Let’s give the Clintons their due: They’ve always had a sense of humor. They’d have to. It would be impossible to survive without one given the messes they’ve gotten themselves into, and out of, lo these 30 years. And now, with yet another special counsel hovering, and apparently close to concluding that the Hillary Clinton campaign pulled off one of the great political dirty tricks of all time, it’s like we’re right back in the Nineties, wondering what the definition of is is.
The is of the moment is the attorney–client privilege. It had to happen eventually. The Clintons are Yale-educated lawyers, with Hillary having made her bones as a young Hill staffer in the Democrats’ no-holds-barred Watergate investigation.
When people are doing something sneaky and potentially illegal — and we should note that defrauding the government is a felony — they often take pains to conceal their connection to it. In miniature, that is what the Sussmann prosecution is about. His alleged lie was the claim that he was bringing derogatory Trump/Russia information to the government not on behalf of any client — just as a good, patriotic citizen and former U.S. national-security official who was trying to help the FBI protect Americans. In reality, Durham alleges, Sussmann was working for the Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe, a pro-Clinton tech executive who was hoping to score a cybersecurity gig in the anticipated Hillary administration.
Well, as is standard before a criminal trial, the parties are now arguing about what evidence the jury will be permitted to hear. On that score, Durham has subpoenaed lots of information from the Clinton campaign, but it has declined to produce it, citing — all together now! — the attorney–client privilege. That’s an amusing touch in a case where the central allegation is Sussmann’s insistence that he was not acting as an attorney for the Clinton campaign.
So McCarthy sort of is addressing the elephant in the room here. If, in fact, the Clinton campaign provided the FBI with false fodder to get them to investigate the Trump campaign, then that would actually be defrauding of the Government. If you read the entire story, McCarthy suggests that Sussman is not done investigating and still might charge Joffe (the tech guy who made up the fake evidence). According to people in the know, Joffe has asked for immunity in exchange for testimony but Durham has turned it down. That sounds an awful lot like Durham wishes to charge Joffe, but is simply biding his time and getting ducks in a row.
Now if you want my humble opinion (and why would you be reading if you didn't) then I would argue that the FBI was likely defrauding itself as much as they were being defrauded. This always felt like a wink wink nudge nudge sort of an excuse to investigate and monitor the Trump team. It is nearly impossible to believe that the FBI would believe that Sussman was just a concerned American or that the nonsense that was peddled was legitimate. If they did believe both, then they are incompetent beyond pale. If they didn't, then they are part of the plot and not victims of it.
But you are not going to hear anyone in the FBI admit to that.
45 comments:
It’s long been a truism in American politics that nothing gets a Republican’s blood boiling like Hillary Rodham Clinton.
From the moment Ms Clinton stepped onto the national stage as the woman who would be first lady if the then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton were elected president, Ms Clinton has become an almost mythical figure in the cosmology of right-wing activists, who credit her with a whole host of alleged crimes, none of them credible.
In the annals of GOP conspiracy-mongers, Ms Clinton is said to have staged the suicide of her husband’s deputy White House counsel, arranged a street robbery to cover up the murder of a Democratic National Committee staffer, and has even been alleged to have masterminded the strangulation of Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time was locked away in a high security detention cell in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The former US secretary of state’s bete noire status among the Republican faithful is one of the many reasons so many conservative activists who would have normally shunned a thrice-married ex-Democrat such as Donald Trump flocked to his banner and stayed with him throughout his first campaign. Defeating her was all that mattered to them.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hillary-clinton-republicans-trump-gop-cpac-b2025934.html
What is even more interesting is Lil Schitty living in his past delusiiong the Hillary is guilty and trump won!!!~!!!!!!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! What a sad life he lives in Seattle with a stolen bride and nothing to do but worry about the clintons!!!!!!!!
Ms Clinton is said to have staged the suicide of her husband’s deputy White House counsel, arranged a street robbery to cover up the murder of a Democratic National Committee staffer, and has even been alleged to have masterminded the strangulation of Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time was locked away in a high security detention cell in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The former US secretary of state’s bete noire status among the Republican faithful is one of the many reasons so many conservative activists who would have normally shunned a thrice-married ex-Democrat such as Donald Trump flocked to his banner and stayed with him throughout his first campaign. Defeating her was all that mattered to them.
But with Ms Clinton more than five years removed from her last campaign, it seems Republicans just can’t live without using her or other women in politics as foils to drum up outrage.
Get over it 🙄
Steve Benen. He is a great guy
In Donald Trump’s first year as president, the Republican and his party couldn’t shake their preoccupation with Hillary Clinton. The then-president couldn’t stop talking and tweeting about his 2016 rival. His aides appeared fixated on Clinton. Congressional Republicans even launched investigations related to Clinton.
By October 2017, the former secretary of state joked, “It appears they don’t know I’m not president.”
