Tag Archives: politics

Democratic Party, Uncategorized

Podcast: Scheer Intelligence

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Listen to what Dennis Kucinich has to say about the “soul of the Democratic Party.”

In this podcast by journalist Robert Scheer, Kucinich and Scheer talk about:

-whether the Democratic Party has a soul.  Kucinich says he’s not sure that it does anymore

-Clinton, as a public official, supporting interventionism and regime change.

-the Clinton administration opening the country up for Wall Street and turning its back on the policies of the New Deal.

-the fact that foreign policy needs to be part of every discussion of domestic programs.  We cannot support adequate domestic programs when we are funding endless wars.

Books on Politics, Corporate Crime, Economy, Government, Graft, Greed and Corruption, Political crimes, politics, White Collar Crime, White Collar, Corporate and Political Crime

Scheer Intelligence Podcast: The Housing Crisis, the Real Culprits (More of Them) Clinton, Bush, Obama

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bipartisan-profiteers-who-demolished-american-dream/id1054586928?i=1000459492107

Review of Home Wreckers

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/22/kamala-harris-attorney-general-california-housing-053716

 

 

 

Government, Graft, Greed and Corruption, Impeachment, media, politics, Uncategorized, Whistleblower Ukraine

Morning Impeachment Thoughts: Feckless Democrats, Moral Outrage, Raising Money

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Morning Impeachment Thoughts

  • I am obviously not a member of congress. Nor am I an expert on Congressional rules, but I think this impeachment debate is a terrible showing for the Democrats.
  • The Republicans are giving impassioned speeches. Democrats are reading scripted statements.  I really don’t know what they are thinking.
  • Every event in this impeachment is a public hearing, an opportunity to sway people and explain why Trump should be impeached. All three major cable news networks are carrying this live and the Democrats can’t even show up.  The chamber is largely empty.  What kind of message does that send?  What are they doing?  What is more important than doing everything you can possibly do to carry the nation along in this process?
  • I know this will not be a popular sentiment, but I don’t even think Jerry Nadler should have left yesterday’s rules debate. I don’t think any family emergency is more important than the future of the country.  Raskin is not good at debate. He is diffident, defensive, pleading.  We need a fighter, someone who relishes fighting for the rule of law and justice.
  • Oh God, now Chris Matthews is arguing that nobody is watching this impeachment hearing. That is certainly not true at our house.  I have watched every minute of it and have probably written 700 pages of notes since the whistleblower came forward.
  • Back to the Democrats being feckless. Most of the Democratic representatives cannot even read a prepared statement and make it sound like they mean it.  Where is the passion?  Where is the moral outrage?  Where is the anger that Donald Trump and the Republicans have brought us here?  This tactic of claiming “sadness” over impeachment is truly terrible.  We are not sad to be impeaching Trump.  We are furious, indignant, fist pounding morally outraged.
  • Speaking to a Republican talking point, it doesn’t make any difference if every Democrat in the country is Jack the Ripper and wanted to impeach Trump since before he was elected, Donald Trump extorted an announcement designed to smear a political enemy with tax payer money. End of story.  The motivations of the Democrats are irrelevant.  WHY DOESN’T SOMEBODY F…ING SAY THAT?
  • What this morning’s performance demonstrates to me is that most people are in Congress because they can raise money. They are certainly not there because they are good at public speaking.  They are not there because they are capable of expressing moral outrage on the behalf of the people.  In fact, I am wondering if any of them actually believe in anything.
  • If they truly believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, they don’t sound like it. Either they are incapable of feeling a genuine emotion or they are incapable of expressing one.
  • In any case, we can and should do better than this.
CORPORATE MEDIA, Graft, Greed and Corruption, Impeachment, politics, Trump, Whistleblower Ukraine

Impeachment Battle Stations: Jonathan Turley is a Sell Out

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I am at impeachment battle stations this morning, surrounded by cats.  One of them is already snoring.  I miss my little Burmese who died recently.  He had watched 21 years of CSPAN and news shows and was a kitty genius.  He appreciated and would have schooled the other cats on the historical significance of this event.

Jonathan Turley will read a statement this morning which is longer than the statements of any of the other lawyers appearing.  He will finish with a hilarious (I’m not serious) narrative about how even his dog is angry, but we don’t need to rush into impeachment.  Isn’t that just so cute?

Turley used to be a principled analyst and commentator.  Then he was hired by the Republicans to destroy the ACA.  Jonathan Turley fought AGAINST providing health insurance for low income people.  This is the kind of scum he became after the Republicans bought him off.

Turley will say that there is no “statutory crime” here.  But, the Constitution doesn’t require a statutory crime to impeach.  That’s just how shameless Turley has become in terms of advancing nonsense as legal reasoning.

Brian Williams (why does he still have a job) is telling us that it is understandable that nobody will read the House Intelligence Committee Report because it’s 300 pages.  Is he talking about himself?  I read 300 pages regularly and know other people who do.  The mediocrity that fills the corporate news is just so tiresome.

Authoritarianism, CORPORATE MEDIA, Government, Graft, Greed and Corruption, International, media, politics, Trump, Whistleblower Ukraine

Afternoon Notes: Epstein, the House Intelligence Committee Report, MSNBC,Ukraine

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ukraine scandal

 

House Intelligence Committee Report

The House Intelligence Committee has released their preliminary impeachment report.

