This Wood Stork was drying its wings on my dock, but it looks like a dirty old man exposing himself to the swamp, doesn’t it?
Speaking of exposure, dirty old men and swamps in another context, Josh Marshall argues that the Biden campaign should commit now to exposing Trump’s cover-ups and corruption if Biden wins in November. Marshall says it needn’t necessarily involve prosecutions (another kettle of fish), but he argues that Biden should warn the administration now not to destroy any evidence and make it clear that wherever possible, all evidence of Trump’s cover-ups will be made public if Biden is elected. I think Marshall makes a good case. Here’s an excerpt:
Review and exposure is something we can and must insist on now. There is no tyranny or injustice in simply having your bad acts revealed. If Trump is driven from office, Trumpism won’t end in January 2021. We’ll still have a whole political party devoted to him and his politics. We will still have the machinery of government which it uses to govern through minority rule. But none of these obstacles to and targets of reform will be surmountable without accountability and exposure for the public catastrophe of the last four years. No standards of public service or resistance to public corruption and abuse can be restored without it.
Airing what happened is critical on the domestic front. It is even more critical on the international front. How many elements of our bilateral ties with other countries are based on corrupt acts or transactions? How many actions of state are based on corrupt bargains or betrayals. These relationships or the integrity of American foreign policy cannot be restored without such bad acts being revealed and expunged. We will not otherwise know if corrupt sources of personal or familial enrichment have been engineered to survive his presidency.
If Joe Biden wins the election in November he will immediately be confronted with a broken country and a host of public crises – a pandemic, a wrecked economy, a longterm need to restabilize a sputtering global order. There will be great pressure to turn on the page on the story and simply move on, if only for lack of time. So Biden’s supporters should begin insisting now on a commitment to an orderly process of clearing the executive stables of the dung of Trumpism. This should include, starting now, a warning to all those in power not to destroy any documents or records – in the broadest sense of the term – and that any officials will be held liable for destroying records and evidence which are all the property of the United States government and not any transient officeholder. It’s the one act that should ensure prosecution.
Trumpism has been an historic assault on our civic and democratic order. We cannot simply have it become a normal part of our history. A chief part of the President’s corruption has been abusing his powers to hide his wrongdoing. We can’t move forward without undoing those crimes and unwinding the lies.
“Restoring the soul of the nation” is part of Biden’s campaign pitch, and restoring behavioral norms is part of that. Review and exposure of Trump’s cover-ups would go a long way toward strengthening institutional traditions that the honor system failed to enforce.
One of the knocks on Biden early in the campaign was his instinct toward comity, but there’s reason to hope he wouldn’t insist on turning the page and letting bygones be bygones. His joint op-ed with Senator Warren on ferreting out corruption in the coronavirus relief package is one such sign.
Trump wasn’t the first corrupt president, and he’s certainly not the only one who dabbled in criminality, but he’s also engaged in wrongdoing that deserves to be exposed whether or not it violated the law. Because of the presidency’s unique powers, not every conceivable wrongdoing has been codified — for all their foresight, the Founders didn’t envision a federal government controlled by a low-rent Borgia clan empowered by spineless greedheads in pursuit of eternal minority rule.
Marshall notes the limitations of criminal investigations (see Mueller, Robert) and says Trump and Trumpsters should be criminally prosecuted where appropriate. But here he makes the case that public exposure is an effective remedy in its own right — that fear of public exposure and the resulting risk to enablers of voter sanction/public shame can and should be on the table. I think that’s true.
Open thread.
schrodingers_cat
I propose a commission headed by Hillary Clinton to investigate COVID responseor the lack thereof of this administration. There has to be a reckonging for 125,000 plus dead Americans.
piratedan
Maybe it would help to offer an inducemnent of lienency for those that retain documentation of wrongdoing and allow them to determine which of them still has an ounce of self-preservation and a sense of right/wong to work against the others…. may not get any takers but u never know and with this bunch… betting on them to do ghe right thing seems like playing longshots.
Baud
Biden has already said he’s going to let his AG made decisions on who to prosecute, so he shouldn’t make any promises on criminal matters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve said before that I’m all in favor of a Truth and Retribution Commission.
Frank Wilhoit
Josh does not allow comments (just think if he did…!) but here is what I told him via email:
Your point about accountability is the right one (and could be expressed even more forthrightly), but there is no need to lay down any markers in advance, and it were better not to, for various reasons.
1. Keep them guessing.
2. It is not good tactics to taunt a cornered rat.
3. It could be interpreted as an overture to negotiations.
Mr. Biden has been doing excessively well so far by adhering to the old principle of not interrupting one’s enemy while he is making mistakes. That should be the default posture unless something changes very significantly.
jonas
Expect Trump-installed judges to try to thwart this effort at every turn. McConnell *says* he’s packing the courts with RWNJs to overturn Roe v. Wade, but it’s really a huge cya operation for when Trump (and they, inshallah) are out of office.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I think that’s the appropriate path to take. I see no need to warn about destroying documents, it’s already illegal.
Since I’m old, I remember from Nixon’s time, “it’s not the crime but the coverup that gets you”.
Edmund Dantes
The limitations of the Mueller investigation was he was intentionally fenced in from the outset, and he saw no reason to try to go outside the fence.
New Deal democrat
I agree and disagree.
Since Trump will retain blanket pardon power until January 20, Biden should not do anything to cause Trump to issue any more than the minimum pardons to be expected (I.e., his family).
On the other hand, Biden should make clear that everybody should expect that all actions now will be subject to exposure in bright sunshine next January 21. That may very well prevent further wrongdoing by those not sure of a Trump pardon.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I saw that yesterday. And he’s right. We need to drag these people out into the light. And anybody who helped Trump do all this needs to be shunned for the rest of their lives.
Betty Cracker
@jonas: That tactic might work to stymie criminal prosecutions (indeed already has), but as I understand it, the sitting president is allowed to declassify documents under his own authority. I don’t see how corrupt Trumpists judges could thwart that.
lumpkin
Totally agree. Make it all public and don’t keep a bunch of stuff hidden because “it’s classified”. Unclassify it.
Sure, protect people’s safety and true national secrets but stuff that makes people, organizations, institutions and the country look bad. Well it’s because they were and the first step to fixing it is to get it out in the open.
gratuitous
No need to telegraph it ahead of time, but I have long thought that the original sin of the Obama administration was the early pronouncement that they were interested in looking ahead, not back. That immediately gave the crimes of the Bush II years a complete pass for such things as torture and the gulag in Guantanamo. Those crimes continue to this day, to our national shame.
I can sort of understand that sentiment: You’ve got a young administration looking to put its stamp on American governance and enact its program. But failing to address the sins of the previous administration left them to fester. I hope that a Biden administration – which should be just one term – looks to clean up the messes of Bush II and Trump and hold those responsible accountable. Restore what has been destroyed by the Republicans particularly the rule of law.
Just Chuck
Counterintelligence operations in 2021 are going to be off the hook, that’s for sure.
Ruckus
Not looking back has been a problem that never solves itself or anything else. How can you improve if everything that went before is covered up by not looking? Tremendous damage has been done to this country, in and against its name, what it stands for, and it’s people. This may be the worst example in our history, it’s not the only one. Never look back is shitty policy. And brings on worse, because there is an utter lack of responsibility to the people’s ability to see and understand what is being done in their name. This is our county, ALL of ours. We elect representatives to do the work of governance because otherwise nothing would/could get done. They have to be responsible for the huge responsibility they have asked for, and the only way for that to happen is that we look, backwards, currently, and forward. Not looking, not being allowed to look, this robs us of the ability to do our duty to each other. It makes this county and us, worse.
kindness
I don’t know that Biden should do more than say everything will be exposed if he wins. That is something anyone should take for granted, especially with this criminal organization mascarading as an Executive Branch. God knows when Trump sees the writing on the wall that he is a one term president they will be trying to destroy every file and piece of evidence they think they can hide. I’m not sure we have mechanisms in place that can save us from that. We used to think we did but Trump has shown us that faith and normal procedures don’t really matter.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
You know, “Lock Them Up!” has a nice ring to it
Lapassionara
@Frank Wilhoit: I agree, especially with point 2, about the cornered rat. Trump has no scruples and no shame. He will pull all sorts of tricks to stay in office. Biden can keep the freedom to act if elected and after being inaugurated without announcing his intentions ahead of time.
Baud
There’s a significant chance Barr will launch a fake prosecution to help Trump. I guess by not announcing anything in advance, Biden can avoid having the media “both sides” the story.
Just Chuck
@kindness: It’s hard to destroy all evidence, especially the evidence of evidence destruction. It takes a well-organized conspiracy, and we all know how that sentence ends. It might hurt a few investigations, but it’ll only bolster the main ones.
