Tag: GOP Corruption

Pro-Publica: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Has Enjoyed Unreported Luxury Vacations Paid for by Wealthy GOP Donor

Pensito Editors
Clarence Thomas Harlan Crow Pro-Publica
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Pro-Publica: “In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

“If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

“For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

“The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

McConnell’s Coordinating with Trump’s Impeachment Defense Renders the Verdict Moot

Jon Ponder
McConnell on Fox News with Hannity: “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”

On Thursday, as the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump were being debated by the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) met privately with White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to discuss rigging Trump’s Senate trial to guarantee acquittal. As has become routine in the Trump era, this brazenly corrupt act was not meant to be kept secret. A few hours later, McConnell was on Fox News boasting about it to Sean Hannity, the right-wing outlet’s most strident propagandist.

McConnell told Hannity he would remain in “total coordination” with Trump during the trial. “There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this,” McConnell said. “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”

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Ex Ethics Watchdog Warns Barr Will Interfere in 2020 Election

Buck Banks

“It’s important not to make the same mistake twice. Some people underestimated Barr’s ruthless partisanship before. No one should do that again. Like Trump, Barr is capable of doing anything he can get away with— and that includes interfering in the 2020 election, if we let him.”

— Walter Shaub, former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, called Attorney General William Barr a “threat to democracy” and warned he may try to interfere in the 2020 presidential election to benefit President Trump, the HuffPost reports.

House Announces Two Articles of Impeachment against Trump

Jon Ponder

After 77 days of formal investigation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with the chairs of the investigative committees, announced Democrats’ intent to impeach Donald Trump on two charges: abuse of power related to his attempt to extort the government of Ukraine into announcing an investigation into the son of Trump’s political rival, former V.P. Joe Biden, and obstruction of Congress related to his refusal to provide witnesses and documents for the investigation.

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Trump, Barr Had ‘Animated Talk’ about Horowitz Report on Russia Investigation Origins

Jon Ponder

Donald Trump and his sycophantic attorney general Bill Barr had an “animated talk” in the Oval Office Thursday night, according to a pool report from the White House Press Corps. Two sources told CNN that the topic of the heated exchange was Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s imminent report on the origins of the FBI’s investigation into Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign.

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It’s Just Miami Pilitics, Folks

Buck Banks

$400,000

“During his final two years in office and for several months afterward, former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) paid a Miami dentist and childhood friend with no political experience nearly $400,000 for political consulting,” the Miami Herald reports. … And since losing his seat last November, he’s spent thousands of dollars from his leadership PAC — called ‘What a Country!’ — on wine and high-end restaurants. … Now, Curbelo’s friend, JP Chavez, is his business partner in a communications and public affairs startup venture called Vocero LLC.”

If Trump Didn’t Exist, the GOP Would Have Made Him

Buck Banks

“Trump is a singularly nasty and corrupt individual, but he also embodies something that has been clear about Republican politics for years: Advancing the conservative agenda any further—cutting taxes on the wealthy, slashing public services—requires more and more obfuscation, fewer and fewer voters, and increasingly naked white identity politics. … If Donald Trump didn’t exist, Republicans would have had to invent him. Or someone like him. The alternative would have been to moderate the conservative agenda in meaningful ways, and the party has been uncompromising in that regard.”

— Brian Beutler

GOP Is Completely Corrupt

Buck Banks

“The Republican Party’s Trumpization is complete. It’s not a conservative party, or a small government party or an anti-authoritarian party (to the contrary!). It has become the caricature of the left from days gone by — all power, no principle, dismissive of courtesy and reasoned persuasion. Anger, not ideas, is its animating force. We have a nativist party that views America not as a creedal nation, but as a white Christian nation that is diminished by immigrants and is threatened by outsiders. If it possesses any coherent philosophy, it is one of victimhood — which in turn justifies any and all bad behavior.”

— Jennifer Rubin