Month: December 2020

Trump Says Ask In ‘Number Of Weeks’ If He’s Confident In Barr and Our Conspiracy-Minded Subculture

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Trump Says Ask In ‘Number Of Weeks’ If He’s Confident In Barr

Related:

Our Conspiracy-Minded Subculture

They’re talking about Attorney General William Barr. The William Barr. The nation’s chief law-enforcement officer who has been described as the president’s “champion and advocate,” who’s been tough on illegal immigration, suggested the Russia probe was unfair to Trump, who described the Mueller report as a complete vindication of the president, who House Democrats held in contempt of Congress for failure to cooperate with probes, who reinstated the death penalty for federal crimes, who ordered the streets around Lafayette Square cleared, who defended law enforcement against congressional critics, who attacked “militant secularists” who “seem to take a delight in compelling people to violate their conscience,” who changed the sentencing recommendation of Roger Stone from its original, excessive call for a sentence of seven to nine years, the man whom 20 progressive groups are trying to impeach, who sent a surge of federal law-enforcement agents to cities that were plagued by skyrocketing violent crime, and who allowed federal lawyers to defend President Trump against a lawsuit from E. Jean Carroll alleging sexual assault.

Trump Associates Said to Have Been Scrutinized in Suspected Pardon Scheme

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Trump Associates Said to Have Been Scrutinized in Suspected Pardon Scheme

Presidents have unchecked authority over clemency, and there is a history of donors or their family members getting pardons. No law bars people from lobbying for pardons, nor is it necessarily illegal to give a donation to a president after receiving a pardon. But bribery laws prohibit explicitly predicating donations or other gifts of value to the granting of a pardon.

Related:

Disgraced Republican Financier Accused of Secretly Lobbying for China

We Are Grass. We Grow on Everything: The Forty-Ninth Newsletter (2020)

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Farmers and agricultural workers from northern India marched along various national highways toward India’s capital of New Delhi as part of the general strike on 26 November. They carried placards with slogans against the anti-farmer, pro-corporate laws that were passed by India’s Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) in September, and then pushed through the Rajya Sabha (upper house) with only a voice vote. The striking agricultural workers and farmers carried flags that indicated their affiliation with a range of organisations, from the communist movement to a broad front of farmers’ organisations. They marched against the privatisation of agriculture, which they argue undermines India’s food sovereignty and erodes their ability to remain agriculturalists.

We Are Grass. We Grow on Everything: The Forty-Ninth Newsletter (2020)

Senator Menendez: “3.3 Million Small Businesses Have Closed” and “1.1 Million Local and State Employees Have Lost their Jobs” as a Result of Pandemic

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Senator Menendez: “3.3 Million Small Businesses Have Closed” and “1.1 Million Local and State Employees Have Lost their Jobs” as a Result of Pandemic

Trump Issued an Executive Memorandum Giving Mnuchin a $50 Billion Slush Fund; Mnuchin Gave Himself $386 Billion More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Trump Issued an Executive Memorandum Giving Mnuchin a $50 Billion Slush Fund; Mnuchin Gave Himself $386 Billion More

Five days before Congress passed the CARES Act on March 25 of this year, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Memorandum giving U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin complete discretion to use $50 billion in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) as Mnuchin solely saw fit. The Memorandum was dated Friday, March 20. On the prior Tuesday and Wednesday of that same week, Mnuchin had already used $20 billion of the Exchange Stabilization Fund to bail out Wall Street. As Mnuchin’s letter of November 19 to Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirms, he gave (or committed) $10 billion from the ESF to the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility on March 17 and another $10 billion to another Fed emergency lending program, the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, on March 18.

Old Obama hands on Korea policy could pose new problems for peace

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Old Obama hands on Korea policy could pose new problems for peace

First, Blinken and Haines developed their policies in close consultation with the conservative South Korean governments of Lee Myung Baek and Park Guen Hye, who are now disgraced and in prison for corruption. Lee, a former Hyundai executive, and Park, the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung Hee, had both opposed the pro-engagement “Sunshine Policies” followed by former Presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Tae Woo from 1997 to 2008.

Should the Biden administration cancel student debt? Read this before you decide

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Should the Biden administration cancel student debt? Read this before you decide

In addition, it’s possible to address other challenges plaguing the student-loan system — for example, the obstacles public servants and those scammed by their schools face accessing loan forgiveness that’s already on the books or the harsh consequences of student-loan default — while still providing some relief to borrowers now, Huelsman said.