Monday, October 7, 2019

Charles Pierce | If Ron Johnson Keeps This Up, Trump Could Be in Leavenworth by Christmas




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Charles Pierce | If Ron Johnson Keeps This Up, Trump Could Be in Leavenworth by Christmas
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) listens to testimony during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on December 6, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "If you have been concerned, as any thinking person would be, by the conservative project of salting the federal courts with specimens from the various wingnut welfare terrariums, then Friday was one of the days that you've been properly dreading."

EXCERPT:
And then, ah, there is Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, ol' Shreds of Freedom himself. Who thought he'd wind up not merely in the middle of the Ukraine scandal, but also that he would be one of the guys who gives the entire game away? From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson was blocked by President Donald Trump in August from telling Ukraine's president that U.S. aid was on its way amid accusations Trump was withholding it until the eastern European nation investigated his political rival. Trump rejected Johnson's request after also refusing in May to back new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Oshkosh Republican told reporters Friday.

“I was surprised by the president’s reaction and realized we had a sales job to do,” Johnson said during a constituent stop in Sheboygan. “I tried to convince him (in August) to give me the authority to tell President Zelensky that we were going to provide that. Now, I didn’t succeed."

With his comments Friday, Johnson made clear that he was aware of allegations Trump was withholding aid to Ukraine for political reasons weeks before the public knew of the accusation. Trump, who faces a fast-moving impeachment inquiry over the matter, has denied the claim and Johnson has defended the president.
Ron is in a bit of a tizzy. The current White House bullshit spin is that there was "no quid pro quo." While defending the president*, Johnson clearly was not with the program. From the Wall Street Journal, via Axios:
President Trump denied that he had linked military aid to Ukraine with a commitment by Kyiv to investigate the 2016 presidential election when pressed on the matter by a Republican senator in August, according to the lawmaker. In an interview, Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said he learned of a potential quid pro quo from the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, who told him that aid to Ukraine was tied to the desire by Mr. Trump and his allies to have Kyiv undertake investigations that the president has sought.
And all of this was after it was revealed that Johnson had signed onto a letter with a bipartisan group of senators supporting then-Vice President Joe Biden's attempts to remove the corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor—which the president* insists was part of a corrupt deal that Biden struck to benefit his son, Hunter. If Johnson keeps helping this way, the president* may be in Leavenworth by Christmas.

Attorney Mark Zaid. (photo: Getty Images)
Attorney Mark Zaid. (photo: Getty Images)

Second Ukraine Whistleblower With Firsthand Knowledge of Allegations Comes Forward
James Gordon Meek and Anne Flaherty, ABC News
Excerpt: "Mark Zaid, the attorney representing the whistleblower who sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine and triggered an impeachment inquiry, tells ABC News that he is now representing a second whistleblower who has spoken with the inspector general."
READ MORE

Brett Kavanaugh. (photo: REX/Shutterstock)
Brett Kavanaugh. (photo: REX/Shutterstock)

Brett Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court: Here Comes Trouble
Lloyd Green, Guardian UK
Green writes: "On Monday, the supreme court will reconvene after its annual summer recess. Gun control, immigration and transgender rights are set for argument and abortion will be there too - just in time for the Democratic convention in July. John Roberts, the chief justice, may yet be called to preside over a Senate impeachment trial."
READ MORE

Marie Yovanovitch. (photo: Reuters)
Marie Yovanovitch. (photo: Reuters)

Yovanovitch Is Latest Casualty of Trump War on Career Diplomats
Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay, Reuters
Excerpt: "The treatment of U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch - disparaged by President Donald Trump and abruptly recalled from Ukraine - exemplifies what current and former U.S. officials describe as a campaign by Trump against career diplomats."

EXCERPT:
The State Department has been whipsawed by major policy decisions abruptly announced by Trump over Twitter. These include a 2018 suspension of security aid to Pakistan and a breakoff of talks in September with the Taliban on a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It also has been shaken by high-profile investigations by the department inspector general and Congress into allegations of retaliation and other mistreatment of career officials by political appointees.
“My impression is that the president does not respect diplomats or diplomacy at all and this translates to many of his political appointees in the Department of State,” said Richard Armitage, a veteran Republican foreign policy expert who served as deputy secretary of state under Republican George W. Bush.
Asked why so many senior State Department positions are held by “acting” assistant secretaries, Armitage replied: “Because they don’t care about personnel. They don’t care about policy. They only care about the care and feeding of Donald J. Trump.”


Randy Halprin in visitation cell on death row won an appeal days before he was due to be executed as judge's 'racism' came to light (photo: Brett Coomer/AP)
Randy Halprin in visitation cell on death row won an appeal days before he was due to be executed as judge's 'racism' came to light (photo: Brett Coomer/AP)

Jewish Death Row Inmate Saved Days Before Execution Over Racism Claims
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, The Independent
Bogel-Burroughs writes: "For more than 15 years on death row, Randy Halprin filed challenge after challenge to his sentence. The denials began to stack up."
READ MORE

Protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks take part in a demonstration Oct. 6 against a newly imposed law banning face masks in public in Hong Kong. (photo: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks take part in a demonstration Oct. 6 against a newly imposed law banning face masks in public in Hong Kong. (photo: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Hong Kongers Ignore Mask Ban, March in Huge Numbers
Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Covering their faces with black surgical masks, Guy Fawkes disguises, dish towels and even paper bags, tens of thousands in Hong Kong marched in the territory's two main districts in defiance of a government ban on face masks, despite fears of violence and pouring rain."
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A Minkey whale breaches the surface near Boothbay Harbor in the Gulf of Maine on Aug. 10, 2018. Researchers say warming in the gulf is driving whales into waters further north where fewer environmental protections exist. (photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)
A Minkey whale breaches the surface near Boothbay Harbor in the Gulf of Maine on Aug. 10, 2018. Researchers say warming in the gulf is driving whales into waters further north where fewer environmental protections exist. (photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

The Gulf of Maine Is Warming, and Its Whales Are Disappearing
Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Peter Breslow and Avery Ellfeldt, NPR
Excerpt: "Each summer for the last two decades, Jim Parker has readied his small whale watch boat, and made a business out of ferrying tourists out into the cool blue waters of the Gulf of Maine."
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