"Trump’s post-presidency will be cluttered with potentially serious legal battles; Among Democrats, there is a palpable desire to pursue the harsh accountability for Trump that many feel he has avoided by virtue of his office" by Shayna Jacobs The Washington Post, November 22, 2020
NEW YORK — President Trump’s ongoing court battles are unlikely to pose significant legal jeopardy for him before he leaves office, but the swirl of criminal investigations and civil complaints stemming from his business activities and personal conduct could prove more serious once he departs, specialists say.
Among Democrats, there is a palpable desire to pursue the harsh accountability for Trump that many feel he has avoided by virtue of his office, but his successor, President-elect Joe Biden, reportedly has little appetite for doing so, having signaled to advisers that unleashing the federal government to settle scores would undermine his goal of unifying the country.
It's a time honored tradition: you don't charge the outgoing war criminal. It happened with Obama (to heal!), and it happened under Trump (exposing him as a fraud).
Whoever assumes the oath of office on January 20, the rank-rot corruption of the ruling cla$$ political puppets will again remained unaddressed as this country sinks into the globali$t communi$t sewer over the next four years.
A spokesman for Biden’s transition team declined to comment but pointed to statements Biden made previously affirming that he would not interfere with a Justice Department investigation into Trump or pardon his predecessor. “It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct a prosecution or decide to drop a case,” Biden told MSNBC in an interview in May. “It’s a dereliction of duty.”
Lawyers for Trump did not respond to requests for comment. Across the breadth of cases in which he's been forced to defend himself or protect his interests, though, they have vigorously disputed allegations of wrongdoing while upending the proceedings by seeking delays and making other time-consuming requests.
As it stands, Trump faces several lawsuits and at least two active investigations by state or local authorities in New York alone. The city was the president’s longtime home before he designated Florida as his permanent residence, and it remains the Trump Organization’s base of operations.
Trump’s lawyers are likely to be most focused on minimizing the risk of criminal prosecution, which he could attempt to achieve on his own at the federal level by pre-emptively pardoning himself, as he has mused in the past, and members of his inner circle. There is no consensus among constitutional law experts on whether a president can pardon himself — and importantly, any pardons would not be binding on state and local authorities, whom specialists view as his biggest threat.....
(Blog editor just shakes his head at the charade)
--more--"
Down below was the battle for the Republican Party (blog author elicits guffaws, as if it matters):
"How Trump hopes to use party machinery to retain control of the GOP; Ronna McDaniel, Trump’s hand-picked chairwoman, has secured the president’s support for her reelection to another term in January, when the party is expected to gather for its winter meeting" by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman New York Times, November 22, 2020
As President Trump brazenly seeks to delay the certification of the election in hopes of overturning his defeat, he is also mounting a less high-profile but similarly audacious bid to keep control of the Republican National Committee even after he leaves office.
He won by a landslide in a fair election, which is why the election machine software crashed from having to flip so many votes and why an unprecedented overnight shutdown was called as Democrats rushed to flood districts they controlled with paper ballots.
Hey, I've given up on the New York Times to report anything remotely resembling the truth and again, in the grand scheme of this thing it's an intra-mural ba$ketball game and of no importance.
Ronna McDaniel, Trump’s hand-picked chair, has secured the president’s support for her reelection to another term in January, when the party is expected to gather for its winter meeting, but her intention to run with Trump’s blessing has incited a behind-the-scenes proxy battle, dividing Republicans between those who believe the national party should not be a political subsidiary of the outgoing president and others happy for Trump to remain in control of it.
Isn't that for voters to decide?
While many Republicans are hesitant to openly criticize their president at a moment when he is refusing to admit he has lost, the debate crystallizes the larger question about the party’s identity and whether it will operate as a vessel for Trump’s ambitions to run again in four years.
Because he didn't lose, but he's going to have to take it like a gentleman and not complain about getting screwed while our electoral processes becomes a farce, right?
On the other hand, it would be nice to see a shadow government carping at the illegitimate criminal usurpers that would then occupy the office just as we have had the last four years; however, where does that get us in the end?
