rawstory--2020-01-17--Historians school Pence for praising senator who allegedly took bribes to acquit Andrew Johnson

Vice President Mike Pence has written a column praising Edmund Ross , a Republican senator from Kansas who cast the decisive vote that acquitted President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial .
“ At the close of the trial on May 16 , 1868 , [ Ross ] stayed true to his convictions , opposed the passions of his own party , and voted to acquit Johnson , ” Pence writes in a Wall Street Journal column published this week .
“ He faced social ostracism and physical assault .
Still , he knew he was right.
” But historian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ written an entire book on Johnson ’ s impeachment trial , believes that this account of Ross ’ s actions gets history completely wrong .
“ That vote was a profile in corruption , not courage , ” Stewart writes at the History News Network .
“ When the impeachment crisis erupted in early 1868 and landed in the Senate for Johnson ’ s trial , Ross flirted with both sides of the contest , then began to offer his vote for the best deal he could get.
” After promising his fellow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party and impeach Johnson , writes Stewart , he abruptly changed his mind on the day of the vote .
“ Records show that Ross immediately moved to cash in on his pro-Johnson vote with patronage appointments , ” he writes .
“ The Kansan… requested the appointment of a friend as superintendent of Indian lands in which is now Oklahoma , stressing to President Johnson the “ large amount of patronage connected with that office.
” Johnson made the appointment .
Then Ross asked for ratification of a treaty with the Osage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gerard Magliocca , a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law , similarly writes that Ross “ was bribed for his not guilty vote , ” as he “ was promised lots of federal patronage if he voted in favor of the President .
”

The video begins with a close up of the turtle’s head, its dark green, pebbled skin out of place against the stark-white boat deck. Robinson’s hands approach, moving the pliers toward the turtle’s nostril. The tool clamps down on the edge of something — A barnacle? A worm? — barely visible within the dark tunnel. The creature squirms and dribbles blood as the pulling begins. A long, thin object begins to emerge, inch by excruciating inch.
It was August 10, 2015, and marine conservation biologist Christine Figgener was collecting data for her Ph.D. a few miles off the coast of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. She and a colleague, Nathan Robinson, were researching olive ridley sea turtles when they noticed a male had something encrusted in its nose. The pair decided to try to extract the object. Robinson flipped open his Swiss army knife’s pliers and Figgener grabbed her phone and began to film.
“We had no idea what we were frigging looking at,” Figgener said in a newer, annotated version of the video. It wasn’t until one of the researchers cut off a piece of the object that they realized what it was: a four-inch piece of plastic straw.
“We couldn’t believe that such a mundane object that we really use on a daily basis … that we found it in the turtle’s nose,” she said — “that a tiny object caused so much suffering.”
A volunteer holds plastic straws picked during the World Clean-Up day activity in Kendari, Indonesia. Andry Denisah / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images A volunteer holds plastic straws picked during the World Clean-Up day activity in Kendari, Indonesia.
When Figgener uploaded the turtle straw video to her YouTube account eight years ago, it went viral. For a few years, plastic straws were the trendy rallying cry for sustainability. In many ways, the campaign was a success story — one that elevated our awareness of single-use plastics to the point where it resulted in actual policy change. But upon reflection, not all the solutions that spun out of the anti-straw movement actually held water. In recent years, many environmental pundits have focused on the movement’s shortcomings.
To many environmentalists fighting plastic pollution, anti-straw advocacy now feels passé — out of touch with the broader need to address all forms of single-use plastic. But the movement’s rise and fall still holds lessons for the activists of today.
From soda bottles to yogurt containers, there is a lot of plastic pollution out there. So how did we end up so obsessed with straws?
The anti-plastic straw movement didn’t actually originate with Figgener’s turtle video. Back in 2011, a 9-year-old named Milo Cress found it odd that the restaurants he would go to with his mom in Burlington, Vermont, would automatically serve drinks with a straw, whether or not their customer wanted one. He approached the owner of Leunig’s Bistro and Café in Burlington, and eventually, Leunig’s became one of the first establishments in the country to ask customers whether they wanted a straw or not.
Milo Cress, founder of the Be Straw Free campaign, photographed in Niwot, Colorado on August 7, 2012. Mark Leffingwell / MediaNews Group / Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images Milo Cress, founder of the Be Straw Free campaign, photographed in Niwot, Colorado on August 7, 2012.
Eventually, Cress and his mom made some calls to straw manufacturers and estimated that 500 million straws are used and discarded by people in the U.S. every day. The environmental advocacy group Eco-Cycle published Cress’s findings, which in the years since have been cited by nearly every major news media outlet that has covered the plastic straw beat, including CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. (The credibility of that figure has since been questioned, with market research firms determining the figure to be between 170 million and 390 million a day.)
But the turtle video added just the right amount of injury to plastic insult. Figgener’s viral footage helped stir single-use plastic outrage into a frenzy. Celebrities called on their followers to #stopsucking, a social media campaign that aimed to “turn the plastic straw into environment enemy number one.”
Thousands of restaurants joined the pledge and the idea took off, reaching the rare environmental threshold of actual policy change. In 2018, Seattle became the first big city in the United States to ban plastic straws. It was followed shortly by other major municipalities in California, New Jersey, Florida, and other states. That same year, companies including Starbucks and American Airlines jumped on the anti-straw bandwagon, the former announcing it would launch a new “sippy” lid for its cold beverages starting in 2020, allegedly diverting more than 1 billion straws per year.
A flat, plastic lid that does not need a straw is shown on a cup of Starbucks iced tea on July 9, 2018 in Sausalito, California. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images A flat, plastic lid that does not need a straw is shown on a cup of Starbucks iced tea on July 9, 2018 in Sausalito, California.
But for all its success in getting people riled up about plastic pollution, much of that outrage seemed limited to, well, straws, which only make up a small part of the single-use problem. National Geographic calculated that of the 8 million tons of plastic deposited into the world’s oceans each year, only 0.025 percent is comprised of plastic straws.
Some anti-plastic advocates began denouncing the straw bans as “slacktivism,” a type of activism characterized by a lack of commitment or effort. They said the bans gave people an overblown sense that they were making a difference in combating the plastics crisis. For example, anti-straw pledges didn’t seem as concerned with other types of plastic waste or the fossil fuels associated with every part of their life cycle. Even the anti-straw Starbucks sippy lids were actually made from polypropylene, a type of plastic that has a 3 percent recycling rate in the U.S. (The company claimed it was still an improvement, as the new lids could potentially be recycled. Plastic straws are too lightweight and thin to make it through the mechanical recycling sorting process.)
The anti-plastic straw movement also started getting pushback from disability advocates, who pointed out that some people need flexible straws to be able to drink liquids. Paper straws get soggy and fall apart more quickly, reusable straws made of metal are not easy to bend, and silicone straws are difficult to clean.
For the average consumer, functionality is often more important than sustainability, said Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant. “Our brains favor habits because they conserve energy. So if we are going against the current — a BYO straw for example — it’s hard for most people to do so unless highly motivated.”
San Francisco’s Boba Guys tests alternatives to plastic straws made of metal, bamboo, and reusable plastic ahead of a 2018 vote that would ban plastic straws in the city. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images San Francisco’s Boba Guys tests alternatives to plastic straws made of metal, bamboo, and reusable plastic ahead of a 2018 vote that would ban plastic straws in the city.
For restaurants that chose to continue to provide disposable straws, there were options beyond paper or plastic. Straws made with natural materials such as sugarcane and wheat are 100 percent biodegradable, but are inflexible and cost more to manufacture. As a result, many businesses looked to straws made from bioplastics — allegedly compostable plastics made from corn, sugarcane, agave, and other nonpetroleum sources. But according to Brandon Leeds, co-founder of SOFi Paper Products, bioplastics require specific disposal and processing methods, many of which aren’t always followed or clearly outlined, in order for them to decompose effectively.
“Many businesses desire to adopt sustainable practices, and when they encounter these plastic-like alternatives, they may mistakenly believe that they can be environmentally conscious without truly moving away from the plastic aesthetic,” Leeds said. “The absence of stricter governmental regulations allows companies to take advantage of greenwashing tactics, making it difficult to differentiate genuinely sustainable options from those that are not.”
Buying into greenwashing, a term that refers to environmental “solutions” whose appeal is based on appearing environmentally friendly rather than actually being so, “can be an unconscious psychological defense in individuals to shield them from the fear and overwhelming [feeling] of climate change,” Davenport said. “There can be an unexamined story of ‘I’m doing my part’ because it is more soothing than feeling out of control with the harmful and terrifying trajectory we are on with climate change.”
A plastic straw and lid is among the trash washed up on a beach in Santa Monica, California. Citizen of the Planet / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images A plastic straw and lid is among the trash washed up on a beach in Santa Monica, California.
Plastic straw bans are alive and well today, with new proposals still cropping up at the state and city levels. But eliminating plastic straws is no longer the go-to goal of the anti-plastic movement. Part of that is the result of the existing bans’ success: For many consumers, the absence of plastic straws has become normal, even mundane. Now, anti-plastic advocates hope to harness in new ways the outrage they once inspired.
According to Jackie Nuñez, the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s advocacy and engagement manager and the founder of The Last Plastic Straw, the anti-plastic straw movement helped advance awareness and understanding of other single-use products. California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont have all placed some form of ban on plastic bags. The U.S. Interior Department stated that single-use plastic products will be phased out of national parks and around 480 million acres of federal land by 2032. In 2022, the Canadian federal government implemented a single-use plastics ban that included bags, cutlery, food service ware, and stir sticks.
It’s not really the item, it’s the material that’s the problem, Nuñez said. “All plastic is pollution by design.”
Some activists have attempted to call attention to the scourge of single-use plastics by staging ‘plastic attacks,’ in which protesters head to the grocery store and proceed to remove the plastic wrapping from the food in their carts and return the waste to the store.
Shoppers leave excess packaging at the entrance to a Brussels supermarket as part of a “plastic attack” designed to to emphasize the over-usage of plastic in supermarkets. NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / AFP via Getty Images Shoppers leave excess packaging at the entrance to a Brussels supermarket as part of a “plastic attack” designed to to emphasize the over-usage of plastic in supermarkets.
Since they began in 2018, the strategy has gone global. Plastic attacks have been reported in places including in Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada, Peru, and the United States. Some of the biggest demonstrations have drawn hundreds of participants.
The anti-plastic straw movement “triggered a lightbulb moment for a lot of people,” Nuñez said. “It ended up becoming a thing I call a gateway issue.”
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.


