News bits: Recalling James Comey and the 2016 election, Christian nationalist rage, etc.

Lest we forget, Comey really screwed Clinton’s candidacy and gave us Trump: Comey publicly announced two FBI investigations into Clinton’s unsecured e-mail server in 2016. The second announcement that new documents had been found. That happened on Oct. 28, just a few days before the election. On Nov. 7, one day before the election, Comey announced there was nothing new and ended the investigation.

So, while Comey crapped all over Clinton's election twice at critical times, once when people were already involved in early voting, he never announced that Trump was also under a criminal investigation about Trump’s Russia-related crimes. 

So, why treat Clinton like garbage and leave Trump untouched by the same kind of damaging revelations? The FBI and Comey chose not to announce any FBI investigation into Trump and his sleaze in 2016 because the crimes and stakes were far higher to the FBI. Raw Story writes:

But one thing is certain: when voters went to the polls on Election Day, they did so under the false narrative that only one of the candidates had been the subject of a criminal investigation. In fact, in July 2016, around the same time that Comey originally declined to bring charges against Clinton, the FBI began investigating the Trump campaign’s connection to Russian operatives actively trying to influence the U.S. election. 

.... the FBI declined to inform the U.S. public about ties between Trump and the Russian government for fear of exposing informants and “[jeopardizing] a long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.”

A two month-long investigation by the publication revealed that FBI agents likely feared exposing an ongoing operation against “an organized crime network headquartered in the former Soviet Union.” This Russian mob “is one of the Bureau’s top priorities,” spans several decades, and is intricately linked with associates of Trump and businesses the president owns.

There we have it, with Trump the FBI acted to protect the FBI’s priority, but in the case of Hillary, Comey claims to have wanted to protect the public. That trashed Hillary’s campaign for president. Comey did not want to see a bad Hillary elected without public knowledge of all her possible horrible crimes. But at the same time, he did not care enough to let the public know about Trump's far worse possible treason and crimes. 

Opinions will differ on this, but in my sincere opinion, Comey should be jailed for the rest of his rotten, Republican partisan hack life. His decisions were not rationally coherent or defensible. He acted as a partisan hack working for the Republican Party by publicly attacking Hillary but not Trump. In view of information like this, one can reasonably conclude like I did long ago that Trump never was a legitimate president. For four years, America had an illegitimate president and all of his official acts in office were illegitimate.

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Republican Christofascist attacks on the LGBQT community continue: A central dogma of Christian nationalism is hate of the LGBQT community. Christian nationalist leaders and elites want unfettered power to discriminate and oppress this group who sacred God condemns to hell forever. LGBTQ Nation writes about how this enraged hate movement wrapped in sanctimonious Christianty is lashing out in Arizona:

Republicans say they’ll sue Arizona’s governor 

because she protected LGBTQ+ people

They promise to obstruct her “in every step of the process” because she banned job discrimination against some LGBTQ+ workers

Arizona Republicans have voiced plans to sue newly elected Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs after she signed an executive order protecting LGBTQ+ state employees from discrimination.

Vitriol over the order (and others) is coming from the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus. The Caucus Chairman, Republican state Rep. Jake Hoffman – a 2020 election denier – recently told reporters the group will work to obstruct Hobbs “in every step of the process” if she “continues to utilize executive orders.”

“If Katie Hobbs wants to legislate, she needs to get her butt out of the Governor’s Office and run for the legislature and come back and join us and do that job,” he said, according to the Arizona Mirror.  

Hoffman called Hobbs’ executive orders “illegal” and said she was using them to advance her “radical woke agenda.” He did not, however, provide details about the timeline of the Freedom Caucus’s lawsuit or who would file it.

Once again, the seething rage, hate, bigotry and intolerance of the Christian nationalist movement is right out in the open. This savagery is what the elites demand. No one can honestly deny the hate and bigotry that animates anti-democratic American Christian nationalism.

As usual, a question or two come to mind. What responsibility, if any, do Arizona voters and non-voters, (or any other voters or non-voters in America) have in empowering bigoted Republican Christian Sharia theocracy? And, is protecting rights of LGBQT people radical wokeness or radical Christian Sharia bigotry? Does the saying, hate the sin, love the sinner have any remaining validity for the Christian nationalist movement?

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According to the ex-president, it was very sexy for the woman he raped: An unsealed transcript shows how Trump saw it while he was raping E. Jean Carroll. Get a load of this slime:

Trump: “She fainted with great emotion. She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped. Didn’t she say that?”

Question: So sir, I just want to confirm. It’s your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?

