Trump

Day 517 Wednesday June 20, 2018 1,061 Days to Go

Rubicon? What Rubicon?

Did you ever think our government would be compared to Nazi Germany?

That was done before things got bad.

Last night, I saw two commentators lose it. One couldn’t speak as she was going off the air. The other was so visibly upset they had to cut away several times and come back. The reason?

The United States of America is now jailing babies. Yup, that’s right. Babies are being kept in cages. What does the government think, that those babies will stage a break out?

The Trump administration is jailing babies. They are happy about this. It is what they want. They like the protests and the outrage. It is what they want.

Over half a dozen governors have pulled their troops or refused to send any to the southern border.

Trump gave a speech yesterday where he was saying how he was being tough on immigration. They: Trump, Miller, Sessions et al think this is a winning political strategy.

They are now having mass trials with people seeking asylum gang shackled in orange uniforms. Made to plead as a group. Judges are interviewing children of four and five years old at hearings. These children are without their parents, without a lawyer, they are alone facing a judge who decides their fate.

Welcome to the new America.

Dachau 1933

 

U.S. Internment Camp 2018

Day 516 Part IV

It’s still Tuesday June 19, 2018

There are still 1,062 Days to Go

Welcome to America! Let’s have your kids.

For some reason this whole immigration thing has people excited. For me, when I sit back and think about Jeff Sessions, and Stephen Miller being in charge of all this, I can only draw one conclusion, “What did we expect?”

Jeff Sessions last night when asked by Laura Ingraham on Fox how this was different than what happened in Nazi Germany, Jeff straightened her right out. You see in Nazi Germany they were trying to keep the Jews in. Which brings me to the question of, “what are we trying to do?” Keep people out? I don’t know. Whatever it is, many people think it is unamerican.

Fortunately, the Republicans in Congress are thinking about maybe really thinking about it. Susan Collins, always put forth as the one reasonable Republican, says she can’t support Diana Fienstein’s bill because it’s too broad. It says you can’t arrest anyone within one hundred miles of the border. Whether it really says that I don’t know. Fienstien said, “Fine, I’ll take it out.” Ball is in your court Susie.

Orin Hatch doesn’t like it, but has no real solution. John McCain says it’s not who we are. But John, it is who we are – now. So far not one Republican Senator is willing to sign on to the Feinstein bill to stop this. But don’t worry Ted Cruz to the rescue! Ted, ever the sympathetic one (I’m kidding of course), is going to introduce legislation to fix it all. Yeah, he wants to speed up the deportation process! But here’s the compassionate part: the kids get to stay with their parents until they are sent back. What a guy! Go Ted. You idiot.

Meanwhile his Democratic opponent, Representative Beto O’Rourke, has been speaking out, going to the border and holding protest rallies. He’s young. He’s passionate. He’s good looking. He seems like a decent guy. All the qualities Ted lacks. There’s a good chance Beto will defeat Ted. wouldn’t that be a pity? No more Mr. Green Eggs and Ham in the Senate chamber. Frankly, I never understood why he wasn’t arrested for trespassing when he shutdown the government and then trespassed on the closed WWII Memorial.

All the living First Ladies have come out against this policy. Melania said a little. She should go on Fox and Friends and speak out so her husband would hear her.

I like Chris Hayes’ idea that Donald and Jeff should go down to the border and help the authorities rip kids out of their parents arms. They’re a little short handed down there. Two governors, one Republican and one Democrat, have pulled their troops off the border. No wait, the Democrat said he wasn’t sending any; the Republican governor forbade his troops from helping in the ripping of babies out of the arms of their mothers.

Yesterday, as the news crew was waiting for Sarah Sanders to come out and lie to them they all got a text message. It was audio tape of children crying, begging for their fathers or mothers. One little girl had the number of her aunt memorized, which is a good thing because if all they had was a piece of paper with the number on it, that got taken away. The little girl was begging to call her aunt. She was being ignored. The people in charge were casually talking bout the crying being an orchestra and about mundane and routine tasks they needed to get done. The tape is really really bad. It brings home how terrible this policy is. The news people all got it just before the news conference. Guess what? Sanders never showed. Not even she was willing to take those slings and arrows. For that job they flew in Nielsen the DHS Secretary to explain, and clarify. And she lied. But let’s skip the lying, let’s go to the question she was asked, Where are the girls and the little children? (Because all we’ve seen are the older boys.)

She didn’t know.

When asked how the children would be reunited with their parents she explained that each child and each parent get a number. DHS keeps a file on the connections. After they “process” the children they get sent to HHS, the parents get arrested and sent into the criminal justice system. So the next question asked was do the kids and parents keep the numbers when they go into their respective internment process? The answer? She doesn’t know.

Great.

Now we have reports that parents are being presented with kids or given numbers to kids that aren’t theirs.

Great.

Some parents are being deported, but their kids remain here.

Great.

Do the parents know where their kids are?

NO.

Do the kids know how to get hold of their parents?

The kids are given an 800 number.

It doesn’t work.

