January 25, 2021

Janet Yellen about to be confirmed

As first female Treasury Secretary.

Looks like the vote will pass easily.

January 24, 2021

While trying to malign Mueller.....Trump may have left pardon recipients open to prosecution.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-pardons-may-poorly-worded-231844055.html

On his way out of office, President Donald Trump issued more than 100 pardons, mostly to his personal friends and political allies.

A number of those pardons were for people convicted of federal crimes linked to the Mueller investigation - including his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and advisors Roger Stone and George Papadopoulos.

Trump was sure to malign Mueller's investigation in his pardon notices. The press release for Manafort's pardon, for example, said he was "prosecuted in the course of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, which was premised on the Russian collusion hoax."

Though the president's pardon powers are broad, a number of prosecutors and experts on clemency laws don't believe those people are off the hook just yet.

Trump pardoned Manafort for his specific convictions. It's much more narrowly tailored than the pardon Trump gave to Flynn, for "any and all offenses arising out of the facts and circumstances" brought by Robert Mueller's office.

It's also narrower than the pardon President Gerald Ford gave to former President Richard Nixon, which covered a broad timeframe.

"It says 'for his conviction' and that's it. It's just for the crimes for which he was convicted," Kimberly Wehle, a University of Baltimore law professor, told Insider. "That is a different wording than Richard Nixon received under his pardon, which is for 'all conceivable crimes.'"

Beyond that, prosecutors can always try to bring different charges using the same set of underlying facts, she said.

The same point was brought up by Andrew Weissman, Mueller's second-in-command, in an article for the blog Just Security on Wednesday. Weissman argued that while Flynn's pardon left "no room for now holding Flynn to account for his past felonious conduct," the pardon for Manafort was full of holes.

"Specifically, the pardon is solely for the crimes of conviction ... That leaves numerous crimes as to which Manafort can still be prosecuted, as in Virginia there were 10 hung counts," Weissman wrote. "In Washington, the situation is even more wide open. In that district, Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment - containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act - now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges."

There are other obstacles, too.

Prosecutors need to make sure they don't run afoul of the statue of limitations - though Manafort waived some of those protections, Weissman said. And a judge might decide that prosecutors are simply repackaging the same actions for which a person was pardoned into different crimes, which may run afoul of the Constitution's double jeopardy protection.

But Wehle said there's plenty of case law for judges to review. While federal prosecutors have rarely tried to go around presidential pardons, state-level prosecutors have often brought new criminal charges following governors' state-level pardons and succeeded.

"Say there was a robbery and a murder, and you're indicted and prosecuted for the robbery, and then later they come back and indict you and prosecute you for the murder," Wehle said. "I don't think there's this a problem with fairness in there."

Experts think Flynn may not be safe either
Some pardon attorneys even believe that federal prosecutors may still be able to bring new charges against Flynn.

Margaret Love, a clemency attorney and US Department of Justice pardon attorney between 1990 and 1997, believes the pardon for Flynn may have asserted powers that Trump didn't actually have.

Love told Insider that while Trump could grant Flynn clemency for the crimes he was prosecuted for, a judge might decide that the "any and all offenses arising out of the facts and circumstances" part of it might not hold water.

"The president can assert whatever power he has, but at issue is whether he has the power," Love said, adding: "I believe there is a strong argument that the constitutional pardon power requires a degree of specificity as to what crime it is pardoning."

Even the broad pardon Ford gave to Nixon, Love said, has never been tested. The Justice Department never brought the issue before a court to decide whether the sweeping nature of the pardon was valid.

The question of whether Flynn's pardon would prevent future prosecutions now depends on the appetite of Justice Department prosecutors, and it's an open question whether Biden's selection for attorney general, Merrick Garland, would choose to bring another case against him.

"Whoever is the prosecutor in the Flynn case will undoubtedly be looking closely at [the pardon] wording, just like Andrew Weissman was looking closely at [the] Manafort pardon," Love said. "Then they will decide what to do."

Attorneys for Manafort and Flynn didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

January 22, 2021

We officially have a new SecDEF

Congratulations Lloyd Austin.

Vote was 93-2

January 21, 2021

Music to my ears (Fauci)

Holy shit.

Fauci just said "One thing about this new administration is that if you don't know the answer, just say you don't know, don't guess."

