parties, or at least strongly into anti-democratic authoritarianism.

About one in three Americans prefers strong unelected leaders to weak elected leaders and says presidents should be able to remove judges over their decisions, according to the latest findings from our Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index.

Why it matters: The findings from this poll shatter the myth that Americans overwhelmingly agree on a common set of democratic values around checks and balances on elected leaders, protection of minority rights and freedom of speech. 

They're also a reality check against President Biden's speech that portrayed threats to democracy as solely driven by Republican supporters of former President Trump who refuse to accept that he lost the 2020 election.

What we're watching: In this poll, significant minorities of Republicans and Democrats supported non-democratic norms in about equal percentages — and Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say presidents should be able to remove judges when their decisions go against the national interest.Many Americans also believe the government should follow the will of the majority even at the expense of ethnic and religious minority groups' civil rights. 

And roughly a third said the federal government should be able to prosecute members of the news media who make offensive or unpatriotic statements. 

Respondents younger than 35 or with household incomes below $75,000 a year were more likely to favor strong unelected leaders and to support prosecuting the media or empowering presidents to remove judges.

The big picture: If you're looking for good news in this poll, it is primarily that the people who embrace the anti-democratic views are still in the minority.But the findings are a reminder that for all of the attention and congressional hearings around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, anti-democratic views take many forms.

What they're saying: "There's a lot of anti-democratic sentiment, a lot more than we might have expected," said Justin Gest, an associate professor at George Mason University who studies the politics of demographic change and advises the project.

 

No doubt Republicans will seize on this poll to say that Democrats are just as bad as MAGA folks when it comes to trampling all over democracy, as long as it serves as a means to an end for "our side". If there is any good news, it's that Independent voters are starting to shy away from the extremist MAGA positions.

 

Still, there a lot of disturbing stuff in that Two Americas index, and it's getting worse.

 

 

Last Call For The Warren Terrah Continues

Warren Terrah is now old enough to buy booze and AR-15s.

 

President Joe Biden marked the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, laying a wreath at the Pentagon in a somber commemoration held under a steady rain and paying tribute to “extraordinary Americans” who gave their lives on one of the nation’s darkest days.

Sunday’s ceremony occurred a little more than a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.


Biden noted that even after the United States left Afghanistan that his administration continues to pursue those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Last month, Biden announced the U.S. had killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the Al-Qaida leader who helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks, in a clandestine operation.

We will never forget, we will never give up,” Biden said. “Our commitment to preventing another attack on the United States is without end.”

The president was joined by family members of the fallen, first responders who had been at the Pentagon on the day of the attack, as well as Defense Department leadership for the annual moment of tribute carried out in New York City, the Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

“We owe you an incredible, incredible debt,” Biden said.

In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country’s longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport, and thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush. 

 

The Afghanistan phase of Warren Terrah is over, the Bipartisan Forever Wherever Terrah May Be War Phase is basically getting underway for the next two decades. I wonder what we would have done with the $8 trillion we spent?

 

Becoming a global leader in the 21st century, instead of Bush wrecking everything and leaving it to Obama, who stayed another 8 years and gave it to Trump.  

Oh, what could have been.

Thanks Scalia!

 

Sunday Long Read: Toying Around For Years

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from Matthew Braga at The Walrus Magazine, who asks the question: What makes a game or toy stand the test of decades like the classics have: Monopoly, Lite-Brite, Spirograph, Yahtzee and more?

IFRAH ABID’S eight-year-old son, Moosa, loves The Avengers. He’s obsessed with his Iron Man action figure and can talk at length about its many suits. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Tooba, meanwhile, went through a Roblox phase, playing a video game that’s all the rage with kids her age. But, early in the pandemic, when everyone was spending more time together at home, Abid went looking for something the whole family could enjoy. “[Millennial parents] don’t know about new toys,” said Abid, who lives in Kitchener, Ontario, and is host and producer of the interview podcast Across Her Table, which focuses on women with immigrant roots. “We were like, ‘Let’s go back to what we know.’” She thought back to her own childhood, to those old games the family played while crowded around the table—Monopoly, Pictionary, Uno. She decided to try to introduce them to her kids. Now Moosa and Tooba love them too.

