Witches Are Trying to Figure Out Whose Spell Gave Trump COVID-19
—Vice
I have to disagree. This was made by humans, and in particularly case the person most responsible is one Donald John Trump.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Thanks Obama
In news that should surprise no one, the cost for workers’ health insurance policies, as well as deductibles have skyrocketed over the past decade.
This is not a surprise. Obamacare was all about appeasing the malefactors in the insurance industry, and so it brought the fox into the hen house:
The high cost of health care is persisting during the pandemic, even for people lucky enough to still have job-based insurance.
The average annual cost of a health plan covering a family rose to $21,342 in 2020, according to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks employer-based coverage. Workers paid about a quarter of the total premiums, or $5,588, on average, with their employers picking up the rest of the cost.
An analysis of the results was published Thursday online in Heath Affairs, an academic journal. While premiums rose only slightly from the 2019 survey, the increase in premiums and deductibles together over the last decade has far outpaced both inflation and the growth in workers’ earnings. Since 2010, premiums have climbed 55 percent, more than double the rise in wages or inflation, according to the foundation’s analysis.
………
The survey also underscored how much workers with health insurance still have to spend out of pocket for their care. In addition to paying for their share of premiums, most employees face a hefty deductible — an average of $1,644 for an individual. That is more than twice as high as it was in 2010, when the average for a single person was $646, according to the foundation.
This was foreseeable in the plan, and made inevitable with Obama’s dissembling over the public option.
Yeah, “Forgot.”
It turns out that Amy Coney Barrett omitted significant items from her submissions to the Senate Judiciary Committee, including speeches that she gave to anti-abortion groups, representing a steel magnate who drove a hospital into bankruptcy, and signed onto a letter calling for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
She only revealed these on an amended form AFTER these were reported by the press.
It won’t matter, because Lindsay Graham does not care about this. He’s hitched his wagon to Donald Trump.
These Are Not the Actions of an Innocent Man
Following a grand juror complaint about his handling of the Breonna Taylor case, Kentuck AG Daniel Cameron was forced to release highly redacted tape and transcript of grand jury testimony, has now moved to silence those grand jurors to prevent any further embarrassment to him.
He knows that further grand juror revelations will show that he deliberately the case before the grand jury, and refused to inform the jury of its rights to information.
I don’t know if this is illegal, but it’s certainly sketchy legal ethics, and it’s political poison, so now he is covering it up.
This is not a surprise. After all this is a man who has about as much experience as a real lawyer as Raymond Burr, and his qualification for office is that he is a protege of Mitch McConnell:
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron claimed weeks ago, when announcing the grand jury’s decision in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death, that justice only answered “to the facts and to the law.” Cameron’s recent motion to keep jurors who ruled on the case from speaking publicly about the proceedings, however, has many wondering whether the “facts” he presented had the intention of seeking justice for Taylor or instead pre-determined innocence for the officers involved.
On Oct. 2, Cameron’s office released 15 hours of audio from the grand jury proceedings on Taylor’s death. Since then, Taylor’s family has called on Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to appoint a new special prosecutor to reopen the case. The family claims that the recent recordings show that Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor” and “intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.”
………
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron claimed weeks ago, when announcing the grand jury’s decision in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death, that justice only answered “to the facts and to the law.” Cameron’s recent motion to keep jurors who ruled on the case from speaking publicly about the proceedings, however, has many wondering whether the “facts” he presented had the intention of seeking justice for Taylor or instead pre-determined innocence for the officers involved.
On Oct. 2, Cameron’s office released 15 hours of audio from the grand jury proceedings on Taylor’s death. Since then, Taylor’s family has called on Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to appoint a new special prosecutor to reopen the case. The family claims that the recent recordings show that Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor” and “intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.”
The filing went on to accuse Cameron of using jurors “as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility for those decisions.”
………
Cameron wants the judge to dismiss the grand juror’s request. He claimed in a statement that the proceedings are kept confidential to protect the safety of all involved. Taylor’s family believes that the A.G. is continuing to stand in the way of justice.
This rat-f%$# is every bit as corrupt as his former boss, and I hope that this ends his career.
Oh, Snap
It what is marvelous piece of irony, it tourns out that Donald Trump’s Covid-19 treatment was derived from fetal cells from an abortion:
This week, President Donald Trump extolled the cutting-edge coronavirus treatments he received as “miracles coming down from God.” If that’s true, then God employs cell lines derived from human fetal tissue.
