Deborah, you're right. Congress and Justice continue to embolden him on a daily basis why would he stop? Every American of voting age who is horrified and outraged by Trump and Congress must be sure they are registered to vote so they can cast their vote in November.
Looking in from Blighty this is utterly dismaying. The world has ipso facto, a new Autocrat to contend with despite his having been brought up in a Democracy and despite his supposed status as a friend. Your POTUS is corrupt beyond redemption. Please, please decent America find a way to get rid of him.
Thank you Heather for yet another incisive report.
Remembering when Nixon lied and said “I am not a crook,” we at least had other branches of government pressing the facts of his crookedness to the point that he resigned so his VP could pardon him. Now we have collusion between the 3 branches of government. The Repugnant White House, the Repugnant Senate and the Repugnant tRump toady, William Barr making the Dept. of Justice a personal weapon of injustice for his overlord.
Reading this concise history of the corruption of our government institutions is appalling. Realizing the extent of the corruption with the Senate complicity, to the point that the POTUS does not even have to lie, but can now say “I am a crook, so what?” is actually scary.
"...after witness Donald Ayer said 'I believe that William Barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law,' Louie Gohmert (R-TX) began tapping on the microphone to drown out the witnesses.'"
THIS IS WHAT THE GOP IS DOWN TO, the six year old equivalent of covering his ears and yelling "nah nah nah nah nah" when his playmate calls him "fatty."
Yeah. This was third-grade stuff. When asked to stop, his answer was that there are no rules about when you can make noise (there ARE rules about when you can talk). The founders didn't put that in because they (apparently wrongly!) assumed the people elected to office would be mature adults.
The GOP has hacked our form of government. The evidence is everywhere. The founders never anticipated one party not only refusing to govern but also blocking those who do. Only an overwhelming repudiation at the polls on Nov. 3 will force the GOP to change. And even that might not work. Perhaps we'll see the rise of a new party made up of Republican refugees.
not so fast. Today's NYT daily podcast with 538's Nate Silver's poll date showed a substantial lead for Biden even among Trumps voters finally souring to trump and his incompetent racist rule. Among former trump voters they gave him terrible marks on the way he is handling BLM protests and Covid crisis . Surprisingly their main worry is corona virus and not the economy (that he is hell bent on reopening) this is even amongst his voters who don't have a job. Guess he is not listening that intently. yes I know Nate was wrong 4 years ago but I felt pretty good after hearing this one.
But seriously, what messages do these "misbehaving" politicians think they are sending, and to whom? They must perceive it as working well, as they keep it up. Beyond the hard core voters who endlessly delight in their bad boys taunting the "libtard" enemy... do most real-life mainstream Republican voters revel in seeing their representatives treat governing and government as a middle school joke? Or is the real audience simply DJT ?
Gohmert represents one of those areas of Texas where this constitutes taking a stand. Seriously, they've re elected this idiot. But it is also one of those areas most likely to get hit hard by the virus so it all comes back around. I was raised in Texas: the thought of the likes of this guy gives me a headache.
From what I have seen of people who are interviewed at various events, the voters who are out and about are acting pretty much like Gohmert did. And thinking it is just fine. Not the way I was raised, but I say that a lot these days. I am trying to move on from believing I can change any minds, and moving on to just presenting my ideas to make sure someone who is wavering hears the arguments for the truth.
Yesterday was such a deplorable slap to American justice. Or am I the one who misunderstands “justice”? That Flynn would walk free was stunning. Apparently if one knows the right people one can do whatever criming one wishes, admit it even, and pay no price. Then there is the spectacle of Louie Gohmert, Doug Collins, et al., elected to Congress at the age of 3. Tapping on a mic so no one could hear a witness? Really? He needs day care, not Congress. I find Collins particularly repugnant, maybe surpassing Jim Jordan. I keep thinking our judicial free fall is going to hit bottom, but it never does. Obviously naive in the extreme, I have wondered when something would trip up these criminals finally. Nothing. And oh btw Marsha Blackburn, Trump’s most reliable sycophant in the Senate, is my Senator. Lamar Alexander is retiring.
you poor person, we live in a part of Kentucky where all our TV stations are from Tennessee, and we've been so depressed by the campaign ads for Senatorial (and district 1 Congressional candidates)...it would appear that the Republican candidates are in a race to the bottom in terms of how much they will prostrate themselves in front of Trump...I know there are decent Democratic candidates but we aren't seeing any of their ads.