It was a similar story for Robert Lee and his two daughters. Allie is six, Annie is four, and they both love all things Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, and Baby Shark. But, for Christmas two years ago, their mother bought them a Lite-Brite and a Spirograph—simple art toys invented back in the ’60s that she remembered from her own early years. These weren’t the toys that Lee’s daughters typically saw in the YouTube videos they watched. They didn’t have flashy advertising campaigns or tie-in television shows, meaning the kids would never think to ask for them on their own. But Allie and Annie loved playing with them all the same.

Kids get older, and fads come and go. But some toys persist, almost stubbornly—artifacts passing from one generation to the next. In the toy business, these products are considered “classics.” It’s an amorphous category filled with all sorts of games and toys that have just a few things in common: namely, they are survivors in an industry where trends rule all. The Rubik’s Cube is, in many ways, the perfect example of a classic toy. More than 450 million are estimated to have been sold since 1978, with up to tens of millions of units still moving in a year. Etch A Sketch (180 million sold since 1960), Lego, Potato Head, Barbie, and, of course, Play-Doh are classics too. These toys are instantly recognizable but rarely advertised. They’re often low tech or analog. In fact, in a world full of screens, their tactility is increasingly part of the draw. Often, classic toys encourage what academics say is high-quality play, like problem solving or imaginative thinking. And, as some experts have found, such toys are highly nostalgic—conjuring warm, fuzzy memories in the parents who do the buying. This is how toys turn into tradition.

In 2016, Jane Eva Baxter published an article in the International Journal of Play that considered the role of nostalgia in keeping two particular items alive: the rotary-style Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone and wearable Mickey Mouse ears. Toys, she wrote, are often thought of as tools of preparation. It’s the reason parents buy Lego (to encourage creativity and cognitive thinking) or dolls (to simulate caregiving). It’s why most daycares and kindergarten classes have colourful blocks with the alphabet printed on the sides: to teach, to set kids up for future success.

But learning and development can’t be the only reason certain toys stick around, wrote Baxter, who is chair of the anthropology department at Chicago’s DePaul University and an archaeologist and historian of childhood. After all, here were two items—a rotary phone and mouse ears—that have persisted despite having no clear connection with the present. “The emotional connection adults have to this iconic toy has kept it in the marketplace despite the fact that a rotary-dial landline phone is technologically irrelevant for children today,” Baxter wrote. The same could be said of Mickey Mouse ears. The toy hasn’t appeared on TV as much in recent years, is no longer featured prominently in Disney’s theme parks, and is based on a character who is “increasingly peripheral to the Disney brand.”

Speaking from her home in Chicago, Baxter explains that parents, not toy producers, were the ones driving these sales. “There is this nostalgic element of either wanting to share something from their own childhood or give something that they felt they lacked in their childhood, because they think it will be good,” Baxter says. Especially now, in a largely digital world, there is something about these analog toys “that parents see as desirable for their children [and] that we find desirable for ourselves.” In fact, when Fisher-Price tried to modernize its iconic toy phone by removing the rotary dial, there was a consumer revolt, and sales fell. Nostalgia, Baxter concluded, is what keeps certain toys alive.

If you’re Toronto-based Spin Master, one of the largest toy makers in the world, nostalgia is also good for business. Founded in 1994 by two recent graduates from Western University, Spin Master quickly made a name for itself creating playground fads. One early success was 1997’s Air Hogs, a pump-powered, hand-thrown plane that could fly the length of a football field on nothing more than pressurized air. Then there was Bakugan, a 2007 mania centred on battling creatures from another dimension (think a mash-up of Pokémon, Transformers, and Yu-Gi-Oh), which involved an anime series, collectible trading cards, transforming toys, and a board game.

And, of course, there’s Paw Patrol. Created in 2013, Spin Master’s star franchise follows the adventures of a group of rescue dogs and their leader, a human boy named Ryder. Paw Patrol has spanned nine TV seasons, a Hollywood film (the second is now on the way), and, most importantly, a sprawling line of toys, merchandise, and games. The brand practically prints money for Spin Master, which today is worth around $4.4 billion and has 2,000 employees spread across nearly twenty countries.

