#former AG William Barr

[filosofablogger]

The High & Mighty Sure Are Falling ... Thump ... Thud

As I have mentioned before, Adam Kinzinger, former U.S. Representative whose political career came to an abrupt halt when he first voted to impeach Donald Trump, and then voluntarily served on the January 6th committee, now writes a column/post on Substack.  His words are generally wise, thoughtful, and he pulls no punches.  In his column today, he throws in a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour as he…

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By 

Joe Marino , Chris Harris , Isabel Vincent, Chris Nesi and Emily Crane

It takes privilege to protest at Columbia.

The 114 anti-Israel protesters who were busted at Columbia on Thursday include members of the upper crust: an intern for New York State Attorney General Letitia James — and the daughter of a prominent UPS executive who killed an elderly couple with her truck as a teenager and got off with a slap on the wrist.

A Post deep-dive into the backgrounds of the protesters shows many list multimillion-dollar mansions as their home addresses, according to sources, and come from wealthy and powerful families.

5The 114 anti-Israel protesters who were busted at Columbia on Thursday include an intern for New York state AG Letitia James — and the daughter of a prominent UPS executive who killed an elderly couple with her truck as a teenager.

In 2020, at the age of 16, Isabel veered her Toyota Tacoma pickup truck across a double yellow line on US Route 7 in Charlotte, Vermont, killing Chet and Connie Hawkins, a married couple in their 70s, according to a report by the Barre Montpelier Times Argus.

She pleaded no contest to a civil traffic ticket for “driving on roadways laned for traffic” and was issued a $220 fine — which her mother paid, according to the Rutland Herald.

Many are students at Barnard College, Columbia University’s liberal arts sister school.

Others are career activists with multiple arrests under their belts.

Minnesota congresswoman and “Squad” member Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, a Barnard student with a long history of civil disobedience, was among those cited for trespassing and taken into custody.

She was released a few hours later and declined to speak to The Post.

Also cuffed and removed from the Columbia campus was Isabel Jennifer Seward, daughter of high-ranking UPS executive William J. Seward.

5Then there’s Avery Reed, a former summer intern for Letitia James who also worked part-time on “gender equality” for the Biden-Harris campaign in 2021 in Florida.Linkedin

[uboat53]

Cabinet Endorsements

One thing that's flown a bit below the radar in this election is that former cabinet members haven't been acting like they usually do. Normally, former cabinet members will automatically endorse their former boss for re-election, but Trump's have not been doing that.

This is of particular interest because, while we, the voters, get to see the President give speeches and the like, we don't actually work with him. Presumably a cabinet member is someone who agrees with the president and who the president trusts and who gets to work closely with the president, so their opinion of the president is an important benchmark.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the 44 former cabinet members of the Donald J. Trump administration and the 2 former cabinet members of the Joseph R. Biden administration. I'll put an (E) next to the ones that have endorsed their former boss, an (H) next to the ones who haven't yet, and an (R) next to the ones who have outright refused to do so.

Cabinet Members of the Donald J. Trump Administration (R) VP Mike Pence (H) Sec. State Rex Tillerson (H) Sec. State/CIA Director Mike Pompeo (E) Sec. Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R) Sec. Defense James Mattis (H) Sec. Defense Patrick Shanahan (nominated) (R) Sec. Defense Mark Esper (H) Sec. Defense Christopher Miller (acting) (H) AG Jeff Sessions (R) AG William Barr (H) AG Jeffrey Rosen (acting) (E) Sec. Interior Ryan Zinke (H) Sec. Interior David Bernhardt (H) Sec. Agriculture Sonny Perdue (E) Sec. Commerce Wilbur Ross (H) Sec. Labor Andrew Puzder (nominated) (H) Sec. Labor Alex Acosta (H) Sec. Labor Eugene Scalia (H) Sec. HHS Tom Price (H) Sec. HHS Alex Azar (H) Sec. HHS Pete Gaynor (E) Sec. HUD Ben Carson (H) Sec. Transporation Elaine Chao (H) Sec. Transportation Steven Bradbury (acting) (H) Sec. Energy Rick Perry (H) Sec. Energy Dan Brouillette (H) Sec. Education Besty DeVos (H) Sec. Education Mick Zais (acting) (H) Sec. VA David Shulkin (E) Sec. VA Ronny Jackson (nominated) (H) Sec. VA Robert Wilkie (R) Sec. HS John Kelly (H) Sec. HS Kirstjen Nielsen (H) Sec. HS Chad Wolf (nominated) (E) US Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer (H) DNI Dan Coats (H) DNI John Ratcliffe (H) UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (H) OMB Directory Mick Mulvaney (E) OMB Director Russel Vought (H) CIA Director Gina Haspel (H) EPA Admin. Scott Pruitt (H) EPA Admin. Andrew Wheeler (H) SBA Admin. Linda McMahon (H) SBA Admin. Jovita Caranza

