<<The AZ State Senators who demanded the count didn't actually take any practical steps to make it happen. When they finally got around to reserving the Madhouse on McDowell (Veterans Memorial Coliseum, owned by the state), they didn't reserve it for a period long enough to actually do a compete recount. The Phoenix School District graduation ceremonies have put a 20-day hard stop date on the process, and there is literally no way for the "audit" process to finish within that 20-day graduation window.

The state owns the Madhouse, so while they don't have to pay any rent, they do have to fully operate the place to the tune of $1,000 a day to start, but not actually ever finish, the process.

The charlatans that the Senate hired, "Cybers Ninjas", are a group of Trump loyalists with no particular, evident expertise in ballot audits. They have excellent skills in latching onto the government teat and extracting taxpayer dollars, however. Also, they are subject matter experts in making assertions about how the process will work, who will participate, etc. and then immediately violating the assertions and making exceptions to the stated controls.

The Senate took custody of the ballots, but then didn't have the knowledge or ability to maintain ballot security or integrity once they had custody. Then the Cyber Ninjas took custody, and news reports indicate that they lost control of the container sequence, so they may not actually know what ballots are in what boxes at this point.

<....The Senate hired Cyber Ninjas without a contractual payment amount. Most estimates are that the state will end up paying Cyber Ninjas $3 million for the work this month. Maybe Cyber Ninjas will get more time on the government teat later, too, after the graduation exercises! Cyber Ninjas had trouble staffing their project, so news reporters volunteered to staff the audit, as Cyber Ninjas had prevented news institutions from entry. It didn't take long for Cyber Ninjas to start ejecting reporters working as staff, because the reporters reported on how disorganized and confused the process was.

Cyber Ninjas filed an audit process document with the courts, detailing how they would perform their ballot audits. Unfortunately they don't seem to have read any of the Arizona state regulations for performing a ballot audit, so their process isn't actually permitted. Cyber Ninjas originally asked for the Maricopa County Election officials help, and Elections officials, in a spirit of Republican solidarity, told them to go read the law and also jump off a cliff. In addition, Elections officials told Cyber Ninjas that any future communications would have to go through the Maricopa County Attorney, who is a Republican, and who seems to have made it her personal goal to crap on Cyber Ninjas. Furthermore, the cameras on the floor reveal that they are not following the Arizona regulations OR their own documented process. Also, the proposed plan can't be completed prior to graduation, even by Cyber Ninjas own optimistic procedures filed with the court.

Cyber Ninjas set up live camera feeds of the Madhouse count, but failed to take any steps to maintain voter privacy. So ballot information was on display on some camera feeds, and confusion, indolence, and general lack of effort was on display in other feeds. So basically an extension of the Trump administration writ small.

Cyber Ninjas then had on their staff a guy who was part of the January 6 insurrection. Nice. Cyber Ninjas' procedures have no plans for bipartisan observers, which might have made it possible for them to get enough audit staff without resorting to using news reporters. So basically they made their own sharp stick and jumped immediately onto it.

One part of the Cyber Ninjas plan was to verify voters by going out and knocking on doors to ensure that the voter on the ballot was in fact registered to vote, lived in Maricopa County, and was an American citizen. Reports state that Cyber Ninja staff assigned to this task didn't show up on on several days, which shouldn't be a surprise, as I can't think of a better way of learning whether or not a homeowner is armed and insulted than by knocking on his or her door and asking those specific questions. A Phoenix fireman I know, a Trump guy, mentioned that there was already one such confrontation. I just laughed when I heard this.

The plan to go out and canvas voters also violates the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prevents voter intimidation, and it also calls into question the existing process Maricopa County has to update and refresh voter rolls, linked to such activities as Motor Voter, Obituary Tracking, etc. Unsurprisingly, insulted attorneys for the state and county are gearing up to sue over this, and various political organizations, ranging from La Raza to the Libertarian Party, also expressed plans to sue Cyber Ninjas on this one. Only a company from Florida (Dumbest State in the Union, TM) could be so ignorant of Arizona history to think that this was a good idea. Maybe they will also announce plans to sink some unlicensed ground water wells to really stir up a stink.

<Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone blasts Arizona Senate's election audit demand as a risk to law enforcement

Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone called the Arizona Senate's demands for its audit of Maricopa County's presidential election "mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible."

Penzone said the law enforcement agency would be at risk if the county turned over the state Senate's intensified demand for certain routers, or digital copies of the routers. The Senate also is demanding certain administrative passwords to voting machines that county officials say they do not have.

Providing the routers could compromise confidential, sensitive and highly classified law enforcement data and equipment, he said in a statement on Friday.

"The Senate Republican Caucus’ audit of the Maricopa County votes from last November’s election has no stopping point. Now, its most recent demands jeopardize the entire mission of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office," Penzone's statement said.

The county has provided all 2.1 million voter general election ballots, voter information and election equipment in response to state Senate subpoenas. The Senate gave the election materials to private contractors, which allowed the audit and recount to get underway at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix on April 23.

But the county did not deliver certain routers that the state Senate has demanded.

County Attorney Allister Adel explained in a letter to state Senate liaison Ken Bennett earlier this week that turning over the routers or “virtual images” of routers, poses a significant security risk to Sheriff’s Office law enforcement data, and “puts sensitive, confidential data belonging to Maricopa County’s citizens — including social security numbers and protected health information — at risk as well.”

“We also learned that if criminal elements or others gained access to this data, it might compromise county and federal law enforcement efforts and put the lives of law enforcement personnel at risk," Adel wrote.

SENATE RESPONDS TO DOJ: Auditors won't knock on voters' doors in Arizona election review

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors met Friday in a closed-door session to discuss the issue, saying in the meeting agenda that the state Senate had indicated it would "take action" against the county and supervisors if the county doesn't provide the routers and passwords.

After discussing the issue, Republican Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers released a statement saying that the county could not provide the routers because of the security concerns, but also because doing so will "cripple County operations and cost as much as $6 million" if the county has to replace the routers while the auditors have them.

Penzone: Demand would jeopardize law enforcement

Penzone said that no matter what steps a private contractor promises to take, meeting the state Senate's demand could compromise the integrity of classified data, private information and law enforcement materials....>

<.....Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone has raised concerns about the release of county information to the Arizona Senate for its audit of the county's general election.

"Access to this information would adversely affect the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office ability to protect critical evidence, data shared between law enforcement agencies, protected private information and individual passwords, all of which could be used to the detriment of citizens and law enforcement infrastructure," Penzone's statement said.

Penzone, a Democrat re-elected to a second term in November, cautioned of the harm that comes from elected officials driven by partisan politics.

The sheriff said transparency and accountability are democracy's foundation. "But when these words are misrepresented, it defies the fragile balance that exists between freedom and order and all that we believe in."

What AZ Senate Republicans want

It's unclear why the state Senate Republicans want the routers, or which routers exactly they have demanded.

The Senate's second demand is for the passwords to the county's ballot tabulators used on Election Day at voting centers.

The private contractors conducting the audit returned most of the county's machines after pulling data from them, but hung onto the vote center tabulators.

The passwords, according to Bennett, would give the auditors administrative access to voting machines.

But the county says it does not have the administrative passwords.

“The county has provided every password, user name and security key in its custody or control, as commanded by the Senate’s subpoenas, and does not have any others,” Adel wrote in her letter to Bennett.

Sellers said he wouldn't address "every allegation that people cook up these days." But he did, in a lengthy statement on Friday, take up the push for passwords.

The password and security tokens the Senate wants provides access to Dominion Voting Systems' proprietary firmware and source code.

"Elections administrators do not need to access this information to hold an election, and we do not have it in our custody," Sellers said.

