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THE MAGA PARTY!,,, the GOP is dead, republicans are going down with the dems,, get ready for THE MAGA PARTY lefty's
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2021-08-06 at 6:46 PM UTC
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2021-08-06 at 6:49 PM UTC
Originally posted by stl1 I never ever said Poley was the sharpest tool in the shed.
Originally posted by POLECAT
ALSO IT DON'T MATTER WHAT YOU FAGS THING ABOUT WHAT I JUST SAID BECAUSE IT IS HAPPINING JUST THE WAY I TOLD YOU IT WAS SO SHUT THE FUCK UP LOOK INTO WHAT I JUST SAID,, WAIT A FEW WEEKS AN SEE IF I'M WRONG,, IF I AM WRONG PROVE IT IN AUGUST AFTER THE EVIDENCE HAS PROVEN ME WRONG OR RIGHT AND I WILL PAY LAMMY THE 20 GOD DAMN DOLLARS TO DELETE MY PROFILE AND I'LL NEVER COME BACK IN HERE EVER AGAIN.
I hope Skunk has $20. -
2021-08-06 at 7:09 PM UTCSalon
DOJ notes revealed: Trump's coup was longer in the making than we thought
Heather Digby Parton
It's no secret that former President Donald Trump plotted to overturn the 2020 election if he lost. He had set up the scenario for months, even declaring at one point that the only way the Democrats could win the election was by stealing it. He'd done the same in 2016, telling his cheering crowd that he would only accept the results of the election if he won, and as it turned out, he didn't even accept that — insisting that Hillary Clinton stole the popular vote. Trump then formed an "election integrity commission" to investigate voter fraud in the election he won. (That commission was eventually abandoned after they were unable to find any proof of voter fraud.)
The election hysteria in 2020 over mail-in votes and Trump's ludicrous contention that any votes counted after midnight on Election Day were illegitimate would have been easy enough to just chalk up to Trump being a sore loser had Jan. 6 not happened. But the Big Lie was adopted by the GOP establishment for their own cynical, political reasons and Republicans continue to prop it up to this day. That has made it impossible to ignore and requires the attention of everyone who still values democracy and the rule of law. Clearly, we have not seen the end of this.
Just this week, we learned that the coup attempt engineered by Trump and his cronies was much more serious than the silly clown show run by the loony lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani or Trump's breathless fulminating about his "landslide" win being stolen from him. It turns out that the most alarming threat came from within the government itself and, had it succeeded, would have been the gravest constitutional crisis since the civil war.
According to notes turned over to the House Oversight Committee last week, after Attorney General Bill Barr left the Justice Department (DOJ) in late December of 2020, Trump pressured acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to declare that "the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen." In other words, Trump wanted the DOJ to back his Big Lie, despite both Barr and Rosen telling him there was no fraud. (Trump even proclaimed, "You guys may not be following the Internet the way I do.") David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official, told the Washington Post:
"These notes reveal that a sitting president, defeated in a free and fair election, personally and repeatedly pressured Justice Department leaders to help him foment a coup in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power. And that should shock the conscience of every American, regardless of political persuasion."
But it gets worse.
ABC News published a draft of a letter prepared by a Trump loyalist in the DOJ named Jeffrey Clark, a faceless GOP lawyer who had previously worked in the Bush administration and had been the head of the DOJ's civil division since September of 2020. On the same day that Trump was leaning on the acting AG to declare the election was "corrupt," Clark circulated a letter addressed to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and state legislative leaders, dishonestly claiming that the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election." The letter recommended that the Georgia legislature "convene in special session so that its legislators are in a position to take additional testimony, receive new evidence, and deliberate on the matter." Clark suggested in this letter that the legislature could refuse to accept the outcome of the election and select electors for Trump instead. This was the essence of the coup plot. According to NBC News, Clark had drafted similar letters to all six states that Trump was contending had been stolen: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia.
Thankfully, Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, who recorded these events and turned his notes over to Congress, rejected Clark's outrageous attempts to overturn the election. But that was still not the end of it.
The New York Times reported last January that Trump had been introduced to Clark by a Pennsylvania politician who assured him that Clark was on the team. When Rosen rejected Clark's attempt to use the DOJ to foment a coup by enlisting Trump loyalists in the state legislatures, Clark went directly to Trump. The president subsequently threatened to replace Rosen with Clark. He even convened what was described as a bizarre "'Apprentice'-like meeting" with the two men in the White House that lasted for hours. Evidently, Trump was only dissuaded from doing this when he was told that the entire top leadership of the DOJ would resign if he did. According to the Times, Trump worried that mass resignations would distract attention from his election fraud claims.
