Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Something to Know - 29 December

There is a sense, I feel, that the confused GOP is coming to understand that Trumpism and Republicanism may not be compatible with each other.   How this plays out in the future will be subjected to close analysis and perhaps bitter and opposing internal jousting.   The politicking at the moment is highlighted by democrats leveraging the current GeeOpie hemorrhaging, and pitting Senators against #45, and using the ensuing chaos to permanently maim the bond that held Republicans to the mothership guided by whatever DarthTrumper desired.   It is not likely that the $2,000 will pass the Senate, but it will be interesting to watch the roll call vote to see how each Senator votes on the bill.   Any way you look at it, there will no longer be a unified GOP.   This does not mean that we are home free on our way to the inauguration.   Trump still has the capability to act irresponsibly, but he may not find support in carrying out some other stupid act.



Trump, in his final days, goes full King Lear




Opinion by 
Columnist
As President Trump behaves ever more erratically in the waning weeks of his term, Republicans and Democrats alike wonder: What's he thinking?
To all those who would divine in the president's floundering a grand strategy, or even a small one, let me offer some caution: If you go rummaging around in Trump's brain right now, you're going to emerge empty-handed.

He labeled it a "disgrace" — the covid-relief package his treasury secretary negotiated, in part because it was paired with spending items that Trump himself had proposed. After threatening the nation with a government shutdown, he signed the bill anyway.
He vetoed a crucial $741 billion defense bill that provides funding for military programs and gives the troops a pay raise — because of a personal beef he's having with Twitter and Facebook and because he wants to keep the names of Confederate generals on military bases. On Monday, the House overrode the veto by an overwhelming 322 to 87.

He pardoned lawbreaking cronies and, according to President-elect Joe Biden, the "political leadership" of Trump's team has blocked the incoming administration from learning about foreign threats, a vulnerability "our adversaries may try to exploit."
Trump continues his quixotic and lonely bid to overturn the results of the election he lost. He's now lashing out at Republican leaders who have finally opted to follow the constitutional order rather than continuing to indulge his clownish attempt at a coup.
Even the Murdoch-owned New York Post, which endorsed Trump and ran with Hunter Biden allegations that other outlets could not substantiate, questioned the madness. An editorial in Monday's edition urged Trump to stop "cheering for an undemocratic coup" and avoid being the "King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world."

The widely-read morning tip sheet, Politico Playbook, marveled over the "bizarre, embarrassing episode for the president" in which he unsuccessfully threatened the covid-relief bill with "no discernible strategy" to make good on his bellicose statements. "He folded, and got nothing besides a few days of attention and chaos," it concluded.
Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
Ah, but that is exactly what he wanted. Attention is his lifeblood, and chaos its delivery vehicle. There is no strategy or policy.
Arguably, there never was. But in these final days, we see a defeated president abandoning all things — national security, democratic elections and any pretense of handling the duties of the presidency — as he does anything and everything to keep the spotlight on himself.

In tribute to this late-stage Trumpian lunacy, I'm writing these words wearing my back-ordered T-shirt that just arrived from Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, with the slogan "Make America Rake Again." (My wife has the other version: "Lawn & Order.") After the Trump campaign chose this location (near a porn shop and crematorium) for an election-challenge news conference, millions have posed the same question: Why?

New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi last week gave us the definitive 5,000-word account. And Nuzzi concludes, more or less, that there was no good explanation. "As one Philadelphia Republican official told me: 'Duuuuuude! … It's the height of idiocy!'" she writes. "It was probably always that simple."
On Monday, the House returned early from its Christmas break to deal with the latest instabilities and idiocies induced by the stable genius.

First, Democrats exploited Trump's last-minute demand for $2,000 checks for Americans by forcing Republicans to vote on exactly that.
"Democrats agree that families deserve more," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) argued, so their new bill would "increase the payments in the relief package to $2,000, the exact amount the president said he wants."

The ranking Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady (Tex.), was forced in the position of disagreeing publicly with Trump, saying the bill "does nothing to help get people back to work" and amounts to spending "another trillion dollars so hastily." Still, he admitted, "we expect a number of Republicans to support this bill."

