What does special counsel Jack Smith think about Trump's first amendment rights of free speech?
https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-seeks-protective-order-trump/
He recognizes a threat just as quickly as the rest of us do.
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WellMadeMale
14 hours ago
Straight Male
0 miles · Kansas City
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Constant Gardener
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/08/03/trumps-people-the-prettyman-pardons/
As we wait for Trump to be arraigned in Prettyman Courthouse, I thought it worthwhile to list the 16 men who were prosecuted in Prettyman Courthouse that Trump pardoned, and their crimes:
Scooter Libby: Obstruction of justice and perjury
David Safavian: Obstruction of justice and false statements
Mike Flynn: False statements
Alex Van Der Zwaan: False statements
George Papadopoulos: False statements
Paul Slough, Manslaughter (Blackwater Nisour Square)
Nicholas Slatten: Murder (Blackwater Nisour Square)
Evan Liberty: Manslaughter (Blackwater Nisour Square)
Dustin Laurent Heard: Manslaughter (Blackwater Nisour Square)
Roger Stone: Obstruction of a proceeding, false statements, witness tampering
Paul Manafort: Conspiracy to defraud the US (money laundering and FARA), conspiracy to obstruct (witness tampering)
Robert Coughlin: Conflict of interest
Todd Boulanger: Wire fraud
Elliot Broidy: Conspiracy to violate FARA
Douglas Jemal, Wire fraud
Aviem Sella, Espionage
Four of these men lied to cover up Trump’s own Russian ties; a fifth, the son-in-law of Alfa Bank oligarch German Khan, Alex Van Der Zwaan, lied to cover up Manafort’s past Ukraine graft. A sixth, Elliot Broidy, did fundraising for Trump.
These are Trump’s people.
A lot of Republicans are wailing that Trump shouldn’t be prosecuted in DC.
Marsha Blackburn is arguing that Trump should be treated differently than her constituents Lisa Eisenhart and Eric Munchel, who were prosecuted for conspiracy to obstruct the vote count, just like Trump is facing.
Tim Scott is arguing that Trump should be treated differently than his constituent George Tenney, who was prosecuted for obstructing the vote count, just like Trump is facing.
But if anything, it is more appropriate to prosecute Trump in DC than Munchel (Zip Tie Guy) and Tenney (who opened the East Door of the Capitol). After all, he was a resident of DC when his alleged crimes were committed.
More importantly, even just the list of those he pardoned make it clear that Prettyman felons are his kind of people.
Donald Trump is precisely where he belongs today.
Constant Gardener
You can dive deeper into the Angel Investor, Fabian Marta (one of the producers of A Sound Of Freedom) - here
https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1678539924990205952
I'd wager $10 to a dog turd that none of the people associated with this film in any part - acting/producing/directing/financing/distributing - voted for Sleepy Joe Biden.
Christians or fake christians - I don't know which is worse, to be frank.
Constant Gardener
There are also several questions revolving around the alleged 'star' of this movie - a fellow named Tim Ballard, the CEO of Operation Underground Railroad 'O.U.R.'
Ballard, however, is no longer associated with Operation Underground Railroad — that is, according to Motherboard, which has been reporting on the organization for years. According to sources close to the organization, and a statement from O.U.R. provided to Motherboard and Rolling Stone, Ballard left the group just prior to the debut of Sound of Freedom, something he has not mentioned on his extensive press tour promoting the film.
While the circumstances around Ballard’s departure are somewhat unclear, his LinkedIn profile states that he is the CEO of the Nazarene Fund, O.U.R.’s sister organization which serves Christians and other religious minorities fleeing persecution in the Middle East.
In a recent appearance on Fox News, he also was identified as the founder of an organization called the SPEAR Fund, which “relies on experts in the field of anti trafficking to consult on its many projects,” according to a description on its website. Through O.U.R., Ballad helped to bring in tens of millions of dollars to put towards further developing its branding as the leading authority on sex trafficking.
“What they are learning is so divorced from reality that it does sling back to create harm,” Erin Albright, an attorney who has worked in the anti-trafficking space for 15 years, recently told Rolling Stone about the dangerous narratives perpetuated by the film. “It creates harm when certain policies aren’t passed because we think trafficking looks one way and it’s another way. It creates harm when victims don’t recognize themselves in these narratives.”