Trump: Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that’s what took place. ....

Honestly folks, who can make this stuff up? It has to be true. Right?

One can only wonder what “until commercial break” means. Once again, my ignorance is showing. I suspect it’s something nasty or creepy. But I am not among the cognoscenti when it comes to topics like commercial breaks during rape. Are there any experts in the house?

Given his apparent admission of sexual assault and rape, I think the chances of Trump being found liable are about 0.1%. After all, Trump’s victim liked it. That’s not rape. It’s . . . . . whatever it is between consenting adults before commercial breaks, whatever they are.

About the Joe Biden document scandal.

 Personally, if you are going to wag your finger at other people, you better make sure you have your own shit in order.

So, this steady barrage of document finds on Biden properties is going to hurt and may hurt big time. AS SOON AS the Trump document scandal arose, I would have had my people scour every inch of my properties and lawyer's offices to make sure nothing would come back to bite me. Instead, Biden gloated about the scandal surrounding Trump, and now is eating crow.

My humble opinion aside, there is absolutely NO equivalency, as Biden is co-operating where as Trump was obstructing. That may end up being Biden's saving grace. 

Still, excuses are excuses. Not "knowing" about those documents is not going to fly. Doesn't the buck stop at the top?

Here is a more positive spin on the document story (and yes I take some of the following as "spin")

Why I Am Not Worried About The Biden Document "Scandal" And You Shouldn't Be Either

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/14/2147059/-Why-I-Am-Not-Worried-About-The-Biden-Document-Scandal-And-You-Shouldn-t-Be-Either-Saturday-s-GNR

Key arguments:

First, most people don’t care about this.  Yes, Twitter is having  a meltdown, but as we learn in election after election after election, Twitter is not the real world.

From the author of the article:

Second, I know an awful lot about Biden.  I wrote an entire 100 part series about why he should be our president before the election of 2020.  I read every book there was to read about him and read every interview.  The man is clean.  I have a really hard time believing that he stole those documents on purpose and/or has or had some nefarious purpose for them. 

Third, this just isn’t the same thing as Trump’s case.  Based on what we know, Biden is unlikely to face charges but Trump is likely.

Fourth, the special counsel on this may end up being great for us.  It may protect Biden from GOP witch hunts.

Fifth, this shows that Democrats walk the walk. If there is something that needs to be investigated — whether it is on our side or theirs — it should be investigated.

Sixth, we aren’t near an election and stories have a very very short life.

Do you feel better?  I hope so.

Again, a little too rosy a picture in the comments by the author of the article, but hey, some valid points as well. 

Do you think the author has got it right, or will this end up hurting Biden more than we want to admit?

From the well duh! Files: Scientists prove ExxonMobil climate denials were lies

ExxonMobile is the foremost giant carbon energy company among brass knuckles capitalists and their ruthless propaganda. The Journal Science published an analysis of what ExxonMobile publicly claimed, what it actually knew and how accurate its knowledge was. Not surprisingly, ExxonMobile lied repeatedly for decades too the public and government. The article blandly comments, as reputable scientists usually do:

For decades, some members of the fossil fuel industry tried to convince the public that a causative link between fossil fuel use and climate warming could not be made because the models used to project warming were too uncertain.  

Climate projections by the fossil fuel industry have never been assessed. On the basis of company records, we quantitatively evaluated all available global warming projections documented by—and in many cases modeled by—Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp scientists between 1977 and 2003. We find that most of their projections accurately forecast warming that is consistent with subsequent observations. Their projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models. Exxon and ExxonMobil Corp also correctly rejected the prospect of a coming ice age, accurately predicted when human-caused global warming would first be detected, and reasonably estimated the “carbon budget” for holding warming below 2°C. On each of these points, however, the company’s public statements about climate science contradicted its own scientific data. 

Many of the uncovered fossil fuel industry documents include explicit projections of the amount of warming expected to occur over time in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Yet, these numerical and graphical data have received little attention. Indeed, no one has systematically reviewed climate modeling projections by any fossil fuel interest. What exactly did oil and gas companies know, and how accurate did their knowledge prove to be?

Our results show that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully. Using established statistical techniques, we find that 63 to 83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming. ExxonMobil’s average projected warming was 0.20° ± 0.04°C per decade, which is, within uncertainty, the same as that of independent academic and government projections published between 1970 and 2007. The average “skill score” and level of uncertainty of ExxonMobil’s climate models (67 to 75% and ±21%, respectively) were also similar to those of the independent models.

