#most corrupt members of congress list

[triple-tree-ranch]

Charles Ponder·

Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:

1. First President to be photographed smoking a joint.

2. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

3. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

4. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

5. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

6. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

7. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

8. First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

9. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

10. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

11. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

12. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

13. First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

14. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

15. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

16. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

17. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

18. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

19. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

20. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

21. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

22. First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

23. First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

24. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

25. First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

26. First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.

27. First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.

28. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

29. First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

30. First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

31. First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

32. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

33. First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

34. First President to repeat the Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

35. First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

36. First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

37. Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.

I feel much better now. I had been under the impression he hadn't been doing ANYTHING... Such an accomplished individual... in the eyes of the ignorant maybe.!.

[mariacallous]

What the 2024 election results made clear is that the Obama coalition is dead. If Democrats are to have any shot at reclaiming power, so too must be the niceties and mores of the Obama era.

Yes, Democrats must get mean – ruthlessly, bitterly mean. This is not to say, however, that they need merely to cast aside the former first lady’s once-famous, now-infamous messaging mantra. No, what I prescribe is not just a new approach to political discourse but a new theory of opposition party politics.

Trumpsim has corrupted America in many ways, but one of the most obvious is how voters now expect lawmakers and surrogates to be truly vicious cultural warriors for them. One can see manifestations of this in the congresswoman Nancy Mace’s deranged bullying of the congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride, the endless and deliberate mispronunciation of Kamala Harris’s first name, and the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the top fundraisers in the House of Representatives.

This phenomenon also exists on the left. The coffers poured open for Jasmine Crockett following a tête-à-tête with the aforementioned Taylor Greene, during which Crockett mocked her colleague’s “bleach-blonde bad-built butch-body”. And one could argue the strongest period of the Harris-Walz campaign – at least in terms of Democratic enthusiasm – was during the “weird” and “couch” sagas of Brat summer.

As the commentator SE Cupp recently observed, “it doesn’t get said enough, but Trump’s enduring legacy will be convincing BOTH parties to lower the bar, and that possessing moral authority on anything is no longer a currency that matters”. Democrats can either bemoan the fact the fundamental rules of politics and discourse have changed or they can adapt to it. In the four years to come, emboldened voices on the right will work to expand the Overton window. Democrats’ reaction to this effort must not materialize as feigned – or earnest – injury and horror. Take the punch and return the favor.

This new, more muscular messaging strategy must be combined with a far more aggressive war footing in the halls of Congress.

The Democrat Adam Gray’s unseating of the Republican congressman John Duarte in California’s 13th congressional district cemented a nigh-historically tenuous situation for the House Republican party. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, will have only a 220-seat majority. However, Republicans are poised to lose three seats (if not more) as members resign to join the Trump administration. That will leave them with a majority of 217-seats, meaning Johnson can only afford to lose one member on major – and minor – votes.

The Republicans’ legislative to-do list is nothing to scoff at. In addition to renewing Trump’s first term tax cuts and possibly imposing hyper-controversial tariffs on various imports, Johnson will need to pass a bill to fund the government. Democrats must not help him.

Time and again congressional Democrats have swept in to save Republican leaders – and Republican voters – from their own lawmakers. This generosity must end. The Dems must bleed the Republican party of its political capital at every opportunity, even if it means the American people experience some pain. On a Bulwark podcast this week, the writer Jonathan V Last channeled Alan Moore’s iconic comic book anti-hero Rorschach to describe the mentality Democrats should adopt: “The politicians will look up and shout ‘save us,’ and I’ll look down, and whisper ‘no.’”

Yes, Democrats should make the next four years of Republican governance as grueling and painful as possible. Do not help them pass a budget (if Johnson, as Last playfully notes, offers up DC statehood as an incentive for cooperation, we can have another conversation). Do not vote for a single cabinet nominee – even those who qualify as “adults in the room” (sorry, Marco Rubio). Relatedly, do not hold back from highlighting all the darkest aspects of said nominees’ backgrounds – from former Fox host Pete Hegseth’s alleged sexual assault to Robert F Kennedy’s purported role in the deaths of dozens during a 2019 measles outbreak in American Samoa.

While on the Hill, casual comity is fine. Lawmakers should continue to break bread and imbibe brandy with one another. That is all to the good. But Democrats’ outdated impulse to prioritize good relationships with their conservative colleagues at all costs must end. Recall, many of these men and women have spent years valorizing a violent mob that sought to kill them. Comity for the sake of comity is, well, utter comedy.

On that note, there is no world in which Joe Biden and Harris attending the inauguration makes basic strategic sense. Such a move would only serve to undermine trust in a Democratic party brand that’s already on life support. Either Donald Trump is a fascist or he isn’t. There is no such thing as Schrödinger’s autocrat.

Liberals made the decision to compare the former and future commander-in-chief to Hitler. Rhetoric like that can’t be memory-holed. Thus, symbolically lauding the man’s re-ascension to power will not preserve the Democrats’ reputation as the “party of norms”. On the contrary, it will cement the growing sense – particularly after the pardon of Hunter Biden – that Dems traffic in lies and deceit with the same shamelessness as Republicans.

These strategic shifts – in messaging, in oppositional governance, and in observation of norms – will be difficult for some to swallow. After all, as Robert Frost often liked to observe, “a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel”. Democrats must get over themselves; far too much is at stake.

What gives me hope now

To the limited extent I’m optimistic about the next four years, my resolve is rooted in the fact that Trump’s incoming administration – and his Republican coalition more broadly – will probably prove to be more fractious and wracked with infighting than it was during his first term. As we saw following the “Doge” chief Vivek Ramaswamy’s deranged, 90’s sitcom-addled tirade about H-1B visas and the “mediocrity” of American culture, deep policy disagreements plague the current marriage of OG Maga and the Silicon Valley tech bro billionaire class.

Steve Bannon, even more recently, vowed to “take down” the “truly evil” Elon Musk and excise him like a cancer from Trump’s orbit. Throughout the president-elect’s last stay in the White House, intra-party conflict was largely drawn along old guard versus new guard lines. Trump has since turned the Republican into a cult of personality. As such, slavish loyalty to the king is the only coin of the realm – and there are now major competing policy interests among his yes-men. Couple this with the reality that Trump is a lame duck and party elites will constantly be jockeying to be viewed as the heir apparent, and his den of vipers may just consume itself.

[1americanconservative]

@_NewsBarron

Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:

1. First President to be photographed smoking a joint.

2. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

3. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

4. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

5. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

6. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

7. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

8. First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

9. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

10. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

11. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

12. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

13. First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

14. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

15. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

16. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

17. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

18. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

19. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

20. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

21. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

22. First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

23. First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

24. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

25. First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

26. First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.

27. First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.

28. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

29. First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

30. First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

31. First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

32. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

33. First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

34. First President to repeat the Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

35. First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

36. First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

37. Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.