Anotherlurker
I think Joe should keep the exposure of trump & cos. on his administration’s list of things to do. However, I believe that he should not announce anything about it until after he takes office (Dagon willing).
Let the asshole, his family and his “conservative” enablers stew in the flop sweat of anticipation for a while before dropping the hammer.
AM in NC
@Ruckus: Amen.
Mai naem mobile
I think this is one thing Biden needs to not say out loud. Hell, I think he should actively not talk about it, but I do strongly strongly believe that he should do it in practice. I think the Senate Dems need to be prepared from Day 1 to take over the Senate. CAP needs to be the ALEC for the left and have legislation ready to go. Screw the filibuster. You’ve got a less than one year window with breaks taken for whatever the hell happens with COVID 19. Time taken out for I am probably 2 USSC nominations. You can’t count on Americans not being brainwashed by a teabagger type movement by 2022 so it’s a very small window.
boatboy_srq
Out blogmaster of tire-rims-and-anthrax-dinner fame has made sound points about the inability to sway the more rabid members across the aisle. This would percolate up to public-shaming-is-sufficient-deterrent/punishment. For the behavior to abate, convictions need to be handed out and penitentiary cells occupied. Nothing less will be sufficient. The alternative is merely increased shamelessness touted as The Virtue Of Honesty/Negotiation/Election* possible when the worse-than-tRump steps into the next election cycle.
* Election in the Prosperity Gospel misinterpretation of the PWE and wealth-indicating-blessedness sense.
Baud
Lame duck waking.
Roger Moore
@jonas:
This is the big reason I think it’s extremely important to nail these people for things that are clear and obvious violations of black letter law. Give the judges as little room as possible to let them off.
Ken
@lumpkin: Besides, “I give you a free hand with the Kurds and you let me build a hotel in Istanbul” (to pick a purely hypothetical example) is in no way a reflection of U.S. policy, so is not even appropriate for classification.
I would think that the foreign policy crimes would be easier to discover, too. The quid for the quo can’t continue, so there’s no advantage for a foreign leader in protecting Trump, and (hopefully still) reasons to want to be on the good side of the US. Plus, I’d bet every one of them taped the phone calls.
Steeplejack (phone)
@boatboy_srq:
What is PWE?
Mai naem mobile
@Ruckus: I think the Trumpistas and the Bushies may not have pulled some the of stuff they did if Nixon and the Reagan people hadn’t gotten away with the stuff they got away with.
Baud
@Steeplejack (phone):
I’m guessing Protestant Work Ethic.
Soprano2
IMHO the original sin that started us down this path was the pardon of Nixon. I know a lot of people think that was needed to “heal the country”, but I believe the opposite – the pardon just papered over a huge gaping wound and kept it from being healed. All that poison should have come out, and prosecuting Nixon for the crimes he committed would have gone a long way toward doing that IMHO.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack (phone):
In this case, I think he means Protestant Work Ethic.
Ken
@Soprano2: Time for a Cadaver Synod?
joel hanes
Trump does not “dabble” in criminality. He swims in it, breathes it.
Criminality is the center and the entire motivating narrative of his entire life.
Betty Cracker
@Ken: Great point. I suspect many officials of foreign governments will have a lot to say when Trump is no longer in a position to retaliate.
joel hanes
@Soprano2:
The Nixon pardon might have been a recoverable error had we imprisoned a bunch of the Reaganauts over Iran-Contra, which IMHO was a far worse abuse of power and a far more grave flouting of the Constitution than anything Nixon ever did.
Baud
@joel hanes: People don’t talk enough about the Bush pardons.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Soprano2: While Nixon wasn’t prosecuted, many of his people were including his Attorney General and Chief of Staff.
@joel hanes: Agreed.
Roger Moore
@Mai naem mobile:
Absolutely. There wasn’t much that could be done about Nixon after Ford pardoned him, but they should have gone harder after the Iran/Contra people and especially after the Bush II crowd. One thing I would like to see is some kind of limit on the pardon power; it’s just too useful as an aid to all kinds of corruption.
JustRuss
@gratuitous: I think Obama truly saw himself as a uniter and the Bush regime as an aberration. 12 years later, Biden should have no delusions about what the GOP has become. I hope.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You mean the GHW Bush pardons? Yeah, who was the AG then, the name is on the tip of my tongue.
Hungry Joe
If (when!) Biden wins, paper shredders will start grinding away 24/7. The electron shredders, too, for the computer-thingies. I’m sure Trump’s team of aces will be able to wipe out every trace of … stuff.
russell
I’ll never look at a cormorant the same way again
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes. It’s fallen down the memory hole.
piratedan
Makes me wonder if behind the scenes that Schumer and Pelosi are coordinating with legislation to try and get started to fix things… much like they had plans in the hopper when Obama came into office
danielx
Prezackly.
As noted before, I don’t ever again want to hear of of this “look forward and not back” horseshit again – ever. Obama tried that, which was a large mistake IMHO, and it bought him – nothing. Republicans and their plutocratic backers have operated for a long time under the presumption that they can do pretty much what they want without consequences. They’ve gotten away with it, with Exhibit #1 squatting in the White House this very minute. As anyone who has ever raised a toddler can testify, letting someone act out without consequences only encourages them. (Note: “acting out” does not – not, not, not – include peaceful demonstrations and protests against injustice.) They have gotten away with it because, among other things, the Fox News fools do and will whip the flying monkeys into a frenzy by screaming “witch hunt!” at the drop of a MAGA hat.
Fuck those guys. I WANT a witch hunt, with seriously enthusiastic witch hunters.
I want to see the oleaginous likes of William Barr sweating under the bright lights for twelve hours of Senate testimony under oath, preferably taking the Fifth about a hundred times. I want to see some motherfuckers hanged, at least figuratively speaking.
While I’m at it, I really want to hear Chuck Schumer say to Mitch McConnell (assuming the turtle faced prick wins re-election): “Senator, may I remind you that YOU ARE NO LONGER THE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, so sit down and shut up!”. You like the concept of Senate majority tyranny, do you Mitch? Choke on it, you miserable sonofabitch.
End rant…for the moment.
ETA: I would wager ten dollars against a stale doughnut that there will be a major league exodus of private jets leaving for countries without extradition treaties starting November 5th.
Baud
@piratedan: The House has already passed a shit ton of bills. They just released a comprehensive climate change plan, which everyone just seems to have ignored.
low-tech cyclist
That’s the #1 risk, which is why Josh says Biden should say clearly now that whatever else may happen, destruction of evidence will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Jay Noble
Hmmm. Obama’s “One president at a time” comes back. That’s the minefield we face until Noon, Wednesday Jan. 20. I hope that Biden postpones all the pomp & circumstance until the weekend and spends a couple days signing legislation and Executive Orders undoing all the bad crap that can be undone quickly. The next week would start all the rounding up of all the suspects.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: Couldn’t agree more. The possibility of consequences directly affects most people’s calculations when they decide whether or not to comply with the law. Presidents aren’t special in that regard, but our system has made them special by exempting them from consequences ordinary folks would face. Enough of that bullshit. Marshall’s point is more broad in that he’s also talking about exposing cover-ups of activities that aren’t necessarily illegal but are clearly wrong, but the same principle applies: they covered it up because they didn’t want it known. Make it known.
Baud
@Hungry Joe:
@low-tech cyclist:
Almost everything is done by email nowadays, so they’d have to have corrupt IT guys in the civil service to really make headway in destroying incriminating documents. The documents most at risk are the ones stored on the White House’s classified server, I would think.
cleek
i propose: get Biden across the finish line ahead of Trump.
no conditions, no pre-requisites, no gaming of outcomes, no conditionalizing, none of it.
just win the fucking thing and get that piece of shit out of the WH.
anything else right now is just jerking off.
Gin & Tonic
@cleek: Amen!
low-tech cyclist
Going back to Obama, I didn’t mind “look forward, not back” as a stance, and as an expression of how he was going to conduct his Administration. (Especially being in the middle of what was then the biggest recession since the Depression.) But going into 2009, I completely assumed that he’d have the appropriate people in his Administration open up the books on the Shrub Administration so that others could do the looking back.
That still needs to be done. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. still need their day of reckoning.
And I agree with joel hanes that Bush the Elder’s pardon of the entire Iran-Contra crew was even worse than the Nixon pardon. Nixon should have been prosecuted, but at least Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson, Magruder, Liddy, etc. went to prison. In Iran-Contra, nobody did.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’d wager that a bunch of the worst stuff isn’t on government servers.
“But Her Emails!”
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I would be very, very surprised if that server is not also maintained by civil servants. You can also bet the system is backed up off site through some kind of top secret capable backup system.
terraformer
Assuming Biden wins in November, and that Trump does indeed leave, if we don’t expose what has happened – all of it, as dirty and unpleasant as it may be – then I fear our little exercise in self-government is indeed at an end.