Trump will have no political infrastructure once he leaves office except for a political action committee he recently formed, and absent a formal campaign, he is hoping to lean on the RNC to effectively give him one, people familiar with his thinking said.
Then he is more of an idiot than I thought. They don't want him, and never did!
The continuing influence of Trump could also have implications for some of the national committee’s most critical assets: Its voter data and donor lists contain thousands of names of contributors and detailed information about supporters. The voter data in particular is a focus of attention, after distrust arose between the committee and the Trump campaign over the data’s use in the final months of the campaign.
Don't let the Democrats get ahold of that!
While the committee and the Trump campaign are in the process of untangling joint agreements over access to that information, Trump sees control of the lists that he helped build over the past four years as a way to keep a grip on power — and to neutralize potential challengers for supremacy over the party, according to Republicans close to the White House.
Let it go, will you, NYT?
This power play is alarming a number of RNC members, party strategists, and former committee aides, who are highly uneasy about ceding control of the committee to a potential candidate in 2024, a step that they fear would shatter the party’s longstanding commitment to neutrality in nominating contests.“ Trump always wants to use other people’s money,” said former representative Barbara Comstock, a Northern Virginia Republican who lost her reelection in 2018 thanks to the suburban anti-Trump wave that also felled the president this month.
No mention of Republicans gaining seats in the House this time, as a fallen president somehow had coattails that reached into the House.
The RNC, the Trump campaign, and related committees raised more than $1 billion this cycle.
Comstock — while allowing that “nobody dislikes Ronna” — said the committee should not be a piggy bank for the president’s political endeavors.
Traditionally, the chairs of the national committees of both parties have relinquished control when the other party takes the White House, yet as with so many other aspects of his presidency, Trump has little regard for precedent, and many of his lieutenants, particularly those eyeing their own political future, are happy to defend him, but what is troubling to some Republicans is the risk that Trump will try to bend the national party to his will by exacting retribution on those lawmakers who have not pledged total fealty to him.
The dismay among Republicans that Trump is trying to seize control of the party machinery has prompted McDaniel to try to reassure both camps, the Trump die-hards and those Republicans who want the committee to remain independent.
Isn't that for voters to decide, and didn't they essentially make their intention known on election day no matter what the adduction and awarding of the office?
This is disgusting shit, and I think you can see for yourself why I will soon be abandoning this blog. My pre$$ is total crap, on par with Pravda.
Senior Republican officials close to McDaniel said they were already seeking new arrangements between the RNC and the Trump campaign over the donor and data lists, which would provide Trump with copies of certain lists but also leave them available to other candidates through the committee. Beyond that, these Republicans said, there are limits to how influential the RNC can be in party primaries.
McDaniel, a Michigan native, has a gilded political pedigree. She is the niece of Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and the granddaughter of George Romney, a three-term Michigan governor. She earned Trump’s trust in part by urging him to make trips to her home state during the 2016 campaign, which he credits with helping him win there.
Not this time though, huh?
She must be the Black sheep of the family.
She has told people she does not intend to seek another term after 2022, one person briefed on the discussions said, a move that could ensure her exit before the 2024 presidential cycle gets underway in earnest.
Who gives a f**k about that?
We have an existential crisis barreling at us at warp speed, (Trump's general says 24 hours, Slaoui says 48 hours, Merry Locked Down Xmas!) and no one is blowing the whistle on the nefarious plan behind the lockdowns and everything else based on this damnable COVID lie.
No one in ma$$ media, or government anyway, God damn them all.
Notably, Trump has gained even more influence over the committee in the past two years because two of the president’s top campaign aides, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, worked to install Trump supporters in state-level party posts; it was part of a preemptive effort in 2019 to head off the risk of a primary challenge this year.
“At the end of the day, this is the president’s party, and this will continue to be the president’s party,” said Florida state Senator Joe Gruters, chair of the Republican Party of Florida. “He will have an oversized role no matter what happens.”
Even if he is in jail?
--more--"
The Times attitude throughout that article is a sense on entitlement as if they and the Never-Trumpers were the rightful owners of the party, and it is sickening.
Related:
That's what top aides tell Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Compost.
