Bonus Content!

I need not tell you how I feel about ‘Civility’. Your poor widdle fee-fees are hurt? I’m not your Mother. Consider yourself lucky Robspierre is out of date and Jughashvili unfashionable so our more benevolent, Amish, nature leads us to mild expressions of disapproval like shunning your company in restaurants instead of more vigorous measures like covering you in hot tar and feathers and riding you out of town on a rail.

‘Lock him up’ chant highlights the debate we need about Trump’s lawlessness
By Greg Sargent, Washington Post
October 28, 2019

“We are Americans, and we do not do that,” said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC of the chants. “We do not want the world hearing us chant, ‘Lock him up’ to this president, or to any president.”

Scarborough noted that Trump has made this sort of authoritarian appeal the “centerpiece” of his campaign, before adding that it’s unacceptable for either side to threaten to “imprison your political opponents.”

Some Democrats rushed to agree. As Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) put it, “the office of the president deserves respect, even when the actions of our president at times don’t.” Coons despaired of the message this sends to the world about our weakened “institutions.”

Some of this is true, as far as it goes. Neither side should threaten to imprison its political opponents. If the chant meant a future Democratic president should conduct himself as Trump has — that is, calling on his administration’s law enforcement machinery to be turned loose on political opponents — that’s wrong. Just as it was wrong when Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) said that if she were elected president, her administration’s Justice Department “should” prosecute Trump.

As for whether this sends a message to the world that the United States is teetering on the brink of civic breakdown, as Scarborough and Coons suggest, that may well be an unfortunate outcome, for us and internationally.

But all these responses amount to a very cramped reading of the issues genuinely raised here. It will do terrible violence to the reality of this moment if “lock him up!” is treated as a tit-for-tat response to “lock her up!”

The implication is that both chants reside in equivalently hypothetical realms. That’s nonsense.

Here, in the real world, right now, at this very moment, Trump’s Justice Department actually is carrying out a criminal investigation ordered up by Trump for nakedly political reasons. It’s important to see Barr’s review of the origins of the FBI investigation as not merely a good-government internal accounting — which might be justified to some degree, if it were actually that.

But it isn’t actually that. We know this because Barr told us so. When Barr claimed there’d been “spying,” he lent credibility not just to the idea of irregularities at the outset of the Russia probe (which became the special counsel investigation documenting Trump’s extensive corruption and likely criminality), but also to the notion of a deliberate and nefarious law enforcement plot to derail Trump’s candidacy.

Trump has made that baseless assertion, and called for an investigation of it, for years, and you have to be spectacularly gullible to believe Barr’s review has nothing whatsoever to do with this. It’s meant to rewrite the entire story of 2016, by downgrading the seriousness of Russia’s sabotaging of our democracy on Trump’s behalf.

This, by extension, will absolve Trump and his advisers of their massive betrayal of our country in encouraging and seeking to profit from that sabotage, and absolve Trump of his extensive and likely criminal efforts to cover all that up.
…
On “This Week,” after House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) asserted Barr hopes to “serve the president’s political interests,” ABC News’s Martha Raddatz claimed Schiff has “no evidence of that yet whatsoever.”

No evidence? What about what’s already on the public record? This suggests news organizations may well grant Barr’s review the benefit of the doubt, despite the extensive, already-established grounds for doing the contrary.

The “lock him up” chant also landed in a real world in which Trump actually has committed extensive corruption and likely campaign finance and obstruction of justice crimes, and in which he actually is not facing accountability for them. That’s partly because Justice Department regulations actually did prevent the prosecution of Trump for offenses that many prosecutors believe actually do merit prosecution.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers actually do make a series of arguments that place Trump above the law. They claimed he could shut down an investigation into himself for any reason whatsoever. The White House flatly argues there was nothing wrong with Trump pressuring a foreign leader to interfere in our election on his behalf — it’s fine for Trump to try to dodge accountability in a free and fair election.

The White House actually does argue that the constitutionally sanctioned impeachment process over these high crimes and misdemeanors is entirely illegitimate. The Justice Department actually did affirmatively act to bury the truth about them, advising against the transmission of the whistleblower complaint to Congress, and declining to investigate its charges.

It’s wrong to call for the imprisonment of political opponents. But what we actually should debate is the propriety of using that particular language to demand accountability for such extreme lawlessness, when all such accountability mechanisms are faltering, and when the White House’s posture is that Trump is free to abuse his powers however he sees fit and that no accountability of any kind is legitimate.

I haven’t featured Robert Reich in a while, can’t quite say why that is because he’s just as good and on topic as ever.

Perhaps because, as I’ve said, the whole thing is so corrupt that if you pull on any particular string at all it unravels like a sweater attacted by a cute of kitties (Like that? Just made it up.) and like Nancy I’ve been trying to concentrate on crimes where there is no ambiguity whatsovever. Where Nancy and I disagree is I think the Russian Treason Plot proven beyond a reasonable doubt and there’s those 10 instances of Obstruction of Justice documented in the Mueller Report.

