<[Event "BCC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1996.??.??"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Paschall, William"]
[Black "Chase, Christopher"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A42"]
[WhiteElo "2319"]
[BlackElo "2429"]

<[Event "BCC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1996.??.??"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Chase, Christopher"]
[Black "Gelman, Geoffrey M"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B53"]
[WhiteElo "2429"]
[BlackElo "2260"]

<[Event "BCC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1996.??.??"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Schmitt, Larry"]
[Black "Perez, Hector"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B87"]
[WhiteElo "2153"]

<[Event "National Chess Congress"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1999.11.26"]
[EventDate "1999"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Rohde, Michael"]
[Black "Greanias, Steve"]
[ECO "A34"]
[WhiteElo "2540"]
[BlackElo "2223"]

<Are you better off than you were four years ago?

That question is circulating on social media and cable news every day now in response to the Trump campaign foolishly asking it, apparently expecting that everyone is mathematically illiterate and won't look back to the spring of 2020 when thousands of people were dying in the COVID pandemic. You'd think the last thing they'd want anyone to remember is Donald Trump appearing on television every day yelling at reporters and telling people to take snake oil cures or inject disinfectant. It was a nightmare from which the country has not yet fully recovered and his abominable performance during that horrific crisis marked the worst days of his presidency. You'll remember that he was careening madly from day to day, completely out of his depth, making everyone even more frightened and nervous than they already were.

We know from reporting in real time, and later from books and interviews, that Trump was really only concerned about how the pandemic was going to affect his reelection campaign and as a result he tried various PR approaches, from denying it was happening to demanding that we stop testing because it was making "his numbers" look bad to declaring that less than a hundred thousand deaths from the virus would be a big win. (The American death toll stands at well over a million.) One of the more inane attempts to shape the narrative was when he tried to adopt the mantle of "wartime president" to rally the country around the commander-in-chief and send him to a second term by acclamation. As Bob Cesca wrote for Salon at the time:

Someone even wrote some inspiring words for Trump to say about it:

Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. ... Now it's our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. It's the invisible enemy. That's always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy.

No one bought that line because it was clear that he was in over his head. Once Trump made the most infamous gaffe of his presidency — suggesting to scientists that perhaps humans could inject or ingest disinfectant to kill the virus — he stopped appearing at the daily White House briefing. But despite the fact that he loves to fatuously portray himself as the "peace president," he clearly liked the idea of being a wartime leader and thought it would be useful to his campaign. The only war he's ever been interested in waging, however, is the culture war.

At the height of the pandemic, Trump launched an all out attack on former president Barack Obama with a convoluted conspiracy theory he called "Obamagate" (original as always). It had something to do with the Russia investigation, which nobody could ever figure out. Trump demanded that Obama be jailed for his alleged crimes. He even had his attorney general, Bill Barr, assign U.S. Attorney John Bash to look into the matter. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., agreed to hold hearings on the Senate Judiciary Committee, although he didn't follow Trump's orders to subpoena Obama to appear. Nothing ever came of it because it was nonsense but it did distract for a time from Trump's miserable failure to lead the country through the pandemic.

Recall that he also launched a series of assaults on blue states demanding that governors would have to "negotiate" for aid by giving up sanctuary cities. As I wrote at the time:

He and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even cooked up a plan to deny pandemic aid to liberal-leaning states, literally calling it "No Blue State Bailouts." Republican governors are now following his lead and doing the same with the Democratic mayors of major cities. After years and years of bellowing about "local control," they are now overruling mayors' stay-at-home orders in an effort to force people back to work.

This wasn't entirely new. He'd been hostile to sending aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and California for its devastating wildfires, but he really cranked it up in advance of his re-election effort in 2020. Essentially, Trump declared war on his political opponents in 2020. It wasn't successful for him at the time but that's not stopping him from giving it another go — and this time it's scorched earth.