The conditions persisted. In 2019, when Trump launched his re-election campaign, he excoriated Clinton seven times over the course of 30 minutes, apparently indifferent to the fact that she wasn’t running. As Election Day 2020 grew closer, the then-president called for Clinton’s incarceration, pushed then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to uncover and release Clinton emails, and lobbied then-Attorney General Bill Barr to prosecute Clinton for reasons unknown.
She wasn’t on the ballot. Trump seemed desperate to run against her anyway.
After Trump’s defeat, it seemed plausible that Trump and his followers would finally move on — if for no other reason than because they had fresh political targets, in the form a new Democratic president, a new Democratic vice president, a new Democratic Senate majority leader, et al. Clinton left office a decade ago, and it was finally time for obsessive GOP critics to find a new hobby.
This is a fair summary even if additional actions could be added to the mix: for example, Trump’s witness-tampering-like exhortation to Michael Flynn to “stay strong,” at a moment he knew Flynn was under investigation by the FBI but before the former national security advisor had been charged with any offense; and the president’s role aboard Air Force One in drafting a misleading statement regarding the June 9, 2016 campaign meeting with Russians in Trump Tower. By my lights, at least, these five items form a pattern of obstructive behavior. But we can put the incompleteness of McCarthy’s charge sheet aside for the moment, as it has only a tangential bearing on the strength of his primary argument.
McCarthy’s blanket dismissal of the obstruction case hinges on several propositions.
First, McCarthy draws a “critical distinction” between counterintelligence investigations and criminal investigations: “Both kinds of inquiries are called ‘investigations,’” he writes, “just as apples and oranges are both ‘fruits,’ but they are very different things.”
By the intrinsic nature of the president’s authority, McCarthy argues, it is impossible for him to obstruct a counterintelligence investigation: it is “national-security work” that is “conducted for the President” for “the purpose of informing him.” Presidential obstruction of a counterintelligence investigation would amount to obstruction of his own key responsibility—which would be tautological nonsense, akin to an added bonus or killing a corpse.
Second, McCarthy makes the case that a presidential role in staying abreast of, interfering with, or even directly managing a counter-intelligence investigation poses no threat to impartial justice or the rule of law. The aim of such an investigation is “not to prosecute someone who has violated the penal law” and therefore no one has cause to be “worried that political officials, rather than legal principles, control the outcome.”
Third, setting counter-intelligence investigations aside, McCarthy believes that the president can also legitimately interfere with criminal investigations. Indeed, he possesses the “undeniable constitutional authority” to do so, viz. the pardon power. “[P]olitical officials are generally supposed to stay out of [individual cases] because we are a rule-of-law society,” writes McCarthy, and “we want individual cases to be decided strictly by the law, not by political considerations.” But custom and norms rather than law limit the president’s power in this area. “[B]y and large,” McCarthy continues, the president “should not” interfere in criminal cases. If a president chooses otherwise, “he should do so transparently,” employing a legitimate mechanism, such as issuing a pardon or giving an order, under the rubric of prosecutorial discretion, to close a case.
With the table thus set, what does all this mean for the possibility that Trump obstructed justice?
He is a very talented propagandist.
The several Wikipedia articles on these activities offer far more truth than do Ch's highly biased thread articles.
The Future of Bidenomics
Joe opens a 2nd front on his war Against American.
The federal government said Wednesday that it won’t deliver water to farmers in California’s agricultural belt, which produces roughly a quarter of the nation’s food."
Joe assures food shortages .
THE HOUSTON CHRONICAL REPORTS ON TEXAS GOVERNOR ABBOTT'S WASTE OF MONEY:
_________
Abbott’s Truck Inspections Found NO DRUGS OR MIGRANTS
NO = ZERO
April 23, 2022 at 12:50 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 144 Comments
REGARDING Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) “increasing inspections of commercial trucks entering from Mexico in the hopes of staunching illegal smuggling activity resulted in ZERO MIGRANT DETENTION OR ILLEGAL DRUG SEIZURES, DESPITE allegedly costing the Lone Star State BILLIONS of dollars,”
the Houston Chronicle reports.
________
BILLIONS!
WASTED!
BY ABBOTT'S POLITICALLY DRIVEN AND MISGUIDED WASTE OF MONEY!
TRUMP DID IT TOO?
The federal government operates the Central Valley Project in California, a complex system of dams, reservoirs and canals. It’s one of two major water systems the state relies on for agriculture, drinking water, and the environment. The other system is run by the state government.
This is the fourth time in the last decade that farmers south of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta have gotten no water from the federal government.
This is what matters
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has warned that Russia’s invasion of his country is just the beginning and that Moscow may seek to capture other countries, after a Russian general said it wants full control over southern Ukraine.
“All the nations that, like us, believe in the victory of life over death must fight with us. They must help us, because we are the first in line. And who will come next?” Zelenskiy said in a video address late on Friday.
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His comments come after Rustam Minnekayev, the acting commander of the central military district, said the goal of Russia’s new offensive is to seize control of southern Ukraine and form a land bridge to Crimea, indicating that Russia plans a permanent occupation of Ukrainian territory taken in the war.