rawstory--2020-01-17--The ‘cult-like devotion’ of Trump’s yes-men will ultimately be his undoing: analysis

In an analysis published at Business Insider this Friday , Kieran Corcoran says that if President Trump is expecting a fast , clean acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial , those expectations “ are beginning to evaporate.
” That ’ s thanks to a recent interview Lev Parnas , an associate of Trump ’ s lawyer Rudy Giuliani , gave to MSNBC ’ s Rachel Maddow this Wednesday , where he described his part in a plot to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump ’ s political rivals — a plot Parnas said was orchestrated with Trump at the helm .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ word that many Trump critics use to describe the culture that surrounds the current administration : it ’ s a “ cult.
” “ This cult-like devotion in those who surround Trump is not unique to Parnas , ” Corcoran writes .
“ Michael Cohen , Trump ’ s former fixer and attorney , also described a fanatical dedication to the president.
” The “ cult ” analogy was also made by Trump former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen , Corcoran notes , and that cult mentality “ led Cohen to unquestioningly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the porn star Stormy Daniels , for fear of her going public about her relationship with Trump ( which Trump denies ) in the fractious 2016 election campaign.
” Parnas is yet another former Trump cultist-turned informant , and his recent revelations have made the Republican unity when it comes to defending Trump “ shaky.
” “ Three Republicans in toss-up seats seem willing to side with Democrats to defy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and call witnesses to testify in the trial , ” Corcoran writes .
“ A fourth would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Corcoran , Trump has so far shown himself impervious to scandal , but that is becoming “ less and less tenable if credible and damaging information is brought into the public domain and chips away at his support within the GOP.
” Read the full piece over at Business Insider .

In an analysis published at Business Insider this Friday, Kieran Corcoran says that if President Trump is expecting a fast, clean acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial, those expectations "are beginning to evaporate."
That's thanks to a recent interview Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, gave to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow this Wednesday, where he described his part in a plot to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump's political rivals -- a plot Parnas said was orchestrated with Trump at the helm.
Speaking to Maddow, Parnas used a word that many Trump critics use to describe the culture that surrounds the current administration: it's a "cult."
"This cult-like devotion in those who surround Trump is not unique to Parnas," Corcoran writes. "Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer and attorney, also described a fanatical dedication to the president."
The "cult" analogy was also made by Trump former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, Corcoran notes, and that cult mentality "led Cohen to unquestioningly make an illegal payment of hush money to the porn star Stormy Daniels, for fear of her going public about her relationship with Trump (which Trump denies) in the fractious 2016 election campaign."
Parnas is yet another former Trump cultist-turned informant, and his recent revelations have made the Republican unity when it comes to defending Trump "shaky."
"Three Republicans in toss-up seats seem willing to side with Democrats to defy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and call witnesses to testify in the trial," Corcoran writes. "A fourth would make it a reality."
According to Corcoran, Trump has so far shown himself impervious to scandal, but that is becoming "less and less tenable if credible and damaging information is brought into the public domain and chips away at his support within the GOP."
Read the full piece over at Business Insider.


rawstory--2020-01-17--A Navy scandal sheds light on the nature of bribery and the limits of free speech

It seems like everyone ’ s talking about bribery these days – but I , and anyone else who works for the federal government , have to limit what we can say about what does or does not constitute an ethical or illegal lapse .
I am an ethicist who teaches leadership , ethics and law , and I believe a recent bribery case in the U.S. military offers an interesting and distinctive perspective through which to consider these issues .
Unfortunately , due to current restrictions on what federal employees can and can ’ t say about political matters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ways that case might apply to a broader debate .
Nonetheless , there is one thing I can say without caveat or equivocation .
Bribery laws for government officials have a powerful ethical principle at their core : If you work for the government , your actions in office are meant to serve the public interest – not your own .
The so-called “ Fat Leonard scandal ” is the largest bribery and corruption case in U.S. Navy history .
The key player is Leonard Glenn Francis , a Malaysian-born businessman based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as “ Fat Leonard ” because of his 350-pound weight .
He ran a company called Glenn Defense Marine Asia that had U.S. government contracts to provide various services to Navy ships in Asian ports – docking , refueling , sewage removal and shore transportation for both cargo and personnel .
In 2015 , Francis pleaded guilty to plying Navy officers with cash and favors in exchange for their efforts to steer the Navy ’ s Pacific fleet to ports where his company could provide services .
Then , the company would fabricate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own charges look competitive , overbill the Navy for services and even draw up fake invoices to collect money for goods and services it never provided to the ships and crews .
The case is perhaps best known for the fact that one of the most common favors Francis provided were paid sexual partners : He even kept meticulous notes about the peccadilloes of different officers .
More significant for U.S. taxpayers is the fact that the decade-long scam ultimately bilked the Navy out of more than US $ 35 million .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a textbook bribery scheme , with clandestine meetings , envelopes full of cash , and explicit arrangements to perform clearly illegal acts .
In fact , one of the biggest questions raised when Leonard was finally arrested in 2013 was how his company had been able to get away with the scheme for almost a decade .
There were , in fact , several whistleblowers along the way , but as is often the case when corruption is widespread , those in on the scheme were notified of the complaints before word got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So rather than being lauded , whistleblowers were instead widely vilified .
Nonetheless , the truth was eventually brought to light .
To date , more than 20 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes , including the first-ever conviction of an admiral for a felony .
Significantly , however , the scope of the scandal is even more far-reaching .
Dozens of officers , including several admirals , have been reprimanded and removed from office for more minor related violations , without going to jail .
These last cases are particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only the high standards of military , but also the ways that bribery schemes often don ’ t conform to common , stereotypical , preconceived notions .
Many of the officers charged didn ’ t accept cash payments , but rather the kind of favors that they couldn ’ t or wouldn ’ t be able to obtain for themselves : travel , champagne , scotch , luxury hotel rooms , ornamental swords , handmade ship models , spa treatments , Cuban cigars , Kobe beef , Spanish suckling pigs , concert tickets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it shouldn ’ t be surprising that bribery often begins with small favors rather than thick envelopes of cash .
Human beings are social creatures ; favors strengthen people ’ s social bonds and make them more likely to reciprocate in turn .
That ’ s why federal ethics rules regarding favors are generally so strict , prohibiting government employees from accepting all but the most minimal gifts ( even modest meals ) from contractors and foreign agents .
Those prohibitions have obvious exceptions , but the principle behind the general rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exceptions : Official actions are meant to serve public , rather than private , interests .
In the Fat Leonard cases , the evidence is clear : Even in the cases in which leaders have been merely reprimanded and removed from office , the kinds of favors the officers accepted demonstrate they were acting for their own benefits – not those of the nation .
Why I can ’ t say more There may well be lessons the Fat Leonard saga has for other cases in which the alleged exchange of official acts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key element of the crime .
Those considerations might seem even more relevant given that in 1998 , Mississippi Republican lawmaker Roger Wicker took to the House floor and declared “ the rule of law means that the commander-in-chief of our armed forces could not be held to a lower standard than are his subordinates.
” More than two decades later Wicker , now a senator , has recently reaffirmed that standard .
However , I am a federal employee , and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has issued unusually broad guidance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on federal workers ’ partisan political activities .
The law generally bars federal employees from advocating in favor of or against the election of a particular candidate , as well from participating in other partisan political activities in an election .
Yet the current guidance – which itself has been criticized for taking sides on a political divide – has been taken by some to apply to any analysis of any aspects of the president ’ s impeachment and trial .
This is a free-speech problem , but it ’ s more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hire experts and researchers as , in effect , public servants , I believe that expertise should be welcome in the public sphere , helping to inform the people we work for .
I work at a federally run university , which is why I come under these particular government rules .
There are relatively few institutions like mine , so it might seem a minor issue .
However , numerous states have laws similar to the Hatch Act , at least some of which apply to employees of those states ’ public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stand , public state university employees may well find themselves facing similar , or even more problematic , limits in the future , especially if analysis is taken to be a form of advocacy .
Regardless of those concerns , the Office of Special Counsel ’ s current guidance remains , for better or worse , the rule for federal employees .
Given that fact , there very may well be another reason to follow it : Doing so can help further differentiate those who attempt to respect the significant distinction between campaigning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minimize , or even eliminate altogether , the difference between the two .
As a result , I leave any lessons of how the Fat Leonard scandal might apply to any other case as an exercise for the reader .
[ Get the best of The Conversation , every weekend .
Sign up for our weekly newsletter . ]
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license .
Read the original article .