One is tempted to start by saying that the countervailing controls maintaining the equilibrium between the different parts of the governance of the country are insufficient in the face of ideologically motivated zealots or personnally motivated idiots who have no time for "norms" or "tradtions" . However, as always you have to be careful what you ask for and any further rigidity that you introduce into the system might prevent it working when decent people are elected or it might stop you solving the problem next year. It would seem however the the relative powers of Congress and the Senate might be a place to start especially on the question of appointments. Further controls might be introduced limiting the stand-alone power of the President to fire confirmed appointees and put in place unconfirmed temporary appointees. Non-political supervision of qualifications of judicial appointees might also improve their "neutrality" .
This can happen only if Dems take both houses of Congress and the presidency. Mitch must go for ANYTHING to happen, even the most innocent legislation.
I agree. I also am hoping that Joe Biden is receiving debate help already so he can speak with conviction to the facts of where our country is and where it will likely be in four more years of hate-based governance. Perhaps Joe Biden could have Heather be a stand-in for one of the debates!?🥴
I'm less worried about the debates than many. Trump is in poor shape mentally. I think his plan is simply to lie and bully, but that won't play in 2020 the way it did in 2016. Indeed, it would hurt his ability to attract waverers.
The worry is on the format and the capacity of the "journalists" to control the "operation. Remember how he moved behind Hilary on the stage wheen she was speaking
There's hardly any possibility that Trump in a debate will do anything but embarrass himself and his party. The campaign for Biden and the money behind him will have ample ammunition to boost this evil out of our lives. I hope.
Nadley couldn't deal with a disruptive caterpillar, let alone a damn Republican. Gym Jordan and Gomer should be denied entry to the committee room for failure to wear masks (as should all the other Republiscum). And if Nadler wasn't such a polite coward and so easily flummoxed, he'd have had the Sergeant at Arms remove Gomer (intentionally misspelled to say what he is, a gomer - a Vietnam war term of serious disrespect) for his disruptions. It's time to take these ignorant bullies on, in public.
The word "corrupt" comes from Latin, "cor" meaning together, and "ruptus" meaning break. We are seeing the immense breaking capacity of a united group of leaders who have no regard for the integrity of our laws. I am neither historian or lawyer. But something must be done to end this breaking. Our laws have held us together and made us perform some miracles of governing.
Thanks for the great chronological summary of events in the DOJ, Heather! It’s mind blowing what has happened to the rule of law in this country.
And politics, mainly politicians, has become so frustratingly corrupt! I know to a certain extent it’s always been this way. But in the Trump era there is not even an attempt to hide it. 🤬
Heather, first of all, thank you for another insightful newsletter. I am so exhausted, as are all of you, of the daily, heck, hourly attacks on this country done by this administration. I feel saddened that it seems they get away with it every time. I hate to do a "what if", but, what if any other President or administration had done a fraction of what has been done over these last three and a half years? It angers me that there is seemingly no pushback from anyone in power and whatever pushback there is, it never results in anything. Aside from voting these traitors, I think that accurately describes them at this point, out what can be done? As long as the Republicans are in power of the senate, they will continue to shrug and turn a blind eye to the crimes committed and the tearing apart of this country done by Trump and his cronies. How do we bounce back?
I feel this so much. The Dems are near silent, other than an occasional bland statement. Why aren't they screaming from the rooftops, and investigating these criminals?
The only significant "noise" is coming from The Lincoln Project, founded by George Conway, Steve Schmidt and other furious Republicans. It's possible that Pelosi and Schumer are in high gear in the bunker, but the bland (yes, Anne Murphy!) blather is not encouraging. In the "what if?" category, I sometimes wonder if Keith Ellison had not been defeated by Perez (the party insiders' choice for DNC chair)...well, all y'all are very bright people, so you know where I'm going with that. I no longer know what the right side of the bed is re getting up in the morning. Meh.
