Timmer phrases his two posts differently, but the racism is there, and incumbent mayor Frey hacked the party apart seemingly because his bloc lost because at the convention their nose count was less.
And Strib is unfair in posting as news what Timmer clearly shows to be op-ed instead, while democracy squeals for being tred upon.
Enough, since Timmer's phrasing is complete and much finer.
Grand jury decision highlights challenges for prosecutors in Washington
Prosecutors may seek indictment again before a different grand jury
Defendant came to symbolize resistance to Trump's law enforcement measures
WASHINGTON
Aug 27 (Reuters) - A federal grand jury declined to indict a former
Justice Department staffer who was arrested for throwing a sandwich at a
federal law enforcement agent during U.S. President Donald Trump's
crime crackdown in Washington, a source briefed on the matter told
Reuters on Wednesday.
U.S.
prosecutors had sought a felony assault charge against Sean Dunn, who
had worked on international cases at the Justice Department. He was
fired after being caught on video hurling a sub-style sandwich at a U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol Agent on August 10 in a bustling Washington
neighborhood.
The decision marked the second time
in recent days that a grand jury stymied federal prosecutors in
Washington seeking a felony indictment, typically a routine step in
bringing in a criminal case. It is highly unusual for a grand jury to
reject such a request given that the prosecutor alone controls the
presentation of evidence and must clear a lower legal bar than a jury at
a criminal trial. This dynamic led to an oft-quoted observation from a
New York judge that a good prosecutor could indict a "ham sandwich."
The failure to indict in this sandwich-related case illustrates the challenges facing prosecutors in Washington as they face orders
to bring the most severe federal charges available against those
arrested in law enforcement sweeps. The Trump administration has deployed federal agents and National Guard troops to curb what Trump has portrayed as an out-of-control crime problem in the nation's capital, despite police statistics showing a decline in violent crime following an earlier surge.
Prosecutors
are likely to try again to seek an indictment before a different grand
jury for Dunn, the source said. U.S. law typically gives the Justice
Department 30 days to secure an indictment after an arrest.
[...] Dunn
was charged by a criminal complaint with assaulting, resisting and
impeding officers. He allegedly called the officers "fascists" and
yelled "I don't want you in my city!" before throwing the sandwich,
according to the complaint.
Yes. Dunn did well.
[...] Justice Department officials touted the case as they vowed to punish any interference with police, and the White House released a social media video showing several armed agents arresting him.
Trump, a TV performer before being elected, is so TV tuned in that the last link in the excerpt starts:
The
White House has dispatched social media teams alongside FBI agents
executing arrest warrants in the nation's capital to generate videos
that promote U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown on crime in the District of Columbia, according to two people briefed on the atatter.
The
highly unusual arrangement runs afoul of longstanding Justice
Department norms which seek to insulate criminal investigations from
political influence.
It could hamstring prosecutors' ability to try their cases by generating
pre-trial publicity and raise constitutional questions about suspects'
rights to privacy in cases involving arrests carried out in non-public
areas, legal experts say.
So Trump wanted video footage - but not such as showed up and evolved.
Okay now, that's the set up for noting the saying, "With only one lawyer in the room any halfway competent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich."
You throw a ham sandwich, no problem. Irony rocks.
Trump's chicken shit "crackdown" is such a crock that the Dunn guy deserves a good conduct medal.
But the bastards have 30 days to try again apparently, to indict. This is a new kind of fascism -
Ham Sandwich Chicken Shit Fascism. Tell your friends about it.
It sinks, it does not float. (And any competent grand jury will tell you that.)
Trump is getting to be a real bore, and should stop. Trump may be unhappy over that declining to indict and may tell JD to hold a presser and say something, but for both of them, and for Bondi and Kash, it's simply how the chicken shits. They should have known better.
Reality rocks. Those Trumpsters are playing with fire and deserve to get burned by it. They should not be so tone deaf, even if Trump himself is super swellheaded and TV addicted the minions should include cogent adults in the room. You'd think.
Not so, and 2026 midterms are so, so far away. If they were tomorrow voters could, figuratively, throw a ham sandwich at Trump and his puppets. They deserve it. When we do get the elections, voters please throw that sandwich. In honor of the Contitution and simple good sense.
And for Dunn. Show your support. The election will be sandwich time for us all.
_____________UPDATE_____________
They went to Dunn's apartment and rearrested him. This is total bullshit now. Escalating from chicken-shit several notches. This is the full force of the boot of t he FBI on a citizen's throat, for throwing a ham sandwich.
That entire business is SICK and should stop. Trump's wasting the cost of all that personnel spending time doing such a super deep Deep State, super slimy swamp thing suggests Trump is a sick man. Very scary, since these are armed agents pissing around this way on the taxpayers dime. Do they believe that anyone voted for him to double-arrest a sandwich thrower?
It boggles the mind. Such a degree of Naziism befuddles and confuses. WTF? Stop this now.
The Dunn guy is a citizen. You do not do that to citizens. To illegal immigrants. To anyone.
It is Deep State gone rogue. Ordered to. Doing it. Obscene.
And --- The very First Amendment to our nation's Constitution says I can express my opinion.
You got it.
Consider the totality of circumstances. You next? Who knows?
..............................................
Is diversion of public attention from Trump's being mentioned in the Epstein files worth staging this circus stuff? He must be worried.
It is an outrage. It is excessive government coercive show time. SICK.
Somewhere in the recent EmptyWheel posting Wheeler links here.
That's the first Crabgrass learned - very, very recently - of that online resource.