The emergency antibody that Trump received last week was developed with the use of a cell line originally derived from abortion tissue, according to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed the experimental drug.
The Trump administration has taken an increasingly firm line against medical research using fetal tissue from abortions. For example, when it moved in 2019 to curtail the ability of the National Institutes of Health to fund such research, supporters hailed a “major pro-life victory” and thanked Trump personally for taking decisive action against what they called the “outrageous and disgusting” practice of “experimentation using baby body parts.”
But when the president faced a deadly encounter with covid-19, his administration raised no objections over the fact that the new drugs also relied on fetal cells, and anti-abortion campaigners were silent too. Most likely, their hypocrisy was unwitting. Many types of medical and vaccine research employ supplies of cells originally acquired from abortion tissue. It would have taken an expert to realize that was the case with Trump’s treatment.
………
The Trump administration has sought to block or curtail research that requires tissue from recently performed abortions. In August, for example, a new board created by the Department of Health and Human Services, and stacked with figures opposed to abortion, voted to withhold funding from 13 of 14 proposals.
Conservative values don’t actually apply when it’s THEIR ox is gored.
It’s a Variant of a Russian Joke
During the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was presiding over the rape of Russia by finance types, there was a joke going around:
Everything that they said about Communism was a LIE.
Unfortunately, everything that they said about Capitalism was the Truth.
Donald Trump hews fairly close to this.
Everything he said about himself was a lie, but much of what he said about the US elites was the truth, and this review of the book The Tyranny of Merit, provides an interesting primer on this idea.
The thesis of this book is that the “Meritocracy” sees itself as important, when it is really self-important, and that it is pervasively corrupt, where the efforts to benefit themselves are hypocritically sold as benefiting society as a whole:
In examining the 2016 populist revolt that gave rise to Donald Trump and Brexit, most observers have focused on two explanations. Some say the uprising was driven by economic dislocation: Voters were angry about rising inequality and felt they were losing out because of trade. Others argue that anger with the establishment stemmed from racist discomfort with immigration, demographic change, and growing religious diversity.
In his new book, the Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel focuses on a third factor: elite smugness and self-dealing. To Sandel, 2016 represented a rebellion of voters lacking a college degree against a governing class that believes that its credentials, wealth, and power are the products of its merit. These leaders, Sandel argues, have condescended to blue-collar workers, “eroded the dignity of work and left many feeling disrespected and disempowered.”
Sandel focuses primarily on the left. For three decades, he writes, leading Democrats—including Bill Clinton (Yale Law ’73), Hillary Clinton (Yale Law ’73), and Barack Obama (Harvard Law ’91)—embodied personally, and touted rhetorically, a brand of meritocracy hopelessly oblivious to what he calls the “tyranny of merit.” Sometimes, this is implicit, as when Pete Buttigieg flexes on his ability to speak eight languages and his experience as a Rhodes Scholar. Other times, it’s explicit. Speaking in Mumbai in 2018, Hillary Clinton bragged that she “won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product”—that is, the places that had been successful in the era of globalization. This, Sandel writes, “displayed the meritocratic hubris that contributed to her defeat.” The Democratic Party “once stood for farmers and working people against the privileged. Now, in a meritocratic age, its defeated standard bearer boasted that the prosperous, enlightened parts of the country had voted for her.”
………
But Sandel is right to probe the dark things that can come from embracing meritocracy. Liberals have been overemphasizing their credentials and the economic success of their cosmopolitan metropolises. In doing so, they’ve forgotten that these markers are not good indicators of worth. The ability to obtain post-secondary degrees, particularly from elite institutions, is at least as much a reflection of one’s class and race as it is of one’s deservedness. The wealth and success of more liberal places has as much to do with an unequal system that allows existing wealth to concentrate as it does with the merit of those cities.
………
The term meritocracy, almost universally praised today, was coined in the 1950s by the British sociologist Michael Young to describe a dystopia. In contrast to an aristocracy, where people on top know they are just lucky and people on the bottom know they are merely unfortunate, in a meritocracy a small minority of winners feel enormous pride in their accomplishments and the majority feel humiliated by their low position. Young’s book predicted a revolt against meritocratic elites in 2034. “In 2016, as Britain voted for Brexit and America for Trump, that revolt arrived eighteen years ahead of schedule,” Sandel writes.