But the company learned an important lesson from Bakugan, which had generated more than $1 billion in toy sales by 2014, before its popularity started to wane: what goes up eventually comes down, especially when it comes to fickle young audiences. That’s where the classic toys come in. Having one of these brands in your portfolio is every sales department’s dream. They practically sell themselves. 

 

Toys and games are worth billions, because we love to play. Nostalgia has always been a big seller. And it will continue to be for a long time to come.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Ukrainian forces have punched through Russian front lines near Kharkiv this week as Vlad's boys were concentrating on defending Kherson to the south.

 

Western defense officials and analysts on Saturday said they believed Ukraine had punched through Russian front lines south of the country’s second-largest city, taking thousands of square miles of territory and threatening to cut off Russian supply lines.

The British Defense Ministry in an online briefing said it believed the Ukrainians had advanced as much as 30 miles in the advance south of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.

The advance appears to be around Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. The British described Russian forces around Izyum as “increasingly isolated.”

“Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,” the British military said.

It added that the nearby town of Kupiansk also appeared to be pressured by Ukrainian forces, and that its loss would greatly affect Russian supply lines in the area.

An image circulated on social media Saturday appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers in front of a main government building in Kupiansk, some 45 miles north of Izyum.

The image showed soldiers displaying the flag of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Battalion of Ukraine in front of a building that resembled Kupiansk’s city council building, which sits just along the Oskil River.

Ukraine’s military has not yet acknowledged entering the city, though it comes amid a several days of apparent gains by the Ukrainians south of Kharkiv.

A Washington-based think tank likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains on Saturday, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 965 square miles in its northeastern breakthrough.

The Institute for the Study of War said in a report that it appeared that “disorganized Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance.” They cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized in the advance around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The same report said that Ukrainian forces “may collapse Russian positions around Izyum if they sever Russian ground lines of communication” north and south of the town.

The fighting in the east comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in southern Ukraine. Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce around Kherson, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line.

 

After months of grinding fighting in the Russian-occupied Donbas region, the Fellas have finally knocked the Russkies on their asses in a major way. Lawrence Freedman explains what's next:

Russia is losing but it has not yet lost. It still occupies a large chunk of Ukrainian territory and still has substantial military assets in the country. As I have argued regularly in these posts wars can take unexpected turns, as we have just seen. Calamitous miscalculations as well as audacious manoeuvres can transform the character of a conflict. There is always a risk of analyses getting too far ahead, jumping from the current state of affairs to the next and beyond and then asking what happens in purely hypothetical situations. Earlier in the summer there was a tendency to assume that the coming months would be dominated either by more gruelling Russian offensives as in the Donbas or perhaps a stalemate, so that the war could last months or even years. This stalemate philosophy still persists, not least because it is hard to even contemplate such a great military power being humbled.

So while the situation is far more positive for Ukraine the same cautions about extrapolating too far ahead must apply. Even if Kharkiv is completely liberated there will still be much to do. In the Kherson Oblast the other offensive is also developing and taking shape. This has so far been in the ‘slow grind’ category though it is picking up pace and more encirclement operations are possible there. The Russians must now be worrying about their position in Donetsk. Unresolved is the extraordinarily dangerous situation at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. This is an unsustainable situation, one the Director-General of the IAEA has described as ‘precarious’ as the plant’s offsite power has been turned off and it is still being shelled.

The initiative is now firmly with Ukraine. The experience of the last few days will create doubts in the minds of Russian commanders about the reliability and resilience of their troops, and add to the predicaments they already face when working out how to allocate their increasingly scarce resources of manpower, intelligence assets and airpower. Might they risk a repeat of this operational disaster if they move forces to plug one gap only for another to open up? How much more can they expect from their forces, many who will now have been fighting for long weeks without respite and without much to show for their efforts? By contrast, there will have been a boost to the morale of even the more beleaguered Ukrainian forces (and as the Washington Post reports some of their units have also had a tough time). There may also have been a boost to their capabilities from supplies of equipment and ammunition captured in Kharkiv.