It seems like everyone’s talking about bribery these days – but I, and anyone else who works for the federal government, have to limit what we can say about what does or does not constitute an ethical or illegal lapse.
I am an ethicist who teaches leadership, ethics and law, and I believe a recent bribery case in the U.S. military offers an interesting and distinctive perspective through which to consider these issues. Unfortunately, due to current restrictions on what federal employees can and can’t say about political matters, I can’t discuss all the ways that case might apply to a broader debate.
Nonetheless, there is one thing I can say without caveat or equivocation. Bribery laws for government officials have a powerful ethical principle at their core: If you work for the government, your actions in office are meant to serve the public interest – not your own.
U.S. Navy via Straits Times
Trouble in the 7th Fleet
The so-called “Fat Leonard scandal” is the largest bribery and corruption case in U.S. Navy history.
The key player is Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian-born businessman based in Singapore who was commonly referred to as “Fat Leonard” because of his 350-pound weight. He ran a company called Glenn Defense Marine Asia that had U.S. government contracts to provide various services to Navy ships in Asian ports – docking, refueling, sewage removal and shore transportation for both cargo and personnel.
In 2015, Francis pleaded guilty to plying Navy officers with cash and favors in exchange for their efforts to steer the Navy’s Pacific fleet to ports where his company could provide services. Then, the company would fabricate bids by nonexistent companies to make its own charges look competitive, overbill the Navy for services and even draw up fake invoices to collect money for goods and services it never provided to the ships and crews.
The case is perhaps best known for the fact that one of the most common favors Francis provided were paid sexual partners: He even kept meticulous notes about the peccadilloes of different officers.
More significant for U.S. taxpayers is the fact that the decade-long scam ultimately bilked the Navy out of more than US$35 million.
Whistleblowers and corruption
Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Christine Walker-Singh/U.S. Navy
U.S. Navy via Washington Post
U.S. Navy
U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons
In some ways the Fat Leonard scandal is a textbook bribery scheme, with clandestine meetings, envelopes full of cash, and explicit arrangements to perform clearly illegal acts. In fact, one of the biggest questions raised when Leonard was finally arrested in 2013 was how his company had been able to get away with the scheme for almost a decade.
There were, in fact, several whistleblowers along the way, but as is often the case when corruption is widespread, those in on the scheme were notified of the complaints before word got to those who would hold them responsible. So rather than being lauded, whistleblowers were instead widely vilified.
Nonetheless, the truth was eventually brought to light. To date, more than 20 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes, including the first-ever conviction of an admiral for a felony.
Significantly, however, the scope of the scandal is even more far-reaching. Dozens of officers, including several admirals, have been reprimanded and removed from office for more minor related violations, without going to jail.
Reciprocity and bribery
These last cases are particularly interesting, because they help demonstrate not only the high standards of military, but also the ways that bribery schemes often don’t conform to common, stereotypical, preconceived notions.
Many of the officers charged didn’t accept cash payments, but rather the kind of favors that they couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to obtain for themselves: travel, champagne, scotch, luxury hotel rooms, ornamental swords, handmade ship models, spa treatments, Cuban cigars, Kobe beef, Spanish suckling pigs, concert tickets and even a culinary internship.
Ultimately, it shouldn’t be surprising that bribery often begins with small favors rather than thick envelopes of cash. Human beings are social creatures; favors strengthen people’s social bonds and make them more likely to reciprocate in turn.
That’s why federal ethics rules regarding favors are generally so strict, prohibiting government employees from accepting all but the most minimal gifts (even modest meals) from contractors and foreign agents.
Those prohibitions have obvious exceptions, but the principle behind the general rules is all the more important in their exceptions: Official actions are meant to serve public, rather than private, interests. In the Fat Leonard cases, the evidence is clear: Even in the cases in which leaders have been merely reprimanded and removed from office, the kinds of favors the officers accepted demonstrate they were acting for their own benefits – not those of the nation.
Why I can’t say more
There may well be lessons the Fat Leonard saga has for other cases in which the alleged exchange of official acts for something of personal value is a key element of the crime. Those considerations might seem even more relevant given that in 1998, Mississippi Republican lawmaker Roger Wicker took to the House floor and declared “the rule of law means that the commander-in-chief of our armed forces could not be held to a lower standard than are his subordinates.” More than two decades later Wicker, now a senator, has recently reaffirmed that standard.
However, I am a federal employee, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has issued unusually broad guidance about the Hatch Act’s limits on federal workers’ partisan political activities. The law generally bars federal employees from advocating in favor of or against the election of a particular candidate, as well from participating in other partisan political activities in an election. Yet the current guidance – which itself has been criticized for taking sides on a political divide – has been taken by some to apply to any analysis of any aspects of the president’s impeachment and trial.
Limiting public discourse
This is a free-speech problem, but it’s more than that. When federal and state governments hire experts and researchers as, in effect, public servants, I believe that expertise should be welcome in the public sphere, helping to inform the people we work for.
I work at a federally run university, which is why I come under these particular government rules. There are relatively few institutions like mine, so it might seem a minor issue. However, numerousstateshavelaws similar to the Hatch Act, at least some of whichapply to employeesofthose states’publicuniversities. If the current federal rules stand, public state university employees may well find themselves facing similar, or even more problematic, limits in the future, especially if analysis is taken to be a form of advocacy.
Regardless of those concerns, the Office of Special Counsel’s current guidance remains, for better or worse, the rule for federal employees. Given that fact, there very may well be another reason to follow it: Doing so can help further differentiate those who attempt to respect the significant distinction between campaigning and governing from those who seek to minimize, or even eliminate altogether, the difference between the two.
As a result, I leave any lessons of how the Fat Leonard scandal might apply to any other case as an exercise for the reader.
[ Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.Sign up for our weekly newsletter. ]
Marcus Hedahl, Associate Professor of Philosophy, United States Naval Academy
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


rawstory--2020-01-17--Pence remained silent as a ‘wax museum guy’ as Trump hurled insults at military leaders: report

President Donald Trump shocked and infuriated his top officials with an insulting rant against the U.S. military — and others present for the Pentagon meeting were angry that Vice President Mike Pence remained silent .
The July 20 , 2017 , meeting has been the subject of numerous reports , but the new book , “ A Very Stable Genius , ” by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker , offers the most detailed account yet .
According to others who were there , the president seemed bored and annoyed by a presentation given by Secretary of Defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Economic Council Gary Cohn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson , who wanted to bring Trump up to speed on some basic fundamentals of U.S. foreign policy .
Trump repeatedly interrupted to ask why allies weren ’ t paying the U.S. for protection , and he eventually flew off the rails and began insulting individual military leaders as “ losers.
” “ I wouldn ’ t go to war with you people , ” Trump barked .
“ You ’ re a bunch of dopes and babies.
” The officers in the room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uncomfortably at their papers , and Tillerson was visibly angry , according to those present .
The secretary of state looked to Mattis to speak up , but later told close aides that he realized the retired Marine Corps general was incapable of challenging his commander in chief .
That left Pence , but others noticed that he seemed to wish he could escape .
“ He ’ s sitting there frozen like a statue , ” said one attendee .
“ Why doesn ’ t he stop the president ?
” Another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president as “ a wax museum guy.
” “ A total deer in the headlights , ” recalled a third attendee .
“ No , that ’ s just wrong , ” the secretary of state said .
“ Mr .
President , you ’ re totally wrong .
None of that is true.
” “ The men and women who put on a uniform don ’ t do it to become soldiers of fortune , ” Tillerson added .
“ That ’ s not why they put on a uniform and go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect our freedom.
” Military officers were grateful for Tillerson ’ s defense , and the meeting ended a short time later when Trump walked out .
Afterward , Tillerson famously assessed the president ’ s intelligence outside the meeting .
“ He ’ s a f*cking moron , ” the secretary of state said .

