Category: Politics

(San Diego Congresswoman Susan Davis Still on Sidelines)

By Mike DeBonis , Felicia Sonmez , John Wagner and JM Rieger / Washington Post / August 2 at 1:44 PM ET

The movement to oust President Trump from office crossed a new threshold Friday, with a majority of House Democrats endorsing an impeachment inquiry — a development that ramps up pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has resisted such a move.

The push in the House to remove Trump has been accelerated by testimony from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III confirming that the president could be charged with obstruction of justice after he leaves office — prompting more than 20 Democrats to announce support for an inquiry since then.

By Joni Halpern

Since 1896, Ohio voters have picked the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections – 1944 and 1960 – giving rise to the state’s renown as a “bellwether” to which candidates cannot afford to turn a deaf ear. If Ohioans are going to be so influential, maybe we could help inform their future choices by sharing some concerns from the Golden State.

Dear Ohio,

Remember the days when every presidential candidate had to tell us how great we were? Whenever they spoke to us, they had to tell us we were the greatest country in the world, we were the most powerful, we had the mightiest military, the biggest economy, we were the leader of the free world. We demanded this. “American exceptionalism” is what they called it, and we couldn’t get enough of it.

Well, no more of that. Today we have wiped our hands of world leadership, slipped off the pedestal of our inflated self-image, and begun to talk about what’s really bothering us.

By Joni Halpern

Since 1896, Ohio voters have picked the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections – 1944 and 1960 – giving rise to the state’s renown as a “bellwether” to which candidates cannot afford to turn a deaf ear. If Ohioans are going to be so influential, maybe we could help inform their future choices by sharing some concerns from the Golden State.

Dear Ohio,

I was wondering if Ohioans could give a little thought to what makes a war “good.”

Your answer might be important as we listen to the increasing thunder of American leadership shaking their fist at passersby on the world stage. After all, wars conceived are not wars remembered.

Our lasting impression of any war is its true outcome. If people could agree about what makes one war good and others bad or even forgotten, it might help us evaluate the use of our military might. That could help us choose our next president.

Since 1896, Ohio voters have picked the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections – 1944 and 1960 – giving rise to the state’s renown as a “bellwether” to which candidates cannot afford to turn a deaf ear. If Ohioans are going to be so influential, maybe we could help inform their future choices by sharing some concerns from the Golden State.

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

The politicians and media commentators all have assured us that Americans will never read the Mueller Report, especially since, at this point, the report is considered ancient history. But I like to discourage the idea that Americans are too lazy, short-sighted or just plain obtuse to try to understand what a whole slew of smart guys took more than two years to produce with taxpayer dollars.

So I am still slogging my way through the report. If Ohioans are doing the same thing, they, like me, will need an occasional break. I recommend the draft Comprehensive Plan for the City of Canton as a source of pleasure reading.

Warning: Censorship-worthy, non-funny cartoon of Donald Trump coming up inside.

Here inside is the cartoon that got a Canadian cartoonist fired. It depicts Trump playing golf over the bodies of two drowned migrants – a horrible photographic image that went viral itself. Now the cartoon by Michael de Adder has gone viral itself.

The cartoon includes a hand-drawn image of Oscar Alberto Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, lying face down in the waters of Rio Grande River, having drowned while attempting to cross to get into the United States.

The cartoon went up and viral last Wednesday, June 26. Two days later, de Adder went on Twitter and told the world he had been let go.

By Jim Miller

Back in January of 2016, Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, reported on the Koch brothers’ efforts to partner with liberals on criminal justice reform in the New Yorker in which she noted that:

A new, data-filled study by the Harvard scholars Theda Skocpol and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez reports that the Kochs have established centralized command of a “nationally-federated, full-service, ideologically focused” machine that “operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party.”

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / April 22, 2019

After a nearly two-year investigation, culminating in a 448-page report, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election but found insufficient evidence to prove the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. Mueller did not decide, however, if Trump obstructed justice.

The special counsel detailed 10 acts that could constitute obstruction of justice.

By Frank Gormlie

If Donald Trump cannot be criminally indicted, as per Department of Justice policy, and if he isn’t impeached – then Trump walks and gets away with all that he has over these last two plus years.

Sure, there’s an election down the road in 19 months – but that, quite frankly, is a long time away. It’s almost as long as he’s been in the White House, and that’s plenty of time for Trump to do even more damage.

So, the complexities of this moment, in the post-Barr / Mueller Report time, are not that complicated.

The Mueller Report offered up plenty of evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors; Volume 2 alone is sufficient to get the impeachment ball rolling on obstruction of justice.

Here is a link to the Mueller Report.

Now that the Mueller Report has been released in redacted form, we now know that Attorney General William P. Barr lied to the American people, both in his previous “letters’ and in his unprecedented press conference held this morning about there being “no evidence” of obstruction of justice by Trump – as well as a number of other significant issues.

Barr has lied about so many things involving the investigation into the Russian sabotaging the US Presidential election of 2016 that the American people have to completely ignore anything he has said or written about the Mueller Report.

I watched 6 and a half hours this morning of Barr’s presser and the subsequent commentary about the Mueller Report – and the ball is clearly now in Congress’ court – which is where Mueller intended his report to be. Barr has completely shown he is Trump’s defense lawyer, not the Attorney General

In his accusations Wednesday of government “spying” on the Trump campaign and his hints of investigating the investigators of the Russian intervention, Attorney General Barr has pushed partisanship in Washington to new levels, threatening a heightened civil war within the government.

Barr has finally exposed himself for all to see – especially those who supported his confirmation because he was an honorable guy – as the unquestionable puppet of Donald Trump at the Department of Justice. By the charge of “spying” Barr has very publicly stated his support and confirmation of Trump’s narrative – a narrative that sees the investigation as a “hoax” and that “really bad people” at the FBI spied on his campaign.

This post was written for April 1st.

By Jim Miller

Recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took an unwarranted shot at the heart and soul of American Democracy: the moderates. As NBC news reported, AOC opined that:

“Moderate is not a stance. It’s just an attitude towards life of, like, ‘meh,’” she said, shrugging her shoulders for emphasis. “We’ve become so cynical, that we view ‘meh,’ or ‘eh’ — we view cynicism as an intellectually superior attitude, and we view ambition as youthful naivete when … the greatest things we have ever accomplished as a society have been ambitious acts of visions.

“The ‘meh’ is worshiped now. For what?” she continued to cheers.

What can one say about this impudent snark other than, how dare she?