Expanded telehealth coverage that began during COVID-19 now permanent in Arizona Advocates, local officials concerned ICE is dropping off migrants at bus stop in Phoenix While critics on social media say the county's lack of access to the passwords means county officials were not able to complete a comprehensive and forensic audit of its voting machines earlier this year, a county elections department spokesperson said that is not true. Megan Gilbertson said that the auditors the county hired worked "directly with Dominion to access the necessary administrative security permissions to conduct their audits."

Bennett told The Arizona Republic that he thought that would allow the auditors to run batch reports on ballots. The auditors could use these reports to compare the vote results of its hand count in smaller groups to the results of the county's original vote count, rather than comparing the overall total results.

But Gilbertson said that the county already has provided the state Senate with the logs the contractors would need to perform searches that would allow them to produce batch reports, and the auditors do not need administrative access for that.

Sellers said in his statement that the state Senate had threatened the supervisors with subpoenas again on Friday and said the Senate would compel them to come to the Senate and "explain what we have already made clear."

Sellers emphasized the county is not participating in the state Senate's audit and that the two independent audits the county commissioned showed no foul play in the general election.

"The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors takes its election oversight role seriously and will continue to defend the democratic process," Sellers said in the statement.>

<The company that operates the biggest gasoline conduit to the East Coast said on Sunday it had no estimate on when it could restart the 5,500-mile pipeline that it shut Friday after a cyberattack, boosting fuel prices in jittery financial markets to their highest level in three years.

Most of the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half of the East Coast's transportation fuel from the hub of refineries near Houston, remains offline for now, the company said in a statement, though it restarted some smaller lines that run off the main arteries.

Any sustained outage could threaten to push up retail gasoline and diesel prices at the pump just weeks before the start of the summer high-demand driving season. Prices for wholesale gasoline in the financial futures market jumped as much as 4 percent in Sunday evening trading to their highest level since 2018, hitting nearly $2.22 per gallon.

Colonial Pipeline said in a statement it would only "bring our full system back online only when we believe it is safe to do so, and in full compliance with the approval of all federal regulations.”

Colonial also confirmed that hackers used ransomware to shut down its internal computer business networks. That prompted the company to shut down the systems that control the pipeline as a precaution, and it has brought in third-party cybersecurity firms and is trying to restore its IT system, the Georgia-based company said.

The White House has so far not publicly commented on the situation, but the Department of Transportation issued waivers on Sunday allowing drivers of fuel trucks in 17 states along the pipeline's route to work beyond the normal 11-hour driving limit per day because of the shutdown.

"It's an all hands on deck effort right now,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said of the government's response during a Sunday television interview. “And we are working closely with the company, state and local officials to, you know, make sure that they get back up to normal operations as quickly as possible and there aren't disruptions in supply."

In its order, DOT said the move was to address "the emergency conditions creating a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products."

The attack that hacker group Darkside landed on Colonial is believed to be the largest publicly disclosed successful attack on U.S. infrastructure. It succeeded in shutting down the delivery of millions of barrels a day of gasoline, diesel and other fuels from refineries along the Gulf Coast to states from Mississippi to New York.

Lawmakers have pointed to the successful cyberattack on one of the country’s main fuel supply arteries as proof both the government and private companies need to significantly improve their cybersecurity measures.>

He is going to throw out a hardcore conservative like Liz Cheney (who voted 92% of the time with Trumpo the Low-nificent) out of leadership for Trump ass-kisser Elisa Slotkin?

I do not have to agree with Cheney's views--and on the whole, do not--but she is someone who possesses courage and principle, so has positive traits, whatever letter comes after her name.

<<American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten turned an already testy Fox News interview into an extremely heated affair on Monday when she pressed anchor Martha MacCallum about conservative “misinformation” on the last presidential election.

In recent months, there has been a sustained backlash among conservatives over the issue of racial equity in the classroom. GOP legislators across the country have proposed bills to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” in K-12 schools, all while demanding that students be taught that 1776 represents the true founding of America. (Much of this is in response to the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which has sparked criticism among some historians.)

