update - Murdoch files motion to dismiss Trump's $10B libel suit as groundless bullshit garbage

mandrill

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The Justice Department has been stripped of more than 94% of its lawyers tasked with fighting government corruption since President Donald Trump took office in January, according to several ex-DOJ employees.

“To me, it just screams that public corruption cases are no longer a priority of DOJ,” said Andrew Tessman, former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. and the Southern District of West Virginia, who left the agency this month. He was speaking with NOTUS in a report published Monday.



“I cannot understand why we would want to restrict that section.”



According to the ex-DOJ employees, some of whom spoke with NOTUS on the condition of anonymity, the DOJ had 36 attorneys who were tasked to investigate corrupt law enforcement and government officials when Trump took office. Today, that number has been whittled down to two.

“In a stripped-down office, the consulting function becomes nominal, if it exists at all,” said Michael Romano, who spent more than 17 years working at the DOJ as a prosecutor, and was among those 36 attorneys investigating government and law enforcement corruption cases.

“It sort of exists on paper so the government can say it exists and claim to be complying with the law. But if you want people to provide legitimate oversight, guidance and expertise, you can’t do that with a team of two. In reality, the advising function becomes a box-checking exercise.”





Trump’s DOJ has also reversed a relevant section of its “Justice Manual” – a comprehensive policy manual that lays out the agency’s internal rules, principles and procedures – specifically, the section detailing campaign finance law and corruption violations. It now states that the section is being “revised,” and that it is temporarily “suspended while revisions are ongoing.”

When pressed by NOTUS, a DOJ spokesperson did not respond to direct questions about the stripping down of the agency’s team tasked with investigating government and law enforcement corruption, only giving the outlet a generic response that the agency “takes public corruption seriously.”

DOJ insiders alarmed as massive cull almost shuts down government corruption unit
 
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mandrill

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Eight months into his second term, President Donald Trump's long-standing pledge to take on those he perceives as his political enemies has prompted debates over free speech, media censorship and political prosecutions.

From late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's suspension to Pentagon restrictions on reporters and an apparent public appeal to Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue legal cases against his adversaries, Trump has escalated moves to consolidate power in his second administration and root out those who have spoken out against him.


In a post on social media this weekend addressed to Bondi, Trump said “nothing is being done” on investigations into some of his foes.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he said. Noting that he was impeached and criminally charged, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”


Criticizing investigations into Trump’s dealings under Democratic President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday that “it is not right for the Trump administration to do the same thing.”

Directive to Bondi to investigate political opponents

Trump has ratcheted up his discussion of pursuing legal cases against some of his political opponents, part of a vow for retribution that has been a theme of his return to the White House. He publicly pressed Bondi this weekend to move forward with such investigations.


Trump posted somewhat of an open letter on social media Saturday to his top prosecutor to advance such inquiries, including a mortgage fraud probe into New York Attorney General Letitia James and a possible threat case against former FBI Director James Comey.

He posted that he had “reviewed over 30 statements and posts” that he characterized as criticizing his administration for a lack of action on investigations.

“We have to act fast — one way or the other,” Trump told reporters later that night at the White House. “They’re guilty, they’re not guilty — we have to act fast. If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be charged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.”



FILE - Host Jimmy Kimmel speaks at the Oscars in Los Angeles on Feb. 26, 2017. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)© The Associated Press
Trump later wrote in a follow-up post that Bondi was “doing a GREAT job.”

Paul, a frequent Trump foil from the right, was asked during an interview on NBC's “Meet the Press” about the propriety of a president directing his attorney general to investigate political opponents. The senator decried “lawfare in all forms."




Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said it was “unconstitutional and deeply immoral for the president to jail or to silence his political enemies.” He warned it could set a worrisome precedent for both parties.

“It will come back and boomerang on conservatives and Republicans at some point if this becomes the norm,” Murphy told ABC’s “This Week.”

The Senate's Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said on CNN's “State of the Union” that Trump is turning the Justice Department "into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not, and most of them are not guilty at all, and that helps his friends. This is the path to a dictatorship. That’s what dictatorships do.”

The Justice Department did not respond Sunday to a message seeking comment.

Appointment of new prosecutor in Letitia James investigation

Each new president nominates his own U.S. attorneys in jurisdictions across the country. And Trump has already worked to install people close to him in some of those jobs, including former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in the District of Columbia and Alina Habba, his former attorney, in New Jersey.




Trump has largely stocked his second administration with loyalists, continuing Saturday with the nomination of a White House aide as top federal prosecutor for the office investigating James, a longtime foe of Trump.

Trump announced Lindsey Halligan to be the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia on Saturday, just a day after Erik Siebert resigned from the post and Trump said he wanted him “out.”

Trump said he was bothered that Siebert had been supported by the state’s two Democratic senators.

“There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president, you can get away with nearly anything, including beating the hell out of police officers,” Murphy said, mentioning the defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol pardoned by Trump as he returned to office. “But if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”


New restrictions on Pentagon reporters

Trump has styled himself as an opponent of censorship, pledging in his January inaugural address to “bring free speech back to America” and signing an executive order that no federal officer, employee or agent may unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.