There is now talk of defeat on the Russian side. There was no sense of this in President Putin’s insouciant remarks at the Vladivostok economic forum, with Russia’s isolation symbolised by the lack of international presence (Myanmar, Chinese and Armenian representatives turned up). He claimed that nothing had been lost by the war and sovereignty had been gained as if his desire to intensify autocracy and achieve autarky in the name of self-reliance has been worth the tens of thousands of Russians dead, wounded, and taken prisoner, and the years of defence production and economic modernisation up in smoke. His forces might stabilise the situation, at least away from Kharkiv, and provide more breathing space while he hopes Europe’s economic pain leads them to abandon Ukraine. But as I argued in my last post that is unlikely to happen, and he may now have less time than he thought to find out.

Because of the opacity of Putin’s decision-making and his delusional recent utterances, presenting Russia as the keeper of some core civilisational values, there is no suggestion that he has reached the point where he can acknowledge the position into which he has led his country. Prudence therefore requires us to assume that this war will not be over soon. But nor should it blind us to the possibility that events might move far faster than we assumed – first gradually, and then suddenly.

 

This was what Ukraine needed to stay in this war, and more importantly, to convince the EU to stay in this war, despite the very real issues of winter only a few months away and most of the EU facing a looming power crisis that could threaten stability across the region as Russia cut off natural gas supplies completely last weekend.

It's the crack in the wall that Ukraine needed, however.

Watch them Fellas go!

Last Call For The Klep-Trump-Cracy, Con't

The first round in, as far as I can tell, the sixth? Seventh? Grand Jury Investigation into Donald Trump's criminal wrongdoing while in office subpoenas have gone out to Trump regime scumbuckets this week over Trump's 2020 political PAC/slush fund, and they include Trump Secretary of Racism Stephen Miller, and Trump's insurrection-era political director, GOP fixer Brian Jack.

 

The Justice Department has subpoenaed two former top White House political advisers under President Donald J. Trump as part of a widening investigation related to Mr. Trump’s post-election fund-raising and plans for so-called fake electors, according to people briefed on the matter.

Brian Jack, the final White House political director under Mr. Trump, and Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s top speechwriter and a senior policy adviser, were among more than a dozen people connected to the former president to receive subpoenas from a federal grand jury this week.

The subpoenas seek information in connection with the Save America political action committee and the plan to submit slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump from swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 election. Mr. Trump and his allies promoted the idea that competing slates of electors would justify blocking or delaying certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

A lawyer for Mr. Miller declined to comment. Mr. Jack, who remains an adviser to Mr. Trump as well as to Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, and several other House Republicans, declined to comment.

A subpoena does not indicate someone is under investigation, but the Justice Department may send one to people from whom it is seeking information.

The subpoenas were issued to a wide range of people who either worked in the White House or on the Trump campaign, including senior officials like the campaign’s chief financial officer; personal aides to Mr. Trump; and the former chief of staff to Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter who also served as one of his senior advisers.

The Save America PAC was formed soon after Election Day in 2020, as Mr. Trump aggressively raised money on his baseless claims of an election “stolen” through widespread voting fraud.

 

So add another grand jury to the pile of grand juries.

God I hope one of them sticks.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

Another Trump sycophant crapping out a book full of information that if brought to light earlier may have helped mitigate the damage from Tang The Conqueror's reign, another Trump lackey trying to make a buck off the misery they enabled.

A book by a former top federal prosecutor offers new details about how the Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump sought to use the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to support Mr. Trump politically and pursue his critics — even pushing the office to open a criminal investigation of former secretary of state John Kerry.

The prosecutor, Geoffrey S. Berman, was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for two and a half years until June 2020, when Mr. Trump fired him after he refused a request to resign by Attorney General William P. Barr, who sought to replace him with an administration ally.

A copy of Mr. Berman’s book, “Holding the Line,” was obtained by The New York Times before its scheduled publication Tuesday.

The book paints a picture of Justice Department officials motivated by partisan concerns in pursuing investigations or blocking them; in weighing how forthright to be in court filings; and in shopping investigations to other prosecutors’ offices when the Southern District declined to act.

The book contains accounts of how department officials tried to have allusions to Mr. Trump scrubbed from charging papers for Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and how the attorney general later tried to have his conviction reversed. It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.