Included are phone records that document phone calls between Giuliani and OMB, made from the White House.  This makes it impossible to maintain the fiction that Giuliani was conducting a “rogue operation.”

Epstein

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz told The Miami Herald on Wednesday that he does not believe investigating the outcome of pedophile multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s case is a wise move, saying it would set a “dangerous” precedent of second-guessing prosecutorial decisions.” The Intellectualist.

If you don’t know just how outrageous this plea deal was, you need to do some reading.  The plea deal immunized not only Epstein, but anyone associated with him, unnamed.

Ukraine Scandal

Seth Abramson pointed out on Twitter that the Trump/Ukraine story is far worse than the Democrats are presenting.  They are conducting a concerted attempt to dumb down the impeachment inquiry to the most elementary story hoping that then, people will understand it.

Abramson writes: “It’s much worse than we’ve been told.”

Trump, Pompeo, Giuliani, Nunes, Solomon, Parnas, Lutsenko and Fruman, Abramson notes began their plotting much earlier than is being considered.  (Note: Schiff referred to this in his statement today after the report was released).

The plotting began at a time when the participants didn’t know if Mueller would take down Trump.  It started when Trump learned he was being investigated over Russia.

Trump, Abramson argues, believed that Mueller would take him down.  The push towards Ukraine was a defense to allegations he knew were being made against the Kremlin, which he believed were going to be connected to him via Manafort.

This was not a plot against Biden.  Biden was just the icing on the cake.

“This was a plot to exculpate Trump, Putin and the man who connected them: Manafort.  It was a plot to end sanctions and pave the way for Trump deals in Russia.”

The key events started before anyone knew that Biden was going to run for president.

Duncan Hunter and Sentencing

Duncan Hunter is going to be allowed to plead guilty to corruption charges he vehemently denied for years.  Hunter claimed the charges against him were politically motivated and a (sign) “witch hunt.”  He refused to admit his wrongdoing, publicly claimed that he was being persecuted and still holds his position in the congress, but he is being allowed to plead guilty to one charge.  Even though he has been charged with multiple crimes, and potentially faces five years in prison, the reporting is that he will most probably get a little over a year.

There is no functioning criminal justice system for white collar, corporate and state criminals in this country.  That’s why Trump and Manafort and others like them were running around free to engage in political campaigns.  This must stop or we will have no democracy left.

The Corporate Media

At this extremely serious time, Nicolle Wallace has Donnie Deutsch on her show as a member of the panel.  Deutsch is a “marketing expert.”  This, folks, is where we are as a country, and where the corporate media is.

Government, Graft, Greed and Corruption, International, media, politics, Trump

House Intelligence Report: Partial Table of Contents

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  1. The President Forced Out the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine …………………………………….38
  2. The President Put Giuliani and the Three Amigos in Charge of Ukraine Issues …………51
  3. The President Froze Military Assistance to Ukraine ……………………………………………….67
  4. The President’s Meeting with the Ukrainian President Was Conditioned on An

Announcement of Investigations ………………………………………………………………………….83

  1. The President Asked the Ukrainian President to Interfere in the 2020 U.S. Election by

Investigating the Bidens and 2016 Election Interference …………………………………………98

  1. The President Wanted Ukraine to Announce the Investigations Publicly ………………..114
  2. The President’s Conditioning of Military Assistance and a White House Meeting on

Announcement of Investigations Raised Alarm ……………………………………………………126

The President’s Scheme Was Exposed

 

Authoritarianism, CORPORATE MEDIA, Graft, Greed and Corruption, media, politics, Trump

Authoritarianism: Ain’t it Grand?

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“A …report by the Justice Department’s inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump…”

 

As Nick Confessori (NYT) pointed out this morning, the very investigation of FBI “spying” or wrongdoing in the investigation of the Trump campaign, is a victory for Trump.

 

Donald Trump made a wild accusation at a campaign rally, based on nothing, and the Justice Department devoted time and resources investigating it.  So, even though they now say that there was nothing untoward in the investigation we have devoted serious attention to a wild accusation.

 

This is exactly what the corporate press does every day.  A substantial part of “Meet The Press” on Sunday was handed over to John Kennedy to propagate Russian propaganda, arguing that the “earth is flat” and that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in the same way as did the Russians (who have been indicted).   Everyone knows that’s fiction, propaganda, so why does Chuck Todd book this liar and give him a platform?

 

The world is moving toward authoritarianism, and corporate media darlings like Nicolle Wallace laugh and joke and just have a wonderful time talking about the minutiae of Trump’s intentions and mind.

 

This is the way a country moves into authoritarianism without realizing it.  If there was something serious going on, wouldn’t the news anchors be talking about it as if it were a serious matter?  That’s what most people think, whether consciously or unconsciously.  When they see Nicolle Wallace having a high old time and Chris Hayes turning the news into a comedy show, they are relieved that they don’t have to take what is a move to a one-party authoritarian state seriously.

 

The corporate media repeatedly presents “both sides” and allows the right to vomit up endless streams of propaganda, treating it as if it were a reasonable narrative.

 

Just as the corporate media presents “both sides” the rational and the bat- shit crazy, Mueller and now the Justice Department Inspector General create a world of legal “bothsidesism.”

 

“The early accounts of the (Inspector General’s) report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it (Sound like Mueller?), by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews.”

 

We can’t let them get away with this.

 

Quotes from NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/politics/russia-investigation-inspector-general-report.html