Despite a court-imposed September 8 deadline, the Justice Department has failed to produce its strategic plan to implement President Biden’s directive regarding voter registration and participation.
The Orwellian-titled Department of Justice increasingly believes it’s above the law, or perhaps that it is the law:
On March 7, 2021, Biden issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to submit within 200 days their plans to promote voter participation. This directive, EO 14019, was premised on the fiction that “many Americans, including people of color, confront significant obstacles to exercising that fundamental right” (to vote). The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), the public-interest group that filed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking disclosure from the DOJ, says there has been no explanation from Main Justice for its resistance to release relevant documents…
In a lawsuit it filed shortly after the directive, FGA noted the observation of many congressional Republicans that EO 14019 bore a striking resemblance to “a federal election takeover plan crafted by the radical left-leaning group known as Demos.” This plan, the lawmakers said, “called for the weaponization of the DOJ” for the purpose of imposing federal standards on the states.
Without hesitation, he agreed with [CNN] host John Berman’s suggestion that the doc addressed “some of the same themes” seen in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to send “two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.”
“This is coming straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” Burns, 69, insisted of DeSantis’ relocation of around 50 border crossers to the Massachusetts hotspot…
“And so, when you look at the story that we’re telling of the US and the Holocaust, you understand that the time to save a democracy is before it’s lost. We promise you,” he warned.
Sitting alongside co-director Lynn Novick, Burns insisted that sending immigrants to one of the ritziest vacation spots in the US was actually “the abstraction of human life.”
“It’s basically saying that you can use a human life that is as valuable as yours or mine or Lynn’s and to put it in a position of becoming a political pawn in somebody’s authoritarian game,” he insisted.
“This is what’s so disturbing about DeSantis — to use human beings, to weaponize human beings for a political purpose,” he claimed.
Something the left never does. The left virtue-signals at the expense of others, but as soon as they’re asked to put their money where their mouths are, they treat those same human beings like hot potatoes.
The Holocaust analogy is beneath contempt. But I have to say I’ve never been a Ken Burns fan, so it doesn’t really surprise me.
And then there are the charges that DeSantis is a human trafficker. Who’s making them? Why, Hillary Clinton, of course:
“Some politicians would rather not only have an issue, but exacerbate it to the extent of literally human trafficking,” the former Democratic presidential nominee told host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”.
Yes, some politicians do exacerbate it. One of those politicians is Hillary Clinton.
There will be relentless attacks on everything DeSantis says and does between now and at least 2024. He will be turned into Trump-squared if they can do it. DeSantis has a different history and presentation than Trump, so it may be a bit harder for them to succeed, but I have no doubt it will work that way for Democratic voters and at least some independents.
Meanwhile, the GOP pundits I call the OnlyTrumpers will attack DeSantis from the right. See for example the discussion that begins here on a previous thread.
First, Cannon directed [newly-appointed Special Master] Dearie to “review all of the materials” seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid, something the DOJ desperately wanted to avoid, especially for the documents it segregated as marked classified.
Second, Dearie must verify that the property listed in the “Detailed Property Inventory” “represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized.” Here Cannon suggests that Dearie may consider obtaining sworn affidavits from individuals involved in the raid. While not a failsafe, the sworn affidavits will lessen the chance that agents omitted (or added) items from the property inventory list.
Judge Cannon also directed the special master to review the documents for privilege, including for formal assertions of “executive privilege.” This represents another victory for Trump because the DOJ has been adamant that Trump has no right to assert “executive privilege.” But without knowing what documents the DOJ has, Trump lacks the ability to develop an argument that he retains some vestiges of executive privilege.
Knowing what documents the DOJ has, in fact, proves the biggest victory for Trump from yesterday’s order. Cannon ensured that Trump’s legal team can learn the specifics of what was seized, with, most significantly, the court ordering the DOJ to make any documents with classification markings to be made available “for inspection by Plaintiff’s counsel, with controlled access conditions (including necessary clearance requirements) and under the supervision of the Special Master.” The government must also provide copies of all other documents to Trump’s lawyers and for nondocumentary items, the DOJ must make them available to Trump’s attorneys for inspection.
