Elizabeth Warren will host a town hall in Tempe next week after the second round of presidential candidate debates in Detroit.
The senator from Massachusetts is among the top Democratic contenders in early states and national polls. This is her first trip to Arizona since announcing her bid for the White House and will mark the 25th state she has visited during her campaign.
Warren's town hall at the Marquee Theater in Tempe on Thursday begins at 6:15 p.m. and is open to the general public. Tickets are free. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
As one of the more outspoken liberals in the Democratic Party, Warren's stances on Medicare-for-All-style healthcare and universal child-care, as well as her aggressive attacks against Wall Street, corporate America and President Donald Trump, have made her a hero to the left and a high-profile enemy of the right.
Click the Marquee Theater link above to sign up for the free tickets.
"A day in which a former Special Counsel affirmed in public what the Mueller Report put forth. It is a crossing of a threshold in terms of the public awareness of what happened and how it conforms to the law or not," declared Speaker Nancy Pelosi. During a livestreamed 27 minute press conference following nearly seven hours of testimony, she sounded more willing to entertain the possibility that the House would eventually proceed with impeachment of Donald Trump.
A brief excerpt (less than a minute) is available in the embedded tweet (click the pic.twitter.com link) where the Speaker sounds much less strident than she has been characterized in media regarding impeachment lately.
Special Counsel Mueller’s testimony raises serious concerns about the national security implications of this President’s actions – or more often inaction – with regards to Russia. pic.twitter.com/SW8g8p6pUz
From Speaker.gov, here's what she said in that excerpt,
So, as we go to questions, I just want to say that I think: I do believe what we saw today was a very strong manifestation and, in fact, some would even say an indictment of this Administration’s cone of silence and their cover-up.
This is only – this is about our – the oath we take to protect and defend the Constitution. But, some of the actions that the Administration may have taken, we’ll see through our investigation, may have jeopardized our national security by strengthening Russia’s hand in interfering in our elections, undermining democracy, not only in our country, but in other countries as well, upsetting our pre-eminence as a democracy in the world.
This is very serious. Today was very important.
Here's the entire conference,
Of course, there are still naysayers who claim Robert Mueller performed poorly. But what did those people expect him of him?
Robert Mueller, whose reputation reached mythic proportions amid his nearly two years of silence as special counsel, seemed notably human during roughly seven hours of testimony on Wednesday. He struggled to hear lawmakers’ questions, stumbled at times over his words, and repeatedly ducked queries by referring back to his 450-page report. But while Mueller may have disappointed as a performer, Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees were surprisingly disciplined. And with an assist from some epically inept questioning by Republicans, the lawmakers led Mueller through a withering portrayal of President Donald Trump.
Freed of the brain-dead debate over whether or not Trump “colluded” with Russia, Democrats used the hearing to highlight what Mueller had said Trump and his cohorts clearly did do: Seek to benefit from Russia illegal actions, lie extensively about it, and then scramble to block investigations into those actions.Republicans used their questions largely to pursue far-right hobbyhorses—opposition research firm Fusion GPS remains a favorite—and to attack Mueller for writing a report at all. But they barely bothered to challenge the basic outline of events that emerged in the two hearings.
Trump and his presidential campaign “knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy, and used it,” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in opening remarks during the second hearing held Wednesday, summarizing Mueller’s report. (Mueller’s report says that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”) Schiff said this conduct, legal or not, showed “disloyalty to country.” Mueller supported these claims.
Time and again Mueller retreated behind a lawyerly formalism. But time and again Democrats made the most of it, winning terse assent from him as they laid out the damning case he’d built against Trump. Mueller confirmed the report’s description of the famous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, in which Donald Trump Jr. eagerly sought what he expected was Russian government-furnished dirt on Hillary Clinton. Mueller agreed that the the report says a mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud, told George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy aide, that the Russians had obtained a trove of Democratic emails and hoped to release them anonymously to help Trump’s campaign. GOP members on Tuesday echoed a theory pushed by Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI, that Mifsud was really a Western agent, working to ensnare the Trump campaign in a phony scheme. None of the questioners explained how Mifsud, if he was not working for Russian intelligence, knew that the Russians had stolen Democratic emails and correctly predicted how they planned to release them.
During the Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon, Schiff asked Mueller if the Trump campaigns had built a messaging strategy around the release of hacked Democratic emails by WikiLeaks.
“Generally that’s true,” Mueller said.
“And then they lied to cover it up?” Schiff asked.
“Generally that’s true,” Mueller said again.