Forty-four of them did.
Then, the House took up its override of Trump's pointless veto of the defense bill, which threatened an annual defense authorization for the first time in 59 years.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (Tex.), the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said, "I continue to support this bill as more than 80 percent of the House did just 20 days ago." He made it clear, as Biden did earlier in the day, that Trump's madness is jeopardizing national security.
"The president has exercised his constitutional prerogative," Thornberry said. "Now, Madam Speaker, it's up to us. The troops, the country, indeed the world is watching. … Put the best interest of the country first. There is no other consideration that should matter."

On Monday, 109 House Republicans defied Trump and joined the successful veto override — a first for his presidency. Such a public rejection of Trump's position by Republicans would have been unthinkable over the past four years. But as his spotlight-grabbing madness worsens, some Republicans are making their belated reacquaintance with sanity.
--
****
Juan

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Monday, December 28, 2020

Something to Know - 28 December

There is a lot of speculation on what "stimulus" came about to cause #45 to sign "the bill".   Among the many theories, this one happens to be the most logical:
He was apprised of the fact that the federal government would be shut down, and that his flight crew and airplane (Air Force #1 - a big 747) would also be out of service and unable to fly him back to the White House.   He was offered a 50% car rental discount, since his secret service caravan would also be shot down, and Trump did not like any of this, so he reluctantly signed it so he would not be forced to walk back.   Think about it.

Tonight, Trump relented and signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which includes the coronavirus relief measure and the 2021 appropriations bill (along with other measures).

He accompanied it with a statement claiming he would demand changes to the law, but these have no force; Congress will almost certainly ignore him. He also continued to pressure Senate Republicans to increase payments to individuals and families, saying that the House would vote to increase the amount of stimulus payments on Monday and that the Senate should agree. But he seemed to confuse the CAA with the National Defense Authorization Act he vetoed, said that Congress has agreed to do things it hasn't, and then threw in complaints about voter fraud. The statement was weirdly disconnected from the way the legislative process actually works.

Trump tried to suggest he was saving the nation from the crisis he, himself, has caused, but it is likely that he finally signed the bill because his stubbornness was not playing well across an increasingly desperate nation, especially as he is golfing at Mar-a-Lago and Vice President Mike Pence is skiing in Vail, Colorado. Americans were generally angry over his inaction on a bill that would provide relief for those suffering from the economic crisis, funding for the distribution of vaccines, and funding for the government. As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) pointed out today, "If his goal was really to get a better deal on the budget, he would have vetoed it immediately and begun negotiating. But his goal is actually national arson—chaos for the fun of it. So he sits on the budget—does nothing—in order to guarantee a government shutdown."

He was also under pressure from Republican Senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who likely told him his stubbornness was undermining the Republican Senate candidates in Georgia before the January 5 runoff. While Trump is furious with McConnell and the other Senate Republicans who have acknowledged Biden's win, he is apparently not furious enough that he wants to see McConnell replaced by a Democrat, as would happen if the Senate is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

So the CAA will become law, and the drama of lawmaking for this congressional session should be over. But it is not quite over yet. Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, which specifies how the defense budget will be spent, on Wednesday, December 23. The NDAA has passed with bipartisan majorities since the 1960s when it first began, and presidents have always signed it. But Trump has chosen to veto it, on the grounds that it calls for the renaming of U.S. military bases named for Confederate generals and that it does not strip social media companies of protection from liability when third parties post offensive material on them.

The National Defense Authorization Act this year does something else, though, that seems to me of far more importance to the president than the naming of military bases.

It includes a measure known as the Corporate Transparency Act, which undercuts shell companies and money laundering in America. The act requires the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file a report that identifies each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercises substantial control over it. That report, including name, birthdate, address, and an identifying number, goes to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The measure also increases penalties for money laundering and streamlines cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

America is currently the easiest place in the world for criminals to form an anonymous shell company which enables them to launder money, evade taxes, and engage in illegal payoff schemes. The measure will pull the rug out from both domestic and international criminals that take advantage of shell companies to hide from investigators. When the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists dug into leaked documents from FinCEN this fall, they discovered shell companies moving money for criminals operating out of Russia, China, Iran, and Syria.

