Sad note: I will probably be on jury duty today, tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday, so I will have limited blogging time those days. ☹️
House Oversight & Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer admitted in an interview with CNN that the committee he leads has yet to find any criminal activity on behalf of President Joe Biden’s family.
CNN host Pamela Brown asked Mr Comer in an interview whether he had learned if Mr Biden had conducted any potential criminal activity when he was in office.
“Well, we’ve found a lot that’s certainly unethical, we’ve found a lot that should be illegal, though the line is blurry as to what is legal with respect to family influence-peddling,” he said in response. “I think people in both parties have argued for many years that family members of both Republicans and Democrats – especially family members of presidents – have benefited from our adversaries around the world.”
A Republican complaining about ethics? In January 2023, Newsweek wrote:
The House voted to approve a new rules package on Monday, days after electing California Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker following a protracted series of negotiations with the party's right wing and a nearly unprecedented 15 rounds of voting."As the Republican House Majority's first move, they voted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, which holds Members of Congress accountable for abuses of power," tweeted Democratic Representative John Sarbanes of Maryland. "Decreasing transparency and accountability in government is the last thing we need."
Family influence peddling? Ivanka and Jared weren't family and didn't curry favors? In February 2023, Bloomberg wrote:
House Democrats are renewing calls for information from former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on his business dealings with Saudi Arabia, countering Republican accusations of influence-peddling by President Joe Biden’s family.
In a letter to Kushner on Wednesday, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, asked that Kushner supply details about a more-than-$2 billion Saudi investment in his private equity firm just months after Kushner left the White House.
As usual, GOP hypocrisy is beyond off the charts.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Last week immediately after becoming aware that No Labels (NL) was planning to run a third party candidate for president in all 50 states, I wrote to them and strongly warned against doing that because it could tip the race to Trump. The NL leadership was making public statements that there was no way that NL could tip the election to Trump.
NL ignorance and hubris on this point was obvious. NL advisor Benjamin Chavis Jr., a former executive director of the NAACP said: “I just wanted to emphasize on the spoiler question: I would not be involved if I thought in any account that we would do something to spoil the election in favor of Donald Trump. That’s just not going to happen.” I pointed out that no one could predict that with confidence. I then pointed them to the political prediction research by Philip Tetlock, which makes it clear that most experts, pundits and politicians are basically no better at predicting things like this than random guessing. To me, what NL was doing was beyond dangerous and thus incomprehensible.
New reporting suggests that NL has been subverted by the radical right, just like the original Tea Party appears to have been subverted by radical Christian nationalists years ago. The New Republic reports:
No Labels Took More Than $100,000 FromClarence Thomas Buddy Harlan CrowThe “nonpartisan” group also relied on Crow—whom it dubbed one of its “whales”—to reel in nearly two dozen other donors from 2019 to 2021Officially, No Labels’ mission is to create a space for moderates on both the left and the right to come together and find solutions above the partisan fray. But the group has managed to anger Democrats at times by endorsing conservative candidates such as then-Representative Cory Gardner in Colorado, who was running for Senate against moderate Democrat Mark Udall in 2014. No Labels also labeled Donald Trump a “problem solver” in the early days of the 2016 campaign because he signed a piece of paper No Labels circulated supposedly committing to enacting certain reforms if elected.
Years before megadonor Harlan Crow was reading ProPublica stories about his close ties with Clarence Thomas, often seen as maybe the most partisan justice on the Supreme Court, he was doling out donations and referring friends to No Labels, the outside group that claims to offer an avowedly nonpartisan approach to politics.
If some might see a contradiction there, it’s one that doesn’t seem to matter to either Crow or No Labels.The New Republic obtained a document with figures showing that between 2019 and 2021, Crow donated over $130,000 to No Labels. Crow was considered a “whale”-level donor by the organization—an august status reserved for only the most generous donors. Crow referred other donors to No Labels, ones who earned the “whale,” “dolphin,” and lesser “minnow” status. By 2021, Crow had steered nearly two dozen other donors to No Labels, the information provided to The New Republic shows.
This year, No Labels has been looking to set up a launching pad for a third-party presidential ticket with one Republican and one Democrat on it. But the focus of these efforts will more likely help a Republican—the way things are looking, Trump—win a matchup against Joe Biden. No Labels has been torched by Democrats and Democratic-leaning groups, including the moderate Third Way, for mounting an effort that’s almost bound to hurt Biden.
Despite his claims** to be a compromiser and not an extremist, Harlan Crow is no compromiser or moderate. He's a radical right fascist. Based on TNR reporting and the NL's naivety and/or obliviousness, it looks like NL has been subverted by the radical right.
- GOP megadonor Harlan Crow has been secretly funding lavish vacations for Justice Clarence Thomas.
- But he's also given thousands to Democrats who've stymied the party's agenda at various times.
- They include Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, as well as Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Henry Cuellar.
Texas billionaire Harlan Crow's largesse goes far beyond yacht trips and resort stays with the top conservative jurist. It also includes thousands of dollars in contributions to congressional Democrats known for bucking their party.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
From the American Theocracy files: The NYT writes:
Supreme Court Delays Decision on Abortion Pill, Preserving Access for NowThe Supreme Court on Wednesday extended for two days a pause on a lower-court ruling that had sought to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone, ensuring that the drug would continue to remain widely available for now.
In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. announced that the pause would lapse on Friday at midnight, giving the court more time to consider the case, though it could act before then.
Along with No Labels, it looks to me like the NYT has been subverted by radical right authoritarians . Why? The Supreme Court took a blatantly invalid, obviously theocratic lower court decision and extended it two days. The title of the article is propaganda. Access was not “preserved for now.” It was preserved two puny days, which is amounts to not preserving it at all for real world purposes. A more accurate title is: Supreme Court Supports Illegal Lower Court Decision on Abortion Pill
Truth??
No comments:
Post a Comment