But, Ukraine, whatever, as long as we Impeach the bastard (yes, I’m not entirely convinced Mary Anne was faithful to Fred, I’d want DNA).

Another case I think is unimpeachable (ooh clever that, I used an antonym variation of the word) is Emoluments, only so important to the Framers it was mentioned in the body of the Constitution twice. They didn’t much like the idea of a President and sure as hell didn’t want one who was being bribed by the French and English. It was a hot topic in the Federalist Papers let me tell you.

I’ve heard arguments this morning that the depths of corruption in the Ukraine Extortion Scheme mitigate against being able to maintain the break neck pace of Impeachment in the House. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. As long as support is continuing to grow it is continuing to inflict damage on the Republican Party and Inindicted Co-Conspirator Bottromless Pinocchio.

Why would we want to stop that?

Trump’s Emoluments Mess
by Robert Reich
Friday, October 25, 2019

Trump reversed his decision to host next June’s G-7 meeting of heads of state at Trump National Doral Miami because, he said, it would have been an impeachable offense and a violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.

No, that’s not the reason he gave. He said he reversed himself because of “Media & Democat Crazed and Irrational hostility.”

In reality, Trump has been funneling government dollars into his own pockets ever since he was elected. The Doral deal was just too much even for his Republican enablers to stomach.

Since he’s been president, Trump has spent almost a third of his time at one or another of his resorts or commercial properties – costing taxpayers a bundle but giving those resorts incomparable publicity.

One of his golf resorts, Turnberry in Scotland, has gotten business from U.S. Air Force crews overnighting while their planes were refueled. In September, Vice President Pence stayed there for two nights at a cost to American taxpayers of nearly $600,000 in ground transportation fees alone.

Foreign governments seeking to curry his favor routinely check their officials and lobbyists into the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s oceanfront resort in Palm Beach, charges its foreign government visitors up to five hundred and fifty dollars a night for their rooms, according to ProPublica.

How does he get away with this?

Presidents of the United States are exempt from the federal conflict-of-interest statutes – a glaring omission that was never a problem before Trumpexploited this loophole. To make matters worse, Trump has refused to put his assets into a blind trust, so he knows exactly how much he gains from these transactions.

Theoretically, the public is protected from Trump’s moneymaking by the Constitution, which strictly limits the “emoluments” – that is, a payment of money or anything else of value – a president can receive.

Article II, Section 1 says a president receives a salary while in office but “shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States.” Trump violates this clause every time taxpayer money finds its way into his pockets.

And then there’s Article I, Section 9, which states that no federal officeholder can receive any “Emolument” from any foreign state. Trump violates this clause whenever he makes money from a foreign government.

History shows that the reason the Framers of the Constitution included these provisions wasn’t just to prevent a president from being bribed. It was also to prevent the appearance of bribes, and thereby maintain public trust in the presidency.

The appearance if not reality of bribery continues to haunt Trump. For example, when he decided to withdraw U.S. troops from the Turkish-Syrian border – a move that has led to the slaughter of Kurds, and opened the way for a resurgence of ISIS – it was far from clear whether he had in mind the interest of the United States or his own business interests. Trump Towers in Istanbul Turkey is his largest European property.

Clearly, Trump continues to violate the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. So how to hold him accountable? Three ways.

The first is through the federal courts. A lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia accuses Trump of violating the Constitution by holding a financial interest in the Washington hotel.

Another brought be several plaintiffs allege that Trump’s businesses pose unfair competition.

A third lawsuit by 215 Democratic members of Congress seeks “the opportunity to cast a binding vote” on the issue, since the Constitution requires the president to obtain “the consent of Congress” before accepting any emolument.

But all these cases are moving through the courts at a slow pace—probably too slowly to stop Trump from lining his pockets this term of office.

The second way to hold Trump accountable is through impeachment, which has already begun in the House.

Trump’s violation of the emoluments clause should be added to the likely grounds for impeachment already being investigated – seeking the help of a foreign power in an election, and obstruction of justice.

The third and most important way to hold Trump accountable occurs November 3, 2020.

That’s when the American public can stop Trump from making money off his presidency by voting him out of office.

It doesn’t pay to be a United States ally, just ask the Montagnards or the Pashtun.

As John Oliver says, it’s complcated. I could tell you all about the Treaty of Lausanne but I’m not really that interested in cranking out a 2500 word piece this morning, I have other things to do.

Comedy is hard. Even with the best material it’s frequently not funny.

I have a Sports Injury. Carpal Tunnel.

Such a normal kid

10 Second Justice

Energizers last longer

I dunno. Maybe you don’t hang around with ER Doctors enough. That one kills every time.

Oops

So Max Verstappen would be starting on pole in Mexico if he hadn’t been stupid and ignored a Yellow during Qualifying. Gives you wings indeed.

School Sadists

Cut for Time

Oh. You want news.