Try the new improved McNews in edible bytes of new, improved corruptions
Two corrections I made to the previous newsletter: Trump spent around half a million on hush money and other expenses, not half a billion. And his affair was one month, not nearly a year. I regret those errors.
Recommended reads: Some background on Jack Smith. It should be obvious that he’s a very serious prosecutor with a remarkable degree of success. He recommended the dismissal of highly visible investigations into Senator John Ensign and Representatives Tom Delay, Jerry Lewis and Tom Mollohan (3 Republicans and a Democrat), so it’s clear his judgments aren’t political, they’re practical. If insufficient evidence exists to indict and prosecute, that’s the end of it. If the evidence indicates crimes have occurred and can be proven, he’ll indict.
His initial review of evidence gathered prior to being given the gig occurred in the Netherlands while he was recovering from a fractured leg, last November. So he hasn’t been on the case that long and it appears he’s been very successful at obtaining judicial decisions ordering Trump’s staff, appointees and Vice President to appear and testify before multiple grand juries, typically getting dismissals of claims like executive privilege.
And it sounds like Trump’s efforts at coverup are intricate and expansive webs of deceit and additional crimes occur doing the coverups…. akin to pulling one piece of yarn till the entire sweater unravels.
As for the NY judge currently in charge of the NY trial of Trump, there’s this:
Standard mob family stuff. Exactly why I dubbed him The Fraudfather in his first year in office.
And why he’ll face a gag order before this year is out.
Though former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted then pardoned by Trump, his tax evasion efforts didn’t disappear. A month ago, he reached a settlement with the DOJ, paying $3.1 million for that.
Also about 10 days ago, a far right extremist who came up with a scheme to suppress Clinton voters in 2016 was convicted of conspiring to do so and could face up to 10 years in prison in his sentencing. It’s sccheduled for August, allowing lots of time for appeals.
Why is it that right wing conservatives are granted so much time but working class folks go directly to jail/do not pass Go? Funny how the aggrieved rightwing extremists get to do that.
Like how long will Steve Bannon remain free after his sentence for contempt of Congress?
From an article for CBS News by Jane Pauley, it's clear that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is recovering nicely from his bout of depression.
To colleagues, he'd seemed lost, even at his swearing-in. Later, Dr. David Williamson recognized major depression. A neuropsychiatrist, Williamson has been treating Fetterman. "He had markedly reduced motivation and drive," Williamson said. "The RPM in the brain, how fast you think and how clearly you think, is very substantially degraded when patients get depressed."
"It's reversible?" asked Pauley.
"It's certainly reversible, yes."
Hearing that makes me happy, not just for John, his family and constituents, but for others I know who’ve dealt with depression, including me.
Meanwhile, a major global environmental initiative that was stalled for two decades finally got approved:
For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas — nearly half the planet's surface — concluding two weeks of talks in New York.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept.
An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty was reached late Saturday.
"We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans," said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, "protecting this half of earth's surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet."
The Chief of Staff of former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) was facing wire fraud and embezzlement charges due to alleged financial improprieties as the head of a Maryland quasi-public agency and failed to show for his court date in mid-March. After three weeks on the lam, he was located near Knoxville Tennessee by the FBI three days ago. A confrontation occurred and he died.
Also in Maryland, after a four year investigation, the state AG released a report yesterday indicating the Baltimore Archdiocese had covered up 60 years of child sexual abuse that involved more than 600 known victims.
In total, the state found, more than "600 children are known to have been abused by the 156 people included in this Report, but the number is likely far higher."
The report said certain parishes were bases of multiple abusers, such as St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, where, it said, 11 child abusers lived and worked from 1964 to 2004.
The sexual abuse was so pervasive that it wasn't uncommon for more than one adult to target a young victim, according to the report.
"Young people in some parishes were preyed upon by multiple abusers over decades, and clergy used the power and authority of the ministry to exploit the trust of the children and families in their charge," Brown found.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of Catholic clergy are tarnished unfairly whenever the church’s hierarchy fails to act to protect the kids and prosecute the criminals.
Also, for those keeping score at home, scandals like this one and the one that rocked the Baptist church not long ago indicate thousands of children have been sexually abused. And reports of elected officials convicted of sex crimes against children in recent years have been - by far - Republicans. I’ve read dozens of reports on elected Republicans convicted of pedophilia and child porn crimes and only 5 or 6 reports of elected Democrats.
So when we read of hundreds or thousands of kids sexually abused by Baptist or Catholic clergy? Where’s the outrage of Marjorie Taylor Greene or the other GOP conspiracy promoters? Nowhere. Nada. Zip.
They really don’t give a shit at all about kids. Their words are only for promoting lies.
In the wake of the Christian school shooting in Nashville, thousands of students marched on the Capitol to protest its inaction on school safety and three elected Democrats joined the protest, disrupting the ordinary procedures of the legislative body to criticize their Republican colleagues for failing to take action to prevent future deaths. Afterward, the GOP members took the unprecedented step of voting the three out of office, effectively cancelling the will of the voters that elected the trio. Now a special election will occur. All three plan to run for the same positions and are drawing support from all over the country. If they win, they can’t be removed a second time for the same reason, per the state’s constitution.
Idaho’s new law means a teenager forced to have sex with an abusive parent can’t go anywhere to get an abortion without that parent’s consent.
It also means pregnant women who wish to give birth may have to leave the state to find medical care since Idaho’s draconian laws are causing medical providers to leave the state.
And while Trump’s lies and crimes and his posturing was grabbing the spotlight over the last 10 days, some big news might have escaped your attention like the report that Ginni Thomas’ conservative activist group received $600,000 in secret donations. It’s a must read because this group which fights something they label as ‘cultural Marxism’ which has nothing to do with Karl Marx at all. It’s just gobbledy gookspeak that means: we support ‘conservative values’ without any definition of what those are either.
So while US democracy is under fire by Republicans seeking to destroy faith in all elections and in government, trying to convince us that the DMV clerks and IRS agents and the clerks who mailed out pandemic checks to us all are part of a mythical Deep State composed of pedophiles and cannibals and commies or something, the SCOTUS contains some members who no longer respect ethics rules or the law itself. They answer to secretive mega-wealthy funders like Leonard Leo and - as this new report released today shows - Harlan Crow. Who lavishes expensive gifts on Clarence & Ginni Thomas.
”The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.”
Also a must read. Because while Trump indictments await in the queue for Donald Trump, everyone knows multiple appeals will be made to the SCOTUS by Trump’s lawyers in the next 2 years. And Thomas’ vote may already have been bought and paid for.
We’re pretty much in deep shit in this country while it’s under siege by Republicans bearing secret donations, fake originalism arguments, judges no longer neutral with giant political axes to grind, liars & their lying lawyer brigades trying to disrupt all faith in our election systems…. plus a mainstream media trying to treat this all like an ordinary political disagreement.
With Russia, China, North Korea and Iran looking for openings to fuck with our elections and economy further.
It’s not longer SNAFU but SAUFU: Situation Abnormal All Fucked Up.
Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?