The three candidates, as well as businessman Perry Johnson and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, also had campaign events at the Iowa State Fair scheduled for Friday, meeting with Reynolds for a “fair-side chat” at JR’s SouthPork Ranch and speaking at the Register Political Soapbox.
In Thursday events, candidates talked with Iowans about issues from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection to the investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings. Some of the Iowans attending political events in the first two days of the Fair were weighing their options for the 2024 Republican caucuses — looking for alternatives to the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
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Linda Sullivan of Johnston came to listen to Burgum’s speech at 8:30 a.m., saying she and her husband were interested in what he and other candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott were saying. Sullivan said Trump was “wouldn’t be on my top list,” and that she was looking for another candidate to take on leading the Republican Party in 2024.
“I just want to get the best person that can get us out of this — in my words — mess, we’re kind of in, in our country,” Sullivan said. “And, yeah, just get back to common sense, like Kim said.”
Trump plans to attend the fair Saturday, but does not plan to speak at the soapbox or participate in a chat with Reynolds.
Here are some updates from the second day of Iowa’s 2023 Iowa State Fair:
Larry Elder calls for support to get to GOP debate stage
Talk show host Larry Elder defended his spot as a “serious candidate” in the 2024 Republican presidential field Friday at the Iowa State Fair, while saying his role was to push other candidates on under-discussed issues.
“Did you think that Donald Trump would win in 2016 at some point? Did you think Joe Biden would the nominee in 2020 at some point?” Elder said. “… Honestly, things have a long way to go between now and the first vote was here in Iowa on January 15. And of longer way to go before the first vote in November in 2024. Anything could happen — trust me, it will happen. You have no idea what’s gonna happen. Do I believe I’m a serious candidate? Hell yes, I am.”
The former California gubernatorial candidate spoke to more than 60 people gathered at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox Friday afternoon. He shared his family story and described policy proposals to address the “epidemic of fatherlessness,” tie federal spending to a set percentage of the national gross domestic product and to remove so-called “soft on crime” district attorneys from office in cities around the country.
Elder described himself as a “MAGA” and “America First” Republican. Though Elder did not point to reasons why he would be a better nominee than former President Donald Trump, he asked for Republicans to support him to put a bigger spotlight on the topics he is discussing.
“Even if they want somebody else, I’m trying to put these issues front and center,” he said. “So if I’m not the nominee, if Trump, for example, is a nominee, if Trump can begin talking about this, given the strength of his voice, given the strength of his megaphone … maybe something can be done.”
Elder said no other Republican candidates are talking about issues such as fatherhood or saying that America is not “systematically racist,” for fear of being called racist. He asked for donations and support from Iowa Republicans at the soapbox and during his Thursday “fair-side chat” with Gov. Kim Reynolds to help him qualify for the Republican debate in Milwaukee Aug. 23.
Elder said he was about 15,000 donors short of the Republican National Committee’s 40,000 threshold. He asked the crowd for support to get his message on the national stage even if they support another candidate for the Republican nomination.
“Do you think that’s a serious message to take to the American people as I’m campaigning, even if I’m not the nominee?” Elder said. “Hell yeah, it is. That’s why I’m doing this.”
Perry Johnson wants executive order to stop Ukraine spending
Perry Johnson spent a large portion of his 20 minutes on the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox focused on federal debt and spending.
Defense spending, aid to Ukraine and federal departments were on Johnson’s list of cuts to make.
“I spent my entire life bringing quality and efficiency to companies and now I want to bring it to the federal government,” Johnson said.
Johnson is a businessman who focuses on efficiency and has founded several worldwide companies.
“I think it’s ridiculous that we are sending $113 billion to the Ukraine when we are going broke here,” Johnson said.
“The single most important thing we have in the United States is defense,” Johnson said, addressing the Department of Defense’s need to have advanced technology, as well as the department’s failed audits.
One audience member asked Johnson how he would be able to stop the U.S. from sending money to Ukraine.
“You noticed how Biden has all of the executive orders to send money over [to Ukraine]? You’re allowed to have an executive order to not fund it,” Johnson said. “… Let’s stop this craziness because sending $113 billion to the Ukraine, we don’t even know where the money is going. It’s nuts.”
Johnson also said he would get rid of the federal Department of Education if elected.
Lowering the cost of running the government is part of Johnson’s agenda, but he also wants to address costs Americans are facing in their privates lives, too, he said.
“The two major things that have gone up exponentially are college tuition and medical care and we need to address those issues,” Johnson, who just sent his eldest son to Michigan State, said.
Johnson said he would require colleges to freeze tuition cost and cut spending 2% each year to qualify for student loans if elected.
“Part of the thing that’s going to happen when I enter office is I will try to privatize as many things as possible,” Johnson said. “You realize, when we privatize things we force competition, we force people to have better quality and better efficiency or they can’t survive.”
Johnson is hosting a concert Saturday featuring the band Big & Rich at the Lauridsen Amphitheater in Des Moines. He said his concert was originally just for his donors, but he has reached his goal of 40,000 donors to reach the debate stage in Milwaukee on Aug. 23.
Johnson still invited everyone to the concert, “I guess in theory you’re supposed to donate, but I do have 52,000 donors, I don’t need more.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez emphasizes national electability while aiming for debate stage
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez does not have the name recognition that some of his competitors for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination can boast, but he told Iowans he was uniquely able to draw certain groups of voters away from the Democratic Party.
“I have absolutely no doubt that I would be a impossible candidate for the Democrats to beat, because I attack three core constituencies that, if they were to lose, they will lose the election by a landslide,” Suarez said. “… If we could win Hispanics, if we could win urban voters — which I’ve done already, my community — and young voters, it’s game over. There isn’t a place in the United States where Democrats can win. I’ve already done that.”
The Republican mayor talked with Iowans in back-to-back stops at the Iowa State Fair, first speaking with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds for a “fair-side chat” before speaking to a group of 30 at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox.
In both talks, Suarez discussed his experience as a Cuban-American whose parents were “kicked out of their country of birth by a communist dictator.” He said his family history and experience as a Republican mayor in a major American city would make him a good choice to lead conservatives to victory in a national election.
However, Suarez has acknowledged that his bid for the Republican nomination hinges on gaining a higher national profile. In an interview with The Hill Tuesday, the candidate said making it onto the Milwaukee debate stage later this month was “critical” to his campaign, and that he may drop out of the race if he does not qualify for the Aug. 23 debate.
Candidates must have donations from a minimum of 40,000 individuals, as well as hit at least 1% in three national polls or a mix of national and early state polls between July 1 and Aug. 23. Currently, eight candidates have met these thresholds for the debate: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Trump, Pence and Christie have yet to sign the Republican National Committee’s pledge to back the eventual Republicans nominee regardless of who wins the contest also required to participate.
Suarez said that he is hoping the RNC offers some flexibility in the debate requirements because of some of the obstacles his campaign has encountered, “including not being included in at least a third of the polls that have been that have been put out.” Speaking with reporters after his soapbox speech, Suarez did not commit to dropping out if he does not qualify for the debate, but said he does believe candidates should not “linger around” if they do not have a credible shot at the nomination.
Getting a national platform would give his campaign the momentum needed to build toward that “credible” bid at the Republican nomination, he said.
“When you’re a relatively unknown candidate, you see the reaction that the crowd has and the people have when they listen to me, you know that if you’re given an opportunity to speak at a national level, that you’re gonna be able to connect and that you’re gonna be able to grow,” Suarez said. “So it’s kind of a chicken or an egg problem. And so we’re doing everything we can over the next 10 days to get there.”
Pence expresses pride in ‘Trump-Pence administration’
Although it’s been a common topic during campaign trail appearances, Gov. Kim Reynolds did not ask former Vice President Mike Pence about Jan. 6 during her “fair-side chat” interview.
A fairgoer on Thursday accused Pence of treason for refusing on Jan. 6, 2021, to block certification of the 2020 election. Pence said he was upholding his oath to defend the Constitution.
Reynolds, however, kept the focus on lighter topics. She asked what he was proud of during his time in the White House, as well as his Christian faith, his childhood and America’s current “absent president.”
Pence said he will “always be proud of the Trump-Pence administration,” an appealing line to some Republicans.
Andrew Wallace, a 21-year-old from Wisconsin drove five hours to see Donald Trump on Saturday, but decided to arrive to Iowa a day early to see Pence. Wallace said Pence is running on an agenda similar to Trump’s, but said he does not like Pence “ripping on Trump.”
“I don’t like that, I don’t like that,” Wallace said. “Trump didn’t do anything to him, Trump did absolutely nothing to him.”
Wallace said of Pence, “He’s running a Trump campaign, just a different guy other than Trump.”
Regarding Medicare and Social Security, Pence said, “We’re not going to change anything, 40-years-old or older and nothing changing for you.”
For those who are under 40, Pence said “I’d like to reform these New Deal programs and actually give you a better deal by making sure that Social Security and Medicare are actually there for you.”
The former vice president said the federal government has gotten too big.
“Washington is not only too big and spends too much, but it does too much,” Pence said before he told the audience of about 100 that he would shut down the federal Department of Education if elected.
Reynolds followed up with a question about Linn-Mar schools and a federal lawsuit regarding gender transitioning, with which Pence has been involved.
“We have got to make it clear that parents don’t co-parent with government,” Pence said, receiving a round of applause. “Parents are in charge of their children’s education and we got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology.”
Pence promised attendees that he would bring small town values to the White House.
“Iowa just feels like home,” Pence said. “I grew up in a small town… I can tell you, I just promise you, you give me the privilege to be your president, I’m going to fight for the values and the ideals and the integrity and the character of the people of Iowa and the heartland of this country.”
Doug Burgum calls for action on U.S.-Mexico border
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum told Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds Friday about his recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, saying President Joe Biden’s administration was failing to support Border Patrol agents.
Both Burgum and Reynolds, Republican governors, have sent National Guard troops from their states at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The action comes following the end of Title 42, a measure that allowed the U.S. to turn away asylum-seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Burgum also made a trip to the border in Texas with North Dakota National Guard’s adjutant general on Monday and Tuesday, receiving a briefing from the more than 100 North Dakota National Guard troops on a yearlong deployment supporting U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas.
In a “fair-side chat” with Reynolds Friday, Burgum said he saw the need during his trip for more federal support, and for more Border Patrol agents. There was not enough attention on the Biden administration’s border policies, he said, citing as an example an experience while he was being interviewed by national press in Texas.
“Over my shoulder, there was people wading across the Rio Grande, and I was getting questions about the swamp, and these indictments, while there’s people crossing the river behind us,” Burgum said.
The Biden administration asked Congress on Thursday for an additional $4 billion for border security.
Burgum linked the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border with rising fentanyl overdose deaths, saying the U.S. was “taking mass casualties” by not stopping the flow of drugs over the southern border. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration found in 2020 that most fentanyl, produced in China and Mexico, was transported into the U.S. through legal ports of entry by U.S. citizens. Democrats have criticized Republicans for linking fentanyl trafficking with immigration.
The North Dakota Republican also said immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border was an issue of national security. He said cartels, transnational criminal organizations, were profiting off of people seeking transportation to the U.S. border, and that some of the people crossing the border could pose national security risks.
“This isn’t just like, ‘Oh, people are coming over from Mexico,'” Burgum said. Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans, Russians, Chinese — I mean, so we’ve got people on terrorist watch lists that are part of the group that are coming across the border right now.”
Burgum said there are roughly 20,000 Border Patrol agents currently working in the U.S. at both the northern and southern borders. He said he would reverse the Biden administration’s “dereliction of duty,” and put more federal resources behind border patrol.
“On a day one, if you give a group of law enforcement the support they need if you give them the technology, you give them the staffing you given the material, they’re going to be able to do the job when I was talking to Border Patrol people they said, Hey, we’ve done it before we’ve controlled the board before. Just give us a chance to do it.”
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Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.