All it took was someone without conscience (and a supporting party) to dismiss “norms” and “traditions” without a care, and in doing so, to expose how utterly lacking our collective response to it has been – because there is no legal recourse for it. All it will take to begin restoring our faith in ourselves is to air it out, all of it, so the appropriate steps can be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
As Josh wrote, we can’t necessarily expect criminal prosecution for everything, but it is imperative that we have the complete picture of what was done, and who did what / turned a blind eye to it.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s a sucker’s bet. It has already been revealed that various members of the Trump Administration have done their work through non-government email systems. That said, I will bet a lot of that information ultimately wound up on government servers when someone who used a government email was included in the distribution.
Nicole
Judging from how Ford fared in the 1976 election, I don’t think anyone thought that.
WaterGirl
Why not have Congress request all records for everything, and then when Trump will surely destroy all the evidence, at least they will have him in violation of something-something congress?
Even if Biden says “keep all the records” – no, make that ESPECIALLY if Biden says “keep all the records”, Trump will destroy all the records.
?♀️
stinger
I don’t know — this isn’t a bad description of monarchy, which the Founders were working to escape/avoid. They should have trusted more to specific rules and less to the honesty and decency of elected individuals.
Jeffro
He absolutely MUST commit to exposing (and prosecuting, whenever possible) all wrongdoing by this criminal administration. (And he must put trumpov & Co on notice right now).
It’s something either Warren or Harris would be well-suited to oversee. Either one of them would be more than happy to go after this gang of goons with a hammer and tongs.
mrmoshpotato
LMAO! Yes.
Mallard Filmore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I was OK with a Commission last year, now I am warming to the idea of some executions.
Oh! I see you said “Retribution”. Yeah, that will cover my needs just fine.
low-tech cyclist
@Baud:
How about texts? Weren’t a fair number of the communications related to the Ukraine extortion done by text? And not necessarily using government phones?
I’m too much of a tech ignoramus to know where, if anywhere, those texts are preserved a year later, if the owners of both the sending and receiving phones have dismantled their phones, smashed all the pieces with a sledgehammer, and thrown them in the trash.
zhena gogolia
@cleek:
AMEN AMEN AMEN
Jeffro
Some of these comments (“Joe shouldn’t say anything/announce his intentions”) assume that
a) he won’t be asked (by reporters and pundits) about such things for the next 4 months
b) he won’t blurt out his thoughts, whether asked or not
Unlikely on both counts.
Better to put it out there, and let it be a rallying cry for Democrats and a marker for the remaining rats still on the S.S. trumptanic.
Patricia Kayden
Same
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Not quite. Trump isn’t going to go around destroying the records; he will order other people to destroy records for him. The point of saying that destruction of records will be treated as a crime is to make people afraid to carry out his orders.
low-tech cyclist
@stinger:
As best as I can tell, the Founders believed that legislators, regardless of faction, would have an interest in preventing a President from becoming a monarch. And I think they realized there was no way that written rules can cover everything (and can be totally gutted anyway; look at the Fourth Amendment these days); hence impeachment.
Aleta
that wood stork joke haha
Until now, the explanation I’ve come up with for ‘why Dems aren’t doing the type of attacks the Lincoln Proj is’ has been ‘money and their resource allocation’ + probably a continuation of the ‘stay positive, don’t do attack ads, go high’ that Kerry, BO and HRC followed. (IMO, HRC attempted some, but our sexist over-response to “angry women who attack” (weakening how seriously we treat them) limited her choices I believe.)
For 4+ years I’ve wanted to see those type of ads and the exposure Marshall’s talking about. After the election will be too late because the Rs and the media are so skilled at deflection and devoted to ‘moving right along’ — ‘water under the bridge’ — ‘too late now ’cause here’s an immediate crisis’ — ‘come together to heal the country.’ Now’s the time. My god there’s a lot though.
So weird to find myself thinking of cleansing via public ceremonies of martial punishment or stocks set up in Lafayette Park. Maximum prison sentences or bust though.
Roger Moore
@stinger:
Ultimately, though, the rules are just a bunch of words on paper; they must always be enforced by people. If you let bad people take over your government, better rules won’t stop them from doing whatever dishonest, indecent things they choose. The only hope is to come up with rules that will keep bad people from getting in power; once they are there it’s too late.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Preservation of most of those records are already covered by the presidential records preservation law.
low-tech cyclist
This. Trump won’t know where the records are, or even what form they’re in. He’s helpless without people to carry out his orders.
(Which is why, when we get the inevitable spate of books next year where all the Administration insiders explain how they were really protecting us from Trump doing even worse shit than he’s done, my response will be, “well, why didn’t you all just quit??”
Sure, eventually he would have found new minions, but they’d have needed time to figure out just how to translate Trumpov’s orders into meaningful actions. So there’d be months of ineffectiveness. Plus a mass resignation like that is one of the few things that might have made the MSM admit, for a few days anyway, how bad Trump really must be.)
NotMax
First they came and put scarves on the ducks.
Then they came and put trench coats on the storks.
Aleta
Also ABL @AngryBlackLady (who’s not anti-Dem. party and afaik not anti-Pelosi; just realistic I believe)
We’re going to need outfront disgust and angry exposure of T’s abuse of the legal system to put up whatever defense is possible against what’s coming from his judges.
p.a.
This Friday before a major weekend national holiday may be an epic doc dump day?.
Benw
Biden doesn’t need to threaten anything. Of course they’ll try to erase everything and of course they’ll fuck it up to the moon. They’ll be lucky if Eric doesn’t accidentally email the server contents directly to the SDNY atty general’s personal email
germy
https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-stokes-identified-as-former-firefighter-who-shouted-white-power-in-video-retweeted-by-trump
Gin & Tonic
@low-tech cyclist: Ukrainian intelligence has them all.
patroclus
Well, at least according to a GOS diary, the Lincoln Project has a bunch of Republicans at its head, but that the real work is being done by staff members who are obviously Democrats (and good rat f*ckers).
I think Ford’s pardon of Nixon ruined his Presidency and caused his ’76 loss. My memories are that he was enjoying a month-long honeymoon and suddenly decided to issue the pardon after a long “prayerful” weekend. There was an outrage that lasted a few weeks and tanked his poll numbers, but after that died out, the issue faded and although his poll numbers never fully recovered, his honeymoon returned in the sense that there was nowhere near the vitriol directed at him as had been targeted at Nixon. Then there was the fall of Saigon, Mayaguez, the continuing oil shock, the WIN campaign and multitudinous vetoes of appropriations bills and a “typical” Republican administration. The pardon issue returned in full force when Mondale, in his Veep acceptance speech at the 1976 Convention, included a line about “and then pardoned the man who did it” which led to a lengthy minutes-long emotional standing ovation and it was a salient issue thereafter for Carter. The election was so close that it could have been the tipping factor.
If there instead would have been a criminal trial, we would have gotten some closure and there would have been a reckoning and its accompanying deterrence. My guess is that Nixon would have pleaded to a lesser charge in order to avoid jail but not after some major legal fireworks with Roy Cohn probably in a starring role. That would have indirectly hurt Ford politically, but my guess is that he would have survived without too much damage and might have won in 1976. (Which might have meant Ted Kennedy in 1980 and no Reagan…who knows?)
J R in WV
I’ve about decided that Trump’s Covid-19 response is going exactly as planned, that he is following a careful plan to the letter. Our problem is that the plan Trump is following isn’t one devised by the CDC, or by the Pandemic Response Team working for the Obama administration — Trump is using a plan provided to him by Putin, and it is intended to work out just as it is working right now.
The nation is more divided against itself, as the disease breaks out across the south, the red states. They won’t believe it’s intentional on Trump’s part, even though it looks obvious to people who don’t trust Trump. Look at what’s been happening:
Everything is going wrong.
I’m leaving Non-Covid-19 issues off this list, but we could list mid-east wars, NATO damage, relations with every nation in the world, damage to our military, to education, the list is nearly endless!
If it was due to stupidity, some things would go right just by coincidence, wouldn’t they? I think it’s going perfectly, according to the plan provided by Putin. Didn’t I see someone report here on B-J that in 2007 the CDC reported that a poorly operating pandemic plan would severely damage the economy and the society, without controlling the pandemic? Isn’t that exactly what is happening right now?
Trump seems to be an excellent operational manager, for Russian interests. What would he be doing differently if he was working for Russian interests? I know this sounds on the surface like a totally paranoid nightmare… but I’m really looking at the evidence that is out in the open here! Sometimes the simple but horrible answer is the right answer…
germy
@patroclus:
Surely only republicans could find a man named Dr. Dan Barkhuff to participate in an anti-Trump ad.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore:
Good point. I hope that carries the day.
