Year: 2019

On the Fast Track

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Pass the Popcorn

Federal Judge Judge Amit Mehta has set this upcoming Monday for any additional arguments, and narrowed the scope of the lawsuit challenging the subpoena for Trump’s financial records:

A federal judge will fast-track a decision on President Trump’s bid to quash a House subpoena for financial records from his accounting firm, saying he will decide the full case, not just whether to temporarily block the subpoena while the case proceeds, after a hearing Tuesday.

 U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta made his announcement Thursday in a brief notice to both sides after receiving a first round of written arguments in the case. The lawsuit was brought April 22 by Trump and several of his businesses against House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and Trump’s accounting firm.

 “The sole question before the court — Is the House Oversight Committee’s issuance of a subpoena to Mazars USA LLP for financial records of President Donald Trump and various associated entities a valid exercise of legislative power? — is fully briefed, and the court can discern no benefit from an additional round of legal arguments,” Mehta said.

 ………

 Cummings’s panel last month subpoenaed Mazars seeking documents to corroborate testimony of the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who said at a congressional hearing that Trump intentionally misreported the value of his assets for personal gain.

 Other House panels have requested Trump’s banking records and tax returns, while his company also faces inquiries from New York state regulators and is defending itself against plaintiffs in two lawsuits alleging that his company violates the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments.

 In suing the House as well as his banks and accounting firm, Trump’s lawyers argued the president’s past personal dealings are irrelevant to the legislative branch’s fundamental duty of writing bills. They accuse Democrats of “assuming the powers of the Department of Justice, investigating (dubious and partisan) allegations of illegal conduct by private individuals.”

It’s pretty obvious how this decision will go:  There have been numerous cases, going back to (at least) Teapot Dome saying that oversight is a valid exercise of legislative power.

I expect this to be appealed, but I cannot see Trump winning this one unless the Supreme Court wants to overturn decades of precedent.

Linkage

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Here is Maddow calling for regime change in Venezuela

Do Not Share the Pix With Me

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It turns out that Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen did similar work for other people.

It turns out that Cohen helped Jerry Falwell, Jr. acquire and destroy “embarrassing” photographs.

I am not surprised that such photographs exist, but I am studiously avoiding any descriptions of said evidence.

That which is seen cannot be unseen:

Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

 Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs — the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

 According to a source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells’ behalf.

 The Falwells, through a lawyer, declined to comment for this article.

………

The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told [Comedian Tom] Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”

Cohen would later prove successful in another matter involving Falwell, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cohen helped persuade Falwell to issue his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy at a critical moment, they said: just before the Iowa caucuses. Falwell subsequently barnstormed with Trump and vouched for the candidate’s Christian virtues.

Why I am Short on Google

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Because they have literally the worst technical support on the planet earth.

21 years in, the only way to get effective support from Google is to have friends who work there.  Going in without personal connections is like trying to get a liquor license from the Ottoman Empire. https://t.co/T1KvCR14cY

— Pinboard (@Pinboard) May 3, 2019

Without knowing someone, or sending a letter from a lawyer, it is effectively impossible to get help if you have a problem with their services.

If you are going to rely on a company for mission critical applications, and you are not only unable to reach someone competent, but you are completely unable to reach anyone, period.

Beyond self dealing, extracting monopoly rent, and behaviors that would be called stalking if it were not coming from Silicon Valley, they have nothing to offer.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

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In what I find some of the least surprising news of the day, the right wing Evangelical National Christian Foundation, which claims to be the largest Christian charity in the US is helping people launder donations to hate groups.

Shelby Spong has asked, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?”

The answer is, of course:  Fomenting hate is all the Talibaptists have left:

The nation’s eighth-largest public charity is pouring tens of millions of dollars each year into a number of mostly anti-LGBT hate groups, a Sludge investigation shows.

According to the three most recent available tax filings—which cover 2015-17—it has donated $56.1 million on behalf of its clients to 23 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.

“I certainly don’t know of any public disclosures of funds to hate groups at levels anywhere near this,” Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Sludge. “It’s pretty astounding and certainly concerning.”