………
As a result, embracing meritocracy too tightly can be politically disastrous. In 2016, some working-class people were left with “the galling sense that those who stood astride the hierarchy of merit looked down with disdain on those they considered less accomplished than themselves.” The disdain was made explicit in 2016 when Hillary Clinton, speaking at fund-raisers in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, labeled millions of working-class Americans as “deplorables.”
………
Trump brilliantly exploited the idea that well-educated progressives looked down on those with less education (and, sometimes relatedly, those who are deeply religious). He rarely spoke of opportunity and upward mobility. A candidate “keenly alive to the politics of humiliation,” Sandel says, Trump feigned respect for working-class people. “l love the poorly educated,” Trump famously said after one primary victory. The gambit worked. Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly won college-educated voters, but Trump won voters without a college degree—a larger share of the electorate—by seven percentage points.
Liberals, of course, tend to have policies that are far more helpful to those without college educations than do conservatives. But Democratic governments stacked with well-educated elites have little real understanding of working-class struggles, and, just like Republicans, they can cause problems for the poor. For example, the mostly Ivy League status of Obama’s cabinet helped inform “a Wall Street–friendly response to the financial crisis,” Sandel writes, one that failed to comprehend “seething public anger.” Instead, the too-big-to-jail philosophy seemed to exonerate well-educated Wall Street bankers who engaged in selfish behavior that did grave damage to the country. Timothy Geithner and Rahm Emanuel were happier to bail out financial executives—who shared their pedigrees (and in some cases their former jobs)—than they were to rescue average Americans. In other words, a belief that wealth and education equal merit helped lead to stunning inequality.
From this review, and the policy prescriptions in the book, it seems to me that they have missed the point: Many of the problems of “Meritocracy” do not come from a disdain for those less educated, though this is clearly a problem, much of it comes from the replacement of actual merit with credentialism.
There is no reasons that jobs which a decade ago required nothing beyond a high-school diploma a generation (or 2) ago now require a college degree, and possibly a post graduate degree.
Teachers entering schools in the 1950s needed an associated degree in education, or a bachelors in some other subject, while now all teachers need a masters degree in education.
Unfortunately there has been a whole infrastructure of credentialed people doing the bullsh%$ job of creating credentials, verifying credentials, and ranking credentials for other people.
Interestingly enough it is not the US that has the most extremely credentialed society on earth, it is likely India, where credentials, they call it caste there, completely permeate their society.
This Must Have Sounded Better in the Original German
Trump is now demanding that Attorney General William Barr arrest his political opponents, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
The scary thing is that I’m not sure what the worst Attorney General Ever™ will do in response to that request:
Donald Trump mounted an overnight Twitter blitz demanding to jail his political enemies and call out allies he says are failing to arrest his rivals swiftly enough.
Trump twice amplified supporters’ criticisms of Attorney General William Barr, including one featuring a meme calling on him to “arrest somebody!” He wondered aloud why his rivals, like President Barack Obama, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.
I did not think that it was possible for Donald Trump to lose his sh%$ any more, but it appears that Covid-19 and powerful steroids may have driven him over the edge.
Best Comment on the VP Debate
Did the fly decide the winner by landing on the choicest turd?
—Eustache de Saint Pierre in the comments of the Naked Capitalism blog.
This comment won the internet.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
A militia group in Michigan has just been arrested while planning to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know.”
This is a logical extension of the whole militia/White Supremacist/Proud Boys/Oath Keepers sh%$ that Donald Trump has bee cultivating for years.
The federal government has charged six people with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in an alleged domestic terrorist plot, according to newly unsealed court records.
Seven others face state charges, brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. All 13 are in custody, officials said.
Members of a militia group purchased weapons, conducted surveillance, and held training and planning meetings, but were foiled in part because the FBI was able to infiltrate the group with informants, according to charges officials planned to detail Thursday.
Plans included kidnapping Whitmer and putting her on trial for treason, officials allege.
They were planning on killing her. Treason is a capital offense, particularly for the right wing militia crowd.
………
Whitmer also lashed out at President Donald Trump and accused him of “stoking distrust,” “fomenting anger” and emboldening groups who “spread fear and hatred and division.”
Absolutely true.
Trump is losing his sh%$ over her comments, to which I say, “You are such a delicate snowflake.”
Belgian Ambassadors Spouting Centuries Old Royal Grants of Fishing Rights Is No Basis for a System of Government
The Belgian ambassador who invoked the 1666 Privilegie der Visscherie given by Charles II of England to Flemish fishermen, just had a mic drop moment.