Raoul
@gratuitous: I think the Obama WH let too many things be bygones in the interest of ‘moving on.’ Both actions by the Dubya Admin, and in pursuing bankster fraud in the economic melt down.
I don’t think every two-bit thug from GWBs orbit needed to be exposed, but even a few higher profile folks having to answer for their malfeasance would have signaled that Dems aren’t just go-along get-along types. And the bankers, they just ran amok with nothing blowing back at them. Historically stupid.
Aleta
Response to /quoting:
Feathers
The real point where the Democrats went wrong was Lyndon Johnson keeping quiet about Nixon’s sabotage of Johnson’s peace talks with Vietnam. Arguably, we might not have gotten Nixon, more likely, we would not have gotten Watergate.
I think Biden should pick Harris for Veep and then delegate the post-Trump cleanup and truth commission to her. It would then be OK for her to remind everyone in government that destroying government documents is a crime, and that we don’t want to see the underlings who shredded documents in prison while their bosses are comfortably living in their mansions and gated communities.
This is one of the weaknesses of white collar crime prosecutions. We just go for the bosses, not the people who actually do the dirty work. I remember during the Enron scandal, a business professor saying that until they started locking up accountants and secretaries, we were never going to get a handle on corporate criminality. If for nothing else, they need to turn state’s evidence against their bosses. Oh, and NDAs need not to be a thing anymore.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
Actually, I was stunned that Ford got away with that pardon. After all, right there in the pardon power paragraph it says “except in cases of impeachment” And of course, that was what was going on when Nixon tried to cover up his high crimes — he was being impeached!
But no one with standing took it to court — they were all too glad it was over with, right there and then.
Betty Cracker
@germy: A Miami-Dade firefighter? Huh. I thought everyone who lives in The Villages is from the Midwest.
Jay Noble
@p.a.: It may be tomorrow since most government offices are closed on Friday because the 4th is on Saturday.
Ken
One of my little fantasies is that the law prescribes a fine for each violation, and six months from now Trump is presented with a bill for $17,385,126 attached to a long list of all the papers he’s ripped up.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: you understand correctly.
Betty Cracker
@Feathers:
True. Marshall cites that as one of the reasons to expose the wrongdoing and cover-ups whether the activity is subject to prosecution or not.
patrick Il
@Roger Moore:
I think it is more than not letting bad people take over your government, it is even more about not letting everyday people be propagandized . Rupert and Rush made the modern fascist Republican party possible
scav
Wouldn’t ja think that the best way, the most hard-core DJT appreciated (poor boy needs a cuddle) way to flag (!) one’s undying patriotic support of this god-given GOP administration would be a TRUMP™ tattoo (just like the superior hotels and resorts!) on one’s face? Especially as one could then claim a religious exemption from wearing masks as doing so Would Hide the Very Name of the One True God!!
It would be ever so handy going forward during the oncoming rush of amnesia (round 2) heading toward this nation.
Sab
@J R in WV: That is certainly a disturbing thought, but I think you are right.
patroclus
@Feathers: Well, when Rayburn and FDR made the 1933 Securities Act and the 1934 Exchange Act prospective rather than retroactive after all the revelations about the banksters revealed by the Pecora hearings and decided to look forward and not backward is also a good historical candidate. (And then, FDR put notorious bear funder Joe Kennedy at the head of the SEC!). And in 1876, if the Dems had insisted on Tilden being President rather than trading instead for the removal of federal troops from the CSA states, that might have made a difference. And, Jefferson’s deal with Adams to allow the House to choose him rather than Burr in 1801 after the electoral college debacle also included not prosecuting the perpetrators behind the Alien and Sedition Acts. That could have been their first mistake!
In reality, I’m probably more in the Obama camp and would rather just move on; which puts me in the minority in this thread.
The Moar You Know
@low-tech cyclist: After a year? Nowhere. The maximum retention time by the phone companies is 90 days (think that’s Verizon).
I was certified as a digital forensics investigator and expert witness. Actual evidence, if any of these people have any brains at all, will be pretty minimal, but evidence of the destruction will be everywhere. That, you can’t hide.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV:
That’s probably a thin legal reed to rely on, when Ford pardoned Nixon, Nixon had already resigned so wasn’t subject to impeachment. Ford did have to take the unusual step of testifying before Congress about the pardon.
jl
Fauci runs the covid-19 investigation and national truth and reconciliation hearings.
He has the required expertise, and I think has the motivation and ability to bring the necessary humor, glee and drive. He certainly deserves some payback time with some insufferable Congresscrooks who have tried to make him eat sh*t in public.
Kent
It’s a fun thought but not relevant. The copies given to Trump aren’t the official records. Those would be the copies that are stored and maintained by whoever is the records officer or archivist in the West Wing.
Martin
I would favor a Truth and Reconciliation commission, but with criminal prosecution of any efforts to destroy evidence or obstruct. It’s a choice – destroy your reputation, or go to jail and also destroy your reputation.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
I think you are wrong, but not about the corporate retention policies. The government, in it’s “We gotta fight them terrists all the time!” wisdom, copies a vast amount of communications data into secret servers.
Perhaps not the NSA, but someone captures all that data in order to research in the wake of a follow on terrorist attack like 9/11.
And I would be shocked if the sysadmins of those agencies allow that data to be wiped. Even if anyone in the West Wing knows enough to attempt to order that to be done, which they don’t.
low-tech cyclist
@J R in WV:
While I agree that most people who say “Nixon wasn’t impeached!” are making a big deal over a technicality, things like that are controlling in a court of law. The House hadn’t yet voted articles of impeachment, so he wasn’t impeached.
ETA: @?BillinGlendaleCA beat me to it.
cain
@boatboy_srq:
I think this is what concerns me… for some reason I feel the Democratic party still wants to chase after white middle class men instead of the grand big tent they have. It leads them to wring their hands over “unity”. The media always smells blood in the water at this point and will repeatedly start asking the Democratic party about what they will do for “unity” because the country is divided.
It’s important to also make sure we pressure our Democratic representative that “wiping the slate and forgiveness” is not an option and that they will absolutely be met with a primary challenge at that point. Especially for these older politicians who still seem to believe in the comity of the legislative bodies. That time is over and they need to forget about that.
John Revolta
@J R in WV: Nixon was never actually impeached, but more to the point, when Ford pardoned Nixon it was too late to impeach him- so that provision doesn’t apply.
patrick Il
@Soprano2:
LBJ should have arrested the Nixon group that interfered with the Vietnam peace talks, the clearest case of treason before Trump . Ford screwed up with the pardon, but he was a Republican If Democratic presidents don’t have the nerve to enforce the law, why should we expect it of Republicans?
gvg
@Feathers: I came to a similar conclusion about Bush and torture. At first I was “we shouldn’t be prosecuting low level people obeying orders when the powerful get off, then I realized we would never get the evidence to get the bosses if we didn’t go after the little guys first, like the FBI taking on the mob and getting evidence.
If we prosecute the lower level people, they’ll provide evidence of go to jail. It’s the only way to move up the chain.If they didn’t save the evidence, they’ll go to jail. The first time we get tough, it’ll turn out they don’t have evidence to convict big bosses, but the next time illegal orders happen we’ll get more pushback then, and it will turn out more evidence is saved.
cain
It should be made clear to Barr that we will send him to prison if that happens. It is his DOJ that is supposed to prevent this kind of thing. I can’t to see him in solitary with loud recordings of Trump’s speeches to keep him company.
Martin
@John Revolta: Yes he was, on August 20 – 11 days after he resigned. He wasn’t convicted, though.
The Moar You Know
@J R in WV: He wasn’t.
The Judiciary committee held hearing and voted out in favor of impeachment. The actual, formal impeachment trial, which involves the entire House, had not started yet. He got a courtesy call explaining what was going to happen and what the outcome would be, and resigned before the impeachment trial started.
It’s the fucking details that kill ya. Ford’s pardon, was, very unfortunately, legal.
(I am a committed member of the crowd that believes that Nixon absolutely should have been indicted and tried. It would have stopped so much of the GOP malfeasance that we’ve seen over the last, hell, 50 years, right? Long fuckin’ time to put up with that bullshit. It needs to end.)
Sab
@Aleta: If we were doing those ads the networks and cable channels would refuse to air them, like they used to do with move-on ads.
cain
Threaten jail time to the IT people if anything is removed without due process. IT people are not gonna stick their neck out for Trump.
Kent
Wouldn’t make any difference. They are already required to maintain all official records. In any event, destroying records is more difficult than one might imagine. Especially if they are electronic. Every single email has both a sender and recipient and so will be stored in both locations and if it is government email, will be on multiple backups. An email sent to 20 people is going to be copied and stored in hundreds of places. That is why old bureaucratic hands like Bolton and Comey take notes and submit memos and emails “to themselves” because it creates an electronic record that is very difficult to purge.