Over the weekend, Trump shared a video by Tom Klingenstein, a very wealthy financier and the chairman of the conservative Claremont Institute. In 2021, Klingenstein took up the banner when Trump went into exile at Mar-a-Lago and started a SuperPac to fight what he calls the “Woke regime.” He characterizes it as a cold civil war in which the so-called woke regime is winning because the right is too afraid to fight....>

<....Until now, his work has mostly been focused on the idea itself but now he's taken it to a new level, presenting Donald Trump as the only man who can lead us with a piece he calls "Trump's Virtues." The former president shared it on Truth Social to a rapturous reception. Leni Riefenstahl wouldn't be impressed with the aesthetics but her subject would certainly admire the message. Here is a small sample:

We shouldn’t much care whether our commander-in-chief is a real conservative, whether he is a role model for children or says lots of silly things, or whether he is modest or dignified. What we should care about is whether he knows we are in a war, knows who the enemy is, and knows how to win. Trump does.

His policies are important, but not as important as the rest of him. Trump grasps the essential things. He understands that the group quota regime is evil and will not stop until it destroys America. He is a fighter—bold, brave, and decisive—who has confidence in himself and his country.

His enemies hate him with an indescribable fierceness. “Another Hitler,” they say, “elect him and he will be a dictator.” We should take this hysteria as reason for hope. The America-haters rightly fear that he and his party are on the threshold of a successful counterrevolution.

Trump hates his enemies every bit as much as they hate him. His enemies are America’s enemies.

Those enemies are everyone who doesn't support Trump and they must be destroyed.

The man who made that video surely believes all this and Trump's followers appear to love the message and are inspired by it. The rest of us are simply left stunned by the idea that any of this could possibly be defined as "virtuous.">

<The House Judiciary Committee has teed up a high-stakes legal clash with the Justice Department in a lawsuit that could influence congressional oversight authority far beyond the GOP’s impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden, legal experts say.

The committee’s lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month against two Justice Department attorneys asks a federal court to compel the officials to testify about the criminal case against Hunter Biden.

The committee subpoenaed the two officials for depositions, but DOJ directed the attorneys to defy the subpoenas because agency counsel would not be allowed to attend under House rules, according to the lawsuit.

Legal experts say the case raises key separation-of-power issues and asks the federal courts to settle them — but that’s only if a judge issues a decision before the two sides can come to an agreement.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, during a status conference on the case Friday, ordered both sides to meet this week to try to come to an agreement. Reyes railed against arguments from the Justice Department and House general counsel’s office, telling them this is a “bad, bad case” for both of them.

Reyes delivered a drubbing at the conference: She implied the lawsuit was not a good use of taxpayer dollars, argued that taxpayers did not want to pay for a “grudge match” between the executive and legislature, questioned the practicality of the case given the timeline for any appeal and warned both sides they would face a tough time justifying their positions to her if the case continues forward.

Reyes told House General Counsel Matthew Berry that the lawsuit’s circumstances — trying to depose two line attorneys, at the core of attorney-client privilege in the case, about an ongoing investigation — is not a good way to make case law under the powers of the House.

“You know that. You know that. And even if somehow you get the decision that you want, it’s not going to come for a very, very long time,” Reyes said.

Reyes delivered withering rebukes against the Justice Department, saying the agency is openly disregarding the subpoenas. She also alluded to the DOJ prosecution of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was sentenced to prison for not complying with subpoenas from the House select panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” she said.

“And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas willy-nilly” because the agency just does not want to show up, she said. “I’m trying to understand what the reasoning is for that.”

Reyes said she imagines there are defense attorneys across the nation who would be happy to hear of a Justice Department position that allows people to blow off a subpoena if they disagree with it.

Long-term implications

Congress and executive agencies can often work out their disputes without going to court, experts say, particularly because both sides take a risk if a court decides the case against their interests.

David Rybicki, a partner at K&L Gates, said cases like this raise major separation-of-power questions that could have long-term implications for both the scope of Congress’ investigative authority and the ability of the executive branch to protect its prerogatives.

“Both Congress and the DOJ potentially have a lot to lose in a court fight,” he said, likening litigation to a “game of chicken.”

“The agencies have an incentive to work this out in an amicable fashion without resorting to the intervention of the courts because of the wildcard nature of a lawsuit,” Rybicki said.

The House Judiciary panel is seeking the testimony of the two officials, Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, who the lawsuit states have firsthand knowledge of irregularities in the agency’s investigation that “appear to have benefited Hunter Biden.”

The department concluded the subpoenas are “invalid” and lack “legal effect” due to the exclusion of agency counsel, according to letters sent to the officials’ attorneys.