Sidebar YouTube tracking led here, here and here, which are posted links even before being viewed. They just looked interesting from the sidebar noting. The one of somebody on the stairs got wide coverage, but to Crabgrass body language stuff rings a bell as speculative surely, but more likely sound analysis than being wrong. It's opinion that way, but have a look. Now that it's posted for readers, I will view it all.t
____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
After viewing those links, I am less convinced they matter than antricipating they mattered.
The person on the stairs at the prison, the orange, and then the picture of the tier there are orange items at the foot of one door. How, in the middle of the night would you deliver? Put them outside the door and in the morning when full day staff is there, they retrieve items outside the door. As to the body language, it is vague, other than Epstein and Trump together in the one video, Epstein did look introverted as the narrator said. How long ago, I have no guess, except each looked younger than now. In the '90s?
In the video where Bondi says, ". . . on my desk," it was in context with other files - exactly as she clarified. The noting that at the presser a question was asked and a diversion/evasion happened, isn't that a norm? The feeling is of knowing nothing not known before.
The easiest way to resolve things, Bondi told Trump he was mentioned in the Epstein files, then release that information - what the mentioning was - and move on. Unless she also told him context and he said nothing beyond the first thick binder will be released, end of story. That is what they did. And they now are stonewalling.
Maxwell? Hew lawyer and Blanche conferred before she was recorded, and there were two noteworthy breaks taken. She tied herself to a story that neither Trump nor Clinton did any wrongdoing, nobody did, and she got transferred to a country-club prison. Tied to a story best seen as making it all go away, and a perk. If there is a pardon or commutation of sentence, what is to be inferred that cooperation and nature of the story she told was no problem to Trump. But the lawyers conferred in advance, settlement discussions are confidential, and there were breaks the one video noted.
I think the Epstein situation is now as dead ended as Epstein himself. The FBI/DOJ said in an unsigned memo, "No list. No more." And that's how it will be. Michael Wolff has said Epstein showed him such and such, but he can produce no item, so forget it. Unless something tangible surfaces, the story is over. Deep fakes can be done now, AI is to that point, and if a tangible item surfaces, "fake" would immediately be claimed.
Door shut. Move on. Maxwell's life got easier, the "$25 can buy a snuffing" statement in the one video clip about where she was when testifying made prior digs sound pretty bad. I expect it was hyperbole.
Proof that even a largely dysfunctional agency need not have a flat or downward sloping learning curve..
Little wonder. Politicians suck. Growth uber alles. Feed that beast. Overfeed it.
Some situations demand saying, I told you so. That said - It would hurt less if they scrubbed those Northstar=greatness video items from YouTube. We'd let them. Just, learn from it, but move on.
Not pushing all the way to St. Cloud doomed it. People's overriding willingness to do a my garage, my timing, and pay to park somewhere is too ingrained to overcome. Accept it. It's in the DNA. Move on.
Last mention of Northstar on the blog. Met Council stays an ongoing target.
Can we point fingers? Sure. Somebody other than me Archived it.
The Archive page at its bottom notes other Northstar related video content that it has saved. Someone in one of the short videos said "We're saving two million
dollars." By wasting many times more on a fundamentally bad idea, Politician-think is not how regular people think. Saving by overspending a bad idea is a strange idea of "saving.".
UPDATE: [The above has been revised and extended from original posting.] Strib's report notes:
The
Northstar’s operating budget was $18.6 million in 2025. The Met Council
estimates the bus service will cost $3.5 million in 2026.
Replacement bus service
The last Northstar train will run Jan. 3 or 4, after the final Vikings regular season home game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
The Met Council will begin running two bus lines to replace service along parts of Northstar’s route Monday, Jan. 5.
Route
888 will serve Northstar stops in Ramsey, Anoka, Coon Rapids and
Minneapolis and will run up to every 30 minutes. It will also have three
trips each way on Saturdays and Sundays.
Route
827 will replace Route 852 between Fridley and downtown Minneapolis. It
will run hourly on weekdays and every 30 minutes on Saturday.
The
bus connecting St. Cloud and Big Lake, outside the Met Council’s
jurisdiction, will end service in January, Barber said. She said MnDOT
is working with Sherburne County to develop future bus service.
The
Met Council’s plans to “preserve key assets” for future rail between
cities and local use are in development, it said in a statement.
Those riding Northstar will have bus service as an alternative. Details of anticipated stops and service times to start bus service may not last as above reported. Northstar's constrained service because the tracks were leased from BNSF, the bus will not be so constrained, but the economics of actual future ridership will affect the ultimate extent of bus service too.
FURTHER: The net result will be extension of Greater Metro bus service to the North Metrto, to mirror growth and development there, with Northstar an expensive intermediate tried and failed experiment.
Extending bus service to fit regional growth is NOT a bad idea. The history to get there is unfortunate, but bus usage will cost less per year than Northstar and be a general norm that may lessen rush hour loading on Highway 10 by taking some auto traffic out of play. It should have been that from the start without any Northstar flim-flam from the politicians. Without pumping growth by promising commuter rail. But the politicians at Met Council and locally wanted more rooftops paying taxes ASAP, and damn the risks we pump and dump. Grow, grow, grow. There's a sickness to that. It's not affordable housing except for above average earners who can pay North Metro's new housing prices.
Oak Grove and Nowthen can see their own futures in all this, and it should make people there shudder.
[...] The Revolution Wind project
was about 80% complete, with 45 of its 65 turbines already installed,
according to the Danish wind farm developer Ørsted, when the US Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management sent the firm a letter on Friday ordering it to “halt all ongoing activities”.
“In
particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the
protection of national security interests in the United States,” wrote
Matt Giacona, the agency’s acting director, adding that Ørsted “may not
resume activities” until the agency has completed a review of the
project.