I think that it was a joke, though one can never be sure:
All is fair in love and cod war. And with the EU’s coastal states under pressure to give way on Britain’s demands for greater fishing catches in its waters post-Brexit, any old argument is worth a try.
When the issue of the future access of European fishing fleets was being discussed by EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday the Belgian government’s representative, Willem van de Voorde, made a notable intervention.
To the confusion of some, and the delight of others, the ambassador cited a treaty signed some 350 years ago by King Charles II which had granted 50 Flemish fishermen from Bruges “eternal rights” to English fishing waters. It was an important historical footnote illustrating the long relationship between Belgian fishermen and British waters, Van de Voorde suggested.
I hope that this was a joke, but one can never be sure with those wily Belgians.
………
“I wasn’t quite sure what he was on about but I think he was joking,” said one confused diplomat who had listened to Van de Voorde’s intervention. “But, then, you never know.”
While the validity of the Belgian claim is somewhat unlikely, the tensions in Brussels over fishing access for European fleets from 1 January are very real.
The UK has demanded a radical increase in fishing catches in its exclusive economic zone as it leaves the EU’s common fisheries policy.
I love obscure historical jokes.
Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope!
I’m watching Perry Mason instead.
I did not have time to get a sufficient quantity of alcohol.
I think that watching that first Biden-Trump debate may have left me with PTSD, and I am not repeating that mistake.
I need to stock up on alcohol before I watch another debate.
If you want to, you can contribute to Matthew’s Saroff’s Beer (and Laptop) Fund and Tip Jar, so that I will enough alcohol for the next debate.
Pass the Popcorn
A federal appeals court just called bullsh%$ on Trump’s attempt to use his being President* to prevent investigation of tax evasion and fraud.
The excerpts of the opinion indicate that the judges have no f%$#s left to give with either Trump’s lawyers or the DoJ obfuscations:
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Manhattan’s district attorney can enforce his subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns, rejecting a bid by Trump’s lawyers to kill the request on grounds it’s a malicious political ploy and potentially setting up another high-stakes showdown at the Supreme Court.
………
The unanimous ruling was issued by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded, “We have considered all of the President’s remaining contentions on appeal and have found in them no basis for reversal.”
(emphasis mine)
That’s law speak for, “Your eyes are brown because you are completely full of sh%$.”
District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is seeking eight years of the president’s tax returns and related documents as part of his investigation into alleged hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump years prior. Trump denies the claims. Investigators want to determine whether efforts were made to conceal the payments on tax documents by labeling them legal expenses.
………
The panel that heard the president’s appeal shot down his claim that the district attorney’s investigation is limited only to the alleged payments made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal — saying in their ruling that the “bare assertion . . . amounts to nothing more than implausible speculation.”
………
Vance’s bid for Trump’s tax records has been stalled since last year, when he issued the subpoena to Mazars.
Trump’s lawyers, who have signaled that they would ask the Supreme Court to look at the case again, have already lost at the high court, which in July rejected their initial argument that, as president, Trump is immune from prosecution. The justices said, however, that Trump could try again with a different approach.
I am amused.
Of Course There Is No Useful Information
In news that should surprise no one, Amazon’s study of Covid illness and death at its factories is appears to be intended primarily to obscure any meaningful data:
Amazon.com Inc.’s analysis of Covid-19 infection rates among its workers has several flaws and falls short of assessing whether the world’s biggest online retailer did a good job protecting its workforce through the pandemic, according to infectious disease experts who track pandemics.
Last week, Amazon said that almost 20,000 of its U.S. workers had tested positive for the coronavirus during a six-and-a-half-month period. Amazon, one of only a few companies to provide such data, said the infection rate in its ranks was lower than that of most states, a finding it cited as evidence that investments in sanitation, temperature checks and protective equipment were keeping workers safe.
But three experts interviewed by Bloomberg said the data was unhelpful because it failed to reveal whether the infection rate was improving or growing worse. One said Amazon’s comparison of its workforce to the general population is fundamentally flawed and reveals a lack of understanding of epidemiology. So while the announcement may have helped assuage some critics who say Amazon hasn’t done enough to protect workers toiling through a pandemic, it was essentially useless for employees trying to assess whether it’s safe to show up for work, they said.
Amazon doesn’t give a damn about the safety and security of its employees. This report is an exercise in PR.
Support Your Local Police
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is a real cesspool.