Minor glitch.

WELCOME TO AMERICA.

THIS IS WHO WE ARE.

THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BECOME.

1,062 Days to Go

Day 516 Part III

It’s still Tuesday June 19, 2018

There are still 1,062 Days to Go

Wilbur Ross and his lies, his ties to Russia, China, and shady financial dealings.

Wilbur Ross is our Secretary of Commerce. He seems to be more interested in his commerce than ours.

In a stunning report in Forbes, which I could no longer get to because it appears the site is down, old Wilbur (remember Mr. Ed? No? Nevermind.) who promised to get rid of all his holdings in shady Russian companies lied. He admitted now that he lied. He didn’t even try the newly minted defense of he forgot until his memory was refreshed lie.

As you may remember Wilbur Ross was involved with the bank of Cyprus, a favorite money laundering spot for Russian oligarchs and Vladimir Putin. In fact, the Russian companies that Ross promised to divest himself of were shipping companies tied to Putin, Russia, and Putin’s buds the aforesaid oligarchs. Ross claimed he divested himself of the companies. But not before he took out a huge position betting their stock would go down once he disclosed he was divesting himself, and not before a bunch of people close to him still held shares in these companies.

And when the “Paradise Papers” leaked (those are the ones from Panama) it showed Ross still owned interest in one of these companies. A company btw that is controlled by Putin’s son-in-law, whom I guess is married to the rock and roll gymnast daughter of Putin. But hey, Ross didn’t lie, according to his lawyers or spokesperson, he filed amended documents, just like Sessions after being confirmed clarified his comments to the Senate committee about his failed memory and lies to them.

So here’s what Ross did, in one instance, when the New York Times asked him about his holdings in a Kremlin linked shipping company, Ross sold the shares, and before the Times article was released to the public he took up a huge short position in that company. This would be called trading on insider information as far as I know, but hey, this is Trump world and it’s probably not called insider information by them, just because the public didn’t know. I mean it’s not like Ross lied to a judge under oath. He only lied to the New York Times. In fact, he didn’t even do that. He only took up an investment position because he knew something the rest of us (the public) didn’t know. What’s the big deal?

And yes, Ross did divest himself of much of these holding. How? By giving the shares to family members! What’s wrong with that? He got rid of the shares didn’t he? What I can’t understand is why hasn’t he blamed Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats yet? I mean come on.

And to round out the story, the Bank of Cyprus’ biggest shareholder is Victor Vekselberg. That was the guy stopped at the airport by Mueller’s folks. Vekselberg’s cousin, an American citizen, runs a firm of which Vekselberg is the majority owner, if not the only person with money in that firm. It was that firm that paid Michael Cohen $500,000 for real estate advice. Yeah, no big deal, nothing to see here. Right? Am I right?

This is our commerce secretary hard at work, not for you, but for himself.

Here’s a link to CNN’s reporting on it in an earlier post.

1,062 Days to Go

Day 516 Part II
It’s still Tuesday June 19, 2018
There are still 1,062 Days to Go

Say what you will about Nixon, at least he was focused on problems that faced this country and the people in it and the world. Henry Kissinger did a tour of Latin America and came back with a report, which basically said lots of money has to be put into Latin America, including Central America, or people are going to flee those countries and come to the U.S. seeking a better life. The Republicans at that time balked and did not follow his advice, saying his solution was too costly. Their solution? Do nothing. It’s been the Republican playbook ever since.

So now we have an administration that has decided to separate children from their parents as they attempt to cross the border. This is their solution to the problems created in other countries where people are fleeing violence. Remember Trump was saying MS-13 was coming here? No, they are not; their victims are. Hey, why not help out those countries that have problems from drug cartels and gangs, from corrupt politicians and their strongmen? Oh, wait. Donald likes strongmen. In fact, he has said he wishes he could do what Kim does in North Korea or Duerte does in the Philippines. There is no subtlety here. It’s right there in your face. Besides, maybe Donald or Ivanka or Jared can cut a deal and get a hotel or a line of jewelry or a real estate loan from someone over there (where ever “there” is).

In a follow up to the Roger Stone meeting with Russians during the campaign:
The other guy in that whole forgetfulness until his memory was refreshed by evidence whose name is Caputo has been on TV and his defense is following a similar line to that of Don Jr. and the Russian collusion defense:
He’s a busy man,
It was maybe two minutes of his life,
He handed it off to Roger Stone and has no idea what happened after that,
and it’s the Democrats fault (or at least he posted his excuses on a website that has the word Democrat in it, which somehow one should infer the Democrats are to blame.)

Caputo’s defense is that the guy’s name was Greenberg, or at least that’s the name he used with him. How was he to know he was Russian? Greenberg was an FBI informant for years, so how can we trust him? And wait for it … He forgot.

