Hugh Hewitt to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary

By Mark | January 19, 2020

If Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic primary, I’ll contribute to his campaign, knock on doors for him, and do whatever I can to help him win the presidential election. And I will do so enthusiastically. With that said, it does give me pause when I see a Trump supporter like Republican radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt saying that he intends to vote for Sanders in Virginia’s Democratic primary. I know it shouldn’t bother me, especially given that Sanders is coming out on top in almost every head-to-head poll pitting him against Trump, but the fact that I know Donald Trump, and his sycophants like Hewitt, would like nothing more than to have us run an older, Jewish, Democratic Socialist in the general election, makes me incredibly nervous. But, then again, everything makes me incredibly nervous. No matter who Trump runs against, it’s going to a dystopian nightmare that puts all of us Americans an one another’s throats. But, when I play all of the scenarios out in my head, I always find this one to be the most terrifying. Maybe it’s because I think that I can see this future the most clearly.

I can see the potential of Donald Trump turning a campaign against Sanders into something like a Nazi-themed installment of Wrestlemania, with him, the virile, deeply tanned, Aryan billionaire, with his golden locks majestically blowing in the wind, going up against the boogeyman of Socialism as embodied by Bernie. Maybe I’ve just spent too much time a the Holocaust Museum, looking at early Nazi propaganda posters, but I can see it all coming back… the demonization of the international Jewish communist to advance the cause of corporate fascism. This isn’t to say that I think that we should vote against Sanders in the primary, and choose another candidate. I just can’t help but think that I know exactly how this will go down, and how the right will depict Bernie, supported by ‘hoards of non-Aryan immigrants,’ and the ‘easily-manipulated intellectuals who can’t see their evil, anti-American plan for what it really is.’ But, like I said, it’s going to be bad no matter who we put forward. Hopefully, though, this just makes us stronger in our resolve. And hopefully, in the end, the American people do the right thing, even if our leaders in D.C. refuse to.

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To all those who said, “But no crime has been committed,” I give you… the crime

By Mark | January 16, 2020

I’m sure it won’t make any difference to those Trump supporters who have been saying that the President’s impeachment is somehow invalid because an actual law wasn’t broken in the administration’s dealings with Ukraine, but I feel compelled to share the following news item from today’s New York Times:

Hours before the Senate embarked on President Trump’s impeachment trial, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency unexpectedly weighed in on an issue at the heart of the case: the president’s decision to withhold military assistance to Ukraine.

The agency, the Government Accountability Office, said the White House’s Office of Management and Budget violated the law when it withheld nearly $400 million this past summer for “a policy reason,” even though the funds had been allocated by Congress.

The decision to freeze the aid was directed by the president himself, and during the House impeachment inquiry, administration officials testified that they had raised concerns about its legality to no avail.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the accountability office wrote in an opinion released Thursday. “The withholding was not a programmatic delay”…

Yes, it would appear as though the administration, in addition to obstructing justice, violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. I’d encourage you to read it all, but here’s how the report from the Government Accountability Office begins.

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“I don’t know him at all,” Donald Trump says of Lev Parnas

By Mark | January 16, 2020

Donald Trump, when asked by reporters today about his association with Lev Parnes, said repeatedly that he had no idea who this man doing his bidding in Ukraine alongside Rudy Giuliani was. “I don’t know him at all, don’t know what he’s about, don’t know where he comes from, know nothing about him,” the President said.

Lev Parnas’s criminal defense attorney, Joseph Bondy, responded to this claim of Tump’s by sharing a video of his client and Roman Nasirov, the former head of the Ukrainian Fiscal Service, hanging out with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December 2016.

What’s more, Lev Parnas today said that he was actually with Donald Trump, at a private dinner this past spring, when the President gave word to White House aide John DeStefano that Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch needed to be fired. According to Parnes, Trump said to DeStefano, “Fire her. Get rid of her.”

Oh, and, for what it’s worth, it’s already been well established that Trump knew who Parnes was. It’s documented in an email from Trump attorney Jay Sekulow that the President signed-off on the idea that his legal advisor, John Dowd, would be representing Lev Parnas.

So, yeah, Donald Trump is lying. Again.

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Parnas implicates both Barr and Pence in the Trump administration’s plan to coerce Ukraine into announcing an investigation into Joe Biden

By Mark | January 15, 2020

I’ll keep this brief, and just get right to the point. This evening, Trump administration bag man Lev Parnes told Rachel Maddow not only that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani were directing his activities in the Ukraine, but that both Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Bill Barr were aware of their plan to coerce the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into Joe Biden. Here’s a bit of the video.

Among other things, Parnes said that, “It was never about corruption,” and that “President Trump knew exactly what was going on.” And, as I eluded to above, he also made it clear that everyone in the administration was aware of what was happening. “Attorney General Barr was basically on the team,” he told Maddow. And it would appear that Pence was in the know as well, cancelling his trip to Ukraine for Zelensky’s inauguration when the newly-elected President initially resisted playing along, refusing to make a public announcement about Biden being investigated for corruption.

Oh, it’s also worth pointing out that Giuliani’s opinion about his old associate has changed. When Parnas and his associate Fruman had been arrested for funneling illegal foreign campaign contributions into he coffers of American politicians this past October, Giuliani had come to their defense, telling Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey, “I certainly am not going to disavow them. I have no reason to doubt them. Everything I’ve known about them says they would not commit a crime.” Today, however, Giuliani is saying of Parnes, “Believe him at your peril.”

I don’t have any illusions about either Barr or Pence being driven from office over this suggestion by Parnes that they were “in the loop,” but I do find it interesting, and would hope that, at the very least, it helps make clear to Senate Republican how serious this is, and how imperative it is that a real, substantive trial take place.

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Nunes’s memory seems to be improving now that Parnes has gone public

By Mark | January 15, 2020

Politico reported earlier today that Lev Parnas, in addition to handing over all of the material we discussed yesterday, also gave investigators voicemails he’d saved from Trump associates. And, coincidentally, shortly thereafter, Devin Nunes went on television to announce that, contrary to what he’d said earlier, he now remembers that he did in fact have a few conversations with Parnas, the Trump administration’s bag man in Ukraine. It’s really amazing how the human memory works, isn’t it?

update: Well, Parnes just told Rachel Maddow that he not only “met with Nunes several times,” but that the Congressman was in involved in “getting all this stuff on Biden.”

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

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