Thursday, January 23, 2025

Elon thinks he's over pardons now

Donald Chump is no friend to law & order. We should all know that already.  He's a convicted felon, after all.  But now he's pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists who committed treason and who attacked police officers.  In fact, let me note Lawrence O'Donnell on Chump's pardons.


Well it just gets worse and worse. AFP reports:



Elon Musk said Tuesday he was exploring a presidential pardon for "Bitcoin Jesus," who was arrested last year on fraud and tax evasion charges, after applauding Donald Trump for exonerating the founder of a dark web drug marketplace.

In a sign of the tech billionaire's influence over the new US administration, Musk said he was "honored to be in the Oval Office" when Trump granted a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the man behind the "Silk Road" platform that facilitated the sale of illegal narcotics using cryptocurrency.


Ulbricht, operating under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," was sentenced to two life terms in prison after being convicted of charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics, money laundering and computer hacking.

The FBI described Silk Road as a "digital bazaar for illegal goods and services" that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, as well as commissions in bitcoin.

Prosecutors also alleged that Ulbricht solicited six murders-for-hire.

Trump on Tuesday said he called Ulbricht's mother to inform her that he had granted him an unconditional pardon, honoring a pledge he made during last year's presidential campaign, while slamming the "scum" who prosecuted him.

Musk, a confidant of Trump, hinted that Roger Ver, a former California resident who calls himself "Bitcoin Jesus," could be next.

Elon is garbage and Chump is garbage.   They are destroying our country.   And Chump looks like a bigger chump and a bigger idiot than usual  "I'm exploring a pardon" -- you're not the president, Elon.


Elon Musk’s daughter has responded to accusations that her estranged father made a “Nazi salute” at Donald Trump’s inauguration rally.

Vivian Wilson, who legally changed her name when she turned 18 to ditch the association with her father, did not name Musk but heavily hinted she was responding to the controversial incident at Monday’s rally at the Capitol One Arena.

“I’m just gonna say let’s call a spade a f***ing spade,” Wilson wrote on Instagram’s Threads platform on Tuesday. “Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade.”

Responding to the outrage, Musk said his critics needed “better dirty tricks” because attacking their political opponents as Adolf Hitler is “sooo tired.”

Wilson appeared to hit back at claims on social media that Musk’s gesture could be explained because of his “autism” in a second post about the incident.

“I don’t know why ya’ll are reacting with such vigor, I’m clearly only talking about card suits,” Wilson said. “I mean I have ADHD and this was CLEARLY just an accident that people happened to interpret to mean something other than just card suits. After all, there’s no proof I’m not just talking about card suits,” she joked. “People assuming that I’m not just talking about card suits just goes to show how dishonest people/the media can be.”

In a final post on the matter, Wilson added: “For those who can read between the lines, do y’all understand how f***ing easy this is to do? Plausible deniability honey. Just saying.”


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Thursday, January 23, 2025.  Donald Chump's attacking Civil Rights, abortion rights, workers rights and so much more.  


Let's start with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

ICYMI: On Roe Anniversary, Senator Murray, Democrats Hammer Republicans for Pushing Anti-Abortion Lies and Dangerous Extremism Rather Than Lowering Costs, Helping Families

ICYMI: Murray, Senate Democrats Slam Republicans for Pushing Anti-Abortion Extremism Instead of Legislation to Lower Costs and Help Families

***VIDEO of Senator Murray’s remarks HERE**

Washington, D.C. — Today U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, delivered the following remarks in opposition to S.6 ahead of a Senate vote on the legislation, which would create a new government mandate overriding the best judgment of grieving families facing fatal fetal diagnoses, threaten providers, and create even more barriers to reproductive health care in America. Earlier today, Murray led a press conference with Leader Schumer and Senators Shaheen and Smith highlighting how, in week one of the Trump administration, Republicans are doubling down on anti-woman, anti-abortion extremism instead of doing anything to help working families or lower costs.

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered on the Senate floor ahead of the vote today:

“Earlier this week, we lost a friend and a champion for reproductive rights—Cecile Richards. She helped countless women, and changed the conversation around women’s health and abortion. And I know if she were here, she would say the fight continues. And that is very clear given what Republicans are choosing to focus on today.