I feel much better now.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Nov. 14, 2024

Donald Trump has demonstrated his lack of fitness for the presidency in countless ways, but one of the clearest is in the company he keeps, surrounding himself with fringe figures, conspiracy theorists and sycophants who put fealty to him above all else. This week, a series of cabinet nominations by Mr. Trump showed the potential dangers posed by his reliance on his inner circle in the starkest way possible.

For three of the nation’s highest-ranking and most vital positions, Mr. Trump said he would appoint loyalists with no discernible qualifications for their jobs, people manifestly inappropriate for crucial positions of leadership in law enforcement and national security.

The most irresponsible was his choice for attorney general. To fill the post of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, the president-elect said he would nominate Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Yes, that Matt Gaetz.

The one who called for the abolishment of the F.B.I. and the entire Justice Department if they didn’t stop investigating Mr. Trump. The one who was among the loudest congressional voices in denying the results of the 2020 election, who said he was “proud of the work” that he and other deniers did on Jan. 6, 2021, and who praised the Capitol rioters as “patriotic Americans” who had no intention of committing violence. The one whose move to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 paralyzed his own party’s leadership of the House for nearly a month.

Mr. Gaetz, who submitted his letter of resignation from Congress on Wednesday after his nomination was announced, was the target of a yearslong federal sex-trafficking investigation that led to an 11-year prison term for one of his associates, though he denied any involvement. The Justice Department closed that investigation, but the House Ethics Committee is still looking into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, improper acceptance of gifts and obstruction of government investigations of his conduct. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, blamed Mr. Gaetz for his ouster, on the grounds that Mr. Gaetz “wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.”

This is the man Mr. Trump has selected to lead the 115,000-person agency that he has called the most important in the federal government, a position whose enforcement role could cause the most trouble for any president with corrupt intent. Even for Mr. Trump, it was a stunning demonstration of his disregard for basic competence and government experience, and of his duty to lead the executive branch in a sober and patriotic way. It will now be up to the Senate to say he has gone too far and reject this nomination.

Mr. Trump’s list of appointments is just getting started but already includes two other unqualified nominations that he announced this week: former Representative Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense.

Ms. Gabbard, who previously represented Hawaii in the House and regularly appears on Fox News, is not only devoid of intelligence experience but has repeatedly taken positions in direct opposition to American foreign policy and national security interests. She has appeared on several occasions to side with strongmen like President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Mr. Hegseth, a co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is perhaps even more unqualified, given the gravity — not to mention the budget — of the post he would assume. He enjoys some support from enlisted service members and veterans, but outside of serving two tours as an Army infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as time in Guantánamo Bay, Mr. Hegseth has no experience in government or national defense.

“He’s never run a big institution, much less one of the largest and most hidebound on the planet,” the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal wrote Wednesday. “He has no experience in government outside the military, and no small risk is that the bureaucracy will eat him alive.” The board went on to call Mr. Hegseth a “culture warrior” at a time when there are much bigger security issues for the Pentagon to be focused on.

It’s far from certain Mr. Hegseth could even obtain the security clearances required for the job. He has said he was one of a dozen National Guard members removed from service at President Biden’s inauguration in 2021 because of concerns that he was an extremist — possibly because of a tattoo he wears that is popular among white supremacists.

These are some of the most consequential roles in government, protecting the country from military and terrorist threats, investigating domestic criminal conspiracies, and prosecuting thousands of federal crimes every year. Yet to fill them Mr. Trump has resorted to people whose only eligibility for office is an apparent willingness to say yes to his every demand.

Mr. Gaetz in particular has joined Mr. Trump in expressing a commitment to exacting vengeance against anyone they believe has done them wrong. Mr. Trump began his campaign by saying “I am your retribution,” and Mr. Gaetz broadcasts nothing so much as that. He has no business leading an agency with the role of combating crime, fraud, violations of civil rights and threats to national security, among many other things.

In Mr. Trump’s first term, the department was protected by career prosecutors and other civil servants who understood that their primary obligation was to the dictates of the Constitution, not to the whims of the president. But Mr. Trump has promised to purge people like that from his second administration.

The possibility of extreme appointments like these was the reason the Constitution gives the Senate the right to refuse its consent to a president’s wishes. Last week, Republicans won control of the chamber. Now they will be confronted with an immediate test: Will they stand up for the legislative branch and for the American system of checks and balances? Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have already expressed strong skepticism of Mr. Gaetz’s nomination, and others have declined to express their support.

Mr. Trump clearly expects the Senate to simply roll over and ignore its responsibilities. He wants to turn the leaders of major important agencies into his deputies, remaking the federal government into a Trump Inc. organization chart entirely subordinate to him. He recently demanded that the Senate give him the ability to make recess appointments, a way of bypassing the Senate’s consent process when the chamber is adjourned for 10 days or more.

Even Republican senators refused to consent to that demand during his first term, to preserve their constitutional role, and on Wednesday Senate Republicans voted to reject as their leader Rick Scott of Florida, who said he would have no problem allowing recess appointments. Instead they chose John Thune of South Dakota, who is far more likely to uphold his chamber’s right to refuse consent of president nominations.

In Mr. Trump’s second term, senators will immediately be confronted with an extreme set of appointments even worse than those of the first term. That makes all the more important that they preserve the ability to say no.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/opinion/editorials/matt-gaetz-nomination-senate.html

[aerial-jace]

I want to know what the politics in latin america are like currently, how are the elections there different and/or similar to the USA in guatemala, are you aware of whats going on in neighboring countries atm?

I am vaguely aware of Mexico and El Salvador but not too too much. Mexico's current government is a continuity government from a party that has been governing most of the 21st century. El Salvador is particularly notable for its strongman populist president who I'm told has been good for the violence problem but has also done more questionable stuff like making Bitcoin legal tender. (That was quite the novelty for me when I visited two years ago! All the signs saying "We accept Bitcoin here")

In Guatemala our election was just last year! We vote on 5 ballots:

President

Mayor

Regional District Congressmen

National List Congressmen

Representatives for PARLACEN (the Central American Parliament)

Presidentials are done with a run-off system. To win you need a simple majority of votes (50% + 1 vote), but you pretty much never get that on the first round of voting so the two top candidates go on to a second round about 2 months later.

Congress is decided on a party list proportional system. The country is divided into 23 electoral districts, representing the 22 departments + Guatemala City, and each is assigned a certain amount of congressmen based on population. These are distributed proportional to how many votes they got and then the parties assign the congressmen based on a list of all their potential candidates. There is additionally an electoral district that is voted on separately and which counts the whole country. This national list elects 32 congressmen, which at 160 congressmen total makes the national list 20% of the elected congressmen.

Mayor is pretty self explanatory.