The far-right evangelical National Christian Foundation (NCF), which offers Christian donors “expert guidance and creative giving solutions,” is the fourth-largest donor-advised fund by 2017 revenue in the U.S., having raised over $1.5 billion that year. Such funds offer individual accounts to their clients, allowing clients to get immediate tax breaks on donations to these accounts and to direct NCF to disperse the money to the nonprofits of their choice, mostly churches and other Christian nonprofits, at their own pace. Clients donate through donor-advised funds anonymously, so even the Internal Revenue Service won’t know their identities.

According to a 2017 Inside Philanthropy article, NCF “is probably the single biggest source of money fueling the pro-life and anti-LGBT movements over the past 15 years.” In 2017, NCF’s donation to anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant hate groups rose to over $19 million.

By far the biggest recipient of NCF donations is Alliance Defending Freedom, a large network of Christian extremist lawyers who have supported criminalizing homosexuality, sterilizing transgender people, and claimed that gay men are pedophiles. The group recently came out against congressional Democrats’ Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.

………

Anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council, which has attempted to tie gay men to pedophilia for many years, accepted over $5.3 million from NCF from 2015-17.

As Lisa Gilbert at Public Citizen notes, “It’s interesting to me that big donors have a mechanism to give money to causes that would be unpopular, like going after gay rights ……… It’s not always so much about the total amount as it is about the mechanisms for funneling money into politics ……… This is like a shell-game funnel of corporate money. So it might be an organization that has an innocent name, that sounds like a good, upstanding, innocent group” but is being backed by wealthy donors.”

It really is remarkable just how much hate trumps any other considerations with the Christofascists.

Another Migrant Caravan

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No, not Central American’s fleeing violence and poverty, it’s Americans who are going to Canada to flee extortionate drug prices:

A “caravan” of Americans living with Type 1 diabetes made its way across the U.S. border into Canada over the weekend in search of affordable medical care in a country where they can get the “exact same” life-saving drugs for a dramatically lower price.

“We’re on a #CaravanToCanada because the USA charges astronomical prices for insulin that most people can’t afford,” tweeted caravan member Quinn Nystrom as she shared updates on the journey.

Nystrom was among a group of Minnesotans who piled into cars on Friday to make the 600-mile journey from the Twin Cities to Fort Frances, Ontario, where she said insulin, the hormone patients with Type 1 Diabetes rely on to regulate their blood glucose levels, can be bought for a tenth of what it costs in the U.S.

The caravan was organized as part of a campaign launched under the banner “#insulin4all” to call on the U.S. government to regulate the cost of life-saving drugs, including insulin, and make medication affordable for anyone who needs it.

Insulin has been public domain for nearly 100 years.

The fact that Pharma has still found a way to charge exorbitant rents, and that our government facilitates this, is an indication of a deep and systemic problem.

The Saddest Thing that I Have Heard in a Long Time

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At the Stem Highlands Range charter school in suburban Denver, CO, there was another shooting.

It barely qualifies as news these days, there seems to be a school shooting every week or so.

On the other hand, this comment by an 8th grader, Gianni, is positively heart breaking:

Her son, 8th-grader Gianni, chimed in. He talked about the gunshots he heard, about how everyone fell quiet, about how he “just sat there and prayed.”

Gianni said he wasn’t surprised by what happened. He was remarkably composed for a kid just hours removed from such a harrowing scene.

“I always knew. I live close to Columbine. I always knew this would happen,” he told me. “It’s bound to happen sooner or later.”

(emphasis mine)

F%$# the NRA.  F%$# Wayne LaPierre, F%$# the political cowards who dance to his tune.

I Approve of this Family Strife

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Members of the Kennedy family havwe publicly condemned Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s antivaxx advocacy.

This cannot have been easy for them.

Americans have every right to be alarmed about the outbreak of measles in pockets of our country with unusually high rates of unvaccinated citizens, especially children. Right now, officials in 22 states are grappling with a resurgence of the disease, which was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. With over 700 cases already reported and indications that more outbreaks will occur, 2019 will likely see the most recorded cases of measles in decades. And it’s not just measles. In Maine, health officials in March reported 41 new cases of whooping cough, another disease once thought to be a relic of the past—more than twice as many cases as this time last year.

………

These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.