Maybe they are running th clock out and let them slowly implode and sink. they must be watching the polling data pretty closely and any move they make will be closer to August onwards when you get to the business end. at least that's what I I hope.. if dems choke on this one then they deserve to lose ....yogoberraesque..
Good. It's very complicated stuff. I get why people haven't been able to corral it into a short piece. FWIW, even I, who have followed the Russia stuff very closely, had NO idea that Russia was at the bottom of all this. It was a revelation as I got back into Whitaker and Barr's confirmations that that was always the heart of the issue. That says a LOT.
"...a panel of judges on a federal appeals court overseen by Trump appointee Neomi Rao ordered Sullivan to dismiss the Flynn case immediately without further review. Sullivan did not; he simply suspended deadlines as he waits for a review by the full court."
Please clarify for me because I've heard from several sources that, by doing this, Sullivan has attempted to insure that the charges against Flynn can outlast the Trump presidency and it put's Trump and Barr in yet another tough spot of their own making: he can't pardon Flynn out right without contorting the law unrecognizably. And even it he did, there are charges that can be filed in 2021 that he couldn't pardon him for anyway. These guys think they are the smartest guys in the room but they add up to one colossal idiot.
your welcome. he's not a great speaker but he gets into the weeds in a way that mitigates the fear so many people have that there is no recourse. there is but it takes time and we have to focus on doing our part, cause there is a finite amount of time before the damage is cast in stone.
Great video, Gayle. Thanks for sharing. Kirscher's logic for pushing the Flynn case past the election and seating of a new president makes much sense. Trump/Barr will not stop with a loss on en banc appeal. Even if that happens this summer, Supremes wouldn't rule before this time next year, assuming cert. was even granted. When the dust settles, the case still sits in the hands of Judge Sullivan either dismiss as WH wants or to sentence Flynn.
It seems quite obvious and even expected by most that Judge Sullivan would petition for en banc review if he didn't like the result from the 3-judge panel. Almost a no-brainer. So yeah, Barr's approach is an enigma. Too many games of checkers with djt, maybe?
As for your request for clarification, I think you're reading it correctly. Sullivan has to act w/i 21 days of the current order or it becomes effective, a shorter period than the normal window for requesting review by the full court (45 days, I believe). What I don't know is how long it might take the full Court to rule. That may or may not extend beyond djt presidency. A pardon could be the proverbial third rail. Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) follows this stuff very closely and provides excellent procedural analysis.
This is unbelievable! And I remember Watergate quite well. Its aftermath peppered the current events section of my American History and Government classes from late 1974 to mid 1976. When I was remembering that, I recalled a conversation I had in the Fall of 2016 with a high school American History teacher. I commented that the election coverage had to help when explaining the electoral process especially the visual learners. He told me the election was too much of a "hot potato", the school was in a very "red" district, and they were avoiding any discussion of the election in the classroom. I was appalled! I understand wanting to avoid phone calls from parents, however being a visual learner, I think students were robbed of a valuable educational experience.
One of my co-teachers who taught 8th grade Social Studies was removed and transferred to a different subject matter position the following year because parents complained that she was a Democrat, although she never discussed her own political party membership. That was in 2004.
Well, the history and government teacher I had in High School was a Democrat. He thought FDR was God. In fact, one of my best high school memories was a debate he and the High School guidance counselor, a Republican, would have over FDR and the New Deal. They both knew their stuff and it was a real education.
DC is tricky since it's all federal and he's well-connected there. Attorney licensing in the states is the province of each state's supreme court. If he were licensed in another jurisdiction (NY, say), lodging a discipline complaint there would have similar effect and take the review out of his back yard. An attorney is obligated to report such happenings to ALL jurisdictions in which s/he is licensed to practice. Becomes a huge egg-on-the face matter.
And don’t forget how the foundation for all this nonsense started and how it continues. Trump’s 200th judge was confirmed yesterday, a record. One of his confirmed judges wrote the majority opinion in the Flynn dismissal recommendation. As long as the Senate continues to rubber stamp his judicial recommendations this will continue. Most of the judges are young and white.