More at the link. There is also a November 30 deadline for the special master, which places it after the midterm election. The DOJ plans to appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but it remains to be seen how quickly and effectively that could happen. And then there’s always SCOTUS.
Here are some quotes from the judge’s order denying the DOJ motion for a stay:
… [T]he Court declines to conduct a subset-by-subset, piecemeal analysis of the seized property, based entirely on the Government’s representations about what is contained in a select portion of the property…
…[E]venhanded procedure does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice…
… [T]he principles of equity require the Court to consider the specific context at issue, and that consideration is inherently impacted by the position formerly held by Plaintiff. The Court thus continues to endeavor to serve the public interest, the principles of civil and criminal procedure, and the principles of equity. And the Court remains firmly of the view that appointment of a special master to conduct a review of the seized materials, accompanied by a temporary injunction to avoid unwarranted use and disclosure of potentially privileged and/or personal materials, is fully consonant with the foregoing principles and with the need to ensure at least the appearance of fairness and integrity under unprecedented circumstances.
That’s stating the obvious, and yet the DOJ pretends it’s not.
The Judge also placed significance on the leaks of information about the supposed documents AFTER the seizure by the FBI – meaning if anyone has been a threat to national security relating to the documents, it’s the feds…
Nice little slap on the wrist for the DOJ, which leaks like the proverbial sieve and then pretends it’s concerned with leaks. But the only leaks it’s concerned with are leaks that might reflect poorly on the DOJ.
Dearie sits on the district court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, where he has taken senior status – meaning his workload has been lightened significantly as he nears the end of his time on the federal bench.
He was appointed as a judge by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was for a time the chief judge of the Brooklyn-based district court. He also served a seven-year term, concluding in 2019, on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
In his role as a FISA judge, Dearie was one of the judges who approved one of the Justice Department’s request to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page as part of the federal inquiry into Russia 2016 election interference.
Remember way back when we kept asking who these FISA judges were who allowed Russiagate to go forward? Well, apparently Dearie was one of them. However, a theory that’s long been entertained is that some of these judges may be angry at having been deceived by the FBI and DOJ. Perhaps Dearie is one of those, as well.
Proponents of fracking hold that Europe’s shale gas potential is needed now more than ever, though Germany, France, the Netherlands, Scotland and Bulgaria have all previously banned fracking. Now, the debate is being revived by recent moves in the UK.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced that the UK is lifting a 2019 moratorium on shale gas fracking as the country looks to ramp up domestic energy resources and help households and businesses struggling to pay soaring energy bills…
Europe has more recoverable shale gas than the U.S., according to estimates. However, the only major fracking activity is in Ukraine, which managed to wean itself off of Russian gas years ago…
The big problem with fracking in Europe is that some of the conditions that fueled the U.S. shale boom don’t exist in Europe. In most countries, it’s the state, and not private landowners, that owns the mineral rights to oil and gas in the ground. Contrast that with the U.S. where landowner’s cut can be as much as an eighth of production revenue. This in effect means that fracking does not yield big financial rewards for European landowners.
To garner more public support for the technology, the British government and some companies have previously proposed direct payments to people affected by fracking. However, environmental groups have strongly opposed the move, terming such payments as bribes. The situation is not helped by the fact that the population density in Europe is more than 3x that in the United States, fueling not-in-my-backyard protests. For instance, many rural projects have in the past been rejected because they would bring trucks and equipment used for fracking onto picturesque roads dating back to Roman times. Indeed, Gazprom has previously said that the difficulty in finding unpopulated land in Europe and enough water to exploit shale wells will help Russian gas stay competitive.
So although some of the objections involve the green lobby, some of it is connected with the fact that fracking isn’t as easy to do in Europe compared to the US, and the costs are greater.