Mueller exceeded Democratic hopes when Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) asked him to weigh in on Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks during the campaign. “Problematic is an understatement, in terms of what it displays, in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity,” Mueller said. In this statement, Mueller offered a personal assessment that went beyond the measured tones of his report. Minutes later, Schiff asked if knowingly accepting foreign assistance during a presidential campaign was an “unethical thing to do.” Mueller agreed, adding, “And a crime.”
Friedman goes on to include several other specific instances where Mueller directly contradicts what Trump has claimed in trying to further con the American electorate.
In my view, the testimony validates what Trump said when he first learned of Mueller's appointment as Special Counsel.
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department told former Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Monday he should limit his testimony before Congress this week to discussing his public report on the Russia probe.
In a letter to Mueller, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer said his testimony set for Wednesday before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees “must remain within the boundaries of your public report because matters within the scope of your investigation were covered by executive privilege.”
However, former Obama administration acting Solicitor General Neal K. Katyal, in the New York Times writes,
There are just three simple yes-or-no questions Congress should ask Robert Mueller:
Mr. Mueller, the president said your report found, in his words, “no collusion, no obstruction, complete and total exoneration.”
First, did your report find there was no collusion?
Second, did your report find there was no obstruction?
Third, did your report give the president complete and total exoneration?
That’s it. That’s the ballgame. It makes no difference if there are 20 questioners or two when Mr. Mueller appears before two House committees on Wednesday. All of this speculation about whether Mr. Mueller will go beyond the four corners of his report is largely a waste of time, with one asterisk. The report itself is deeply damning to Mr. Trump, elevating him to the rare president who has been credibly documented as committing federal crimes while sitting in office. [...]
But now we get to something interesting — the asterisk. Mr. Mueller’s testimony will occur under a greatly changed circumstance from when the report was finished. The attorney general has recently said, referring to Mr. Mueller, “I personally felt he could’ve reached a decision” about obstruction, and further said that “the opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office, but he could’ve reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity.”
That compels Congress to ask Mr. Mueller two final questions: “First, when you were serving as special counsel, did Mr. Barr ever tell you that you could reach a decision about Mr. Trump’s criminality? Second, since Mr. Barr has now said that department policy allows you to reach a decision as to whether it was criminal activity, please do so. No one knows the facts better than you. We need you to. ”
The report speaks for itself. But in an era when our leaders have lied about it in the hope that Americans won’t read it, we need simple connect-the-dots questions clearly posed that will correct the record. Mr. Mueller’s report itself says that a sitting president cannot be indicted because it may “potentially pre-empt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.” Our Constitution outlines only one such process: an impeachment inquiry in the House. It’s time.
January 20, 2021 is still a year and a half away, but I hope the Democratic president sworn in on that day (or sooner) will echo the words of Gerald Ford, when he was sworn in to fill the seat vacated when Richard Nixon resigned.
According to Politico, on Wednesday July 24th, (former) Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify before the House Judiciary Committee for 3 hours and before House Intelligence (perhaps for only two hours).
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday that this week’s hearing with Robert Mueller will air “very substantial evidence” of wrongdoing by President Donald Trump and make a public case for impeachment. Republicans pledged sharp questioning of the special counsel about what they see as a “one-sided” Russia investigation.
Days before back-to-back hearings Wednesday, both sides seemed to agree that Mueller’s testimony could be pivotal in shifting public opinion on the question of “holding the president accountable.” [...]
“This is a president who has violated the law 6 ways from Sunday,” said the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. He argued that Mueller’s report lays out “very substantial evidence” that Trump is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the constitutional standard for impeachment.
“We have to present — or let Mueller present — those facts to the American people ... because the administration must be held accountable and no president can be above the law,” Nadler said. [...]
While Mueller’s testimony was once envisioned as a crystalizing event, a Watergate-style moment to uncover truths, public attention has drifted in the months since the report was released.
“We want Bob Mueller to bring it to life, to talk about what’s in that report,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s a pretty damning set of facts that involve a presidential campaign in a close race welcoming help from a hostile foreign power, not reporting it but eagerly embracing it, building it into their campaign strategy, lying about it to cover up, then obstructing an investigation into foreign interference again to try to cover up.”
Intelligence committee aides have said they believe the public has received a slanted view of what Mueller found on the question of criminal conspiracy because of Trump’s repeated claims of “no collusion,” and that the details of Russia’s interference in the election — and the outreach to the Trump campaign — haven’t gotten enough attention.
“Who better to bring them to life than the man who did the investigation himself?” Schiff asked.
Nadler said he’s not worried that Republicans might seek to attack the credibility of the Russia investigation and says he hopes to take cues from the public after the hearing about “where we go from here.”