Russia using cluster bombs to kill Ukrainian civilians, analysis suggests
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Minnekayev also told members of a defence industry forum on Friday that control over southern Ukraine would give Russia access to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova, indicating that Russia may attack the port city of Odesa or launch an economic blockade of the area.
The remarks directly contradict earlier claims from Vladimir Putin that Russia was not planning to occupy Ukrainian cities permanently and suggests the Kremlin is changing tack after its failed offensive toward Kyiv, which appeared to seek regime change.
The statement was the first by a high-ranking official about the Russian military’s goals to occupy territory as it manoeuvres for an anticipated “battle for Donbas” in Ukraine’s east.
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“Since the beginning of the second phase of the special operation … one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over Donbas and southern Ukraine. This will provide a land corridor to Crimea, as well as affecting vital objects of the Ukrainian economy, Black Sea ports through which agricultural and metallurgical products are supplied to [other] countries,” Minnekayev said on
Techno Fog
https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1517665113767096320
Developments in the Michael Sussmann case -
Special Counsel John Durham has "issued trial subpoenas to the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee."
If they want to keep privileged Fusion GPS communications, they're gonna have to do it under oath.
Whew 👀
at this point what difference does it make
The New York Times
https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1517693895886450695
Gov. Ron DeSantis asked Florida lawmakers on Tuesday to consider the “termination” of self-governing privileges that Disney World has held in the Orlando area for 55 years after Disney condemned a new state education law known as “Don’t Say Gay.” https://nyti.ms/3k0366p
Matt Whitlock
Can you imagine if media outlets reported with conservative epithets like this?
“The current price hikes families are facing, known as ‘Bidenflation..’”
“Biden’s spending bill known as ‘Build Back Broke..”
“The former Secretary of State, known as ‘crooked Hillary..’”
libs would be unglued
Blinken and Austin to Visit Ukraine
April 23, 2022 at 3:32 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 26 Comments
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Kyiv on Sunday,
CNN reports.
________
KYIV,
WHERE THE RUSSIANS THOUGHT LONG, LONG AGO, THEY'D BE HAVING VICTORY PARADES IN THE STREETS.
HDS
'Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome' is worse than ever
Opinion By Dean Obeidallah
Feb 21, 2022
Editor's Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio's daily program "The Dean Obeidallah Show" and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.
(CNN) - There's something infecting right-wing circles, and it's showing no sign of letting up: a fixation on Hillary Clinton that I'm calling"Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome," or "HDS" for short.
The symptoms of this persistent ailment include an unhealthy obsession with the former secretary of state -- from spreading lies about her past actions to blaming her for events with which she has no connection -- combined with an insatiable longing to see her run for president again in 2024.
A new HDS variant apparently emerged last week when special counsel John Durham, who has been investigating the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, filed a motion involving Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with ties to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign who has been charged with lying to the FBI. (Sussmann has pleaded not guilty, and his case is headed for trial later this year.)
Durham's 13-page motion addressed a possible conflict of interest regarding Sussmann's legal counsel, but some on the right interpreted the document as revealing something more sinister about Clinton.
After seizing upon details about Sussman sharing internet data with the CIA in 2017, right-wing activists, Fox News reporters and former President Donald Trump himself all blasted out allegations that the Clinton campaign and its lawyers "worked to 'infiltrate' Trump Tower and White House servers," as former Trump administration aide Kash Patel told Fox News.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tweeted, "They didn't just spy on Donald Trump's campaign. They spied on Donald Trump as sitting President of the United States." Trump claimed that the motion "provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign." He added, "in a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death."
These are all obvious cases of HDS, because the filing, in fact, proves no such thing. As various fact-checkers have confirmed, the allegations shared by right-leaning outlets aren't based on reality; the Durham motion doesn't even include the word "infiltrate." But a classic symptom of HDS is hallucinations about what Clinton is doing.
That would help explain GOP Sen. Ted Cruz's response on Saturday night to the news that Jean-Luc Brunel, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, had been found dead in his Paris cell. The Texas senator retweeted the news story and then wrote, "Anyone know where Hillary was this weekend?" Cruz — like others infected with HDS — clearly feels compelled to mention Hillary Clinton whenever possible, even in regards to headlines that have nothing to do with her.
HDS is an insidious condition that also appears to make those who are infected hate Clinton while paradoxically craving to see more of her in the political sphere. This helps explain why so many of the same people who have attacked Clinton for decades are also obsessed with the idea of Clinton running for president in 2024. It doesn't matter that Clinton has not even hinted at another presidential campaign; apparently HDS causes some to see things the rest of us don't.
For example, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan appeared on Fox News last week to declare that Clinton's (non-existent) spying on Trump was "worse than we thought." And then, moments later, Jordan added that "Hillary Clinton looks like she's going to try to run and if it's a rematch between her and President Trump, I think President Trump wins in a landslide."
