Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Watergate prosecutor explains why Trump has no hope of claiming executive privilege

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman spoke to CNN's Jim Acosta on Sunday to explain why former President Donald Trump doesn't have any hope of claiming executive privilege for information about the Jan. 6 attack.

Ackerman did acknowledge, however, that because Trump has all of the legal options available to him, he'll likely gum up the Jan. 6 committee in Congress.

"The problem is that both of those issues are big losers for him," Ackerman explained why he doesn't think it'll be successful. "One is the fact that of course, the committee has the right to get those records. The interest of the committee in terms of getting to the bottom of the insurrection on Jan. 6th is absolutely paramount. And you couldn't come up with a better rationale. And the idea that executive privilege applies is nonsense. You cannot exert executive privilege to hide and cover up your involvement in an effort to overthrow the government and basically try and undermine a key element of our Constitution that allows for the counting of the electoral college votes."

Ackerman would know, it was the Nixon v. Administrator of General Services ruling where the Supreme Court said that any criminal cases can't be stopped by declaring executive privilege.

"Now, the problem with all that is it's got to be decided by a district court judge," said Ackerman. "It'll be decided against Donald Trump. He'll then appeal it to the D.C. Appeals Court, which should pretty quickly, you know, basically uphold the District Court. And then it'll go to the Supreme Court, which is, I think, very unlikely that they will ever look at this. But, again, it will take some time. This is not going to happen in a matter of days. And maybe not in a matter of weeks."

Watch the discussion below:

[Rick Plant]

20 state AGs file suit over Dejoy plan to sabotage USPS

Twenty state Attorneys General on Friday filed a joint complaint in an effort to block changes to the U.S. Postal Service enacted last week by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and which critics warn are an overt effort to cripple the mail service from within by slowing delivery times while also increasing the cost to consumers.

The official complaint filed by the 20 AGs is directed at the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which is charged with providing independent oversight of the USPS, but which the suit alleges betrayed its mandate by allowing the controversial plan put forth by DeJoy to move into implementation on October 1 without proper review.

According to a statement from the office of Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson:

The complaint details DeJoy's failure to follow federal law in making harmful Postal Service changes. Ferguson asserts these major Postal Service changes, which range from eliminating working hours, slowing delivery of first-class mail and removing equipment, threaten the timely delivery of mail to millions of Americans who rely on the Postal Service for delivery of everything from medical prescriptions to ballots.

"Millions of Americans depend on the mail every day to receive their prescriptions, pay bills, receive Social Security checks, send rent payments and more," Ferguson said in the statement. "One political appointee does not get to decide the fate of the Postal Service. There is a process that demands accountability from the American public for a reason—and I will fight to ensure the public gets a say."

In addition to Washington, the complaint was backed by the Attorneys General of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, and Rhode Island.

The AG's suit comes amid a relentless barage of criticism aimed at DeJoy and demands for his ouster, as well ire aimed at the Postal Service Board of Governors, for putting forth a plan that experts on the USPS say is paving the pathway for the beloved agency's demise.

As Christoper S. Shaw, author of the the book First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams last week, "While previous postmasters generals sought faster mail delivery, DeJoy stands out for his wish to make it slower."

As Shaw's piece notes:

DeJoy claims that lowering service standards offers an outstanding opportunity to cut costs because hauling mail overland on trucks will prove cheaper than using air transportation. Lost in this short-term calculus is the cost to American citizens and to the health of the Postal Service in the long run. Degrading standards of service and discarding competitive advantages is not a formula for long-term relevance.

In response to the complaint, the USPS claimed the filing "has no legal or factual merit" and said "the Postal Service intends to move to dismiss it pursuant to the rules" of the PRC process.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, however, said in a statement that the changes made by DeJoy "destroy the timely mail service that people depend on for medications, bill payments, and business operations in rural parts" of his state. According to Stein's office:

The 10-year plan would undermine the Postal Service, including changes that would enact slower service standards for first-class mail and other packages, change the location of post offices, and adjust rates. The plan would slow down USPS standard delivery for 30 percent of mail from three days to five days, increase the price of each piece of mail by six to nine percent, and put these changes in place without doing anything to effectively address the larger Postal Service budget deficit.

The Postal Regulatory Commission is an independent federal agency that has oversight over the Postal Service's operations. Federal law requires the Postal Service to go to the Commission whenever it makes a change to postal services that will affect the entire country. The attorneys general contend that DeJoy failed to do so, and without the proper review, DeJoy's plan could lead to future problems with mail delivery. The attorneys general are requesting that the Commission order the Postal Service to request a review of the full extent of the ten-year plan, affording the States and the public an opportunity to provide comment.

"The Postal Service," said Stein, "is an essential government service, and it cannot restructure without considering how those changes will affect millions of Americans."

https://www.rawstory.com/louis-dejoy-2655265355/

[Rick Plant]

Trump is a bigger threat to the US than Russia: Former foreign policy expert

Speaking to CNN host Pamela Brown on Sunday, Fiona Hill, the former Russia expert at the U.S. National Security Council under President Donald Trump, explained that she is far more concerned about the ex-president than Vladimir Putin.

"What Russia has been doing for quite some time, and especially since its intervention in the 2016 elections, is actually using material and those kinds of statements to exploit them and to basically come to some sort of division," she explained."I think the most disturbing thing for anybody watching American politics for the last several years has been the fact that it's our own president, our own former president, Donald Trump, who has been talking down U.S. democracy. In many respects, the Russians don't have to do very much but sit back and watch as he does this. It was President Trump who told everybody the election would be stolen."