“Of all the bills that we could be voting on—lowering the cost of health care, expanding child care, helping our families—it’s an absolute disgrace that Republicans are spending their first week in power attacking women, criminalizing doctors, and lying about abortion.

“I am not going to let anyone perpetuate disgusting lies about people who have abortions and the providers who care for them.

“This isn’t how abortion works; Republicans know it. All babies are already protected under the law, regardless of the circumstance of their birth. Doctors already have a legal obligation to provide appropriate medical care. And we already know this sham bill from Republicans is not going anywhere.

“We’ve been here, before. Last time we voted down this bill, I actually spoke about something Republicans refuse to acknowledge in this debate: the struggles, the struggles of a pregnant woman, who has received tragic news that her baby had a fatal medical condition and would not be able to survive, and who were able to make the choice that was right for their family.

“But now, here we are, already hearing stories of women who were denied that choice by extreme Republican abortion bans.

“Can you imagine what it is like to go for months, pregnant with a baby you know will not survive, and getting questions and comments like “oh, is this your first child?” and “are you excited?”

“Do you know what it’s like fighting back tears as you try to decide whether to nod politely somehow, or explain that actually your world is falling apart? I can’t imagine that. But it happens.

“Mr. President, all the while, you know you have to go through this against your will—because some politician decided they knew better than you, and your family, and your doctor.

Now, Republicans have a bill today to take that issue nationwide. That’s what we are voting on. That is their top priority now that Trump is in office.

Shame on them. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.”

###


Now let's stay with the US Senate and think for a moment what it would mean to be a member.  We are told that they're noble, Jimmy Stewart-like film characters.  But is that what you see right now when you look at Joni Ernst?  

We all know she knows Pete Hegseth is not just unqualified to be Secretary of Defense, he's also a threat to the office and to the safety of the American people. But she's apparently going to vote for him.  Because?  MAGA was mean to her online and because Donald Chump's threatened to primary her.  

She was elected to the Senate in 2014. 

When does she take her brave stand.  When does she follow her duties outlined in the Constitution she took an oath to uphold?

A decade in the Senate and she's not willing to do the right thing because she's afraid of losing her Senate seat?  Why is the seat needed when she's not going to do what she knows is right?

As someone who's served, she knows his statements and views about women in the military are repugnant, out of step and a threat to US service members -- female and male.  She knows that.

If she weren't such a coward right now, she's grasp that doing the right thing on this vote is how she easily wins elections.  Elon starts pouring money to some competitor?  "Iowa, I have stood up for you and plan to continue to stand for you.  A man born in South Africa thinks he can buy our votes just because of his vast wealth.  Are we for sale?  No."  You make that the rallying cry.  Iowa's twice elected her to the US Senate.  She held offices in the state's government prior to that.  

But she wants to be a coward right now.

And what's the worst that happens if she does lose next time (2026)?  

She has to make her money on TV as a commentator?  

She's not going to be poor.  She's not going to be on welfare.  

But she apparently would rather be a coward than do the right thing.

She's not alone in that by any means.

But this vote has meaning to her that it doesn't for others.  She served in the military -- we've even noted that she'd be more than qualified to be Secretary of Defense herself and that Trump should have nominated her -- so she knows what's at stake.

And yet she'd rather go along to stay in the Senate.  Why?  If you're not going to stand up, why do you need to be in the Senate?  She's been elected to it twice, she's got her yearbook credit, if she's not going to do anything of value, she doesn't really need to be in the Senate.

Democrats should be personalizing these votes in 2026.  The people who vote for the unqualified, hang it around their necks.  And if, like Hegseth probably, they get into the post and they have a scandal, make it about, "Even with all the warnings, Senator Ernst chose to vote for Hegseth."  

Mark Cuban makes a point on BLUESKY.




I understand what he's saying but he's wrong.  He's also right.

The hideous Kavenaugh would not be on the Court today were it not for Senator Dianne Feinstein.  As we've noted many times before, she never knew what she was doing.  That didn't come with advanced age.  Back in the '00s, as noted here in real time, she was screwing up on the Judiciary Committee constantly as the late Ted Kennedy was pointing that out to me and anyone else who would listen.

She screwed up on Kavenaugh and if Teddy had been alive then, I think he would have said her big mistake there was constantly feeding the press.  She miscalculated  and it came off like a political hit job.  I'd guess that is what Cuban fears.