Shell companies also mean that our political system is awash in secrecy. Social media giants like Facebook cannot determine who is buying political advertising. And, as Representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) noted, shell companies allow "foreign bad actors" to corrupt our system even more directly. "[I]t's illegal for foreigners to contribute to our campaigns," he reminded Congress in a speech for the bill, "but if you launder your money through a front company with anonymous ownership there is very little we can do to stop you."

We know the Trump family uses shell companies: Trump's fixer Michael Cohen used a shell company to pay off Stormy Daniels, and just this month we learned that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner approved a shell company that spent more than $600 million in campaign funds.

The new requirements in the NDAA apply not just to future entities, but also to existing ones.

Congress needs to repass the NDAA over Trump's veto—indeed it is likely that the CTA was included in this measure precisely because the NDAA is must-pass legislation—and both the CTA and the NDAA bill into which is it tucked have bipartisan support. Trump has objected to a number of things in the original bill but has not publicly complained about the CTA in it. It will be interesting to see if Congress repasses this bill in its original form and, if not, what changes it makes.

Finally, we have a little more information now about the attack in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning, when an explosive device in a recreational vehicle exploded near an AT&T transmission building near Second Avenue North and Commerce Street.

At 5:30 on December 25, the sound of what seemed to be gunfire woke residents in the area, then a computerized message warned them to evacuate before a bomb went off. The recording began a countdown to detonation. Law enforcement officers knocked on doors telling people to evacuate. At about 6:30, the device exploded. The blast damaged more than 40 businesses, sent three people to the hospital, and disrupted cell service, 911 systems, and the Internet throughout Tennessee as well as in parts of Kentucky and Alabama. Planes were temporarily grounded at Nashville International Airport. Yesterday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee asked Trump to issue an emergency disaster declaration, which would free up federal money to help clean up and rebuild.

This evening, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Donald Cochran, identified Anthony Quinn Warner, a 63-year-old white man and former IT specialist, as the bomber. "He was present when the bomb went off," Cochran said, and he "perished in the bombing."

Trump has not yet commented.

—-

Notes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/25/nashville-explosion-christmas/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-from-the-president-122720/

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/24/state-senator-calls-out-vice-president-mike-pence-holiday-trip-vail-valley/

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/congress-passes-corporate-transparency-act-veto-proof-majority

https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29282/is-trump-s-real-target-in-the-ndaa-its-anti-corruption-measures

https://www.cov.com/-/media/files/corporate/publications/2020/12/bsa-aml-reform-in-the-2021-ndaa-seven-things-to-know.pdf

https://www.businessinsider.com/jared-kushner-trump-campaign-shell-company-family-ammc-lara-2020-12

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/12/11/anonymous-shell-company-us-ban/

https://malinowski.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-malinowski-fights-corporate-transparency-act

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34821962/congress-money-laundering-shell-companies-ndaa/

Share




--
****
Juan

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Something to Know - 26/27 December

This is being passed on since there is nothing more important right now than the outcome of a signature on a bill.  As this is written, there are still 3-hours left before the end of Saturday night for Trump's signing.   We all know what is going to happen if that fails.   Misery, hunger, and evictions of millions while the president slaps a little white ball around a golf course.   Perhaps this would be the right time to exercise the 25th Amendment, which simply stated is:

"allows the vice president, together with a "majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide", to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" in a written declaration".

In a direct way, the socio-pathic lack of concern and hurt ego of the president is preventing him from properly governing and doing the job to which he was elected.

On December 21, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, a $2.3 trillion bill that pulled together a number of different pieces of legislation, including a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and a $1.4 trillion appropriations bill (which included 12 separate annual appropriations bills). Today's news is that Trump is refusing to sign the bill into law.