And in September 2018, Mr. Berman writes, two months before the November midterms, a senior department official called Mr. Berman’s deputy, cited the Southern District’s recent prosecutions of two prominent Trump loyalists, and bluntly asserted that the office, which had been investigating Gregory B. Craig, a powerful Democratic lawyer, should charge him — and should do so before Election Day.

“It’s time for you guys to even things out,” the official said, according to Mr. Berman.

The book comes as Mr. Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland of using the Justice Department as a weapon after a judge authorized FBI agents to search his Florida house for missing classified records. Mr. Trump, who is a likely presidential candidate in 2024, has suggested without evidence that President Biden is playing a role in that investigation.

However, Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, department officials made “overtly political” demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.

In the book, Mr. Berman, who as U.S. attorney did not give news interviews, offers new details about the high-profile prosecutions of defendants like Mr. Cohen; Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from New York; Michael Avenatti, the celebrity attorney and Trump antagonist; and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier.

He says there were cases his office pursued without pressure from Washington, but in others, he makes clear his greatest challenges did not always have to do with the law.

“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Mr. Berman, 62, writes, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”

“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” writes Mr. Berman, who is now in private practice. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”

 

This information would have been valuable to the country in 2018. It coming out now as part of a tell-all book is pretty awful. Being ordered to bring charges against a political enemy and being fired for refusing to do it, well, I'm sure Democrats would have loved to hear from Mr. Berman in January 2019 or so as to why Bill Barr fired him.

 

It's all about that filthy lucre though, isn't it?

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, 2022 Edition

The dirty GOP tricks shop Project Veritas is trying to claim their Democratic Senate candidates for this fall now that primaries are over, and of course their first target is a Black woman, South Carolina Democrat Rep. Krystle Matthews.

 

The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents.

The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge.

Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that she represents a “mostly white” district, adding, of white voters: “I keep them right here — like under my thumbs. ... Otherwise, they get out of control — like kids.”

“You ought to know who you’re dealing with,” Matthews goes on to say. “You’ve got to treat them like s—-. That’s the only way they’ll respect you.”

In a statement, Matthews acknowledged her voice on the recording, calling Project Veritas a “satirical MAGA Powered news outlet.”

The compilation also features more of Matthews’ conversation, parts of which were previously published by Project Veritas, in which she spoke to an inmate about funding her campaign with “dope boy money” and having Democrats run as Republicans, saying “secret sleepers” represent “the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South Carolina.”

 

I figured James O'Keefe would be in prison by now, but he has high-powered GOP lawyers with deep pockets to give him enough cover to keep harassing Democrats, and you'd think Democrats would be wise to the idea by now.  Sadly, Democratic candidates for office should consider their conversations in public spaces to be taped by GOP operatives unless otherwise proven clear.

 

It's a rookie mistake that will almost certainly cost Matthews her entire political career because Black women have no room for error in America, especially in the political arena.

It's entirely unfair, and Matthews is correct in her assessments, but nobody on the Red Team side wants any truths of facts except their own lies, and anyone who speaks them gets crucified.

Look how quickly South Carolina Democrats are abandoning her. One party still responds to shaming. The other party is fascist garbage, without an ounce of it.

They will get wins because of it, and already have.

 

 

Last Call For Just Like Old Times

With 73% support overall, 71% among Dems, 75% among the GOP, and 75% among independents, Americans seem to think putting an age limit on politicians is a really, really good idea.

 

We live in an era of stark political division, but there's at least one aspect of politics both sides agree on: a maximum age limit for elected officials. Most feel that after a certain age they should not be permitted to hold office.

There isn't just agreement across political lines, but across demographic groups, like age, too. Young and old, including seniors, favor maximum age limits for elected officials.

And far more Americans believe additional young people in elected office would be a positive for U.S. politics than a negative.

So what should that age be? When offered a list of ages, Age 70 is the top answer chosen. This is older than the current average age of members of Congress, but about a third of current U.S. senators are 70 years of age or older.

While young and old alike think elected officials should not be permitted to serve after a certain age, younger Americans are a bit more likely than older people to put that maximum age at 60 years old.

 

Some 74% collectively believe politicians should be out of office by age 70 or earlier. 