(1) Anyone can make an error, but I think the most interesting thing about this one is that she appears to be reading all these names and titles. I would think a presidential press secretary would know them all by heart, including the name of the actual governor of Texas:
(2) The Vineyard is a lovely place in the summer. In the winter, not so much. But cruel Governor DeSantis doesn’t care:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hit back at critics of his plan to transport illegal immigrants entering the state, saying that blue “sanctuary cities” are now being forced to observe the ramifications of a weak border.
DeSantis made the remarks Thursday after Democrats called the transportation of migrants a political stunt.
“We take what’s happening at the southern border very seriously, unlike some,” DeSantis said in a Thursday speech, “and unlike the president of the United States, who has refused to lift a finger to secure that border.”…
DeSantis followed through on his promise to drop off illegal immigrants in progressive states, sending two planes full of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday.
All those declarations about being “sanctuary” states or cities was just so much empty virtue signaling, with very little thought that there was any risk involved. Now governors like Abbott (not Cruz, but Abbott – see #1 above) and DeSantis are following Alinsky’s rules for radicals numbers 4, 5, and 6:
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
(3) Sweden moves to the right, as its prime minister resigns after a coalition of four parties on the right win a very narrow majority in parliament.
The election marks a watershed in Swedish politics with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the white supremacist fringe, on the threshold of gaining influence over government policy…
The success of the party, which took over from Kristersson’s Moderates as the country’s second biggest, has raised fears that Sweden’s tolerant and inclusive politics are a thing of the past.
However, their mantra that Sweden’s ills – particularly gang crime – are a result of decades of overgenerous immigration policies have hit home with many voters.
Gee, I wonder why. Can it be that people who want an end to crime are all racists?
More:
Kristersson said he would build a government “for all of Sweden and all citizens”.
Doesn’t sound so white supremacist to me.
Also:
The Sweden Democrats aim to make Sweden the European Union’s toughest on immigration policy including legislation making it possible to deny people seeking asylum based on religious or LGBTQ grounds.
The party wants to slash economic benefits for immigrants and give more powers to police, including zones in troubled areas allowing searches without concrete suspicion of a crime.
I’d like to see further details on the actual proposals, instead of the Reuters summary, before I make a judgment about that.
(4) Half of San Franciscans surveyed say they have been robbed within the last five years.
(5) The Durham investigation is probably history. I gave up on it a long long time ago. My guess is that you did, too.
The agreement is universally described as tentative:
With the deadline to avert a freight railroad strike by Friday morning approaching fast, a tentative agreement has been reached according to the Labor Department.
The new contracts provide rail workers a 24% wage increase during the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, including an immediate payout on average of $11,000 upon ratification, the Association of American Railroads said. The industry trade group added that all tentative agreements are subject to ratification by the unions’ membership…
All the tentative deals are based closely on the recommendations of a Presidential Emergency Board that Biden appointed this summer that called for 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses in a five-year deal that’s retroactive to 2020. Those recommendations also include one additional paid leave day a year and higher health insurance costs.
…[U]nion members angered by tough work conditions have yet to ratify the agreement…
Workers have gone three years without a raise amid the contract dispute, with talks stalling over attendance, sick time and scheduling issues. Only two of 12 unions – representing less than 10% of the workforce – are known to have ratified new contracts with freight railways.
The unions, including two large groups representing around 60,000 workers, will need to persuade their members to vote for Thursday’s deal. That might be a tough sell, labor experts warned.
“There’s a lot of anger among the members of these two unions because they feel, after being essential workers during the COVID pandemic, they were getting screwed on the attendance policy and getting punished for taking sick leave,” said Seth Harris, a professor of Northeastern University and former Biden administration official focused on labor and the economy.
They’re been negotiating this for over two years.
Railroad workers seem to have been another category of COVID economic and job satisfaction casualty.