Here's what's at stake: the bill provides $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits on top of state benefits, and without it, expanded unemployment benefits ran out today for millions of Americans. The bill increases the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food support program by $13 billion, and allocates $25 billion in assistance to help pay past-due rent. It also provides $20 billion to buy more vaccines and about $8 billion distribute them. The bill also calls for a one-time $600 direct payment to individuals.

That's the coronavirus relief piece of the measure. Another piece is the regular appropriations bill for the 2021 federal fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2021. This includes military spending, aid to foreign countries, and the money that keeps federal programs afloat. It has $1.4 billion allocated to the wall on our southern border. Congress should have passed this appropriations bill in time for the start of the 2021 fiscal year on October 1, 2020, but it didn't, so it has kept the government funded through continuing resolutions. The one under which we are currently operating expires at midnight on Monday, December 28.

Here's the third piece of the measure. More than 3000 of the 5593 pages of this massive bill are additional measures that have nothing to do with the first two. They extend tax breaks from previous laws, amounting to tax cuts of about $200 billion. They include money for flood control and coastal protection. They fund community health centers and historically Black colleges and universities. They reauthorize intelligence programs for 2021. They establish the Women's History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (although it appears they do not allocate money for them, but simply authorize their establishment, as required by law).

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 passed Congress by large bipartisan majorities. Trump has not called congressional Democratic leaders in more than a year, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was part of the negotiations, and spoke for the White House. Everyone expected that, after Congress had passed the bill, Trump would sign it into law.

But he left for Mar-a-Lago on December 23 without signing it, and is threatening not to. In a surprise video on Tuesday, December 22, he called the legislation "a disgrace." He complained about the $600 stimulus checks—it was Mnuchin who insisted on that amount—and demanded the amount be raised to $2000. He also complained about "wasteful spending and much more," although some of the things he called out, including funds for Egypt and the Egyptian military and money for the Kennedy Center, were his own requests. Republicans were stunned by his sudden hostility. Democrats, who had wanted higher stimulus payments all along, promptly tried to pass a stand-alone $2000 payment measure through the House, but were stopped by Republicans.  

Trump's sudden hostility to a bill that took months to hammer out is disastrous for millions of Americans whose expanded unemployment benefits ran out today and whose state benefits are long gone. It also threatens to force a government shutdown.

So, what's Trump up to?

A couple of things. First, he is furious with Senate Republicans, especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Majority Whip (the second most powerful Republican in the Senate, who enforces party discipline) John Thune (R-SD), both of whom have acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Trump continues to insist that he won "by a landslide" and that the election was stolen. He is incensed by any Republican who has not signed on to his crusade, yet as he relies more and more on marginal figures like his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Biden's victory becomes more and more secure, party leaders are distancing themselves from him. Tonight, he tweeted that it is "[t]ime for Republican Senators to step up and fight for the Presidency…."

Now, though, Republican leadership needs him to sign this bill to help Republican Senate candidates in Georgia. Democrats in the House passed coronavirus relief back in May, but McConnell objected to anything of the sort until after the election, when it became clear that control of the Senate was going to depend on the outcome of a runoff for both Senate seats from Georgia. In that state, the two Republican candidates are having a hard time because voters are disgusted that there has been so little help coming from the Republicans for people hurt by the economic crisis that came in on the heels of the pandemic. If those Senate seats go the Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the Senate will be balanced 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. In the case of such a tie, the position of the Senate Majority Leader goes to the top member of the party of the U.S. President, meaning that a Democrat would replace McConnell.

McConnell assured the Georgia Republican Senate candidates that there would be a coronavirus relief package before Christmas, and they ran on that promise. Now Trump has them over a barrel.

That's one reason he's suddenly stalling.