Giacona said that the project, which had already cleared years of
federal and state reviews, now needs to be re-examined in light of Donald Trump’s order, on the first day of his second term, to consider “terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases”.
Giacona, whose prior work as a lobbyist for the offshore oil industry alarmed
consumer advocates, also said that the review was necessary to “address
concerns related to the protection of national security interests of
the United States”. He did not specify what those national security
concerns were.
[...] Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, connected the decision to Trump’s reported pitch
last year to oil industry executives to trade $1bn in campaign
donations for regulatory favors. “When the oil industry showed up at
Mar-a-Lago with a set of demands in exchange for $1 billion of campaign
support for Trump, this is what they were asking for: the destruction of
clean energy in America,” Murpy said in a statement.
[...] Scientists agree that countries need to rapidly
embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate
change, including extreme heat and drought; larger, more intense
wildfires and supercharged hurricanes, typhoons and rainstorms that lead
to catastrophic flooding.
Construction on
Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully
operational next year. Ørsted says it is evaluating the financial impact
of stopping construction and considering legal proceedings.
[...] This is the second major offshore wind project
the Trump White House has halted. Work was previously stopped on Empire
Wind, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to
resume after New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, and Senator Chuck Schumer intervened.
“This
administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky,
polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest
growing energy sources of the future – solar and wind power,” Kit
Kennedy, managing director for the power division at the Natural
Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, every
American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.”
Stopping work on an almost completed wind project, a year from expected completion to serve up to 350,000 households with clean electricity not involving any carbon dioxide climate stress while operating. None. Clean.
Who's served, special interests who've pre-election paid massive sums into a campaign, or the American people? Figure it out.
The author, Suzi Gadbaw, a 69-year-old white breast cancer survivor who lives in Duluth. She writes:
The complications of my cancer diagnosis and treatment left
me with severe pain. I have to take medicine seven times a day just to
manage that pain. Without Medicaid, I wouldn’t have been able to survive
the treatment. And without SNAP, I wouldn’t have had the strength to
fight for my life.
For 14 years, I worked at the Salvation Army in Duluth,
helping neighbors get back on their feet. Before that, I was a retail
worker, a teacher’s aide for kids with autism, and a librarian. I’ve
spent my life taking care of people. Now, after everything, it feels
like my country is turning its back on me.
With the passage of the GOP mega-law, President Donald
Trump and members of Congress are making huge cuts to the very programs
that have kept me going. Medicaid paid for my surgeries, doctor visits,
and every prescription during cancer treatment. It still covers my
medications and regular checkups to keep me healthy and make sure the
cancer doesn’t return. Losing that coverage would mean no access to an
oncologist, no pain medication and no way to afford the pills that keep
me alive.
SNAP helps me access the food my body needs. Since
retiring, I’ve lived on just over $800 a month in Social Security
benefits. That barely leaves enough to cover rent, food, clothing, and
other necessary bills. I receive $113 in SNAP benefits per month, which
is about $3.74 per day. It’s not enough, but it helps. I don’t buy junk
food and always shop the sales. Still, I spend another $100 of my own
money on groceries every month.
When I got cancer, I applied for SNAP so I could afford
fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat. The foods that help keep me healthy
aren’t cheap. If my benefits are cut again, I’ll be forced to live on
less healthy, microwaveable meals. A healthy diet isn’t optional when
you’re recovering from cancer. It’s part of survival.
[...] Medicaid and SNAP aren’t luxuries. They are the reason I’m
still here. I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, but that doesn’t
mean I feel safe. Cuts are coming, and with them, the threat of losing
everything I’ve fought so hard to hold onto.
I’m not just scared — I’m angry. And now I’m using my voice
to speak out. [...]
[...] U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber of the 8th District is celebrating kicking people
off these life saving programs. Now he’s prancing around Minnesota
during the Congressional August recess as if he didn’t just throw
millions of us under the bus. But we need more leaders who protect
people, not abandon us.
Tom Emmer has House Republican seniority over Stauber, and voted similarly, as well as being in leadership, floggint the flawed bill favoring the wealthy one percent. That is mentioned because I suffer Emmer as "my Rep" because of how others in MN CD6 voted, while as a Bernie and AOC Progressive I was left to vote for lesser evil, the corporate friendly party of New York's Schumer and Jeffries.
Those two "leaders" can gin up donor money, but will not make the nation much better.
The two parties play ratchet, a game where Republicans pass laws giving more to the wealthy when in a majority in DC and when replaced by a Democratic Party majority it does nothing to undo the other party's mischief. So like a ratchet it only turns one way
The Bipartisan Ratchet has too long been the American Way:
Bless the ratchet keeping big money donors fat and happy, both parties - every election.
-------------------------------------
While that is the almost cliche image readers could be left with, it would be unfair to MinnReformer, which published this lead image to Ms G's eigenfunction narration:
Medicaid sign at U.S. Senate Democrats’ press conference on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
NOTE: As a Senate Democrat exhibit it is sound. HOWEVER: Medicaid's support in Schumer's party is a cut less than Israel's. That is not only a problem, it's an existential threat to all but the wealthy.
I also note - I spent time - roughly two years this decade as the caring person for a dear woman suffering from breast cancer who did not survive. Time has passed but the weight loss, chemo burden, and pain she suffered are still vivid images in my mind. She was a former Boeing employee, with a carryover Cadillac health plan as a corprate benefit, and the care she received was best in Seattle, but not enough.
Because of that the issue is personal. Myself, at eighty I am on Medicare and Social Security. I suffer a foot condition needing care. That puts me directly into the camp angry about Trump's supreme indifference. I await the eventual passage of Medicare For All.
