A Veteran Disappointment

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie is under withering fire from veterans' advocacy groups over a recent government watchdog report that accuses him of botching an investigation into sexual assault allegations at the department.

Four of the nation’s biggest veterans groups on Friday called for the immediate dismissal of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie following a scathing government audit that found he had acted unprofessionally if not unethically in the handling of a congressional aide’s allegation of sexual assault at a VA hospital.

Veterans of Foreign Wars joined Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans and AMVETS in saying Wilkie had breached the trust of veterans. In the final weeks of the Trump administration, they said they had lost all confidence that he can effectively lead the department, which is responsible for the care of nine million veterans.

“The accountability, professionalism and respect that our veterans have earned, and quite frankly deserve, is completely lost in this current VA leadership team,” said B.J. Lawrence, executive director of VFW, the nation’s oldest veterans group.

“Our veterans cannot wait until Jan. 20, 2021, for a leadership change,” he said. “Secretary Wilkie must resign now.”

An investigation by the Veterans Affairs’ inspector general on Thursday concluded that Wilkie repeatedly sought to discredit Andrea Goldstein, a senior policy adviser to Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, who is chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, after she alleged in September 2019 that a man at the VA medical center in Washington, D.C., had physically assaulted her.

The inspector general found that Wilkie’s disparaging comments about Goldstein, a Navy veteran, as a repeat complainer as well as the overall “tone” he set influenced his staff to spread negative information about her while ignoring known problems of harassment at the facility.

Wilkie and other senior officials had declined to fully cooperate with the investigation by VA Inspector General Michael Missal. For that reason, Missal said he could not conclude whether Wilkie had violated government policies or laws, allegedly by personally digging into the woman’s past. Wilkie denied wrongdoing.

“We’ve had our concerns about Wilkie’s leadership throughout the pandemic and this IG report really cements the fact that the VA is not being led with integrity,” said Jeremy Butler, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “That calls for an immediate change.”

The report on Thursday drew widespread concern from lawmakers from both parties about VA’s leadership, with Takano the first to call for Wilkie’s resignation. Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative group who supported Wilkie when he became VA secretary in 2018, chided Wilkie and his team, stressing that “VA leaders should always put the veteran and the integrity of the institution ahead of themselves.”

 

But of course the report finds that Wilkie's campaign to discredit Andrea Goldstein was also helped by Republicans, in particular, Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw, also under pressure to resign.

 

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Tx., told Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie that a Navy veteran who reported a sexual assault at a VA hospital had filed frivolous allegations when they served in the same unit, according to multiple senior officials in an internal investigation report released yesterday.

The report outlines a number of "troubling" issues with the department's handling of the assault investigation, including testimony that Wilkie had disparaged the woman after looking into her background himself. Pressure from the top of the agency also allegedly prompted VA police to investigate the victim.

However, the report, issued by the office of VA Inspector General (OIG) Michael Missal, could not corroborate any wrongdoing because the secretary and top staff would not cooperate with investigators, and neither would Crenshaw. Missal concluded that Wilkie and senior officials showed "a lack of genuine commitment" that jeopardized a "safe and welcoming environment" for accusers.

It would not be the first time Wilkie withheld inconvenient information: In 2019, CNN reported that, in violation of Senate rules, Wilkie had failed to disclose a speech he gave in 2009 to a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a 1995 address in which he praised former Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the U.S. Capitol.

"The tone set by Secretary Wilkie was at minimum unprofessional and at worst provided the basis for senior officials to put out information to national reporters to question the credibility and background of the veteran who filed the sexual assault complaint," Missal wrote, adding that the conduct would "appear to undermine V.A.'s stated goals of providing a safe and welcoming environment for all veterans and to treat complainants of sexual assault with respect."

The woman, Andrea Goldstein, claimed in 2019 that while she waited in a VA hospital, a contractor "bumped his entire body against mine and told me I looked like I needed a smile and a good time." Following a request from House Veterans Affairs Committee chair Mike Takano, D-Calif., for whom Goldstein had once staffed, Wilkie ordered the OIG to investigate.

After the investigation, Wilkie sent Takano a letter saying that the investigation concluded that the claims were "unsubstantiated," counter to the OIG's explicit directions to VA staff not to comment on the merits of the accusation. Wilkie also highlighted the statement in an email to press outlets.

Missal reminded Wilkie he had not reached that conclusion.

"Neither I nor my staff told you or anyone else at the Department that the allegations were unsubstantiated," Missal wrote in an email, adding: "Reaching a decision to close the investigation with no criminal charges does not mean the underlying allegation is unsubstantiated."

Following press requests, the secretary retracted the description, calling it "a poor choice of words."

Missal cites an email Wilkie sent to two top aides after the fundraiser he attended with Crenshaw: "Ask me in the morning what Congressman Crenshaw said about the Takano staffer whose glamor (sic) shot was in the New York Times," it said.

In other words, Crenshaw and Wilkie worked together to bury Goldstein's accusations, and to force VA Committee Chair Mark Takano off the committee.  It's a horrible situation, and while Wiklie's head is definitely rolling when Biden comes in, Crenshaw will be around for some time, having easily won his 2020 ridiculously gerrymandered Houston suburb district against Democrat Sima Ladjevadrian by 13 points last month.

We'll see. Crenshaw may have survived his election, but he'll face other problems down the road over this, and he won't have Wiklie protecting him any longer once Denis McDonough comes in as VA Secretary.