The white house could do the Romney move and pull all the hard drives out of the computers in the West Wing like Romney did when he left the governor’s office in MA. But that was about 15 years ago and everything is far more cloud based now. And I’m sure the federal computer systems are far more integrated and backed up than what they had in MA in the early 2000s.
A total purge of Trump records would require the complicity of dozens of civil service data and records folks, none of whom are political appointees, and all of whom probably want to keep their careers going longer than 2 more months. I don’t see that happening.
That is actually why the Trump people are so insistent on using non-official channels of communication. Like Jared using WhatApp to communicate with MBS rather than official state department channels. And Trump using private cell phones not government ones. And why Trump does so much business around the table at Mar a Lago and not inside the White House. Because they don’t want to leave records in the first place. You can’t preserve a record that never existed.
Leto
OT: Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris are set to be on Nicole Wallace’s show in a half hour here. Not sure if it’s been mentioned but wanted people to know.
cain
100% he must commit to it as should congress. We know the playbook – the media and Republicans will start talking all kinds of shit so they can avoid being prosecuted.
We should also be looking at the media, especially fox news – even high tech. The presidency right now is controlled by a media outlet – not the people.
Elizabelle
Richmond, Virginia: Stonewall Jackson’s monument is coming down. Right now.
Leto
@Kent:
Hahahahaha, I like your stand up routine. Very funny!
Kent
They are already subject to jail time under existing law. Any threats from the Biden folks would be completely gratuitous. No need to threaten anything. I can assure you that any IT supervisor with authority over White House records knows exactly what the legal stakes are.
James E Powell
@cleek:
With you all the way, though I’d add, get the senate.
Martin
Parties are always trying to balance national demographic needs against local ones. Senators aren’t elected nationally. If you want D senators from Connecticut, you need to not burn your bridges there.
I think Dems only appeal to the white middle class because they can’t build a national majority without them. I will note that Trump polls better among Latinos than among Zoomers and Millennials. If the youth vote turns out, Dems can probably stop that particular traditional appeal to middle-class whites.
The problem with the Dem racial or religious big tent is that they aren’t evenly distributed. But gender and age are.
The reporting that Trump has decided to go full Klan for the remainder of this campaign is encouraging to Dem goals, though it may be time to start putting SSRIs directly in the drinking water.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: The House voted to accept the report from the Judiciary committee, they did not vote for the articles of impeachment.
waspuppet
There are at least six phone calls between Trump and Putin where we literally have no idea what they talked about. We have no idea what Trump has promised Putin in the U.S.’s name, and if Trump loses Putin will not say “Oh yeah cool whatevs I’ll drop this agreement.”
cain
What is their excuse this time though? The guy is an old white man – he and the democrats can go on the attack.
I think the Democratic party still wishes to have the white male vote and doesn’t want anything to jeopardize that.
low-tech cyclist
@John Revolta:
@Martin:
I think you’re talking about this:
That was not a vote to impeach Nixon. (Again, beaten to the punch by BillinGlendaleCA! Gotta be fast around this joint)
However, contra @John Revolta, Nixon could have been impeached after his resignation. It wouldn’t have technically been moot, since impeachment can extend to disqualification from holding any Federal office in the future. Article I, Section 3, final paragraph.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Baud:
Quack!
Kent
I’m not talking about archaic legacy systems in federal agencies like say the IRS. Obviously there are shitloads of obsolete Federal computer systems out there. I’m talking about the actual White House. I guarantee they have up to date servers and multiple off-site backups as a legacy of the Obama administration. Such that White House staff can retrieve and access any information from anywhere like say aboard Air Force One, or from Camp David, or anywhere the President might be located. The White House is essentially virtual. It doesn’t depend on having someone physically sitting in their cubical in the White House basement accessing a document off the hard drive of a 20 year old Dell desktop running Win95.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Baud:
I shared an article about it on Facebook, with the message “This is why we need more Democrats – lots more Democrats”.
Leto
@Kent: I’m glad you’re trying to explain this to me like I didn’t spend 20 years doing this for a living for both the Air Force, and integrating with the Federal government at large for large scale enterprise systems. Please governor, proceed…
low-tech cyclist
@Elizabelle:
Wow.
Having grown up in Virginia and having lived much of my adult life there as well, this almost feels the way it did when the Berlin Wall came down. One of those events you hope you’ll live to see, but aren’t sure you will.
I really can’t believe this is happening.
Wow.
cain
But they can’t do it without minorities and immigrants either. The white male right now is in the cross hairs in a number of industries and they will continue to be.
I don’t know any argument that Dems can make that will win that particular vote that wouldn’t put them in trouble with the reliable voters they already have.
That’s the concern.. the black vote is reliable, white women vote is reliable, but the white male vote is kind of all over the place. You can get younger voters, but the gen y folks are a mixed bags but there seems to be hope for gen y who are more politically active.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@cleek:
This
“Just win, baby”
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@low-tech cyclist:
Ah, thanks for the corrections.
raven
@Feathers: Fuck lbj
J.
@schrodingers_cat: I LOVE this idea. May Biden make it so. Or maybe appoint Hillary as AG or to the Supreme Court.
raven
@Betty Cracker: He sure sounded like a fucking yankee!
Betty Cracker
@low-tech cyclist: Just read an interesting article by David Blight (history professor at Yale) in The New Yorker that compared the fall of the Berlin Wall with the fall of the Confederate statues.
As a Southerner of a certain vintage, I also have “never thought I’d see the day” feelings lately. I remember scoffing at the notion that the Confederate flag would ever be removed from the SC Capitol, despite the white supremacist terror attack in the church.
Kent
Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014 signed into law by President Obama
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_and_Federal_Records_Act_Amendments_of_2014
It is actually extremely comprehensive. All the Trump people including Javanka could be prosecuted now for failing to use official government communication channels to conduct government business. And the instructions for IT folks and archivists are very strict. They aren’t even allowed to produce originals in response to government requests. Only copies.
Biden doesn’t have to threaten anything. The existing law is already plenty strict and everyone subject to it has no doubt undergone training on all of its provisions. I know I did when I was a Federal employee in a field office in distant Alaska and involved in the creation and maintenance of Federal records.
Aziz, light!
Could y’all stop telling me how Biden wasn’t your first, second, third, fourth, or eleventy-seventh choice and please get behind our perfectly cromulent candidate? It’s Biden or the end of the world. Kthx.
J R in WV
@low-tech cyclist:
OK, you guys got me dead to rights!!!
I give up… but Nixon was still a rat fink crook !!!
Kent
So you telling me that Trump can order Jared to walk around the office and pull some hard drives like Romney did and then Federal emails and official records will all go poof? Especially any white house communications that went out to any other federal agencies like DOJ or EPA or whatever?
Ruckus
@Mai naem mobile:
Exactly. This don’t look back has been going on for years, probably most of them and it has hurt the country and all of us. You can’t sweep shit under the rug, it just rots and stinks of shit. Fixing requires knowing what went wrong, how it went wrong, who made it go wrong, otherwise how do you fix it?
So we have a lot to fix. Even a casual list would take pages.
Baud
Y’all talking about Trump doing IT and we still don’t know if they ever found the light switches in the White House.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: I’m right there with you on the “never thought I’d see the day” that any of them were removed. My dad, still living in Charleston, said that when the Calhoun statue came down the other week that the local news didn’t cover it. Kind of surprising.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: I’m not going to get in the middle of this, but what I’d be far more interested in, and is far less likely to ever see the light of day, is Prince Jared’s WhatsApp texts with Mohammed Bone Saw.
Betty Cracker
@Aziz, light!: Since that preamble is invariably followed by “but I like XYZ that Biden did/said,” I’m not sure why people get so butt-hurt by it?
low-tech cyclist
@J R in WV:
Now that we can agree on!!!
Aleta
This seems to be live:
Richmond is wasting no time removing a Confederate monument.
On July 1, localities gained the power to remove, relocate, contextualize, or cover any monument or memorial for war veterans on the locality’s public property.
However, the new law requires a process, which is not happening here.
Due to the state of emergency that Richmond is currently under, Mayor Levar Stoney said it’s within his power to remove the statue as he believes is poses a safety risk.
https://www.wsls.com/news/2020/07/01/watch-live-stonewall-jackson-statue-being-removed-from-richmond/
Though someone just said “23 minutes” … so possibly at 4:30
Kent
It is very weird. It’s like GOP state legislators suddenly all lost fear of the Cletuses. Normally they would just say some nice words and push all these decisions off to some committee and wash their hands of it. It’s kind of like how the ground shifted so fast on gay marriage. They can feel the ground shifting under their feet.
