Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to prosecute whistle blowers, while EPA chief Scott Pruitt is punishing high ranking officials who question his decision making.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asked her department’s Office of Inspector General whether grounds existed to prosecute employees who leaked budget data to The Washington Post and unclassified information to Politico, according to an internal department report. 

The response: It would be challenging, because the department has “little” written policy or guidance on how employees are supposed to handle information. 

“While evaluating the . . . incidents of alleged unauthorized releases of non-public information, we identified challenges to criminal prosecution or taking significant administrative actions against individuals responsible for the release of this type of information,” the report said.

Actually whistle blowers are supposed to be protected, and have provided a valuable service throughout the history of this country. (Remember Watergate?)

You would think that a person in charge of education might have known that.

However as it turns out this punish the dissidents idea is rampant throughout the Trump Administration.

Courtesy of TPM: 

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reassigned or demoted at least five high-ranking officials who questioned his spending and other leadership decisions — including the purchase of pricey office furniture and Pruitt’s desire to use sirens to cut through D.C. traffic — according to a New York Times report Thursday afternoon. Four of the officials were career staff and one was a political appointee. 

The Times reports that the political appointee, Kevin Chmielewski, was put on administrative leave without pay after Chmielewski raised concerns about Pruitt’s behavior with the White House’s presidential personnel office. 

Additionally, Chmielewski and three of the career staffers are reported to have confronted Pruitt directly about his use of taxpayer dollars — particularly, a proposal to buy a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership that was eventually scuttled, and an effort to shell out $70,000 to replace two desks in Pruitt’s office. 

The sidelined officials also incurred Pruitt’s ire by pushing back on his desire to use sirens in his motorcade in non-emergency situations, including en route to dinner at the chic restaurant Le Diplomate, and were hesitant to approve his frequent first-class and charter flights, his unprecedented 20-member security team, and his request for a bulletproof sport utility vehicle.

So the real sin in the Trump Administration is not the wasting of taxpayer money, but reporting the wasting of taxpayer money.

Drain the swamp my ass!

Donald Trump now seems to oppose going after Hillary Clinton on the e-mails. Flip meet flop.

Trump is pressed if he has definitively ruled out prosecuting Hillary Clinton. “It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about."

— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016

“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways."

— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016

Courtesy of CNN: 

During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, would join crowds of his supporters in chants of "lock her up!" and said to her face during a debate that if he were president, "you'd be in jail." But now that he actually will be president, Trump says he won't recommend prosecution of Clinton, who he told New York Times reporters has "suffered greatly." What's more, he said the idea of prosecuting Clinton is "just not something I feel very strongly about."

You may remember that at one point in the debates Trump suggested that if he were president he would appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary and put her in prison.

Which of all the stupid things he said was perhaps one of the stupidest, since a president does not determine who the Justice Department investigates, and attempting to imprison a political rival is something they only do in third world countries.

And of course Russia.

As you might imagine this change of heart did not go over well with those who supported Trump during the campaign:

“Broken Promise,” blared Breitbart, the conservative website that promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy and gave him the mastermind of his campaign, Stephen K. Bannon. The conservative provocateur Ann Coulter was no more subtle.

Judicial Watch, the conservative legal organization that has doggedly pursued Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, also chimed in: 

“Donald Trump must commit his administration to a serious, independent investigation of the very serious Clinton national security, email, and pay-to-play scandals. If Mr. Trump’s appointees continue the Obama administration’s politicized spiking of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, it would be a betrayal of his promise to the American people to “drain the swamp” of out-of-control corruption in Washington.”

I think these people better start getting used to being disappointed, because I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of Donald Trump letting them down.

Which I guess would put them in the same camp as the rest of us who are totally disappointed by this election.

New York prosecutor considers suing not only Exxon but also other oil companies who helped to obscure facts about climate science.

Courtesy of All Gov: 

Other oil companies might soon find themselves in prosecutors’ crosshairs just as Exxon Mobil is being investigated about whether it hid information about climate change. 