But that's not the same issue in this case.  These charges and accusations?

The military has a different standard. 

Do you not remember David Petraeus?



When former General David Petraeus was caught in an extramarital affair, questions immediately began swirling about the timeframe of his infidelity. According to Petraeus, his affair with biographer Paula Broadwell did not begin until after he had retired as an Army general.

Why is it an important distinction? While the scandal caused Petraeus to resign his post as the Central Intelligence Agency Director, it is unlikely he will be charged with a crime; on the other hand, had Petraeus still been in the military at the of the affair, he could have faced a criminal prosecution for adultery.

General Petraeus' case serves as a powerful reminder that those serving in the U.S. Armed Services are legally held to a higher standard of behavior than members of the general public. Many military crimes would not be punishable in the civilian world, and even for those military criminal offenses that do have a civilian counterpart, military sentences can be far more severe.
Discipline is the focus of the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Unlike civilians, military members are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Uniform Code is a federal law enacted by Congress. The President is authorized under the Uniform Code to establish rules and procedures for implementation.

A primary objective of the Uniform Code of Military Justice is to maintain discipline in the ranks. Adultery is one example of a crime in the Uniform Code that remains an offense for military members even though it has been decriminalized in many American jurisdictions.

The reasoning behind the military's adultery prohibition is twofold. First, it is meant to reduce distraction and the potential morale impact that such interpersonal behavior can have on soldiers who need to bond effectively to work together. Second, it is especially important for military subordinates to respect their superiors, and discouraging adultery as much as possible helps the military preserve the moral stature of its leaders. Commanders have great discretion in deciding whether to prosecute adultery, and only tend to do so when it occurs between people in the same unit, between ranks, or otherwise has the potential to detract from military order.

Adultery is far from the only way standards for military members differ from those for civilians. For example, if an enlisted soldier is issued a traffic ticket or falls behind on personal loan payments, his or her commanding officer will be informed; domestic violence charges are often career-ending for soldiers; and, drug use is typically punished far more harshly in the military world.


The people under him are going to have to follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- something Pete Hegseth cannot do.  


Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, yesterday on MSNBC, discussed Hegseth's nomination.  She's exactly right that he would not get advanced in the military for his actions. 





Let's turn the focus to Convicted Felon Donald Chump.  Tabitha noted his attack on the Civil Rights in a video yesterday.





President Trump issued a sweeping executive order revoking decades of diversity and affirmative action practices in federal government.

Why it matters: This takes the current pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion into the next stratosphere — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crackdown on the same in the private sector.  

Zoom out: Trump's order revokes one that President Johnson signed on September 24, 1965, more than two years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

  • LBJ's order gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to ensure equal opportunity for people of color and women in federal contractors' recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices.
  • It required federal contractors to refrain from employment discrimination and take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity "based on race, color, religion, and national origin."
  • The order came more than a year after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and just months after he signed the Voting Rights Act following violent attacks on voting rights advocates in Selma, Ala.

The intrigue: The reversal comes after five GOP presidents—including Trump during his first term—kept the Johnson executive order in place, while others expanded it through amendments.


As Tabitha concludes in her video,  "Elections have consequences and, here we are, the consequences of your actions."

Where's the grifter Jill Stein now?  We know where Rashida Tlaib is -- making tiny gestures on Chump's deportation plans but never owning that she helped put him into office.

Her job was to defend her country which is the United States of America.  She failed to do that.  She voted twice to impeach Donald Chump during his first term because she thought he was a grave threat to the country.  But four years later, he's running for re-election and she's telling people to vote for Jill or not vote or vote for Trump.

She can't walk away from this and she shouldn't be allowed to.  She has destroyed the safety of so many communities with her actions, immigrants, those who look like they might be immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, women, Black people, the disabled and so many more.

She didn't defend the country.  She helped put a known threat back into the White House.

That doesn't go away.

We don't get a do over.  We're stuck with that she did.  

And unlike Rashida, let's not forget the very real threat to climate, to the health of our planet, that Chump is.  Matthew Rozsa (SALON) explains:


On Monday, President Donald Trump opened his second term with an inaugural address declaring that America has a “national energy emergency.” Vowing to tap into the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, Trump dismisses the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who say burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that overheat the planet.