Carol
All investigations should begin with the House ASAP. Requests for documents will be ignored, but their existence should be confirmed. Hopefully there are still honorable people who know where the dirt is kept and/or have copies in case the originals are shredded.
Kent
Oh, me too. That’s exactly why they used WhatsApp and not state department channels. And the fact that they did so is a clear black letter violation of the law for which Jared could actually be prosecuted. The extent of lawlessness in this administration is truly breathtaking.
low-tech cyclist
@Betty Cracker:
That’s a mystery to me too. Sure, Biden was like my sixth choice, but it doesn’t matter now: I’ll crawl across broken glass to get him elected.
And not just because we can’t endure another four years of Trump (true enough!) – Biden’s quite capable of being the President we need in this moment. He’s impressed me a great deal lately.
Cameron
@scav: I dunno if I could rock the tattoo, but I would for sure wear a DJT face mask…especially if I had an opportunity to visit The Villages.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
That’s one of the worst traits of the current corrupt party. Their main policy issue is do as we say, not as we do.
Leto
@Kent: it’s all compliant on the DoJ actually bringing charges and following through. The entire clan, as well a number of senior cabinet members, are all using commercial email systems for official government communications. So they’re already breaking the law and this has been going on for 3+ years. If Trumpov orders it to be done, it’ll be done. They’ll find the people to do it because that’s what they’ve done for 3+ years.
What I’m laughing about, specifically, is your characterization that most of these systems are “current” in a technological sense when I’m friends with the people who help maintain this shit at WHCA, as well as my own work with this shit, while you’re a teacher someplace out in Washington state? Oregon? If you knew the actual age of the systems that protect our most valuable information, well I’m sure you’d just dismiss it and say “Well, I’m sure…” Or “I guarantee…” which is literally what you did up above.
Martin
But you’re missing the real dynamic here. Because the black vote is reliable, they can be abused. White women are not reliable – they broke for Trump. Women vote Dem because of women of color. White women with degrees are reliable. White women without degrees are still pretty solidly GOP.
But the Dem approach has always been to gauge their standing with middle class whites, throw what crumbs they think they can afford to POC, LGBTQ, other marginalized groups without losing those white voters, and trust that they will vote Dem because crumbs are better than nothing. That hasn’t exactly endeared the Dem party to those groups, but black voters in particular are a determined group and will keep pushing until they get control and can stop handing out crumbs.
What we’re seeing now is that strategy split wide open thanks to a GOP (well, Trump, but the GOP either being too chickenshit to stand up to him, or too thankful he finally did what they wanted to do all along) that has stopped the subtleness and gone full klan. Dems can afford to do more than throw crumbs right now because they’ve securely got more of those white voters, and more of those white voters are demanding that more than crumbs be thrown. There is no 3rd bank shot wedge issue on race to split those white voters any more – you’re either team humanity or team aryan.
But the unfortunate thing is that the black community would get more from the Dems if they were less reliable. But Dems know they won’t vote GOP, and know if they stay home, they lose their shot at greater control of the party.
And let’s not dismiss that most of the Dems in power are still old middle class whites, so we’re relying on a certain degree of deprogramming and re-eduction to get a different outcome than appealing to middle class whites.
Martin
@Kent: Jared, no, but by all accounts Barr is already doing the cleanup work without needing to be ordered to. Plus, they’re using their personal communication for everything from what we’ve seen.
zhena gogolia
@Aziz, light!:
Oh, I always say it because I am so astounded at how all-in I am now! I’m totally behind him!
Elizabelle
Onsite. They’re racing a T storm en route. Still up. Jubilant crowd.
Elizabelle
Rain beginning.
James E Powell
In a ruling that should be a surprise to no one paying attention, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Florida Republicans’ voter suppression plan.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: Haha! Checkmate, libtard! Jared’s not even a Federal employee! So whatcha gonna do about it?
Eta: oh pshaw! I’m remembering a certain sf86 debacle now. Never mind.
Leto
@Martin: this is my concern, not Federal systems. They’re specifically using commercial systems to not have a more easily traceable record. They’ve all but admitted that. So now we need a DoJ willing to prosecute this, as well as the protracted legal battle over seizing all the communications from their accounts. We’re not going to see this for years. It needs to happen, but it’s going to be a very long time before we see anything.
A Ghost to Most
@zhena gogolia:
Members of the Resistance Auxiliary are by definition NOT all in.
Leto
@James E Powell: 5 of the court appointees were made by Trumpov. Glad we couldn’t “scare” dipshit voters in 2016 with court appointments.
johnnybuck
@Aziz, light!: thank you!
Miss Bianca
@Kent: Is the plural of Cletus actually “Cletuses” or would it be “Cleti”?
Ruckus
@patroclus:
Moving on usually does feel better at the time, but it never, ever fixes anything, or gives any indication that it was wrong in the first place. And that’s what ends up being what’s remembered, not what was wrong, but that they got away with it.
Fixing errors is how people learn right from wrong.
Mallard Filmore
@zhena gogolia:
Well, for my own self, Biden was not my first choice. But if I knew then what I know now, he would have always been my first choice.
Delk
@Aziz, light!: was thinking the same thing.
James E Powell
@Leto:
Every time it comes up, I want to scream. It was the same thing back in 2000.
John Revolta
@J R in WV: Nixon was still a rat fink crook !!!
As they say in Kansas City- I know that’s right!!
J R in WV
@raven:
And Richard M Nixon, too !!
johnnybuck
@Kent: The SEC, and the NCAA threat to boycott the state probably pushed it along as much as anything. But I have to say that a lot of that “heritage” talk I heard in the aughts in Georgia about our flag hasn’t really transferred to successive generations, even if the racism has.
Cameron
@James E Powell: Shit. I’m sure they’ll get right on it, though….say, around December or January….
Baud
“My spouse wasn’t my first, second, third, or even tenth choice, but I’m really happy with him/her now.”
Jeffro
I hear you, but he is such a pro-Putin, pro-Russia dimwit…so eager to please Daddy Vlady, so ignorant, so trusting of the wrong people and so distrusting of experts or anyone who goes against what his ‘gut’ tells him…
…that it wouldn’t be all that hard for his incompetence and stupidity to have caused most of this, with Putin calling occasionally to rile him up. “That’s right Don-ald: stick it to those Dehmocrahts and their weak mask-wearing! Testing will only give them more ‘evidence’ to use against you!” And so on.
He’s just too fucking dumb to receive detailed orders and plans like the ones you’re describing and carry them out with any sort of efficiency or coherence. But he’s dangerously stupid, reactionary, and stubborn…Putin probably just lets him be his worst Donald self and then pushes him on the final 10% of all this.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
It’s not butt-hurt, it’s just tiresome and unnecessary. And it feeds the “flawed candidate running a flawed campaign” narrative that Maggie Haberman and the NYT will be flogging for the rest of the campaign.
Biden did not have to run, but I’m damn glad he chose to do so because none of the other candidates would be leading Trump by double digits right now.
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
My understanding is that the “except in cases of impeachment” means that the president can’t undo an impeachment using the pardon power, not that he can’t pardon someone of the criminal consequences of a crime for which they were also impeached. That’s certainly how I’d argue the case if I were Nixon’s lawyer.
Jeffro
@low-tech cyclist: Very cool!
I need to check back in with my VA alma mater and see just how many buildings might be in the process of being renamed. I suspect it is more than a few.
Gary K
They did, however, and fortunately in their wisdom they provided us with the Electoral College, a mechanism to ensure that such a clan could be blocked from power.
Martin
@Ruckus: The most important thing is to fix the systems so this can’t repeat. The US won’t win back its reputation until that happens, else everyone will just be awaiting the next Trump since nothing prevents it.
It’s vastly more important to reveal how our institutions have failed, and pass legislation to fix them. A really important part of that is going to be voting rights. This election is gong to be a shitshow, not just for the expected reasons but also because the consent decree that banned the GOP from ‘ballot security’ issues has expired which means they’re going to be fucking with everything this year. Let the GOP bring their voter fraud evidence.
Jeffro
@Aleta: Well that’s just great. How will anyone ever learn about Stonewall Jackson ever again, now that the statue is gone?
LOLOL
Humdog
Regarding the executive branch destroying records, Adam reminded us that the whole family doesn’t care to use secure phones and email systems. If they contacted foreigners, like MBS, surely our own NSA has copies of their communications. Or our allies do. Couldn’t we access those sources to substantiate criminal acts by Jared et al?
Roger Moore
@gvg:
The problem with the torture prosecutions under Bush was that they treated the low level offenders as scapegoats rather than using them to go up the chain of command. I think this kind of thing is a big reason people are reluctant to go after the little guys in white collar prosecution. Unless you’re going to go after the whole organization, ala RICO, they see prosecuting the little guy as an alternative to prosecuting the bosses, not a means to that end.