That is, if Biden can get anyone confirmed, which the way the GOP is going right now, is not a sure thing at all.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump is going to do everything he can to put Joe Biden in the position of having to pardon his son to save him from a Bill Barr/Rudy Giuliani-constructed frame job and a long prison stretch, because he wants the Bidens to suffer. He figures it'll be leverage to get Biden to force New York AG Tish James and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance into dropping their investigations into the Trump Organization, too. After all, if they are going after Trump's kids, Trump will make sure Hunter Biden rots in jail.

 

A subpoena seeking documents from Hunter Biden asked for information related to more than two dozen entities, including Ukraine gas company Burisma, according to a person familiar with a Justice Department tax investigation of President-elect Joe Biden’s son.

The breadth of the subpoena, issued Tuesday, underscores the wide-angle lens prosecutors are taking as they examine the younger Biden’s finances and international business ventures.

Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma in particular have long dogged the policy work and political aspirations of his father, Joe Biden, now the president-elect of the United States. It’s unclear whether Hunter Biden’s work at the Ukrainian company is a central part of the federal investigation or whether prosecutors are simply seeking information about all his sources of income in recent years.

The person was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

A lawyer for the younger Biden, George Mesires, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment for this story and a spokesman for the Biden transition team declined to comment.

Hunter Biden confirmed Wednesday that his taxes are under federal investigation. The revelation comes at a delicate time for the president-elect, who is building out his Cabinet and will soon decide on his nominee to run the Justice Department, the same department overseeing the investigation into his son.

In addition to the Burisma-related request, the subpoena issued last week also seeks information on Hunter Biden’s Chinese business dealings and other financial transactions.

The probe was launched in 2018, the year before his father announced his candidacy for president. At one point in the investigation, federal prosecutors were also examining potential money laundering offenses, two people familiar with the matter told the AP.

Hunter Biden said he only learned of the investigation on Tuesday.

The younger Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014, around the time his father, then vice president, was helping conduct the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Ukraine. President Donald Trump and his allies have long argued, without evidence, that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine influenced the Obama administration’s policies toward the Eastern European nation.

Senate Republicans said in a report earlier this year that the appointment may have posed a conflict of interest but did not provide evidence that any policies were directly affected by Hunter Biden’s work.

 

Part of me wants to say that Biden should clean house at the DoJ, and definitely replace as many US Attorneys as he can, and get rid of any Special Counsels that Trump appoints. The problem is, he's actually bound by the rules, whereas Trump is not. Actually doing that would prompt howls of BOTH SIDES ARE CORRUPT by the Village, and Biden won't do it anyway.

But Trump thinks he will 1) succeed in convicting Hunter Biden and 2) force Biden into an agonizing choice that "proves" he's either corrupt or willing to "sacrifice his family for political gain" and he's counting on Biden to let Ivanka and Junior (maybe even Eric, maybe) skate as a result.

Anything they find to use against Joe Biden himself is gravy, frankly. That's how they work, you see.

The Maine Event, Explained

Nathan Bernard over at The Mainer (support your independent state news blogs, folks!) gives us the rundown on how Sara Gideon lost to Susan Collins basically the day after she declared her candidacy in summer of 2019, 18 months ago. And apparently, the only person who didn't know Gideon was cooked like a Bar Harbor lobster in 2019 was Sara Gideon in 2020.

Democrat Sara Gideon’s bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins was doomed the day after she announced she was running.

Gideon, a state legislator from Freeport who was then Maine’s Speaker of the House, formally announced her candidacy on Monday, June 24, 2019. The next day, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), a powerful political organization controlled by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top members of the party establishment, announced it was backing her campaign.

At the time, the DSCC’s endorsement was perceived as a huge boost for Gideon. It would ensure her campaign would be well funded and guided by the brightest political minds in the business.

In retrospect, it was the kiss of death — a guarantee her campaign would be ugly, uninspiring, obscenely expensive, and out of touch with local concerns. Despite spending nearly $60 million, twice as much as Collins’ campaign did, Gideon lost by over 8 percentage points, more than 70,000 votes, in a state where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by over 74,000.

The DSCC and likeminded political action committees flooded Maine’s modest media market and stuffed our mailboxes with ads and junk mail slamming Collins. Among them were so-called “dark money” groups that don’t disclose their donors, like Maine Momentum, an ad hoc operation run by Willy Ritch, a former spokesman for Democratic Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, and Chris Glynn, a former Gideon staffer and spokesman for the Maine Democratic Party. In August of 2019, Maine Momentum dropped nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, all from secret sources, to run over 4,000 commercials attacking Collins, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported.

Incessant negative advertising by outside groups helped make this race the most expensive in Maine’s history. It also made a mockery of Gideon’s oft-repeated pledge to “limit the influence of big money in politics.” Republicans were quick to call the DSCC’s endorsement proof that Gideon was a puppet of Beltway powerbrokers, and her two Democratic primary challengers were equally critical. “The DC elite is trying to tell Mainers who our candidate should be,” Betsy Sweet, one of those challengers, tweeted that summer.

But, crucially, the DSCC’s endorsement also limited the impact of Gideon’s positive messages, the campaign promises she made to improve the lives of everyday Mainers.

