I'm an old now, but this thread is for the youngs. Gather round ... let me tell you a story. I went to college in 1985, in Florida, at an average academic institution populated primarily be very, very well off NE kids. And a few venezuelans and very, very attractive chileans.
In 1985, in america, at colleges in Florida populated by rich white kids and south american super models, there were A LOT of drugs.
Most drugs weren't the kind that kill: Low grade weed; coke cut with aspirin, some psychedelics... that sort of thing. The period, however, also marked the rise of crack and serious gang warfare, making everything less fun and causing A LOT of murder, misery and death.
I in a real world convo the other day, I was making the point that Dems do try to pass legislation that would help, but Moscow Mitch kills all progress, then blames dems, so here are a couple of bills presently pending: @adamhyde_@ConnorSchwenk A THREAD:
The Emergency Money for People Act, which would pay everyone $2000 a month during the pandemic emergency. govtrack.us/congress/bills…
The MORE Act of 2019, which would decriminalize weed at the federal level, help people that were caught up in the stupidWar on Drugs; allow small business loans for weed businesses, etc. govtrack.us/congress/bills…
Dirk puts on the Rose Colored Glasses and takes a hard look at presidential pardons. Did Trump just checkmate himself in 5D chess? Let's look.
So we have just learned that there is a DOJ investigation into the grant of a presidential pardon in exchange for a bribe. cnn.com/2020/12/01/pol….
Trump, of course, has a long history of having criminals all around him, but he has always seemingly slithered out trouble. How? At least part of it is that he let's others do his dirty work and never QUITE gives orders that can be tied to him. apnews.com/article/7fa7f6…
I used to echo "Dems suck at messaging", but I no longer believe that. These people aren't great at "messaging". Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan - none are great "at messaging" (Trump maybe)
They aren't great at anything. They are the beneficiaries of an evil 24x7 media firehouse of lies. They don't control it either - they are controlled by it, and are powerless to disagree with it. Pretty sad state of affairs for a US senator to be a mere puppet.
I can remember when Republicans were ALWAYS on message, no matter how ridiculous, they fed their base with whatever message it took to win. And then there's Syndey Powell on the Lou Dobbs show tonight. A thread.
SP is Trump's Qraken attorney. Lou Dobbs has a HUGE audience. "Where are we in this fight for the WH? We are making great progress, Lou, we have one case in ... GA ... that's getting ready to go to the 11th Circuit.... WE SOUGHT TO IMPOUND ALL THE VOTING MACHINES IN GEORGIA.
(And if that's not nuts enough) "AND WE NEED TO STOP THE ELECTION THAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN JANUARY BECAUSE ALL THE MACHINES ARE INFECTED WITH THE SOFTWARE CODE THAT ALLOWS DOMINION TO SHAVE VOTES FOR ONE CANDIDATE AND GIVE THEM TO ANOTHER"
With the rose-coloreds on, its possible to see a brave and determined future prosecutor might be able to find a number of acts by Flynn that are criminal and not part of Mueller's scope or investigation.
Also Rosie-ish: it is within the District Court's powes to determine whether grand jury facts can be released. If he accepts the pardon, then he could also determine that there is no further need to keep the secrets. It's almost necessary, so future prosecutors can know scope
Rosie-ish (h/t @ATLeagle). For all the haters that screamed that @RodRosenstein placed a tight scope on SC Mueller's investigation - the WH limiting its pardon to that scope exposes Flynn to whatever was outside of it.