Baud
Via Reddit, for TaMara.
raven
@Roger Moore: Think My Lai.
Martin
@Gary K: I don’t think the EC is the remedy for that. I think they expected that Congress would act as a coequal branch and not have all of their oversight efforts mired in years long appeals to the judiciary.
That’s another part of the needed reform. I know it’s convention for Congress to rely on DOJ, but that makes Congress subservient to the branch they are trying to provide oversight of. The independence of the DOJ can no longer be a norm. Congress needs to have it’s own DOJ equivalent for the express purpose of investigating and launching criminal prosecutions of the executive branch. This is untenable.
catclub
Probably happens in many (but not all!) arranged marriages.
OTOH “I’d like you to meet my first wife” rarely wins any favors.
Kent
I don’t disagree with you about the political will. We already have all the laws we need to prosecute the hell out of these folks. It is just going to take political will in the next administration. And, more importantly prioritization as there are only so many cases that can be prosecuted at one time.
Yes, I’m in my second career teaching now, but I spent nearly 20 years working in the Federal bureaucracy for a science agency writing regulations and generating/storing federal records. I grant you that NOAA probably has more up-to-date computer systems then a lot of other agencies. But then I’m not talking about securing government secrets from Russian hackers, I’m talking about erasing the electronic footprints for misdeeds within the Federal bureaucracy which is something entirely different.
Just to come up with some totally random example. Say someone in the white house orders an agency like the CDC or Veterans Affairs to buy $100 million worth of PPE from a company that run by a Trump crony that is not a legit Federal contractor and who isn’t going to provide legit PPE. That order is going to go to some agency head as an email or memo attached to an email. And that person is going to copy it down the chain to the supervisor of whoever handles contracts and that person might copy it to his/her entire staff saying we need to have a meeting to know how to address this odd request. So now that original email request is now in 25 different people’s email inboxes and being backed up in multiple different locations. The staff tasked with fulfilling the order are going to automatically generate their own paper trail because Federal contracting has tremendous paperwork burdens and a whole bunch of other people are going to be in the review chain to sign off on that contract generating more records that are going to be retained in yet more places. Tracking down the electronic proliferation of records within a bureaucracy is probably harder than contract-tracing a bar-hopping covid-19 superspreader. All it takes is one Federal official somewhere in that command chain to write a memo to the file copying the order and documents, and expressing reservations about it James Comey style and it will be beyond reach of destruction and waiting to be turned over to whoever investigates the crime in the next administration. Or someone copying it to someone in the IG or General Counsel’s office saying “this doesn’t smell right, what do you think?”
That is for just one single act of corruption. With this administration there are literally hundreds of thousands of them. From special non-enforcement favors for polluters by the EPA to special mining and forestry deals in Interior to corruption in the farm support programs in Agriculture. Every one of them generates a long electronic paper trail that will mostly be created by civil service folks not corrupt political appointees. That is how bureaucracies work. Whether it was the Nazis 70 years ago when it was actual paper records, or the US government in 2020 when it is largely electronic records. Federal actions generate mountains of paperwork, all of which gets filed away in all kind of places. Multiply that by ten-fold for bigger official acts like changing an actual regulation to benefit a specific corporation or crony.
There is no conceivable way that the Trump people even know what kind of paperwork even gets generated when one of their corrupt orders gets carried out, much less any chance that they have the means to root it all out and destroy it. Right now they just don’t give a shit because they think they are above the law. We will see if the next administration decides to hold them accountable or not. If they choose not to then I doubt it will be for lack of electronic records.
But that’s also why they do side deals like send Rudy on foreign missions outside the normal chain of command. And why the do things like communicate using WhatsApp. But that only works for certain things like communications with foreign actors. You can’t actually manipulate the Federal bureaucracy using WhatApp and gmail.
Fair Economist
@Jeffro: We need to copy the traditional Republical playbook – talk comity, and go for the jugular once we have power. Our base is fired up. We need to not scare off wavering Independents. Once we have power, it doesn’t matter what Biden said he would do. He just needs to act for the good of the country and appoint an AG who will prosecute the crooks.
Roger Moore
@waspuppet:
Biden is under no obligation to abide by any secret agreements between Trump and Putin. The only international agreements he’s at all bound by are treaties ratified by the Senate, and it appears that under our current laws it would be pretty easy for him to shred those if he chose.
catclub
Probably not. All the laws on the books about the NSA not spying on US persons would be brought into court. I noted ‘on the books’ because otherwise, they get ignored, or we just trade the same info from a foreign agency.
frosty
@Roger Moore:
We had this. The Electoral College was supposed to be a brake on the popular vote. Oopsie.
Leto
@Jeffro: Will no one think of the educational travel industry? You know, that industry that planned all the nation’s school trips to the Stonewall Jackson statue to educate our yoots about him? All those travel jobs… why will no one think of that valuable sector of the economy??? How do we expect our children to learn? Books? Museums? Expect lectures that provide overall perspective, analysis, and conclusions on the subject? Hahaha! Of course now that I say that, I can see a wingnut statue educational system being implemented… ugh…
catclub
everyone knows the name Lynndie England, but nobody knows the name of her commanding officer.
Martin
@Roger Moore: It’s odd that people who never in a million years could get a security clearance can become President or end up in Congress, and not only bypass that process but overrule it for others.
We could save a lot of negative ad dollars if we could get that done on candidates before they got into office.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
At least as much, they expected Congress would jealously guard its own prerogatives as a coequal branch of government rather than go along with whatever the Executive wanted because they were part of the same party.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Glad you made that analogy because the implication that a member of a political party owes that party’s nominee anything remotely similar to what one spouse owes another kinda clarifies the divide here and explains why the “wasn’t my first choice” construction arouses such hurt feelings. Now I get it!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Agree. You should definitely be less honest with your spouse about their standing. :-)
Seriously, though, the biggest problem with that particular phrase is that it has become trite from overuse. I see it all the time, and not just here.
debbie
Yeah, no. There will be enough wedge issues in the campaign. Let him “spring” this surprise in, oh, his Inaugural Address.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, Baud’s analogy is flawed!
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think the big problem with leading with “wasn’t my first choice” is it implies misgivings that aren’t there. I’m happy with Joe Biden as our candidate. I just donated the maximum to his campaign and put a Biden bumper sticker on my car. Who I supported in the primary is irrelevant now. I’m all in for Biden in November, and that’s what matters.
ETA: The analogy I’d describe with the “Joe wasn’t my first choice, but I’m happy with him now” is to the “Trump said this, but it was a lie” framing in the news. People hear the first part and tune out the qualifier. So lead with the “I’m happy with Biden” part (or the “Trump lied about X” part) and leave the question about who you voted for in the primary for some place less important.
The Pale Scot
A slight comedic diversion
This is a threader by someone who lives in France and has as neighbors an older couple from England who voted for Brexit and would seem to have been adamant about it
Until, 3.5 years after the referendum, they have figured out that the end the EU’s freedom of movement laws goes both ways. Europeans will no longer be able to live, work and travel freely in the UK, AND, Brits will no longer be allowed to live, work and travel in Europe. To stay they have to apply for an immigration visa like they’re from Turkey or somewhere.
They, and their son the tire mechanic, are incensed, and are not going to allow the bloody French to treat them like this
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I’m in the camp of people who had Joe on the lower end of the list, and I might even mention that on occasion. But it has become this sort of verbal tick that, even if true, isn’t the best way to frame things IMHO.
Leto
@Kent:
No, for that you need Twitter. Trumpov has already shown he can manipulate the government/policy with just a tweet.
For the corruption example you mentioned, sure there’s a paper trail. The example you gave already happened, specifically with Kushner and his “volunteer” force of people and PPE. All of that shit? Go after it. Prosecute it.
But the other parts, the parts specifically dealing with say his conversations with Putin (or pick any other autocrat you want), and how those were moved to a secure server? Most of those systems ARE standalone systems. They’re not networked “to the cloud”. They do have backups but these are the systems that I’m worried about because that shit CAN disappear. His conversations with leaders weren’t meant for those systems, yet they’re there. So that already shows people willing to break the law. In fact this was part of the Impeachment investigation. And that’s just one instance. How many more are there? And that’s just Putin. What other fucking policy decisions are being carried out via non-governmental means? Who the fuck knows. But republicans are all too happy to follow him in whatever he does, so your assertion that the bureaucracy can’t be manipulated using WhatsApp or Gmail is a bit sanguine.
Aziz, light!
@Roger Moore: Exactly. Qualifying one’s praise for Biden feeds the perception that Trump’s base is more enthusiastic about voting for him than Dems are to vote for Biden. Keeping it front and center has the potential to dampen our turnout.
trollhattan
@catclub:
“My Next Ex-Wife.” :-)
Betty Cracker
It seems tone-police-y to me. That’s my objection.