Link. It speaks for itself, including reader commentary. The cryptic MIHOP usage in the item title was explained within commentary as - Make It Happen On Purpose. Have a look.
___________________UPDATE_____________________
I am uncertain whether the theory spun out on EmptyWheel will turn out as the correct explanation.
The
EmptyWheel premise is that it's possible Bolton by motive and design
provoked things to, among other things gain discovery in litigation into
a host of executive actions and intentions and directions where
executive privilege assertions might need to be penetrated. Is he impetuous to have done that?
That
such
discovery and other sunshine on things would likely prove worthy by a
Bolton "I dare
you," but was it by dare or other circumstance that he became an FBI
search and investigation target? A target within a targeted sequence
where he was "first up" within a widespread Trump will for retribution?
Is there evidence for that being the situation? Perhaps this:
Bolton might not be a
reckless firebrand intent on doing some kind of deliberate provocation.
My
theory accords less recklessness to Bolton, with him unintentionally about to enter a
deep-pocketing litigation nightmare which he did not deliberately
provoke (while he may have foreseen it as possible but where his options
for a cashflow had been narrowed). For the
balance of Trump's term a government paycheck is nil. , Yet a need for a
cashflow to which he'd become accustomed remained. His security
clearance has been pulled so he is at risk if getting into too
much of a classified info morass with the clearance gone so with his job
pulled Bolton's government paycheck is gone, his
security clearance has been pulled, and he seems to be stuck becoming
one of
the host of news-show talking heads where his shtick would be
intellectually dumping on Trump and the Trump fellow-travellers, while
advocating a Bush neocon foreign policy and saying Trump has no policy
consistency or understanding so that his time with Trump was trying to
exist his own way with Trump's inconsistency being like life in a
pinball machine.
But again Bolton's shtick was going
intellectually nagative on Trump and his people. Chips falling where
they will. In that talking head capacity,
consider online content here and here. Going onto Substack may be next,
if not already done.
Bolton's government paycheck is gone, his
security clearance has been pulled, and he seems to be becoming one of
the host of TV news-show talking heads. Going onto Substack may be next,
if not already done. Yet in that complaining TV talking head capacity,
there's risk. Trump is a former TV performer noted as a TV freak content-consumer.
The heart of the Crabgrass theory is to consider two CNN talking head stints, here and here. Both are roughly 8 min segments. Short but hard hitting.
Analyzing
briefly those two particular YouTube items (posted to YouTube a month
apart) shows the basis of my best guess of why Bolton became FBI
litigation-retribution target No. 1.
The segment titled, "John Bolton reacts to news of Trump officials texting war plans to reporter" was
more of the same, classified war planning that should have been in
person in a safe room, not on Signal, no one is above the law, and
they're not that smart but they simply should know better. Ripe for
holding up a mirror to Bolton when he was in Trump 45 if Bolton had been
at fault in any way then, himself.
So Trump watches and tells all who'd listen, "Get that Son of a Bitch." That's a guess. And now, he was got.
Murdoch's empire, Aug. 22, reported:
Kash Patel’s FBI raids John Bolton’s home, office in probe over sending classified documents to family
FBI agents raided the Maryland home and Washington, DC office of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton Friday
morning in a high-profile probe of allegations that he sent “highly
sensitive” classified documents to his family from a private email
server while working in the White House.
Federal investigators went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel,
a Trump administration official told The Post. Agents later went to
Bolton’s office in downtown DC, but did not enter until a judge signed a
warrant for that location late Friday morning.
“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began.
FBI agents raided the Maryland home and Washington, DC office of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton Friday
morning in a high-profile probe of allegations that he sent “highly
sensitive” classified documents to his family from a private email
server while working in the White House.
Federal investigators went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel,
a Trump administration official told The Post. Agents later went to
Bolton’s office in downtown DC, but did not enter until a judge signed a
warrant for that location late Friday morning.
“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began.
[,,,] “He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy,”
President Trump told reporters of Bolton Friday morning. “We’re going to
find out.”
Investigators reopened a dormant probe into Bolton’s alleged use of a
private email to send classified national security documents to his
wife and daughter from his work desk before his dismissal by Trump in
September 2019, according to a senior US official.
“While Bolton was a national security adviser, he was literally
stealing classified information, utilizing his family as a cutout,” this
person charged.
The probe was initially opened in 2020, and continued into the Biden administration, which froze the investigation.
Friday’s raid came at the behest of Patel, who reopened the matter after
he took over the FBI in February, the senior US official said.
The president told reporters at the White House that he had no advance knowledge of the operation.
“I know nothing about it,” Trump insisted. “I just saw it this
morning … I tell [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] and I tell the group: ‘I
don’t want to know, but you have to do what you have to do. I don’t
want to know about it.’”
“I could know about it. I could be the one starting — and I’m
actually the chief law enforcement officer — but I feel that it’s better
this way,” the president added.
It is not unusual for a president not to have been informed ahead of
an FBI raid. Traditionally, the Justice Department has worked
independently of the White House — especially on matters potentially
tied to domestic politics. For example, former President Joe Biden said
he was not given a heads-up about an August 2022 FBI raid of Trump’s
Mar-a-Lago estate to recover national security papers sought by the
National Archives.
The latest probe spawned out of a separate criminal inquiry into
Bolton from Trump’s first term over the ex-adviser’s alleged disclosure
of national secrets in his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Justice Department officials who also served during the Biden
administration purportedly told Trump officials that they had been
“trying to prosecute this case for four years, and the [Biden DOJ] shut
it down,” according to the senior official.