We love Bobby. He is one of the great champions of the environment. His work to clean up the Hudson River and his tireless advocacy against multinational organizations who have polluted our waterways and endangered families has positively affected the lives of countless Americans. We stand behind him in his ongoing fight to protect our environment. However, on vaccines he is wrong.

And his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they’ve been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. We don’t need measles outbreaks to remind us of the value of vaccination.

Good on them, and bad on RFK, Jr.

It’s On, Girl

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The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to recommend that the House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over Robert S. Mueller III’s unredacted report, hours after President Trump asserted executive privilege to shield the full report and underlying evidence from Congress.

The committee’s 24-to-16 contempt vote, taken after hours of debate over the future of American democracy, was the first official House action to punish a government official in the standoff over the Mueller report. The Justice Department denounced the move as unnecessary and intended to stoke a fight.

After the vote, the Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, swatted away questions about possible impeachment, but added, “We are now in a constitutional crisis.”

The contempt vote raised the stakes in the battle over evidence and witnesses as Democrats investigate Mr. Trump over behavior detailed by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in his report into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice. By the day’s end, it seemed all but inevitable that the competing claims would have to be settled in the nation’s courts rather than on Capitol Hill.

“Our fight is not just about the Mueller report — although we must have access to the Mueller report,” Mr. Nadler said during a debate. “Our fight is about defending the rights of Congress, as an independent branch, to hold the president, any president, accountable.”

I’m not a lawyer, I’m an engineer, dammit,* but this assertion of executive privilege seems bogus even to me.

Executive privilege is used to prevent the revelation of executive deliberations by the principals involved, not the contents of a criminal investigation.

Seriously, start impeachment hearings, and get the Sergeant at Arms of the United States House of Representatives to start throwing those jokers in the cell in the House basement.

Once again, it ain’t the crime, it;s the coverup.

On the other hand, I am not at all convinced that the current corrupt 5 on the Supreme Court won’t vote to overturn United States v. Nixon, which required that Nixon turn over what became known as the “Smoking Gun Tape.”

I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy! 

And Steve Mnuchin Calls the Ways and Means Committee Chair a C%$# Sucker

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In defiance of black letter law, the Treasury Secretary is refusing the Ways & Means Committee’s demand for Trump’s tax returns:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday told House Democrats he would not furnish President Trump’s tax returns despite their legal request, the latest move by Trump administration officials to shield the president from congressional investigations.

Mnuchin, in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), said he had consulted with the Justice Department and that they had concluded that it would not be lawful for the Trump administration to turn over the tax returns because of potential violations of privacy.

Mnuchin added that requests from Congress “must serve a legitimate legislative purpose” and that the request from Democrats does not.

A number of legal experts have said it would be unprecedented for Mnuchin to refuse to turn over the tax returns, as the power for lawmakers to seek the returns is written explicitly in a 1924 law.

It is, as the saying goes, “On.”

It should be noted that Mnuchin has yet to release the opinion from the DoJ.

Here’s hoping that Neal seriously considers a contempt of Congress citation, but, based on his record, I would instead expect some more whinging, followed by a slow path through the courts.

Well, Now We Know Who the NSA Works For

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It turns out that the NSA knew about plans to murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi and did nothing, despite the fact that they are required to do so.

It appears that the House of Saud is their real employer:

In the six months since Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by a Saudi “Rapid Intervention Group” in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, press reports have described a variety of information swept up by U.S. intelligence that foretold or foreshadowed the heinous crime. The reporting has cast a rare light not only on our spy agencies’ activities and capabilities, but also on the complicated moral dilemmas that accompany mass surveillance. And it has intensified questions over whether the intelligence agencies that gathered this information carried out a legally required duty to warn the journalist that his life was in danger.

The press reports make for sobering reading. A week after Khashoggi was killed, the Washington Post described intercepted communications discussing a plan to lure the U.S.-based journalist back to Saudi Arabia—information that an unnamed U.S. official said “had been disseminated throughout the U.S. government and was contained in reports that are routinely available to people working on U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia.” A December Wall Street Journal report described messages intercepted in August of 2017 suggesting that if the plot to lure Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia did not succeed, “we could possibly lure him outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements,” and a February New York Times story described a conversation the NSA intercepted in September 2017 between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a close aide of his in which the Crown Prince vowed, if efforts to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia or to repatriate him by force failed, to go after him “with a bullet.” A March New York Times report revealed that U.S. intelligence had collected information that showed the same “Rapid Intervention Group” that murdered Khashoggi had been involved in the kidnapping and forcible repatriation for detention and torture of several other Saudi dissidents over the previous three years. (At least three of these operations, involving members of the Saudi royal family, had been described by the BBC before Khashoggi’s murder.)