The other is quite likely that he is angry and frustrated at his impending loss of power, and is lashing out to hurt people. It seems of a piece with the fact that he and then-Attorney General William Barr resumed federal executions in July 2019, and that he has sped up the executions of federal prisoners since his November defeat. During his administration, the federal government has executed ten prisoners, more than any president since Grover Cleveland in 1896. This includes executions during the transition to the next administration. Traditionally, presidents stop executions during this period, leaving life-and-death decisions to their successors. One person in conversation with White House officials talked with Jeff Stein of the Washington Post about Trump's scuttling of the bill and said, "He's just angry at everybody and wants to inflict as much pain on Congress as possible."

Trump's supporters are urging him to "pocket veto" the Consolidated Appropriations Act, taking advantage of a weird option at the end of a congressional session. Normally, a president has ten days, not including Sunday, to review and sign a bill. During a congressional session, if the president doesn't sign a bill within ten days, it becomes a law. But if the congressional session ends within ten days, the bill does not become a law. This is known as a pocket veto. The 116th Congress—this one—officially ends at noon on January 3. If Trump got the bill on December 24, and all indications are that he did, the ten-day window ends on January 4. So, he could, in fact, run out the clock in such a way that Congress could not override his veto.

For his part, President-Elect Joe Biden is scathing of the machinations that could leave him inheriting an epic disaster. "[M]illions of families don't know if they'll be able to make ends meet because of… Trump's refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority," his transition team wrote today. "This abdication of responsibility has devasting consequences." Biden pointed out that about 10 million Americans will lose their unemployment insurance benefits, paychecks for military personnel will be at risk, a moratorium on evictions expires, small businesses will fail, and distribution of vaccines will falter. "This bill is critical," he wrote. It needs to be signed into law now. But it is also a first step and down payment on more action that we'll need to take early in the new year to revive the economy and contain the pandemic…."

Biden noted that "In November, the American people spoke clearly that now is a time for bipartisan action and compromise." Congress has stepped up to the plate with this appropriations bill, Biden said, and added that "Trump should join them, and make sure millions of American can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads in this holiday season."

—-

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/arts/design/smithsonian-latino-women-museums.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/22/congress-approves-smithsonian-museums-latino-and-womens-history/4006109001/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/22/congress-agrees-to-fund-national-latino-and-womens-history-museums.html

https://apnews.com/article/health-care-reform-health-legislation-coronavirus-pandemic-762f84e4da11d350d8b5be5680ab01c4

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17/politics/federal-death-penalty-2020-trnd/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/politics/unemployment-pandemic-aid-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/politics/unemployment-pandemic-aid-trump.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-spending-stimulus-congress/2020/12/23/7a04ebd8-4549-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/12/26/trump-mnuchin-stimulus/

Share


--
****
Juan

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Something to Know - 22 December

When you get too close to the daily events, you can experience agitation and disgust that screws up your whole day, even to the point of anomie (look that up).   I placate myself by backing off a bit, and what I see is the Republican Party destroying itself in the divisions created by the outgoing president.   Barr is through with Trump, and is leaving because he can't stand it any more.   Trump threw Mitch under the bus yesterday, and now Pat Robertson (see below), has given up and wants Trump to move on.    There is one last event on the 6th of January where the forces between the conspiracy loonies and the more moderate Republicans will clash forever and forecast the future of the GOP.   My sense is that there is enough of the good guys (on both sides) to end it all.   In addition to Trump losing the election, he will begin decaying like an old unfound hidden easter egg, and his legal problems will be very revealing to all.

In the past two days, stories in major papers have focused on the president's deteriorating mental state. The Atlantic ran a story by Peter Wehner titled "Trump is Losing His Mind." It describes "Trump's descent into madness." Politico ran Michael Kruse's story titled "Is Trump Cracking Under the Weight of Losing?""[T]he actual fact of the matter," it said, is that "Trump is a loser." Kruse points to Trump's uncharacteristic absence from the public eye to wonder if he is breaking down mentally.

"His fragile ego has never been tested to this extent," Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen told Kruse. "While he's creating a false pretense of strength and fortitude, internally he is angry, depressed and manic. As each day ends, Trump knows he's one day closer to legal and financial troubles. Accordingly, we will all see his behavior deteriorate until it progresses into a full mental breakdown."