Under a 17-page memo distributed Friday, the Pentagon stepped up restrictions on the media, saying it will require credentialed journalists to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release, including unclassified information. Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon.

Asked Sunday if the Pentagon should play a role in determining what journalists can report, Trump said, “No, I don’t think so."

"Nothing stops reporters. You know that,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.


Trump has sued numerous media organizations for negative coverage, with several settling with the president for millions of dollars. A federal judge in Florida tossed out Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on Friday.

Jimmy Kimmel ouster and FCC warning

Perhaps the most headline-grabbing situation involves ABC's indefinite suspension Wednesday of veteran comic Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. What he said about Kirk’s killing had led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show and provoked some ominous comments from a top federal regulator.

Trump celebrated on his social media site: “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

Earlier in the day, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, who has launched investigations of outlets that have angered Trump, said Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick” and that his agency has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.


“We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said. "These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., argued that Kimmel's ouster wasn't a chilling of free speech but a corporate decision.

“I really don’t believe ABC would have decided to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a threat,” he said Sunday on CNN. “ABC has been a longstanding critic of President Trump. They did it because they felt like it didn’t meet their brand anymore.”

Not all Republicans have applauded the move. On his podcast Friday, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

Trump called Carr “a great American patriot” and said Friday that he disagreed with Cruz.

___
Trump ramps up retribution campaign with push for Bondi to pursue cases against his foes
 
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kherg007

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Tom Homan. 50k.
Caught on video. Nothing to see here.
 

mandrill

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Aug 23, 2001
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The Supreme Court Monday upheld President Donald Trump’s dismissal without cause of the last Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) despite nearly a century of court precedent protecting the official.


The court’s 6-3 decision is the court’s strongest signal yet that it may overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., a 90-year-old ruling that until recently largely protected independent agencies from undue political interference stemming from the White House.


In addition to granting Trump’s request to a stay lower court ruling reinstating FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, the court also said it will hear oral arguments in December on officially overturning Humphrey’s.


The majority did not offer a legal explanation in exempting Trump from standing court precedent.


Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, heavily rebuked the court for granting the stay while Humphrey’s remained precedent.


“The President cannot, as he concededly did here, fire an FTC Commissioner without any reason,” Kagan wrote. “To reach a different result requires reversing the rule stated in Humphrey’s: It entails overriding rather than accepting Congress’s judgment about agency design.”


“The majority may be raring to take that action, as its grant of certiorari before judgment suggests. But until the deed is done, Humphrey controls, and prevents the majority from giving the President the unlimited removal power Congress denied him.”


In her dissent, Kagan also echoed complaints and frustrations that several federal judges have raised about the majority’s use of the court’s emergency — or “shadow” — docket.


Dozens of times now, the court has granted the president broad exemptions from normal legal and legislative procedures and given him extraordinary control over the executive branch — often without detailing their reasoning.


These consequential emergency rulings have often left lower court judges in a bind, not knowing whether they should follow formal court precedent or the majority’s shadow docket orders — which are not binding legal precedent.


“Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars,” Kagan wrote. “Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers.”


This is a breaking news story. Please check back for additional details.

 
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SchlongConery

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SchlongConery

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There is nothing in that chart to imply that all graduates of higher education are liberal and all who are not are conservative.


I don't see the word "all graduates" or "all" either. ;)

People who have had formal education in basic philosophy and argumentation are not likely to use absolute statements in making political arguments. It would show they are unable to make their point intelligently. Or they are engaging in hyperbole. Which is as easily dismissed.

Plenty can be implied. I think the word you are looking for is 'proven'. Or causation, rather than correlation.

Nothing wrong with hard working Grade 10 dropouts, I respect everyone. But I find there is a direct correlation to education and political leaning.
 
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mandrill

monkey
Aug 23, 2001
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The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away COVID-19 vaccines, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination card



U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction.
Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. The charges were brought when Joe Biden was president.


“Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so,” Bondi wrote. “He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.”
Felice John Viti, acting U.S. attorney for Utah, filed the motion Saturday, saying “such dismissal is in the interests of justice.”

The trial began Monday in Salt Lake City with jury selection. It was expected to last 15 days.
Messages sent to the U.S. Department of Justice, Viti’s office in Salt Lake City and to Moore were not immediately returned Saturday to The Associated Press.
A federal grand jury on Jan. 11, 2023, returned an indictment against Moore, his Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah Inc., others associated with the clinic and a neighbor of Moore’s. The indictment alleged more than $28,000 of government-provided COVID-19 vaccine doses were destroyed.
They were also accused of providing fraudulently completed vaccination record cards for over 1,900 doses of the vaccine in exchange for either a cash or a donation to a specified charitable organization.


The government also alleged some children were given saline shots, at their parents’ request, so the minors believed they were getting the vaccine.

Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, posted his support for Moore in April, saying on X that Moore “deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing!”
During his confirmation hearings in January, Kennedy repeatedly refused to acknowledge scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don’t cause autism and that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives.
In a follow-up X post on Saturday, Bondi said Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene brought the case to her attention.
___
Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.



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