Investigators suspect the pause in the probe may have been motivated
by the ex-national security adviser’s public political opposition to
Trump.
Bolton has been at odds with his old boss since Trump fired
him, regularly appearing on CNN and criticizing the president’s national
security and foreign policy aims.
Trump,
79, unsuccessfully fought to quash publication of “The Room Where It
Happened” over its inclusion of national secrets — saying Bolton broke a
non-disclosure agreement signed as a condition of his employment.
Search warrants underpinning Friday’s raids — which have yet to be
unsealed — include references to the book controversy to convey a
pattern of behavior on Bolton’s part; however, the senior US official
described the probe as a “clean break” from the investigation over the
former White House official’s memoir.
“[Prosecutors] talk about the book [in the warrants] because it’s
good color for him already having essentially broken the law,” this
person said, “but we’re not prosecuting him for that … [it
has] absolutely 100% nothing to do with the book.”
“All these people have been wrapping their heads around an axle
about, ‘Oh, they’re really re-litigating the book?’” the official went
on, reacting to media speculation throughout the day Friday. “The book
investigation is over. Who gives a f—?”
Upon taking office Jan. 20, Trump terminated Bolton’s security clearance and Secret Service detail.
The move prompted concerns for the ex-adviser’s safety, with Iran
identifying Bolton as an assassination target in retribution for his
role in the January 2020 drone strike that took out Gen. Qassem
Soleimani.
Bolton, 76, has also been a vocal advocate of regime change in Iran throughout his diplomatic career.
Bolton’s X account blasted out a message at 7:32 a.m. — as FBI agents
were inside his home — criticizing Trump’s approach to Russia’s war on
Ukraine. It was unclear whether it was a scheduled post.
“Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian
Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds
and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer.
Zelensky will never do so,” Bolton wrote.
“Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress.”
The Bolton raid comes one day after Patel revealed former FBI
Director James Comey had authorized leaks of classified documents “while
misleading Congress” just before the 2016 elections.
Patel has pledged to rid the federal government of corruption and
expose cover-ups, especially related to the FBI’s investigation of
collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
[intervening/interrupting
images omitted] There is a host of reporting of the Bolton retribution
situation, with Murdoch's reporting showing the Trump Administration is
telling a story that Trump did not initiate a vandetta to get Bolton but
somehow somebody said, "Hey remember this . . ." and Pam and Kash did
their own thing. That story line has a distinct strong miasma to it, of
an effort to deny Bolton a retributive litigation defense before he
might assert one, wanting discovery into whether so or not.
It
was not retributive, and the fall back is executive privilege, don't
quell our candor in discussions by poking your discovery-oriented nose
into what was "a non-event" anyway. Just justice as usual.
That's
got to be a crock, and pulling a Hillary-the-emails thing against Bolton
will discourage other former officials daring to be possible critics from speaking
out.
Given Murdoch's writing up the Trump story as best favors
Trump, discovery of who told Rupert and sons what when and how would
meet the counter, "media sources should not be revealed because it could quell candor
in giving media information to publish which the public should know."
All tied up in a pretty bow, and packaged to make Bolden spend and hurt in defense of himself.
Suffer John, to sing the blues against me, the Trump of the United States.
With
much online about the Bolton story, it was to Crabgrass a largely
ho-hum business as usual, Trump being a retribution-bent asshole,
nothing beyond that - but major hat-tip to EmptyWheel for jogging the
research leading to this version of Crabgrass researching and guessing.
EmptyWheel is good that way.
Of the report-storm over Bolton's
being targeted for freely speaking, (not sued for defamation over
anything he said but becoming an FBI criminal target instead), and the
great indecency of this targeted retrebutiont possibly leading to a
pattern needing to be
curbed from one administration to the next lest it become entrenched
operating procedure, view this YouTube - Substack analysis by two academics moderated by Preet Bahrara, former SDNY office head before dismissal by Trump 45. Also, there is this presentation, if you can put up with the speaker's measured style of speeeh the content is thoughtful.
FURTHER: Bolton on the same slippery slope critique path, back then, TheHill:
Kushner oversteps norms of sound behavior. Charles Kushner, who is Orthodox Jewish, writes an offensive letter to France indirectly in support of war crimes, not directly so, but indirectly insulting the French in their ability to perceive truth and form policy accordingly.
The fact Kushner is ambassador for the Trump cabal and propagates that cabal's stance should be noted. as a context for the French reaction to summon the Ambassador.
But Kushner does as told too. Or worse, is allowed to do mischief on his own volition.
WASHINGTON (AP) — France has summoned the American ambassador to Paris after the diplomat, Charles Kushner, wrote a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism.
France’s foreign ministry issued a statement Sunday announcing it had
summoned Kushner to appear Monday at the French Ministry for Europe and
Foreign Affairs and that his allegations “are unacceptable.”
Offensive, false and unacceptable could be said, with the text of his letter found online, here; but continuing:
The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking
comment. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott on Sunday evening
said it stood by Kushner’s comments, adding: “Ambassador Kushner is our
U.S. government representative in France and is doing a great job
advancing our national interests in that role.”
The summoning of the ambassador is a formal and public notice of displeasure.
Kushner, a real-estate developer, is the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The French foreign ministry, in its statement, said “France firmly
rejects these allegations” from Kushner and that French authorities have
“fully mobilized” to combat a rise in antisemitic acts since the Oct.
7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, deeming the acts “intolerable.”
In the letter, released late on Sunday, Kushner writes that “public
statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a
Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence and endanger Jewish
life in France.”