CNN reported that senior White House officials are worried about what Trump might do in the next month as he spends more and more time with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is under active investigation by federal prosecutors; conspiracy lawyer Sidney Powell; disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Steve Bannon, who has recently been indicted for fraud; Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser; and now Patrick Byrne, the founder of the Overstock retail website.

Trump is turning to this group of misfits rather than advisers like his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, or White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The new advisers are encouraging him to declare martial law or to seize state voting machines to examine them for fraud or to appoint a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden's son Hunter. Trump has floated the idea of naming Powell as a special counsel inside the White House Counsel's office to investigate the election. Meadows and Cipollone argue, correctly, that this is crazy.

Nonetheless, far right House lawmakers met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Monday to strategize challenging Congress's certification of the states' electoral votes on January 6. While several House Republicans are on board with the scheme, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is trying to stop senators from signing on, since challenges in both the House and the Senate would force Republicans to vote against Trump, publicly. The challenges do not have the votes to stop the certification of Biden's ballots.

Previous loyalists are opening up water between themselves and the president. Evangelical leader Pat Robertson, who famously said Trump was part of God's plan for America, made the news today with his declaration that, for all the good he claims Trump has done, the president "lives in an alternate reality," and has been "very erratic." Robertson says it is time to recognize that Biden is the president-elect and it is time for Trump "to move on."

Attorney General William Barr also broke with Trump today, saying that he saw no need to appoint a special counsel to investigate voter fraud or to investigate Hunter Biden, and that there was no evidence of voter fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr also confirmed that it was Russia, rather than any other country, that hacked the United States government and prominent companies over the course of the past year. Barr will leave office on Wednesday.

Yesterday, Erica Newland, a former lawyer for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, published an op-ed in the New York Times saying she is "Haunted by What I Did as a Lawyer in the Trump Justice Department." Lawyers like her, she said, hoped they were limiting the damage Trump could do but were instead, she concluded, finding ways to make his demands legal. Represented by the caliber of lawyers who are currently at his side—Giuliani and Powell, for example—Newland argues, he could never have made anything stick. Newland resigned from her post in 2018 and now says, "No matter our intentions, we were complicit." They helped enable Trump's assault on our democracy, and on reality. She offered her apology to the nation.

Meanwhile, right-wing media outlets Fox News ChannelNewsmax, and One America News are also concerned with the law. They are madly backpedaling as they face the consequences of their baseless accusations against election software company Smartmatic. Although that company was involved in the 2020 election only in Los Angeles County, right-wing media personalities have accused it of altering votes in several states in the 2020 presidential contest. The lawyer for the company's founder, Antonio Mugica, has sent letters to the FNCNewsmax, and OAN demanding that they retract their stories and warning them to keep documents for a forthcoming defamation suit. Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, also included in the news stories, has also hired legal counsel.

The threat of lawsuits has prompted the FNC and Newsmax to "clarify" at some length that they had no evidence of any of the improprieties they alleged. On Newsmax, John Tabacco also had to clarify that there was no relationship between Dominion Voting Systems and Dianne Feinstein, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.

As he descends into the fever swamps, Trump has largely given up any pretense of governing. His public schedule remains empty, and his private meetings appear to focus on how he can stay in office. Today we learned that Russian hackers broke into the email system used by the leadership of the Treasury Department, but the cyberattack from Russia has gone unaddressed except to the extent the president tried to blame the attack on China (although he has made no move to retaliate against China for the attack). He has made little attempt to shepherd any sort of an economic relief bill through Congress. And, most crucially, he is silent about the epidemic that is killing us. As of this evening, more than 18 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 319,000 have died.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that is investigating the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic today released documents showing that Trump appointees in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tried to "alter or block" at least 13 of the reports written by CDC scientists. Appointees messed around with the CDC's traditional "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports" and edited reports on the use of masks, the dangers of Covid-19 in children, and the spread of the disease. They also tried to delete emails revealing political interference in scientific assessments. Some of the emails from science adviser Paul Alexander calling for the administration to speed the spread of coronavirus in order to achieve herd immunity have sparked outrage.

