I see my Kellyanne walking away

by 12:18 pm. It has 151 Comments.

This seems ludicrous to me given that Obama’s wardrobe advisor was not pushed out after the tan suit debacle:

The Office of Special Counsel has recommended the removal of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work.

Of course, she won’t be removed. I expect Jonathan Turley to write a piece defending her within a few hours.

Let’s do a little House fundraising. Give here to the Balloon Juice fund to defend the seventeen most vulnerable Democrats in the House (almost all first-termers we gave to in 2018).

Goal Thermometer

You can also give to Dan McCready, running in the special in NC-09 here.

Goal Thermometer





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Good News from the Border ‘War’…

by 10:06 pm. It has 73 Comments.

… The GOP’s war on suffering humanity, not to mention the explicit instructions of that Jesus guy to whom they’re always proclaiming their allegiance. Warren shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place, but at least 8 out of 12 jurors stood up for decency. Per the Washington Post:

When Scott Daniel Warren was arrested last year after allegedly providing food, water, beds and clean clothes to undocumented immigrants near Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, the question was whether he had broken the law or upheld it.

“No Más Muertes,” an advocacy group that wants “no more deaths” of people crossing the desert regions linking Mexico and the southwestern United States, sees Warren — one of its most visible members — as an apostle of humanitarianism. His advocates say the geographer, who has taught courses at Arizona State University, was heeding both religious rules and international covenants that require sanctuary for the persecuted and the dispossessed.

The government, however, sees Warren, 36, as a felon. Arrested by Border Patrol agents in January 2018 at a property offering aid for immigrants in Ajo, Ariz., he was accused of helping border-crossers evade authorities, which is prohibited under federal law.

The activist faced up to 20 years in prison on charges of harboring and conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants…

The judge, Raner C. Collins, dismissed them and scheduled a status hearing in the case for July 2. The U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona did not immediately indicate whether it would seek another trial.
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Thirty Years Ago Today In Tiananmen Square

by 10:49 pm. It has 33 Comments.

Thirty years ago today the government of the People’s Republic of China sent in the Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army to liberate the lives out of the protestors in Tiananmen Square in what is described as the massacre that ended the six weeks and six days of protests. Tomorrow, the 5th of June, will mark the thirty year anniversary of the iconic images of Tank Man, the Chinese citizen, holding a shopping bag in each hand, who braved a column of tanks trying to roll to and through Tiananmen Square.

The BBC has done an excellent job in its coverage of the anniversaries of these events. I’d like to highlight two different videos they’ve done. The first focuses on Wang Zhixin, one of the leaders of the student protests in Tiananmen Square as he returns there for the first time in thirty years.

The second focuses on the coercive power of states, especially single party, authoritarian states, to leverage information and the control over it to propagandize, indoctrinate, and/or intimidate its own citizenry.

I’ll end with the iconic video showing images of true resistance and real bravery. Video of Tank Man, which had to be smuggled out of China. Tank Man’s actual name is Wang Weilin. He was a 19 year old student when he stood down the column of tanks. His whereabouts and ultimate fate have been unknown for thirty years!

Open thread!

 

 





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Russiagate Open Thread: One Step At A Time…

by 8:09 pm. It has 151 Comments.

Note carefully, he’s not disagreeing with Pelosi — this is the next step in the essential choreography to block off every Repub bolthole:

Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who as recently as last month cautioned Democrats about the perils of pursuing President Trump’s impeachment, now says the House should open an impeachment inquiry that might or might not lead to a formal effort to remove him from office.

“It’s not the right thing to do nothing,” Reid said in an interview Monday with USA TODAY. “It’s not the right thing to jump into impeachment without doing an inquiry.”

The most important goal, he said, would be to “give the American people a view of what’s going on.”

The House could establish an impeachment panel to investigate the allegations that some say amount to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” necessary under the Constitution to remove a president from office. But such a panel wouldn’t necessarily vote to impeach Trump — that is, to approve Articles of Impeachment that would send the process to the Senate for a trial….

Reid’s comments are also notable because he had what he called “a front-row seat” at the nation’s last impeachment trial, when Reid was Senate minority leader. Then, the Republican-controlled House voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate didn’t convict him in the trial that followed.

That impeachment effort rebounded politically against GOP candidates in the 1998 midterm elections.

Reid acknowledged the potential political blowback and the likelihood that the current GOP-controlled Senate would never vote to remove Trump from office…

In the end, he said, “I just think that Republicans are going arm-in-arm with Trump, right over the cliff.” But he said public opinion might be affected by a systematic effort to explore allegations that Trump tried to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation and engaged in other wrongdoing….





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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Round ‘Em Up

by 4:59 pm. It has 70 Comments.





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