And the most contentious is representatives to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). PARLACEN is supposed to be a forum for our countries to discuss diplomacy and formulate policies for international trade and cooperation. In practice they don't really, like, do anything. PARLACEN has a reputation for being a den of corrupt politicians who are only running because they want diplomatic immunity for 4 more years. Presidents of member countries (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic) get a seat automatically after leaving office and that has always been super controversial.

In Guatemala this became particularly egregious in 2020 when outgoing President Jimmy Morales rushed his swearing in to office in order to shield himself from a lawsuit due to his mismanagement in office. Protestors were trying to prevent him from rushing into the PARLACEN building in Guatemala City so they could file the charges at the first hour of the morning. But he did end up managing to get sworn in and get legal immunity at the last minute.

For this reason a lot of the left here in Guatemala refuses to field candidates for PARLACEN and a pretty big portion of the population just intentionally spoils that ballot specifically.

Our current president is presiding over a 12+ party fractured government with a congressional minority. His party, Movimiento Semilla, is a center-left party who is focused on dismantling the corrupt structures of power more established politicians have already built. Their party has its beginnings in a protest movement that mobilized due to a corruption case in 2015 to demand the president and vice president to immediately resign. It has been an uphill battle and from his election the government tried every dirty trick they could to prevent him from taking power.

It's not been even a year since they have been in power, but I am optimistic about Movimiento Semilla so far. My biggest hope is that since they were electoral allies of the parties I support, the leftist indigenous rights coalition of Winaq and URNG Maíz, their growing support may spill over to them. I truly do think they are some of the very few principled people still in politics here.

[strictlyfavorites]

Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:

1. First President to be photographed smoking a joint.

2. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

3. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

4. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

5. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

6. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

7. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

8. First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

9. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

10. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

11. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

12. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

13. First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

14. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

15. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

16. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

17. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

18. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

19. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

20. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

21. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

22. First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

23. First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

24. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

25. First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

26. First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.

27. First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.

28. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

29. First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

30. First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

31. First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

32. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

33. First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

34. First President to repeat the Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

35. First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

36. First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

37. Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Inside the 'irregular warfare' campaign fascists are conducting against America

Thom Hartmann

June 5, 2024 9:48AM ET

Trump lies that the guilty verdict against him — by a jury of his peers that his own attorneys picked — is an illegitimate, politically motivated show trial.

Trying to help Trump destroy Americans’ faith in our democracy and its justice system, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman today said of Trump’s trial:

“If we speak about Trump, the fact that there is simply the elimination, in effect, of political rivals by all possible means, legal and illegal, is obvious.”

Hungary’s dictator Viktor Orbán and Italy’s neofascist Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, both also argued that Trump is the victim of political persecution.

Right wing media commentators and Republicans in Congress have leaped at the opportunity to echo Putin and Orbán.

This sort of propaganda is called “irregular warfare” (IW) — warfare by means outside of troops, bombs, navies, etc. — and the US used to be an expert at it. Typically, irregular warfare involves the use of propaganda, proxies, or people willing to betray their own country.

READ: Liberals are being way too cynical about Trump's conviction

Irregular warfare is part of how the US and western Europe brought down the Soviet Union (although that system also disintegrated from within under the weight of its own corruption and rot), with propaganda systems like the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Europe.

A keen observer of this process was an irregular warfare leader based in East Germany at the time. Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin supervised spying and propaganda operations within East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall, when he moved to Moscow where, in 1999, he became the head of the Russian government and is now the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin.

Having been on the receiving end of US and western European propaganda efforts, Putin dedicated himself to turning the tables on us, since the democratic example of America (and other western nations) is a thorn in his autocratic side. And he’s had considerable success, including helping get his man Trump into the White House where Donald then handed a western spy over to Putin’s Foreign Minister Lavrov in a secret Oval Office meeting during his first month in office.

Two months later, US intelligence had to pull another spy out of Russia because they had evidence Trump had given his name to Putin as well. Trump may well represent the single most successful irregular warfare program Putin has ever run against America.

On July 31, 2019, as Trump was ramping up his 2020 campaign, he had another of what by that time were more than 16 private, unrecorded conversations with Putin. The White House told Congress and the press that they discussed “wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this car.

The following week, on August 2nd, The Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reported that Trump had just asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a list of all its employees (including all our “spies” across the world) who had worked there more than 90 days, and the request had intelligence officials experiencing “disquiet.”

Fourteen months later, The New York Timesran a story with the headline: “Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants.” The CIA then alerted American spies around the world that their identities had probably been compromised, apparently by President Donald Trump himself.

Also in 2019, when the international press verified that Putin was paying the Taliban bounties to kill American service members in Afghanistan (and 4 had already died as a result), Trump refused to demand the practice stop, another possible sign that Putin ran him, not the other way around.

As The New York Times noted at the time:

“Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence... But leading congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, according to officials, the administration has yet to authorize.”

Instead of stopping Putin from offering the bounties, Trump shut down every US airbase in Afghanistan except one (there were about a dozen), intentionally crippling incoming President Biden’s ability to extract US assets from that country in an orderly fashion.

Today, Republicans — particularly House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and committee members Cory Mills (R-FL) and Michael Lawler (R-NY) — have used the resulting chaos and associated American and Afghan deaths as a political club to beat up President Biden.

Trump also took an axe to the Voice of America — an institution viscerally hated by Putin for half a century — appointing a rightwing hack and friend of Steve Bannon’s to run the organization, who promptly fired the heads of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia and shifted their coverage away from defense of democracies. According to The Washington Post:

“He ousted the diplomats and media professionals on oversight boards and replaced them with low-level Trumpists from other government agencies. … “Having driven off the American media professionals at VOA, Pack went after the more than 70 foreign journalists who work for the organization, refusing to support the renewal of their U.S. visas as they came up. He claimed to be acting for security reasons and insinuated, on no evidence, that some of the staff were spies. … Now, they are being forced to repatriate, in some cases at personal risk. A VOA report in late August said 15 were returning home and another 20 had visas that will expire by the end of the year. “They weren’t Pack’s only targets. He attempted to fire the board and cut off the funding of the Open Technology Fund, an organization that supports Internet freedom initiatives, such as tools to circumvent firewalls. A court blocked the firings, but the fund was forced to suspend 49 of its 60 projects. Among those affected were journalists and activists resisting government crackdowns in Hong Kong and in Belarus.”

The damage to the Voice of America continues to this day as most of Trump’s people are still there; just three months ago, The Hill ran an article titled “Putin’s influencers? Why is taxpayer-funded VOA spreading his propaganda?”

But Putin’s efforts at irregular warfare against the United States have extended far beyond his apparent manipulation of Donald Trump to betray spies and kneecap American anti-fascist propaganda programs.