Forgot what exactly? He forgot that he sent text messages to Roger Stone where he used the word Russian at least two times to identify the fellow named Greenberg, and the fellow named Greenberg had a heavy Russian accent. How was he to know he was a Russian? Hum. Lemme go way out on a legal investigative limb here and suggest that you knew and Roger knew because you used the word “Russian” twice in texts to Roger and that you knew the guy had a heavy Russian accent?
Oh. Oh. You forgot? You and Roger both forgot. Forgot about the conversations with Greenberg, forgot about your communications back and forth because (here’s the double excuse so popular with this crowd) 1) – nothing came of it, and 2) You are busy people.

There’s another excuse. At the time no one was thinking about Russians. Besides, they weren’t dealing with the Russian government. They were dealing with an individual that they had no idea he was Russian. If they had any inkling at all they would have told the authorities. Yeah, I mean, come on, the guy had a heavy Russian accent. He was identified and referred to as a Russian in the communication between Caputo and Stone, how were they to know?

1,062 Days to Go

PS There is no light at the end of the tunnel

Day 516 Tuesday June 19, 2018   1,062 Days to Go

I’ve found legal stuff and civics to be pretty boring stuff. However, with the advent of Mr. Trump the situations he creates have made this stuff much more interesting.

But first a shout out to Time magazine for it’s cover with the note “Diplomacy by Impulse.”

Okay, the other day I heard George Will make an argument on Bill Maher’s show that the special counsel is unconstitutional and so then would be everything he does. My conclusion was “This could be bad.” (Brilliant, I know.) So I typed a search term or two into google and got an article written by George Conway, husband of one KellyAnne. I remember Rachel mentioned this article but her take was “Who’s side is he on?” because the article seemed to defend Mueller and not the Republican view. I didn’t really understand it any further than that.

But now I do!

Conway (the husband) was responding to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen Calabresi of the Federalist Society. Let’s take a moment to make sure we know who and whom Stephen and the Federalist Society is and are. According to wikipedia the Federalist Society is made up of conservative and libertarian legal beagles. They claim to be interested in interpreting the Constitution as it was originally intended. This is called origanalism and the folks who subscribe to it originalists. This group is the one, as far as I know, who have suggested all the justices that Trump is suggesting and McConnell is trying to ram through the Senate. They suggested Gorsuch. So they are a bunch of nut bag right wingers. Their heros? Anthony Scalia and Ted Cruz.

Calabresi went to Yale Law, clerked for Robert Bork and wrote speeches for Dan Quayle. He is the co-founder of the Federalist Society.

So Calabresi wrote a paper that said Mueller wasn’t constitutionally appointed and hence everything he does should be thrown out. George Will seems to think this is correct. KellyAnne Conway’s husband disagrees. In fact, he shredded Calabresi’s arguments, of which their are four (if I counted correctly):

 

1 – The special counsel is a Principal Officer as outlined in the Constitution and as such has to be approved by the Senate. He wasn’t. Therefore everything he does is out the window.

This gets into a lot of definitions of what the Constitution says about what a Principal Officer is and is Mueller a Principal Officer? We’ll discuss below. This references what is known in the Constitution as the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2).

2 – Mueller is a Principal Officer because no one is supervising him.

3 – There is an Independent prosecutor law, that has expired, but the argument goes that Mueller is really an independent prosecutor, operating outside of the Executive branch and that has been shown to be infringing on the powers of the president and therefore he is operating outside of the law and the Constitution and therefore everything he does is illegal.

Hum, there really were only three arguments. All of them unfounded and silly. But Conway goes through each one and shows why legally they don’t stand up. And whom does he site as supporting his claims? Why Anthony Scalia, the original originalist, the darling of the Federalist Society, and case law, and the Constitution, and laws passed by Congress, and opinions by the Supreme Court. But other than that…

Okay, here’s an overview of Mr. Conway’s arguments:

The Appointment Clause of the Constitution speaks to how Principal officers get appointed. Typically, in writing from the president and vote by the Senate, but not always. There are many cases where the president appoints when the Senate is in recess, or of judges being appointed without the president’s writing to the Senate, etc. etc. etc.

To be a Principal Officer you need to be reporting to the president or be unsupervised or have no one know what you are doing.

There is also a reference to “inferior officers” by the Constitution and they don’t go through the whole Senate thing.

Mueller according to Conway is an “inferior officer” because he reports to Rosenstein and Rosenstien has told Congress that he is aware of what Mueller is doing and has approved it.

Calabresi has tried to say that Mueller is like the prosecutors around the country and they are principal officers. Nice argument, except they aren’t. Who says so? Why Anthony Scalia. And a bunch of case law, and the Constitution, but other than that…

Then Calabresi tries to say Mueller is an Independent Prosecutor. This was a position that Congress let expire, after a certain Independent Prosecutor wandered around for years trying to find something to nail Bill Clinton on. He finally got him for six blow jobs.

To be an Independent Prosecutor you have to be outside the three branches of government. Robert Mueller isn’t.

Next? Well, Calabresi babbles on. Trump tweets nonsense about it. But other than that?

Well, is Stevie D nodding his head up and down over at Fox and Friends?

1,062 Days to Go

PS Is there light at the end of the tunnel?