Instead of trying to curb emissions on those gases, Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate deal. He also announced initiatives promoting Alaskan oil and gas development and reversing outgoing President Joe Biden’s policies protecting Arctic lands and U.S. coastal waters from drilling and encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles.

Climate scientists, as well as other experts on environmental and energy policy, say that Trump's emergency doesn't actually exist. They emphasize that the president's desire to ramp up fossil fuel use is a self-destructive move, as Earth’s temperature is already 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, one that will hurt both the planet and the economy.

“There is no national energy emergency — and certainly no emergency as President Trump has defined it,” Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Salon. “President Trump is simply doing the bidding of fossil fuel executives, attempting to slash critical climate and public health protections and basic project accountability to boost their bottom lines.”

 

Weeks later, he was back to begging again.  Dharna Noor (GUARDIAN) reported:


Donald Trump was continuing to ask fossil-fuel executives to fund his presidential campaign on Wednesday, despite scrutiny of his relationship with the industry.

The former president attended a fundraising luncheon at Houston’s Post Oak hotel hosted by three big oil executives.

The invitation-only meeting comes a day after the defense rested its case in Trump’s criminal hush-money trial, and a week after Houston was battered by deadly storms. The climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, has created the conditions for more frequent and severe rainfall and flooding, including in Texas.

“Houstonians are staring at Trump in disbelief as he flies in to beg big oil for funds just days after the city’s climate disaster,” said Alex Glass, communications director at the climate advocacy organization Climate Power, and a former Houston resident.

It also follows a fundraising dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last month, where the former president reportedly asked more than 20 oil executives for $1bn in campaign donations from their industry and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.
 

CREW noted in June:

The FBI and Department of Justice should investigate whether Donald Trump violated the law by promising political favors, if re-elected, to the oil and gas industry in exchange for $1 billion in campaign donations, according to a complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In a closed door meeting in April, Trump reportedly told a group of oil and gas executives that they should raise $1 billion for his campaign and promised that he would take specific actions, including issuing drilling and export permits that some oil and gas companies have pursued for years, on “day one” of his next presidential term. 

Trump reportedly described the offer as a “deal,” and public reporting shows that since this meeting, Trump’s fundraising from the oil and gas industry has picked up substantially and that the industry has been drafting executive orders that its members hope Trump would quickly implement as president. 

 “We cannot have government officials making important policy as a result of corrupt exchanges that benefit them, rather than what is in the interest of the American people. That’s why the law is clear that a request for a benefit, including campaign contributions, in exchange for an official act is a bribe,” said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. “Donald Trump’s actions here follow a pattern of Trump opening himself up to corrupt influence, courting conflicts of interest, and using official positions to enrich himself–and in this case may run afoul of the criminal law.”


Should he regain the presidency, Trump will be in a position to lead and pressure the federal agencies responsible for regulating the oil and gas industries and to issue executive orders that will directly affect those industries.

“It is crucial that we have a quick and thorough investigation to determine whether Donald Trump’s conduct with oil and gas executives violate core corruption laws which are meant to protect the government from undue influence and corruption,” said Bookbinder. “The public deserves to know whether Trump’s request for $1 billion went beyond merely epitomizing our system of excessive corporate influence on politics and in fact crossed the legal line.”



These are not new or suppressed details.  They were reported well ahead of the election.  There was no reason for Rashida and her sister to work to defeat Kamala Harris other than they just didn't care what happened to the American people.

She's going to be held accountable for this and all her fans can lie all the want but she is responsible and she will be held accountable.  

Others who need to be held accountable include Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW) and Karina vanden Heuvel (THE NATION) who used their outlets to attack Kamala over and over for three months.  Don't give money to them.  THE NATION should go under for its efforts to tank the campaign of what should have been the first Black woman president.  That's 100% against the aims and goals of the people who started the magazine over a century ago.


Amy Goodman is nothing but a thief.  Not a petty thief.  She takes millions from PACIFICA RADIO and the sweetheart deal her buddy Community Leslie Cagen set up for her results in the fact that PACIFICA doesn't even own the show that they started.  No, Amy retains rights to every program.  But she siphons off millions from PACIFICA every year.  It's amazing no one wants to report on that story just like it's amazing how people disappear from the PACIFICA airwaves when they touch just a little bit on this story.  