Kushner urges Macron “to act decisively: enforce hate-crime laws
without exception, ensure the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and
businesses … and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its
allies.”
Kushner’s allegations violate international law and the obligation
not to interfere with the internal affairs of another country, the
French ministry said, and, “They also fall short of the quality of the
transatlantic partnership between France and the United States and of
the trust that must prevail between allies.”
France quickly rejected the accusations. “France firmly refutes these
latest allegations. The Ambassador’s allegations are unacceptable,” the
ministry said, confirming Kushner had been summoned to appear on Monday.
It cited the 1961 Vienna Convention, which bars diplomats from
interfering in a country’s internal affairs.
Kushner’s intervention followed a letter to Macron earlier in the
week from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also accused
the French president of encouraging antisemitism by pushing for
international recognition of a Palestinian state. Macron has been one of
Netanyahu’s sharpest critics over the war in Gaza, particularly the
toll on Palestinian civilians, while Trump has stood firmly behind the
Israeli leader.
“Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures
toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel
violence, and endanger Jewish life in France. In today’s world,
anti-Zionism is antisemitism – plain and simple,” Kushner wrote.
Clearly, he says recognition of a Palestinian right to have a separate state is antisemitism. That is claiming a falsehood. Linguistically false, and practically suggesting that embracing Zionism is innate to being a jew or not being a jew. (A strange litmus test of real Jewishness.)
That hopefully is a minority opinion, worldwide, among jews and others.
Indeed, Kushner lays grave insult upon the host of jewish Americans who feel shame over Israel's war crimes and who embrace a two-state resolution of Israeli - Palestinian coexistence between the River and the Sea.
Bottom line: Kushner lies. That AP item in its paragraph following the above excerpt corrects the misimpression Kushner holds in mind:
Macron
has repeatedly condemned antisemitism, calling it contrary to French
values, and has ordered tighter security at synagogues and Jewish sites
since the Gaza conflict began. France is home to western Europe’s
largest Jewish community, around half a million people, and also a large
Muslim population, both of which have reported a rise in hate crimes
linked to the war.
So, Trump overreaches, Kushner being his agent, and Trump needs to be impeached over his second term, in toto, so far. Most of that deserves separate following Crabgrass posting.
French President Macron says France will recognize Palestine as a state
I.e., all the buzz about French "antisemitism" was triggered by French policy, and by Bibi getting a hate fit over it.
Understanding that genesis of the situation, the final paragraph - the gist - of Kushner's letter is:
In France, not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street,
synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized.
Your own Interior Ministry has reported antisemitic incidents even at
preschools. Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward
recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence,
and endanger Jewish life in France. In today’s world, anti-Zionism is
antisemitism—plain and simple. President Trump and I have Jewish
children and share Jewish grandchildren. I know how he feels about
antisemitism, as do all Americans. He directed the Education Department
to enforce civil-rights protections for Jewish students on university
campuses, making clear that harassment and discrimination won’t be
tolerated. He expanded resources for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the Department of Homeland Security to safeguard synagogues and
Jewish schools. He ordered strict vetting to bar entry for foreigners
espousing antisemitic hatred and revoked visas for foreign agitators. He
oversaw the deportation of Hamas sympathizers and cut funding to
organizations promoting antisemitic incitement. And by crippling Iran’s
nuclear-weapons program, he struck directly at the world’s leading state
sponsor of antisemitism and terror and saved millions of lives. These
measures prove that antisemitism can be fought effectively when leaders
have the will to act. Today, many French Jews fear that history will
repeat itself in Europe. Parents encourage their children to emigrate;
surveys show most French citizens believe another Holocaust could happen
in Europe. Nearly half of French youth report never having heard of the
Holocaust at all. What are children being taught in French schools if
such ignorance persists? Mr. President, I urge you to act decisively:
enforce hate-crime laws without exception; ensure the safety of Jewish
schools, synagogues and businesses, prosecute offenders to the fullest
extent; and abandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.
As U.S. ambassador to France, I stand ready to work with you and with
leaders across French society to forge a serious plan that addresses the
roots of antisemitism and defeats it.
That tirade has no mention of the French recognition of a separate Palestine state. It evades the whole point.
What is happening is the standard Israel/AIPAC super-overaction propaganda tactic to call any criticism of what Israel does or wants "antisemitic" and the Kushner letter shows Trump's willingness to kiss war criminal Bibi's ass. For whatever reasons Trump has for doing so. The implication is Macron should kiss Bibi's ass too. Trump does it, so who are you to do otherwise?
Links: msn republish, toi original. and you can websearch = Israeli Backlash Builds Against Macron's Push for Palestinian State
All this Kushner letter business is a facade painted against truth. Macron showed a mind, a spine and a heart and others don't like it. That is the real and only story. The rest is bullshit. Shuting down free speech and penalizing it is not fighting antisemitism. Nobody being honest would say so. Recognition of Palestinian suffering is not antisemitism. Recognizing Palestinians are human beings put to suffering of extreme Israeli war crime is not antisemitism. But propaganda theory says repeat The Big Lie often enough and in as many ways as thought of, and it becomes believed, and so we have what we have.
_______________UPDATE_____________
Being fair to everybody, Marcon may be motivated by having more Islamic voters in France than Jewish, while equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism confuses two-state Zionists, river to the sea Zionists, and both sides of the river to the sea Zioninsts. And I'd say, "Whole hog or none" but with diet restraints that saying does not fit. Simply, Trump may be motivated by a perception of a general pro-Israel electorate from AIPAC's efforts paying off, and Macron may have a "mood of the French populace" in mind. With no need to complicate things beyond that.