That'll never happen, but I tend to agree.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Turns out Donald Trump may have been keeping classified documents relating to his Russian collusion in his pool closet, in an effort to use them as leverage against the Justice Department investigation into his dealings with Moscow.

 

IN HIS FINAL days in the White House, Donald Trump told top advisers he needed to preserve certain Russia-related documents to keep his enemies from destroying them.

The documents related to the federal investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged collusion with Trump’s campaign. At the end of his presidency, Trump and his team pushed to declassify these so-called “Russiagate” documents, believing they would expose a “Deep State” plot against him.

According to a person with direct knowledge of the situation and another source briefed on the matter, Trump told several people working in and outside the White House that he was concerned Joe Biden’s incoming administration — or the “Deep State” — would supposedly “shred,” bury, or destroy “the evidence” that Trump was somehow wronged.

Trump’s concern about preserving the Russia-related material is newly relevant after an FBI search turned up a trove of government documents at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Since the search, Trump has refused to say which classified government papers and top-secret documents he had at Mar-a-Lago and what was the FBI had seized. (Trump considers the documents “mine” and has directed his lawyers to make that widely-panned argument in court.) The feds have publicly released little about the search and its results. It’s unclear if any of the materials in Trump’s document trove are related to Russia or the election interference investigation. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

But both Trump and his former Director of National Intelligence have hinted that Russia-related documents could be among the materials the FBI sought. “I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” Trump said during a Sept. 1 radio interview. “They were afraid that things were in there — part of their scam material.”

Former DNI John Ratcliffe told CBS days earlier that, while he had no knowledge of what was in the records, “It wouldn’t surprise me if there were records related to [Russia] there.” 

 

Yet another motive for Trump stealing classified documents. This keeps getting worse for him.

 

In a memo to the acting attorney general and intelligence officials sent the day before Trump left office, he claimed the Justice Department had sent him a binder of materials on the FBI’s so-called “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation in late December 2020. The department sent Trump that information, he claimed, “so I could determine to what extent materials in the binder should be released in unclassified form.”

The materials included “transcripts of intercepts made by the FBI of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court, and the tasking orders and debriefings of the two main confidential human sources, Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper,” according to John Solomon, Trump’s representative to the National Archives.

Trump White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows later wrote in his memoir that he “personally went through every page” of the documents to make sure the declassified portions didn’t “disclose sources and methods” and described his frustration by what he considered “push back” from the Department of Justice and FBI. 

Meadows and Trump worked to release the material up until “minutes before” Biden’s inauguration. Trump sent a memo on Jan. 19 accepting the FBI’s redactions and ordering declassification. Meadows sent a followup memo on Biden’s inauguration day. The material was never released publicly. But in a series of podcast interviews recorded before the FBI search, former Nunes and Trump official Kash Patel shed some light on the administration’s broader plans. He claimed Trump had asked him to help retrieve and publish so-called “Russiagate” material the White House counsel’s office had sent to the National Archives in the last days of the administration.

 

If Trump had "classified evidence" of a plot against him, don't you think he would have used it before now?

 

Just because he stole classified documents that he thinks are evidence, doesn't mean they are evidence.

But boy, suddenly this explains why Trump would refuse to give up his stolen goods, doesn't it?

Stealing documents like these is not an accident, not an oversight, not about a debate over whether they were Trump’s or not—which is how Trump’s defenders have sought to frame the discussion. There is simply no defense for this. The punishment for stealing such secrets (even if no one else ever saw them) is and should be severe.

The risk involved in taking these documents and then lying about having them is extraordinarily high. Therefore, the decision to do so must have been carefully made, even by a reckless narcissist like Trump. As such, there must have been a careful calculus made to take and hold these ultra-sensitive secrets.

It is essential that we find out why he took them, why he lied about having them, why he did not return them when subpoenaed, who may have seen them, whether copies were made, whether there are other such documents in his possession, and much much more. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Indeed, contrary to the measured pace of the investigation to date, when documents like these are stolen the issue must shift from caution and deference to a former president to swift containment of what could be a grievous national security breach. It is time for action and the severest penalties the law allows.