It's easy to say now that "the system worked" but it was a very close thing, entirely dependent on the good-faith actions of certain members of the government. What if Trump had gone ahead and made Clark the acting attorney general, and Clark had sent those letters to state legislatures basically giving a green light from the DOJ to overturn the election results and illegitimately put Trump back in the White House? It's clear they were serious about doing it, and it's even clearer that this inane notion of state legislators rejecting the will of the voters has seriously gained currency on the right. This is not the last we will hear of it.
And what of this man Jeffrey Clark, Trump's willing accomplice in the attempted coup? Is there any accountability for him? Apparently not. He landed a cushy job as chief of litigation and director of strategy at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative-libertarian law firm. The conservative legal establishment takes care of its own — even when they plot to overthrow the government.
And there will almost certainly be a next time.
The New Yorker's Jane Mayer recently reported on all the Big Money Republicans who are backing the "Stop the Steal" movement around the country. (It's the usual suspects, proving once again that they are no more driven by principle and ideology than the average MAGA-hatted Trump fan.) She mentioned this in passing:
Few people noticed at the time, but in ... Bush v. Gore, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, hinted at a radical reading of the Constitution that, two decades later, undergirds many of the court challenges on behalf of Trump. In a concurring opinion, the Justices argued that state legislatures have the plenary power to run elections and can even pass laws giving themselves the right to appoint electors. Today, the so-called Independent Legislature Doctrine has informed Trump and the right's attempts to use Republican-dominated state legislatures to overrule the popular will. Nathaniel Persily, an election-law expert at Stanford, told me, "It's giving intellectual respectability to an otherwise insane, anti-democratic argument."
Jeffrey Clark was no rogue. He was doing a dry run for a coup long in the making. -
2021-08-06 at 7:41 PM UTC
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2021-08-06 at 7:48 PM UTCOH VUTS GOING ON IN DIS HERE FRED GUISE??
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2021-08-06 at 8:06 PM UTC
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2021-08-06 at 9:45 PM UTCMake yet
Another
Grift
Again, and again, and again...
Business Insider
Dozens of items given to Trump's State Department are reportedly missing from the agency's gift vault
jepstein@insider.com (Jake Epstein)
Dozens of gifts went missing from the State Department's gift vault, according to Politico.
Two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told Politco the gifts vanished during the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations.
Among the missing items is a $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey.
Dozens of items went missing from the State Department's gift vault during the transition from the Trump to Biden administrations, Politico reported Friday.
Two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told Politico foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi that at least 20 types of individual pieces are missing and the State Department's inspector general is investigating the disappearances.
According to Politico, most of the missing items are gifts the U.S. was planning to give to other countries. Many of the items bore Donald Trump's insignia, the outlet reported, adding that "possibly hundreds" of items are missing.
State Department officials are currently looking for a $5,800 bottle of Japanese whisky given to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the Japanese government in 2019, according to public notice filings on Wednesday.
State Department policy allows its diplomats to keep gifts under $390, with the option to purchase gifts over that price. But in order to prevent bribery and foreign influence, officials cannot accept gifts directly from other governments.
Maybe all the previous
Administrations
Grifted and stole shit
Also
NOPE, CAN'T REMEMBER EVER HAVING READ OF THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR FROM ANY OTHER ADMINISTRATION. -
2021-08-06 at 9:50 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-08-06 at 9:58 PM UTCBiden is the biggest COVID SUPERSPREADER in the country. He welcomes in tens of thousands of foreigners into the country WITHOUT ANY TESTING OR QUARANTEEN AT ALL, then has the nerve to browbeat his own fellow citizens about spreading COVID. And fear mongers like st|1 voted for this SUPERSPREADER. Go figure.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-08-07 at 3:33 PM UTCCapitol Rioters Enter 1st Guilty Pleas to Assaulting Police
A New Jersey gym owner and a Washington state man became the first people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to plead guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer during the deadly siege.
Associated Press
(AP) – A New Jersey gym owner and a Washington state man on Friday became the first people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to plead guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer during the deadly siege.