That'll solve half of the problems we have on it's own.

January 20, 2021

this pardons list is boring AF

No Tiger King? No Assange? No Snowden? No Trump kids? No Ted Cruz's Dad? No insurrectionist army?

Trump basically pardoned Bannon, an old mayor from Detroit, a guy who stole his own designs for autonomous cars, Lil Wayne, and a bunch of people nobody has ever heard of.

lol, the MAGA guys are mad.

January 19, 2021

A warning to mods and users......Qanon

I fully expect that once Biden is sworn in and starts to govern.....the Qanon folks are going to start to pivot.

They have invested the lie for 3 years and the influences have built incomes from it. I fully expect them to incorporate Biden as "part of the plan."

Some already say Biden and Trump did a "face swap." I expect most will say Biden and Trump are secretly working together in some way because the Deep State trusts Biden and he can infiltrate them or some bullshit

I expect they could start showing up here in the next few months.

A: Don't buy into their nuttiness like FR did.

B: Remember that most of the believers are victims of a scam.

C: Remember that the influences are perpetuating a lie that is ruining lives.

When they do show up, maybe we can deradicalize them.

I could be wrong, but their lives are built around "trust the plan" and when Trump leaves tomorrow they will either have to say he is a traitor, say its all a lie, or say Biden is part of the plan.

You guess which is easier.


UPDATE: It is already starting...

https://twitter.com/travis_view/status/1351921484386676737?s=19

January 17, 2021

Its not fair to compare Trump to Nixon

Because Nixon actually accomplished a lot during his Presidency.

Ended Vietnam
Established SSI
Established EPA
Serious foreign policy wins in Russia and China.
The Nixon Doctrine is still used today when he arm countries instead of directly send troops.

At the end of his first term he was very popular and of course the 1972 election was among the most one sided in history.

Had he not committed the Watergate scandal, he'd be remembered by most as a very consequential president and by many as a very good president.

Trump accomplished nothing and has no. "Wins" to speak of. Every foreign policy decision he made ended up to be bad. NK had a bomb and got a meeting with the president and toms of fanfare for it. China is more powerful, with more allies, than ever. Putin 8s more entrenched in a re-emerging. The EU, NATO, and UN are weakened.

Also, almost everything he did in his entire term will be erased from US policy within months.

When faced with the prospect of dividing the nation for self interest, Nixon resigned and Trump tried to start a civil war.

It's not fair to Nixon, or any President, to compare him to Trump. All of them tried to govern in good faith and while many made sometimes huge mistakes, Trump is the only one who actively tried to end liberal democracy. He should be in a category all his own.

January 15, 2021

If you are interested in the origins of Qanon

You don't need to go much further than this

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-q-clearance-the-hunt-for-72308028/

You can also find it on Spotify, Apples, etc.

Another great resource

https://www.qanonanonymous.com/

However, it's not a podcast that you can really go back and listen to because it's really geared to current events. But it would be something good to pay attention to from here on to keep up on the things happening in that world.

January 15, 2021

I may have missed it...

but have we had a real conversation about how Biden's stimulus bill included raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.00 an hour?

Some people seem to want to complain about $1,400 vs $2,000 checks and this significant progressive goal is being ignored.

January 12, 2021

Major changes at CNN

Jake Tapper will become Chief Washington Correspondent, meaning he will be the one to make all major political announcements such as the calling of states on air. His weekday show, The Lead, will be expanding to two hours.

Wolf Blitzer's show, The Situation Room, will move to 6:00 PM and be shortened to one hour. Blitzer will remain as the networks anchor for all breaking news and host Special Reports.

Abby Phillip will take over the Sunday edition of "Inside Politics", John King will remain as the weekday host.

Dana Bash will take over hosting duties for every other week for "State of the Union" with Tapper remaining as host or the remaining weeks. She will also have a standing quarterly primetime interview special.

Jim Acosta will be leaving the WH Press Pool and taking over as a weekend anchor and Chief Domestic Correspondent.

Pamela Brown will get and anchor position during the weekend 6-9 timeslot.

Kaitlan Collins will be the new chief White House correspondent to replace Acosta.

Clearly CNN is setting a hard focus on the news while Fox is reducing it's primetime news programming and adding an additional hour of opinion programs.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/media/cnn-washington-dc-anchors-correspondents/index.html