And although I’ve read a couple of articles about the tentative agreement and they include plenty about the possible impact of a strike, I have yet to see any mention of the economic impact of a settlement like this on the US economy and the price of things shipped by rail. Seems to me the price of goods would have to go up no matter what, if workers are paid so much more. Will their raises even make much of a difference for them after all is said and done, considering inflation?
As I wrote yesterday, the Democrats are highly motivated to avoid a strike that would impact negatively on them for the 2022 election, so if there are further snags I expect they will move heaven and earth to resolve them.
One of the unions representing rail workers said Wednesday that its members rejected a proposed deal with rail carriers and voted to move forward with a strike that could have severe consequences for the U.S. economy.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers issued a statement saying that roughly 4,900 of its members turned down the tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC) representing railroads, but noted that they would hold off on striking for at least a few weeks while other unions continue their talks…
IAM is one of four unions that remain holdouts on the deal put forth by the presidential emergency board (PEB) appointed by President Biden. Another eight rail unions have agreed to the plan.
Two other major rail unions signaled over the weekend that they would not sign on without further concessions from railroads. The leaders of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) Teamsters Rail Conference issued a joint statement Sunday saying that the PEB proposal does not go far enough to improve working conditions for members.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) says the strike would cost the nation more than two billion a day.
A lot of articles say the strike may happen this Friday, but I tend to doubt it. There’s a lot of negotiating occurring, and the Democrats have a very very strong interest in delaying this because it’s almost a certainty it would hurt them politically.
The labor dispute that could lead to the first national railroad strike in 30 years could begin as soon as this Friday. About 60,000 union members who work for the railroad are set to go on strike, including the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train. Even though 45,000 other union members belong to unions that have reached tentative deals with the railroads, a strike by engineers and conductors would bring the freight rail system, which carries nearly 30% of the nation’s freight, to a grinding halt.
Democrats in Congress have promised to pass legislation to extend a deadline, an act within Congress’ power, if a deal can’t be reached. This is a test to see if the Democratic Party is controlled by moderates or the leftists like progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) with the backing of Squad leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It seems unlikely that the Democrats in the Senate, with Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who just last week rallied with striking British rail workers, will agree to a deal opposed by some union leaders.
The latest news from Durham is that Danchenko, the guy behind the Steele dossier, was a paid informant of the FBI for many years (isn’t everyone?):
In a bombshell revelation, Special Prosecutor John Durham revealed Tuesday in court filings that the FBI paid a Russian businessman as a confidential human source in the investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign even though it had prior concerns that businessman was tied to Moscow’s intelligence services.
Durham persuaded the federal judge in the upcoming trial of Igor Danchenko to unseal a motion revealing that Danchenko, the primary source of the now-discredited Steele dossier, was paid by the FBI as a confidential human source for more than three years until the fall of 2020 when he was terminated for lying to agents.
Danchenko is charged with five counts of lying to the bureau during that relationship and faces trial next month in federal court in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C.
I wouldn’t call this a “bombshell.” Russiagate – and even the Durham investigation – is now officially old stale news, and opinions about it are probably pretty much set in stone. And for those of us on the right still following it all, this particular revelation should come as no surprise whatsoever. Russiagate has exposed the rottenness of various federal agencies, in particular the FBI and the DOJ.
It’s often educational to visit the looking-glass world of the leftist press. For example, from Salon, we have this article entitled, “‘Trump turned DOJ into his personal law firm’: Senate probes prosecutor’s claim of Trump corruption”:
The Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Monday that it will probe former federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman’s claim that former President Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr sought to pressure federal prosecutors to go after Trump’s perceived enemies.
Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that the panel will investigate claims of “astonishing and unacceptable deviations” by DOJ officials to pursue partisan prosecutions and Barr’s efforts to replace Berman with a “Trump loyalist.” Berman’s claims “indicate multiple instances of political interference,” Durbin wrote, calling on the DOJ to produce all documents and communications related to Berman’s claims.