Add to that Fox News host Tucker Carlson declaring last week that Clinton may be gearing up for a run in 2024, saying, "We fully support Hillary Clinton as she runs for president." This is no laughing matter, as these people are evidently sick -- sick with HDS, that is.
Heartbreakingly, HDS is nothing new. It's been with us on a national scale since Clinton became First Lady in 1993 and metastasized from there. You could fill a medical encyclopedia with experts trying to understand who was "Patient Zero" for HDS, with past articles such as, "The dark depths of hatred for Hillary Clinton"; "Why do people dislike Hillary Clinton?"; and the simply put, "Why do they hate her?" There are even books on the topic, such as Michael D'Antonio's "The Hunting of Hillary: The Forty-Year Campaign to Destroy Hillary Clinton."
If only there were a vaccine for HDS, or an HDS rehabilitation center to help those suffering to overcome this derangement that appears to be eating away at their rationality. Perhaps we can organize an HDS telethon to raise funds to better research cures for this syndrome. (Hillary Clinton, it seems, is trying a different approach to eradicating HDS by threatening a defamation lawsuit.)
But even if there were a cure for HDS, I doubt all of those struggling would avail themselves of it. Some don't seem to understand that they have a problem. Whether it's for ratings or social clout, it appears some of those infected with HDS not only want Clinton to live rent-free in their heads, but desperately need for her to be there.
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A WarnerMedia Company.
All Rights Reserved.
The Future of Bidenomics
Joe opens a 2nd front on his war Against American.
The federal government said Wednesday that it won’t deliver water to farmers in California’s agricultural belt, which produces roughly a quarter of the nation’s food."
Joe assures food shortages .
Poor Water resourse management is the cause.
Denney knows less then Alky about Agriculture.
Feb 23, 2022 — The federal government said Wednesday that it won't deliver water to farmers in California's agricultural belt.
No old news, the State has the water, they refuse to provide it to Agriculture.
Socialist Democrats are great at making excuses for their constant and foreseeable failures.
Staffers to former President Donald Trump, including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, were told by the White House Counsel’s Office that a plan to use an alternate slate of electors to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was not legally sound, according to an aide.
Trump and his supporters apparently forged ahead with the idea anyway.
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In testimony to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said she had sat in meetings where the idea of alternate electors was discussed.
She put the timing at early-to-mid-December 2020 ― several weeks after the election had been called for Joe Biden.
Her testimony was included in a trove of court documents filed Friday by the committee, which argued that a federal court should compel Meadows to cooperate with the wide-ranging investigation in light of the details they’ve already uncovered.
As early as Nov. 18, 2020, according to reporting by The New York Times, lawyers for Trump were working to concoct a strategy whereby alternate electors could be appointed in crucial swing states ― essentially, the alternates would swoop in and overturn the will of the voters through the Electoral College so Trump came out on top.
Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the time, was there when members of the White House Counsel’s Office discouraged the idea, Hutchinson said. So was Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and aide to Trump who helped push lies about the election. Other meetings included Trump’s allies in Congress, such as Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas.
Trump appeared hellbent on winning another term, and latched onto the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could help him. (Hutchinson said she also knew some in the White House were discussing martial law to secure Trump’s victory ― a shockingly extreme possibility that has been previously reported.) The legal memos reported by The New York Times claim that Pence, charged with overseeing Congress’ official certification of the presidential election, could intervene in the selection of electors.
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Gohmert filed a lawsuit in late December that argued Pence had the power to choose which slates of electors should officially count, but a judge threw it out.
Trump’s pressure campaign against his vice president culminated in the violence that erupted Jan. 6, 2021.
Belarus is still a dictatorship but
Belarus, like Ukraine before 2014, is a country parochial westerners barely thought about. If its name registers today, it is as Russia’s base for its failed assault on Kyiv. In the glib 1990s, liberal democracy’s triumph was assumed to be so inevitable we called Belarus “Europe’s last dictatorship”. Look at its weirdness, we said. It still clung on to Soviet-style rule, an error that history would surely correct as the ideals of free markets and free societies marched on.
The Ukrainian war has made clear how Russian nationalists view Slavs with the impertinence to reject them
Instead of being an anachronism, Belarus was a model for the future. While it became a Russian client state, Russia became a supersize Belarus, as Putin removed the limited freedoms he had allowed Russian citizens in the 2000s and aped Lukashenko’s dictatorship.
To Belarus’s exiled opposition, Ukraine’s war is their war and a Ukrainian victory would open up the prospect of radical change across territories Russia intimidates and controls. The Ukrainian war has made clear, if clarity were needed, how Russian nationalists view eastern Slavs with the impertinence to reject them. Russian official media explained that Ukrainians (and by extension) Belarusians were really Russians. If they rejected Russian identity and said they had their own cultures and histories that existed before the Russian empire, they proved only that they were “Nazis”. No form of human life could be lower. The Russian state had a duty to kill them or send them to labour camps; to take their children from them and crush their country and their culture.