The pair of plea deals with federal prosecutors could be a benchmark for dozens of other cases in which Capitol rioters are charged with attacking police as part of an effort to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. Both defendants face more than three years in prison if a judge adheres to estimated sentencing guidelines spelled out in the plea agreements.
The estimated sentencing guidelines for Scott Kevin Fairlamb range from about 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 years in prison. But the judge isn’t bound by that recommendation when he sentences Fairlamb, a 44-year-old former mixed martial arts fighter who owned Fairlamb Fit gym in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Fairlamb’s lawyer and prosecutors can seek a sentence above or below those guidelines.
The sentencing guidelines in Devlyn Thompson’s plea deal recommend a slightly higher sentence than Fairlamb, ranging from less than four years to 4 3/4 years in prison. After Fairlamb’s hearing, Thompson, 28, of Puyallup, Washington, pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon, a baton.
The same judge who accepted Fairlamb’s guilty plea ordered Thompson to be jailed in Seattle. Thompson had been free since his participation in the Capitol riot.
The pleas come less than two weeks after a group of police officers testified at a congressional hearing about their harrowing confrontations with the mob of insurrectionists. Five officers who were at the Capitol that day have died, four of them by suicide. The Justice Department has said that rioters assaulted approximately 140 police officers on Jan. 6. About 80 of them were U.S. Capitol Police officers and about 60 were from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.
Fairlamb, whose brother is a U.S. Secret Service agent, was one of the first people to breach the Capitol after other rioters smashed windows using riot shields and kicked out a locked door, according to federal prosecutors. After leaving the building, Fairlamb harassed a line of police officers, shouting in their faces and blocking their progress through the mob, prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tejpal Chawla said Thompson was on the front lines of the most violent clashes that day, in a tunnel at the Capitol.
“This is one of the largest domestic terrorism events in U.S. history, where a group of individuals attacked the citadel of our constitutional democracy in an effort to overthrow the valid election results of the president of the United States,” Chawla said.
Thomas Durkin, one of Thompson’s attorneys, said Jan. 6 was a “horrible, horrible event” but disputed the prosecutor’s characterization of the attack.
“I think it’s dangerous to start throwing around ‘domestic terrorism’ in circumstances like this,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth set a sentencing date of Sept. 27 for both Thompson and Fairlamb, who has been jailed since his Jan. 22 arrest at his home in Stockholm, New Jersey.
Thompson wasn’t arrested after he was charged last month with one count of assaulting a Metropolitan Police officer. His attorneys said in a court filing that he has autism spectrum disorder.
Fairlamb’s lawyer, Harley Breite, said he will ask the judge for a sentence below the government’s recommended guidelines.
Fairlamb’s involvement in the riot has “eviscerated large parts of his life,” his attorney said.
“He has lost his business. The mortgage on his home where he lives with his wife is in peril. And he has been publicly disgraced,” Breite said during an interview after Friday’s remote hearing.
Breite said his client wanted to “pay the price for what he had done and then move on with his life.”
“It wasn’t so much about the deal. It was about his desire to own up to what he had done, make himself a better person for the future and move on,” the lawyer added.
Fairlamb pleaded guilty to two counts, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer. The counts carry a maximum of more than 20 years in prison.
Another video captured Fairlamb shoving and punching a police officer in the head after he left the Capitol, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.
“As a former MMA fighter, the defendant was well aware of the injury he could have inflicted on (the officer),” prosecutors wrote. “His actions and words on that day all indicate a specific intent to obstruct a congressional proceeding through fear, intimidation, and violence, including violence against uniformed police officers.”
Fairlamb’s brother was one of the Secret Service agents assigned to protect former first lady Michelle Obama, Breite said.
Fairlamb’s social media accounts indicated that he subscribed to the QAnon conspiracy theory and promoted a bogus claim that former President Donald Trump would become the first president of “the new Republic” on March 4, prosecutors wrote. QAnon has centered on the baseless belief that Trump was fighting against a cabal of Satan-worshipping, child sex trafficking cannibals, including “deep state” enemies, prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites.
The rioters believed Trump’s lies that he was robbed of a second term because of massive voter fraud nationwide. In fact, claims of massive fraud have been refuted by numerous judges, state election officials and even Trump’s own administration.
On July 27, a House panel investigating the deadly riot heard emotional testimony from four police officers who tried to defend the Capitol when the mob of Trump supporters stormed the building.