MacCallum, who has been obsessed lately with the topic of critical race theory, wanted to know whether Weingarten believes the 1619 Project is factual and whether she endorses it being part of American history lesson plans. After Weingarten said it’s a “point in history” that’s worth teaching because it represents the first slave ships arriving in America, MacCallum criticized her for having a “very simplistic take.”

Going back and forth over the merits of the project with Weingarten, MacCallum complained that it “is not factual” as it teaches students that the “country was founded on the basis of wanting to preserve slavery.” The union head, meanwhile, said she’s “not arrived at the same conclusion” about the project’s findings.

At that point, Weingarten decided to change the subject to something a bit more touchy for the Fox News anchor.

“I would hope that Fox would be just as focused on let’s get rid of the misinformation about what happened in this election. This election was free and fair,” Weingarten flatly stated, prompting an incensed MacCallum to interject.

“Oh, come on, Randi,” she exclaimed. “This is not the topic we’re here to talk about! I’m not going to talk about that. We’ve talked about that before… That’s a dodge, okay?!”

MacCallum then tried to swing back the discussion to critical race theory in the classroom, only for Weingarten to eventually return to the issue of the past election—which former President Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed was “stolen” due to widespread voter fraud.

“If you’re talking about misinformation now, Martha and I hope you are, I really would hope that Fox would really look at what happened in this election and how we can—because every social studies teacher is wrestling with this—to discern fact from fiction. We have to do that,” Weingarten said as MacCallum loudly sighed.

“Yeah, we have a president, President Biden, was elected in 2020. I think that all of that is quite clear,” MacCallum replied. “So I’m not sure why you are so concerned with that part, with that particular moment in history. Every election is significant. Nobody is hiding anything under any rocks here.”

Even though MacCallum insists it’s “quite clear” that Biden is the president, and she doesn’t know why anyone would be “concerned with that part,” recent polls still show as many as 70 percent of Republicans believe Biden didn’t legitimately win. In fact, House Republicans are currently set to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from leadership solely because she has pushed back on the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from Trump.

Fox News, of course, has played a big part in helping sow those seeds of doubt among conservatives, which is largely why they are currently facing billion-dollar defamation lawsuits from voting software firms Dominion and Smartmatic.

<Federal authorities probing Rep. Matt Gaetz are attempting to turn one of his former girlfriends against him, as investigators seek to secure the cooperation of a former Capitol Hill intern who previously dated the Republican lawmaker, CNN reported Tuesday morning.

According to the report, investigators believe the unidentified girlfriend accompanied Gaetz and several others on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas that stands at the center of the probe into whether the Florida congressman violated federal sex trafficking laws and had sex with a minor. The probe has focused on whether women were paid to travel and have sex with Gaetz and his cohorts in the Bahamas and whether the purpose of the trip was to illegally influence the congressman. The former girlfriend—who did not work in Gaetz’s office in Washington—is believed to have “knowledge of drug use and arrangements with women,” several people said to be familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The report comes as former Florida tax collector and Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg has pleaded not guilty to 33 criminal charges that include counts of sex trafficking of a child, wire fraud, and conspiracy to bribe a government official. Greenberg is expected to formally enter into a plea deal to cooperate with authorities. Greenberg’s attorney last month insinuated that if his client were to reach an agreement with prosecutors it could involve providing some kind of damaging information about Gaetz.

Sources familiar with the investigation told CNN that information about the Bahamas trip from Greenberg and Gaetz’s former girlfriend will likely be critical as the Justice Department’s public integrity section reaches a decision about whether there is sufficient evidence to pursue a prosecution against Gaetz.

“The cooperation of Greenberg and the former girlfriend could be among the final steps in the probe of Gaetz. Investigators view both as crucial to understanding the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving payments for sex,” the report stated. “The ex-girlfriend could also be questioned by investigators about a second woman as they try to determine whether Gaetz may have slept with that woman when she was only 17.”

Authorities previously executed search warrants and seized the personal cell phones of Gaetz and his former girlfriend in December.