But the Kushner letter was over the top and France showed restraint by not expelling the pardoned ex-felon to be replaced with another U.S. Ambassador, With all the rest being theater.
Facts on the ground are Gazans under starvation and murderous siege, and letters and responses do not change that. Short term the Israelis can do whatever they want, they have that immediate power; and long term Israel might cease to exist. But we have no way of knowing too far into the future. We don't even know if Trump will finagle some way to have a de facto third term. We know he wants to.
After years when the
number of deportation officers largely remained even, the agency is now
rapidly hiring. Congress this summer passed legislation giving ICE $76.5
billion in new money to help speed up the pace of deportations. That’s
nearly 10 times the agency’s current annual budget. Nearly $30 billion
is for new staff.
Last
week, The Associated Press got a chance to visit the base in southern
Georgia where new ICE recruits are trained and to talk to the agency's
top leadership. Here are details about four things ICE is doing that
came out of those conversations.
It's surging hiring
ICE
currently has about 6,500 deportation officers, and it is aggressively
looking to beef up those numbers. Acting Director Todd Lyons says he
wants to hire an additional 10,000 by year's end.
The agency has launched a new recruiting website, offered hiring bonuses as high as $50,000,
and is advertising at career expos. Lyons said the agency has already
received 121,000 applications — many from former officers.
New
recruits are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in
Brunswick, Georgia. That's a sprawling facility near the coast where
federal law enforcement officers — not just ICE agents — from around the
country live and train. ICE is looking to more than double the number
of instructors who train deportation officers.
Caleb
Vitello, who runs training for ICE, says it has cut Spanish-language
requirements to reduce training by five weeks, and he's been looking for
ways to streamline the training and have recruits do more at the field
offices where they're assigned.
It's preparing for conflict
As Trump’s effort to deport millions of people has intensified, violent episodes
have unfolded as ICE seeks to arrest people. Critics have said ICE is
being too heavy-handed in carrying out arrests while ICE says its people are the ones being attacked.
Nothing heavy handed in that opening report image. They carry light arms, shotguns and long guns. Continuing:
[...]
It's beefing up specialized units for high-risk situations
About
eight deportation officers dressed in military-style camouflage
uniforms, helmets and carrying an assortment of weapons stand outside a
house yelling “Police! We have a warrant!” before entering and clearing
the house.
They are
members of a Special Response Team taking part in a demonstration at the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. These officers are like a SWAT
team — deportation officers with special training to assist in
difficult situations. They also accompany detainees the agency deems
dangerous when they are deported.
“Everybody is trained to serve a warrant," Vitello said. “These guys are trained to serve high-risk warrants.”
There
are roughly 450 deportation officers with the special training to serve
on these teams, and Lyons says they have been deployed to assist with
immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and
Washington.
He said
he'd like to have more such units but wouldn't put an exact number on
how many. Vitello said they're also in the process of getting more of
the specially armored vehicles.
It's teaching whom agents can arrest — and when
New
recruits to ICE receive training on immigration law and the Fourth
Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches. Longtime officers
get regular refreshers on these topics.
In
limited situations, ICE agents are allowed to enter someone's home.
Generally when they're seeking someone they're trying to remove from the
country, they have an administrative warrant as opposed to a criminal
warrant. That administrative warrant doesn't allow them to enter the
house without first getting permission.
That lead image suggests if not a practice run, then the officers had a court order, or thought they had one.
So - JUST DON'T OPEN THE DOOR IF THEY SHOW UP. THEY WILL KICK IT IN IF THEY'VE A COURT ORDER. THEY WILL - IF ACTING PROPERLY - STAND THERE AT THE DOOR FRUSTRATED IF THEIR PIECE OF PAPER IS AN ADMINISTRATIVE WARRANT, ONE THAT AN ICE AGENT HANDS ANOTHER, AND THEN THE TEAM CAN GO ROCK AND ROLL.
It’s
all been part of the Trump administration’s campaign to attract new
applicants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And so far, it’s
brought in more than 110,000 applications, ICE Deputy Director Madison
Sheahan said in an interview with POLITICO. Thirty percent of applicants
are military veterans, and roughly 10 percent are coming from other
federal law enforcement agencies, Sheahan said.
The
administration’s targeting of law enforcement recruits comes amid fears
from Democrats and immigration advocates that the Trump administration
is going to rely on unqualified recruits to quickly fill the 10,000 new
ICE agent jobs they got out of the GOP’s megabill.
“This
is the first time ICE has ever had a major plus up. So the beauty of
that is that we can learn from the best practices of other agencies,”
Sheahan said. “That huge presence that we’re seeing from former military
and former federal law enforcement — those are people that have been
vetted their entire career and have done great work for this country
their entire career. And so having them a part of our ranks is really
going to be helpful when it comes to a lot of the criticism that we’re
getting right now.”
[...] “We
have an opportunity to do this throughout the president’s entire term,
and we’ll continue to do that until our ranks are filled,” Sheahan said.
“Obviously, the pressure is on nationwide for us to serve the American
people, and so we want to make sure we deliver for them.”
[...] The
criticism facing the agency has reached a fever pitch in recent months,
as Democrats, immigration advocates and lawyers decry everything from
the masking of agents to ICE’s aggressive tactics to increase arrest numbers — with a number of polls showing the agency’s decreasing popularity among Americans. A July Quinnipiac University poll
found that 57 percent of voters disapprove of how ICE is enforcing
immigration law, while another from CNN that same month showed that 53 percent of Americans opposed increasing ICE’s budget by billions of dollars.
[...] “The
last thing you want is somebody who has no law enforcement experience
whatsoever and is gung ho about working for ICE under Trump,” said Scott
Shuchart, a former senior ICE official during the Biden administration.