At least nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 died during or after the rioting, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who collapsed after he was sprayed by rioters with a chemical irritant. Four other police officers have died by suicide, including two Metropolitan Police officers who were found dead within the past month.
Police shot and killed a woman, Ashli Babbitt, who was part of a group of people trying to beat down the doors of the House chamber. Three other Trump supporters who died had suffered medical emergencies.
More than 560 people have been charged with federal crimes, and authorities are still searching for hundreds more. At least 165 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or Capitol employees, including more than 50 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer, the Justice Department said in July.
Fairlamb and Thompson are at least the 32nd and 33rd defendants to plead guilty. Most of the others have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, including parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. -
2021-08-07 at 3:34 PM UTC
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2021-08-07 at 5:56 PM UTC
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2021-08-08 at 4:47 AM UTCCNN Drops 68% In Prime Time
Buh, bye!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2021/06/29/cnn-drops-68-in-prime-as-fox-news-channel-crushes-competition-in-2q-cable-news-ratings/ -
2021-08-08 at 8:47 AM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-08-08 at 10:48 AM UTCThe reason this retard election FRAUD is going nowhere and seems like a disinfo smear campaign to make people look retarded is because it is. The "right wing" is just a bunch of self hating niggers that think YEAH MAN THIS ELECTION WAS TOTALLY STOLEN FROM US
this is the new face of /pol/
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2021-08-08 at 5:16 PM UTCMake
America
Great
Again by killing all the Republican lying lawyers
CNN
The rule of law is pushing back against Trump's big lie
Opinion by Norman Eisen and Joanna Lydgate
For all those alarmed by the assaults on democracy in the 2020 election cycle and its aftermath, it will come as a great relief that the rule of law is pushing back.
The latest example is a federal judge in Colorado who sanctioned two lawyers for "echoing and repeating election-rigging conspiracy theories" and noted that those allegations "are extraordinarily serious, and if accepted as true by large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made." This decision is important in its own right. It could also have broader implications for those who continue to baselessly spread the "big lie" -- including former President Donald Trump himself.
US Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter's decision to sanction the lawyers on Tuesday stemmed from a lawsuit they filed in December, which pulled from the same playbook as the 60-some failed cases that Trump and his allies used to try to advance the "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
In this particular matter, the two attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of all registered voters in the United States, falsely claiming that officials in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had engaged in a "vast conspiracy" with tech companies to interfere with the election. The plaintiffs asked a federal court in Colorado to declare the "the actions of multiple state legislatures, municipalities and state courts in the conduct of the 2020 election" as "legal nullities," and sought a total of $160 billion in damages. The court, like so many others around the country dealing with similar cases, dismissed the suit on numerous grounds and rejected these bizarre claims of election fraud.
Judge Neureiter has now issued sanctions against the two lawyers, ordering them to pay the defendants' legal fees. In issuing the sanctions, Neureiter cited a powerful opinion from Judge Stephanos Bibas (a Trump appointee) when he rejected a similar effort by the former president's campaign to halt the certification of Pennsylvania's election results in November 2020, writing, "Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
Here's why this case is so important: it reminds us that democracy is not defenseless. The body politic has an immune system, and it is the rule of law. The legal system will fight back against baseless claims of election fraud, and our democracy will not be undermined without a serious fight. As Neureiter makes clear, a law license comes with many privileges, but along with that privilege comes responsibility, specifically "the sworn obligation of every lawyer ... not to abuse that privilege by making factual allegations without first conducting a reasonable inquiry into the validity of those allegations." And that responsibility, we would argue, is only heightened when making allegations that strike at the very heart of our democracy.
Norman L. Eisen wearing glasses and looking at the camera: Norman Eisen© Paul Morigi Norman Eisen
The decision matters not just for the two attorneys in Colorado, who will hopefully think twice before filing another suit without independently investigating the facts. It is also sends an important message to other attorneys and their clients, along with the public at-large. As the court explained, "Sanctions are required to deter the filing of frivolous, politically motivated lawsuits such as this in the future."
This decision isn't the only one of its kind. In March, the Arizona Republican Party and its lawyers were ordered by the court to pay the secretary of state more than $18,000 in attorney fees after a judge deemed the lawsuit, which contested the results of the election, groundless and lacking in good faith.