That report by former Globers Annie Linskey and Matt Viser of the Washington Compost says "President-elect Joe Biden is planning to announce that he has selected Antony Blinken, one of his closest and longest-serving foreign-policy advisers, as secretary of state, and is also planning to announce Linda Thomas-Greenfield as his nominee for ambassador to the United Nations."
Says he will take it if offered.
The Associated Press says that "on its way out the door the Trump administration is enacting new rules, regulations, and orders that it hopes will box in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration on numerous foreign policy matters, yet the push may not work as many of these decisions can be withdrawn or significantly amended by the incoming president."
Also see:
That article read nearly the same as yesterday.
This is thankfully not France, where he will be put to death like a mink.
That's the New York Times fomenting rebellion again.
I'm told "Chinese authorities are testing millions of people, imposing lockdowns, and shutting down schools after multiple locally transmitted coronavirus cases were discovered in three cities across the country last week," even though the mass testing at the airport caused chaos.
Just getting ready for the Asian war Biden will wage.
"The United States has formally withdrawn from the Treaty on Open Skies, a decades-old pact meant to reduce the chances of an accidental war by allowing mutual reconnaissance flights by parties to the 34-nation agreement. The exit comes six months after President Trump first announced his intention to withdraw, saying Russia has been violating the pact. “Today marks six months since the United States submitted our notice of withdrawal from the Treaty on Open Skies,” White House national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said in a statement. “We are now no longer a party to this treaty that Russia flagrantly violated for years.” O’Brien said Trump has “never ceased to put America first by withdrawing us from outdated treaties and agreements that have benefited our adversaries at the expense of our national security.” Russia has denied violating the treaty and earlier this year chided the move as merely the latest abandonment by the Trump administration of major arms-control agreements. The move risks sowing further divisions between the United States and European allies, some of which called on the administration to stay in the pact despite concerns about Russia. In a statement in May, Joe Biden said that in announcing the intention to withdraw, Trump “doubled down on his short-sighted policy of going it alone and abandoning American leadership. I supported the Open Skies Treaty as a Senator, because I understood that the United States and our allies would benefit from being able to observe — on short notice — what Russia and other countries in Europe were doing with their military forces,” his May statement added."
I'm sure there will be fighting in Africa:
"Fears of attacks by extremists prevented voting in many parts of Burkina Faso on Sunday, as the country went to the polls for presidential and legislative elections marred by ongoing violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Election and local government officials told The Associated Press that certain polling stations in the Center North, Sahel and East regions that were expected to open had not, and those that did had to close early because of the fear of attacks....."
Governments better be careful our they will all end up like Guatemala:
"Guatemala’s government called fires set by protesters at Congress “terrorist acts” while the Inter-American Human Rights Commission on Sunday condemned what it called an “excessive use of force” by police against demonstrators opposed to a new budget that slashes social spending. Protesters broke into the Congress building and set one office afire on Saturday, and tossed rocks at police. Flames poured out of the building’s neoclassical facade. Police used tear gas and nightsticks to push demonstrators back, attacking not only about 1,000 demonstrators in front of Congress but also a much larger protest in front of the country’s National Palace. Some protesters also damaged bus stations. Dozens of people were arrested but many were later ordered released. The commission wrote in its Twitter account that it “condemns the excessive use of force by authorities against demonstrators” but also asked for an investigation into “the acts of vandalism against Congress, after which State agents indiscriminately suppressed the protest.” It said governments “must respect peaceful demonstration,” but when faced with violence, they “must identify persons — protesters or third parties — who risk rights or infringe State property. ” The protests were part of growing demonstrations against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a budget that cut educational and health spending. Lawmakers approved $65,000 to pay for meals for themselves, but cut funding for coronavirus patients and human rights agencies. About 10,000 demonstrated protested in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City against corruption and the budget, which protesters say was negotiated and passed by legislators in secret while the Central American country was distracted by the fallout of back-to-back Hurricanes Eta and Iota as well as the COVID-19 pandemic....."
Yes, governments will soon claim all dissent is terrorism!
Thanks, ANTIFA!