Gaetz, who has not been charged in the matter, has denied wrongdoing, denied seeking a pardon from Trump, claimed he is the victim of an extortion plot, and blamed Attorney General Merrick Garland for an investigation that began when Bill Barr served in that role. Gaetz said he has never paid for sex and he claimed that the last time he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old was when he was 17. He also set his Venmo transaction history to private.

A Gaetz spokesperson told CNN that its “story” was “simply a regurgitation of the same falsehoods you’ve been peddling for two months now without a shred of evidence or a single on-record accuser.”>

<If House Republicans vote to purge Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney as their third-ranking leader in a secret ballot vote Wednesday, it will cement their commitment to the political legacy of former President Donald Trump.

That vote to take away Cheney's leadership role seems likely, but there has been a last-minute push by Republican senators and conservatives in the House that could mean surprises.

As this drama unfolds, it's worth looking back at what exactly Cheney -- the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney -- did to spark the campaign to oust her, and why it seems so likely to cost her this job.

What did Liz Cheney do?

The acts for which Cheney is being threatened with removal from the Republican leadership are twofold.

First, she voted to impeach Trump. Along with nine other House Republicans, Cheney sided with Democrats and voted to impeach Trump earlier this year after he fomented the storming of the Capitol and rebellion against the Electoral College.

She said he, "summoned this mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack."

"There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said.

But Cheney was the only member of the House GOP leadership to vote for impeachment. This in itself was not enough to cost her the leadership position. In the shocked aftermath of the storming of the Capitol she maintained the support of House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy, and easily survived an earlier secret ballot effort to oust her.

Second, she wouldn't be quiet about it. Rather than show penance for her vote, and unlike other GOP leaders in Congress, Cheney has refused to either buy into the false reality that the election was stolen from Trump or quietly tolerate it.

When Trump pushed it again this month, she called him out

"The 2020 presidential election was not stolen," Cheney tweeted in early May after Trump said it was. "Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system."

What's clear from this episode is that critical thinking -- and criticism of Trump -- will not be tolerated in the GOP.

Why do Republicans want to oust her from the leadership role?

It was for this continued airing of differences that McCarthy turned on Cheney, either leading or following the rest of the caucus.

He has endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New Yorker who is more moderate on policy as Republicans go but has solidified her bona fides by aiding and abetting Trump's conspiracy theories.

On the one hand, this makes complete sense. If the vast majority of the party is either pushing or willing to tolerate the false idea that the election was stolen from Trump, despite all the evidence to the contrary, their leaders should share those views....>

<....McCarthy argues that members can have whatever views they want and their constituents will tolerate. But Cheney's leadership job requires her to unite the party against Democrats.

"Any member can take whatever position they believe in," McCarthy told Fox News over the weekend. "The voters vote on the individuals and they make that. What we're talking about is a position in leadership."

And the party leaders need to be united against Democrats, he said, arguing the other party has a socialist agenda for the country.

What does the party conference chair do?

The way it's supposed to work is that the House GOP Conference chair "generally communicates the House Republican message to the public," according to the House GOP website.

And specifically on this, Cheney's message is out of step with a party that is in Trump's thrall.

Cheney has continued to communicate, factually, that fraud did not cost Trump the election, and that it's more important for Republicans to stick by their commitment to the Constitution rather than the appeal of Trump.

"History is watching," she wrote in The Washington Post. "Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be."

Will a vote to remove Cheney from that role mean she gets kicked out of Congress?

It's important to note here that Cheney will still be a Republican and will still be in Congress whatever happens on Wednesday. House Republicans, to McCarthy's point, are respectful of the fact that Wyoming's voters elected Cheney as their representative. They'll get the chance to elect Cheney or someone else in 2022 at the midterm election. It seems likely that Cheney will face a primary challenge if she decides to run again. Read more here about the view from Wyoming, where a lot of Republicans seem to believe Trump won the election.

The vote to kick Cheney out of the House leadership will likely occur Wednesday, and it is expected that North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx will start the process during a closed-door meeting. Republicans may not move to vote on replacing Cheney, either with Stefanik or someone else, for another week or more.

