Stephan: Pardons for cash. It looks like Trump is going to exit the presidency as he came in, as a loser, a liar, and a cheat.
The Justice Department is investigating a possible secret scheme involving a bribe in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.
The 18-page court opinion is heavily redacted, and the names of the individuals under investigation are blacked out as is the identity of the person to be pardoned under the alleged plan. Still, the filings provide a glimpse into what investigators are probing.
The federal court order, signed by Chief Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., is dated Aug. 28. It stems from her review of a government request to access certain communications believed to document a secret lobbying scheme and a related bribery-for-pardon scheme.
The filing says a government filter team was sorting through more than 50 digital devices such as iPhones and laptops as part of an investigation when they came across emails pointing to the two alleged schemes.
The secret lobbying scheme, the document says, allegedly involved two individuals whose names are redacted who lobbied senior White House officials to try to secure clemency for a third individual whose name is blacked out.
The related bribery conspiracy allegedly involved […]
Stephan: Watching these final days of the Trump era what astounds me is the naked grifting that he is doing. Trump is a genius at one thing. He senses the weakness and intellectual dimness in his followers and knows how to exploit it. Can you imagine a story like this in the Obama administration, or even in Bush the Younger's administration? Even Nixon would not have attempted a grift like this one.
Trump the grifter Credit: MSNBC
After bombarding supporters daily with emails blaring lies about the election and soliciting donations to overcome virtually non-existent voter fraud, President Donald Trump’s political operation has reportedly raised more than $150 million since November 3, a staggering windfall that is being funneled into a Republican joint fundraising committee and a Trump PAC established to fuel his post-White House activities.
While the Trump team’s aggressive emails—sometimes as many as 15 per day—purport to be raising money for an “Official Election Defense Fund” set up to finance the president’s flailing legal effort to overturn the election, the fund does not exist.
“There is no such account,” the Washington Postreported late Monday. “The fundraising requests are being made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee that raises money for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. As of November 18, that committee also shares its funds with Save America, […]
Stephan: This is what Moscow Mitch and the other Trumpian orcs have been working for. They hope to castrate the Biden administration before it even fully comes into power. This is why they acted as they did about the Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court nomination. We have one party in this country that finds power more important than democracy, and they are acting as a fascist fifth column, and constitute the greatest threat to the nation's wellbeing.
Department of Education
Joe Biden promised us an FDR-sized presidency—starting with bold action to halt the spread of COVID-19, end the worst economic downturn in decades, and stop the climate crisis. Biden could use regulation and executive action to move quickly to decarbonize the economy, cancel student loan debt, and raise wages. But a Biden administration has an even bigger problem than two long-shot special elections in Georgia: the new 6–3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court may soon burn down the federal government’s regulatory powers.
At least five conservative justices have signaled that they are eager to revive the “non-delegation doctrine,” the constitutional principle that Congress can’t give (“delegate”) too much lawmaking power to the executive branch. On paper, the rule requires Congress, when delegating power to an agency, to articulate an “intelligible principle” (like air pollution regulation needed “to protect public health”) to guide the agency’s exercise of that power. But in practice, the nondelegation doctrine is effectively dead. The court has only struck down two statutes on nondelegation grounds—and none since 1935.
Stephan: Until we realize that we do not have dominion over the earth, that we are but one part of a great matrix of consciousness, and that poisoning the earth is wrong, we will not prosper as we should. This story makes the point very clearly.
A plane sprays pesticide over the Wynwood neighborhood in the hope of controlling and reducing the number of mosquitos, some of which may be capable of spreading the Zika virus on August 6, 2016 in Miami, Florida. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
A national nonprofit revealed Tuesday that testing commissioned by the group as well as separate analysis conducted by Massachusetts officials show samples of an aerially sprayed pesticide used by the commonwealth and at least 25 other states to control mosquito-borne illnesses contain toxic substances that critics call “forever chemicals.”
“Communities are struggling to remove PFAS from their drinking water supplies, while at the same time, we may be showering them with PFAS from the skies and roads.” —Kyla Bennett, PEER
Officially known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), this group of man-made chemicals—including PFOA, PFOS, and GenX—earned the nickname because they do not break down in the environment and build up in the body. PFAS has been linked to suppressed immune function, cancers, and other health issues.
Lawmakers and regulators at various levels of government have worked to clean up […]
Stephan: Here is at least the potential for a major restructuring the environmental protection, and I support it strongly. The earth must be seen as a metasystem, not the property of some tinpot psycho like Trump in the U.S. or Bolsonaro in Brazil. Bolsonaro permitting the destruction of the Amazonian forest in his country is having effects throughout the world, just as Trump's attempt to open Alaska to mining and forest cutting will affect people across the planet.
Deforestation in Brazil
An expert panel of top international and environmental lawyers have begun working this month on a legal definition of “ecocide” with the goal of making mass ecological damage an enforceable international crime on par with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
“The time is right to harness the power of international criminal law to protect our global environment.” —Philippe Sands QC, University College London
Assembled by the Stop Ecocide Foundation at the request of several Swedish parliamentarians, the initiative to criminalize the destruction of ecosystems at the global level has already garnered support from European countries as well as small island nations highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.
The drafting panel is co-chaired by Philippe Sands QC, a professor at University College London, and Justice Florence Mumba, a former judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The November 20 launch date of the project coincided with the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, where the terms “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” were coined.
“The time is right,” Sands said recently at an event commemorating the Nuremberg trials, […]