rawstory--2020-01-17--New book highlights Trump’s startling ignorance of basic history

US President Donald Trump ’ s shaky grasp of geography includes not knowing that India shares a border with China , according to a new book by a pair of reporters for The Washington Post .
The book , “ A Very Stable Genius ” by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig , highlights episodes of volatile behavior by the president along with his ignorance of basic geography and history .
“ It ’ s not like you ’ ve got China on your border , ” the authors quoted Trump as telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China share a border and the two countries went to war in 1962 over a disputed Himalayan section of the frontier .
Following Trump ’ s border comment and seeming dismissal of the threat China poses to India , “ Modi ’ s eyes bulged out in surprise , ” according to the book , excerpts of which were published in the Post on Wednesday .
“ Modi ’ s expression gradually shifted , from shock and concern to resignation , ” it said .
After the meeting , “ the Indians took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relations with the United States , a Trump aide told the authors .
The book also recounts a tour by Trump of a memorial for the USS Arizona , a US warship that was sunk by Japanese planes in the December 7 , 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbour .
“ Hey , John , what ’ s this all about ?
What ’ s this a tour of ?
” Trump is quoted as asking his then-chief of staff John Kelly .
“ Trump had heard the phrase ‘ Pearl Harbor ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visiting the scene of a historic battle , but he did not seem to know much else , ” the book said .
“ He was at times dangerously uninformed , ” the book quotes a former senior White House adviser as saying .
The book said Trump lobbied then secretary of state Rex Tillerson in 2017 to help get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which prevents US firms from bribing foreign officials for business deals .
“ It ’ s just so unfair that American companies aren ’ t allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Trump is quoted as saying .
“ We ’ re going to change that.
” The book also recounts an exchange between Trump and Anthony Scaramucci , who served briefly as White House communications director and is now a fierce critic of the president .
Scaramucci said he once asked Trump , “ Are you an act ?
” “ I ’ m a total act and I don ’ t understand why people don ’ t get it , ” Trump reportedly replied .

US President Donald Trump's shaky grasp of geography includes not knowing that India shares a border with China, according to a new book by a pair of reporters for The Washington Post.
The book, "A Very Stable Genius" by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, highlights episodes of volatile behavior by the president along with his ignorance of basic geography and history.
"It's not like you've got China on your border," the authors quoted Trump as telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting between the two leaders.
India and China share a border and the two countries went to war in 1962 over a disputed Himalayan section of the frontier.
Following Trump's border comment and seeming dismissal of the threat China poses to India, "Modi's eyes bulged out in surprise," according to the book, excerpts of which were published in the Post on Wednesday.
"Modi's expression gradually shifted, from shock and concern to resignation," it said.
After the meeting, "the Indians took a step back" in their diplomatic relations with the United States, a Trump aide told the authors.
The book also recounts a tour by Trump of a memorial for the USS Arizona, a US warship that was sunk by Japanese planes in the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbour.
"Hey, John, what's this all about? What's this a tour of?" Trump is quoted as asking his then-chief of staff John Kelly.
"Trump had heard the phrase 'Pearl Harbor' and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else," the book said.
"He was at times dangerously uninformed," the book quotes a former senior White House adviser as saying.
The book said Trump lobbied then secretary of state Rex Tillerson in 2017 to help get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which prevents US firms from bribing foreign officials for business deals.
"It's just so unfair that American companies aren't allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas," Trump is quoted as saying. "We're going to change that."
The book also recounts an exchange between Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as White House communications director and is now a fierce critic of the president.
Scaramucci said he once asked Trump, "Are you an act?"
"I'm a total act and I don't understand why people don't get it," Trump reportedly replied.


rawstory--2020-01-17--Treasury inspector general probes possible Trump tax break abuses

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom .
Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox .
The Treasury Department ’ s inspector general is looking into the opportunity zone program following stories by ProPublica and The New York Times about how the tax break meant to help the poor had been manipulated by billionaires .
The development , which was first reported by NBC News , comes after three congressional Democrats wrote to Treasury ’ s inspector general in October asking for the probe and citing the ProPublica and Times stories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and expect to complete our work and respond to the Congressional requesters in early spring , ” Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar said in a statement .
The opportunity zone program , passed as part of the 2017 Trump tax overhaul , offers tax breaks to investors who put money into specially designated areas .
While it was pitched as a way to help struggling neighborhoods , ProPublica and others have documented how the process has appeared to benefit billionaires with investments in areas that should not have qualified .
In other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ break to their political donors and , in some cases , themselves or their families .
Sen. Cory Booker , an architect of the program , along with Reps. Emanuel Cleaver and Ron Kind , asked the inspector general to do a “ complete review ” of areas picked for the opportunity zone tax break to see if they were truly eligible .
The October letter also asked the inspector general to collect all correspondence between Treasury , White House officials and outside interests about the process .
The inspector general said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to publicly post its response to the congressional Democrats .
Do you have access to information about opportunity zones that should be public ?
Email [ email protected ] .
Here ’ s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely .

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
The Treasury Department’s inspector general is looking into the opportunity zone program following stories by ProPublica and The New York Times about how the tax break meant to help the poor had been manipulated by billionaires.
The development, which was first reported by NBC News, comes after three congressional Democrats wrote to Treasury’s inspector general in October asking for the probe and citing the ProPublica and Times stories.
“We are conducting an inquiry, and expect to complete our work and respond to the Congressional requesters in early spring,” Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar said in a statement.
The opportunity zone program, passed as part of the 2017 Trump tax overhaul, offers tax breaks to investors who put money into specially designated areas. While it was pitched as a way to help struggling neighborhoods, ProPublica and others have documented how the process has appeared to benefit billionaires with investments in areas that should not have qualified. In other cases, governors have granted the tax break to their political donors and, in some cases, themselves or their families.
Sen. Cory Booker, an architect of the program, along with Reps. Emanuel Cleaver and Ron Kind, asked the inspector general to do a “complete review” of areas picked for the opportunity zone tax break to see if they were truly eligible. The October letter also asked the inspector general to collect all correspondence between Treasury, White House officials and outside interests about the process.
The inspector general said that once the inquiry is complete it plans to publicly post its response to the congressional Democrats.
Do you have access to information about opportunity zones that should be public? Email justin@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.


rawstory--2020-01-17--Trump says US is ready for war — but not all his troops are so sure