In addition to Judge Rao's performance in the Flynn opinion, her dissenting opinion in the DC Court of Appeals opinion is a noteworthy standout in the path of Trump v. Mazurs to the Supreme Court. Its near farcical position of the unitary executive has been resoundingly rejected soundly by the lower courts. Her dissent shows her true colors as a jurist--water toter.
It is also worth noting that she replaced Kavanaugh on the DCCOA and her confirmation was quite controversial. Another narrow confirmation by McConnell & Co.
"Watergate produced a saying: The cover-up is worse than the crime. But what if there is no cover-up? The president is staring the country in the eye and acknowledging: 'Sure I did it. I’ll do it again. And again. Because nobody’s going to stop me. Cover-ups are for losers.'” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/most-shocking-thing-about-zelinskys-testimony/613477/
Deborah, you're right. Congress and Justice continue to embolden him on a daily basis why would he stop? Every American of voting age who is horrified and outraged by Trump and Congress must be sure they are registered to vote so they can cast their vote in November.
Looking in from Blighty this is utterly dismaying. The world has ipso facto, a new Autocrat to contend with despite his having been brought up in a Democracy and despite his supposed status as a friend. Your POTUS is corrupt beyond redemption. Please, please decent America find a way to get rid of him.
Thank you Heather for yet another incisive report.
Mind you, BoJo's defense of Cummins and several other ministers doesn't reflect well on their democratic credentials
Remembering when Nixon lied and said “I am not a crook,” we at least had other branches of government pressing the facts of his crookedness to the point that he resigned so his VP could pardon him. Now we have collusion between the 3 branches of government. The Repugnant White House, the Repugnant Senate and the Repugnant tRump toady, William Barr making the Dept. of Justice a personal weapon of injustice for his overlord.
Reading this concise history of the corruption of our government institutions is appalling. Realizing the extent of the corruption with the Senate complicity, to the point that the POTUS does not even have to lie, but can now say “I am a crook, so what?” is actually scary.
The complicity of the Senate has made all the rest of this possible. McConnell is a problem.
His ability to "spoil" will be somewhat reduced when he is only the "temporary" minority leader
"...after witness Donald Ayer said 'I believe that William Barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law,' Louie Gohmert (R-TX) began tapping on the microphone to drown out the witnesses.'"
THIS IS WHAT THE GOP IS DOWN TO, the six year old equivalent of covering his ears and yelling "nah nah nah nah nah" when his playmate calls him "fatty."
Yeah. This was third-grade stuff. When asked to stop, his answer was that there are no rules about when you can make noise (there ARE rules about when you can talk). The founders didn't put that in because they (apparently wrongly!) assumed the people elected to office would be mature adults.
The GOP has hacked our form of government. The evidence is everywhere. The founders never anticipated one party not only refusing to govern but also blocking those who do. Only an overwhelming repudiation at the polls on Nov. 3 will force the GOP to change. And even that might not work. Perhaps we'll see the rise of a new party made up of Republican refugees.
The Lincoln Project
But, since the assassination of Lincoln, the GOP has persistently done just that...with just a very few exceptions over the past 150 years,
Teddy Roosevelt and other "progressives" were the exceptions to the rule.
not so fast. Today's NYT daily podcast with 538's Nate Silver's poll date showed a substantial lead for Biden even among Trumps voters finally souring to trump and his incompetent racist rule. Among former trump voters they gave him terrible marks on the way he is handling BLM protests and Covid crisis . Surprisingly their main worry is corona virus and not the economy (that he is hell bent on reopening) this is even amongst his voters who don't have a job. Guess he is not listening that intently. yes I know Nate was wrong 4 years ago but I felt pretty good after hearing this one.
there is nothing that Trump has not misjudged about the American character...of most of us anyway.
But seriously, what messages do these "misbehaving" politicians think they are sending, and to whom? They must perceive it as working well, as they keep it up. Beyond the hard core voters who endlessly delight in their bad boys taunting the "libtard" enemy... do most real-life mainstream Republican voters revel in seeing their representatives treat governing and government as a middle school joke? Or is the real audience simply DJT ?