The Irregular Warfare Center was created within the US Department of Defense in 2021 by Congress; in their January 23, 2024 report “Russian Information Warfare Strategy: New IWC Translation Gives Insights into Vulnerabilities” they show how Putin’s efforts have had considerable success recruiting average Americans within the US. For example, as one of hundreds of Putin’s early efforts to help Donald Trump become president, they note that the year of Trump’s election:

“On 21 May 2016, two protest groups faced off in Houston near an Islamic cultural center to demonstrate competing opinions on Texas’ future. Both groups, one which was protesting the perceived Islamization of Texas, and the other in support of the Islamic community, had been organized on Facebook pages. At first glance, this seemed like a normal and innocuous part of the U.S. political process. “Unbeknownst to most participants, however, both Facebook pages had been created by Russian actors seeking to exacerbate political discord in the United States. This event was not an isolated case; it was a part of a coordinated effort by Russia to meddle in the U.S. elections, both in the social media space and in the physical domain.”

Another example was the promotion of Putin’s assertion the month before he invaded Ukraine in February, 2022 that the US and Ukraine were running bioweapon labs in that besieged nation. As NBC Newsreported in March, 2022 as the invasion was moving ahead full steam:

“Boosted by far-right influencers on the day of the invasion, an anonymous QAnon Twitter account titled @WarClandestine pushed the “biolabs” theory to new heights… “Much of the false information [about the alleged biolabs] is flourishing in Russian social media, far-right online spaces and U.S. conservative media, including Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.”

When viewed in context, Putin’s successes at irregular warfare against the United States, designed to tear our society apart, have been quite breathtaking.

During the summer of 2020, as Trump and Biden were squaring off for the election that year, in the small Oregon town of Klamath Falls about 200 locals showed up downtown with guns, baseball bats, and whatever other weapons they could find around the house. They were in the streets to fight off the busloads of Black Antifa marauders they believed Jewish billionaire George Soros had paid to put on a bus in Portland and was sending their way.

Of course, George Soros had done no such thing and there were no busloads of Black people. But the warnings were all over the Klamath Falls Facebook group, and, it turns out, similar Facebook groups for small towns all over America, apparently as part of another Russian disinformation effort.

From coast to coast that weekend white residents of small towns showed up in their downtown areas with guns, rifles, hammers, and axes prepared to do battle with busloads of Black people being sent into their small white towns by George Soros.

In the tiny town of Forks, Washington, frightened white people brought out chainsaws and cut down trees to block the road leading to their town. In South Bend, Indiana police were overwhelmed by 911 calls from frightened white people wanting to know when the “Antifa buses” were arriving. And in rural Luzern County, Pennsylvania, the local neighborhood social media group warned people that busloads of Black people were “organizing to riot and loot.”

Similar stories played out that weekend from Danville, California to Jacksonville, Florida, as documented by NBC News. It was both a successful test of using social media to create mass panic among credulous Trump followers and, perhaps, a planning session for the violence ABC News documents Trump is trying to gin up if he loses this fall.

One of Putin’s greatest recent IW successes came last July when Federal District Judge Terry Doughty, a hard-right Trump appointee, blocked federal agencies from informing social media companies about Russian and other efforts to spread disinformation on their platforms. In March of this year four Republicans on the Supreme Court granted cert and the case was heard; we’re awaiting the ruling which could come any day.

The issue may be moot: Russia is now moving their efforts to promote Trump and encourage civil strife in the US away from their own trolls posing as Americans, now using instead Trump-aligned US-citizens and congressional Republican influencers.

These include using rightwing media commentators, average citizens active on social media, and even members of Congress who’ve bought into Russian propaganda from issues around Ukraine to vaccines to the alleged theft of the 2020 election (and “planned theft” of 2024). As the Irregular Warfare Centernotes:

“[F]uture Russian foreign-targeted OIEs [Operations in the Information Environment] appear to be shifting toward proxy operations, including semi-independent and strategically-chosen influencers on social media, rather than using a directly-controlled team of professionals, as was the case in 2016 with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “troll factory” that worked to interfere in the U.S. elections.”

This possibility of Trump (and thus Putin) seizing control of US intelligence agencies should he be elected is freaking out former senior U.S. intelligence officials. The headline at Raw Story says it all: “Intel officials 'very concerned' about Trump's intentions for spy agencies.”

The simple reality is that Russia has been using IW techniques in Putin’s war against America — particularly in his efforts to reinstall Trump in the White House — for over a decade and those efforts are now being amplified on a daily basis by Republicans in Congress, rightwing media outlets, and some of our largest social media companies.

With the ability of our government to work with social media and news outlets to combat Putin’s irregular warfare handicapped, and the possibility that Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court will further handcuff the Biden Administration’s efforts, the possibility increases that Russia’s useful idiots could succeed in helping Trump prevail this November.

And the election season is now just beginning. Buckle up: to paraphrase Trump’s invitation to January 6th, this is going to get wild.

READ: Liberals are being way too cynical about Trump's conviction

[worldofwardcraft]

It's called quiet quitting.

March 6, 2025

Last November, Donald Trump achieved all he really desired out of his presidential campaign. Which was to get himself elected, so he could invalidate the criminal prosecutions he was facing and avoid certain imprisonment. As a bonus, our corrupt Supreme Court the previous July even granted him immunity from any accountability for all the crimes he'd committed in his first term — and in his delusional mind — for every crime he ever committed. For Trump, this was mission accomplished.

And, since he doesn't have the slightest concern for fulfilling his promises or making America "great," Trump is ignoring any of that (as he demonstrates above during his first Cabinet meeting). Sure, he has four years ahead of him to fly around on Air Force One, play golf, watch TV and bask in the uncritical attention of the press. But he's mainly using the powers of his office to focus on the two activities he cares about most: taking revenge and raking in cash.

In the vengeance category, the Department of Justice, FBI and other agencies are already being primed to prosecute imaginary Trump haters, investigate disloyal members of Congress, sue blue state governments and withhold selected federal funds. In addition, his "pause" of aid to Ukraine and public abuse of its president was in large part payback for Zelenskyy's refusal to yield to Trump's extortion in 2019 (the subject of Trump's first impeachment).

High on Trump's list of fantasy foes are, of course, the news media. He's kicked the Associated Press out of the White House press pool for not playing along with his renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Also banned: Reuters, The Huffington Post and Germany's Der Tagesspiegel. Says Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times:

Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.

Trump's other obsession, of course, is money. And he's assembled a variety of ways for rich oligarchs and foreign governments to launder any bribes intended for our nation's Chief Executive. They can buy his World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency, invest in his Trump Media company, make bulk purchases of his overpriced merch, or simply do a development deal with the Trump Organization (as have Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE).

Strange (and uncharacteristic) as it seems, Trump really is working hard. He's putting maximum energy into retribution and grift. But only the minimum into doing his actual job.

Photo credit: Saul Loeb, Agence France-Presse

[thedearlydepart]

America started with the best of intentions. “Jefferson sought to establish a federal government of limited powers” (Library of Congress, n.d.), and even though a form of capitalism has always existed in America, I don’t think Jefferson or anyone at the time could have predicted the growth it would have and how dependent upon it we would become. I don’t think it was by design, but due to the inherent exploitative nature of capitalism and more to the point, the influence of wealth and corporations, America now functions more like an oligarchy..

