The Ol’ Pussy Grabber is singing from the tin-horn dictator hymnal, ain’t he? He is not going to respond to any subpoenas, he will try and block all congressional testimony by WH employees, former employees, and never employees, and he will subvert any and all laws requiring submitting reports of wrongdoing to Congress.
All tin-horn despots know that the first things they gotta do to #bebestest is to de-fang the legislative body and turn it into a rubber stamp, to de-blindfold the courts and get biased judgments, cow the administration departments and turn them into sycophantic submissive mindguards, and to corrupt the military and get self-serving accomplices. He’s made mad progress on every front, progress towards gutting our democracy and filling its hollowed-out carcass with a fascist regime.
The latest installments are concerning the now infamous whistleblower who has blown the whistle on the Ol’ Pussy Grabber making promises to foreign heads of state that are alarming enough that it warranted blowing the whistle to the intelligence community, and that means that it had something to do with national security being compromised.
Intelligence Community Whistleblowers’ Protection Act
The law is clear on how things are supposed to proceed once all the whistles have been blown! Vox explains it all so much better than I can, you should read the article linked at the end of the post. Here’s a brief summary of the what transpired.
- First the complaint is filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. Inspectors general are the folks who are to keep the various government agencies on the straight and narrow. Perhaps you remember hearing about the mean old IG in the Department of Interior who forced that nice Ryan Zinke fella to resign all because he was using department funds to fly himself around the country on vacations and things. Or the down-right evil and contrary IG of the EPA sandbagged the virtuous, hard-working, patriotic, and honest Scott Pruitt with endless investigations into harmless expenditures on furnishings, and remodelings, and travelings, and all kinda other stuff just because the IG hated America for our freedoms.
- Then, the ICIG has 14 whole days and presumably nights to figger out if the complaint is (1) credible and (2) of urgent concern. Well, it seems like this here Ol’ Pussy Grabber hating angry Democrat of an ICIG that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber appointed and the Senate confirmed did find the report credible and urgently concerning because he moved it along to the third step.
- After that, the ICIG hands the complaint off to the Director of National Intelligence — that’s the office that coordinates the activities of our multitudinous intelligence agencies — who then has seven days to give the report to the Gang of Eight. And, this step is where the proverbial wheels were stolen off the proverbial democracy and placed on the train straight to fascism.
The Great Civics Lesson, Part 2
The Great Civics Lesson part 2 is that degree that our democracy is democratic is directly proportional to the functionality of its institutions, agencies, traditions, and norms. Each of the democratic nature of each of those elements is directly related to the democratic nature of the people either occupying the institutions and agencies or living the traditions and norms.
So, when the acting DNI Joseph Maguire elected to disobey the law and NOT send the complaint to Congress, he was not only weakening our democracy and increasing the authoritarianistic nature of our current government, but because it had to do with national security and the Ol’ Pussy Grabber promising to deliver something to a foreign head of state, it probably directly threatens the safety of our country.
When the people who serve in the offices, institutions, and agencies of our government elevate the needs of one person, the executive, over the needs of the country as a whole, up to and including failing to investigate a credible urgent concerning act by the executive, then we are truly living in an autocracy.
When the executive has continuing success in stiff arming, stonewalling, and thwarting the authority of the legislature to exercise oversight and hold the executive accountable, we are living in autocracy.
When the courts defy precedence and ignore settle law to rule in favor of an executive, we live in an autocracy.
When the electorate does not demand that the people serving in our government execute their duties in accordance with our Constitution, laws, and traditions, we are living in an autocracy.
This is why it is imperative that the House impeach or at least hold impeachment proceedings to determine whether impeachment is deserved (it is). Without oversight and accountability in our government for how well each of the people serving in the government live up to our democratic norms and traditions. Using our democratic institutions and means to check and balance the extreme narcissist in the White House, the sycophants in his administration, and groupthink that is emanating from their lack of careful deliberation is the only way to defend and preserve our democracy.
This is just the latest and most severe example of an increasingly emboldened and confident authoritative party in their attempt to replace our democracy with a single-party pseudo-democratic authoritarian regime whose only mission is to transfer as much wealth as possible as quickly as possible from the middle class to the 1% like they have in Russia.
What we know about the whistleblower complaint about President Trump
House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff says he wasn’t properly informed, and he wants answers.
Andrew Prokop andrew@vox.com 19 September 2019
An internal Trump administration whistleblower has filed a complaint about “multiple acts” by President Trump, according to the New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos, Eileen Sullivan, Julian Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg.
In part, the complaint is about a troubling “promise” made during a conversation between President Trump and a foreign leader, per the Washington Post’s Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Shane Harris. But the Times reported Thursday that the complaint is broader than any one call or promise.
The complaint was passed on to the inspector general for the intelligence community, who determined it was credible and a matter of “urgent concern” — a legal standard that normally requires congressional oversight committees be notified. And, per a letter from the inspector general, he concluded the complaint “relates to one of the most significant and important of the DNI’s responsibilities to the American people.”
But Trump’s acting director of national intelligence has stepped in to block key congressional committee chairs from receiving the details of the whistleblower complaint — which some legal analysts say could be a violation of the law requiring they be informed.
Continue reading at Vox.com: Whistleblower complaint about President Trump: what we know – Vox
The Psy of Life 
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack – The President and his minions must not be allowed to believe they are not only above the Law, but worse, the Law itself.
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The Old PGer says he would never say anything inappropriate in a phone call with a foreign leader. The trouble is that he wouldn’t know an inappropriate comment or promise if it jumped up a bit his nose,unless somebody else said it who he didn’t like. Again and again, almost daily, the operative term is OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE with CORRUPT INTENT running strong in second place.
In a related matter, I have to agree with Nancy P that Corey Lewandowski ought to have been charged with Contempt of Congress on the spot.
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Howdy Bob!
I wanted to work the Corey Lewandowski ridiculousness into the post, but it would have increased its length by a third and been not as directly relevant to the thesis. But, Lewandowski’s testimony is also evidence that we are sliding further down that slippery slope to authoritarian fascism. The idea that he and everyone else should be able to lie to the American people — which is what you do when you lie to the media and Congress — with impunity is as frightening as it is absurd as it is fascistic. It also is another step in the normalizing of authoritarian fascism masquerading as democracy.
I also had considered using his tweets denying the story, but didn’t for the same reason. The problem with his tweet is that he is such a pathological chronic liar that you can only assume the opposite is true. If he is saying he would never do anything to hurt America, you know that he is doing things that he knows hurts America. And, since he has made inappropriate comments to world leaders before in phone conversations — they limited the number of people listening in on those conversations so that no notes or readouts would result because of the stupidity that he so often displays in them — we know that is a lie, too. He uses an unsecured cell phone for many of those conversations so that the listening stations that all of nations can listen in on what he’s saying to whoever he calls on it. FFS.
The most frightening thing of all is that we’ve got about 30% of the electorate who supports him either because of or in spite of these things and another 10 to 20% who just don’t care. In a close election, the electoral college favors the Repube candidate — that’s from a FiveThirtyEight column.
This election could be the one that seals the coffin on our democracies specifically and on Western liberal democracies in general. Few of us will view it that way either before or after, though.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I think that even George Orwell would be amazed at how far the Gaslighting now going on makes the Double Speak of Big Brother’s realm look incomplete.
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