It’s an axiomatic fact that Schumer and other top party officials will not back candidates who openly disagree with their policies or are likely to challenge their leadership. Adherence to the party line on big issues like health care and the climate crisis are unspoken prerequisites for a DSCC endorsement. So, unsurprisingly, Gideon did not support popular ideas championed by fellow Democrats, like a Green New Deal or universal health care. Even Democrat Jared Golden, who represents Maine’s conservative 2nd Congressional district, supports “Medicare for All;” he was reelected this fall in a district that once again voted for Trump. Instead, Gideon spoke of lowering prescription-drug prices and made vague vows to “create an economy that works for all Mainers.”

In the aftermath of Election Day, some top Democrats sought to blame progressives for the party’s poor showing in Senate and House races, but the DSCC’s record speaks for itself. Of the 18 Senate candidates endorsed by the committee, only four were victorious last month (two contenders, both in Georgia, failed to win on Nov. 3 but qualified for runoff elections next month).

As the campaign gained speed, the pandemic and the national uprising against police brutality gave Gideon two big opportunities to break from the moderate pack and distinguish herself from Collins, who denied that “systemic racism” is a “problem” in Maine, and whose Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was a fraud-riddled failure. But Gideon’s position on racial justice was limited to training-manual adjustments like banning chokeholds and racial profiling, as well as further study of the problems that have plagued Black Americans since Reconstruction. Her credibility to criticize the PPP was compromised by the million or more dollars her husband’s law firm got from the program. And Republican critics took to social media daily to point out that, as far as anyone could tell, the House Speaker was doing practically nothing to help Mainers crushed by COVID-19.

While her constituents worried about keeping their jobs and homes, Gideon’s campaign bombarded them with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of ads, including pleas for them to give her money. The fundraising juggernaut engineered by her highly paid political consultants badgered Mainers for more cash till the bitter end.

On the afternoon and evening of Election Day, the Gideon campaign sent multiple e-mails urging supporters “to rush one final contribution right now to help us keep our digital ads on the air until the polls close.” It was subsequently revealed that her campaign still had about $15 million left in its war chest at the time.

Let's keep in mind that Sara Gideon, Amy McGrath, and Jaime Harrison combined blew through $200 million and none of them came closer than Gideon's nearly 9-point loss. McGrath lost by almost 20 points, guys.

The problem is in 2020, the only Republican enablers that the Dems could beat were the Republicans who beat themselves and retired because they thought they were going to lose. The exceptions were the two worst GOP candidates in the country: Cory Gardner and Martha McSally. Republicans meanwhile picked up 100% of the Dems seats rates as toss-ups by Cook Political and Sabato's Crystal Ball.

One-hundred percent of them.

I appreciate Schumer and Pelosi when it comes to legislative combat, but their national campaign arms keep losing to people who sign onto actual acts of sedition.

Republicans should be relegated to the dustbin of history by now, and yet there's a very good chance they will be America's present and future if Dems don't get their shit together.

And I've been saying this for more than ten years now, and I'm tired of it.

Bone weary.

Do better.

A Taxing Situation, Con't

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance's state tax case against Donald Trump has reached the grand jury stage, complete with evidence, interviews with Deutsche Bank officials, and depositions, and I remind everyone again that Donald Trump is currently conducting an open coup to stay in power because he is 100% sure that he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

State prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several employees of President Trump’s bank and insurance broker in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, significantly escalating an investigation into the president that he is powerless to stop.

The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons.

It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges. The prosecutors have been fighting in court for more than a year to obtain Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, which they have called central to their investigation. The issue now rests with the Supreme Court.

But lately, Mr. Vance’s office has stepped up its efforts, issuing new subpoenas and questioning witnesses, including some before a grand jury, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.

The grand jury appears to be serving an investigative function, allowing prosecutors to authenticate documents and pursue other leads, rather than considering any charges.

When Mr. Trump returns to private life in January, he will lose the protection from criminal prosecution that his office has afforded him. While The New York Times has reported that he discussed granting pre-emptive pardons to his eldest children before leaving office — and has claimed that he has the power to pardon himself — that authority applies only to federal crimes, and not to state or local investigations like the one being conducted by Mr. Vance’s office.

Mr. Trump, who has maintained he did nothing improper, has railed against the inquiry, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

The investigation by Mr. Vance, a Democrat, has focused on Mr. Trump’s conduct as a private business owner and whether he or employees at his family business, the Trump Organization, committed financial crimes. It is the only known criminal inquiry into the president.

 

Now whether Vance ultimately brings charges isn't up to Trump either, and Trump knows this. The political and frankly domestic terrorism issues that charging Trump will create for Vance, his team, his family, and for Manhattan itself will be overwhelming and he will absolutely need the full, open support of the Biden administration before he does, and this goes for any charges that NY state AG Tish James may bring as well.

I'm 99% sure the Biden administration will support them, and I'm also 100% sure that the Biden administration will have long conversations about doing this in January because all the "We can't comment on an ongoing investigation" stuff we will hear is a nicety we can't afford. Should Vance try putting Trump in prison, there's a decent chance that domestic terrorists will descend like locusts upon NYC and a non-zero chance that some of those terrorists plotting to harm or kill prosecutors are, you know, NYPD.

I've said before that Biden and Vance/James have to be ready to deal with a cold civil war going hot if they try to prosecute Trump, and that is absolutely the reality we're in given Republican state AGs and scores of Republicans in Congress are openly asking the Supreme Court to hand the election to Trump anyway.

Folks, you might not think we're in a civil war right now, but the Trumpies sure as hell do.