Gohmert represents one of those areas of Texas where this constitutes taking a stand. Seriously, they've re elected this idiot. But it is also one of those areas most likely to get hit hard by the virus so it all comes back around. I was raised in Texas: the thought of the likes of this guy gives me a headache.
From what I have seen of people who are interviewed at various events, the voters who are out and about are acting pretty much like Gohmert did. And thinking it is just fine. Not the way I was raised, but I say that a lot these days. I am trying to move on from believing I can change any minds, and moving on to just presenting my ideas to make sure someone who is wavering hears the arguments for the truth.
Yesterday was such a deplorable slap to American justice. Or am I the one who misunderstands “justice”? That Flynn would walk free was stunning. Apparently if one knows the right people one can do whatever criming one wishes, admit it even, and pay no price. Then there is the spectacle of Louie Gohmert, Doug Collins, et al., elected to Congress at the age of 3. Tapping on a mic so no one could hear a witness? Really? He needs day care, not Congress. I find Collins particularly repugnant, maybe surpassing Jim Jordan. I keep thinking our judicial free fall is going to hit bottom, but it never does. Obviously naive in the extreme, I have wondered when something would trip up these criminals finally. Nothing. And oh btw Marsha Blackburn, Trump’s most reliable sycophant in the Senate, is my Senator. Lamar Alexander is retiring.
you poor person, we live in a part of Kentucky where all our TV stations are from Tennessee, and we've been so depressed by the campaign ads for Senatorial (and district 1 Congressional candidates)...it would appear that the Republican candidates are in a race to the bottom in terms of how much they will prostrate themselves in front of Trump...I know there are decent Democratic candidates but we aren't seeing any of their ads.
My guess is that Democrats are keeping their powder dry for later as the GOP crowds the airwaves with crazy.
And I’ve got Marco Rubio and the despicable Rick Scott.
Eww....I'm so sorry
One is tempted to start by saying that the countervailing controls maintaining the equilibrium between the different parts of the governance of the country are insufficient in the face of ideologically motivated zealots or personnally motivated idiots who have no time for "norms" or "tradtions" . However, as always you have to be careful what you ask for and any further rigidity that you introduce into the system might prevent it working when decent people are elected or it might stop you solving the problem next year. It would seem however the the relative powers of Congress and the Senate might be a place to start especially on the question of appointments. Further controls might be introduced limiting the stand-alone power of the President to fire confirmed appointees and put in place unconfirmed temporary appointees. Non-political supervision of qualifications of judicial appointees might also improve their "neutrality" .
This can happen only if Dems take both houses of Congress and the presidency. Mitch must go for ANYTHING to happen, even the most innocent legislation.
I agree. I also am hoping that Joe Biden is receiving debate help already so he can speak with conviction to the facts of where our country is and where it will likely be in four more years of hate-based governance. Perhaps Joe Biden could have Heather be a stand-in for one of the debates!?🥴
I'm less worried about the debates than many. Trump is in poor shape mentally. I think his plan is simply to lie and bully, but that won't play in 2020 the way it did in 2016. Indeed, it would hurt his ability to attract waverers.
The worry is on the format and the capacity of the "journalists" to control the "operation. Remember how he moved behind Hilary on the stage wheen she was speaking
Classic attempt to intimidate! It made me hate him.
I will never forget it! She should have stopped him, though either way they could have made her look bad.
There's hardly any possibility that Trump in a debate will do anything but embarrass himself and his party. The campaign for Biden and the money behind him will have ample ammunition to boost this evil out of our lives. I hope.
The way he stalked HRC on stage during the 2016 debates creeped me out. Apparently not anyone else, though, since he won.
Sure hope you are right!
Yes! As long as it doesn’t take time away from her letters! 😂
Claire, but some time away from the "letters" to help Joe is a sacrifice we could make 😉
I assume that this is exactly what will happen
I have so much I could say, but it's probably already been said.