Cabinet Members of the Joseph R. Biden Administration (E) Sec. Labor Marty Walsh (E) OMB Director Neera Tanden (nominated) (H) Office of Science and Tech. Director Eric Lander

The first thing we notice, obviously, is that there are a whole lot more former Trump cabinet members. This is partially because Biden is still in office so his 23 current cabinet members are not counted (it'd be a huge surprise if they didn't endorse him and they probably wouldn't still be working for him if they didn't), but it's also because Trump had way above average turnover for cabinet officials, 19 in the first four years not including the 5 who resigned due to his handling of the 2020 election results (not included because Biden hasn't reached that point in his first term yet), while Biden has had far below average turnover, only 3 so far.

So a lot more people shuffling in and out of the Trump administration, but we also notice a ton more H's than E's there. Heck, there's almost as many R's among Trump's people as there are E's (5 to 7). Meanwhile, Biden's shooting 2 for 3 and the third one hasn't (at least not that I could find) ruled out endorsing him.

Keep in mind, endorsing the nominee of your party is pretty much the bare minimum that any party operative needs to do. Imagine if you applied for a job somewhere, the first question was "do you think this company should be in business", and you answered "no". You probably wouldn't be getting a job there. In other words, refusing to endorse has some big consequences for the people doing it, not just costing them a job in the potential next Republican presidency, but locking them out of the party entirely, and yet a good deal of the people who worked for Trump disliked working with him so much that they're doing it anyways.

As I said, this tends to fly below the radar because it's kind of a formulaic ritual; of course members of the President's party who are closely tied to him are going to endorse him for re-election! That's why you should pay attention now that most of the people who've worked with Trump aren't doing so. It says something, something big.

[fiercestpurpose]

The United States government is taking on one of the world's most powerful companies: Google.

A court battle kicks off on Tuesday in which the U.S. Justice Department will argue that Google abused its power as a monopoly to dominate the search engine business. It's the government's first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades and the first in the age of the modern internet.

The Justice Department's case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings, so that it's the first search engine people see when they turn on their phones and web browsers. The government says Google's goal was to stomp out competition.

"This lawsuit strikes at the heart of Google's grip over the internet for millions of American consumers, advertisers, small businesses and entrepreneurs beholden to an unlawful monopolist," said former Attorney General William Barr when the case was first filed in October 2020.

Now nearly three years later, with millions of pages of documents produced and depositions from more than 150 people, the case is going to trial.

[transgenderer]

Gonâve Island or Zile Lagonav is an island of Haiti located west-northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Gulf of Gonâve

On July 18, 1926, U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Faustin E. Wirkus (1896–1945) was proclaimed by the residents of the island as King Faustin II, where he ruled over the island with the tribal queen Ti Mememnne as co-monarchs. His reign lasted until 1929, when he peacefully abdicated and returned home to the United States.[6] Ti Memenne would continue to unofficially rule the island until her death in that same year. For context, Haiti is a republic and abolished the monarchy in 1859 with Fabre Nicolas Geffrard.

According to an official biography,[5] Wirkus was born in 1896 in Rypin (Congress Poland, in the Russian Empire) a small town now in Poland, however, numerous ship passenger lists (records of the U.S. Customs Service) show his correct birth place as Pittston, Pennsylvania.[6] He and his parents settled in Dupont, Pennsylvania, a coal mining community northwest of Wilkes-Barre, where he was raised.[5] At the age of 11, he started sorting coal in Pittston.