So she had no ethics.  

And those are the people who created the culture of hate around Kamala as actual Democrats were working to turn out the vote.



Zack Beauchamp (VOX) serves up a primer on what we can expect:



When I was researching my book on anti-democratic politics, I found a striking pattern in modern incarnations of it — that these movements, almost uniformly, claim their most aggressive anti-democratic policies are actually defenses of democracy. 

While Donald Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election, for example, he insisted that he wasn’t trying to steal an election — but rather to “stop the steal” Joe Biden had already pulled off.

When Trump returned to power this year, I expected to see the same rhetorical maneuver deployed to justify his inevitable power grabs. And indeed, many of Trump’s Day 1 executive orders did exactly this.

Take, for example, Trump’s revival of Schedule F — a move that, in theory, could allow Trump to fire tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with MAGA cronies. Such a move would be a serious threat to democracy, in that it would consolidate key powers of state in the executive’s hands in a manner that proved crucial to the rise of elected authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. 

Yet in the text of the order, Trump sells the move as a vindication of democratic principles. Because the president and vice president are the only executive branch members “elected and directly accountable to the people,” they must be able to assert greater control over civil servants “to restore accountability to the career civil service.”

The same is true of other executive orders that might aid in Trump’s efforts to consolidate power.

An executive order on “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” does not provide any concrete protections against abusive surveillance or internet control practices. It does, however, order the attorney general to set up an inquiry into Biden administration policies that could serve as a pretext to harass and dismiss federal employees who don’t share Trump politics.

An order claiming to combat the “weaponization” of the federal government similarly does very little to prevent Trump from, for example, ordering the attorney general to investigate his political enemies or the IRS to audit them. In fact, it lays the groundwork for two separate probes into Biden administration policies that could end up targeting both federal employees and private citizens. 

Another personnel order, billed as a means of making the government “properly accountable” to “the American people,” imposes greater political controls on the Senior Executive Service (SES) — an upper rung of the civil service. Among other things, it dismisses everyone currently serving on the executive resources boards that oversee hiring into these positions, and requires that the boards be restaffed with a “majority” of “noncareer officials” — meaning, most likely, Trump political appointees.


Going forward, Trump will almost assuredly not do anything as blatant as abolishing elections. Instead, every move will be given a democratic defense, every power grab described as a victory for the American people against the “deep state.”

The aim is to make the reality of the situation into just another partisan debate, where Trump says one thing while Democrats (and the media) say another. The erosion of core democratic principles, like separation of powers and political noninterference with government functions, will appear to many like a perfectly normal part of democracy.


We opened with Senator Patty Murray's office, let's wind down with it:

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement on President Donald Trump’s Executive Order attempting to eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) authority to fight discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin in federal contracting. OFCCP is an agency within the Department of Labor (DOL) that was established in 1965 and plays a unique and vital role in combating unlawful employment discrimination for federal contract workers. Federal contract workers make up about one-fifth of the entire U.S. labor force, doing essential work in nearly every sector imaginable—from construction, to research, to IT, to radioactive and toxic waste cleanup, including at the Hanford site in Washington state.

“Donald Trump wants taxpayer funding to go to employers who illegally discriminate—that’s the clear message from his Week One move to try and gut core civil rights protections and eliminate the core authority of an agency to protect the rights of federal contract workers and combat illegal employment discrimination. It makes no sense to hamstring an agency that has, for six decades, played an essential role in upholding American workers’ basic civil rights and holding corporations accountable for illegal discrimination—and it’s a dark signal to working people about where the Trump administration’s priorities lie.”

Throughout her career, Senator Murray has championed workers’ rights and fought to combat employment discrimination, including as the top Democrat on the Senate labor committee from 2015-2022—among other things, Senator Murray fought back against a proposed DOL rule by the Trump administration that would allow federal contractors and subcontractors to justify discrimination against women, LGBTQ+ people, and members of certain religious groups on ideological grounds. Senator Murray first introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—comprehensive labor legislation to protect workers’ right to stand together and bargain for fairer wages, better benefits, and safer workplaces—in the 116th Congress, and also leads the Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination (BE HEARD) in the Workplace Act, comprehensive legislation to prevent workplace harassment, strengthen and expand key protections for workers, and support workers in seeking accountability and justice.

###





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