Shutdown Countdown: The Shutdownening

It wouldn't be December without Rand Paul's usual idiotic grandstanding against funding the government, with the added bonus of being during a lethal pandemic that has already killed almost 300,000 Americans. And even though the Senate passed the Defense Bill on Friday, Rand Paul is still a jackass.

Rand Paul is at it again. And his moves could force another brief government shutdown.

The Kentucky Republican is objecting to swift passage of the annual defense policy bill, effectively forcing senators to remain in Washington for an extra day as he filibusters the $740 billion legislation. But the government needs to be funded past Friday — and the short one-week spending bill can't be passed before then without agreement from all 100 senators to vote.

Paul, no stranger to filibusters, said in an interview Thursday that he opposes a provision in the bill that would hamstring the president’s ability to draw down American troops from Afghanistan.

“That amendment alone is enough to make me object to it, as well as the amount of spending,” he said. Removing a provision from a conference report would destroy a massive agreement on defense spending.

Paul said he would drop his objection if GOP leaders allowed a final vote on the National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, which would require the Senate to go through the procedural motions. But Republicans are eager to finish work on it this week, in addition to a one-week government funding bill to avoid a shutdown. Paul offered to allow swift passage of the stopgap funding bill if GOP leaders punt a final NDAA vote to Monday.

“It’s really just a function at this point of letting the clock run and seeing if we can get cooperation. Some of it’s our side, some of it’s their side,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “If people come together we could probably wrap a couple of things up this week and then work on the big stuff — the spending bill and Covid package — next week.”

Drama on the floor ahead of a deadline is nothing new to Paul, who exerts major leverage over the Senate by seizing on imminent deadlines and pushing his priorities. Paul forced a brief shutdown in 2018 over his moves to cut spending, and using the shutdown deadline to try and get extra concessions on the defense bill is vintage Paul.

Republicans are hopeful that Paul will, at most, stretch things out right up to the Friday shutdown deadline. Asked how the Senate will deal with the logjam, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) replied: "I don't know the answer to that but I'm hopeful that it's just a short-term thing. We'll probably be here tomorrow. But I don't know how much longer. I can't imagine anybody wants [a shutdown]."

Other senators are also seeking to use the shutdown deadline to push their priorities. Conservatives want votes on legislation to prevent government shutdowns and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants a vote on new stimulus checks, Thune told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

"It is absolutely imperative that we provide $1,200 for every working-class adult and $500 for each of their children. This is what we did, unanimously, in the CARES package passed in March. This is what we must do now. Congress cannot go home until we address this crisis," Sanders said in a statement to POLITICO, before threatening to hold up the funding bill over his demand for stimulus checks.

The defense bill, which Trump has threatened to veto, passed on a veto-proof majority in the House earlier this week and is expected to win similar support in the Senate, though some Republicans may ultimately side with the president on a veto-override question.

 

Just ridiculous nonsense, but it's what Rand Paul does,folks. If he can't scuttle the entire Defense bill, he'll force a shutdown right at Christmastime to just remind people how broken Rand Paul can make government,and he'll easily win reelection for his stupidity in a few years.

I wonder how many Kentuckians here realize how much damage he's doing to them personally along with Mitch, but it's clear voters here are going to reelect them for as long as they want.

BREAKING: A Supreme Smackdown

The Supremes just dropkicked the Texas case into the sun.

The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected Texas’s unprecedented last-ditch effort to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin by suing those four states in the high court.

At least a majority of the justices concluded that Texas lacked standing to bring the case at all, a threshold bar that the state had to clear before the case could go any further.

I'm calling it a night early, so consider this Last Call too.

It's over over over over now, one over being the election, two overs being the recounts actually expanding Biden's lead, three being the certification by all 50 states of the vote, and four being this.

Think I'll go watch The Mandalorian, a fictional show about a fictional galaxy with fictional alien races and space magic, which is ar more realistic and coherent than the Texas lawsuit brought by Ken Paxton.

Trump Goes Viral, Con't

As we hit 300,000 dead under his watch from COVID-19, Trump has decided he will get his vaccine approval press conference now or the FDA head will be publicly crucified on the South Lawn.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday told Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to submit his resignation if the agency does not clear the nation’s first coronavirus vaccine by day’s end, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss what happened.

The threat came on the same day that President Trump tweeted that the FDA is “a big, old, slow turtle” in its handling of vaccines, while exhorting Commissioner Stephen Hahn to “get the dam vaccines out NOW.” He added: “Stop playing games and start saving lives!!!” 

The warning led the FDA to accelerate its timetable for clearing America’s first vaccine from Saturday morning to later Friday.

A White House official declined to comment, saying “we don’t comment on private conversations, but the Chief regularly requests updates on progress toward a vaccine.”

The warning, combined with the tweets, constituted the latest attack by Trump, who has complained vociferously that the vaccine wasn’t authorized before Election Day, blaming it on the ‘Deep State’ inside the agency that he accused of working against his reelection. Trump was also said to be upset that Britain cleared the vaccine before the United States, although the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been developed and reviewed in record time.

With the timetable apparently accelerated from Saturday morning, the FDA and Pfizer were rushing to complete the paperwork needed for the authorization, according to another individual who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t have authority to discuss the plans

An FDA statement issued early Friday morning said the FDA had informed Pfizer that it would “rapidly work toward finalization and issuance of an emergency use authorization” following Thursday’s endorsement of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by an agency advisory committee.