Wirkus enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1915 and served in the 1st Advance Base Brigade in Haiti and rose to the rank of corporal in 1918 then to gunnery sergeant in 1920.[7] During his service in the Marine Corps, he was promoted to a lieutenant in the Garde d'Haiti, commanding a squad of native troops on La Gonâve. After rescuing a young woman in trouble, he found out that she was Queen Timemenne of La Gonâve. He was welcomed by the population as Timemenne had told them how kind he was to her, and in part, due to the unusual circumstance that he had the same first name as the former emperor of Haiti, Faustin Soulouque, later known as Faustin I ("Faustin the First"), who died in 1867. Somewhat bizarrely, the natives proclaimed him Faustin II in a Voodoo ritual[8] and he ruled jointly with Queen Timemenne for three years.[5][8][9] He became known for dispensing ready but gentle justice.[10]

Queen Ti Memenne of La Gonâve (also written as Timemenne; 19th-century – fl. 1929) was the tribal ruler of La Gonâve, a Haitian island located west of Hispaniola in the Gulf of Gonâve, in the 1920s. While her reign was not officially recognized by the republican government of Haiti during American occupation, she maintained political, economic, spiritual, and social leadership of the island. Arrested by the Garde d'Haiti for being a practitioner of Vodou, she was shown compassion by Faustin E. Wirkus, an American military officer who assisted in her release. She later proclaimed Wirkus to be the reincarnation of former Haitian Emperor Faustin Soulouque and crowned him as a co-ruler over La Gonâve.

???

i THINK the only direct sources for this are this guy's memoir and the magic island by william seabrook which seems pretty sensationalist. so i think this might not have happened. the us military believes it though

[lboogie1906]

Quock Walker (1753 -?) an enslaved, sued for and won his freedom in June 1781 based on a new Massachusetts Constitution (1780) which declared all men to be born free and equal. He was born in central Massachusetts near the town of Barre to enslaved Mingo and Dinah who were Ghanaian-born. He is believed to be named Kwaku in Akan meaning “for boy born on Wednesday”.

In 1754 his entire family was bought by James Caldwell of Worcester County. He was promised his freedom by Caldwell once he reached the age of twenty-five. His widow renewed the promise although changing the age of manumission to twenty-one. The widowed Mrs. Caldwell married Nathaniel Jennison in 1763 and died about 1772. When he turned twenty-one, Jennison refused to let him go. In 1781 Walker, ran away from Jennison and went to work at a nearby farm that belonged to Seth and John Caldwell, who were brothers of Walker’s former owner, James Caldwell. Jennison retrieved him and beat him severely as punishment for running away. He sued Jennison for battery, and Jennison sued the Caldwells for enticing him away from him.

The two civil cases: Jennison v. Caldwell and Quock Walker v. Jennison were heard by the Worcester County Court of Common Pleas on June 12, 1781. In the Jennison v. Caldwell case, the court found in Jennison’s favor, awarding him 25 pounds. In the Quock Walker v. Jennison case, the jury decided that he was a free man under the constitution and awarded him 50 pounds in damages.

In September 1781, a third case was filed by the Massachusetts Attorney General against Jennison called Commonwealth v. Jennison for the criminal assault and battery of Walker. The trial came before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in April 1783. Jennison argued that he was a runaway enslaved, but his attorneys argued that the Massachusetts Constitution made slavery illegal in 1780. Chief Justice William Cushing accepted his argument and instructed the jury that whether he had been freed or not was irrelevant because slavery was no longer constitutional. The jury convicted Jennison who was fined 40 shillings. The date of his death is unknown. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[truck-fump]

<b>Trump</b> is 'toast' in classified documents case: Ex-AG Bill Barr - New York Post

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://nypost.com/2023/06/11/trump-is-toast-in-classified-documents-case-ex-ag-bill-barr/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw3eCX0KUJCayOX93VYUJNh1

Trump is 'toast' in classified documents case: Ex-AG Bill Barr - New York Post

Donald Trump’s one-time Attorney General William Barr said the former president is “toast” for mishandling classified documents — and Trump has …

[faulentzer]

Time will judge Barr as the worst AG in United States history. A man who trashed his principles, if he ever had any, to kiss the ass of the most inept and corrupt president we have ever had.