“It therefore cannot constitutionally be enforced by civil or criminal means or through any inherent contempt power of Congress,” the letters state.

Going to court to enforce a congressional subpoena raises many questions that have not been resolved by the courts, said Will Havemann, an attorney at Hogan Lovells and a former associate general counsel for the House.

<As long as your phone is on, it’s sharing data. This happens whether you have an iPhone or Android, but one company is tracking much more than the other.

Advertisers are notorious for watching what you do and where you go online. That’s valuable and very profitable information. Here’s one way to stop some of the spying.

The bad kind of cookies

Think of cookies as the trail you leave behind when online. A first-party cookie is created and stored in your browser when you visit a website. It keeps things like your login info and shopping cart, so you don’t have to fill them in again each time. First-party cookies also preserve options and settings.

That’s useful, but cookies can be invasive, too. Companies use them to track where you go and what you do online. They’ll even do it on a website other than the one you’re visiting. Advertisers love cookies because they help customize the ads you see. If the ads appeal to you, you’re more likely to click them, which yields a higher ROI.

Pro tip: You can block third-party cookies and other invasive tools through your browser. The level of protection varies, but it’s worth the time to change your default settings. Tap or click here for tips on changing your privacy settings in some of the most popular browsers.

Blocking third-party cookies and tracking is one thing, but how about not being subjected to tracking methods to begin with? That’s where AdChoices and WebChoices come in.

Banish tracking cookies from your browser

AdChoices is a program from the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a group of advertising and marketing companies that self-regulate to offer you choices for targeted advertising. Why would they self-regulate? So, no one else steps in to do it, of course.

Try it out next time you see an ad online. Look for the small AdChoices icon. It looks like a blue triangle with a lowercase “i” in the middle.

Click that to get information about the ad, change its settings and block it. Not all advertisers participate in the program, but you’ll know it when you see the symbol.

Go further: Delete this secret ID hiding on your phone that gives away your personal details

Within AdChoices is a tool called WebChoices. You can use this tool to opt out of many companies in one step. As with AdChoices, it only works for companies that participate in the program.

Get this: I used it to kick out 144 different tracking cookies!

Here’s how to use WebChoices:

Go to https://optout.aboutads.info. WebChoices will scan your browser and computer to determine whether first-party and third-party cookies are enabled, along with a list of companies creating targeted ads for you. You’ll also see which companies you have already opted out of if you’ve used the tool.

After the status check is complete, click Continue.

Look at the Customizing Ads on your Browser column to see which companies use targeted ads. If it says Yes, you can opt out of that company by checking the box under the Opt-Out column.

Or you can select everything by clicking Opt Out of All.

After making your selection, click Submit Your Choices. (You can skip those steps by clicking Opt Out Of All as a first step.)

The website will process your selection, and you can click View Updated Results to see how it turned out.

The WebChoices tool works for the browser you’re currently using, so run it for each if you use more than one. If you didn’t catch every company the first time, try rerunning the scan.

If you delete cookies, you may not see the opt-out choices for the company, so run the scan now and then.>

Now to find a way to purge the vermin that stalk hereabout....

<House Republicans will bring their case against Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate this week, two months after impeaching the Homeland Security secretary. It will be thethirdtime in five years that senators are sworn in as jurors in the court of impeachment.

The Republican-controlled House impeached Mayorkas by a single vote margin on Feb. 13, recommending that Mayorkas be removed from office over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. With two articles of impeachment, the House charges that Mayorkas has “willfully and systematically” refused to enforce existing immigration laws and breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure.

After holding back for several weeks, House Speaker Mike Johnson said at the end of March that he would send the two articles to the Senate on April 10. Unlike former President Donald Trump’s two impeachment trials in 2020 and 2021, though, the Senate isn’t expected to spend much time considering the charges. Democrats who hold the Senate majority appear to have the votes to immediately dismiss the trial, though Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hasn’t yet said what he plans to do.

Democrats say the charges against Mayorkas amount to a policy dispute, not the “high crimes and misdemeanors” laid out as a bar for impeachment in the Constitution.

Johnson and Senate Republicans are pushing Schumer to hold a full trial. “If he cares about the Constitution and ending the devastation caused by Biden’s border catastrophe, Senator Schumer will quickly schedule a full public trial and hear the arguments put forth by our impeachment managers,” Johnson said in a statement.