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When I spoke last week to Tsikhanouskaya’s senior adviser Franak Viačorka, in exile in Poland, he said revolution was the only viable option now. He spoke the language of an officer in an underground war rather than a politician trying to negotiate a settlement. The Lukashenko regime was the “collaborationist state”. The activists who sabotaged Belarusian railway lines, to stop Russian troops and armour reaching Ukraine, were “resistance cells”.
Even in Soviet times Moscow “recognised the existence of Belarus and Ukrainian nations”, Viačorka said. Putin was bringing a “new form of fascism” that denied their very being. The Belarusian opposition was fighting it with covert action. It was attempting to drive the army away from its subservience to Lukashenko and Putin. In Belarus, as in so many other countries, hope depended on a Ukrainian victory offering the “chance to get out of Russian sphere of influence”.
Well, we’ve learned better than to be optimists in the years since the fin de siècle’s silly season. We expect brute power to prevail now. The Russian armed forces are undoubtedly corrupt and inept. But you can see the empire winning, as it has always won, by throwing recruits into battle without a thought for their lives and terrorising civilians. For its part, western intelligence is not predicting a swift Ukrainian victory but a hard, grinding war whose outcome is uncertain.
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For all that, there is in the air, if not optimism, then a plausible question. What if the partial collapse of the Russian empire in the 1990s is followed by decisive defeat in the 2020s? What if the whole rotten structure falls?
The doctors released Mitskievich from hospital. He is now fighting in Ukraine in the Belarusian version of the International Brigades of the Spanish civil war. He is one of thousands of Belarusians who volunteered to join the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Battalion, named after the leader of an uprising against the Russian empire in 1863. The battalion has seen action in the battles around Irpin. One day, its members will return to Belarus with highly portable military skills. They will have questions of their own.
Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist
The Secretary of Defense and Department of State are going to meet tomorrow with the President of Ukraine
Those battles don’t so far amount to the concerted Russian offensive that Ukraine and Western countries expected in what Moscow has called the second phase of the war, according to military analysts. The U.K. Defense Ministry said Saturday that Russia had made no major gains in the previous 24 hours.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday its forces had used high-precision air-based missiles to strike 25 Ukrainian armored vehicles and three weapons depots overnight. It also said it had shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 aircraft in the region of Kharkiv and destroyed 15 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.
With the battle for Donbas pitting conventional forces against each other, Ukraine is struggling to make up for its disadvantage in artillery and a shortage of Soviet-standard ammunition—one reason Mr. Zelensky has asked the U.S. and allies to supply NATO-standard heavy weapons. Analysts say it will take weeks for Kyiv to train its forces on the Western systems and use them to full effect.
Ukraine’s military has been able to partly offset Russia’s overwhelming advantage in aircraft by using Western-supplied antiaircraft missiles, such as Stingers and Starstreaks, to down several Russian jet fighters, helicopters and drones in recent days, according to footage of wreckage posted by Ukrainian troops and verified by military analysts. Ukraine said Friday it lost an An-26B transport plane that hit a power line in the Zaporizhzhia region, leaving at least one crew member dead.
The U.S. has been the first to provide Ukraine with NATO-standard 155-mm howitzers. President Biden said Thursday that Washington’s latest $800 million military-aid package would include 72 of the towed artillery pieces in addition to 18 pledged the previous week.
On Friday, Canada said its military had also sent an unspecified number of 155-mm howitzers and antiarmor ammunition to Ukraine. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., citing a military source, reported the package would include GPS-guided Excalibur rounds, which are valued at about $112,000 per round.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris was providing Ukraine with Caesar self-propelled 155-mm artillery pieces, in an interview published Friday by the newspaper Ouest-France. The newspaper, citing military sources, reported that Paris was transferring 12 Caesars, which have a range of some 40 kilometers, equivalent to about 25 miles, and that Ukrainian soldiers would begin training Saturday in France.
The Russian military is failing
KYIV, Ukraine—U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are due to visit Ukraine on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, in what would be the highest-level visit by U.S. officials to Ukraine since the start of the war.
Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in a subway station in Kyiv on Saturday, said he would discuss military assistance with the U.S. officials. The Defense Department and State Department declined to comment on Mr. Zelensky’s remarks.
Mr. Zelensky has pressed Western countries for more weapons and support, and the U.S. and allies have raced to supply Ukraine with NATO-standard heavy weaponry as its outgunned troops seek to repel Russian forces.
Earlier, Mr. Zelensky warned that Russia had its sights set on other European countries if its troops push past Ukrainian forces trying to hold back a renewed Russian offensive in the south and east of the country.
What is even more interesting is Lil Schitty living in his past delusiiong the Hillary is guilty and trump won!!!
Since Trump became President and Hillary did not... I guess that means that Clinton lost and Trump won... fair and square!
Yes he did!
Just like Biden 👍
But you will refuse to say that about Biden.