[serve-update]

Ashton Kutcher Age: What Is His Career To Success In Her Life?

Chris Ashton Kutcher is a successful American actor, producer, businessman, and former fashion model. He has won a People's Choice Award and been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and two Young Artist Awards.

Ashton Kutcher Age

Ashton Kutcher was Born on 7 February 1978, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. You might find this article to be interesting as well Roseanne Barr Age.

Ashton Kutcher Career

Kutcher became a popular Hollywood comedian after That 70's Show. He appeared in Dude, Where's My Car with Sean William Scott in 2000, Just Married with Brittany Murphy in 2003, and Guess Who in 2005 during the series' run. https://twitter.com/CinemaForensic/status/1622802114161573889 In 2004, he starred in The Butterfly Effect, a science-fiction time travel thriller, and made an uncredited appearance in Cheaper by the Dozen, another studio comedy adaptation. Kutcher's 2003 MTV original series Punk'd have been his greatest cultural impact. He created and hosted the show, which featured him pulling elaborate hidden camera pranks on his famous acquaintances, and he went on to executive produce several MTV reality shows, including Beauty and the Geek, Adventures in Hollywood, The Real Wedding Crashers, and Opportunity Knocks.

Ashton Kutcher Age Kutcher appeared as a "special guest star" on the final season of That 70s Show in 2006 owing to scheduling difficulties with his role in The Guardian. In Killers, the 2010 action comedy he produced, he played an assassin. After Charlie Sheen's sudden exit on Two and a Half Men, he replaced him the next year. The show was successful, making Kutcher rich. Must check this article David Bromstad Net Worth. Kutcher starred in Netflix The Ranch for 80 episodes a year after Two and a Half Men ended. He's appeared on Family Guy and Shark Tank. He guested on The Bachelor in 2017. https://youtu.be/NGwAKK3cjmY Final Words This is a must-watch if you’re a fan of the television show “Ashton Kutcher Age.” Christopher Ashton Kutcher is an American actor, producer, entrepreneur, and former model. If you liked this article, follow our website, serveupdate.com, and don’t forget to follow our social media handles.     Read the full article

[arpov-blog-blog]

Former AG Barr said Trump became enraged after being told election fraud claims were nonsense

I have little respect for Barr, so....

[filosofablogger]

A Case Of Too Little, Too Late

To find your conscience a day late is better than never finding it, but imagine the good you could have done if you had found it a few days sooner?  My grandmother used to have a saying for such that “It’s like closing the barn door after the cow already got out.” William Barr was the U.S. Attorney General from February 19th, 2019 to December 23rd, 2020 – 673 days.  During that time he was…

[foreverlogical]

Tucker Carlson has happily boosted some of the right’s most unhinged figures for years, but Rep. Matt Gaetz’s appearance on his Fox News show last night—to defend himself after news broke that the Justice Department is investigating him for child sex trafficking—left Carlson bewildered.

Gaetz went on Carlson’s show Tuesday night, a few hours after the New York Times reported that the Florida congressman and Trump ally was under investigation for possibly breaking federal sex trafficking laws.

The probe, which reportedly began in 2020 under then-Attorney General William Barr, is looking into whether or not Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel, according to the Times. It’s part of a larger investigation into Joel Greenberg, a former Florida county tax collector and a political ally of Gaetz. Greenberg was indicted last August on federal charges including sex trafficking a minor between the ages of 14 and 17, the Times reported.

After the Times story broke, Gaetz tweeted that he was the victim of a $25 million “organized criminal extortion” attempt by a former DOJ official which is being investigated by the FBI, and that the Times story was a “planted leak” that was “intended to thwart that investigation.”