The House’s 214-213 impeachment vote in February, a narrowly successful second try after the House had rejected the effort a week earlier, was the first time in nearly 150 years a Cabinet secretary had been impeached. And while the Senate is now obligated to consider the charges, two-thirds of the chamber would have to vote to convict him. Not a single Democrat has signaled support for the impeachment push.

Still, there is a process that senators have to follow under the rules for impeachment. A look at the Senate’s next steps:

CONVENING AN IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

Under impeachment rules, a group of House managers — members who act as prosecutors and are appointed by the speaker — will deliver the impeachment charges by reading the articles on the Senate floor, usually after making a ceremonial walk across the Capitol with the articles in hand. Johnson has said that will happen on Wednesday.

Senators are expected to be sworn in as jurors on Thursday, Schumer said in a letter to his colleagues on Friday. The Senate must then issue a summons to Mayorkas to inform him of the charges and ask for a written answer. But he would not have to appear in the Senate at any point.

The president pro tempore of the Senate, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, will preside. She holds that role as the most senior member of the majority party.

What happens after the Senate jurors are sworn in is less clear. The rules generally allow the Senate to decide how to proceed.

VOTING TO DISMISS THE CHARGES

If Schumer can muster a simple majority, Democrats could dismiss the trial outright or move to table the two impeachment articles, ending the House’s effort and allowing the Senate to move on to other business.

While Schumer hasn’t yet revealed his plans, he is expected to try and dismiss the trial in some manner, if he has the votes. Democrats control the Senate, 51-49.

Getting to 51 votes would require every single Democrat and the chamber’s three Independents to vote to dismiss, or potentially fewer if any Republicans join them. So far, no Democrats or Independents have expressed support for moving ahead with an impeachment trial.

In his letter to colleagues Friday, Schumer told senators that their presence is “essential” when they will be sworn in as jurors Thursday — hinting that there may be a close vote held that day.

While several GOP senators have questioned the need for a trial, it’s unclear whether any of them would go as far as to vote to dismiss the charges right at the start. One possibility is Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who said earlier this year that he would be inclined to vote with Democrats if they hold a vote to dismiss.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted last week at an event in his home state of Kentucky that Schumer will file a motion to dismiss or table the charges.

“The Democrats have the majority so it may not go on very long,” McConnell said. “My preference would be to actually have a trial but I think the majority’s likely to prevent that.”...>

<....REFERRING TO COMMITTEE

If Democrats are not able to dismiss the trial or table the articles, there is a second option: They could follow the precedent of several impeachment trials for federal judges over the last century and hold a vote to create a trial committee that would investigate the charges.

While there are no hard rules on how to form a trial committee, the Senate has previously passed a resolution authorizing the party leaders to each recommend six senators and a chairperson to run it. Those committees had the ability to call witnesses and issue final reports to the Senate ahead of eventual trials.

While there is sufficient precedent for this approach, Democrats are likely to try and avoid it if they can halt the process completely, especially in a presidential election year where immigration and border security are top issues.

Echoing Trump’s defense during his impeachments, Schumer has called the House effort a “sham.”

“House Republicans failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime,” Schumer said shortly after the House voted to impeach him. “House Republicans failed to show he has violated the Constitution. House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense.”

MOVING TO A TRIAL

If the Senate were to proceed to a trial, senators would be forced to sit in their seats for the duration, maybe weeks, while the House impeachment managers and lawyers representing Mayorkas make their cases. The Senate is allowed to call witnesses, as well, if it so decides. Senators also have an opportunity to question the two sides before a final vote on whether to convict.

In a February letter led by Utah Sen. Mike Lee, 13 Senate Republicans argued that a trial is necessary, writing that Democrats should not be able to “shirk their Constitutional duty.”

At a briefing with reporters on Friday, Mayorkas appeared unconcerned.

“When I say that I am not focused on the impeachment proceedings, I actually mean it,” Mayorkas said. “It is my hope that my time is not taken away from my work.”

Underscoring that stance, Mayorkas will be at a Senate committee on Wednesday to testify about his department’s budget proposal.>

As we edge ever nearer to that dragon so feared by <coprophagicfred>, of 60,000 posts.

He and the <Budapest tosspot> can get shtupped.