Exxon Mobil is now being scrutinized by the New York attorney general about its record on climate change. Other companies, such as BP, Shell and Texaco, which is now part of Chevron, were also among those that questioned climate science and joined organizations that fought policies designed to tackle the problem. According to energy industry experts, those companies could also be investigated to determine whether their public stance on the issue coincided with their internal discussions. 

“Exxon Mobil is not alone,” Stephen Zamora, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told The New York Times. “This is not likely to be an isolated matter.” 

“There was a concerted effort by multiple American oil companies to obscure the emerging climate science consensus throughout the 1990s,” Paul Bledsoe, a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton on climate issues, told the Times. “This group may be vulnerable to legal challenge.”

Okay I am not only crossing my fingers in the hopes that New York DOES sue these oil companies, but also that other states follow their example and do the same.

I also agree with Congressmen Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier that the federal government needs to launch an investigation as well. Which I hope would end with ALL of the oil companies facing serious charges of endangering the lives and well being of the American citizens in federal court.

These assholes put our lives, our children's lives, and even the future of this planet in jeopardy, all in the name of making a profit.

Personally I think being sued for billions of dollars is too good for them.

Do you think we could being back the firing squad?

MSNBC reported last night that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch put witnesses before the Ferguson grand jury that he KNEW were lying. WTF?

Click image to play video

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

Certain witnesses who spoke before the grand jury investigating the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown told obvious lies under oath, St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said Friday. 

“Clearly some were not telling the truth,” he said during an interview on KTRS 550. He added that he's not planning to pursue charges against any lying witnesses. 

In his first extensive interview since the grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, McCulloch said he had no regrets about letting grand jury members hear from non-credible witnesses. 

“Early on I decided that anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything would be presented to the grand jury,” McCulloch said. He added that he would've been criticized no matter his decision. 

During the interview, McCulloch referenced a woman who claimed to have seen the shooting. 

This “lady clearly wasn't present,” McCulloch said. “She recounted a story right out of the newspaper,” backing up Wilson's version of events.

Okay I am pretty sure that it is unethical to have witnesses provide testimony to a grand jury that you know are lying.

And I KNOW it is against the law to lie to the grand jury.

So why isn't anybody getting prosecuted over this?

I think that the prosecuting attorney should be disbarred and this woman thrown in jail. That to me seems obvious.

And then I would like somebody to call Hannity out for constantly using the ONE witness which supported his inner prejudice and his desire to find Darren Wilson guiltless.

There IS actually a time when the Stand Your Ground defense does not work in Texas.

Courtesy of Free Thought:  

On Friday, May 9, 2014, just after 5:30am in Killeen, Texas, Marvin Louis Guy was the target of a no knock raid. 

The officers were looking for drugs, yet none were found in the home. There was some questionable paraphernalia, but nothing indicative of drug dealing- or anything damning enough for a reasonable person to feel the need to take an officers life. 

Unfortunately the danger of no-knock raids is real. just ask the parents of baby Bou or the family of Detective Dinwiddie. 

Detective Dinwiddie was one of the SWAT officers who broke into Guy’s house on May 9th, based on a seemingly bogus informant tip off about drugs being dealt from the home. 

Likely alarmed by the men climbing through his windows at 5:30 in the morning, Guy and his wife sought to protect themselves and their property and fired on the intruders- in self defense. 

Dinwiddie, along with three other officers were shot while attempting to breach the windows to the home, according to the department’s press release.

Detective Dindiddie later succumbed to his injuries, and  now prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for capital murder, and three counts of attempted capital murder for firing on officers breaking into his house unannounced in the wee hours of the morning.

As of yet the NRA has not weighed in with support for Guy, nor have there been any 2nd Amendment protests outside the police station demonstrating that they believe this is a miscarriage of justice.

Why you may ask?

 Well this is Marvin Louis Guy. So you tell me.

And before you accuse me of playing the race card you need to know that this guy...

...also killed a police officer unannounced and the charges were dropped against him.

I know, probably just a coincidence right?

