The Mueller report, even in redacted form, lays out a sweeping and intensive Russian effort to influence the American election of 2016 and to help elect [he who must not be named.] The effort included an initial survey by two female Russian operatives of the entire United States in 2014; the survey was followed by a campaign designed to aggravate existing tensions and, where possible, create new conflicts. The operation included negative propaganda against Hillary Clinton early on, but did not start promoting [he who must not be named] until early 2016, during the time when it became obvious that he was going to win the Republican nomination.
The underlying motives for conducting the operation against Hillary Clinton had to do with Putin’s hatred of her. He blamed her for the riots that followed his re-election as president of the Russian Federation in 2012, riots which made his regime appear to be election-rigging and which seemed designed to provoke a brutal response.
Suppressing the riots with lethal force was Putin’s instinctive response, and the protestors retreated under fire. Afterwards, Putin made a connection between groups promoting democracy that were paid for by the Clinton foundation and other Americans– with a leap of faith, and the genesis of the demonstrations that became riots. Foreign groups were effectively shut down by new regulations. Lawyers and journalists were threatened and shot by assassins on the street. Putin laid all the blame on Hillary Clinton specifically and decided to use his new internet capabilities and his old bag of tricks to make her lose the 2016 presidential election. None of that is in the Mueller report; it simply states that Putin disliked Clinton and wanted her to lose.
The missing, redacted parts of the report are tantalizing, but there is enough unredacted material to keep people busy for months. The House Judiciary Committee will certainly be an avid consumer; they have already issued a subpoena for the complete version of the report.
In addition to the Russian details, there are stories of numerous lies that were told by the president’s assistants, either spontaneously or on the president’s direct orders.
The obstruction section says that he tried to order unlawful actions to obstruct the investigation, but his assistants refused to carry them out or purposely failed to follow through on them. This was described as “mostly unsuccessful” attempts to obstruct justice. The report seems to conclude that this is a matter for congressional investigation and possible impeachment.
The House has a clear duty to impeach him, but the looming 2020 election makes them all hesitate. Would the American people prefer to vote him out or have the House and Senate impeach him? Opinion polls seem to indicate that there is little taste for impeachment, as further hardening of positions renders any further evidence nearly irrelevant.
Some Democrats ask, what would it take to convince enough Republican Senators to vote for conviction on impeachment charges? Evidence that he committed murder? Cheated on his taxes? Obstruction of justice is hard to convict unless there is a major underlying crime, like collusion with Russia. There is also a question as to why, if there was no collusion, did he so strenuously try to interfere with the investigation and obstruct justice?
Just being angry and frustrated at a “false accusation” doesn’t justify attempts to obstruct Mueller’s investigation– or does it in this universe? I’m confused.
(photo art courtesy of pixabay.com)
The Mueller report has a section that concludes Congress has the authority to investigate corrupt use of Constitutional powers, for example, by firing FBI Director James Comey. The clear implication is that the information gathered on presidential obstruction is to be used by the House Judiciary Committee to initiate an impeachment investigation. There are many such nuggets already exposed to view in the media. Read it and weep.
(thanks to pixabay.com for the cartoon)
“While the indictment against Julian Assange disclosed today charges a conspiracy to commit computer crimes, the factual allegations against Mr. Assange boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source,” Mr. [Barry] Pollack [Assange’s lawyer] said. “Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.” (from New York Times article)
In fact, Assange had been in hiding for years in the Ecuadorian Embassy, an unwelcome guest. On April 11, 2019, he was hauled out involuntarily and taken under arrest to a British court where he was convicted of jumping bail– from many years ago… and ordered held for extradition hearings, which he will fight. The time in British court before he is taken away to the US: possibly a year, possibly more. Possibly less but unlikely.