And what comes next for Republicans?

There are many current and former Republicans concerned about the direction the party is taking.

There are former party leaders, like George W. Bush. There are moderates, like former Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, now a CNN contributor. There are former governors like Ohio's John Kasich. There are Republicans who self-purged themselves from the party, like former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash -- who became an independent before leaving Congress altogether -- and Republicans who were more forcefully purged like former Sen. Jeff Flake.

John Boehner, the former House Speaker, has written about his difficulty leading a party that is increasingly anti-establishment.

But it is his often-repeated quip about leadership that explains Cheney's problem with the current GOP.

"A leader with no followers is just a guy taking a walk," he says, explaining how he'd be forced into positions he didn't like in order to keep the party unified.

In this case, it's a woman, Cheney, who is refusing to walk away from the Constitution. We'll see how many followers she has in the current House GOP.>

<In a single sentence on Monday night, Mitt Romney explained why the planned removal of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the House on Wednesday is such a giant mistake for Republicans.

"Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won't gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few," tweeted the Utah senator (and 2012 Republican presidential nominee).

Yup. Nailed it.

Here is the political reality that Republicans currently face: They don't control the White House, the Senate or the House. They have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential races. Republicans face their largest deficit on the party identification question in almost a decade. And the man who oversaw these losses -- Donald J. Trump -- is deeply unpopular among the general electorate.

It doesn't take a political genius to figure out that the Republican Party needs to grow, considerably, if it wants to return to the once-dominant position it held in the early 2000s.

"Cancel culture is cancel culture, no matter how you look at it," said Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst about the effort to remove Cheney. "I support President Trump and his policies, so I have a slightly different view on that -- but I still think we shouldn't be trying to cancel voices."

The die is, of course, cast. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California) has not only signaled his plan to hold a removal vote to oust Cheney as GOP Conference Chair on Wednesday but has also signaled his support for New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to replace her.

And amazingly, he has justified his actions by referencing the idea of the GOP as a "big tent party." He included that phrase in a letter to GOP members justifying his plans. He added in that same letter:

"We represent Americans of all backgrounds and continue to grow our movement by the day. And unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate. All members are elected to represent their constituents as they see fit, but our leadership team cannot afford to be distracted by the important work we were elected to do and the shared goals we hope to achieve."

Now, to be clear, I don't think that the average American is watching the machinations of House Republican leaders. Despite Cheney's famous last name -- her father was the vice president of the United States during the George W. Bush presidency -- most people in the country are simply not focused on whether she remains in leadership or not.

"I was in Nebraska all last week and not one Nebraskan asked me about Liz Cheney," Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer said Monday. "I think you guys are focused on this intra-party fighting." Added Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who runs the party's campaign committee: "No one is talking about this."

Which, again, is probably right! But also sort of misses the point.

The point is this: Actions have consequences. And removing Cheney from leadership solely because she voted to impeach Trump and believes he should not play a major role in the party going forward sends a message. And replacing her with Stefanik, who has become a national star on the back of her full-throated defense of Trump during both impeachment proceedings against him, sends that same message.

The message? This is Trump's party and anyone -- ANYONE -- who doesn't get in line behind him at all times no matter what will be severely punished. (That get-in-line mentality extends all the way to insisting -- against all objective facts -- that the 2020 election was fraudulent or stolen.)

The inevitable result then of the purging of any and all anti-Trump voices within the party leadership will be to chill ANY dissent, unless, like Cheney, those speaking up are willing to lose leadership positions (or their political careers) for doing so.

All of which means that the Republican Party will grow even Trumpier. And that's a major problem for Republicans because there simply aren't enough Americans who love (or even like) Trump for Republicans to grow their party via total fealty to the former president.

The removal of Cheney is a recipe to shrink a party that badly needs to grow. Romney understands that -- having come up short in his fight for the White House.

Republicans would do well to listen to him. But they won't.>

He is absolutely right.

So Trump can go lick a crapstick.