RALEIGH, N.C. — A few dozen computer files recovered from the home of a deceased Republican redistricting consultant can be offered as evidence in next week's partisan gerrymandering trial in North Carolina, state judges ruled on Friday.
The three-judge panel presiding over the trial that starts Monday sided with the election reform group Common Cause, the North Carolina Democratic Party and registered Democratic voters who are suing Republican lawmakers and challenging state House and Senate boundaries drawn in 2017.
The plaintiffs subpoenaed documents from the estranged daughter of longtime GOP mapmaker Tom Hofeller that turned out to be more than 75,000 files from 22 hard drives and thumb drives that she said she came across while looking for personal mementos. Tom Hofeller died last year.
Those who sued told the judges last week they want to offer 35 of those files that they say will show Hofeller used partisanship as a predominant motivation to help create the 2017 districts to maximize advantage for Republicans.
Lawyers for the GOP legislators argued the files mean little to the case, and can't be authenticated as authored by Hofeller because he's dead. But the judges wrote they were satisfied there was enough information from the plaintiffs, including Stephanie Hofeller's deposition testimony, to properly validate the files as coming from her father.
And "a detailed chain of custody need not be established because there is no evidence any of the Hofeller files plaintiffs seek to admit have been altered," the Superior Court judges wrote, pointing out the files still had to comply with other rules of evidence.
Content from other subpoenaed Hofeller files in this case also have ended up in separate litigation in other states challenging a plan by President Donald Trump's administration to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census.
On Friday, the Superior Court judges — Paul Ridgeway, Alma Hinton and Joseph Crosswhite — directed that the remainder of Hofeller's subpoenaed, non-personal files stay confidential temporarily while his old consulting firm reviews them to locate proprietary information they want withheld.
"No party may disseminate any of the Hofeller files to third parties without further order of his court," the judges wrote.
The judges declined to grant a request from the Republican legislators to punish the plaintiffs' lawyers for conduct related to accessing Hofeller's files, saying they could seek redress with the North Carolina State Bar if they chose.
Hofeller's documents came to light under unusual circumstances. Stephanie Hofeller testified she initially contacted Common Cause late last year seeking a legal referral for her mother. She later told Common Cause that she had found computer files they may find interesting. Those documents were formally subpoenaed in March. The plaintiffs' attorneys said they did nothing unethical.
In light of the census cases, the attorneys for the GOP lawmakers said in court last week there was no telling how many people had reviewed documents that could obtain personal and confidential information. The legislators' delay in bringing concerns before the court has contributed to any prejudice they claim to have suffered, the judges wrote.
The gerrymandering trial will begin less than three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate North Carolina case that federal courts won't get involved in judging partisan gerrymandering claims. This trial, however, is in state court, and is based on alleged violations of the state constitution.
*****
In other news, the Arizona Eagletarian is dismayed and gravely disappointed that Congressman David Schweikert failed to vote for a motion to advance debate on a resolution to condemn the racist rants Trump unleashed in front of cameras and microphones recently against the four female freshman Congressional representatives collectively now known as "The Squad."
Not a single House Republican on Tuesday voted to proceed to debate on a Democratic resolution condemning President Donald Trump's racist attacks on progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
The resolution (pdf)—which is on track to pass by Tuesday evening—"strongly condemns President Donald Trump's racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color."
The procedural motion to begin debate passed by a vote of 233-190.
The measure passed by a vote of 240 to 187, with every Democratic member voting in favor. The four Republicans who voted to approve the measure were Reps. Will Hurd of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan and Susan Brooks of Indiana.
Notably, Schweikert, who ostensibly represents me in Congress also FAILED to vote to condemn Trump's racist screed.
WASHINGTON — Critics who sued to block the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census asked a federal judge on Tuesday to punish administration officials, saying the officials had deliberately delayed the lawsuit in order to hide damning evidence — conduct they called “nothing less than a fraud on the court.”
In a motion filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs charged that the conduct raised “serious questions” about the role that senior Justice Department officials played in assisting that strategy. [...]
Some of the charges are based on new evidence about deliberations over the citizenship question that were unearthed in congressional hearings this spring. But the filing also cites a 2015 study by a Republican Party redistricting strategist, Thomas B. Hofeller, now deceased, which outlined ways to boost Republican political fortunes by excluding noncitizens and persons under voting age from the population figures used for redistricting. [...]
Judge Jesse M. Furman of United States District Court issued an order on Tuesday permanently barring the Trump administration from asking respondents to the 2020 census about their citizenship status, whether through a written question or by some other means. That order also prohibited the administration from further delaying printing of 2020 census questionnaires to add a citizenship question.