Case in point, for the second time in the past few months, the first time in Compton, and now, we have another criminal gang of cops in East LA:
Los Angeles County’s top watchdog says in a report released Monday that substantial evidence exists that a secretive group of tattooed deputies at the East L.A. sheriff’s station are “gang-like and their influence has resulted in favoritism, sexism, racism and violence.”
In the 32-page report probing activities of the Banditos clique, Inspector General Max Huntsman says Sheriff Alex Villanueva “continues to promote a code of silence regarding these sub-groups” which have plagued the agency for decades.
………
“Minimal questions were asked about the Banditos and in the interviews during which the witnesses brought up the Banditos by name, very few follow-up questions were asked,” the report says, adding that 23 witnesses declined to give interviews. The report also criticized the failure of prosecutors to scrutinize the Banditos in their review of the case.
………
Some of the employees who received disciplinary letters were the alleged assault victims, who faced punishment for actions that included failing to report the Kennedy Hall incident to their superiors, their attorney Vincent Miller said. He said they reported the incident right away to a lieutenant they trusted. The Times has reported that only three deputies of the 26 employees were facing termination.
“This announcement of an exaggerated number of 26 Banditos being disciplined is consistent with past false statements that have been made by you and your office about your handling of the deputy gang problem,” Miller wrote to Villanueva last month in a letter obtained by The Times.
The administrative investigation conducted by the Sheriff’s Department found that some employees at the station were acting as so-called shot callers, controlling scheduling and events at the station, Cmdr. April Tardy has said, using a term often used to describe top leaders in prisons and gangs.
These cops are gang bangers.
This is why people talk about abolishing the police.
Linkage
- Why Liberals Hate Leftists. Liberals hate leftists. Hate them, hate… (Caitlin Johnstone) Why Joe Biden is still campaigning against Bernie Sanders.
- The Secret History of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Departure from Fox (The New Yorker) The inestimable Jane Mayer details Gilfoyle’s repeated instances of sexual harassing her subordinates.
- To Hold Police Accountable, Ax the Arbitrators (The New York Times) Significant because it is an official editorial from the Gray Lady.
- Former Patent Litigator Becomes Federal Judge And Begins Advertising For Patent Trolls To Come To His Court (And They Have In Droves) (Techdirt) Our IP system is corrupt and dysfunctional.
- Jail Employees Face Charges After Using ‘Baby Shark’ Song to Punish Inmates (The New York Times) As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know.”
Animation, Lies, and Robin Williams:
The Real Petri Dish for Conspiracy Theories
Is anyone surprised that Fox News is where conspiracy theories get their wings:
We’ve discussed in the past Yochai Benkler’s excellent book “Network Propaganda,” (and had Benkler on our podcast) showing (with a ton of data) how the inclination many have to immediately blame social media for the spread of disinformation is, in its own way, misinformation itself. What the research found was that crazy conspiracy theories didn’t really spread as fast until they showed up on Fox News. That was basically the catalyst for them to then spread wildly on social media.
(Emphasis original)
I’m not particularly surprised.
Jon Stewart documented the Fox News bullsh%$ factory many years ago.
Stephen Miller (יש”ו) Tests Positive for Covid-19
This is a good day for Schadenfreude.
Stephen Miller (יש”ו), the Uber racist of the Trump administration, has tested positive for the Corona virus.
He is a deeply evil man, and I wish him nothing buy misery and pain.
Today in Schadenfreude
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, better known as the St. Louis Ken and Karen, have been indicted on weapons and evidence tampering charges.
As you recall, they brandished firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters.
The evidence tampering may been that one of them had tampered with Ms. McCloskey’s gun following the incident to claim that it was not a lethal weapon:
A St. Louis grand jury has indicted Mark and Patricia McCloskey on two counts each: exhibiting a weapon and tampering with evidence.
………
The indictment means prosecutors convinced a grand jury they have enough evidence against the McCloskeys to proceed to trial.
Gov. Mike Parson has said he would pardon the McCloskeys should they be convicted.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner originally issued charges against them for unlawful use of a weapon – a felony.
The grand jury added the charge of tampering with evidence. Only prosecutors are allowed to present evidence to grand juries, and they are secret proceedings.
………
Patricia McCloskey told police the handgun she used during the June 28 confrontation was inoperable because she had used it as a prop during a trial against a gun manufacturer.
Yeah, sure.
………
A key component of Missouri law states that a gun must be “readily capable of lethal use” in order for someone to be charged with the crime. Hinckley signed the court document, known as the complaint, saying the weapon was capable of lethal use.