“That’s the worst of all worlds.”
[...] “We’re
trying to be judicious. We’re background checking people. We’re not
taking crazies,” said a Trump administration official, granted anonymity
to speak candidly. “There’s this myth out there that we’re just taking
everybody, and we decline a lot of positions.”
Yes. Those in the opening image, we want fingers along the trigger guard, not on the trigger. Beyond that, can you tell the one man of that image bunch who is injudicious? I cannot either. They all look dressed for combat. And you do that job, be masked, as it's the style.
The new recruitment page on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
website shows a drawing of a white-bearded Uncle Sam pointing to the
viewer. “America has been invaded by criminals and predators,” the page
reads. “We need YOU to get them out.” The pitch emphasizes that a
college degree isn’t needed, and says recruits could be offered up to a
$50,000 signing bonus and $60,000 in student loan repayment.
The
offers are part of a supercharged recruitment campaign that will take
years to meet its goal. Republicans in Congress just allocated $30
billion to ICE to hire 10,000 new officers so it can ramp up deportations.
But
the Administration’s interest in boosting ICE’s headcount from 20,000
to 30,000 is bumping up against multiple challenges, including finding
applicants who are both qualified and willing to live in parts of the
country where ICE is intent on deploying more agents.
“You’re
talking three years before you see a significant increase of ICE agents
on the street, which is the end of the administration,” predicts John
Sandweg, who was the acting director of ICE during the Obama
administration.
To
spread the word, ICE is attending job fairs, college campuses and law
enforcement recruiting events. Last week, Dean Cain, the 59-year-old
actor who played Superman
on TV in the 1990s, put his fame behind the recruitment effort, posting
a video on X that he had signed up with ICE as an honorary officer. “I
felt it was important to join with our first responders to help secure
the safety of all Americans, not just talk about it. So I joined up.”
ICE’s stepped-up recruitment effort comes as deportation and arrests are not keeping pace
with the Administration’s goals of arresting 3,000 immigrants a day and
deporting 1 million people in Trump’s first year in office.
In
the first week of its new recruitment campaign, the Department of
Homeland Security said it received more than 80,000 applications. There
are signs that most of those applicants were not what the agency was
looking for. Within days, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
announced that ICE was waiving its age limits for agents, accepting
applicants as young as 18 and older than 40. Previously, people applying
to ICE could not be younger than 21, and no older than 37 or 40,
depending on the position.
Trump’s top White House advisor on the border, Tom Homan,
told reporters on Aug. 6 that ICE wasn't having trouble recruiting, and
he defended the decision to eliminate the age limits. “There are a lot
of roles at ICE for people who are over 40,” Homan said. “Just because
someone comes in and they’re 55—maybe they can’t carry a badge and a
gun, they can certainly do administrative duty, they can do targeting on
the intelligence team.”
Last, this from ABC should reassure you showing what? Administrative duty? -
Eight weeks? And turned loose? With a Glock and a purpose?
An interesting thing in this reporting sampling, all those facilities, Down South.
As to Crabgrass thinking, Noem and Homan; great human beings, right? Beyond that the job of breaking up families and ending established community ties, because Stephen Miller does not like "them" and wants "them" out of the nation ASAP. Trump too. And what, all those new detention sites, don't they have airplanes enough to avoid a backup?
Seriously, it is blowback time, and regular citizens with feelings of decency are questioning the Trump - Miller - Homan - Noem staged hatred of "others" as far-fetched; and error-prone absent good judgment.
It is not something I'd do short of being enslaved into such duty. They don't have a draft anymore, and need volunteers for the military too. You? Has your application been sent in and on file?
We've a nation of what, three hundred million, and how many apply? What's that as a percentage?
Apply to go to gladiator school? Be the one who shoots first, body count later? Is that you?
It is ugly already and due to get uglier. On the sidewalks outside the Home Depot stores, or at the fields of lettuce or melons ripe for harvest. At the meat packing plants. At English as a foreign language schools.
It cannot be more explicit what these twisted minds are up to -
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval
Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a
mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”,
amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading
Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor.
On
the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized
troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other
details about the new development or why it was needed.
The
step is an escalation in the federal government’s rare intervention
into policing in the nation’s capital and came as nearly 2,000 national
guard members are stationed in the city.
Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard.
The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.
Now? What changed? Nothing any sane person can see, except the will and decision to arm.
The
city had been informed about the intent for the national guard to be
armed, a person familiar with the conversations said earlier this week.
The person was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on the
condition of anonymity.
A defense official told CNN:
“At the direction of the secretary of defense, [Joint Task Force]
JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our
nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued
weapons, consistent with their mission and training.”
They know the odds, they could care less about death. It is as if they are being schooled by Netanyahudto be a war criminal asshole,, with the Democratic protesters to be their "Gazan" surrogates for target practice intimidation. Trump did not like the No Kings protests.
Welcome to the administration that can feel no shame. I did not vote for the fuckers, but that's no comfort if I end up shot dead by Hegseth or an equivalent power-crazed surrogate degenerate.
Readers, wish for me and all citizens of the U.S. who under rule of law are entitled to due process, and calm and private lives, that we are to end up as more than Iraqi war-style collateral damage.
Hegseth has the excuse of being bat-shit crazy. Crazy with Jesus and craving more tattoos
Trump has no fucking excuse. This is swinish. It is Orwell's Animal Farm on US streets. It is the SA against the urban mixed-race cities. Worse, it is The Heritage Foundation. Unleashed.
Let us hope that Guard individuals, unlike Trump, have a conscience and a sense of human decency.
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