Well, you may ask why we are having the conversation. Why does it matter how we classify or define the structure of our government? Psychology Today tells us, “Our frames of reference are extremely important for making decisions that are consistent with our values, aligned with our preferences, and relevant to our past experiences.” (Grawitch, 2021). If we think that our government is a democracy, a democratic republic, or anything of that ilk, it sets us up to make decisions that, in the best-case scenario, have no effect and, in the worst, have an opposite effect.

We have known it for a long time but haven’t had the words to explain it. Many people wouldn’t even understand what an oligarchy is. So, if you ask a regular person what kind of government we have, They have only been told that we are a democracy, that we are the only country with freedom and other patriotic epithets. In the Oxford Union Video, Cenk Uygur cites a study that says 93% of Americans say money corrupts politics. Coming to terms with the reality that it’s not and not understanding completely what that means is a scary thought. It’s even more terrifying when you realize you are already in it, and there isn’t anything you can do about it. Uygur also states that the most significant impact on policy and politics was donor contribution, NOT VOTING. So much so, according to Uygur (and substantiated by Politico), in 2008, Citigroup, via ex-exec Michael Froman, handed Obama’s team a list of people who would eventually become his cabinet members. (Wheaton, 2016).

As the video from our required readings suggests, We have a style of government in which we still vote, and that vote indirectly decides who will be our next executive. To some degree, one could argue that that means democracy still exists. However, the same video suggests that only the person who spends the most money (special interest groups and billionaires) essentially determines who will win a given election. (Counter Arguments, 2019). So, I feel it’s safe to say that We are an Oligarch.

References

Counter Arguments. (2019, April 1). America Is A Democracy. YouTube. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://youtu.be/lJUQKcnWzIg?si=u-BmxYU4YHmqnqEv&t=539

Grawitch, M. (2021, June 28). Your Frame of Reference Influences Your Decision Making. Psychology Today. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hovercraft-full-eels/202106/your-frame-reference-influences-your-decision-making

Library of Congress. (n.d.). Establishing A Federal Republic - Thomas Jefferson | Exhibitions. Library of Congress. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html

Oxford Union & Uygur, C. (2017, June 27). Democracy Is For Sale | Cenk Uygur | Part 5 of 6. Youtube. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://youtu.be/YrKeseMRABs?si=8JCu9dCmUulaQTTL&t=280

Wheaton, S. (2016, October 20). WikiLeaks trove shows Obama in 2008 prepping to move into the White House. Politico. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/wikileaks-obama-white-house-230114

[beesandwasps]

You’ll never get this, because the Republicans are pro-corruption anyway and the Democrats, while theoretically anti-corruption, will immediately defend corruption as soon as it’s a Democrat doing it. The Democratic Party has zero internal accountability; as soon as you get elected as a Democrat you can actively support shooting your own voters through the head and they will still defend you. There was not a single Democrat who was primaried or recalled or forced into retirement for their support of: the Iraq war, the USA PATRIOT Act, the creation of DHS and ICE, the Hague Invasion Act, the massive domestic spying proposed by GWB and enacted by Obama, the removal of the public option from the ACA, the invasion of Libya, the attempted Nazi coup in Ukraine, the offer to cut Social Security and Medicare in Obama’s “Grand Bargain”, the expansion of fossil fuel extraction under Biden, Biden’s complete abandonment of the science on Covid at corporate request, or the Israeli genocide under Biden.

(The lack of accountability over the Hague Invasion Act — officially “the American Service-Member’s Protection Act” — is particularly appalling. The sole provision of the bill was that if anybody acting on behalf of the U.S. government were to be tried for war crimes, the President was automatically pre-authorized to invade the Hague and forcibly disband the International Criminal Court. The only big-name Democrat in Congress at the time who didn’t vote for it was Pelosi (Sanders voted against it but he is — as Hillary Clinton supporters pointed out ad nauseum — not actually a Democrat); all the others voted for it: Clinton, Kerry, Biden, Schumer… even the supposedly left-leaning Senators like Wellstone and Boxer voted for it. When you consider that this bill was basically a declaration that the US was definitely going to commit war crimes so heinous that the ICC — which for war crimes doesn’t act on anything but the largest, most clear-cut cases — as part of bipartisan support for the ridiculous Iraq invasion (which Democratic voters overwhelmingly did not want but Democratic members of Congress backed), it’s amazing that Democratic voters did not immediately end the careers of every Democrat who voted for it. That list of ‘yea’ votes should have been made into a list of people who were dangerously evil and should never have been trusted with public office ever again. Instead the Democratic Party, who we’re supposed to regard as “the good guys”, the alternative to Trump, nominated 3 of them for President.)

So we end up, all over the map, with “this 76-year-old Democrat who has been in Congress for 30 years is functionally a Reagan Republican except for a couple of very specific issues where they are somewhat more centrist instead, plus several years ago they showed up for a single 15-minute photo opportunity at either a Pride march or a Black Lives Matter event, so you’re never permitted to criticize them, ever, until they actually die in office while voting to approve a Trump nominee”. It’s part and parcel of the “Blue No Matter Who” idiocy — if you won’t hold candidates responsible, you get bad candidates.

[Edit: fixed a typo.]

do people know that a french ex-president (nicolas sarkozy, from 2007 to 2012) is currently wearing an electronic bracelet after he was sentenced for corruption and influence peddling? do people know? i want everyone to know 😌

[mariacallous]

It looks like Congress may have the two-thirds vote necessary to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from the House of Representatives — making him only the sixth member of the House of Representatives in over 200 years to be expelled from office. We’ll know soon. On November 28, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced a privileged motion on the House floor to expel Santos. Because the motion is privileged, the Republicans have to bring it to the floor within two legislative days.

The reasons for Santos’ fall are well known — it started out with exaggerations about his background so outrageous that Santos was catapulted into regular fodder for late night comedians and then became the object of media and legislative investigators. And what they found was outrageous behavior in many different areas.

But it was the recent release of a 56-page Ethics Committee Report that provided the serious blow. Committee members charged that Santos “deceived his donors, knowingly filed false campaign finance statements, and used his campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including rent, trips, luxury items, cosmetic treatments like Botox and a subscription to the adult content site OnlyFans.” The long list of infractions seems to have been the last straw for some members of his party and expulsion now looks within reach.

If he is sent packing, it will be remarkable not only for the fact that he was one of just half a dozen representatives to be expelled from the House but that Republicans, with their extraordinarily thin five-vote majority, will take the drastic step of actually losing one-fifth of their margin.

Who else has been expelled?