These stories rely on a combination of leaks by anonymous sources and information compiled in the classified November 2018 CIA assessment of the Khashoggi murder, which was quoted or summarized by sources or by reporters who were shown sections of the report. The intelligence described in these reports has not been officially confirmed, and the articles generally include pushback from the White House and intelligence community suggesting the information was less conclusive than the articles imply, or that the information existed as raw intelligence that had only been reviewed and processed in the wake of the murder. Missing from any of the pushback, however, is any assertion that U.S. intelligence agencies do not engage in this kind of surveillance, or that they did not routinely deploy these tools against Mohammed bin Salman both before and after he was named Crown Prince in June of 2017.

………

We now know, thanks to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in the days after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, exactly what an NSA employee who finds herself in this situation is supposed to do. This is the first time these documents have been publicly released.

A July 2017 “Duty to Warn Standard Operating Procedures (SOP),” and a May 20, 2018 NSA and Central Security Service (CSS) Policy Instruction on the Duty to Warn, lay out a specific roadmap for what intelligence officers must do to comply with Intelligence Community Directive 191, which is the 2015 order that recognized and codified the responsibility to warn someone who is known to be in danger. A legal obligation first defined for health professionals who learn in the course of caring for a patient that the patient may pose a risk to himself or to others, the “Duty to Warn” as defined for NSA and CSS officers is described in the SOP this way:

Any NSA/CSS element that collects or acquires credible and specific information indicating an impending threat of intentional killing, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping directed at a person or group of people (hereafter referred to as “intended victim”) shall have a duty to warn the intended victim or those responsible for protecting the intended victim, as appropriate….The term “intended victim” includes both U.S. persons…and non-U.S. persons.

The directive is clear: Anyone who fields credible and specific threat information must act. The NSA guidelines then lay out the process by which threats are evaluated and warnings delivered, and describe at least five specific points in the process that must be documented—including the justifications for any decision to waive the duty to warn requirement and opt out of the obligation to issue a warning. The guidelines even reproduce the template an NSA employee must complete to forward the warning to either the FBI or CIA for delivery to the intended victim.
 

The Knight Institute and CPJ specifically sought documents like the ones required in these NSA procedures in their FOIA requests to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the State Department. In addition to the guidelines each of these agencies uses in determining whether and how to deliver warnings, we also requested records relating to any Duty to Warn decisions and actions the agencies may have taken in connection with threats to Khashoggi, and any records they may have concerning debates or discussions between agencies related to those threats.

Why on earth are our intelligence agencies are bowing down before the House of Saud, arguably the most corrupt and brutal despots on the face of the earth, is completely beyond me.

It needs to stop.

Tweet of the Day

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Police detained a young man holding a blank poster in central square in Uralsk, Western Kazakhstan today. They released him shortly after as they couldn’t figure out what he would be charged with pic.twitter.com/nLtIneIsr6

— Dina Baidildayeva (@baidildayeva) May 6, 2019

I don’t know that is going on here, either someone has just went a little crazy, or they are being profoundly subversive.

I want to know the rest of the story.

H/t naked capitalism

support your local police

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We now have revealing releases about police misconduct.

First, The Investigative Network managed to uncover additional video of Sandra Bland’s encounter with a Texas state trooper, showing the Officer to be little more than a jack-booted thug:

New cellphone footage from the now infamous traffic stop of Sandra Bland shows her perspective when a Texas state trooper points a Taser and yells, “I will light you up!”

Bland, 28, was found dead three days later in her Waller County jail cell near Houston. Her death was ruled a suicide.

The new video — released as part of a WFAA exclusive in partnership with the Investigative Network — fuels the Bland family’s suspicions that Texas officials withheld evidence in her controversial arrest and, later, her death.