Either that, or they will holler Nazi at you:
"A young woman who compared her struggle against German government measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus to that of a student executed in 1943 for resisting the Nazis sparked ridicule and outrage for downplaying the Holocaust. A video of the woman giving a speech at a protest of several hundred people in Hanover on Saturday quickly went viral. Hundreds of people pointed out that unlike Sophie Scholl, who founded the White Rose resistance in Munich, the woman at the protest was allowed to speak her mind freely without facing repercussions. The speech was the latest instance of protesters or conspiracy theorists opposing the coronavirus measures equating the government’s efforts to save lives to the Nazis’ oppression of Jewish people. As the German government has further restricted public life in an effort to tamp down a surge in the number of infections since the middle of October, protests have grown larger, bolder and more violent. From the outset, they have been backed by neo-Nazis and members of far-right groups. The Hanover video also shows that, after the woman spoke of Sophie Scholl at Saturday’s protest, a man in an orange vest approached the stage, saying he had been working as a security guard but was quitting, calling her statement “idiotic” and a “belittlement of the Holocaust.”
Those charges of antisemite and conspiracy theorist charge have been soooooo played they have become meaningless.
Sorry.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
That was the Globe's front-page lead, of course, and they cite Kushner enemy Chris Christie and Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey in my print.
Meanwhile, the local U.S. DA says there were no significant voting issues found in Massachusetts, and that it looks like Biden won.
The Trump ship is sinking as the Globe wonders if a Biden presidency help bring tourists back:
"Aleksandar Tomic, associate dean for strategy, innovation, and technology at Boston College, said the strength of the dollar against foreign currencies, not necessarily anti-immigrant rhetoric, may have been a factor in keeping international leisure travelers from planning their pre-COVID-19 travels here, but not everyone is letting Trump off the hook so easily for the sagging state of tourism to the United States during his first three years in office. Take Robert R. Johnson, a professor at the Heider College of Business at Creighton University in Omaha. He believes that Trump’s America-first, isolationist message drove away tourists and stomped on a lot of longstanding goodwill. “Without question, the inauguration of Biden will positively impact inbound US tourism,” he said. “One need look no further than the US higher educational system for a parallel with US tourism. Colleges and universities are reporting dramatic increases in interest from international students in light of the Biden-Harris victory. The same shift will take place in a post-COVID world with respect to US tourism. There is a pent-up demand on two fronts — health and atmosphere. With both likely to improve by the second half of 2021, we could witness a boon in US tourism, providing a boost to the US economy.” Experts say the election of Harris as the country’s first Black, South Asian, and female vice president also sends a positive message to the world....."
It will be from all the hot air coming from the White House pre$$ office.
"Advisers to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. are planning for the increasing likelihood that the United States economy is headed for a “double-dip” recession early next year. They are pushing for Democratic leaders in Congress to reach a quick stimulus deal with Senate Republicans, even if it falls short of the larger package Democrats have been seeking, according to people familiar with the discussions. Until now, Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, have insisted that Republicans agree to a spending bill of $2 trillion or more, while Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, wants a much smaller package. The resulting impasse has threatened to delay additional economic aid until after Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, but top Democrats remain publicly adamant that Republicans need to move closer to their opening offer of $2.4 trillion. The economy returned to growth in the second half of this year after falling into a sharp and rapid recession, but sluggish retail sales growth in October, rising claims for unemployment insurance last week, and a multiweek decline in employment and hours worked at small businesses nationwide have increased the odds that the economy could tip back into recession."
What the above proves is Pelosi held the people of this country hostage to hurt Trump -- which is why she lost seats and why he won in an overwhelming landslide!
"Biden’s team is also considering a range of other policy options for fighting a renewed downturn and the prospect of rising unemployment when he takes office, according to the people familiar with his plans. Some of them, like a sweeping spending bill that includes all or large parts of his campaign proposals for infrastructure, could depend on Democrats winning Senate control in two special elections in Georgia in January. Others would not require Congress. Biden’s aides have weighed having the president-elect announce in the coming weeks that he will sign executive orders on his first day in office extending moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures, and deferrals of some student loan payments that are set to expire at the end of the year, the people familiar with the discussions said.
No offense, but that looks like the actions of a DICTATOR, and if the Democrats steal both those Senate seats God help us all!