NotMax
@Leto
Three words more frightening than the entire output of Stephen King.
;)
Zinsky
Late to the party, as usual, but another interesting and provocative post by Betty. Thank you! I support some type of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the scale and scope of what was done after apartheid fell in South Africa. Trot out every misdeed and racist policy effort by the Trump Administration and send people to jail. Begin binding up the wounds from 400 years of racism….
Leto
@The Pale Scot: Fucking. Hilarious. We were stationed there during the Brexit vote and it was such a shitshow. Still is. Brits thought they’d be able to have their biscuit and eat it too. Some saw the oncoming disaster, other’s thought it’d be great sport. I’m fairly certain that the British government still hasn’t released the full report on Russian interference in their election.
scav
@Cameron: No, I was rather aiming for his groupies, the eternal diner interviewees to rock the tattoo. Make ’em easier to identify after the great memory-wipe. Radio collars would be nice, as would red cones of shame, but those they could more easily chew off.
MattF
OT. Lincoln Project offers a thank-you to Mr Putin.
Betty Cracker
@Aziz, light!: I don’t think it’s just a “perception” that Trump’s base is more enthusiastic about voting for him than Democrats are about voting for Biden. According to the data we have, that’s reality. But the good news is Democrats are enthusiastic as hell about the opportunity to give Trump the boot, and that’s what saved Biden’s ass during the primary and will save the country in the long run, if it’s to be salvaged. IMO.
Patricia Kayden
Everything this administration says is nonsense.
johnnybuck
@Betty Cracker: at balloon juice? No way!
Mai naem mobile
There are a lot of Trumpistas fleeing the Trumptanic right now. These are the third stringers if not lower. Does anybody think these people are even capable of shredding? These people would probably end up making copies of files instead of deleting them. Add on top that quite a few federal career folks who I bet are saving emails etc. Does anybody think there are no close relatives/loved ones of the 130K people who’ve died of COVID who don’t work for the federal govt? There is the dad of the marine killed in Afghanistan who is asking for a full investigation of the russian bounties issue. That’s just one of a few service members killed. Transfer that same anger to the families of those killed by COVID.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
FWIW, I don’t care enough to police it. I’m just noting my reaction to it.
NotMax
@Patricia Kayden
Not to mention the many military bases those same young people trained at which have since been closed.
She is full of malarkey. From sole to scalp.
dmbeaster
@patroclus:
What is also always forgotten is that Nixon’s wrongdoing went beyond Watergate. He was in deep trouble for improprieties on his tax return while president. A joint committee was appointed pursuant to an agreement with Nixon to look into the issue, and it released its findings in April, 1974, four months before the resignation. It concluded that Nixon owed $476,431 in unpaid taxes and accrued interest in 1974 dollars. That is about $2.5 million today. And the reasons for the problems were rather ugly.
He also had the government improve his property in San Clemente in the amount of about $40,000, which is a little over $200,000 today. Penny ante compared to Trump looting, but completely improper.
The pardon let him off the hook on these matters as it was a general pardon on any and all subject matters known or unknown during his presidency — not just Watergate.
“… do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.”
eric
@trollhattan: i thought you were going with this classic
eric
@MattF: to answer the inevitable question: there is no way a democrat could make that ad…same is true for all of their ads. way too uncivil for the dems to do, or so would say the press
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
Name should be changed to McInane
MattF
@Patricia Kayden: I’m guessing that she didn’t figure out that argument all by herself. It took a WH task force.
NotMax
@Brachiator
In line with Baghdad Bob (whose name wasn’t Bob) perhaps we could refer to her as Sycophant Sue.
//
Miss Bianca
@The Pale Scot: Oh, God, I read that one earlier today. Unbefuckinglievable.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: That’s apt. Someone on Twitter suggested McEnoccio, which also works.
Martin
Trump would immediately support renaming West Point after himself.
NotMax
@The Pale Scot
Spawned a quip so potentially non-PC I feel must eschew sharing it. All shall say is that am sitting here chuckling and mentally self-flagellating at the same time.
trollhattan
@eric:
Heh. Awkward, in that good-awkward sense.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
If we’re worried about not respecting the troops who trained at those bases, I have a modest proposal: for each base we’re renaming, find someone who trained there and went on to earn great distinction (e.g. a Medal of Honor) and rename the base after them. For example, Fort Gordon could be renamed Fort York after Alvin York.
trollhattan
@MattF:
Daaaang. They have NFTG and plenty of resources for making that fact clear.
debbie
@MattF:
The repetitious “Comrade Trump” is a nice touch.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Missing SHS yet? ?
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Henceforth, let her be known to all as Kayleigh McInane.
VeniceRiley
2) Truth and reconciliation, if that’s the way its going to go, MUST begin with TRUTH. We need to see the 95% of the iceberg. Not just Trump. The whole GOP and what they knew, when they knew it, and the complicit illegal acts the took. Jail the perps.
Kent
@The Pale Scot: Apparently it is much bigger than that. There was a recent news report (NYT? I don’t remember where) that talked about how lots and lots of EU corporations are now holding off on hiring UK applicants to professional jobs because free travel within the EU is a job requirement and there is no assurance that a UK employee will have that. So not tire mechanics but bankers, consultants, software engineers, etc.
Kent
Hell, Obama wasn’t my first choice in 2008 either. I will sheepishly admit that I started out Edwards-curious but finally came around to Obama after Iowa and caucused for him in Texas. But I didn’t go around during the 2008 campaign leading every conversation with “Obama wasn’t my first choice but I’m still voting for him” Clinton wasn’t my first choice in 1992 either. In 1984 I was a Hart supporter over Mondale. In fact I don’t think I have ever seen my original first choice gain the nomination. But that’s never stopped me from enthusiastically jumping on board. Well, except for maybe Mondale. I jumped on board but didn’t have the enthusiasm.
misterpuff
@Martin: Why do I have a feeling that the NSA has a back door into most of these “secure’ platforms that the minions use to circumvent the formal reporting processes.
If Dumb Donald goes down and the team starts “Operation Shredder”, expect some choice leakage from the Deep State. um Kinda like now.
Subsole
@Leto: We gotta learn from our staues, sir
We damn sure ain’t learnin’ from our textbooks…
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I think it is both unnecessary and counterproductive. Unless, of course, the subject of the conversation is who did you support before Joe Biden or you are trying to persuade a foot-dragger. If it is important to you to bring it up, more power to you. I just don’t see why you would in most cases.
I also think the lesser evil construct is as useful as tits on a fish. So sue me.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@patrick Il:
Yes! That is why we don’t have a McConnell. He has an entire Conservative information bubble papering over his bad behavior and blaming Democrats. He never has to be accountable. 40% of the country don’t get any information but that.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Obama wasn’t my first choice. I just didn’t like his high intelligence and off the charts charisma. Plus, who could vote for someone that good looking. Instead, I was for Pat Paulsen, all the way, until someone told me he had died 10 years earlier. Sadly, I had no choice but to support Obama once Lyndon LaRouche and Roseanne Barr dropped out the race.
Ah, what could have been.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
That does reduce the charisma factor just a bit.
Another Scott
Funny how that works…
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: I hope Ft. Bragg is renamed Ft. Ridgeway, and it just might be. Matthew Ridgeway jumped into Normandy on June 6, with his command, the 82nd Airborne. He led the division through the campaigns in France and Germany as division commander, then corps commander. Seven years later he salvaged MacArthur’s disastrous defeat in Korea. Once, when taking over an important command, Ridgeway had one of his staff review the speech he had written for the occasion. The staffer suggested adding the phrase “…and with all due humility….” Ridgeway rejected the edit, saying “I am humble before no one but my God.”
Raven
@Geminid: Dugout Doug never spent one fucking night in Korea. He’d fly back to his palace.
The Lodger
@jl: Unfortunately, Fauci took an oath to first do no harm. The oath for the truth and reconciliation commission should be to kick ass and take names.
J R in WV
@misterpuff:
A whole lot of those people are so stupid they’ll print out a copy of one of those “Top Secret” emails or text strings so they have something to shred. Then, they’ll shred it, job accomplished, right?? Right!!!
opiejeanne
@J R in WV: This is chilling, and I’ve been wondering if you aren’t right.
Citizen Scientist
@The Pale Scot: omg, thanks for sharing!
Mart
Sherman said something along the lines of his troops torched the south to teach the arrogant Confederate leadership that they weren’t fucking around, so don’t even think about starting up slavery again. (Forgot to torch Texas.) Same with these treasonous bastards – we know from Iran Contra, torture, etc. if you do not slap them down hard, they will be back and much worse.
debbie
@J R in WV:
I think he’s doing all this because he is convinced it will kill off a bunch of Dem voters.