 

It's fun to joke that this is a third-world dumpster fire, but America is currently a third-world dumpster fire, and it was by choice of the American people in 2016 across the board, and in the Senate in 2018, and still may be in the Senate in 2020, and 77% of Republicans still believe Biden's win was fraudulent.

There has to come the point very soon where Trump either chooses to leave, or chooses to have to be forced out, and that will decide the path this country takes for the rest of my lifetime.

 

A Supreme Approach To Justice

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Trump regime cannot choose to apply the Religious Freedom Act to just Christians, as in an 8-0 decision from Justice Clarence Thomas(!!!) the Court handed down a scathing ruling that Muslim men put on the no-fly list by the FBI after refusing to act as federal informants can indeed sue the pants off the US government.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, ruled Thursday that Muslims put on the no-fly list after refusing to act as informants can sue federal officials for money damages under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The case – Tanzin v Tanvir — involved three Muslim men who said their religious-freedom rights were violated when FBI agents tried to use the no-fly list to force them into becoming informants. None of the men was suspected of illegal activity themselves, and indeed, the Trump administration tried to head-off the suit by removing their names from the no-fly list just days before the case first went to court. It didn't work. The men refused to drop their case, and on Thursday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor.

"I feel extremely happy and content. All praise belongs to Allah. This is a great victory for every voiceless Muslim and non-Muslim against hate and oppression and ... I hope that this is a warning to FBI and other agencies that they will be held responsible for ... traumatizing people and ruining their lives," said Naveed Shinwari, one of the three men involved in the case.

Shinwari, a manufacturing contractor who came to the U.S. with his father from Afghanistan when he was 14, is a legal permanent resident. His presence on the no-fly list, he said, meant he could not do his contracting job because it required travel within the U.S. Nor could he visit his wife in Afghanistan. She is, however, now is in U.S. and the couple have three young children, two of them born in the United States.

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that money damages have long been authorized in American law, dating back to the founding of the republic. And he pointed specifically to a post-Civil War statute that provides for damages against government officials who act "under color of state law" to deprive people of their constitutional rights. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, enacted in 1993, is in that tradition and uses the same terminology, he observed.

Thomas acknowledged that Congress is free to shield government agents from suit, but, "[w]e cannot manufacture" such a presumption 27 years later.

This is not the end of the line in the case. The three men now have the right to sue, but the government may wish to settle the case out of court, or in the alternative, it could invoke the doctrine of qualified immunity, and assert that the agents are immune from suit because they had no way of knowing their conduct would be illegal at the time.

 

It's that latter qualified immunity scenario that I'm worried about, but SCOTUS siding unanimously with Muslims is a big deal. It's still codifying religion as theocracy, but it least it's being applied where there is actual religious bigotry and discrimination.

StupidiNews!

•  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been named Time's Persons of the Year for 2020 "for changing the American story" by winning the 2020 presidential contest.
  
•  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing an FBI subpoena related to bribery and corruption charges as he continues to push for the Supreme Court to invalidate Joe Biden's win.
• The FDA's advisory panel has voted 17-4 to authorize Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for use in the US, the vote paves the way for full authorization of the vaccine this month.
• US Attorney General Bill Barr says he will remain in the position through the end of Donald Trump's term, Barr had threatened to leave the post earlier this month.
• Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are among the web browsers being hit hard by ad-based malware attacks in a botnet scheme ongoing since at least May.
  
  

Last Call For Getting The Gang Back Together

Knowing that she would never survive a Senate confirmation fight, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice has been tapped by Joe Biden for the head White House Domestic Policy Council role, something Mitch and the boys can't do squat about.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, according to people familiar with the decision.

Rice, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was vetted to serve as Biden’s vice president and was a contender to be secretary of State, a position that went to Antony Blinken.

Democrats had concerns about Rice’s ability to get confirmed in a Republican-controlled Senate, and the director of the Domestic Policy Council is not a Senate-confirmed position. The Biden team had been looking to find a high-profile role for Rice, but the top domestic policy job comes as a surprise given her expertise and experience in foreign policy.

A spokesperson for the Biden transition declined to comment. A spokesperson for Rice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In her position, Rice, 56, will play a large role in implementing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, a wide-ranging set of policy proposals that would invest trillions of dollars in American infrastructure and manufacturing, clean energy, caregiving, education and racial equity.

A person familiar with Biden’s thinking said he chose Rice for the role because of her deep experience in crisis management and interagency processes. The person said Biden does not see foreign, economic and diplomatic realms as separate and discrete and her deep knowledge of how the federal government works will be an asset to implementing his domestic policy agenda.

Biden officially announced Rice’s appointment Thursday morning, along with his nominations of Marcia Fudge to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Tom Vilsack as Agriculture secretary, Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative and Denis McDonough as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

“The roles they will take on are where the rubber meets the road — where competent and crisis-tested governance can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, enhancing the dignity, equity, security, and prosperity of the day-to-day lives of Americans,” Biden said in a statement.

Rice’s decision to take the domestic policy job also signals that she still harbors political ambitions. She floated the possibility of running for Senate in Maine against Susan Collins and was a finalist to serve as Biden’s running mate. The top domestic policy job will fill out her foreign policy-heavy resume.

 

So yes, Rice will be part of the Biden domestic policy team, rather than the foreign policy one, but having someone with the expertise she possesses is a huge benefit to Biden in that department. She knows how to get things done, and I expect she'll be a key part of using the power of the executive branch to go around Mitch and his endless Senate GOP roadblocks.