The U.S. economy is still very strong, with, for example, initial claims for unemployment insurance at their lowest point since 1969. Yet everyone is talking about recession. And the truth is that there is a significant chance of recession over the course of the next few years. But do people understand why?
Part of the answer is that there is always a chance of a recession in the near future, no matter what the current data look like. As the bumper stickers don’t quite say, stuff happens. There’s always a chance of, say, a financial crisis few saw coming or a war that disrupts world trade.
Our current situation, however, clearly creates elevated risks of recession, mainly because policymakers — mainly, in practice, the Federal Reserve — are trying to steer a course through opposing dangers. They could pull it off — in fact, my guess is that they will. But they might not. And here’s the thing: The kind of recession we have, if we do have one, will depend on which way the Fed gets it wrong.
Where are we right now? Inflation is, of course, unacceptably high. Some of this reflects disruptions — supply-chain problems, surging food and energy prices from the war in Ukraine — that are likely to fade away over time. In fact, I’d argue that these temporary factors account for a majority of inflation, which is why just about every major economy is experiencing its highest inflation rate in decades.
A Pulitzer Pride winner agrees with me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/opinion/inflation-recession-federal-reserve.html
What we do know, or at least what I’d argue, is that there is a path through this difficult moment that needn’t involve a recession. And while the Fed can get it wrong — and will almost surely get it wrong to some degree, because these are tricky times — it can get things wrong in either direction. Right now I am, if anything, worried that the Fed is overreacting to inflation. But time will tell.
Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman
Scott you should read the Wall Street Journal report.
It shows that the Russian military is failing enough that if we continue to support Ukraine and it fails.
You remember when the Soviet Union collapsed just after the Afghanistan 🇦🇫, some historians say that even Belarus may follow the same path towards a democracy..
And I’m even thinking that the other few countries that have fascist systems may follow the same path as Ukraine..
Time will tell...
Russia-Ukraine War Latest News: Blinken and Austin to Travel to Ukraine, Zelensky Says https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-23
One quick thing about Vice President Harris. I have already thought she was not doing well..
A senator close to Vice President Harris lamented her political decline as a "slow-rolling Greek tragedy," New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns write in "This Will Not Pass," their book out May 3.
Why it matters: Republicans got the first headlines from the book, which the authors call "an account of a political emergency in the United States." But the first year of the Biden presidency was also rocky for the White House and Democrats.
"The vice president had one vocal and unyielding defender in the West Wing: the president's chief of staff," the authors write. But even Ron Klain knew something wasn't working.
The book says he told Harris in the fall of 2021 "that she had erred by holding her Latin American assignment at arm's length: Yes, he acknowledged, it was a politically delicate portfolio, but there had been an opportunity there for her to take full ownership of something, sink into the policy details and produce results.That, Klain told Harris, was the way to succeed as a vice president."
First Lady Jill Biden was frustrated that Kamala Harris emerged as a top choice to be President Joe Biden‘s running mate given her attacks on him during presidential debates, according to a forthcoming book from two New York Times reporters.
Fox News obtained an excerpt of Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns‘ book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future.”
President Biden has to get it done
Smith's infrastructure chapter follows and is closely related. "Trump's pledge to rebuild the nation's infrastructure was by far his most popular campaign promise, but it was one that went seemingly unfulfilled," Smith notes, leading some conservatives, like New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, to dismiss Trump. Nonetheless, he continues:
Trump's rhetorical commitments to infrastructure in fact underwrote a sea change in the legal mechanisms and policing practices of the federal government, changes with profound consequences, particularly for immigrants, asylum seekers, and people of color. … Trump used the language of infrastructure as a strategic weapon, as historian of rhetoric Jennifer Mercieca has perceptively observed: to unite supporters, divide opponents, and avoid accountability for his words and deeds.
Trump's infrastructure plan was his most popular campaign promise, and the one he never even tried to fulfill — except for the piecemeal construction of a border wall.
Gallup found at the time of Trump's inauguration that his infrastructure plan was his most popular campaign promise, rated "very important" by 69% of Americans, compared to just 26% who felt the same about building his border wall.
Speaking about election thefts
Local Republican party official in North Carolina demanded access to voting equipmentHe threatened to have county election director fired or her pay cutRepublican official claimed a 'chip' in voting machines used to steal election from Donald Trump
April 23 (Reuters) - A local Republican Party leader in North Carolina threatened to get a county elections director fired or have her pay cut unless she helped him gain illegal access to voting equipment, the state elections board told Reuters.
The party official, William Keith Senter, sought evidence to support false conspiracy theories alleging the 2020 election was rigged against former U.S. President Donald Trump. The previously unreported incident is part of a national effort by Trump supporters to audit voting systems to bolster the baseless stolen-election claims.
Senter, chair of the Surry County Republican Party, told elections director Michella Huff that he would ensure she lost her job if she refused his demand to access the county's vote tabulators, the North Carolina State Board of Elections said in written responses to questions from Reuters. Senter was "aggressive, threatening, and hostile," in two meetings with Huff, the state elections board said, citing witness accounts.
