Tag: christmas
Matt Gaetz

The 'Catastrophic' Legacy Of Matt Gaetz

What a Christmas present! In its report released last Monday, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee cited "substantial evidence" that from 2017 to 2020, former Rep. and would-be Attorney General Matt Gaetz "regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him," including an underage 17-year-old, and from 2017 to 2019, had in his possession illegal drugs including cocaine and ecstasy, on "multiple different occasions." Investigating a 2018 trip Gaetz made to the Bahamas, the committee found that he violated House rules by accepting transportation and lodging, which is not allowed. Summing up its conclusions, the committee found that Gaetz "violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress."

The House panel reported that Gaetz was "uncooperative" throughout its investigation and "knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee's investigation of his conduct." They also found that he used his former chief of staff to "assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent."

And he almost got away with all of it.

How? Why?

Those questions deserve answers.

This is the man who brought down Speaker Kevin McCarthy, twisting the House into knots and bringing about a dangerous stalemate in Congress.

This is the man who was Donald Trump's first choice to be attorney general of the United States.

The report was the product of a multiyear investigation of Gaetz that took place while he was taking a leading — and sometimes decisive — role in House deliberations and actively campaigning for the president-elect. Had Gaetz had his way, and some of his Republican colleagues had theirs, we would still not know the truth about him. Gaetz brought suit to attempt to block the committee's release of the report, in a complaint that reportedly requested a restraining order and injunction, claiming that the committee's action violated the Constitution in its effort to "exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations."

Gaetz resigned from Congress two days before the report was due to be issued, in an obvious attempt to block the report's release. It was the same day he was nominated for attorney general. Rep. Michael Guest, who chairs the Ethics Committee, opposed its actual release. While writing that he and other Republican members "do not challenge the Committee's findings," he argued that releasing a report about someone who is no longer a member of Congress, "an action the Committee has not taken since 2006," is "a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences."

The "catastrophic consequences" are that this criminal served in a leading capacity in the House of Representatives and almost became the attorney general of the United States. The "catastrophic consequences" are that he was nominated for that position by a president-elect who was — we have to presume — utterly ignorant of the fact that this man's peers had concluded that he was a serial felon who got away with it.

Why is a member of Congress free to not cooperate with a committee charged with ensuring that members of Congress act ethically? Why did they wait years while he actively obstructed their investigation before making that clear? Just a few weeks ago, he was talking about running for Marco Rubio's Senate seat in Florida. Didn't the citizens of Florida have a right to know what the House committee had concluded? How could the chair of the House Ethics Committee say no to that? Talk about dangerous precedents.

The Matt Gaetz debacle is proof positive that Americans have every reason to distrust Congress, which is a sad state of affairs in a democracy. Gaetz's legacy, if you can call it that, is that a president should not nominate anyone to high office without careful vetting, and that the public has a right to know about the integrity of the men and women we elect to serve us. The Ethics Committees of Congress should do more, do it publicly and be transparent about their work. Non-cooperation, active efforts to obstruct justice, should not be tolerated, and should be disclosed. Matt Gaetz had no business even being considered for attorney general when his only qualification was his loyalty to Donald Trump. The members of the committee knew that. Why didn't anyone tell Donald Trump? Or us? This is a story that should not go away.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

 Donald Trump

Trump's Greenland Daydreams: Is There Method Behind His Imperial Madness?

In a slew of social media posts on Christmas Day, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated something that he suggested last month following his victory over Kamala Harris: that the United States "should own Greenland, annex Canada, and reclaim the Panama Canal."

In a Thursday Politico report, breaking news reporter Myah Ward asserts that "if Trump’s overtures are evidence that his America First policy agenda may have an interventionist component, they also served as an early reminder of how the incoming president conducts foreign policy: Lots of threats, confusion, freewheeling and a dose of unpredictability."

Ward writes, "And Republicans are largely writing it off as saber rattling, an approach that sometimes helped Trump get what he wanted out of allies and adversaries during his first term, but also at times threw his administration into chaos or sowed confusion like the famous late-night 'Covfeve' tweet."