These Trumpian wingnuts accepting a charlatan like Trump (after his four year clownshow) are way beyond shameful.

These Trumpian morons must have lost all common sense if they are ready to disregard all truth and fact for someone like him.

<'Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.'>

Response from Mr Class himself, the former Tinpot Despot:

<'Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country.'>

<The New York state attorney general’s office has told the Trump Organization that its investigation of the company is now a criminal probe, not purely civil.

Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, has also been investigating the business run by former president Donald Trump for more than two years.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” spokesman Fabien Levy said in a statement for New York state attorney general, Letitia James. “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” he said.

The Trump Organization could not immediately be reached for comment.

Vance’s office has said in court filings it was investigating “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct” at the former president’s Trump Organization, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records.

Vance’s probe began after Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid hush money to silence two women before the 2016 election about claimed sexual encounters with Trump.

That probe has accelerated since Republican Trump lost his bid for a second term to president Joe Biden, a Democrat.

James, who like Vance is a Democrat, is leading a separate criminal probe into whether Trump’s company falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.>

<President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence could single-handedly reject certain electors during Congress' Electoral College certification process, turning up the pressure on him to help overturn the results of the election.

"The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors," Trump tweeted.

This is false.

Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, is scheduled to preside over Congress' certification of the results Wednesday, as detailed by the 12th Amendment. But he can't intervene in the process.

The law governing the certification process, the Electoral Count Act of 1887, specifically limits the power of the president of the Senate precisely because a president of the Senate had intervened in the count previously. In 1857, after James Buchanan's win, the Senate president overruled an objection against Wisconsin electors who had been delayed in their certification process by a snowstorm in 1856.

"One of the points of the Electoral Count Act is to constrain the vice president given this earlier episode and make it clear that he's a presider, not a decider," said former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center.

The Electoral Count Act, Potter said, offers a detailed playbook for how Congress' counting is supposed to go, and it specifically limits the vice president to ceremonial duties.

"It says the vice president shall preside and he shall ensure that the certifications and votes from the states are opened and read out," Potter said.

Trump and his supporters have spent months trying to cast doubt on and overturn the results of the election. Biden, who won the Electoral College vote by 306-232, will be sworn in as the 46th president on Jan. 20.

Trump's campaign and supporters have filed dozens of suits, only to be swatted down for lack of evidence or standing.

A federal district court in Washington recently ruled against a last-ditch effort suit by Trump supporters against Pence, Congress and the Electoral College that sought to stop the certification of Biden's win.

The plaintiffs' theory "lies somewhere between a willful misreading of the Constitution and fantasy," a judge ruled Monday, denying the motion.

Trump has also rallied Republican members to object to the certification in Congress even though the effort is certainly doomed to fail — both chambers must agree to toss out a state's slate of electors, and Democrats control the House.

Potter said that if Pence did try to disregard the law and intervene, he'd have to argue that the Electoral College Act was unconstitutional in some way.

"Which any historian would tell you is nuts," Potter said. "No one ever intended the vice president to be the kingmaker.">

We all have to meet our maker at some point.

<You may recall that in the wake of Former FBI Director James Comey's firing in May of 2017, we got the first real reporting that clearly illustrated Donald Trump's authoritarian impulses as president. It was revealed that Trump went way beyond simply asking the then FBI director to go easy on his buddy Michael Flynn, which was bad enough. In Comey's meticulously detailed memorialization of that famous meeting alone with the new president, he claimed Trump told him he wanted him to jail reporters for publishing classified information. Considering the context for that meeting, it's pretty clear that Trump was referring to journalists who had published the information about Flynn conversing with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. during the transition and lying about it to the FBI. Turns out that was hardly the last time Trump instructed his henchmen to go after journalists and their source.

Trump, along with the right's media apparatus, kept up the drumbeat against leaks, tweeting furiously on the subject for months after that, finally turning his sites on then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was already in the doghouse for following rules that required him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Trump told the Wall Street Journal:

I'm very disappointed in the fact that the Justice Department has not gone after the leakers. And they're the ones that have the great power to go after the leakers, you understand … and I'm very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.