In an interview with Carlson that ran for over eight minutes, Gaetz continued to defend himself. “It is a horrible allegation, and it is a lie,” Gaetz said. “The New York Times is running a story that I have traveled with a 17-year-old woman, and that is verifiably false.”

“I do believe there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me,” he added. “Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people who you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime.”

Gaetz demanded the FBI release purported audio recordings from a wiretap involving his father, former state senator Don Gaetz, and the former DOJ official he says was involved, David McGee. (McGee told the Daily Beast that Gaetz’s claims were “completely, totally false.”)

After a very convoluted explanation of the alleged extortion scheme, Gaetz then tried to drag Carlson under the bus with him, much to Carlson’s confusion.

“I���m not the only person on screen right now who has been falsely accused of a terrible sex act,” Gaetz told Carlson. “You were accused of something you did not do, so you know what this feels like, you know the pain it can bring to your family.”

“You just referred to a mentally ill viewer who accused me of a sex crime 20 years ago,” Carlson responded. “And, of course, it was not true. I never met the person. But I agree with you, being falsely accused is one of the worst things that can happen and you do see it a lot.”

Gaetz then said that Carlson met the woman, which was news to Carlson. “I can say that actually you and I went to dinner about two years ago. Your wife was there and I brought a friend of mine. You’ll remember her,” Gaetz said.

“I don’t remember the woman you are speaking of or the context at all, honestly,” Carlson said. Gaetz went on to say that the 17-year-old “doesn’t exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17 year old.” Later, he added that “people” are claiming “there are pictures of me with child prostitutes,” something that was not part of the New York Times story and which Gaetz denied.

After the interview was over, Carlson was dumbfounded.“

That was one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted,” the Fox host said. “That story just appeared in the news a couple of hours ago, and on the certainty that there's always more than you read in the newspaper we immediately called Matt Gaetz and asked him to come on and tell us more—which, as you saw, he did.”

“I don't think that clarified much, but it certainly showed this is a deeply interesting story, and we'll be following it,” he added. “Don't quite understand it. But we'll bring you more when we find out.”

[nowthisnews]

‘I believe William Barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law and to our public trust in it’ —Former U.S. Deputy AG Donald Ayer putting it plainly

follow @nowthisnews for daily news videos & more

[sarcasticcynic]

Last November, a jury found Trump ally Roger Stone guilty of repeatedly lying to the House Intelligence Committee and obstructing its investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election in order to protect Trump and his presidential campaign. The jury also found Stone guilty of threatening a potential congressional witness. The U.S. Attorney recommended a sentence of seven to nine years in federal prison.

Trump immediately took to Twitter to complain:

“This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”

In accordance with Trump’s express wishes, Attorney General Bill Barr promptly had the Department of Justice intervene in the sentencing process. The Justice Department told the sentencing judge that Stone’s sentence was “extreme, excessive and disproportionate,” and formally withdrew the recommendation.

Barr’s interference and blatant display of favoritism and partisanship was the final straw for over 2000 former employees of the Department of Justice, serving under both Democrats and Republicans:

“[I]t is unheard of for the Department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the President, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. It is even more outrageous for the Attorney General to intervene as he did here — after the President publicly condemned the sentencing recommendation that line prosecutors had already filed in court.

“Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice. In this nation, we are all equal before the law. A person should not be given special treatment in a criminal prosecution because they are a close political ally of the President. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.

...

“Mr. Barr’s actions in doing the President’s personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice’s reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign. But because we have little expectation he will do so, it falls to the Department’s career officials to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend nonpartisan, apolitical justice.”

SPOILER ALERT: Barr did not resign.

[yourreddancer]

POLITICS House GOP expels Liz Cheney from leadership as she vows to continue fight against Trump

House Republicans on Wednesday removed Rep. Liz Cheney from her party leadership role after she urged the GOP to reject former President Donald Trump.

Cheney remained defiant, vowing to continue the fight against Trump.

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney told reporters after she was ousted as House GOP conference chair during a closed-door meeting.

“The party is in a place that we’ve got to bring it back from,” she said. “We cannot be dragged backward by the very dangerous lies of a former president.”