Angel Studios, which distributed Sound of Freedom, published a blog post on its website acknowledging that some of Ballard’s biographical details were altered and that the film “took creative liberties in depicting the different methods of child trafficking.”
https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1678467689269051392
Constant Gardener
It's happening again. More controversy instigated by Qanon ultra nationalists masquerading as patriotic, god fearing, Trumped-up conservatives.
First they come out with this movie, and blame the Woke Left or the Elite (or whichever movement or social class they are at odds with) for the root cause and the ongoing perpetration/enabling/grooming if not out right trafficking.
And in the background, one of their 'Angel Investors' is himself - a proud Sugar Daddy who was sponsoring Sugar Ball Lifestyle Parties all around St Louis, Missouri.
It doesn't take a whole lot of internet sleuthing or very many mouse clicks to drill down and see what this scourge has been accused of and now - charged with by the state of Missouri.
https://www.rawstory.com/sound-of-freedom/
Conservatives blaming Liberals for all the problems going on in our civilization, while they themselves are the ones who are actually to blame. Projecting. We've seen this with Trump for over 6 years - and now with this movie and this arrest, we'll start to wake the fuck up.
Constant Gardener
I've seen this informercial before. Mike Huckabee is the shyster.
Let's hear their pitch, Sprite. It might be entertaining or depressing or laughable. Ya never know with this crew.
Constant Gardener
What has gone unmentioned in this charging indictment?
It’s one of the more intriguing mysteries about the new Trump indictment: Why are details about Trump’s call with McCarthy on Jan. 6 unsourced? What could it mean?
Shortly after the indictment was unsealed, McCarthy posted a statement about the Hunter Biden saga and called the indictment “DOJ’s attempt to distract from the news and attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, President Trump.”
While McCarthy knows what was said on that phone call—and said a week after Jan. 6 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on the Capitol—McCarthy quickly mended his relationship with Trump and has stood in the way of any sort of accountability for the former president and his actions surrounding the insurrection.
But according to Herrera Beutler, McCarthy immediately blamed Trump for Jan. 6. She recalled the briefing on a podcast in February 2021.
“He called the president and said, ‘Hey, you basically need to get on TV, you need to call these people off,’” she said on the podcast. “And the president’s response to him was, ‘These aren’t my people, these are Antifa.’”
“Kevin, to his credit, responded, ‘No, they just came through my window, my staff are running, these are your people, they have MAGA hats on,’” Herrera Beutler continued.
“And the president’s response to him was, ‘Well, Kevin, I guess they are just more concerned about this election than you are,’” she said.
That closely tracks with the call’s description in the indictment. (Beutler, who has since become a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, did not reply to an interview request.)
But that was not the last that the public heard of the phone call. The House Jan. 6 Committee extensively explored the call and the events of that day. They described the phone conversation this way:
“Multiple witnesses told the Select Committee that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy contacted the President and others around him, desperately trying to get him to act. McCarthy’s entreaties led nowhere. ‘I guess they’re just more upset about the election theft than you are,’ President Trump told McCarthy.”
But as time went on, McCarthy adopted a different version of the events that day.
He changed his story when discussing the matter with Michael Fanone, who defended the Capitol and left the Metropolitan Police Department after suffering injuries during the attack. Fanone confronted McCarthy during a private meeting, saying that, “While you were on the phone with him, I was getting the shit kicked out of me, almost losing my life.”
To which McCarthy replied: “I’m just telling you from my phone call, that, I don’t know that he did know that.”
(McCarthy has flipped) OP's opinion
Constant Gardener
The world has been sending out electro-mechanical space probes since the 1960s, the most famous of those, arguably the twin probes Voyager 1 & Voyager 2 in late summer 1977.
What do you suppose would be a logical origin of a truly unidentified/unrecognized hovering/flying/remotely controlled object - if all other origins native to Planet Earth were ruled out?
Constant Gardener
Nationwide - food pantries in every county of every state of this nation. It can be accomplished with 'minimal expenditures' of our yearly budget.
Or we can continue to give trillions of tax breaks to US corporations and wealthier individuals every 8 to 12 years.
https://zerowasteeurope.eu/library/france-law-for-fighting-food-waste/#
Constant Gardener
No safety nets, no safety lines - all that safety crap just gets in the way of being nimble and sure-footed.