The Trump administration was the leakiest administration in history. From beginning to end, the people in Trump's orbit provided journalists with more copy than they could find time to publish. And according to many accounts, Trump was one of the top leakers himself, often ringing up his own favorite conduits on background. Yet he never stopped railing against leaks he felt were damaging and, as we know, his growing hostility towards the press became one of his most powerful organizing tools.

Sessions dutifully declared war on leakers and had the DOJ follow up on every referral — and there were many. He managed to put some leakers in jail including some who were tangentially involved in the Russia probe. But he never followed through on Trump's order to go after the press, at least not to his satisfaction, no doubt adding to Trump's loathing of him.

His successor Bill Barr, however, seems to have taken the task much more seriously.

Just in the last month, we've learned of some very serious encroachments on the First Amendment during Barr's tenure. I just wrote about the new reports of the nefarious abuse of the Justice Department to track down an anonymous Twitter user who mocked one of Trump's closest toadies in Congress, California Rep. Devin Nunes. And earlier this month we found out that in 2020, the Trump administration sought the 2017 communications records of three Washington Post journalists who had been covering the Trump Russia story and were responsible for the reporting on the Flynn-Kislyak calls. Most recently, CNN reported late Thursday that the DOJ informed the cable news network that last year federal prosecutors had also sought the records of CNN's longtime Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr.

One would assume that if Sessions had thought these records were necessary to track down leakers, he would have subpoenaed them at the time. The rules for a zealous attorney general signing off on such requests are not particularly onerous and Sessions' avowed mission to destroy the "culture of leaking" would have given him ample excuse to do it.

Basically, in order to at least attempt to abide by the First Amendment, the rules required that prosecutors use all other investigative methods before they take this step, that in most cases they alert the news organizations before they issue the subpoena, or in cases with national security concerns, they inform the individual journalists within 90 days of the subpoena being issued. And, of course, they have to deal with the various communications entities, phone companies, email platforms etc. many of which would have privacy concerns of their own.

These rules had been in place since the Clinton administration but after Sessions left, right wing journalist John Solomon reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein set about reworking them in order to make it easier for prosecutors to obtain journalists' records and discard the requirement that the DOJ alert a media organization that they are planning to issue a subpoena. He evidently didn't follow through on that. (It's unclear why but for some informed speculation suggesting there was pushback from Microsoft and the judiciary, read this from national security reporter Marcy Wheeler.)...>

<....The big question in all this is why were they seeking these records in 2020?

The DOJ didn't inform the media organizations or the reporters of their reasons but it seems logical to assume that it was part of Special Prosecutor John Durham's ongoing snipe hunt for the "origins of the Russia investigation." However, the fact that CNN's Starr, who did not cover the Russia investigation, was also subpoenaed suggests that this went way beyond Durham's mandate. If he is looking at leaks about North Korea policy he's way off track. CNN was not informed of when these subpoenas were issued so there is a chance that this happened during Sessions' tenure, but if that's the case, the DOJ completely abandoned the rules that required them to inform the subject within 90 days.

These revelations just keep dribbling out and they suggest that for all their bellowing about "the Deep State," the Trumpers sure took advantage of every lever of institutional, bureaucratic power to achieve their ends.

The current DOJ has apparently told these media organizations that they are willing to sit down and discuss what happened, but they are going to have to do better than that. The credibility of the Justice Department is so threadbare that they need to do a thorough investigation of everything that went on during the Trump era and they must then come clean to the American people. As Salon's Chauncey DeVega wrote a couple of weeks ago, we need a full audit of the whole government for the entire Trump term.

The fact is that the Obama administration was no prize in this department either and we all know what happened during the Bush years. The tension between the free press, the intelligence community and law enforcement will always be there. But in this age of disinformation and rampant propaganda, it has literally never been more important to have a free press than it is now. DOJ should be protecting it not treating it as the enemy.>