At the top of the meeting, which began around 9 a.m. ET and lasted roughly 20 minutes, Cheney delivered one final pitch to her colleagues.

“We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy,” Cheney said, NBC News reported. “Down that path lies our destruction, and potentially the destruction of our country.”

“If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy,” she said.

“But I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln,” Cheney said.  (THEY HAVEN’T BEEN THE PARTY OF LINCOLN FOR AGES!)

In a statement following the GOP conference’s voice vote, Trump applauded Cheney’s removal with a chain of personal insults against the Wyoming lawmaker.

The showdown came days after two other top-ranking House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, said they were through with Cheney as House GOP conference chair.

They and Trump have endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik, a fourth-term New York congresswoman who gained national attention in 2019 for forcefully defending Trump during his first impeachment trial.

A vote for the new conference chair will be held Friday, McCarthy said at the end of Wednesday’s meeting, NBC reported.

The push to swap the staunchly conservative and politically deep-rooted Cheney with the less-conservative, Trump-supporting Stefanik offers a stark example of the GOP’s shift toward a firm realignment behind the former president with the 2022 midterm congressional elections coming up.

Cheney, one of just 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump on the charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, survived a prior attempt in February to oust her. At that time, the Wyoming Republican had the backing of her fellow House leaders.

To their chagrin, Cheney in the three months since has continued to bash Trump for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

In doing so, Cheney, who was the No. 3 Republican in the House, set herself apart from nearly the rest of her conference, which in the wake of Trump’s loss has grown only more committed to preserving the ex-president’s status as its leader.

Trump never conceded the 2020 election to President Joe Biden and still falsely claims he won the race — though his reach was limited after multiple social media companies banned him from their platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general at the time, said the Department of Justice found no evidence of fraud that would reverse Biden’s victory. But public opinion polling suggests large swaths of Trump’s supporters still believe illegal voting or fraud changed the outcome of the race.

Some Republicans, including McCarthy and Scalise, have suggested Cheney’s refusal to back down on Trump creates a distraction that hurts the GOP’s goal of winning back the House in 2022.

“Each day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future,” McCarthy said Tuesday in a letter that did not mention Cheney by name.

But Cheney, in a searing speech on the House floor Tuesday night and in an op-ed last week, argued that confronting Trump’s election lies is practically a patriotic duty.

‘Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar’

Cheney has vowed to keep up the fight against Trump’s “Big Lie” even if she is booted from leadership. On the eve of the expected vote to oust her, Cheney appeared to get a head start, taking to the floor of the House to make her case.

“Today we face a threat America has never seen before: A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him,” Cheney said.

Trump “risks inciting further violence,” she said, and he “continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.”

She noted that after dozens of court challenges and official investigations, no widespread election fraud was discovered.

“The election is over,” Cheney said. “Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.”

“Our duty is clear: Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy,” she said. “This is not about policy, this is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans.”

“Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.”

“I will not participate in that,” Cheney added. “I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”

Trump’s role

After the 2020 election cycle, Republicans lost control of the White House and the Senate. But much of the party still sees Trump as its biggest draw.

“He’s the most popular Republican in the country by a lot. If you try to drive him out of the Republican Party, half the people will leave,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a committed Trump ally, said Tuesday on Fox News.

“So it doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the president, it means the Republican Party cannot go forward without President Trump being part of it,” Graham said.

While Cheney was ousted behind closed doors, the intraparty row over her views has been aired in broad daylight — leading to some unusual political optics, such as Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praising Cheney for speaking “truth to power.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a statement Wednesday called Cheney “a leader of great courage, patriotism and integrity.”

“Today, House Republicans declared that those values are unwelcome in the Republican party,” Pelosi said.

The Biden administration has largely steered clear of the fight. “We will leave that to them to work out among themselves,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday when asked about the GOP power struggle.

But asked about it directly last week, Biden said the GOP looks like it’s going through a “sort of mini-revolution.”

“We badly need a Republican Party. We need a two-party system. It’s not healthy to have a one-party system,” Biden said at the White House. “And I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.”