Moreover, we show that ExxonMobil scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age in favor of a “carbon dioxide induced ‘super-interglacial’”; accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000 ± 5; and reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming. 

 

Historically observed temperature change (red) and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (blue) over time, compared against global warming projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists.

(A) “Proprietary” 1982 Exxon-modeled projections. (B) Summary of projections in seven internal company memos and five peer-reviewed publications between 1977 and 2003 (gray lines). (C) A 1977 internally reported graph of the global warming “effect of CO2 on an interglacial scale.” (A) and (B) display averaged historical temperature observations, whereas the historical temperature record in (C) is a smoothed Earth system model simulation of the last 150,000 years.

From the NYT

Egad!! We have been fibbed to by ExxonMobile (as commented on here before). Worse, most Republican elites still claim to believe and/or actually believe, the lies are truths and truths are lies!

News bits: American style hate & bigotry goes global, etc.

Twitter has become a global hellscape of hate and fascism: 

Hate speech rises on Twitter in its

largest markets after Musk takeover

Those cuts went deepest outside North America, where more than 75 percent of the company’s 280 million daily users live and where Twitter already had fewer moderators who understood local languages and cultural references and where the political landscape could be chaotic and prone to violence.

Musk cut virtually all staff in Brazil, allowing an unmoderated surge in misinformation that helped fuel this month’s attacks on the country’s government center.

.... the platform had already been like a “sewer” in her country [Australia] before Musk let some of the worst users back on.

“You can’t expect them not to behave like sewer rats, and you probably should expect that further pestilence is going to expand to the user base,” said Inman Grant, who has written the company twice and reminded it that she can order abusive material to be taken down. “It’s becoming a cesspool.”

That is the kind of serious damage a single fascist billionaire can do to truth and democracy. Musk now ranks right up there with Rupert Murdoch and other top fascist propagandists.

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Why we will never know the truth about the origin of COVID: The WaPo reports that China has revised its official COVID death toll from 37 to 60,000. We all knew that the official death toll was a gigantic lie. Apparently the whopper became so blatant that even professional liars could not maintain it. That tells you how much you can trust about anything the Chinese government says about COVID. I bet the real death toll is at least about 200,000, but we are never going to know, are we?

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Christofascist Republican Party plans -- Exonerate Trump!!: In addition to impeaching, investigating and slandering lots of Democrats including Joe and Hunter Biden, House Christofascists are probably going to expunge the impeachment of Trump for his role in the 1/6 coup attempt. House fascist leader McCarthy commented: “But I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it.” 

Millions of well-meaning people still do not see much in the way of threat to democracy, truth or civil liberties from the Republican Party. Apparently, most do not see fascism, theocracy or brass knuckles capitalism. The next two years are going to be a real festival of fascism, theocracy and brass knuckles capitalism grounded in lies, slanders and more crackpottery than even QAnon can handle. Well, OK, Qanon can handle it.

Infrastructure alert!

We are gonna need a bigger clown car!

Vote fraud update: Republicans are guilty again

The GOP continues to howl in self-righteous moral outrage at all the massive vote fraud in elections. So far, most of what tiny little has been found has been by Republicans. Business Insider writes:

Republican candidate's wife arrested and charged with casting 

23 fraudulent votes for her husband in the 2020 election

Kim Phuong Taylor was arrested Thursday and accused of multiple counts of voter fraud.

Prosecutors say Taylor cast 23 fraudulent votes for her husband in the 2020 election.

Jeremy Taylor, her husband, is an elected Republican.

Yes indeed, one can reasonably argue that we should wait for the case to be decided in court. But in view of the last few years of Christofascist Republican politics, one can reasonably tentatively believe that Kim Phuong Taylor is guilty. Republican ideologues appear to have far less respect for the rule of law than Democratic ideologues or Democrats generally.

Compared to the ~20 alleged fraudulent votes that the radical right DeSantis allegedly found in Florida, Republican vote fraud in Iowa is much worse than in Florida. Because of that, Iowa should be stripped of its 1st place in Democratic Party primaries, while it should stay 1st in Republican Primaries.

23 fraudulent votes? The horror, the horror . . . . . LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP FOREVER!! HECK, EXECUTE HER!!! 

That is just fair and balanced, far more than what the raging hater, blatant liar and self-professed incompetent nincompoop Tucker Carlson recently said in public about all liberals in America:

“That loathing [of liberals] clouded my judgment. I was like, ‘I dislike these people so much. What they’re doing is so wrong. It is helping so few people and hurting so many. It’s so immoral on every level that I just want it to be repudiated.’ And I wanted that so much, not because I like the Republicans — I really dislike them more than I ever have — but I dislike the other side more,” he added, saying, “I did learn that, like, I have no freaking idea what goes on in American politics.”