………
City attorneys for St. Louis refused to charge nine protesters who were ticketed for trespassing after members of the Portland Place trustees said they did not want to press charges against them.
That’s because the McCloskeys are loathed by their neighbors. There has been a long history of disputes in the neighborhood.
That’s why Portland Place trustees wanted nothing to do with the case.
I’m pretty sure that some of their neighbors are doing a happy dance over this, as am I.
Meanwhile, in Texas………
The senior staff of Texas Attorney Ken Paxton have signed onto a letter accusing him of bribery and abuse of office that was sent to law enforcement.
These are his hand-picked senior staff, not professional staff.
It should be noted that Paxton was indicted in 2016 for corruption, but has this far managed to prevent those charges from going to trial:
Seven members of the staff of Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, including some of his top aides, wrote a letter that surfaced over the weekend saying he should be investigated in connection with offenses including improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal acts.
The scenario was extraordinary, particularly because Mr. Paxton has managed to become a consequential figure in Republican legal circles in Texas and nationally despite glaring accusations in his past. In his first year as attorney general, Mr. Paxton was indicted on felony charges related to securities fraud and was booked in a county jail outside Dallas.
………
Now his tenure is threatened by a new cloud of scandal in the letter, which surfaced late Saturday in a report by The Austin American-Statesman and the Austin television station KVUE. “We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law,” the letter said.
The substance of the allegations remains unclear, as Mr. Paxton’s aides have not elaborated in the letter or elsewhere about how they contend he violated the law and abused his office. But the complaint has drawn new scrutiny to the questions of impropriety that Mr. Paxton has so far been able to withstand.
“These allegations raise serious concerns,” Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican and Mr. Paxton’s predecessor as attorney general, said on Sunday. “I will withhold further comment until the results of any investigation are complete.”
………
Mr. Paxton has denied the accusations, issuing a statement arguing that they were meant to distract from malfeasance by others.
“The complaint filed against Attorney General Paxton was done to impede an ongoing investigation into criminal wrongdoing by public officials including employees of this office,” the statement said. “Making false claims is a very serious matter and we plan to investigate this to the fullest extent of the law.”
So, now he’s threatening retaliation against the whistle-blowers.
………
The accusations against Mr. Paxton were leveled in the letter that was sent last week to state human resources officials in which the aides said they had “knowledge of facts relevant to these potential offenses” and reported them to the authorities. Federal law enforcement officials have declined to confirm that an investigation is underway.
The letter was signed by seven of the highest-ranking officials in the Attorney General’s Office, including the first assistant attorney general, Jeffrey C. Mateer, who resigned last week to join the First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom advocacy organization, to focus on elevating conservatives onto the federal bench. (Mr. Mateer’s own nomination to become a federal judge was withdrawn in 2017 after news organizations, including The Dallas Morning News, reported he had made disparaging comments about gay people and referred to transgender children as evidence of “Satan’s plan.”)
So much for it being a “Vast left-wing conspiracy.”
………
It is unclear if the allegations are related to those at the heart of Mr. Paxton’s indictment in 2015, in which he was charged with two counts of first-degree securities fraud and one count of third-degree failure to register with the state securities board.
………
The case has stretched out over more than five years, with change of venue requests and disputes over payments to the special prosecutors handling it. No trial date is set.
This guy is unbelievably dirty.
And the Senate Democrats Cave
Remember what I said about the Democrats needing to slow down the Senate by refusing consent to adjourn?
They caved, because these folks are worthless bags of excrement:*
The Senate on Monday left town until Oct. 19 after President Trump and three GOP senators tested positive for the coronavirus.
The decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to adjourn the Senate, absent brief pro forma sessions, is the first time the GOP leader has decided to keep the chamber out of town due to the virus since they reconvened in early May after a weeks-long break.
Even though the Senate will be out of town until Oct. 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee is still expected to start a days-long hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination on Oct. 12.
………Democrats also argued McConnell’s move to adjourn the Senate, even though they are sticking to their Supreme Court timeline, was hypocritical.
But they did not block him from adjourning on Monday.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the only Democratic senator to speak on the floor on Monday, asked McConnell to extend the Senate break through Election Day.
Oh, they asked.
I’m sure that this will be followed by a very strongly worded letter.
F%$# that. The Senate Democrats are completely worthless.
*No offense to bags of excrement intended