Prosecutor recommends a 35 year sentence for domestic Alaskan terrorist Schaeffer Cox.

Courtesy of ADN:

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to put Fairbanks militia leader Schaeffer Cox behind bars until he's in his mid-60s, and to sentence two militia members, Lonnie and Karen Vernon, to what is effectively life imprisonment. 

In June, an Anchorage jury convicted Cox, the 28-year-old founder of the Alaska Peacemaker Militia, and 57-year-old militia soldier Lonnie Vernon of plotting to kill law enforcement officials and conspiring to obtain gun silencers and grenades with which to carry out attacks. In a separate case, Lonnie and his 66-year-old wife, Karen, pleaded guilty in August, admitting they had planned to kill a federal judge and an Internal Revenue Service Officer while the couple was embroiled in a legal dispute over property taxes. 

Prosecutors are recommending sentences of 26 1/2 years for Lonnie Vernon for both convictions and 15 1/2 years for Karen Vernon. Lonnie Vernon is asking for a sentence of 21 years, 10 months. Karen Vernon is asking for five years. The couple's sentencing hearing is set for Monday. 

According to a sentencing memorandum filed in court this week, prosecutors recommend that Cox spend 35 years in prison. A judge is scheduled to sentence Cox at a hearing Tuesday. Cox's Seattle-based attorney, Peter Camiel, says he will ask the judge for a sentence of 10 years. 

Camiel and Cox's attorney at trial, Nelson Traverso, have said the militia members merely made plans to react with violence in the event of a collapse of the federal government and that no attacks were imminent. Prosecutors say the militia, at Cox's direction, took clear steps toward committing murder, including compiling a "hit list," conducting surveillance on possible targets and amassing a huge cache of weapons, some of them illegal to own. 

Well it should come as no surprise to anybody that I think they should throw the book at Cox.  As well as the Vernons.

In doing so I think it would send a clear message to all of those camouflage wearing, automatic weapon hoarding, militia assholes, that if THEY decide to start threatening Federal officials, or amassing a huge arsenal with the mindset that it will someday be used against our military, that they TOO may soon find themselves spending decades behind bars living in abject fear of accidentally dropping a bar of soap in the shower.

Oh and by the way, to any militia douchebags who might be reading this, Barack Obama is STILL our President.

Uh oh Rush! Gloria Allred calls for investigation into possibility of prosecuting LImbaugh for his attacks on Sandra Fluke.

Personally I would think that even the very IDEA that Gloria Allred might represent Sandra Fluke in a lawsuit against Limbaugh, should cause his tiny pecker to shrivel up well beyond the ability of even Viagra to coax it out of its little hidey hole under all of that blubber.

Not that I think Limbaugh is feeling terribly manly these days anyhow, considering that his radio show has lost almost ALL of its advertisers and has been broadcasting dead air, in place of the usual ads. (Not that his audience is swift enough to pick up on the difference of course.)

And don't suppose that the Republicans will stop defending Limbaugh any time soon either, despite his loss of support among advertisers. After all THEY know who wears the leather mask in the relationship.

See? You don't need coffee to help you wake up this morning, now do you?

(Document courtesy of TPM.)

Witness in Sarah Palin e-mail trial says prosecution "ginning up findings" in an attempt to get maximum sentence for David Kernell.

From The Register:

A witness who testified against the man accused of breaching Sarah Palin's Yahoo! Mail account has criticized federal prosecutors for distorting the facts in an attempt to score legal points.

Gabriel Ramuglia said the episode left him so disenchanted that he's changing the logging policy for Ctunnel.com, the anonymity proxy used to access Palin's Yahoo account while she was running for vice president in 2008. Before, he collected the IP address of each user along with the time and address of each web visit and stored it for seven days. Now, he logs the minimum required by law.

Ramuglia said he's taking the step because he believes prosecutors exaggerated entries in the log information when presenting it to the jury in the case. On several occasions, he said assistant US attorneys told him privately they wanted to "show as much commerce as possible" by emphasizing connections his proxy made to ad servers, even though his site almost always filters out their content.