So, let me just say:
HOLY SH!t
Nadley couldn't deal with a disruptive caterpillar, let alone a damn Republican. Gym Jordan and Gomer should be denied entry to the committee room for failure to wear masks (as should all the other Republiscum). And if Nadler wasn't such a polite coward and so easily flummoxed, he'd have had the Sergeant at Arms remove Gomer (intentionally misspelled to say what he is, a gomer - a Vietnam war term of serious disrespect) for his disruptions. It's time to take these ignorant bullies on, in public.
The word "corrupt" comes from Latin, "cor" meaning together, and "ruptus" meaning break. We are seeing the immense breaking capacity of a united group of leaders who have no regard for the integrity of our laws. I am neither historian or lawyer. But something must be done to end this breaking. Our laws have held us together and made us perform some miracles of governing.
I didn't know that! Cool!
Thanks for the great chronological summary of events in the DOJ, Heather! It’s mind blowing what has happened to the rule of law in this country.
And politics, mainly politicians, has become so frustratingly corrupt! I know to a certain extent it’s always been this way. But in the Trump era there is not even an attempt to hide it. 🤬
Heather, first of all, thank you for another insightful newsletter. I am so exhausted, as are all of you, of the daily, heck, hourly attacks on this country done by this administration. I feel saddened that it seems they get away with it every time. I hate to do a "what if", but, what if any other President or administration had done a fraction of what has been done over these last three and a half years? It angers me that there is seemingly no pushback from anyone in power and whatever pushback there is, it never results in anything. Aside from voting these traitors, I think that accurately describes them at this point, out what can be done? As long as the Republicans are in power of the senate, they will continue to shrug and turn a blind eye to the crimes committed and the tearing apart of this country done by Trump and his cronies. How do we bounce back?
I feel this so much. The Dems are near silent, other than an occasional bland statement. Why aren't they screaming from the rooftops, and investigating these criminals?
The only significant "noise" is coming from The Lincoln Project, founded by George Conway, Steve Schmidt and other furious Republicans. It's possible that Pelosi and Schumer are in high gear in the bunker, but the bland (yes, Anne Murphy!) blather is not encouraging. In the "what if?" category, I sometimes wonder if Keith Ellison had not been defeated by Perez (the party insiders' choice for DNC chair)...well, all y'all are very bright people, so you know where I'm going with that. I no longer know what the right side of the bed is re getting up in the morning. Meh.
Maybe they are running th clock out and let them slowly implode and sink. they must be watching the polling data pretty closely and any move they make will be closer to August onwards when you get to the business end. at least that's what I I hope.. if dems choke on this one then they deserve to lose ....yogoberraesque..
I wonder the same thing every single day. It's disheartening.
This is the most Understandable Crisis Sharing Article about Barr that I have read so far.
Good. It's very complicated stuff. I get why people haven't been able to corral it into a short piece. FWIW, even I, who have followed the Russia stuff very closely, had NO idea that Russia was at the bottom of all this. It was a revelation as I got back into Whitaker and Barr's confirmations that that was always the heart of the issue. That says a LOT.
All roads lead to Russia???
"...a panel of judges on a federal appeals court overseen by Trump appointee Neomi Rao ordered Sullivan to dismiss the Flynn case immediately without further review. Sullivan did not; he simply suspended deadlines as he waits for a review by the full court."
Please clarify for me because I've heard from several sources that, by doing this, Sullivan has attempted to insure that the charges against Flynn can outlast the Trump presidency and it put's Trump and Barr in yet another tough spot of their own making: he can't pardon Flynn out right without contorting the law unrecognizably. And even it he did, there are charges that can be filed in 2021 that he couldn't pardon him for anyway. These guys think they are the smartest guys in the room but they add up to one colossal idiot.
I'm going to hope someone else answers this because it's complicated, but you have the outlines right. I'll fill in tonight if no one else does.
This is Glenn Kirscher on the subject on this and another fascinating topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWKkffWYjgM&fbclid=IwAR3axqVMTCw3ZcKfljGZkz-oiFRt88DWHv_xuE7NzSg4qQZeYPFGqkATPoc
Thank you so much for sharing this I will have to follow him!!
your welcome. he's not a great speaker but he gets into the weeds in a way that mitigates the fear so many people have that there is no recourse. there is but it takes time and we have to focus on doing our part, cause there is a finite amount of time before the damage is cast in stone.