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom .
Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox .
Between the killing of Iran ’ s most important general and Iran ’ s missiles hurtling toward American troops in Iraq , President Donald Trump took time to discuss America ’ s military prowess .
“ The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment , ” he tweeted on Jan. 5 .
“ If Iran attacks an American Base , or any American , we will be sending some of that brand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being wrong ( the military has not spent that much ) , he repeated a mistake that military leaders have made for years : emphasizing weapons over the fitness of the men and women charged with firing them .
Over the past 18 months , ProPublica has dug into military accidents in recent years that , all told , call into question just how prepared the American military is to fight America ’ s battles .
If forced to fight in the Persian Gulf or the Korean Peninsula , the Navy and Marine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in holding strategic command of the sea and defending against ballistic missiles .
Those branches , though , do not need billions of dollars of new weapons , our examination revealed .
They need to focus on the basics : its service members , their training and their equipment .
The Government Accountability Office , Congress ’ watchdog , has been sounding the alarm for years , to little effect .
In 2016 , the GAO found that years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan had taken their toll : “ The military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” In 2018 , the agency focused on the Navy and Marine Corps .
All seven types of aircraft it tracked , from cargo planes to fighters like the F/A-18D , had repeatedly missed goals for being prepared for missions .
“ Aviation readiness will take many years to recover , ” the GAO said .
In a report last month , the GAO found that only about 25 % of Navy shipyard repairs were completed on time .
“ The Navy continues to face persistent and substantial maintenance delays that affect the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its attempts to restore readiness , ” it said .
The services ’ problems with readiness burst into public view in the summer of 2017 , when two American destroyers collided with two commercial ships in separate incidents that left 17 sailors dead and scores injured .
They were the Navy ’ s worst accidents at sea since the 1970s .
Both the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain were deployed to the 7th Fleet , based in Yokosuka , Japan .
What both ships needed , ProPublica found , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Neither ship was fully qualified for its battle missions ; neither ship had a full crew ; both ships had patched together navigation systems that failed to work at times .
Sailors on both ships described being shortchanged in training and exhausted by the pace of operations .
One-hundred-hour work weeks were not uncommon .
On the Fitzgerald , for instance , a sailor had to manually press a button more than 1,000 times to refresh a radar screen tracking nearby traffic .
On the evening of the collision on June 17 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a relatively inexperienced officer who ordered the destroyer to turn directly into the path of a cargo carrier .
On the McCain , the Navy had installed a touch-screen navigation system as a cheaper alternative to traditional steering wheels and throttles .
The design of the new system was so confusing that the sailors using it accidentally guided the McCain into an oil tanker in the Singapore Strait on Aug. 21 .
Dakota Bordeaux , the young sailor steering the ship , said of the new navigation system , “ There was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I had no clue what on earth they did.
” It was not that the Navy was unaware of the problems .
Top commanders had simply ignored urgent messages for help .
Military leaders wanted missions completed .
They cared less about whether the men and women on duty were forced to cut corners to do them .
In January 2013 , Vice Adm. Thomas Copeman issued a warning at the Surface Navy Association Symposium , one of the premier gatherings of Navy officers in charge of warships .
Readiness , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ downward spiral.
” “ It ’ s getting harder and harder I think for us to look the troops in the eye , ” Copeman told the audience .
“ If you ’ re an admiral in the Navy , ” he later told ProPublica , “ you may have to make that decision to send people into combat , and you better not have blood on your hands the rest of your life because you didn ’ t do everything you could in peacetime to make them ready.
” The Navy ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he said , just to fix what was wrong with training alone .
Copeman raised the specter of a “ hollow ” Navy without those additional funds .
Three years later Janine Davidson , the undersecretary of the Navy , sounded the alarm again .
The Navy remained short of adequately trained sailors and reliable ships .
“ It ’ s sleepwalking into a level of risk you don ’ t realize you have , ” she said to ProPublica .
The 7th Fleet , the largest of the Navy ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2017 , top officers laid out the armada ’ s dire conditions for its senior commander , Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin .
Training was down .
Certifications , which crews received after proving they were prepared to handle crucial war-fighting duties , had dropped from 93 % completed in 2014 to 62 % in 2016 .
That year , only two of the fleet ’ s 11 destroyers and cruisers received all recommended maintenance .
One ship got only a quarter of its scheduled upkeep .
Aucoin sent the assessment to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of crisis got him nothing .
Low-level officers on the decks of ships and high-ranking leaders up the chain of command said they made similar warnings and were shut down .
Scores of sailors reached out to us and testified to some combination of fear , lack of training and an absence of confidence in the Navy ’ s leadership .
“ If the Navy paid more attention to the job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation of sailors , then a lot of these other systemic issues will fix themselves , ” one sailor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ directly relevant to today ’ s situation with Iran .
In 2016 , the crew of two American gunboats was seized in the Persian Gulf by Iran ’ s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , the military force dominated by Qassim Suleimani , the major general killed by a drone strike outside the Baghdad Airport this month .
The sailors on the gunboats undertook a last-minute mission without proper training or equipment and were captured after straying into the waters surrounding an Iranian naval base on Farsi Island .
An international incident was avoided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maneuvers .
We also examined the state of the Navy ’ s minesweepers .
The Persian Gulf is one of the few places in the world where such ships may prove indispensable .
Nearly a quarter of the world ’ s oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz at the gulf ’ s entrance .
The Iranians have threatened to use mines to block it in case of conflict .
The Navy has fewer than a dozen minesweepers , many in disrepair .
One sailor told us the sonar meant to detect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exercises it flagged dishwashers , crab traps and cars on the ocean floor as potential explosives .
“ We are essentially the ships that the Navy forgot , ” another sailor said of his own minesweeper , which had not left port in 20 months .
The Department of the Navy oversees the Marine Corps .
And a Marine Corps aviation accident in December 2018 raised its own questions about readiness .
A midair collision between a F/A-18D Hornet and a KC-130J Hercules fuel tanker over the Pacific left six Marines dead .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Local commanders had warned higher-ups of a lack of training , nonfunctioning aircraft and faulty equipment .
Squadron 242 , whose fighter jets were involved in the accident , was designed to leap quickly into an attack against North Korea in case of conflict .
The commander ’ s own reports showed the squadron was consistently not capable of completing seven of its 10 “ mission essential tasks , ” such as armed reconnaissance and traveling into enemy airspace to bomb known targets .
In commentary written in response to the findings of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the commander for the tanker squadron , which lost five Marines in the crash , was unsparing .
“ In an [ area of operations ] where the mantra of ‘ Fight Tonight ’ is repeated everywhere , ” Lt. Col. Mitchell Maury said , referring to the Pacific , “ we are not manned , trained , and equipped to execute to the appropriate level of effectiveness.
” In isolation , each of the events seemed an unfortunate accident — regrettable , to be sure , but not a cause for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a broad and alarming pattern .
The Navy and the Marine Corps had routinely ignored their sailors and Marines , their equipment and their training .
The result : men dying during peacetime .
Are the two branches ready to fight a war against Iran tonight ?
It ’ s a question that nobody hopes to ever answer .
But it ’ s a question that goes beyond expensive new weapons .