Until now, the trooper’s dashcam footage was believed to be the only full recording of the July 2015 traffic stop, which ended in Bland’s arrest. The trooper claimed he feared for his safety during the stop.

The 39-second cellphone video shot by Bland remained in the hands of investigators until the Investigative Network obtained the video once the criminal investigation closed.

………

Needham and other Bland family members believe the video was intentionally withheld.

“We also know they have an extremely, extremely good cover-up system,” Needham said.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials declined an on-camera interview but said the video was not withheld.

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they, and that cop never spent a day in jail for his abuse..

In another notorious case, where Oscar Grant was murdered by Officer Johannes Mehserle, we have another cop, Anthony Pirone, making a complete lie of the phrase protect and serve:

A police officer involved in the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant on an Oakland train platform repeatedly lied to investigators and had punched the unarmed 22-year-old without justification, according to newly released records.

The report on the New Year’s Eve killing, which sparked national police accountability protests, was disclosed this week following journalists’ requests under a new California police transparency law. The previously sealed internal file, written 10 years ago, documented how the Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) officer Anthony Pirone “started a cascade of events that ultimately led to the shooting”. Pirone called Grant the N-word while detaining him, hit him in the face in an “unprovoked” attack, and later gave a series of false statements contradicted by videos, investigators said.

The death of the young father was one of the first major US police brutality cases in which cellphone footage went viral, prompting widespread outrage years before the Black Lives Matter movement. The killing was later made famous by Ryan Coogler’s 2014 film Fruitvale Station, named after the site of the death.

The officer who shot Grant in the back, Johannes Mehserle, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a rare criminal trial over a killing by law enforcement.

……… 

Pirone was fired after the investigation was finalized, a Bart spokesman noted on Thursday. Pirone’s attorneys could not be reached for comment.

This guy engaged in assault under the color of authority, and recklessly and deliberately escalated the situation, and obstructed the investigation, and he was never in the dock for his crimes.

In this world of ubiquitous cell phone cameras, I would hope that successful prosecutions of bad cops, along with jail sentences for their misdeeds will become the rule, rather than the exception.

Linkage

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Now, let’s cast a bronze cannon:

Remember the Times When I Said That It Was the Crime, Not the Coverup?

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More than 450 former federal prosecutors who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations have signed on to a statement asserting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he holds.

The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime.

………

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the former federal prosecutors wrote.

“We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment,” they added. “Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. . . . But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.”

The statement is notable for the number of people who signed it — 375 as of early Monday afternoon, growing to 459 in the hours after it published — and the positions and political affiliations of some on the list. It was posted online Monday afternoon; those signing it did not explicitly address what, if anything, they hope might happen next.

Among the high-profile signers are Bill Weld, a former U.S. attorney and Justice Department official in the Reagan administration who is running against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination; Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration; John S. Martin, a former U.S. attorney and federal judge appointed to his posts by Republican presidents; Paul Rosenzweig, who served as senior counsel to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; and Jeffrey Harris, who worked as the principal assistant to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.

The list also includes more than 20 former U.S. attorneys and more than 100 people with at least 20 years of service at the Justice Department — most of them former career officials. The signers worked in every presidential administration since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a former federal prosecutor, joined the letter after news of it broke, and Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted his support for its premise .

The signatures were collected by the nonprofit group Protect Democracy, which counts Justice Department alumni among its staff and was contacted about the statement last week by a group of former federal prosecutors, said Justin Vail, an attorney at Protect Democracy.

The fact is that conspiring to interfere with a federal investigation is a crime, even if it is later determined that no crime happened, and even if your co-conspirators refuse your instructions.

I am looking forward to Mueller’s testimony on this, which has tentatively been scheduled for next Wednesday.

The Secret Weapon of White Supremacists

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The fact that they have the active support of a significant proportion of law enforcement personnel.

Case in point is the Portland Oregon Police department.

If you know Oregon’s history, it once banned black people, and in the 1920s, it was the most Klan dominated state ever, so this is no surprise for anyone who is lived in the area: (I went to high school in Portland Oregon)

On August 4th, 2018, the far-right “free speech” group Patriot Prayer organized a rally in Portland, Oregon alongside alt-right “fraternity” the Proud Boys, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group. A coalition of counter-protesters, including local unions, immigrant rights advocates, and Rose City Antifa were also in attendance. It was the third such rally in the city last summer, and led to multiple arrests and injuries.