Matthew Bartlett, Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett — who served under Trump's first administration — told Politico, "I was there at the State Department when a tweet would be issued, and then, every intellectual in the building had to somehow figure out if there’s any logical sense to this and policy to this and if there’s any upside, or if this actually is Covfefe."

He added, "But from a foreign policy context, crazy worked just fine the first time. If leaders are like, we may not respect you but we absolutely think that you’re bonkers, and we don’t know what’s coming at us next, great. Full send. And if that leads to better peace and prosperity in Ukraine, in Israel, with terrorists on watch, with foreign states. Great. They should be put on notice."

Another GOP strategist, Dave Carney, told the news outlet that the president-elect could be "trying to soften the ground for negotiations," Ward reports, "recalling his threats during his first term to withdraw from NATO — which some Republicans credited with pressuring other countries to increase their defense spending."

Carney suggested that "Trump’s unpredictability can be an asset in some scenarios," Ward added.

"With the president, there’s, I think, always the possibility that other countries think, ‘holy shmoly, he may actually do that, we should try to accommodate him,’” the former Trump appointee said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Elon Musk

Pushing Xmas Government Shutdown, Trump And Musk Block Disaster Aid

President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk have succeeded in getting House Republicans to kill what was expected to be an easily-passed continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the federal government open and avert a costly and confusing shutdown just days before Christmas.

Early on Wednesday evening, Republicans rejected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s bill, according to the Washington Post.

“The chances of a shutdown have now increased quite a bit,” CNN’s Manu Raju had reported at 4:35 PM ET, amid the fast-moving developments. “Congress hasn’t even discussed a debt ceiling hike. And Trump is inserting that toxic fight on top of the government funding bill that is already at risk of collapsing amid a revolt on the right.”

“And just like that,” observed NBC News’ Garret Haake, “we’re teetering on the edge of a government shutdown, as Trump & Vance come out against Speaker Johnson’s CR.”

“Suddenly Trump and Vance now say they want to negotiate on the debt ceiling, as the CR+ deal goes absolutely sideways in less than 24 hours,” noted longtime congressional correspondent Jamie Dupree.

“Trump-Vance statement trashes the bipartisan stopgap funding bill and now calls for adding a DEBT CEILING INCREASE, which is nowhere in the mix. Two days till government shuts down,” noted NBC News’ Sahil Kapur.

Trump and his Vice President-elect, JD Vance, had issued a statement after Musk’s many hours of attacking the continuing resolution, which the Post attributes to killing the CR.

“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF,” the statement read.

Democrats are not calling for the federal government to shut down.

“It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief,” it also states, which is false. “THIS CHAOS WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING IF WE HAD A REAL PRESIDENT. WE WILL IN 32 DAYS!”

On Wednesday morning, PBS News had reported: “Congressional leaders have unveiled a stopgap spending bill that will keep the federal government funded through March 14 and provide more than $100 billion in emergency aid to help states and local communities recover from Hurricanes Helene and Milton and other natural disasters.”

“President Joe Biden has sought about $114 billion in disaster aid, submitting a $99 billion request in November, telling lawmakers the funding was ‘urgently needed.’ The administration subsequently updated its request to include funding to repair federal facilities damaged due to natural disasters.”

“The bill will provide $100.4 billion in disaster relief, with an additional $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers struggling with low commodity prices and high input costs.”

Musk, Donald Trump’s incoming co-chair of the non-federal government Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), on Wednesday had been calling for Congress to stop passage of all legislation until the President-elect is sworn in to office on January 20. For more than 12 hours it appeared Musk was actively undermining the CR that was meant to avert a shutdown at 12:01 AM Saturday.

“No bills should be passed Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office. None. Zero,” Musk, late Wednesday afternoon, posted to his social media platform X.

“Kill the Bill,” Musk declared to his more than 207 million followers, referring to the continuing resolution. The CR must be passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Biden before the midnight Friday deadline to avert a costly and disruptive government shutdown right before Christmas.

Musk’s remark was in response to a post from far-right Congressman Jim Banks, who is now the Republican Senator-elect from Indiana.

Banks had claimed the CR “funds the censorship of conservative speech for the entire first year of the Trump administration. Unacceptable!”

“‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” Musk also claimed.

CBS News’s Jim LaPorta, a former Marine who has written extensively on the military and veterans, responded to Musk’s claim by saying, “The impact to military families, particularly at the lowest ranks where there’s food insecurity and families living paycheck to paycheck are impacted. Child care centers which some service members depend on can shut down during a shutdown—a critical function for them.”

In response to a post falsely claiming the bill also includes a 40 percent pay raise for members of Congress, Musk wrote: “Unconscionable.”

Musk also wrote, and pinned to the top of his feed, this: “How can this be called a ‘continuing resolution’ if it includes a 40% pay increase for Congress?”

The pay raise, the first for Congress since 2009, would increase salaries by about four percent, not 40 percent.

“Rank-and-file lawmakers in both chambers earn $174,000 annual salary, with those in leadership earning more. The maximum potential member pay adjustment in January 2025 under the stopgap spending bill would be 3.8 percent, which would result in a salary of $180,600, an increase of $6,600,” Politico reported.

Musk had kicked off the day attacking the continuing resolution.

“At 4:15 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Musk tweeted that ‘This bill should not pass,’ and he’s gotten noticeably more strident as the day has gone along,”Mediaite reported Wednesday afternoon. “In a raging tweetstorm over the last hour or so, Musk has called the bill a ‘scam,’ a ‘criminal bill,’ an ‘insane crime against the American people,’ ‘an outrage,’ ‘terrible,’ and ‘madness.'”

“’The more I learn, the more obvious it becomes that this spending bill is a crime. It even includes funding for the worst illegal censorship operation in the entire government (GEC)!!’ mused Musk in one post.”

At 3:58 PM Musk claimed the continuing resolution was “dead.”

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) warned that if the government shuts down, Republicans will own it: “House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt the working class Americans they claim to support. You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) also issued a warning: “Remember what this is all about: Trump wants Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem. Shorter version: tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas.”

Meanwhile, Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, offered this observation: “Trump and Vance intervening to personally block states from getting disaster relief – including red states hit by Helene – after weeks of flat out lying to the country about the emergency response is one of the most cynical and depraved things I’ve ever seen in this town.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Letitia James

Appeals Court Upholds New York Judge's Finding Of Trump Financial Fraud

Former President Donald Trump was dealt a major blow by the New York Court of Appeals on Thursday in the midst of his ongoing civil fraud trial in the Empire State.

On Thursday afternoon, MSNBC legal reporter Lisa Rubin tweeted that appellate judges denied Trump's request to stay (or halt) Judge Arthur Engoron's ruling in favor of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a summary judgment in September in her initial claim that Trump committed "pervasive, widespread fraud in financial statements." She linked to a copy of the appellate judges' ruling in the initial post.


"What that means practically is that the provisions of the below order are enforceable and that if [independent financial monitor Judge Barbara Jones] is the agreed-upon receiver, Trump and his co-defendants owe her a bunch of information and advanced notice about their ownership structure and future activity," Rubin added in a separate tweet, which showed a screenshot of an October order from Judge Engoron.

In September, the Associated Press reported that Judge Engoron ruled that Trump "committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House." That summary judgment order also ordered that the former president's business licenses in New York be suspended, meaning he would no longer have the legal ability to make decisions on behalf of his businesses anywhere in the state. While Thursday's appellate court ruling upheld Engoron's conclusion that Trump committed fraud, it halted his order suspending Trump's standing as a corporate officer in New York-based businesses.

The ex-president's civil fraud trial may end prior to the Christmas holidays, as both he and his immediate family have already been compelled to testify in the case. Attorney General James is seeking $250 million in financial penalties, and she may still ultimately prevail in her goal of stripping Trump of his ability to do business in New York depending on the final verdict.

Lawyers representing Trump in his New York civil fraud trial have recently tried for a third time to get Engoron to issue a "directed verdict," arguing that the state has failed to bring compelling evidence to justify the allegations against him. A retired New York judge told the Daily Beast that the motion for a directed verdict was akin to a "hail Mary pass," and that she couldn't recall a single instance in which she issued a directed verdict at the defendant's request in her 35 years on the bench.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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