The New York attorney general, Letitia James, whose office leads a coalition of plaintiffs in the suit in New York, had sought the injunction after Mr. Trump announced last week that he was abandoning efforts to add the question to the census. The Justice Department did not oppose the order.
“This motion will ensure that the Trump administration is held to its words,” Ms. James said in a statement. “It’s time to put this nightmare to bed.”
Defendants’ misconduct here compels a full and complete statement of the true facts by the Court. Among other things, it is important to clarify the roles of specific senior government personnel—including Secretary Ross, Attorney General Sessions, Gore, Uthmeier, Davidson, and Jones—as well as key external advisors (including Neuman and Hofeller) in advancing the pretextual [IOW, fraudulent] VRA rationale as well as what these individuals knew about and whether they adopted Hofeller’s improper and discriminatory reasons for adding a citizenship question to the census. [...]
Defendants invoked privileges to withhold evidence of their machinations and their plot to
obstruct inquiry into the real purpose of adding the citizenship question by propounding a false
rationale: (1) the plotting by senior Commerce Department officials to approach DOJ to request the question with the VRA rationale [...]
CONCLUSION
As the Solicitor General has recognized “counsel have a duty to zealously advocate on
behalf of their client, but they also have duties to this Court and to the Bar.” Hargan v. Garza,
No. 17-654 Cert. Pet. at 28. And as the Supreme Court wrote, “[e]specially in fast-paced,
emergency proceedings like those at issue here, it is critical that lawyers and courts alike be able
to rely on one another’s representations.” Azar v. Garza, 138 S. Ct. 1790, 1793 (2018).
For these reasons, the Court should authorize discovery and should impose appropriate sanctions on Defendants for their misconduct.
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences. -- Susan B. Anthony
If you perhaps need refreshing about whether one of the greatest revolutionaries in our nation's history (Her Story, Susan B Anthony) had a right and the gravitas to authoritatively make such a declaration, I recommend visiting susanb.org.
Notably, Miss Anthony was a powerful voice in the suffragist and abolitionist movements.
If she was alive today, she would no doubt be leading the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
When I was a child, in grade school in Rochester, NY, I had the opportunity to visit the Susan B. Anthony House and Museum. Wish I could go again very soon.
Her story stirs my soul which longs for my female progeny to be fully endowed with the personal sovereignty and all the civil rights the US Constitution grants to all citizens of our great land.
People are aghast, wondering how the GOP can approve of perverts and molesters.
I can tell you.
If you go back to America as it was before 1920, that stuff wasn’t illegal.
Trump & pals (among other things) are political reactionaries. They want to take us backwards. [...]
MAGA means take America back to the time when there were very few restrictions on white men.
They could grab land!
They could grab women!
Before the 13th Amendment, they could grab people and enslave them!
Before regulatory agencies, they could cheat!
Before laws against money laundering, they could get rich with stolen money! [actually, despite money laundering laws, there ARE ways around them]
Those were the days.
MAGA means back to the olden days when white men could grab whatever they wanted.
Grabbing women was particularly easy. In fact, rape (mostly) wasn’t even about the victim.
You see, for much of world history, rape was a property crime.
An unmarried girl was her father’s property. A married woman was her husband’s property.
If a virgin was raped, the property damage was to her father.
If she was married, the damage was to her husband.
If she wasn’t a virgin and wasn’t married, there was no crime, because the property was already damaged.
A man couldn’t rape his wife (his own property) and rape of enslaved women wasn’t a crime. Even after the Civil War, rape of a black woman wasn’t recognized. [...]
Through most of the 1800s, the age of consent for a girl was usually between 10 and 12.
Roy Moore and Jeffrey Epstein would have been within the law.
Young victims were generally vulnerable girls—poor, orphans, struggling to find food. A rich man who liked young girls had it made.
By about 1920, most states had raised the age of consent to between 16 and 18.
Epstein followed the pattern: He targeted girls as young as 13 who needed money. Many came from disadvantaged homes or foster care.
Trump and pals [Dominionist anti-feminist Cathi Herrod is one of those pals] disregard the laws and regulations that they think are “stupid” and shouldn’t should exist.
They want to take us back to the days when men had freedom to grab.
“But they’re doing it! They’re rolling us backwards!”
If you ever catch (or hear or read) Herrod claiming to be all for the health and well-being of women and girls of child-bearing age, DARE her to denounce Trump and his ilk. And mock her mercilessly if she refuses to so denounce.
You may remember that on June 25th, I attended a telephone town hall held by David Schweikert, the guy who "represents" me in Congress. Except he doesn't. He represents his Big Money owners and some extreme Right Wing voters who he let have a voice at that town hall. Regardless of where they live.