Chaired by Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the select subcommittee today issued subpoenas to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar and Director of the CDC Dr. Robert Redfield for all documents "relating to efforts by political appointees… to interfere with scientific work conducted by career officials." It had requested the documents earlier this month, but HHS and the CDC declined either to cooperate or to permit Redfield to testify about political censorship to the committee.

Meanwhile President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris are preparing to take office in the midst of a pandemic, a sweeping computer systems hack, and a recession, while the outgoing president tries to undermine them by ordering his own officials not to tell them anything that could be used against him and by insisting that they were not legitimately elected.

Biden was inoculated with the coronavirus vaccine today on national television to illustrate that the shot is safe; incoming First Lady Dr. Jill Biden also got the shot today. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will be vaccinated next week.

—-

Notes:

Robertson:

Treasury hack:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/media/smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-news-newsmax-oan.html

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bill-barr-special-counsel-voter-fraud

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/william-barr-hunter-biden-special-counsel-449576

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsmax-runs-away-from-its-election-conspiracy-coverage-like-a-scalded-dog

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/trump-losing-his-mind/617446/

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-85af-d418-a17f-edbfeedc0000

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/house-watchdog-cdc-covid-reports-449517

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/20/trump-white-house-losing-448903

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/house-conservatives-trump-meeting/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/trump-justice-department-lawyer.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/feds-have-discussed-making-legal-request-giuliani-s-electronic-communications-n1250714

Share



Meet
Hangouts
Collapse

Hangouts

More
36 of 22,500
Print all
In new window

December 21, 2020

Inbox

Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com> Unsubscribe

Dec 21, 2020, 10:16 PM (11 hours ago)
to me

In the past two days, stories in major papers have focused on the president's deteriorating mental state. The Atlantic ran a story by Peter Wehner titled "Trump is Losing His Mind." It describes "Trump's descent into madness." Politico ran Michael Kruse's story titled "Is Trump Cracking Under the Weight of Losing?""[T]he actual fact of the matter," it said, is that "Trump is a loser." Kruse points to Trump's uncharacteristic absence from the public eye to wonder if he is breaking down mentally.

"His fragile ego has never been tested to this extent," Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen told Kruse. "While he's creating a false pretense of strength and fortitude, internally he is angry, depressed and manic. As each day ends, Trump knows he's one day closer to legal and financial troubles. Accordingly, we will all see his behavior deteriorate until it progresses into a full mental breakdown."

CNN reported that senior White House officials are worried about what Trump might do in the next month as he spends more and more time with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is under active investigation by federal prosecutors; conspiracy lawyer Sidney Powell; disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Steve Bannon, who has recently been indicted for fraud; Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser; and now Patrick Byrne, the founder of the Overstock retail website.

Trump is turning to this group of misfits rather than advisers like his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, or White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The new advisers are encouraging him to declare martial law or to seize state voting machines to examine them for fraud or to appoint a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden's son Hunter. Trump has floated the idea of naming Powell as a special counsel inside the White House Counsel's office to investigate the election. Meadows and Cipollone argue, correctly, that this is crazy.

Nonetheless, far right House lawmakers met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Monday to strategize challenging Congress's certification of the states' electoral votes on January 6. While several House Republicans are on board with the scheme, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is trying to stop senators from signing on, since challenges in both the House and the Senate would force Republicans to vote against Trump, publicly. The challenges do not have the votes to stop the certification of Biden's ballots.

Previous loyalists are opening up water between themselves and the president. Evangelical leader Pat Robertson, who famously said Trump was part of God's plan for America, made the news today with his declaration that, for all the good he claims Trump has done, the president "lives in an alternate reality," and has been "very erratic." Robertson says it is time to recognize that Biden is the president-elect and it is time for Trump "to move on."

Attorney General William Barr also broke with Trump today, saying that he saw no need to appoint a special counsel to investigate voter fraud or to investigate Hunter Biden, and that there was no evidence of voter fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr also confirmed that it was Russia, rather than any other country, that hacked the United States government and prominent companies over the course of the past year. Barr will leave office on Wednesday.