MuckRock user Brian Waters obtained communication logs from the Portland Police Bureau from the day of the rally. The logs show police frequently overlooking armed and violent demonstrators with Patriot Prayer or the Proud Boys, while explicitly targeting counter-protesters with anti-riot measures like flash grenades and pepper spray, injuring many.

The PPB has been under scrutiny for its handling of white supremacist and right-wing rallies in the city, with accusations of excessive force on left-wing protesters and overt friendliness toward right-wing ones, including those with known histories of violence.

Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson reportedly switched the location of the rally from a federal plaza near the district court to a public park near Naito Parkway, so that his group could carry concealed weapons.

Days before the rally, the PPB issued a statement saying attendees carrying firearms must have an Oregon Concealed Handgun License and must keep their weapons concealed at all times. But the logs show that PPB repeatedly noted demonstrators with Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys carrying visible firearms without apprehending them, putting other attendees – especially counter-protesters – at risk.

………

A group of white men, presumably associated with the Patriot Prayer and Proud Boy coalition, was noted to have taken a position on the roof of a parking garage, where PPB noted they had a rifle and binoculars. No follow-up action was apparently taken to confront or apprehend these men. (Editor’s Note: Waters request was specifically related to records related to that incident.)

The Portland Police are actively supporting white supremacists, racists, and Nazis.

They let a sniper team on the roof, because ……… freedum!!

Support your local police, huh?

Bye Felicia Catherine

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Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has resigned following multiple criminal investigations of the sales of her self-published children’s book series:

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh (D) resigned in disgrace through her attorney Thursday after weeks of temporary leave coinciding with the unfurling scandal of her self-dealing children’s book scheme.

 “I am sorry for the harm that I have caused to the image of the city of Baltimore and the credibility of the office of the mayor,” Pugh’s attorney, Steven Silverman, read from a statement. “Baltimore deserves a mayor that can move our great city forward.”

 Pugh’s resignation is effective immediately

Using her children’s series “Healthy Holly,” Pugh cut multiple book deals with organizations that do business with the city and other organizations she oversaw.

In the first break in the case, the Baltimore Sun revealed that she did not disclose that she’d received $500,000 from the University of Maryland medical system since 2011, while she sat on its board.

It really is remarkable just how petty and small time this all is.

I Suppose That This Was Inevitable

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Now that Tumblr has imploded after banning sexually explicit content, Pornhub has expressed an interest in acquiring the smouldering remains:

Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in an email to BuzzFeed News that the porn-streaming giant is extremely interested in buying Tumblr, the once uniquely horny hub for young women and queer people that banned adult content last December to the disappointment of many of its users.

Price said that restoring Tumblr’s NSFW edge would be central to their acquisition of it, were it to actually happen.

Tumblr owner Verizon is reportedly currently seeking a buyer for the blogging platform, which according to the Wall Street Journal has struggled to meet revenue targets.”Tumblr was a safe haven for those who wanted to explore and express their sexuality, adult entertainment aficionados included,” Price told BuzzFeed News. “We’ve long been dismayed that such measures were taken to eradicate erotic communities on the platform, leaving many individuals without an asylum through which they could comfortably peruse adult content.”

This development is profoundly ironic.

Bad Day at the Office

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A Sukhoi Superjet-100 just crash landed and caught fire at a Moscow airport.

Death toll exceeds 40:

Seventy three passengers and five crew members were on board the plane when it made the emergency landing on Sunday afternoon at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Elena Markovskaya told the journalist, saying that “41 people” have died.

At least six of the 37 people rescued were rushed to a hospital. Three are now in intensive care after suffering burns and smoke inhalation injuries, health minister Veronika Skvortsova said, in a brief press statement.

The Aeroflot flight SU 1492, en route from Moscow to the Russian northern city of Murmansk, had to turn back to Sheremetyevo after reporting an emergency on board less than half an hour after takeoff.

Leaked CCTV footage appears to show the Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircraft attempting to land. The plane is seen bouncing off the runway and hitting it with full force, as the engines burst into flames.

Notwithstanding the rather spectacular video, I will wait for the investigation to drawing any conclusions.