Monday, February 24th, 2020
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - Schwartzreport
Stephan: I have been appalled at what has been happening in this country in the post impeachment period. Without a disaproving comment from a single Republican in either the Senate or the House, as well as most of corporate media, with the exception of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, criminal Trump has begun restructuring the Executive Branch of the American government. It is being transformed into an overt mob operation whose first priority is loyalty to the don. So today I am focusing SR just on what is happening.
What it tells me yet again, as if additional proof were necessary, is that the 2020 election is going to decide our fate and that the decision is up to us. Forget about the media, forget about the political bloviation, forget about the economic arguments, most of which are nonsense anyway. Simply ask yourself: I have a choice, I must participate because no one can escape participation, not participating is also a choice. Therefore, of the options that are available to me which option will do the most to foster wellbeing at every level from the individual to the planet itself? You will not go wrong if you make your decision on that basis.
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Monday, February 24th, 2020
Stephan: This is what has happened post-impeachment. Criminal Trump is using his now essentially unlimited powers to restructure the American Executive branch of government, in the process shredding the country's legal system. And yet millions of Americans are ready to re-elect a man who basically has the ethics of a mob boss. Click through and listen to Rachel Maddow's presentation.
Rachel Maddow
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow on Tuesday reported on the “rule of law emergency” as Attorney General Bill Barr uses the Department of Justice as a “weapon” to benefit Donald Trump.
Maddow reported on all of the key investigations being run by the Southern District of New York (SDNY), which is known as the Sovereign District of New York for its independence from DOJ headquarters.
“They are investigating the Trump inaugural committee, SDNY is investigating the Trumps’ family business, SDNY is investigating criminal behavior of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,” Maddow noted. “SDNY put Michael Cohen in prison for hush money paid by the president’s campaign before the 2016 election.”
Maddow worried about the independence of SDNY after Barr transferred all decision making on cases involving Ukraine to the Eastern District of New York.
She explained why this is the “worst-case” or “doomsday scenario” for one of the worst things a president can do.
Maddow explained how, “the awesome power of federal criminal prosecution and federal criminal investigation” could be used “as essentially a domestic nuclear bomb […]
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Monday, February 24th, 2020
MARTY JOHNSON, - The Hill
Stephan: Post impeachment Trump feels he has the power to restructure the American government, and the first thing he is doing is either eliminating or intimidating any political appointee who does not put loyalty to Trump above all other considerations. Here is what I mean.
Johnny McEntee
Credit: AOL.com
Johnny McEntee, President Trump‘s former body man and current head of the presidential personnel office, gathered White House liaisons from Cabinet agencies on Thursday and asked for. them to identify political appointees across the federal government who are thought to be politically at odds with the president, sources told Axios.
According to Axios’s sources, Trump gave McEntee the green light to oust the “bad people” and “deep state.” Additionally, McEntee told the staffers that those identified as “anti-Trump” would no longer receive promotions and would be moved around the agencies.
Following Trump’s acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial, the president swiftly took action against the government officials who had testified against him in the House impeachment hearings. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s Ukraine expert who testified in the hearings, was escorted out of the White House along with his twin brother barely 48 hours after the president’s acquittal.
U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who also testified, was […]
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Monday, February 24th, 2020
Jake Johnson, - Raw Story
Stephan: Criminal Trump is restructuring the American government with a goal of requiring loyalty to him personally above everything else. One of the things that means is that Federal unions which can protect workers have to go. I think he read the Senate's actions under Moscow Mitch, as a free pass to do whatever he wants. Have you noticed the deafening silence from the Senate as he carries out this dismantlement?
“This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers’ rights to form and join a union.”
President Donald Trump on Thursday quietly issued a memo granting Defense Secretary Mark Esper the power to abolish collective bargaining rights for the Defense Department’s 750,000 civilian workers, a move unions decried as part of the administration’s far-reaching assault on organized labor.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) condemned the memo, which was published in the Federal Register (pdf) Thursday, as “a travesty and a disgrace.”
“The administration’s divide-and-conquer strategy with respect to organized labor is as disgusting as it is shameful.”
—American Federation of Government Employees
The memo argues that a unionized Defense Department workforce could pose a threat to “national security” and that, if necessary, collective bargaining rights at the department should be scrapped in the interest of “protecting the American people.”
“When new missions emerge or existing ones evolve, the Department of Defense requires maximum flexibility to respond […]
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Monday, February 24th, 2020
Tom Boggioni , - Alter Net
Stephan: Criminal Trump doesn't want any further attention paid to his relationship with Russia so, quite predictably, he is doing everything he can to eliminate the possibility of further information coming out. Consider this.
Trump and Putin
During a discussion on the war on the intelligence community being waged by the Donald Trump’s White House, CNN host Victor Blackwell stated that sources speaking with the network stated that the intel official who briefed lawmakers for both parties on new efforts by Russia to meddle in U.S. elections could be on the way out.
Speaking with contributor Lynn Sweet, Blackwell asked about the so-called “purge” being conducted by the White House.
“It sends the signal once again that President Trump is not a respecter of the United States intelligence services with the bigger issue that a permanent director has not been in that office since last summer when Dan Coates was forced out,” Sweet explained. “This is a key position, subject to Senate confirmation and Trump hasn’t seen fit to have a permanent director for months now.”
“Now, post-impeachment, you also have the issue of whether or not part of his [Richard Grenell’s] role there it is to oversee a purge of people who are not seen as Trump […]
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