As a consequence, and given the gravity of Trump’s almost certain crimes, this moment presents a new and defining test for Attorney General Merrick Garland. It also presents one for President Joe Biden and for our justice system. There are no close calls here, and the costs of inaction, slow action, or tentativeness are incalculably high. Indeed, it is important to accept and acknowledge that these revelations, should they be true, make it clear that the “go slow” approach of the Department of Justice has proven to be ill-considered. Very ill-considered.

Much as Judge Cannon has erroneously argued should be done (a fact acknowledged even by Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr), the Justice Department has treated Trump as though he were due special treatment. The DOJ has gone slow. It has given him multiple opportunities to resolve the issues associated with these documents that would not be afforded to any of us.

Perhaps that would be understandable were Trump any other president. Perhaps that would be understandable had Robert Mueller not found a strong case to be made that Trump serially obstructed justice. Perhaps that would be understandable were Trump not responsible for a deadly coup attempt that culminated in an armed assault on the U.S. Capitol.

It seems far-fetched that such a man should be granted special courtesies, that his word and assurances should be accepted at face value, and that arguments that he had special prerogatives long denied other presidents by the courts should be considered. But once it became clear that he was likely in violation of the Espionage Act, likely obstructing justice, and likely putting the lives of our human intelligence assets at risk, it should have been clear that the time for deference to this one-man assault on our interests and values should have come to an end.

 

The issue remains that the kind of documents Trump supposedly stole would be worth, you know, billions to the right people as well.

We're in solid traitor territory, folks.

BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth II Passes At 96

Britain's longest-reigning monarch has died today, with her family in Scotland's Balmoral Castle.

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch whose rule spanned seven decades, died on Thursday at the age of 96, Buckingham Palace has announced. 

Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1952, on the death of her father, King George VI. She oversaw the last throes of the British empire, weathered global upheaval and domestic scandal, and dramatically modernized the monarchy.

She died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland after doctors said they had become concerned about her health on Thursday. 

Elizabeth ruled over the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms, and became one of the most recognizable women ever to have lived. Her son, Charles, immediately became King upon her death.

 

She ruled as long as the Zandarparents have been alive, and *that* always throws me for a loop.

 

We now enter the era of King Charles.

 

Press The Meat, Con't

A disgraced former Clark County Democrat is the prime suspect in this week's murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German.

 

Less than a day after asking for the public’s help in identifying a suspect in the stabbing death of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, police served a search warrant Wednesday at the home of Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles.

The search marked a stunning development in the police investigation because it indicated for the first time that the killing might be related to German’s work exposing public wrongdoing. German’s investigation of Telles this year contributed to the Democrat’s primary election loss, and German was working on a potential follow-up story about Telles the week he was killed.

Tuesday afternoon, police released photos of a vehicle tied to the homicide suspect: a red or maroon GMC Yukon Denali. Later that evening, Review-Journal reporters observed Telles in the driveway of his home, standing next to a vehicle matching that description.

Police arrived at Telles’ home in the western valley around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday and blocked off nearby streets. Shortly before 9 a.m., police released a statement saying they were “currently serving search warrants” in connection with the homicide investigation.

“No further information will be provided at this time,” police said in the statement.

Detectives interviewed Telles during the search of his home, according to authorities.

The GMC vehicle and a second vehicle were towed from Telles’ property at about 12:50 p.m on Wednesday. The residence is less than 6 miles from the home where German was found dead on Saturday.

Attempts to reach Telles for comment on Wednesday were not successful. When he arrived home at about 2:20 p.m., he was wearing what appeared to be a white hazmat suit. He did not respond to reporters’ questions as he entered his garage and closed the door.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to comment on the homicide investigation.

German spent months reporting on the turmoil surrounding Telles’ oversight of the public administrator’s office.

The 45-year-old Democrat lost his re-election bid in June’s primary after German’s findings were published. German also had recently filed public records requests for emails and text messages between Telles and three other county officials: Assistant Public Administrator Rita Reid, estate coordinator Roberta Lee-Kennett and consultant Michael Murphy. Lee-Kennett was identified in previous stories as a subordinate staffer allegedly involved in an “inappropriate relationship” with Telles.