The most recent was James Traficant, a member from Ohio removed in 2002 following his conviction on ten felony charges of bribery, tax evasion, and racketeering, among others. Despite being removed 420 to 1 by his colleagues, Traficant mounted two campaigns for reelection — from prison no less — as an Independent but was ultimately defeated. Traficant’s departure didn’t do much to change the power dynamics in the House. Democrats were in the minority, and he had not been a very loyal Democratic vote — voting with the Republicans to make Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert speaker of the House.

Twenty-two years prior, Democratic Representative Michael Myers of Pennsylvania was removed by a vote of 376-30 following a conviction over his involvement in a corruption scheme that ensnared several members of the House and a senator. In an FBI sting operation, Myers was caught taking money in a deal meant to guarantee asylum for a made-up sheik. Myers was ultimately the only implicated member who opted not to resign, and thus his colleagues relieved him of his duties. Once again, the expulsion did not change the power dynamic in the House, where Democrats held a large majority.

Finally, the other three members were removed due to disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. Missouri Representatives John Clark and John Reid and Kentucky Representative Henry Burnett were Democrats who supported the Confederacy and were cast out by their colleagues in 1861 for this treasonous act. Reid, strangely enough, had resigned months before, but was expelled anyway. However, their departure made little difference to the House power dynamics. Republicans held a substantial majority over the Democrats, having taken control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency in the 1860 elections. Compared to the Civil War that broke out the next year, their expulsion was but a footnote in history.

Santos is unusual compared to several of the others who were expelled because he has not been convicted of any crimes. He has been the object of numerous media stories and the butt end of jokes. Right now, he is indicted but has not gotten the chance in a legal setting to defend himself.

It is for that reason that Santos survived one attempt at expulsion. Nearly all of his fellow Republicans were hesitant to shrink their slim majority. But in light of the devastating and quite detailed House Ethics Committee report, that hesitancy seems to have changed. Despite the negative political consequences, enough Republicans may join Democrats in booting Santos from the House. It is an act of political principle that we should applaud. Even in a body that has, throughout history, had its share of embarrassing members, Santos stands out for his blatant dishonesty and lack of personal integrity, which is why enough Republicans may expel him despite the harm it inflicts on their own party.

[molsons112000]

So Bill Clinton had no problem going after leaders around the world like the leader of Serbia and having him tried for war crimes. He had no problem in going after and doing a manhunt for the warlord leaders in Somalia.

History.com

https://www.history.com › milosev...

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial ...

Nov 24, 2009 — Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial for war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo

Miller Center

millercenter.org

Presidential transition: Somalia

Dec 8, 2016 — Once Clinton was in office, the operation became a man-hunt for Somalian warlord, General Mohammed Aidid. In

Roh committed suicide on 23 May 2009 when he jumped from a mountain cliff behind his home, after saying that "there are too many people suffering because of me" on a suicide note on his computer. About 4 million people visited Roh's hometown Bongha Village in the week following his death.

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › R...

Roh Moo-hyun - Wikipedia

The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment by a unanimous 8–0 ruling on 10 March 2017, thereby removing Park from office, making her the first Korean president to be so removed. On 6 April 2018, South Korean courts sentenced her to 24 years in prison (later increased to 25 years) for corruption and abuse of power.

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › P...

Park Geun-hye - Wikipedia

On 2 June 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced Mubarak to life imprisonment. After sentencing, he was reported to have suffered a series of health crises. On 13 January 2013, Egypt's Court of Cassation (the nation's high court of appeal) overturned Mubarak's sentence and ordered a retrial.

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › K...

Killing of Muammar Gaddafi

References edit · ^ "Air strike hit 11 vehicles in Gaddafi convoy -NATO". · ^ Martin Chulov (20 October 2012). · ^ Beaumont, Peter; Stephen, Chris

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › E...

Execution of Saddam Hussein

Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujail massacre—the killing of ...

List of Executions

Hermann Göring.

Joachim von Robbentrop.

Wilhelm Keitel.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

Alfred Rosenberg.

Hans Frank.

Wilhelm Frick.

Julius Streicher.

More items...

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › ...

The Nuremberg Trials | New Orleans

It's funny leaders in this country. They do crimes.They get off of the crimes and then they're given a golden parachute.

Other leaders around the World are killed.

I believe we need the death penalty for the President of the United States for all members of Congress for all government officials.

We have no problem in killing leaders of other countries of the World or calling for them to be put to death.

So i'm fine with former bill clinton president put the death....

So I don't understand how we can hold other countries leadership to this level and kill them and we don't hold our leadership to the same sword....

The primary purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega.

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › U...

United States invasion of Panama - Wikipedia

In 2011 France extradited him to Panama, where he was incarcerated for crimes committed during his rule, for which he had been tried and convicted in absentia in the 1990s. Diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2017, Noriega suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later.

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki

Manuel Noriega - Wikipedia

So the United States has the most powerful military in the world.It can't be invaded and It's the richest country in the world and the u s dollar is the reserve currency of the world and countries around the world hold 46 trillion dollars in treasuries. I think that's around that much.In every year we sell 27 trillion dollars in treasuries and growing.....

But some reason are leaders.They can get away with literally murder and they get a golden parachute.... Where other leaders around the world we call further execution.....

So I believe we need the implement. The same thing here for our politicians.... For too long, we've been killing leadership around the world and we have been killing them and we've been letting our politicians get away with it.. It needs to end and they need to have the death penalty on the table....

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

The NY Times

By Glenn ThrushDevlin Barrett and Adam Goldman

Feb. 13, 2025

In less than a month in power, President Trump’s political appointees have embarked on an unapologetic, strong-arm effort to impose their will on the Justice Department, seeking to justify their actions as the simple reversal of the “politicization” of federal law enforcement under their Biden-era predecessors.

The ferocious campaign, executed by Emil Bove III — Mr. Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer who is now the department’s acting No. 2 official — is playing out in public, in real time, through a series of moves that underscore Mr. Trump’s intention to bend the traditionally nonpartisan career staff in federal law enforcement to suit his ends.

That strategy has quickly precipitated a crisis that is an early test of how resilient the norms of the criminal justice system will prove to be against the pressures brought by a retribution-minded president and his appointees.

On Thursday, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than sign off on Mr. Bove’s command to dismiss the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Ms. Sassoon is no member of the liberal resistance: She clerked for the conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, and had been appointed to her post by Mr. Trump’s team.

Dropping the charges, “for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case” went against the “duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor,” she wrote in a letter to Mr. Boveexplaining her decision.

Mr. Bove, rebuffed by Ms. Sassoon, tried a procedural end-around, asking officials in the department’s Washington headquarters to take over the case, then have someone on their staff sign the dismissal.

Instead, five prosecutors in the criminal division and public integrity unit also quit, leaving their colleagues to furtively discuss their options, expressing their hope that they would not be called upon to take actions that would end with their resignation or termination.

As of late Thursday, no department official had formally filed the dismissal motion in federal court.