All this is concurrent with the multiple actual ongoing partisan political prosecutions by the Biden administration. But the Big Lie technique is apparently a useful one to the current administration. You almost have to admire the symmetry of it.
Has it ever seemed odd to you that the Nazis discussed their Big Lie approach openly? If so, you probably haven’t seen the original in context, because the famous Big Lie explanation was itself embedded in a Big Lie. Here’s the relevant quote from Mein Kampf, which refers to the blame for Germany’s defeat in World War I:
But it remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown a superhuman will and energy in his effort to prevent the catastrophe which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the world war on the shoulders of Ludendorff they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice.
All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true within itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
So in the course of discussing the Big Lie, according to Hitler it’s the Jews who are perpetrating it, not the Nazis. Those two paragraphs are followed by this one, which is an excellent description of why Big Lies so often work, and why they continue to work today:
It would never come into [the masses’] heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
And so today the Biden administration simply must use the DOJ to pursue and prosecute its political opponents in the Trump administration who supposedly tried to usurp the DOJ for their own political ends. The following sort of legal activity is the way they’re going about it: this, as well as this, this, this, and this.
NOTE: By the way, the Salon characterization of Berman as “a Republican former Trump transition official” is itself purposely misleading. For starters, I can’t find any indication that Berman is any sort of Republican, although it’s certainly possible. But he was no Trump ally and had personal reasons to hate him, Barr, and Giuliani. You can read about Berman’s history here. Also note that Berman was the guy who previously prosecuted Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney.
New Hampshire held its late party primaries yesterday. The only interesting races were on the Republican side and Democrats had a hand in two of them. In the Senate contest to pick a challenger to vulnerable incumbent Maggie Hassan, Don Bolduc faced off against Chuck Morse. Democrats supported Bolduc because he is the less viable candidate.
Bolduc has been declared the winner in a relatively close race. If you do a search for articles about him, you’ll find the MSM regulars crowing that he’s a far-right “election denier” whose nomination “has realized GOP fears.”
Perhaps. But I’ve followed the race for a while, and here’s my take on it.
Both GOP candidates, Bolduc and Morse, were weak, although in very different ways. The Democrats absolutely tried to push Bolduc for their own ends, but it was Morse who closed the gap considerably in the final run, not the other way around. Bolduc is the more colorful and extreme political figure – with obvious vulnerabilities along those lines – whereas Morse is remarkably lackluster. From what I could find in polls (there weren’t many really recent ones), both were polling similarly against Democrat incumbent Maggie Hassan, who is also relatively unpopular. So they both were within a couple of points of her.
Initially it had been thought that popular New Hampshire Republican Governor Sununu would be Hassan’s GOP opponent in 2022 and that he would win handily. But once he announced he was not running for the Senate, no particularly “viable” GOP Senate candidate presented himself or herself. So Bolduc and Morse it was.
New Hampshire is an odd and quirky purplish state. It is very small, for starters. Therefore a campaign such as the one the Democrats waged during this primary, to get Democrats to vote for the GOP candidate considered less “viable,” in a year in which the Democrat race wasn’t in real contention, could very well succeed in selecting that GOP candidate the Democrats prefer. I don’t know for sure that that’s was what happened yesterday in New Hampshire to give Bolduc the edge, but it certainly might have been.
However, I’m not the least bit sure that the “MAGA Republican” Bolduc will be a worse candidate than snoozer Morse would have been, although that is the common MSM “wisdom.” In my opinion, neither would have been a good challenger for the similarly lackluster but loyal-Democrat Hassan, who presents herself as a moderate but who votes for virtually every leftist Democrat bill like the good apparatchik she is. She is vulnerable, but only to a good candidate.
Another oddity of New Hampshire is that for the most part it likes its federal politicians blue and its state politicians red. That, more than anything, doesn’t bode well for the Republican Bolduc in the Senate race. But I’m not counting him out. And I don’t think Morse would have had a better chance of beating Hassan either.