The Coup-Coup Birds Take Flight, Con't

As some seventeen Republican attorneys general have now signed on to the Texas lawsuit demanding the Supreme Court overturn the election and declare Trump the winner, the slow realization that we are in the middle of a active coup is finally beginning to permeate the American people. Rush Limbaugh is openly telling his listeners to expect a broken union.

 

All right. Mr. Snerdley is asking if we’re ever going to be able to win. And he’s talking about elections. Votes. Are we ever gonna be able to win without taking back some of these cities? He’s talking about blue cities like New York, Philadelphia. I assume you mean Detroit? Do you include Milwaukee in this? Definitely, all right. What about Oakland, California? Too far gone. San Francisco? You think we can get San Francisco? Look, we won election after election after election without winning these cities or the states they’re in.

I thought you were asking me something else when you said, “Can we win?” I thought you meant, “Can we win the culture, can we dominate the culture.” I actually think -- and I’ve referenced this, I’ve alluded to this a couple of times because I’ve seen others allude to this -- I actually think that we’re trending toward secession. I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance at winning New York? Especially if you’re talking about votes.

I see a lot of bloggers -- I can’t think of names right now -- a lot of bloggers have written extensively about how distant and separated and how much more separated our culture is becoming politically and that it can’t go on this way. There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.

And I know that there’s a sizable and growing sentiment for people who believe that that is where we’re headed, whether we want to or not -- whether we want to go there or not. I myself haven’t made up my mind. I still haven’t given up the idea that we are the majority and that all we have to do is find a way to unite and win, and our problem is the fact that there are just so many RINOs, so many Republicans in the Washington establishment who will do anything to maintain their membership in the establishment because of the perks and the opportunities that are presented for their kids and so forth.

 

And of course the problem is not that Trump has failed, but that "RINOs" have failed Trump. As Steve M. points out, Republicans in Congress cannot accept a Biden win now, even if they wanted to, which they don't.

Three Republican senators who aren't retiring will probably endorse the electoral vote: Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. Add Toomey and you might well have the complete list of senators who'll reject the protest. In the House, the only Republican I have any confidence in is Adam Kinzinger.

They can't back down now -- their base will come for them the way they're coming for legislators and election officials of both parties who won't toe the line.

This handful of Republicans plus all the Democrats will ensure that Biden's win is ratified.

And after that, the violence will start. Be ready.

Here's my nightmare scenario.

One thing I absolutely know is coming in the next Congress, is that the GOP will repeatedly try to force a national voter ID law that eliminates early voting and vote-by-mail, and they will block everything until they get it, cabinet appointments, COVID-19 relief, spending bills, everything. Democrats aren't going to be able to handle it, and they will cave.

The violence will still happen, of course.

 

At some point, after the violence starts increasing this winter and into the spring, we're going to have grown adults say that Joe Biden is responsible for the casualties, that it doesn't really matter if he "stole" the election if tens of millions of Americans believe he did, and more than a small number are killing and destroying, that this violence was the inevitable result of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and that Biden and Harris should both resign for the good of the nation.

 

There will absolutely be Democrats who will nod their heads and say that Biden and Harris should do exactly that, that Harris should name a new Republican VP, one who will be confirmed by the Senate, and then installed as a "caretaker" President. Depending on the level of violence and the continuing spread of the pandemic, it could happen within a matter of months.

And I don't know what happens after that.

I absolutely want to be wrong, I absolutely want to believe that good people will stand up for this country and come to its aid.

But this is America.  We used to do that, on occasion.  Not anymore.

Absolutely Unfriended, Disliked, And Blocked

Led by New York Attorney General Tish James, 46 states and the FTC have just declared war on Facebook with a massive, bipartisan antitrust attack to get the social network to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp, among other things.

Federal antitrust authorities and dozens of states launched a double-barreled legal assault on Facebook on Wednesday, in lawsuits that seek to break up the Silicon Valley giant and address years of complaints about its worldwide social networking empire.

Both suits ask a judge to make Facebook spin off its messaging service WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram — two of the world's most popular mobile apps, which it acquired in deals that passed muster with federal regulators less than a decade ago.

Democratic and Republican attorneys general from 48 U.S. states and territories, including New York, are behind one of the suits announced Wednesday. The Federal Trade Commission, filed its own suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“No company should have this much unchecked power,” New York Attorney General Tish James said in a news conference announcing the suit, adding that Facebook engaged in a “buy or bury strategy” against potential competitors.

Facebook’s critics in and out of government immediately praised the lawsuit. “Facebook’s reign of unaccountable, abusive practices against consumers, competitors and innovation must end today,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in a statement. “For too long, Facebook has avoided real competition through anticompetitive acquisitions, unchecked power over consumers, and the failure of federal antitrust enforcers to take action.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), an ally of President Donald Trump, tweeted: "This is a necessity. The @instagram and WhatsApp mergers with @Facebook were anti-competitive, they were meant to be anti-competitive, and they should be broken up."

Both cases accuse Facebook of illegally using its power for more than a decade to muscle out rivals and snap up rising competitors, specifically including WhatsApp and Instagram, before they could gain a foothold. That spending spree has continued even as Facebook faces rising antitrust scrutiny in the U.S., Europe and Australia — just last month, it said it would buy a customer service startup called Kustomer in a deal that news reports valued at more than $1 billion.