The consequences of the confrontation extend far beyond the fate of Mr. Adams. It has set up what promises to be a protracted and damaging battle over the integrity, independence and direction of a department that Mr. Trump views like a piece of captured battlefield artillery he is now able to turn against his attackers.

Mr. Bove is, in the view of his critics, imposing what amounts to a political loyalty test on prosecutors — demanding they comply with his requests, however unacceptable and incompatible with norms, or get out.

It is no accident, they say, that Mr. Bove has quickly targeted some of its most powerful officials and divisions: overseeing a shake-up at the national security division, insisting that the F.B.I.’s acting leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on the Capitol riot investigations and, finally, targeting the most prestigious U.S. attorney’s office in the country, known for guarding its independence.

“It’s a symptom of a bigger problem — how are we going to do this for four more years, having to choose whether to do something unethical or be fired?” said a current Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, asking why Congress seemed unwilling to intervene. “Everyone has to jump ship or be thrown overboard.”

No U.S. attorney’s office “is a separate sovereign,” Mr. Bove said in a statement sent to reporters after Ms. Sassoon stepped aside.

Mr. Bove’s boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, has vowed to root out “politicized” officials in the department, without providing evidence of wrongdoing or professional misconduct.

On her first day in office, she announced the creation of a “Weaponization Working Group,” purportedly intended to root out “abuses of the criminal justice process” by local and federal law enforcement officers, including those who had investigated Mr. Trump.

Current and former Justice Department officials view those claims as merely an excuse to justify the brazen politicization of the department under Mr. Trump and his team. It has left many employees angry and worried for the department’s future.

The Adams case brought those concerns to a head.

One veteran prosecutor told a friend late Thursday that he was not answering phone calls, in hopes of avoiding a demand to take an action that would force his resignation.

Thursday’s events have echoes in the department’s darkest distant past. During the Watergate era, senior political appointees resigned rather than carry out what they viewed as an unlawful order to fire the prosecutor investigating President Nixon — an event referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Thursday’s crisis was different, according to Justice Department veterans, in that the political leadership seemed resolved to assert total control over the career prosecutors that many staff members see as the backbone of the agency.

There is growing fear at department headquarters that its politically appointed leaders are determined to remove an entire layer of highly qualified and experienced senior career officials, and in doing so, end the traditional independence of investigating and charging corruption cases. The administration has already moved on a number of fronts to scale back anti-corruption work.

In response, current and former Justice Department officials said, defense lawyers on a wide variety of cases are drafting direct appeals to Mr. Bove to try to nullify pending charges or investigations.

In her letter of refusal to Mr. Bove, Ms. Sassoon suggested that should he find a career employee to sign off on his request, the judge overseeing the case was likely to ask tough questions of department officials.

To an agency run by lawyers, Mr. Bove’s actions after her resignation were even more troubling than his order that she drop the case. Mr. Bove did not try to give the same instruction to another person in her office in New York. In fact, he placed several of Ms. Sassoon’s deputies on paid leave pending an investigation of their role in the episode.

Instead, he took the unusual step of rerouting his demand to career officials in Washington, and fared no better.

Two senior lawyers, who had been tapped for interim leadership positions by the Trump administration, resigned. Current and former officials pointed out that what Mr. Bove asked them to do may well violate bar rules and their oath — to dismiss a criminal case without having reviewed the facts or the law.

Later, three other officials in the department’s public integrity unit also refused to follow Mr. Bove’s directive and resigned.

Days earlier, Ms. Bondi issued a memo insisting that Justice Department lawyers could not avoid signing legal documents they happened to disagree with. Given that explicit instruction, Mr. Bove’s demands for someone in the department to sign the document carry an unspoken threat, these officials said — do it or leave.

Mr. Bove, in a memo to Ms. Sassoon this week, said his order for dismissal was not based on questions about the evidence collected by prosecutors, but because the charges filed against the mayor last fall came too close to the 2025 mayoral election and created the appearance that the indictment was intended to influence the outcome.

He also claimed that the indictment, which resulted in the stripping of Mr. Adams’s security clearance, made it harder for the mayor to cooperate with the administration on immigration enforcement. The assertion amounted to a highly unusual injection of a policy issue into a criminal case.

“There is no room at the Justice Department for attorneys who refuse to execute on the priorities of the executive branch,” Mr. Bove wrote on Thursday, adding that he looked forward to working with the U.S. attorney’s office “on the important priorities President Trump has laid out for us to make America safe again.“

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

There’s blood in the water around the Supreme Court now and investigative journalists are swarming, finding all the fodder they need for a scandal in the form of Justice Clarence Thomas alone. The latest addition to the Thomas corruption chronicles is The New York Times’ exposé on his long-standing membership in the Horatio Alger Association, one that netted him a whole new raft of generous, wealthy friends spending lavishly to provide him a luxurious lifestyle. As the circle of Thomas’ rich and powerful associates grows, so grows the likelihood of conflicts of interest for him on the court and the likelihood the media will be able to dig them up. Each new discovery will only deepen the crisis in the court and generate more momentum for reform.

Previous reporting from ProPublica shows just how susceptible Thomas is to very rich people who want to give him big-ticket items like luxury vacations, in particular his longtime friend Harlan Crow, the Texas billionaire who also likes to spend his largesse on right-wing dark money groups. Crow has funded not only lavish vacations and private plane rides, but made life easier for Thomas with real estate deals, paying tuition for Thomas’ ward to attend private school, and generally enriching Thomas’ life. Crow even pays the rent on the home where Thomas’ mother currently lives. That was all highly questionable, made more so by Thomas’ failure to report any of these gifts in financial disclosures, but not a clear-cut conflict of interest for Thomas. Crow hasn’t had much business before the court, though he has funded organizations that take an interest in various right-wing legal efforts.

The Horatio Alger Association is potentially different, chock-full of rich and powerful people—most of them conservative donors to political causes—who also enjoy the privilege of providing a Supreme Court justice with a lavish life. [...] Unsurprisingly, Thomas hasn’t disclosed the gifts, tickets, and trips from his friends in the Horatio Alger society. Not disclosing the gifts means not disclosing conflicts of interest, with members of the society and its larger circle likely to end up before the court with an interest in cases the Supreme Court is hearing.

The appearance of corruption on the court from Thomas alone is enough to spur calls for reform. Justice Samuel Alito has ethical questions of his own given that his wealthy benefactors definitely have regular business before the court. Add in the obvious partisan politics of the majority, and you have to wonder what the hell is wrong with Chief Justice John Roberts, letting all this continue on his watch. It’s gotten so blatant that groups on the left that have been afraid to take on the court before, fearing blowback when they go before it, are joining together to demand court reform. Organizations and labor unions including Planned Parenthood, SEIU, AFT, NEA, and NARAL have created a coalition called United for Democracy specifically to push court reform. They are also demanding formal congressional investigations and hearings into Supreme Court corruption. [...] Should the trifecta be restored in 2025, a Democratic Congress and president are not going to have a choice on court reform. It’s case closed. And they had better start getting ready for it now.