He could also announce that he will sign an order providing a more gradual schedule for repayment of payroll taxes that some employers, including the federal government, had deferred into 2021 under an executive order issued by President Trump. Such orders could lessen or avoid an economic cliff of expiring protections for renters, homeowners and some borrowers, which experts fear could hasten an economic contraction.
Already taking money out of your pocket!
The Biden team is also exploring how to circumvent a last-minute move by the Trump administration to end Federal Reserve lending programs that have helped stabilize markets by requiring the central bank to return hundreds of billions of dollars to the Treasury Department, according to the people familiar with the discussions. One possibility would be for Biden’s Treasury to reissue that money to the Fed under new parameters meant to encourage more aid to small and medium-sized businesses than previously supplied, but the most important measure could be quick congressional approval of a stimulus bill. “There needs to be emergency assistance and aid during the lame-duck session to help families, to help small business,” Jen Psaki, a Biden transition aide, said on Friday before a meeting with Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Pelosi and Schumer. “There’s no more room for delay, and we need to move forward as quickly as possible.”
Gotta get more trillions to Wall Street!
A readout from the meeting said Biden and the other Democrats “agreed that Congress needed to pass a bipartisan emergency aid package in the lame-duck session” but did not indicate what size package was warranted. “The pandemic is raging, and it’s starting to do damage again,” said Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Economists close to Biden and his campaign are circulating a spreadsheet containing new projections from Zandi, which predict that the economy will begin to shrink again in the first half of next year unless lawmakers break a prolonged impasse in stimulus talks. Such a reversal would result in what economists call a double-dip recession, even as pharmaceutical companies prepare to distribute Covid-19 vaccines that lawmakers and economists hope will curb the pandemic and jolt the economy back toward rapid growth late next year or in 2022.
Now it's 2022, the fuckers!
The Biden lockdowns will cause the recession, and they will blame Trump!
Companies would shed 3 million jobs in the first half of 2021, Zandi projected, and the unemployment rate would climb from its current rate of 6.9 percent back to nearly 10 percent. Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who was part of Biden’s inner circle of economic aides in the campaign, said that “speed, size and composition are all important” in a stimulus agreement, “but speed is especially important.”
Yeah, now that the election is over and Trump can't take credit speed is important!
What a bunch of disgusting scum are Democrats!
A dispute over the size of the package has stalled talks for months. Democrats have rejected multiple Senate Republican proposals — the latest at about $500 billion — as insufficient to address the economy’s needs, particularly because they do not include money for state and local governments to plug budget holes and avoid public-sector layoffs. Zandi said that such a package “maybe barely gets you through to a vaccine” but risks running out when the economy still needs help.
The pre$$ dare not call it obstruction like they would were Republicans blocking it!
Several Republicans have expressed wariness about spending much more, revisiting concerns about the national debt and insisting that the economy is improving. The legislative window before the start of the next Congress in January is quickly tightening, leaving many skeptical that a stimulus package could be passed before the end of the year. Most of the discussion around spending has centered on avoiding a government shutdown and approving the necessary dozen annual spending bills.
They once again CARE MORE ABOUT THEMSELVES and the CORPORATE HANDOUTS than they do YOU, citizen!
Economists are increasingly stressing the need for lawmakers to act quickly, even if that means reaching agreement on smaller package. A bipartisan group convened by the Aspen Institute’s Economic Strategy Group — including former Treasury secretaries under Democratic and Republican administrations — urged lawmakers on Thursday to approve a package that includes aid to small businesses, individuals and state and local governments, saying the economy “cannot wait until 2021” for relief. “What I’m really worried about is the millions of people who are going to be without food or without a home during the winter,” said Melissa S. Kearney, the economist who directs the strategy group. “That level of individual suffering, really, to me, should be everyone’s priority and move them past their political differences.”
How about that list of members of the A$pen Group, huh?
Yeah, they are worried about you not having food or a home after they pushed the whole COVID fraud and subsequent lockdowns and shutdowns that brought you to that state.
Related:
Oh, yeah?
Like what?
At least the Bo$ton Globe is on your side though, right?