Facebook pushed back on the complaints, noting that antitrust authorities looked at the Instagram and WhatsApp transactions at the time.

“Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day,” the company said in a tweet.

The suits represent the latest escalation of a power struggle between governments around the world and the United States' wealthiest tech companies. The Justice Department and a smaller coalition of GOP-led states lodged a similar antitrust case against Google in October. States and the DOJ are expected to file additional suits against Google in the coming weeks.

The federal cases have landed during the final months of Trump's presidency. President-elect Joe Biden has voiced his own harsh criticisms of Facebook, accusing the company of "propagating falsehoods they know to be false, although his transition team and early personnel picks have drawn scrutiny for their ties to Silicon Valley.

Facebook has denied being a monopoly, noting that it ranks behind Google in how much revenue it claims from the $160 billion global market for online display advertising. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also portrayed Facebook as a champion of the "American free speech tradition," in contrast with China's vision of a censored internet.

Still, the litigation follows a massive change in the U.S. political fortunes for Facebook and Zuckerberg, who co-founded the company in his Harvard dorm room in 2004 and now ranks fifth on Forbes' list of the world's richest billionaires. Less than a decade ago, Facebook's cachet in D.C. was enough to draw then-President Barack Obama to its California headquarters for a town hall alongside Zuckerberg. Now, political leaders in both parties say the company's unchecked power makes it a threat to rivals and countless Americans.

I have to say with this level of near-universal condemnation of Facebook, Zuckerberg's days are clearly numbered, but those days could still be well into the hundreds, if not thousands. Facebook is big enough to fight back for years and anything will almost certainly go to SCOTUS.

And for the record, Guam and DC are joining in, but South Carolina, South Dakota, Alabama, and Georgia, all states with GOP attorneys general, are not. Even California and Washington state are joining this suit, which should really, really tell you that Zuck is, well, good and Zucked.

Last Call For Tales Of The Trump Depression, Con't

Not only is GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell deliberately sabotaging any COVID-19 deal in December, the White House is now doing the same.

The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed an economic relief package that would offer far skimpier federal unemployment benefits than what has been proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, adding an element of uncertainty into the fragile stimulus negotiations, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Instead, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has proposed that lawmakers approve another stimulus check worth $600 per person and $600 per child, the people familiar with the plan said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of private deliberations.

The new White House proposal was a nonstarter for Democrats and a sharp rejection of the bipartisan efforts that have brought the two parties closer to a compromise on a legislative package amid signs that the U.S. economy is deteriorating under the increasing strain of the coronavirus.

Under the bipartisan framework released last week by a group of moderate lawmakers, Congress would approve about $180 billion in new federal unemployment benefits for tens of millions of jobless Americans. That would be enough to fund federal supplementary unemployment benefits at $300 per week while extending various unemployment programs that are set to expire at the end of the year. The framework did not include another round of stimulus payments.

By contrast, Mnuchin has submitted a plan to provide about $40 billion in new funding for federal unemployment benefits. Mnuchin’s plan would extend expiring benefits but does not include any supplementary federal benefit, meaning millions of jobless workers would receive no additional federal help, one person familiar with the plan said. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department declined to comment.

The plan submitted by Mnuchin is almost certain to be viewed as a nonstarter by congressional Democrats, who have been adamant that the federal government provide additional income support to laid-off workers. It could also imperil revived talks over stimulus negotiations.

In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) strongly criticized the proposal by the White House.

“The bipartisan talks are the best hope for a bipartisan solution,” the statement said. “The President’s proposal starts by cutting the unemployment insurance proposal being discussed by bipartisan Members of the House and Senate from $180 billion to $40 billion. That is unacceptable.”

 

I'm glad the Washington Post is being honest here for once instead of blaming Pelosi and Schumer for this, but the bigger problem is that the GOP is more than happy to deliberately hand a depression to Joe Biden, and then to stop him from fixing it.

 

The Coup-Coup Birds Take Flight, Con't

At this point, what the Trump regime is doing is fomenting terrorism and sedition, and I wish people would call it that.

With a key deadline passing Tuesday that all but ends his legal challenges to the election, President Trump’s frenzied campaign to overturn the results has reached an inflection point: Certified slates of electors to the Electoral College are now protected by law, and any chance that a state might appoint a different slate that is favorable to Mr. Trump is essentially gone.

Despite his clear loss, Mr. Trump has shown no intention of stopping his sustained assault on the American electoral process. But his baseless conspiracy theories about voting fraud have devolved into an exercise in delegitimizing the election results, and the rhetoric is accelerating among his most fervent allies. This has prompted outrage among Trump loyalists and led to behavior that Democrats and even some Republicans say has become dangerous.

Supporters of the president, some of them armed, gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state Saturday night. Racist death threats filled the voice mail of Cynthia A. Johnson, a Michigan state representative. Georgia election officials, mostly Republicans, say they have received threats of violence. The Republican Party of Arizona, on Twitter, twice called for supporters to be willing to “die for something” or “give my life for this fight.”

“People on Twitter have posted photographs of my house,” said Ann Jacobs, the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, who alerted her neighbors and the police about the constant threats. She said another message mentioned her children and said, “I’ve heard you’ll have quite a crowd of patriots showing up at your door.”