Trump began talking about the "rigged" election weeks before any votes were even cast. It was the same kind of tactic that Larry Elder used in the California recall election where here claimed, before the election, that Gov. Gavin Newsom stole it.

In 2016, Trump claimed that the election was rigged and fraudulent even though he won. He told supporters that there were 3 million illegal votes in California or he would have won the popular vote. He tasked Republican Kris Kobach to uncover the so-called fraud, but Kobach was unable to do it.

In 2020, Trump tried a different tactic, telling his supporters, "The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!" As far back as June 2020, Trump was claiming that voting by mail was a conspiracy to let China throw the election to the Democrats.

"Before when it happened in 2020, it was President Trump who told people not to rely on the postal service," said Hill. "President Trump has been accusing other Americans, including members of his own party who have been the electoral officials in many of the states for somehow stealing the election. This is really happening from a foreign adversary. It's frustrating this is disinformation, especially when it's coming from the top."

In an earlier interview with Sunday's "Face the Nation," Hill said that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a "dress rehearsal" for future right-wing political violence.

See the full discussion below:

[Richard Smith]

Biden is in deep trouble.  Even the Dems are turning on him.  He is sinking faster than the Titanic and he has only been President for nine months (although it seems much, much longer).  He is now hiding in a doll house.  Not a good sign.  When even the leftist Wash Post has headlines like this one, the end is near:

Defeats, inaction and compromise drag Biden’s poll numbers down
Support for the president has sunk notably among key Democratic constituencies — Blacks, Latinos, women and young people. The discontent is particularly visible in Georgia, where Democrats had hoped demographic changes and mobilization efforts would offer a blueprint for expanding their electoral map.

[Rick Plant]

Biden is in deep trouble.  Even the Dems are turning on him.  He is sinking faster than the Titanic and he has only been President for nine months (although it seems much, much longer).  He is now hiding in a doll house.  Not a good sign.  When even the leftist Wash Post has headlines like this one, the end is near:

Defeats, inaction and compromise drag Biden’s poll numbers down
Support for the president has sunk notably among key Democratic constituencies — Blacks, Latinos, women and young people. The discontent is particularly visible in Georgia, where Democrats had hoped demographic changes and mobilization efforts would offer a blueprint for expanding their electoral map.

Yeah really big trouble with a 50% approval rating conducted by CBS and an overwhelming majority support of his agenda. And for good measure IPSOS has Biden at 48% which Criminal Donald never had once in his didisastrous 4 years. 

The Washington Post is not "leftist" but keep on thinking it. 

[Rick Plant]

An obscure piece of Biden's agenda could deal a big blow to Trump's right-wing nationalism



An obscure provision of President Joe Biden's agenda could deal a big blow to one of Donald Trump's most controversial legacies.

Global minimum taxes will likely be included as part of the reconciliation deal after 130 nations reached a deal that would impose a minimum 15-percent levy on corporations on their overseas profits to stop the "race to the bottom" competition for multinational corporations and keep those companies from stashing profits in low-tax havens, reported the Washington Post.

"Right wing nationalists are supposed to hate such elite chicanery," wrote Post columnist Greg Sargent. "After all, international capital mobility and profit shifting are two key ways that multinationals have emerged as big winners from globalization. This has deprived the nation of revenue, while allowing multinationals access to elite tax avoidance strategies that ordinary Americans lack."

"You'd think this would be particularly offensive to those nationalists who preen around declaring that globalist and cosmopolitan elites have presided over the hollowing out of virtuous nonmetropolitan Real America," he added. "Yet, while such nationalists do sometimes decry this problem, there isn't a real nationalist solution to it. The answer is a multilateral one."

The Biden administration believes the tax would generate billions of dollars over the next decade, but right-wing nationalists will likely oppose it even though the 2017 Trump tax cuts tried but largely failed to recapture some overseas profits for multinationals.

"The standard right wing nationalist objection to such multilateral arrangements is they deprive U.S. citizens of agency by turning over decision-making to globalist elites," Sargent wrote. "But in this case, multilateral cooperation could prevent corporations from exploiting global mobility in ways that limit what nations can do democratically, in keeping with their own citizens' aspirations."

https://www.rawstory.com/global-minimum-tax/

[Rick Plant]

These right wingers are just blinded with pure hate. Now they are attacking Pope Francis for meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who is also a Catholic. These right wingers are are truly despicable. Hillary Clinton was 100% when she called them all 'deplorables'. Because they are.

Trump-loving GOP lawmaker rails at 'communist' pope after he meets with Nancy Pelosi



Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) over the weekend launched an attack on Pope Francis after he met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) last week.

Syracuse.com reports that Tenney referred to Pelosi and the pope as "two communists" on Twitter Sunday, and then defended herself against accusations that she was anti-Catholic by saying that she had reverence for other popes.

"I love Pope John Paul II," she wrote. "A kind and truly holy person. He didn't slap the hands of followers."

As Syracuse.com notes, Tenney is no stranger to controversy.

In 2018, for instance, Tenney accused Democrats of being "un-American" because they didn't applaud former President Donald Trump during a State of the Union address.

"They don't love our country!" she charged at the time.

That same year, Tenney said that the "deep state" set up former Trump HUD Secretary Ben Carson by ordering a $31,000 dining set at taxpayer expense on his behalf.

https://www.rawstory.com/pope-francis-communist/