Senter did not respond to requests for comment.
Huff, who refused Senter's demands, was disturbed by the incident of political intimidation. Such threats have become common nationwide since the 2020 election. Reuters has documented more than 900 threatening or hostile messages aimed at election officials in a series of investigative reports.
"It’s a shame, that it is being normalized," Huff told Reuters. "I didn’t expect to get it here in our county. We are just trying to do our job by the law."
Senter's demands are a potential violation of state law. In a legal memo responding to community calls for a "forensic audit" of voting machines, Mark Payne, an attorney retained by the Surry County Board of Elections, wrote this week that it was illegal to provide access to voting machines to unauthorized individuals. Anyone threatens or intimidates an election officer could also face felony charges, according to a state statute.
Senter and a prominent pro-Trump election conspiracist, Douglas Frank, met with Huff on March 28, claiming “there was a 'chip' in the voting machines that pinged a cellular phone tower on Nov. 3, 2020, and somehow influenced election results," the state election board said, calling the claim “fabricated disinformation.” Separately, in a public gathering that Huff did not attend, Senter threatened to have Huff's pay cut, according to Huff, who said a person at the meeting told her about the threat.
The Republicans are trying to steal the next election.
Two days before meeting with Huff, Frank gave a speech in Dobson, a town in the rural county of 72,000 people on the northern border with Virginia, where he spoke about "debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election," the board said. The day after the meeting, Frank, an Ohio math teacher, thanked his "patriot" hosts in a post to the messaging app Telegram about his trip to North Carolina and said he was "leaving behind a bonfire burning in good hands.”
Frank did not respond to requests for comment.
Exactly how Senter planned to retaliate against Huff remains unclear. He claimed to have the backing of Surry County commissioners, all five of whom are Republican, to take action against her. But neither Senter nor the commission has any official power over her job, which rests with the state election board. The state board has three Democratic members and two Republican members.
Huff, a former Republican, is now registered independent.
The county commission chairman, Bill Goins, declined to comment on Senter's efforts but confirmed the commission could not fire Huff.
Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the state board of elections, said in a statement that the board reported the threats against Huff to state, federal and local law enforcement and would continue to report "any attempts to interfere with state or federal elections or harass or intimidate election officials."
No one has been charged in the incident.
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.
Dobson Police Chief Shawn Myers said he was not aware of the threats to Huff and did not believe his department had responded. Sheriff Steve Hiatt did not respond to requests
What’s included in the 2nd U.S. $800 million military package for Ukraine?
Yahoo News
April 23, 2022, 12:33 PM
LONDON — President Biden announced on Thursday an additional colossal military aid package worth $800 million to help Ukraine bolster its military forces’ response to Russia’s new offensive in the Donbas region, bringing the total amount the U.S. has spent to help Ukraine with military assistance to more than $3.4 billion since the invasion was launched on Feb. 24.
The latest assistance comes a week after the U.S. announced a first round of $800 million in weapons for Ukraine, which included helicopters and armored personnel carriers. “We’re in a critical window now,” Biden said at a recent press conference. “They’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war. And the United States and our allies and partners are moving as fast as possible to continue to provide Ukraine … the weapons … their forces need to defend their nation.”
What is included in the latest package?
The Pentagon said this second $800 million military aid package will include gear pulled from existing U.S. military stock. The package includes:
72 155 mm howitzers
72 tactical vehicles to tow the howitzers
144,000 artillery rounds
121 Phoenix Ghost drones
Biden said this package had been tailored to help Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region, where soldiers are fighting off the new Russian offensive. Taking control of Donbas would mean Russia would have a southern land corridor to the annexed Crimean Peninsula, which has been occupied by Kremlin forces since 2014.
Why has the U.S. sent these specific weapons?
Earlier in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a plea for heavy machinery to fend off Russia. He said Ukraine needed artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, armored vehicles and air defense systems, among others.
In response, the U.S. has sent howitzers and other weapons needed to aid Zelensky and his troops. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby reiterated this past week that sending the assistance has been in full “consultation” with Ukraine, and that the weapons sent by the U.S. “provide enough artillery now to equip five battalions for Ukraine for potential use in the Donbas.”
“I want to stress again that what we’re providing is done in full consultation with the Ukrainians and that they believe that these systems will be helpful to them in the fight,” Kirby said. “Where and when they employ them and how they employ them is, of course, up to them.”
It is believed the howitzers will play a significant role in Russia’s new battle for the Donbas region, which consists of flat, rolling plains. “We knew from talking to Ukrainians that artillery was going to be a critical need because of the way the terrain lays,” an official told Stars and Stripes, adding that the Pentagon had seen “early on” that the Russians were massing artillery for the battle in the Donbas.
When will the weapons arrive?