Great video, Gayle. Thanks for sharing. Kirscher's logic for pushing the Flynn case past the election and seating of a new president makes much sense. Trump/Barr will not stop with a loss on en banc appeal. Even if that happens this summer, Supremes wouldn't rule before this time next year, assuming cert. was even granted. When the dust settles, the case still sits in the hands of Judge Sullivan either dismiss as WH wants or to sentence Flynn.
It seems quite obvious and even expected by most that Judge Sullivan would petition for en banc review if he didn't like the result from the 3-judge panel. Almost a no-brainer. So yeah, Barr's approach is an enigma. Too many games of checkers with djt, maybe?
As for your request for clarification, I think you're reading it correctly. Sullivan has to act w/i 21 days of the current order or it becomes effective, a shorter period than the normal window for requesting review by the full court (45 days, I believe). What I don't know is how long it might take the full Court to rule. That may or may not extend beyond djt presidency. A pardon could be the proverbial third rail. Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) follows this stuff very closely and provides excellent procedural analysis.
This is unbelievable! And I remember Watergate quite well. Its aftermath peppered the current events section of my American History and Government classes from late 1974 to mid 1976. When I was remembering that, I recalled a conversation I had in the Fall of 2016 with a high school American History teacher. I commented that the election coverage had to help when explaining the electoral process especially the visual learners. He told me the election was too much of a "hot potato", the school was in a very "red" district, and they were avoiding any discussion of the election in the classroom. I was appalled! I understand wanting to avoid phone calls from parents, however being a visual learner, I think students were robbed of a valuable educational experience.
One of my co-teachers who taught 8th grade Social Studies was removed and transferred to a different subject matter position the following year because parents complained that she was a Democrat, although she never discussed her own political party membership. That was in 2004.
Carla Herkner, I just had another thought where was her union when this was going on.
That just makes me sad.
And the parents!! That they want only indoctrination- I mean education—Is sadder.
Well, the history and government teacher I had in High School was a Democrat. He thought FDR was God. In fact, one of my best high school memories was a debate he and the High School guidance counselor, a Republican, would have over FDR and the New Deal. They both knew their stuff and it was a real education.
Education at its best. I'm a big fan of informed argument.
It was great! I think they did it every year while they both were teaching
In which state is AJ Barr licensed to practice law? Why can't (or won't) that state's bar association move to discipline him? (Or are they doing so?)
There are, in fact, moves to disbar him. I don't know what that entails. Perhaps some of our lawyers here can weigh in.
Does this "instantly" disqualify him from being AG?
He is at least a member of the DC Bar. It's disciplinary process is summarized here: https://www.dcbar.org/attorney-discipline/for-the-public/about.cfm. Given his tenure in Washington, he may not be licensed anywhere else.
DC is tricky since it's all federal and he's well-connected there. Attorney licensing in the states is the province of each state's supreme court. If he were licensed in another jurisdiction (NY, say), lodging a discipline complaint there would have similar effect and take the review out of his back yard. An attorney is obligated to report such happenings to ALL jurisdictions in which s/he is licensed to practice. Becomes a huge egg-on-the face matter.
And don’t forget how the foundation for all this nonsense started and how it continues. Trump’s 200th judge was confirmed yesterday, a record. One of his confirmed judges wrote the majority opinion in the Flynn dismissal recommendation. As long as the Senate continues to rubber stamp his judicial recommendations this will continue. Most of the judges are young and white.
In addition to Judge Rao's performance in the Flynn opinion, her dissenting opinion in the DC Court of Appeals opinion is a noteworthy standout in the path of Trump v. Mazurs to the Supreme Court. Its near farcical position of the unitary executive has been resoundingly rejected soundly by the lower courts. Her dissent shows her true colors as a jurist--water toter.
Yes.
It is also worth noting that she replaced Kavanaugh on the DCCOA and her confirmation was quite controversial. Another narrow confirmation by McConnell & Co.