Yesterday, Erica Newland, a former lawyer for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, published an op-ed in the New York Times saying she is "Haunted by What I Did as a Lawyer in the Trump Justice Department." Lawyers like her, she said, hoped they were limiting the damage Trump could do but were instead, she concluded, finding ways to make his demands legal. Represented by the caliber of lawyers who are currently at his side—Giuliani and Powell, for example—Newland argues, he could never have made anything stick. Newland resigned from her post in 2018 and now says, "No matter our intentions, we were complicit." They helped enable Trump's assault on our democracy, and on reality. She offered her apology to the nation.

Meanwhile, right-wing media outlets Fox News ChannelNewsmax, and One America News are also concerned with the law. They are madly backpedaling as they face the consequences of their baseless accusations against election software company Smartmatic. Although that company was involved in the 2020 election only in Los Angeles County, right-wing media personalities have accused it of altering votes in several states in the 2020 presidential contest. The lawyer for the company's founder, Antonio Mugica, has sent letters to the FNCNewsmax, and OAN demanding that they retract their stories and warning them to keep documents for a forthcoming defamation suit. Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, also included in the news stories, has also hired legal counsel.

The threat of lawsuits has prompted the FNC and Newsmax to "clarify" at some length that they had no evidence of any of the improprieties they alleged. On Newsmax, John Tabacco also had to clarify that there was no relationship between Dominion Voting Systems and Dianne Feinstein, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.

As he descends into the fever swamps, Trump has largely given up any pretense of governing. His public schedule remains empty, and his private meetings appear to focus on how he can stay in office. Today we learned that Russian hackers broke into the email system used by the leadership of the Treasury Department, but the cyberattack from Russia has gone unaddressed except to the extent the president tried to blame the attack on China (although he has made no move to retaliate against China for the attack). He has made little attempt to shepherd any sort of an economic relief bill through Congress. And, most crucially, he is silent about the epidemic that is killing us. As of this evening, more than 18 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 319,000 have died.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that is investigating the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic today released documents showing that Trump appointees in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tried to "alter or block" at least 13 of the reports written by CDC scientists. Appointees messed around with the CDC's traditional "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports" and edited reports on the use of masks, the dangers of Covid-19 in children, and the spread of the disease. They also tried to delete emails revealing political interference in scientific assessments. Some of the emails from science adviser Paul Alexander calling for the administration to speed the spread of coronavirus in order to achieve herd immunity have sparked outrage.

Chaired by Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the select subcommittee today issued subpoenas to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar and Director of the CDC Dr. Robert Redfield for all documents "relating to efforts by political appointees… to interfere with scientific work conducted by career officials." It had requested the documents earlier this month, but HHS and the CDC declined either to cooperate or to permit Redfield to testify about political censorship to the committee.

Meanwhile President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris are preparing to take office in the midst of a pandemic, a sweeping computer systems hack, and a recession, while the outgoing president tries to undermine them by ordering his own officials not to tell them anything that could be used against him and by insisting that they were not legitimately elected.

Biden was inoculated with the coronavirus vaccine today on national television to illustrate that the shot is safe; incoming First Lady Dr. Jill Biden also got the shot today. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will be vaccinated next week.

—-

Notes:

Robertson:

Treasury hack:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/media/smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-news-newsmax-oan.html

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bill-barr-special-counsel-voter-fraud

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/william-barr-hunter-biden-special-counsel-449576

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsmax-runs-away-from-its-election-conspiracy-coverage-like-a-scalded-dog

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/trump-losing-his-mind/617446/

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-85af-d418-a17f-edbfeedc0000

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/house-watchdog-cdc-covid-reports-449517

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/20/trump-white-house-losing-448903

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/house-conservatives-trump-meeting/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/trump-justice-department-lawyer.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/feds-have-discussed-making-legal-request-giuliani-s-electronic-communications-n1250714

Share


****
Juan

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.