German, 69, was found dead on Saturday morning outside his northwest Las Vegas home, the Metropolitan Police Department reported. Police said they believe he was fatally stabbed during an altercation the day before.

 

This case seems open and shut.

 

For all the dangerous rhetoric from Republicans about hanging reporters from trees as "enemies of the people" it was almost certainly an elected Democrat that actually murdered a reporter over having his criminal actions exposed.

 

A man is dead as a result. Cue Republicans wailing about "Biden's stochastic terrorist speech" last week.

 

It's a sober reminder that our side is far from perfect, but we can't let the perfect become the enemy of the good, either.

Racist Bannon Meets His Match

Trump Regime Secretary of Racism Steve Bannon has beaten Mueller's federal charges after being pardoned by Trump, and beaten the January 6th Committee by stalling out his conviction on Contempt of Congress by tying it up in the courts until the Committee runs out of authority at the end of the year. He's currently a free man as a result...and all that changes tomorrow when Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg gets his hands on his dirty ass and tosses him in the slammer on state fraud charges.

 

Stephen K. Bannon is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday to face a new criminal indictment, people familiar with the matter said, weeks after he was convicted of contempt of Congress and nearly two years after he received a federal pardon from President Donald Trump in a federal fraud case.

The precise details of the state case could not be confirmed Tuesday evening. But people familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sealed indictment, suggested the prosecution will likely mirror aspects of the federal case in which Bannon was pardoned.

In that indictment, prosecutors alleged that Bannon and several others defrauded contributors to a private, $25 million fundraising effort, called “We Build the Wall,” taking funds that donors were told would support construction of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which handles state-level prosecutions, has been evaluating Bannon’s alleged involvement in that scheme since shortly after Trump pardoned him, The Washington Post reported in February, 2021.

Presidential pardons only apply to federal charges and cannot prohibit state prosecutions.

Bannon, a former top strategist for Trump who was briefly a White House aide, pleaded not guilty to the federal charges in August 2020, after authorities pulled him off a luxury yacht and brought him to court. He was accused of pocketing $1 million in the scheme.

Months later, in the last hours of his presidency, Trump included Bannon on a sweeping clemency list of about 140 people.

Two other men, including disabled veteran Brian Kolfage, pleaded guilty in federal court in connection with the fundraising scheme. A trial involving a third alleged participant, Timothy Shea, ended in a mistrial in June when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

 

It took 18 months, but Bannon's going to finally face the music. No doubt Bannon is surrendering tomorrow because he wants to plea bargain his way out, and maybe, just maybe, Bragg's price will be for Bannon to give up info on Trump in time for next month's NY state trial against the Trump Organization. 

 

We'll see.

That's The Sound Of The Police, Con't

Why yes, Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem™ is currently powered by your local police department, and it has been for quite some time.

 

The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.

It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.

The data raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the U.S. It’s especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.

“Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report says.

Appearing in the Oath Keepers’ database doesn’t prove that a person was ever an active member of the group or shares its ideology. Some people on the list contacted by The Associated Press said they were briefly members years ago and are no longer affiliated with the group. Some said they were never dues-paying members.

“Their views are far too extreme for me,” said Shawn Mobley, sheriff of Otero County, Colorado. Mobley told the AP in an email that he distanced himself from the Oath Keepers years ago over concerns about its involvement in the standoff against the federal government at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, among other things.

The Oath Keepers, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, is a loosely organized conspiracy theory-fueled group that recruits current and former military, police and first responders. It asks its members to vow to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” promotes the belief that the federal government is out to strip citizens of their civil liberties and paints its followers as defenders against tyranny.

More than two dozen people associated with the Oath Keepers — including Rhodes — have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Rhodes and four other Oath Keeper members or associates are heading to trial this month on seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors have described as a weekslong plot to keep then-President Donald Trump in power. Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers say that they are innocent and that there was no plan to attack the Capitol.

 

"Not all cops!" are Oath Keepers of course, but a hell of a lot of Oath Keepers are current or former law enforcement officers (and current/former military). And a hell of a lot of Oath Keepers are terrorist seditionists, and a hell of a lot of Oath Keepers are running for office as Republicans.

 

All cops are still bastards though.