MAGA!! He has no freaking idea of what goes on in American politics!!

Qualified immunity: A major weakness in civil rights protections

One of the key weaknesses in personal civil liberties arises from a legal concept called qualified immunity. In most (essentially all) situations, the Supreme Court established a qualified immunity concept that shields government employees from liability for unconstitutional infringement of a person’s rights. That happened 40 years ago. But in a recent lawsuit, the Nevada Supreme Court threw out the qualified immunity shield and allowed a person whose rights had been infringed to sue the responsible government employees. 

This story constitutes a major step forward in Nevada for defense of civil liberties. Nationwide, the situation is complex and usually impossible for average people to rely on to vindicate their civil liberties. Forbes writes:

In a landmark decision late last month, the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled that victims of wrongful searches and seizures have the right to sue the responsible government officials. Just as critically, the court firmly rejected qualified immunity as a potential defense against those lawsuits. The court’s twin holdings will better ensure that government officials can actually be held accountable for their misconduct.

“Absent a damages remedy here, no mechanism exists to deter or prevent violations of important individual rights,” Justice Elissa Cadish wrote for the court. And “a right does not, as a practical matter, exist without any remedy for its enforcement.”

What became a pivotal ruling for civil rights started because Sonja Mack just wanted to see her boyfriend. Back in 2017, Mack traveled to High Desert State Prison to visit her partner, who was then behind bars. While waiting, Mack said she was approached by two correctional officers, who then conducted a “demeaning and humiliating” strip search of Mack. Even though officers didn’t find any drugs or contraband, the prison still banned Mack from seeing her boyfriend and revoked her visitation privileges.

Mack sued, arguing that being strip searched violated her rights under the Nevada Constitution. Mirroring language found in the Fourth Amendment, the Nevada Constitution safeguards “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable seizures and searches.”

Yet Nevada’s legislature, like more than 40 other states, never passed a civil rights act that expressly let individuals sue the government employees who infringed their constitutional rights. Only state lawmakers, the Nevada Department of Corrections argued, have the power to make government workers liable for civil rights violations. 

.... the Nevada Supreme Court refused to import the legal doctrine of qualified immunity. Created by the U.S. Supreme Court four decades ago, qualified immunity shields all government workers from liability, unless they violated a “clearly established” right. Since that usually requires finding an almost identical case as precedent—a very high bar to clear—qualified immunity prevents victims from holding the perpetrators accountable.[1]  

Though the Nevada Supreme Court ruling is currently limited to searches and seizures, it’s already making an impact. Consider Stephen Lara. A veteran who served in the Marines for 16 years, Stephen had his entire life savings—over $87,000—confiscated by a Nevada state trooper. He was never charged with a crime.

Stephen didn’t back down. Just one day after the Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit, the government returned the cash it wrongfully seized. But the rest of his lawsuit was put on hold while the Nevada Supreme Court considered Mack’s case. Now with a resounding win for individual rights, Stephen’s case to hold the officers accountable can finally move forward.

“The wheels of justice for Stephen Lara can finally move forward after being on hold for more than a year,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Ben Field, who participated in oral argument for Mack v. Williams. “As we urged, the Nevada Supreme Court holds that ordinary people like Stephen can sue for damages when government officials go over the line and violate the most basic guarantees in the state constitution.”

One can see where this will probably ultimately wind up, i.e., before the radical right, Christofascist US Supreme Court. If so, that court in its virulent hostility to civil liberties will probably (~70% chance ?) establish an invigorated qualified immunity that obliterates the Nevada court ruling. The new and improved qualified immunity will go from a shield that state courts, like the Nevada Supreme Court, can negate to one that state courts cannot negate. That is the sentiment that Christofascism holds toward civil liberties. The question is whether it can get the job done. Time will tell.

Source: Institute for Justice

Footnote: 

1. The Institute for Justice writes:

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SHOW THAT A RIGHT IS “CLEARLY ESTABLISHED”?

To show that a right is clearly established, a victim must identify an earlier decision by the Supreme Court or a federal appeals court in the same jurisdiction holding that precisely the same conduct under the same circumstances is illegal or unconstitutional. If no decision exists, qualified immunity protects the official by default. Importantly, when courts grant government workers qualified immunity, they do so despite the fact that the government worker has violated the Constitution or they simply do not address that issue at all.