The top item on the list the next time Democrats have a trifecta: reform the courts, especially SCOTUS. Recent revelations that at least 2 of the right-wing justices on the court have acted unethically should be a clarion call for every liberal/progressive American that SCOTUS is a compromised mess.

[ailelie]

Fantasy Politics

In Eleanora's Return (working title), some of the plot deals heavily with politics. I am not a political scientist, so I'm trying to think through what I need to know to create some believable systems and plots.

The first step is the easiest--I need to know who has power, what form that power is in, and how they wield it. I also need to know the most and least obvious avenues for them to gain more power.

For example, I have guilds. Their power is over their control of trade, supply, and demand. They also have some personal power they use to keep their members in line. These guilds have aspects of joint-stock companies, corporations, and unions. That is a very confusing mix, I know. They exert power by manipulating prices and through threats/blackmail. "If you don't give us this thing we need/want, we will make sure you can't get the thing you want at a reasonable price." (I know this is over-simplifying). They gain more power through regulations and policies that give them more autonomy and ability to enforce their threats. They also gain power by getting sympathetic people into powerful positions or by weakening the unsympathetic.

But I want to zoom out a bit and think about the systems the powerful operate within. Monarchies and democracies are very different and aren't the only possible models either. So I want a table of governmental forms with their core philosophies in the next column, followed by a description of how power typically flows within the system, and lastly two lists: (1) the benefits and ways the government is the best; and (2) the downsides and ways the government can be corrupt and harmful.

But that wouldn't necessarily be enough. Because, there are strong and weak versions of each form of government. And there are centralized and decentralized versions. And there are mythic/vulgar divisions as well.

Like, you could have a kingdom with a strong monarchy, but decentralized power and a vulgar philosophy (aka, the king's king not because of divine right or magic blood/etc, but because the king got power first and has the ability to retain and enforce that power and b/c the king does his job well, etc).

And you can have a weak democracy with centralized power and a mythic philosophy (aka, an elected congress decides all but divisions often keep them from making decisions leading to many policies and rules being created by other parts of the government and enforced without congressional support, but everyone in the nation follows those rules and there's this idea that serving on the congress is the highest honor, always works to do the best it can for the people, and that the system is the only system that gives people their voice. Etc).

So it isn't enough to discuss forms of government--monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, empire, etc--you must also discuss the strength, centrality, origin story/myth, etc. Oh and the underlying philosophy or assumption(s) that keep(s) the government running.

And I don't want to say one form of government is better than another (mostly because I don't know that I believe that; all seem both beneficial and corrupt to me) so I also need to think about what makes a specific government good.

To me, a government is good if the people are safe and able to live fulfilling lives as defined by them (so long as they don't hinder others' sense of fulfillment). Of course, I also just came up with that just now. I may think differently this evening after stewing on this more.

The trappings almost seem the least important part beyond how they affect power flows. (In a monarchy, you gain power through favor with the monarch or by assassinating the monarch. In a democracy, you gain power by bribing officials and filling seats with supporters. There's more to it than that, but you get my point).

So what are the key features of a government I should be examining/deciding?

Strength (aka, the government sets policies that are followed)

Centrality (aka, all power flows from a central government vs local areas often have localized rules/laws).

Mythology (aka, how venerated the government is, even if that veneration is negative, for example, the impossible to defeat Evil Overlord)

Underlying assumptions

What else???

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Marc Elias' Weekend Reading List

Every Saturday, Marc sends members a weekend reading list with overlooked stories and headlines. Democracy Docket members always receive this reading list, as well as Marc’s exclusive analysis on the latest voting and democracy news of the day, invites to members-only live events and more.

Become a member todayand stand with Marc in fighting back against Trump 2.0.

I have always viewed this Saturday newsletter as an opportunity to bring you a little bit further into my world. To peer under the hood of how I think by letting you know what I am reading and what I think others are too often overlooking.

Last week, for example, while all attention was on Donald Trump and Elon Musk, I suggested you read about how Brad Raffensperger is quietly asking the federal government for help in creating new ways to suppress voting rights. His transformation from Trump opponent to MAGA vote suppressor tells us a lot about where we are today and what challenges await us in the next election.

From time to time, people write in to ask about my other reading lists — what publications do I read, what independent media do I subscribe to, who are my favorite writers, reporters or influencers? Recently, during a virtual event with members, I was asked what books I have recently read. Rather than take the time to rattle them off and discuss them then, I promised that I would make it the subject of a future newsletter.

So here it is.

These are the five books I have read so far this year. You will notice that they are all nonfiction. I confess, with very rare exceptions, I only read nonfiction. You will also note that several are not new books. My reading habits are shockingly disconnected from the best sellers list or what has recently been released. I tend to find books as a result of finding interest in a new topic. Often, I read an article about a subject and then search for a book that goes deeper in depth.

So, for example, I have bought — but have not yet read — Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God, which was released in 2006. I am fascinated by Pascal’s life and his contribution to our understanding of risk. On that topic, the best book on the development of risk theory is Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein. It is from 1998, but well worth reading.

In any event, for better or worse, here are the five books I have read so far this year (in the order I read them).

YOUR READING LIST

Patriot: A Memoir

Alexei Navalny

As many of you know, I am a regular consumer of memoirs by political dissidents, particularly those from former Soviet and Russian prisoners. On that score Navalny’s is a great read. It is engaging, moving and at times even entertaining. While it lacks some of the deeper historical and philosophical underpinnings of others who faced the gulag, it is more accessible. I highly recommend it.

The Order of the Day

Eric Vuillard

Though there is some debate about whether this is pure nonfiction or historical fiction, it tells the story of the rise of the Nazis through vignettes intended to show that nothing in history was inevitable. The first, and in my view most compelling, illustrates how the business community fell into place for Hitler. In one passage from the book, the French author notes that “the most dyed-in-the-wool tyrants still vaguely respect due process, as if they want to make it appear that they aren’t abusing procedure, even while riding roughshod over every convention.”

Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

David Enrich

While focused primarily on one big law firm — Jones Day — David Enrich exposes the rot that underpins much of Big Law today. Every law student should read this as a cautionary tale of the life choices in front of them. Beyond that, it is worth reading to explain, at least in part, the crisis the country and the legal profession face today.

Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers  

Josh Chafetz

I love the ins and outs of Congress and the U.S. Constitution. If you are like me, Josh Chafetz has written the definitive work and it is worth the time to read.

The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us About Living a Good Life

Mark Rowlands

I love dogs and I love books about dogs. Some may be surprised that I love the psychology of the relationship between us and dogs, but I don’t care. I loved this book.

That’s all for this week. I think you can guess which one is Bode’s favorite.

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