On Thursday, the Pentagon said the weapons were expected to leave the U.S. in the ensuing 24 to 48 hours, meaning that the first shipments should shortly be arriving in Europe. Defense officials added that the first pounds of the equipment “will be in the Ukrainian hands by the end of the weekend.”
What has the Pentagon said about the weapons being sent?
Kirby said Thursday that the Phoenix Ghost drones have been in development since before the invasion, adding, “We will continue to move that development in ways that are attuned to Ukrainian requirements for unmanned aerial systems of a tactical nature in eastern Ukraine.” He said the Phoenix Ghost has capabilities comparable but not exactly similar to the Switchblade drone that was sent in the first $800 million package.
Kirby said the training required for the drones and howitzers — which began this week — is minimal. Officials declined to say where the training was taking place, but said it was not in Ukraine. “This is training the trainers,” the official told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a smallish number of Ukrainians, a little bit more than 50.” The trainees will then return home to train other soldiers.
What has the U.S. previously sent?
In its first round of additional assistance for Ukraine, the U.S. sent: Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155 mm howitzers, AN/TPQ-36 counter-artillery radars, 300 Switchblade drones, 100 armored Humvees, 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles and thousands of other anti-armor systems, as well as equipment to protect from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear contaminants and C-4 explosives and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing, among other things.
Orrin Hatch dies — and the tributes remind of the pre-Trump era of American politics
Bob Brigham
April 23, 2022
The longest-serving Republican senator in history died on Saturday, the Associated Press reports.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) represented the state for 42 years in the U.S. Senate. His death occurred the same day Utah Republicans backed Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in his 2022 re-election, while Democrats did not nominate a candidate, instead voting to back independent Evan McMullin in the general election.
"A conservative on most economic and social issues, he nonetheless teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also formed friendships across the aisle, particularly with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy," the AP noted. "He was also noted for his side career as a singer and recording artist of music with themes of his religious faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
Tributes for Hatch harkened back to a pre-Trump era in American politics.
The Republican Party of today is not the one I knew!
Turkey closed its airspace to Russian jets flying to Syria, a significant shift in Turkish policy aimed at increasing the cost of the war in Ukraine for Vladimir Putin.
Turkey barred all Russian aircraft, including civilian flights carrying troops, from its skies for the first time since Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
As Florida Republicans gave final approval to new congressional districts on Thursday, Black lawmakers staged a sit-in on the floor of the legislature, praying, chanting and singing that Black voters were under attack in the state.
The extraordinary moment served as a remarkable endpoint to a brazen attack by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
Earlier this month, in an unprecedented move, Republicans in the legislature took the unusual step of allowing DeSantis to take the lead on drawing new congressional districts. The governor’s plan went out of its way to reduce from four to two the number of districts where Black candidates can elect the candidate of their choosing.
The plan significantly distorts the map in favor of Republicans, giving them a hold on 20 of 28 congressional seats in a state Donald Trump won in 2020 with 51.2% of the vote. According to FiveThirtyEight, the Florida map is nearly tied with Texas as the most biased in the US.
FILE PHOTO: A person wearing a mouse costume dances while holding a Governor Ron DeSantis poster where supporters of Florida's Republican-backed "Don't Say Gay" bill that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for many young students gather for a rally outside Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, U.S. April 16, 2022.
Biden: Republicans’ Disney law shows ‘far right has taken over party’
DeSantis got his map after rejecting less biased but still GOP-friendly maps proposed by the legislature. The fact the legislature ceded its power to DeSantis only underscores how the governor, considered a potential presidential candidate in 2024, controls Florida politics.
Zelenskiy warns Ukraineinvasion only the beginning as Russia signals southern push
“For all intents and purposes, there’s currently, in Florida, one-man rule,” said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican strategist who is now retired.
“Democracy in Florida is not functioning. It’s not gone, the structure is there, the possibility of a return to representative government with checks and balances remains. But it’s not currently functioning.”
DeSantis’s plan does not make a serious effort to comply with legal protections for minority voters. An amendment in the Florida constitution, overwhelmingly approved in 2010, makes it illegal to draw a district that diminishes the ability of a minority to elect the candidate of their choosing. DeSantis nonetheless eliminated two districts that allow Black voters to do so.
The governor has openly talked about his desire to get rid of the fifth congressional district, which is 46% Black and stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.
The governor has said the district, currently represented by a Black Democrat, is an illegal racial gerrymander because it was drawn to preserve the ability of Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice. DeSantis’s plan chops the district into four Republican districts where Black voters would comprise a much smaller share of the population.
We can't let him win
On the subject of state redistricting, NY court of appeals just upheld a lower court decision to throw out the new map created under the complete control of state democrats. It was rightly found to be a highly biased gerrymandered map that left only 4 Republican districts statewide.
Are those concerned sbout Florida equally concerned about NY?
Are those concerned sbout Florida equally concerned about NY?
Or California.
Of course roger wouldn't know about that since he never leaves his room.
And state media doesn't report on it
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