Mr. Trump himself has contacted numerous Republican state officials, pressing them to help him overturn the election he clearly lost. He has subjected others to repeated public shamings, lambasting governors to take action they are not legally allowed to take to keep Mr. Trump in power.

But absent a single significant victory in his dozens of lawsuits — and with a key defeat delivered by the Supreme Court on Tuesday — the president’s crusade is now as much a battle against the electoral process itself, as he seeks to cast doubt on free and fair elections and undermine Joseph R. Biden Jr. before he takes the oath of office.

“There is long-term damage when this kind of behavior is normalized,” Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona, said on Twitter. “It is not normal, and elected Republicans need to speak out against it.”

Last week, a top Republican election official in Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, implored the president to stop attacking the voting process in the state, saying it had prompted threats against officials and poll workers.

Tuesday’s procedural deadline, known as safe harbor, serves as something of a guarantee that Congress must count the slate of electors certified by the deadline, and acts as an accelerant to resolve any outstanding election disputes. It also likely limits further legal challenges to halt or disrupt the official certification of electoral votes that Mr. Biden needs to claim the presidency.

 

After yesterday's Supreme Court rejection, and tomorrow's impending rejection of the absolutely silly Texas case, the battle will of course drag on thanks to Trump's army of seditious enablers.

Twenty-seven GOP representatives are urging President Trump to direct Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate election irregularities.

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), said in a letter to the president that Americans “deserve a definite resolution” into uncertainty around the election, according to the letter obtained by Politico. They added that “legitimate questions of voter fraud remain unanswered.”

Gooden originally sent the letter to Trump with his signature alone on Thursday, shortly after Barr told The Associated Press that the Department of Justice has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

The comment drew the ire of the president, who has repeatedly argued that the election was stolen from him due to widespread fraud without presenting evidence.

"Inaction from the Department [of Justice] along with public comments made by the Attorney General indicate a lack of willingness to investigate the irregularities your campaign and other elected officials across the nation have alleged,” the lawmakers wrote.

“The appointment of a Special Counsel would establish a team of investigators whose sole responsibility is to uncover the truth and provide the certainty America needs,” they said.

 

Understand that Republicans will do to Biden what the GOp believes the Democrats did to Trump, every day, for the next four years. They will fight him for every inch, every cabinet appointment, every executive order, every bill, every judicial opening, every time, every day.

 

Something the Democrats simply refused to do because of the damage it would have done to the country. The Republicans of course have the added advantage that they simply don't care, and will gladly welcome the coming violence and chaos as political assistance for them in the years ahead.

 

And I'm still not 100% sold that Biden will prevail, because Trump could just say "screw it" and declare himself President.

 

Who's going to stop him?  Mitt Romney? The Media?

 

Us?

 

Better think long and hard about that one, folks.

Florida Man Unleashes Cops On Scientist

Back in May I told you about Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist fired from GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration when she wouldn't go along with his plans to manipulate the state's COVID-19 data, Jones has been running a web site for the last six months documenting Florida's descent into viral hell. On Monday, Ron DeSantis ordered police to raid her home at gunpoint and take her computer, threatening her and her family.

Florida police raided the home of a former state coronavirus data scientist on Monday, escalating a feud between the state government and a data expert who has accused officials of trying to cover up the extent of the pandemic. 

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement executed a search warrant Monday morning at the home of data scientist Rebekah Jones, who was fired by the state Department of Health in May. The agency is investigating whether Jones accessed a state government messaging system without authorization to urge employees to speak out about coronavirus deaths, according to an affidavit by an agent working on the case. 

Jones told CNN that she hadn't improperly accessed any state messaging system and that she lost access to her government computer accounts after she was removed from her position. 

About 10 officers with guns drawn showed up to her Tallahassee home around 8:30 a.m., Jones said. A video taken from a camera in her house, which she posted on social media, showed an officer pointing a gun up a stairwell as Jones told him her two children were upstairs. Jones said that the officer was pointing his gun at her 2-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son and her husband, who she said were in the stairwell, although the video doesn't make that clear. 

Officers also "pointed a gun six inches from my face" and took all of her computers, her phone and several hard drives and thumb drives, Jones said. 

Gretl Plessinger, a spokesperson for the law enforcement department, said that agents knocked on Jones' door and called her "in an attempt to minimize disruption to the family." Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung up on the agents, and Jones' family was upstairs when agents did enter the house, Plessinger said. She didn't respond to questions about why the officers drew guns. 

"At no time were weapons pointed at anyone in the home," Rick Swearingen, the department's commissioner, added in another statement. 

According to the affidavit by an investigator with the department, an unauthorized individual illegally accessed a state government emergency management system to send a group text message to government officials last month urging them to speak out about the coronavirus crisis. 

"It's time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead," the message said, according to the affidavit. "You know this is wrong. You don't have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it's too late." 

Officials traced the message, which was sent on the afternoon of November 10 to about 1,750 recipients, to an IP address connected to Jones' house, the investigator wrote in the affidavit. 

Jones told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Monday night that she didn't send the message.
"I'm not a hacker," Jones said. She added that the language in the message that authorities said was sent was "not the way I talk," and contained errors she would not make.

DeSantis sure didn't need Jones's help to expose to the state and the world how much of an incompetent oaf he is, so frankly I'm willing to believe her story over what Florida has to say.  Even if this didn't involve previous examples of bad faith and autocratic tyranny on the part of DeSantis,  I'd still side with anyone raided by a GOP governor.

Especially this governor.