Constant Gardener
Fake Church linked to Sarah Palin accused of 'intoxicating array' of campaign violations
https://www.rawstory.com/sarah-palin-2662699678/
“It’s a goofy, esoteric constitutional theory, the kind of guys who get a parking ticket and say they can only pay in gold doubloons or whatever,” Kendall said. “But if that theory were correct, then every super PAC would be a church — the Church of Romney, Church of Ted Cruz, Synagogue of Chuck Schumer. It’s not on me to question anyone’s faith, but I don’t see how ballot measures qualify as a religious cause.”
😘 [ I see whatcha did there ]
Constant Gardener
For those who like to read along...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_1.pdf
Constant Gardener
I guess you've never seen the infomercials from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, with an assist from Mike Huckabee, former Grifter of Arkansas (I meant governor)... everyone knows his unqualified daughter is the current grifter governor of Arkansas.
Ukranians have been dying of starvation for over 80 years and nobody & apparently very few christians and jews are rushing in to help them, so Huckabee has his new grift the last few years.
*Warning: The video is exceptionally slickly produced and meant to appeal to your empathy. (If you have a smidgen more than Mike Huckabee), you'll be donating $25 a month soon, to their organization, where they hand out food in hard to open 'tin cans' which require a can opener (which the 70-80-90 year old women can't really use).
Constant Gardener
Republican desires/opinions are 180 degrees diametrically opposed to my desires.
Republicans can only succeed when they totally control everything (politically and governmentally) within the given framework our Republic has provided - and many of your white nationalist Republicans openly wish and make public calls for civil war and bloodshed.
Republicans succeed at other people's expense and I don't want to see what the depths of that expense entail.
A lot of your opinions and thoughts are garbage in my opinion. You can spew them elsewhere after Biden (or any democrat) is re(elected) and we can focus on convicting Trump of as many of his crimes as we can successfully charge the motherfucker with. You just won't be able to spew your 'opinions' at this website. Go back home to Stormfront.
Worry not, after his convictions, Trump will never spend a moment of time imprisoned anywhere besides Mar-a-Lago, where he'll be incarcerated with an ankle bracelet and 24x7x365 Secret Service Protection. Trump will receive the same generous treatment his former running buddy received during his own Florida incarceration for children.
Constant Gardener
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-right-wingers-avoid-dealing-with-reality-right-now
While the right has spent so much energy agitating against outcomes that never came, however, the dystopian future that liberals have been warning about has seemingly sprung up all around us. These long-feared “Where does it end?” scenarios have led to our current era, which sometimes looks and feels like The End.
The left has warned against environmental, structural and financial deregulation—just to name a few issues—and now our buildings are collapsing, our trains are derailing, and banks keep failing.
They’ve been warning about climate change for decades and now the sky just occasionally turns red, and earlier this month Earth reached the hottest day ever recorded on four consecutive days and now July appears to be the planet’s hottest month on record.
The left warned that lax gun control would lead to more mass shootings and rage killings—which it continues to do—while the right thinks the real long-term threat is that the shootings will result in any gun-control measures whatsoever. (“Where does it end?”, asked Fox News’ Mark Levin about the response to the Parkland massacre in 2018.)
And then there’s the long line of liberal doomsaying around Roe v. Wade, which conservatives swore was settled law and whose removal last summer resulted in an ongoing human-rights crisis that threatens to get even worse.
“They’re not stopping here,” President Biden recently said, while marking the anniversary of SCOTUS striking down Roe. It was neither exaggeration, hyperbole, nor Chicken Little fearmongering; just a realistic assessment of how a 6-3 SCOTUS plays goal-line defense for progress, with the support of a fully emboldened, mask-off GOP.
Conservatives are not making practical, incremental measures toward long-term radical change. They openly aspire to resurrect a backwards version of America right now, and they don’t care whether there’s majority buy-in or not.
There is still hope, though, and it lives in Minnesota.
Democrats in the Land of 10,000 Lakes clawed back a two-vote majority in last fall’s midterms—perhaps not coincidentally soon after three GOP state reps discussed classroom litter box nonsense on the House floor—and proceeded to go on a legislative bender for the ages. Governor Tim Walz’s list of wins since then reads like a checklist of the average MAGA grandad’s worst nightmares, touching on everything from reproductive rights, gun control, recreational weed legalization, trans rights, green energy, and way too much more to mention.