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Between the killing of Iran’s most important general and Iran’s missiles hurtling toward American troops in Iraq, President Donald Trump took time to discuss America’s military prowess.
“The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment,” he tweeted on Jan. 5. “If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way.”
Besides being wrong (the military has not spent that much), he repeated a mistake that military leaders have made for years: emphasizing weapons over the fitness of the men and women charged with firing them.
Over the past 18 months, ProPublica has dug into military accidents in recent years that, all told, call into question just how prepared the American military is to fight America’s battles.
If forced to fight in the Persian Gulf or the Korean Peninsula, the Navy and Marine Corps are likely to play crucial roles in holding strategic command of the sea and defending against ballistic missiles.
Those branches, though, do not need billions of dollars of new weapons, our examination revealed. They need to focus on the basics: its service members, their training and their equipment.
The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog, has been sounding the alarm for years, to little effect. In 2016, the GAO found that years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan had taken their toll: “The military services have reported persistently low readiness levels.”
In 2018, the agency focused on the Navy and Marine Corps. All seven types of aircraft it tracked, from cargo planes to fighters like the F/A-18D, had repeatedly missed goals for being prepared for missions. “Aviation readiness will take many years to recover,” the GAO said.
In a report last month, the GAO found that only about 25% of Navy shipyard repairs were completed on time. “The Navy continues to face persistent and substantial maintenance delays that affect the majority of its maintenance efforts and hinder its attempts to restore readiness,” it said.
The services’ problems with readiness burst into public view in the summer of 2017, when two American destroyers collided with two commercial ships in separate incidents that left 17 sailors dead and scores injured. They were the Navy’s worst accidents at sea since the 1970s.
Both the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain were deployed to the 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan. What both ships needed, ProPublica found, was more time to train and more sailors.
Neither ship was fully qualified for its battle missions; neither ship had a full crew; both ships had patched together navigation systems that failed to work at times.
Sailors on both ships described being shortchanged in training and exhausted by the pace of operations. One-hundred-hour work weeks were not uncommon.
On the Fitzgerald, for instance, a sailor had to manually press a button more than 1,000 times to refresh a radar screen tracking nearby traffic. On the evening of the collision on June 17, the Fitzgerald was under the control of a relatively inexperienced officer who ordered the destroyer to turn directly into the path of a cargo carrier.
On the McCain, the Navy had installed a touch-screen navigation system as a cheaper alternative to traditional steering wheels and throttles. The design of the new system was so confusing that the sailors using it accidentally guided the McCain into an oil tanker in the Singapore Strait on Aug. 21.
Dakota Bordeaux, the young sailor steering the ship, said of the new navigation system, “There was actually a lot of functions on there that I had no clue what on earth they did.”
It was not that the Navy was unaware of the problems. Top commanders had simply ignored urgent messages for help. Military leaders wanted missions completed. They cared less about whether the men and women on duty were forced to cut corners to do them.
In January 2013, Vice Adm. Thomas Copeman issued a warning at the Surface Navy Association Symposium, one of the premier gatherings of Navy officers in charge of warships. Readiness, he said, was headed toward a “downward spiral.”
“It’s getting harder and harder I think for us to look the troops in the eye,” Copeman told the audience.
“If you’re an admiral in the Navy,” he later told ProPublica, “you may have to make that decision to send people into combat, and you better not have blood on your hands the rest of your life because you didn’t do everything you could in peacetime to make them ready.”
The Navy’s surface forces needed $3.5 billion, he said, just to fix what was wrong with training alone. Copeman raised the specter of a “hollow” Navy without those additional funds.
Three years later Janine Davidson, the undersecretary of the Navy, sounded the alarm again. The Navy remained short of adequately trained sailors and reliable ships.
“It’s sleepwalking into a level of risk you don’t realize you have,” she said to ProPublica.
The 7th Fleet, the largest of the Navy’s forward-deployed fleets, was perhaps most vulnerable. In 2017, top officers laid out the armada’s dire conditions for its senior commander, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin.
Training was down. Certifications, which crews received after proving they were prepared to handle crucial war-fighting duties, had dropped from 93% completed in 2014 to 62% in 2016. That year, only two of the fleet’s 11 destroyers and cruisers received all recommended maintenance. One ship got only a quarter of its scheduled upkeep.
Aucoin sent the assessment to the top brass. But the portrait of crisis got him nothing.
Low-level officers on the decks of ships and high-ranking leaders up the chain of command said they made similar warnings and were shut down. Scores of sailors reached out to us and testified to some combination of fear, lack of training and an absence of confidence in the Navy’s leadership.
“If the Navy paid more attention to the job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation of sailors, then a lot of these other systemic issues will fix themselves,” one sailor wrote.
We examined other Navy episodes directly relevant to today’s situation with Iran. In 2016, the crew of two American gunboats was seized in the Persian Gulf by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military force dominated by Qassim Suleimani, the major general killed by a drone strike outside the Baghdad Airport this month.
The sailors on the gunboats undertook a last-minute mission without proper training or equipment and were captured after straying into the waters surrounding an Iranian naval base on Farsi Island. An international incident was avoided only through military pressure and last-minute diplomatic maneuvers.
We also examined the state of the Navy’s minesweepers. The Persian Gulf is one of the few places in the world where such ships may prove indispensable. Nearly a quarter of the world’s oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz at the gulf’s entrance. The Iranians have threatened to use mines to block it in case of conflict.
The Navy has fewer than a dozen minesweepers, many in disrepair. One sailor told us the sonar meant to detect mines was so imprecise that in training exercises it flagged dishwashers, crab traps and cars on the ocean floor as potential explosives.
“We are essentially the ships that the Navy forgot,” another sailor said of his own minesweeper, which had not left port in 20 months.
The Department of the Navy oversees the Marine Corps. And a Marine Corps aviation accident in December 2018 raised its own questions about readiness. A midair collision between a F/A-18D Hornet and a KC-130J Hercules fuel tanker over the Pacific left six Marines dead.
The same patterns showed up again: Local commanders had warned higher-ups of a lack of training, nonfunctioning aircraft and faulty equipment.
Squadron 242, whose fighter jets were involved in the accident, was designed to leap quickly into an attack against North Korea in case of conflict. The commander’s own reports showed the squadron was consistently not capable of completing seven of its 10 “mission essential tasks,” such as armed reconnaissance and traveling into enemy airspace to bomb known targets.
In commentary written in response to the findings of a safety board investigation after the incident, the commander for the tanker squadron, which lost five Marines in the crash, was unsparing.
“In an [area of operations] where the mantra of ‘Fight Tonight’ is repeated everywhere,” Lt. Col. Mitchell Maury said, referring to the Pacific, “we are not manned, trained, and equipped to execute to the appropriate level of effectiveness.”
In isolation, each of the events seemed an unfortunate accident — regrettable, to be sure, but not a cause for widespread alarm.
But our reporting showed a broad and alarming pattern. The Navy and the Marine Corps had routinely ignored their sailors and Marines, their equipment and their training. The result: men dying during peacetime.
Are the two branches ready to fight a war against Iran tonight? It’s a question that nobody hopes to ever answer. But it’s a question that goes beyond expensive new weapons.


rawstory--2020-01-17--Lev Parnas spins wild tales of Trumpian corruption — and we know most of them are true

Following the rules of an anachronistic 18th-century ritual , the House managers walked in formation to the Senate to deliver the articles of impeachment on Thursday .
The sergeant at arms informed the senators that if they speak during the trial they could be imprisoned , and then the chief justice arrived in his robes accompanied by four senators .
He then administered the constitutionally prescribed oath to deliver impartial justice to the assembled senators , after which , one by one , they signed their names to a book .
The only thing missing was the white wigs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meanwhile , the president was shriek-tweeting in all caps , “ I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL !
” It was weird .
But then , what isn ’ t weird in this administration ?
Only in the Trump era would we have a bombshell witness appear on the night before the trial , loaded down with pictures and video and written evidence , much of it in Russian .
I ’ m speaking of Lev Parnas , of course , who served as Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extort a political smear job against Joe Biden from the Ukrainian government .
Parnas was arrested in October for campaign finance violations , along with his partner Igor Fruman .
But until federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York returned records they had seized during the arrest , and a judge cleared them to be sent to the House Intelligence Committee last week , we didn ’ t know specifically what he ’ d been up to in the Ukraine scandal .
On Monday , the House released some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ text messages — lots of text messages — between Parnas , Giuliani and any number of other players .
The trial starts on Tuesday so presumably , the lawyers working for the House managers are pulling all-nighters to put together the timeline based upon all the records provided by their own witnesses , FOIA requests and Parnas to both corroborate his story and present an understandable narrative of what happened in Kyiv and in Washington .
They have not interviewed Parnas , as far as I know , but he ’ s been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to determine some of what they can corroborate and what they can ’ t .
He ’ s an accused criminal , but as TV prosecutors have been saying on a loop for the past few days , it ’ s usually criminals who give evidence against other criminals .
They ’ re the ones who know where their fellow criminals buried the bodies .
Parnas revealed a lot of juicy details in his interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC .
It ’ s hard to know right now what was most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of color about the Trump hotel in Washington being essentially like a mobsters ’ “ social club ” where hangers-on gather in the lobby and the bar , while insiders get invited into the inner sanctums where the real deals are made .
It ’ s a GOP power center that just happens to put money directly into the president ’ s personal bank account .
Imagine that .
Parnas also claimed that the shocking texts between him and a fringe character named Robert Hyde , in which Hyde indicated that he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Ukraine , under surveillance , were all just a joke .
Apparently , both the U.S. government and the Ukrainian government weren ’ t entirely convinced , since the FBI “ visited ” Hyde on Thursday and the Ukrainians finally gave Trump his investigation , although not quite the one he wanted .
They have also announced they are looking into this allegation .
The new information I find most interesting at first glance is that we now know the withholding of military aid and a White House visit in exchange for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the 2016 election was only one of three different quid-pro-quos in this plot .
It ’ s been a puzzle from the very beginning as to why the administration was so determined to push Yovanovitch out of her post .
She was something of an anti-corruption crusader , but it hasn ’ t been clear exactly why Giuliani and his henchmen pushed so hard to get her fired .
According to text messages provided by Parnas , it was just another transaction .
Getting rid of Yovanovitch was the price they had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the crooked Ukrainian prosecutors , Yuri Lutsenko , who agreed to investigate Biden if they delivered .
Despite all their hard work getting Yovanovitch fired — and it was really hard , according to Parnas — Lutsenko ’ s patron , then-President Petro Poroshenko , lost the election and was replaced last year by Volodymyr Zelensky .
( Out of office , Lutsenko later pulled a Trump and reneged on the agreement , telling the press he never found anything on Biden . )
The other quid pro quo is more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Firtash , a Ukrainian gas oligarch with ties to the Kremlin , had dirt on Burisma , the firm that had Joe Biden ’ s son Hunter on its board .
Naturally , Giuliani was excited .
Firtash was being represented by Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing , two long-time GOP legal operatives who had been involved in the Ukraine plot , along with a right-wing reporter John Solomon .
Firtash wanted to avoid extradition from Austria to the U.S. , where he is wanted on bribery and racketeering charges .
According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information in exchange for having his extradition order lifted .
Giuliani , Toensing and diGenova all worked together to try to make that happen .
Elements of this story were already known , but Parnas suggested in his interview with Maddow that Attorney General Bill Barr was also “ on the team.
” He didn ’ t offer any direct evidence of this and the Department of Justice denies knowing anything about it .
But it once more raises the question of why Trump told Zelensky during the “ perfect call ” to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Parnas said he came forward because he ’ s afraid of Barr ’ s Justice Department , which is astonishing considering the lowlife elements he ’ s been palling around with .
Since Parnas is under federal indictment that seems like a reckless thing to say .
But he says everyone is running scared since Trump managed to consolidate power after naming Barr , so his only real hope lies in going public .
This is a crazy story but we already knew that most of it is true .
As tantalizing as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t entirely fill in the picture of Rudy Giuliani ’ s scheme and how Trump ’ s Washington works .
What was true a month ago remains true today : The president of the United States and his personal lawyer plotted to extort the leaders of a foreign country into interfering in the presidential election by smearing his political rival .
New information comes out every day and none of it will ever change that fact .