I mentioned that I had hoped to speak with David a day or two after the townhall in which I had registered to ask him a question but never got a turn, despite signaling my request immediately upon connecting to the conference call.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that David and I can have a direct conversation later this week. If we do and it turns out well, I'll let you know.
It turns out that I never heard from him. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised.
David's push poll during that town hall event identified border issues as the number one concern of listeners that evening. I'm confident he wasn't surprised about that. But did he expect those venomous callers to approve of the torture and abuse of children in our own state?
WASHINGTON — The poor treatment of migrant children at the hands of U.S. border agents in recent months extends beyond Texas to include allegations of sexual assault and retaliation for protests, according to dozens of accounts by children held in Arizona collected by government case managers and obtained by NBC News.
A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy held in Yuma, Arizona, said he and others in his cell complained about the taste of the water and food they were given. The Customs and Border Protection agents took the mats out of their cell in retaliation, forcing them to sleep on hard concrete.
A 15-year-old girl from Honduras described a large, bearded officer putting his hands inside her bra, pulling down her underwear and groping her as part of what was meant to be a routine pat down in front of other immigrants and officers.
The girl said "she felt embarrassed as the officer was speaking in English to other officers and laughing" during the entire process, according to a report of her account.
A 17-year-old boy from Honduras said officers would scold detained children when they would get close to a window, and would sometimes call them "puto," an offensive term in Spanish, while they were giving orders. [more]
My indignation at this moment is such that if David does NOT publicly and emphatically denounce the sexual assault and other harsh treatment of children by employees of the federal government and actively confront GOP House AND Senate leadership to demand such UNAmerican conduct be immediately halted, he deserves to be ousted from office, not later than the November 2020 election.
A prince will never lack for legitimate excuses to explain away his breaches of faith. Modern history will furnish innumerable examples of this behavior, showing how the man succeeded best who knew best how to play the fox. But it is a necessary part of this nature that you must conceal it carefully; you must be a great liar and hypocrite. Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.Machiavelli
The Presidency is … preeminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified…. That is what the office is—a superb opportunity for reapplying, applying in new conditions, the simple rules of human conduct to which we always go back. Without leadership alert and sensitive to change, we are all bogged up or lose our way. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses.… There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them.… We should pay close attention to the well-being of the masses, from the problems of land and labour to those of fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt.… We should help them to proceed from these things to an understanding of the higher tasks which we have put forward.… Such is the basic method of leadership. Mao Tse-tung
Burns, James MacGregor. Leadership (Harper Perennial Political Classics) . Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.
Put another way, here is the basic contrast between the bumbling incumbent and the best candidate to succeed him after the 2020 election.
There will be intensifying bluster from the incumbent as he becomes increasingly beleaguered. He's already overwhelmingly insecure.
But in my opinion, there are only two Democratic candidates who are capable of changing the game. And as we have seen over the last three years (including some of the 2016 campaign), the incumbent is cleverly qualified to dominate the game/campaign as it has traditionally been played.
Elizabeth Warren has already changed the game by contrasting the bluster and demagoguery with clear rhetoric, realistic visionary plans for the kind of change that needs to happen in America today, and deep conviction with understanding of how it needs to be.
EW: Remember, Congress has got a lot of muscle if it decides to use it. But I want to make two other points. The first is current law gives the Justice Department and the FTC [Federal Trade Commission]and the banking regulators a lot of power to move now. Even without Congress, a president who put a strong team in place could change antitrust enforcement in this country, without a single change in the laws from Congress.
DD: And it’s interesting you say the banking regulators, because people don’t realize how much power is in, you know, other agencies, not just the FTC and the Justice Department.
EW: Exactly right. I picked banking, but you’re exactly right. But it’s the reminder—There’s a lot we could do right now. But also, and this is what I argue should come out of all this, there are places where Congress should draw a bright line in this. So I have a plan to break up the big platforms. If a platform is doing more than a billion dollars in business, the platform has to be broken off from all of the ancillary businesses. And there’s just—We shouldn’t have to litigate it. Just make it happen. It’s too much concentration of power. And so I’m both ways on this: there’s a lot we can do without—I’m delighted Congress is doing this. There’s a lot we can do, even if Congress doesn’t change any law.
Kamala Harris has a rhetorical style that will cut through the incumbent's bluster like a hot knife sizzling through butter. Her prosecutorial chops will cut him down to size in two seconds flat should they appear on a debate stage together.
There are numerous reasons I prefer Warren, but I also very much like Harris. Of course, a Warren/Harris 2020 ticket would be revolutionary for several reasons.
Nevertheless, please ponder the quotes above and let's get this thing done.