Governor Walz and his team are not trying to “sensible” their way into making constituents’ lives better, they’re just doing it. They have seemingly realized that the kind of conservative who paints support for trans people as a pipeline to isn’t worth reasoning with or trying to win over with practical measures. The right fights each proposed incremental change as if it were a full-blown revolution anyway, so the only sensible thing to do is swing for the fences.
Where does it end? If other leaders follow suit after the next election, it will be fun to find out.
Constant Gardener
Ten years ago last month, I experienced hospice care inside my parent's home, when my mother finally acquiesed to inviting hospice care and nurses into her last few weeks of life. She'd fought this decision for over six months, but was spending a lot of time bouncing from home to the hospital for various maladies which were directly related to her advance COPD.
My father was 79 and had been trying to accomodate his wife's failing health for the previous 3 years, until I'd joined forces with him to provide her the care she required.
Now, I see that hospice is on the horizon for my father, who is rapidly losing his eyesight, to match his inability to hear anything a person might say in a speaking voice. Again, this topic is one I must address within the coming year, as his needs are almost more than I can address on a daily basis.
Would those who have experience with hospice, care to add their comments to this thread? I am still in debt to their services for how they carefully handled the four week situation with my mother.
Constant Gardener
Quote by Chryses
The story started as “global warming” back in the 1980s. But that term was abandoned in favor of “climate change” or AGW, as the new name enabled the climate campaign to account for inconvenient things like cold weather. However, “climate change” failed to motivate the masses sufficiently, so now it has been renamed the “climate crisis.”
OMG! OMG! OMG! It is a crisis! We must do something radical right now!
Constant Gardener
CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA’S UNCHARGED SUSPECTED OBSTRUCTION HAPPENED ON AILEEN CANNON’S WATCHQuote by WellMadeMale
Trump is sunk with regards to the stolen classified documents case (@ Mar-a-Lago) with this new superseding indictment released this afternoon.
I’d like to make something explicit that’s implicit in this post. Some of Carlos De Oliveira’s suspected obstruction of the investigation into stolen documents happened on Aileen Cannon’s watch.
To be sure, it’s not charged, and the timing of all this is not made explicit in the indictment. De Oliveira is charged with four counts:
Count 33: Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice (18 USC 1512(k)) from May 11, 2022 until August 2022
Count 40: Corruptly asking Trump Employee 4 to destroy surveillance footage (18 USC 1512(b)(2) from June 22, 2022 until August 2022
Count 41: Corruptly attempting to alter surveillance footage (18 USC 1512(c)(1)) from June 22, 2022 until August 2022
Count 42: False statements in a January 13, 2023 interview with the FBI at his residence
The timeline of this is actually quite interesting. All the conspiracy charges go through August 2022, with no specific end date. That adopts the convention used in the first indictment.
By description, the conspiracies described in the first indictment might otherwise have ended on August 8, 2022, when the FBI seized the documents the obstruction attempted to hide. There was no overt act that post-dates August 8 in the first indictment.
There is in the superseding indictment. There’s this key paragraph, which describes that on August 26, 2022, after Trump confirmed De Oliveira’s loyalty, Trump called him and told him he would get him an attorney.
Constant Gardener
I don't agree with Sharf on anything that's likely to roll off his fingertips or emit from his vocal cords. I wasted 5 minutes of my morning reading his recent Federalist contribution.
More allegations - with zero proof of connection to his vice president father...with assistance spreading the vitriol throughout the internet by self proclaimed INDEPENDANTS like Ironic.
People get plea deals all the time, even your beloved criminal Republicans. Trump is floating his SENILE trial balloon ( https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2662519478/ ) as of this morning, so maybe he too won't have to go to prison.
Constant Gardener
Quote by Ironic
Unlike Bud Light’s ghosting Ms. Mulvany, "6-second Aldean" didn’t fold under pressure.
Because he hasn't folded like a cheap suit yet does not mean that he's acquired millions of new cross-over fans. Issues like this simply help us identify who are the morally and mentally deficient amongst our society.
I also suspect your answer to Just_A_Guy will confirm this, so you'll (if you're smart) simply avoid answering his last post.