Following the rules of an anachronistic 18th-century ritual, the House managers walked in formation to the Senate to deliver the articles of impeachment on Thursday. The sergeant at arms informed the senators that if they speak during the trial they could be imprisoned, and then the chief justice arrived in his robes accompanied by four senators. He then administered the constitutionally prescribed oath to deliver impartial justice to the assembled senators, after which, one by one, they signed their names to a book. The only thing missing was the white wigs.
This article was originally published at Salon
Meanwhile, the president was shriek-tweeting in all caps, "I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!"
It was weird. But then, what isn't weird in this administration?
Only in the Trump era would we have a bombshell witness appear on the night before the trial, loaded down with pictures and video and written evidence, much of it in Russian. I'm speaking of Lev Parnas, of course, who served as Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani's bagman in the plot to extort a political smear job against Joe Biden from the Ukrainian government.
Parnas was arrested in October for campaign finance violations, along with his partner Igor Fruman. But until federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York returned records they had seized during the arrest, and a judge cleared them to be sent to the House Intelligence Committee last week, we didn't know specifically what he'd been up to in the Ukraine scandal.
On Monday, the House released some of the documents to the public, which included text messages — lots of text messages — between Parnas, Giuliani and any number of other players. The trial starts on Tuesday so presumably, the lawyers working for the House managers are pulling all-nighters to put together the timeline based upon all the records provided by their own witnesses, FOIA requests and Parnas to both corroborate his story and present an understandable narrative of what happened in Kyiv and in Washington.
They have not interviewed Parnas, as far as I know, but he's been giving TV interviews so they should be able to determine some of what they can corroborate and what they can't. He's an accused criminal, but as TV prosecutors have been saying on a loop for the past few days, it's usually criminals who give evidence against other criminals. They're the ones who know where their fellow criminals buried the bodies.
Parnas revealed a lot of juicy details in his interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. It's hard to know right now what was most important. There's a ton of color about the Trump hotel in Washington being essentially like a mobsters' "social club" where hangers-on gather in the lobby and the bar, while insiders get invited into the inner sanctums where the real deals are made. It's a GOP power center that just happens to put money directly into the president's personal bank account. Imagine that.
Parnas also claimed that the shocking texts between him and a fringe character named Robert Hyde, in which Hyde indicated that he had Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, under surveillance, were all just a joke. Apparently, both the U.S. government and the Ukrainian government weren't entirely convinced, since the FBI "visited" Hyde on Thursday and the Ukrainians finally gave Trump his investigation, although not quite the one he wanted. They have also announced they are looking into this allegation.
The new information I find most interesting at first glance is that we now know the withholding of military aid and a White House visit in exchange for the announcement of an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election was only one of three different quid-pro-quos in this plot.
It's been a puzzle from the very beginning as to why the administration was so determined to push Yovanovitch out of her post. She was something of an anti-corruption crusader, but it hasn't been clear exactly why Giuliani and his henchmen pushed so hard to get her fired.
According to text messages provided by Parnas, it was just another transaction. Getting rid of Yovanovitch was the price they had to pay to obtain the cooperation of one of the crooked Ukrainian prosecutors, Yuri Lutsenko, who agreed to investigate Biden if they delivered. Despite all their hard work getting Yovanovitch fired — and it was really hard, according to Parnas — Lutsenko's patron, then-President Petro Poroshenko, lost the election and was replaced last year by Volodymyr Zelensky. (Out of office, Lutsenko later pulled a Trump and reneged on the agreement, telling the press he never found anything on Biden.)
The other quid pro quo is more sinister. Giuliani got word that Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian gas oligarch with ties to the Kremlin, had dirt on Burisma, the firm that had Joe Biden's son Hunter on its board. Naturally, Giuliani was excited. Firtash was being represented by Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, two long-time GOP legal operatives who had been involved in the Ukraine plot, along with a right-wing reporter John Solomon. Firtash wanted to avoid extradition from Austria to the U.S., where he is wanted on bribery and racketeering charges. According to Parnas, Firtash agreed to share his information in exchange for having his extradition order lifted. Giuliani, Toensing and diGenova all worked together to try to make that happen.
Elements of this story were already known, but Parnas suggested in his interview with Maddow that Attorney General Bill Barr was also "on the team." He didn't offer any direct evidence of this and the Department of Justice denies knowing anything about it. But it once more raises the question of why Trump told Zelensky during the "perfect call" to cooperate with both Giuliani and Barr.
Parnas said he came forward because he's afraid of Barr's Justice Department, which is astonishing considering the lowlife elements he's been palling around with. Since Parnas is under federal indictment that seems like a reckless thing to say. But he says everyone is running scared since Trump managed to consolidate power after naming Barr, so his only real hope lies in going public.
This is a crazy story but we already knew that most of it is true. As tantalizing as these new details are, they don't entirely fill in the picture of Rudy Giuliani's scheme and how Trump's Washington works. What was true a month ago remains true today: The president of the United States and his personal lawyer plotted to extort the leaders of a foreign country into interfering in the presidential election by smearing his political rival. New information comes out every day and none of it will ever change that fact.


rawstory--2020-01-17--‘Trump corrupts’: Conservative columnist stunned by GOP ‘meltdown’ amid new evidence of president’s

‘Trump corrupts’: Conservative columnist stunned by GOP ‘meltdown’ amid new evidence of president’s guilt

Conservative Matt Lewis has written a new column for The Daily Beast in which he documents how Republican senators are “ melting down ” amid damning new evidence showing that President Donald Trump tried to extort Ukraine to investigate his political opponents .
In particular , he points to Sen. Martha McSally ’ s ( R-AZ ) on-air tirade against CNN reporter Manu Raju on Thursday as evidence that GOP senators are coming unglued as they face pressure to acquit the president even as more proof emerges that shows he deserves to be convicted .
Making things worse , writes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Republicans should say that his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “ perfect.
” “ With a different leader , these vulnerable senators might be afforded the opportunity to subtly distance themselves from this president , ” Lewis writes .
“ But Donald Trump demands complete loyalty and attempts to walk the line between appeasing the Trump-loyal GOP base and wooing suburban swing voters are being made impossible.
” Lewis also argues that Sen. Susan Collins ( R-ME ) , while not going as far as McSally did , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoid antagonizing the president despite her reputation as a moderate .
“ Martha McSally and Susan Collins are proof positive that even the ‘ thoughtful ’ Republicans are so desperate to defend this president that they are taking a page out of his playbook of projection and prevarication , ” he concludes .
“ Trump corrupts !
”

Conservative Matt Lewis has written a new column for The Daily Beast in which he documents how Republican senators are "melting down" amid damning new evidence showing that President Donald Trump tried to extort Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.
In particular, he points to Sen. Martha McSally's (R-AZ) on-air tirade against CNN reporter Manu Raju on Thursday as evidence that GOP senators are coming unglued as they face pressure to acquit the president even as more proof emerges that shows he deserves to be convicted.
Making things worse, writes Lewis, is Trump's insistence that Republicans should say that his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "perfect."
"With a different leader, these vulnerable senators might be afforded the opportunity to subtly distance themselves from this president," Lewis writes. "But Donald Trump demands complete loyalty and attempts to walk the line between appeasing the Trump-loyal GOP base and wooing suburban swing voters are being made impossible."
Lewis also argues that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), while not going as far as McSally did, has nonetheless gone out of her way to avoid antagonizing the president despite her reputation as a moderate.
"Martha McSally and Susan Collins are proof positive that even the 'thoughtful' Republicans are so desperate to defend this president that they are taking a page out of his playbook of projection and prevarication," he concludes. "Trump corrupts!"


rawstory--2020-01-17--‘Jealous’ Trump mocked as a ‘self-loathing manbaby with crippling insecurities’ after latest Bloombe

‘Jealous’ Trump mocked as a ‘self-loathing manbaby with crippling insecurities’ after latest Bloomberg rant

President Donald Trump started off the day by lobbing an attack on Mike Bloomberg , and other social media users @ @ @ @ @ the billionaire ’ s wealth .
The former New York City mayor has been spending @ @ @ @ @ his bid for the Democratic nomination , and the president grumbled about him on Twitter @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t get on the Democrat Debate Stage because he doesn ’ t want @ @ @ @ @ terrible debater and speaker , ” Trump tweeted .
“ If he did , he @ @ @ @ @ polls even more ( if that is possible ! )
.
” Other Twitter users @ @ @ @ @ mocked the president ’ s complaint .

"If you look at the sheer number of people charged in the Georgia case, you're talking about 18 Trump allies, including Trump himself," said anchor Abby Phillip. "They're accused of racketeering, at least one, and at least one related crime. There's a lot of conduct alleged here, including trying to tamper with voting machines, and actual voting information. What is your take on the actual information contained in this document?"
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"So, a couple things," said Sununu. "I'm not a lawyer. I will say, this is incredibly similar to the federal indictment that Jack Smith is doing out of DOJ. Other than, as you brought up, now 18 people involved. That's a much bigger swath of individuals. Something that I think republicans need to take note of, this is a grand jury in a very conservative state. That said, this guy needs to be indicted. This isn't just the Department of Justice and the idea that it's all politicized. This is a grand jury in Georgia of all states."
All of this, said Sununu, underscores the fact that "this guy can't win in November."
"You might give him the nomination — I hope we don't — but this guy cannot win a state like New Hampshire, or Arizona, where these two states they absolutely have to have," said Sununu. "Last time I checked, you can't govern if you don't win. It's just gonna be another sob story for Donald Trump. And he's gonna crush the Republican ticket going down. I still am very hopeful the Republicans as a whole make a smart choice and find that one or two candidates to go against him by the time Iowa in New Hampshire hit."
Watch the video below or at the link.