After a Minneapolis attorney filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in at least five states, US District Court Judge James Boasberg found that it was so flawed the attorney should be referred to the Committee on Grievances for possible disciplinary action. Boasberg noted that, "when any counsel seeks to target processes at the heart of our democracy, the Committee may well conclude that they are required to act with far more diligence and good faith than existed here."
Then there is Rudy Giuliani. The personal attorney for Trump is reportedly "close to broke" after being suspended from practicing law in New York state by an appellate court for making "demonstrably false and misleading statements" about the 2020 election. His law license has also been suspended in Washington, DC.
And the list goes on and on.
Attorneys will continue to be held accountable by the rule of the law -- along with the rest of the legal profession, but what about the clients who inspired them and sought their services? Former President Donald Trump repeated lies that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen," which led to the deadly attack against the United States Capitol on January 6. He incited his followers in the months preceding January 6-- and at the infamous rally earlier that very day.
Trump should be concerned about the sanctions in Colorado because it is a reminder that the legal system has its eye on him -- and others who have baselessly spread his election lies. He's also personally at risk of civil liability in a series of federal lawsuits against him and others, as the organization we help lead, the States United Democracy Center, explained in a recent amicus brief in those cases.
And Trump could also face potential criminal investigation for his post-election shenanigans, both federally and at the hands of prosecutors in places like Georgia. There, the intrepid Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating his alleged solicitation of state officials to disregard legitimate election results. In the meantime, Trump continues to peddle his electoral falsehoods, demonstrating a lack of remorse that is relevant in civil and criminal proceedings alike.
There seems to be no shame among those who continue to purvey the election lie -- even at the risk of court punishment. This week's Colorado decision is the latest step in imposing consequences upon those who undermine our democracy. The justice system must remain committed to making sure they are not allowed to continue. From what we've seen, they certainly won't stop on their own. Fortunately, the rule of law is proving to be on the side of accountability. -
2021-08-08 at 7:36 PM UTCMake
All cheating, lying, deceptive, sneaky, worthless Republicans
Give back
All of the money they stole
Rolling Stone
Trump and GOP’s Shady Fundraising Tactics Lead to Millions of Donor Refunds This Year
Peter Wade
One of former president Trump’s biggest campaign expenses this year has been refunding donors who were duped into making multiple increasing donations. Trump and the Republican Party have returned $12.8 million to donors in the first half of 2021, according to newly released federal records.
The New York Times reported that the refunds account for approximately 20 percent of Trump’s total fundraising so far this year. The refunds are the result of shady campaign tactics where donors unwittingly agreed to make recurring donations thanks to a pre-checked box on the donation form that set up weekly or monthly automatic payments. Another pre-checked box signed donors up for a “money bomb,” which doubled their contribution. Both boxes were accompanied by tiny text that was worded in a confusing way, making it more likely donors left them checked without understanding what they were agreeing to.
Trump resorted to these tactics, known as “dark pattern design,” that are set up to intentionally deceive the user starting in September 2020, when it was becoming clear he was falling behind then-candidate Joe Biden.
The 2021 refunds only add to the total number of reimbursements the campaign and party have had to give back. In the last two months of 2020, Trump and the Republican National Committee gave back $64.3 million to online donors.
In response, Trump spokesperson Jason Miller told the Times, “Our campaign was built by the hardworking men and women of America, and cherishing their investments was paramount to anything else we did.”
While dark pattern design is relatively common, the way Trump and the Republicans used it was exceptional, experts have said. Biden’s campaign also issued donor refunds, but according to the Times, it was much less common. While the Biden campaign’s refund rate was 2.2 percent, Trump’s was nearly five times higher at 10.7 percent, federal records indicate.
“I’ve never seen anyone do what the Trump campaign just did,” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, told Business Insider of the tactics. He went on to describe it as “a complete rip-off.”
“They knew exactly what they were doing,” he said. “They knew they were tricking people into signing up for what they thought was one contribution when they were really signing up for multiple contributions. Then when they got caught, they sent the money back. It’s like if a bank robber got caught and said, ‘Oh, well, I gave the money back.'” -
2021-08-08 at 8:33 PM UTCeveryone report that commie for cluttering up the thread with stupid misinformation
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2021-08-08 at 8:57 PM UTC
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2021-08-08 at 9:14 PM UTCPost 8900 in MY thread.
Pretty good, eh (in my best Canadian)?