McCarthy and other Republicans are scheduled to visit the White House later this week to discuss the administration’s economic investment plans.

I hope that the people like her actually DO form another conservative "never-Trumper" party, and leave the Trumpthugliturd Low IQ-Anons swinging in the breeze...........

[steamedtangerine]

Listening to the Impeachment Trials-

 while driving around quite a lot yesterday (and yeah, I got a bit to say)-

It was quite eye-opening (seeing as I haven’t had my John Oliver fix in a while) to hear a thorough retelling of the outline of events from the last three months (I guess holidays, health issues, COVID, celebrity deaths, Giuliani making a grand fool of himself, exploding RVs, and whatever else came along proved rather distracting). Every sequence of events was crucial to creating a relevant bigger picture....the problem was we had become NUMB, we had become too acclimated to one BS stunt from Trump after another in the last 4 years.

Yet, as I listened to Madeleine Dean, Ted Lieu, and Stacey Plaskett, I found myself opening my jaw going “oh yeeeaaahh, that did happen, Oh my Gawd-and that too!”

Looking back: after the election, Trump put pressure on Michigan. When that failed, he put pressure on Pennsylvania. When that failed, he harassed officials from Georgia to “find votes” (exactly the ones he needed to overturn things in his favor). All this is going on while pointless attempts to file vague petitions to the courts were getting shot down (some by Trump appointees) by Camp Trump.

Also, Trump is making egregious attacks against those who would not cheat for him (eg. Brad Raffensperger, who-as a Republican-was not happy with the results but insisted, after a thorough investigation-that all was done as a fair election with accurate results....and still Trump’s goadings are what lead to Brad and his family getting death threats from Trump’s followers)-going after those of his own party....which further reflects just as badly as when Trump followers attacked a Biden campaign bus in October and caused a crash-to which Trump later praised in a video with war chant music.

So, to resume, Trump is going up the ladder to get people to bend the laws in his favor. He tries to get AG William Barr (an old school Republican-piper who will clearly kill for Trump) to declare the election rigged, but after performing a thorough investigation, Barr openly dismisses Trump’s claims as “bullshit” (loved the post warning of “expletives as they are part of history” on the radio broadcasts) and resigns like a fat rat fleeing a sinking ship. Trump tries to get his replacement (Rosen) to follow through with the same demands Barr denied, and when he refuses, Trump is ready to dismiss him, but stops short after a clamor of those within the Justice Department willing to resign. Trump finally goes to Pence.

Pence refuses to overturn the election results (McConnell having already declared Biden the winner in the middle of December) on that one fateful day.

Think about this: Trump climbed up the hill with everyone that was someone he appointed, was a loyalist, or chosen as a running partner, and they all told him to face the reality of fairness. So, having fallen off the tip of that mountain but still remaining a desperate man willing to do anything, he resorted to riling up thugs of the lowest sort to ramrod into an assembly in hopes to disrupt an election count (which had already been done over and over), overthrow Democracy, and do as much damage to his opponents and former colleagues as possible.

We saw this. We saw every bit of this as it unfolded report after report.

Trump is as guilty as Bin Laden or Manson here, and it’s not a matter of “first amendment rights”. He used his seat to incite mob violence. He had plenty of time to use his itchy Twitter fingers or get up on any of the conservative networks in his favor (OAN, Newsmax, Fox, Sinclair, even the subverted VOA) to tell his people to take the Corona-virus seriously long ago, or to not harass campaign officials from the opposition, or to not threaten or harass “disloyal” officials and their family members, and most of all, after giving his “Good and evil/ I’ll be right there with you.” speech he could’ve said right as it got serious “No, you took me the wrong way. Cease and desist with your actions now!”, instead of sitting around chuckling and watching the carnage on TV. And like with the Biden bus, the “both sides”, the “stand by and stand back”, he gave all his gap-toothed goons a pat on the head in a speech afterwards.

It goes beyond dereliction of duty as one appointed to keep the peace; he is guilty of inciting unlawful insurrection and violence that took lives away and ruined others.

He must be impeached.

That is all there is to it.

End of story.