Constant Gardener
Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
I'd be interested in knowing what those who are deeply concerned with the plight of small-business owners think of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/28/opinion/tulsa-race-massacre-reparations.html
Whataboutism is contagious this time of year from the GQP, and there is no vaccine to protect against their infection. I suspect it will make it's appearance soon however.
Constant Gardener
Quote by Ironic
I don’t expect you to read it, but there’s a powerful review of what the plea deal was made of, How A Federal Judge Turned The Tables On Hunter Biden’s Sweetheart Plea Deal
It’s worth reading for people interested in our 2-tier judicial system.
What is the actual objective of the Hunter Biden prosecution story - to go after Hunter's abuses - or to create the impression that the President's son's criminal activities are actually the result of the criminal vice-president's (at the times of Hunter Biden's infractions - the GQP is following 'standard prosecutorial conduct' by simply going UP the food chain in their multi-year running investigations.
Unlike most people, I'm not confused by the GQP investigations... I've witnessed what the end result is of dozens of Republican Political Investigations since the 1960s. They are always of the type to assassinate someone's character - easily done if someone in the target's family is committing criminal behavior.
They've never proved a Clinton Crime Family ever existed, but spent all of the 1990s telling America that Bill & Hill were cold blooded killers responsible for everything horrible in Arkansas and the USA.
Cervix is convinced it's to bust the Biden Crime Family Syndicate...and Ironic is showing us evidence only points to Hunter Biden.
Ironic's source for the article he's demanding Felix to read is:
Will Scharf is a former federal prosecutor, who also worked on the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. He is currently a Republican candidate for Missouri Attorney General.
Ironic - quoting The Federalist to paint Hunter as a bad bad boy.
Constant Gardener
He's parroting the information which O'Donnell enlightens above. Can you tell Olbermann adores Trump?
Constant Gardener
Trump is sunk with regards to the stolen classified documents case (@ Mar-a-Lago) with this new superseding indictment released this afternoon.
You may or may not like O'Donnell - but he lays out exactly what 'we now know' about the 'new' Trump Employee #4.
This person was the IT Director at Mar-a-Lago. Trump and his minions wanted the main security video server deleted.
The IT Director stalled and refused to erase the video files resident on that server.
Jack Smith has laid it all out... O'Donnell shows us here - what Smith has in his possession in terms of hard evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and at least two schmuck employees to play hide-n-seek with the National Archives and then the FBI.
Constant Gardener
Ironic - always picking the low hanging fruit and trying to pass it off as premium grade, top shelf, produce. It always comes off as attention whoring. (not attacking you - just pointing out the obvious)
If Lush were to bring back the Attention Whoring Competition on an annual basis - I'm sure you'd be a top ten finisher yearly. There are some world class attention whores unfurling their wings on our website on a daily basis. Stiff competition for sure, but after experiencing your act for the last 3 years... You have a great opportunity ahead of you!
This has been talked about to death in the past - but those who need to make it happen are the same bastards who keep running for office instead of just showing the rest of us how to term limit themselves - for starters. But we have zero courage in Washington D.C. - so talking will be all that gets accomplished.
Now for an example from the Libertarians of the nation - https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-term-limit-congress
The Cruz‐Rooney constitutional amendment is similar to one proposed by Cruz two years ago. It would limit senators to two six‐year terms and congressmen to three two‐year terms. The measure has three Senate GOP co‐sponsors. President Donald Trump has endorsed the idea, as has Beto O’Rourke, Cruz’s Democratic opponent last November.
In promoting his legislation, Cruz explained: “For too long, members of Congress have abused their power and ignored the will of the American people.” Term limits, he argued, “offer a solution to the brokenness we see in Washington, D.C.” Rooney cited the “overwhelming” support of the American people.
The latter is true, of course, but matters naught when it comes to an issue like term limits. Any amendment would have to be approved by three‐fourths of the states, but that isn’t as high a barrier as it might seem. After all, 15 states already term‐limit their legislators. (Voters in another six states voted to impose term limits, but the legislatures or courts subsequently overturned the measures.) However, the likelihood that two‐thirds of the members of Congress will vote themselves out of a job by sending forth an amendment is only theoretically above zero. Satan’s demons are more likely to vote to close Hell.