In 2016, Assange took responsibility for the Wikileaks dump of emails from the Democratic inside, and especially from Podesta, a big donor-organizer, which caused much scandal and took away attention from the “pussy tapes” that showed the Republican presidential candidate confessing his freedom to grab women by their genitals because he was famous. The hacked emails were alleged to have been obtained by Russian operatives, who passed them on to Wikileaks, who passed them on, etc. Apparently their behavior in 2016 was not chargeable, but the 2010 operations were, for obscure prosecutorial reasons.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and pexels)
This quote comes from a New Yorker article about the crisis at the US-Mexican border…
(image courtesy pixabay.com)
(desert flowers photographed March 30, 2019, north of Barstow)
(John F. Kennedy quote 28 June 1963 by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation: “words count”+
)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and RyanMcGuire)
(image courtesy of pixabay. contributed by ArteGamor)
His superficial charm and his ability to con people into trusting his promises is incredibly dangerous because he will inevitably betray anyone foolish enough to believe and follow him. He has already betrayed his own voters by secretly colluding with Russian and Saudi Arabian tyrants. He has already betrayed the trust of the American people by seeking profit wherever it is offered, from China to Serbia. He has done so many things to weaken, confuse, and disable our government that he appears to be deliberately destroying it.
Even more frightening is his recent decline into nearly senseless drivel from which coherent utterances seem to be absent. The only sense that could be made from his latest pronouncement was a claim that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer.
The fact that he was elected president, took over the Republican Party, and has been installing ultra-conservative judges at a rapid clip while he rules by whim for the last two years has filled me with remorse, regret, and disgust. How can a great country like America not only elect such a man but line up behind him, cover for him, and refuse to call out his lies?
Worst of all, the Department of Homeland Security has disbanded its intelligence unit that focuses on track domestic terrorism (the vast majority of which consists of white supremacist violence).
This man should have been impeached the day he was inaugurated. That was the only sensible thing to do. How else do you deal with a man who is so obviously unfit? If the people are dumb enough to elect him, the Congress should have dealt with him at once instead of “trying to work with him.”
The entire Republican Party has sold its soul in order to get the policies it supports into action. They know that they represent perhaps a third of the electorate, a distinct minority, but they think they have the right to impose their views upon the majority. In order to win, they have latched on to the worst demagogue in American history. I hope that they will get what they deserve for selling out democracy.
The electronic medical record, or electronic health record, is an administrative nightmare that is contributing to the burnout of 78% of all doctors surveyed. People are declaring bankruptcy as a result of medical bills; 40% of all bankrupts mention medical expenses. Our life expectancy, infant mortality, and other vital statistics are getting worse, not better. We lag behind numerous other developed countries in healthcare and spend twice as much as most of them for less result.
The problem with healthcare in this country is due to unrestrained greed on the part of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospital conglomerates, and medical specialties. Every aspect of healthcare is infected with profit-taking enterprises. Each interest in healthcare is represented by lobbyists in Washington and countrywide who push government and individuals to spend more.
To fight the greed of insurance companies especially, we will need to develop systems that gradually take over the functions of insurance, with some kind of buy-in by companies. Insurance will have to change its emphasis from determining if a person is covered at all to co-ordinating the care each patient receives. Companies will have to merge and pool their data. Government will offer insurance companies contracts to manage the data stream.
Medical records must be forced to become available across all platforms. Laws will need to be developed that manage information sharing instead of enforcing complete privacy. In order to facilitate sharing, when you develop records in one location, consent must be given at the outset to share so that reports are automatically sent to other locations that provide care later, when the person appears there. That is, initial consent documents must include a clause that authorizes data sharing on an as-needed basis later on.
One innovation that has made the adoption of electronic medical records easier is the addition of a “scribe” the the usual personnel in a doctor’s office. This person follows the doctor around and transcribes a record of what the doctor reports and what is examined, including prescription and therapy orders. Since the scribe is usually a medical assistant, the cost of the additional person can usually be justified by the improved workflow.
Most important, however, is to co-opt the insurance companies and get them to serve the needs of universal insurance rather than particularized (and much more expensive) plans. The insurance companies have powerful lobbies to protect them from government action and they will need to be handled with care. Plans for reform will need to include a role for the insurance companies even if their basic reason for existence– discriminating who does and does not belong to their particular plan– has been removed.
Finally, a radical idea has been proposed about drugs: the government could take over the production of orphan drugs, vaccines, and other items that are in high demand because of effectiveness but that present little or no profit potential. Drug companies might be willing to trade production of unprofitable drugs by the government (a relief for them) for negotiations on price with Medicare (something they are afraid of).
Some Flowers We Found in the Desert
Conrad Theodore Seitz 