Pages

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Bluestem Prairie, frequently offering a good read, hits two out of the park home runs. Read each there.

Trenchant work, even while Matt Birk stretching truth is not a surprise. But Sorensen makes it a proof of the expectation, which is a neat item of work. Examining online 990s. And there's an embedded video, as the cherry atop the entire post. Matt Birk now looks so differfent from when he played. It is striking. Do you suppose he took something to bulk up to play? Would he admit it if he did?

Second, Sorensen writes of the nationwide nature of voter suppression; Kim Crockett in particular being in the crosshairs of an aim to inform.

Don't scan read. If you follow the links, a promise, you will learn who Cleta Mitchell is, if you do not already know. The name was new to me. I admit to that ignorance, since corrected thanks to Sorensen's posting. For others like me, Wikipedia

Until January 2021, Mitchell was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner,[7][8][9] resigning due to its concern about her involvement in the call Trump made to attempt reversal of the Georgia certified votes in the 2020 election. She has served as legal counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Rifle Association.[7][8] She has represented Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK).[9][1] She has also represented Tea Party Republican candidates Sharron Angle of Nevada and Alaska's Joe Miller.[1]

She is on the boards of numerous conservative organizations, including the Bradley Foundation,[14] the National Rifle Association (NRA) (where she has also been a lawyer), the American Conservative Union Foundation,[15][16] and the Republican National Lawyers Association, of which she is a former president.[7][8][9] As a board member of the American Conservative Union (ACU), Mitchell played a major role in efforts to expel GOProud (a pro-gay rights Republican group) from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a major annual right-wing convention organized by the ACU.[10]

Mitchell has been a leading critic of the IRS, accusing the agency of targeting tea party groups.[17][18] She testified before Congress in 2014, asserting that "the commissioner of the IRS lied to congress".[18] She called for the IRS to be abolished.[17] Investigations by Congress and federal agencies later concluded that there was no evidence that the IRS targeted conservative groups.[17]

Mitchell represented Donald Trump in 2011, defending him against accusations that he had violated federal election laws in an exploratory campaign for president.[19]

Mitchell was the trustee of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's legal defense fund. As trustee of that fund, she sought donations to the fund by individuals who had interests before the EPA.[20] In 2019, she represented Stephen Bannon's nonprofit, Citizens of the American Republic.[18]

All that, and under my radar. Shame on me. Hat tip to Sorensen.

UPDATE: Back to Birk. Whoever scripted the guy's prompt screen did him wrong. He is second spot on the ticket. With his anti-abortion clinic center being annually publicly funded as Sorensen proves, his top spot Scott guy arguing to kill Minnesota income taxation is, in effect, saying defund such stuff as Birk's script touts. 

Not good, so lie. 

When Birk played, an infraction not whistled gained no penalty. Sorensen and the other author Sorensen cites, they blew the whistle on Birk's foul (his boldface lie). 

So penalize him. It's a major infraction, juggling the truth, so fifteen yards and loss of down. Throw him out of the game. Pile it on. Saying it is privately funded because the co-candidate is doing a tax demagogue ploy is really pretty raw when the truth is annual regular mid-six-figure public funding as the unmystified truth which Birk has to know because in the video, he admits he is on the clinic's Board. He knew or should have known the truth. With knowledge of the truth, he lied. If it is should have known but did not, that is inexcusable gross negligence. 

Either way - It is a game ejection penalty.

And Birk is no dummy. He is a Harvard finance grad. Not a justifiable status for "should have known." The only sensible guess - He lied.

_______FURTHER UPDATE_________

Back to Cleta Mitchell, beyond the prior Wikipedia quote the site continues

Attempt to overturn the 2020 election

Mitchell is chair of the conservative activist group Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is known for making claims of voter fraud.[22] She has claimed that Democrats engage in a "very well-planned-out assault" on election systems.[22] Prior to the 2020 election, she organized legal efforts to challenge mail-in ballots cast in the election.[23] Mitchell has worked closely with Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, in the Council for National Policy to organize efforts to keep Trump in power, and The New York Times reported that it was Mitchell who "enlisted John Eastman, the lawyer who crafted specious legal theories claiming Vice President Mike Pence could keep Mr. Trump in power.”[24]

After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and President Donald Trump refused to concede, Mitchell claimed that dead people voted in the election.[25]

On January 2, 2021, she participated in the hour-long telephone conversation between Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump pressured Raffensperger to investigate unsupported claims disputing the results of the 2020 presidential election based on doctored videos and unsubstantiated rumors from right-wing media. Following that telephone call Mitchell accused Raffensperger, of saying things "that are simply not correct" about the presidential results in Georgia.[26][27] Two days later, after Mitchell's participation in the call was reported, Foley & Lardner released a statement saying that the law firm's policy was not to represent parties seeking to contest the results of the 2020 election; that the firm was "aware of, and concerned by" Mitchell's participation in the telephone call; and that the firm was "working to understand her involvement more thoroughly".[28] Mitchell resigned from Foley & Lardner the next day; the firm said that Mitchell "concluded that her departure was in the firm's best interests, as well as in her own personal best interests".[19] Mitchell blamed a purported "massive pressure campaign in the last several days mounted by leftist groups via social media" for her resignation.[29]

 

Our Republican friends, Matt and Cleta. Cleta stretching things about her resignation. Matt stretching things about his touted clinic's funding.  Too much elasticity with truth is not a good thing.

 

FURTHER: CNN reports of "The 65 Project" (homepage) which has filed a number of  ethics complaints including one against Cleta Mitchell, among others:

https://the65project.com/ethics-complaint-against-trump-attorney-cleta-mitchell/

CNN notes -

The group – which includes on its advisory board former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Roberta Ramo, a former president of the American Bar Association – says some of the conduct the group has identified could warrant disbarment, while other attorneys may be appropriately punished with lesser penalties, like reprimands or suspensions.

The 65 Project’s name is a reference to its count of lawsuits that were filed seeking to overturn the election. The group is sifting through a list of 111 lawyers who signed on to legal pleadings, though Teter acknowledged that only some of them may attract requests for disciplinary proceedings.

The CNN item has noted -

The Trump allies who have been targeted by ethics complaints filed by the group say it’s a politically motivated endeavor meant to chill lawyers from representing clients with political views it doesn’t like. 

Pop the popcorn. It ain't over until it is.