I always thought that e-mails thing totally screwed things up for Hillary. She still had a decent shot until that bloke decided to re-open the investigation, right before the election. Of course, Trump seized on this as soon as he could. The jerk probably thought all his Christmases had come at once.

SaltyNZ:

You say that like you think he cares, or that someone would enforce the law if he tried it.

The Washington Post - Covid Updates

today

Health experts are increasingly convinced that the only way to stop America's rapidly worsening coronavirus situation is to reimpose stay-at-home orders, effectively abandoning the country's two-month-long effort to resurrect public life. 

 

“Stay-at-home is a blunt instrument,” Farshad Fani Marvasti, director of public health at the University of Arizona, told The Post. “But when you’re leading the world in new cases and things don’t seem to be getting better, you may have to use that blunt instrument.”

 

Or as Harvard surgeon Thomas Tsai vividly put it: “We see the hurricane coming. In some places, it’s already here. The question is whether you’re going to evacuate your citizens from the path.”

 

The White House shows no sign of heeding this advice, and is instead pressuring federal health agencies to fall in line with President Trump's rosy outlook on the pandemic. 

 

The Post obtained emails showing a senior Health and Human Services Department adviser accusing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of “undermining the President” by publishing a report on covid-19's potential risk to pregnant women - “as if the President and his administration can’t fix this and it is getting worse.”

 

The administration has also resumed pushing people to take hydroxychloroquine ...

 

as if ...   

He is trying to do this not because it's a security threat but because his Tulsa rally was "full" as the result of fake ticket bookings, apparently made by people who mobilised through TikTok.

neb:

SaltyNZ:

 

You say that like you think he cares, or that someone would enforce the law if he tried it.

 

Oh I'm sure the attorney-general would be right on top of it if Trump tried anything unconstitutional.

You have to remember he was a Bush man back then and now he is very much a Trump man. His independence and creditability has been questioned from day one. Now I know these political appointments mean they owe to the President but AG William Barr tends to sway a little to far in Trumps bidding and doing.

In a letter from is alma mater 65 prominent law professors say: he "failed to fulfill his oath of office to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States.'" Then you have 1250 ex-DOJ officials signed a letter: "requesting the agency's Inspector General Michael Horowitz to open an investigation into U.S. Attorney General William Barr.....". He has also intervened way too much into FBI investigations involving Trump Incorporated.

Now does all this indicate his independence from Trump? I think it certainly indicates he likes tipping the scales a little too far his and Trumps way and come January next year (we all Hope) that he and the rest of Trumps; white house, bureaucratic and political appointee's are swept into the civil and maybe criminal investigative basket.

I think the weird thing few folks are talking about is essentially the USA is screwed post November irrespective of the election.

If Trump wins then democracy of the once great super power will be gone and the USA will slip further into authoritarian rule.

If Trump loses then Trump will do everything in his power to hold power, undermine Biden before he starts in January and the steaming pile of mess left will be the Democrats fault. That and 30% of the country will know Trump was robbed and the deep state faked it that the majority of the country will still need to live next door to.

There is no chance any Republicans will grow a backbone and turn on Trump so the country will remain divided.

I can't see how there can possibly be a positive outcome for the USA or the UK especially with COVID ravaging their countries.

Simply put, Trump destroyed America from within.

From https://twitter.com/TBPInvictus/status/1281256803788107776:

And Trump just pardoned Roger Stone.

 

Stone's attorney, Grant Smith, applauded the President Friday for "this act of mercy."

 

"Mr. Stone is incredibly honored that President Trump used his awesome and unique power under the Constitution of the United States for this act of mercy. Mr. and Mrs. Stone appreciate all the consideration the President gave to this matter," Smith said.

 

Stone, 67, was indicted in January 2019 when armed FBI agents arrested him at his Florida home. He had covered up records that would have revealed he sought to reach WikiLeaks in 2016 to help Trump, lied about the effort when he testified to a Republican-led congressional committee, then threatened another congressional witness, according to the charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller and the DC US Attorney's Office.

 

At Stone's trial, prosecutors argued that "truth still matters." They claimed Stone lied to Congress because "it would look really bad for his longtime associate Donald Trump" if Stone had told the truth.

 

The jury agreed with prosecutors and found Stone guilty of all seven charges he faced.

 

Trump was incensed. He weighed in on Twitter, claiming Stone had been treated unfairly. He suggested the judge was biased and Stone deserved a new trial. In the meantime,

 

Attorney General William Barr intervened in Stone's case. He publicly ridiculed prosecutors' request -- after it had been filed with the judge -- that Stone face seven to nine years in prison for his crime.

 

Barr insisted he did not intervene at Trump's behest, but because Barr believed the original sentence recommendation was excessive.

 

But after Justice Department leadership interjected, the two prosecutors who argued for the truth and made the case that Stone committed crimes in part to protect the President, both resigned from the case. The two other prosecutors on the case resigned as well.

 

In the months since, Trump has fired off periodic tweets slamming the judge and jury in Stone's case and claiming his friend got an unfair shake.

 

Since Stone's conviction, he's focused on criticizing the judge who oversaw his trial and one prosecutor, Aaron Zelinsky, who had worked on the Mueller investigation then on Stone's trial.

 

Zelinsky testified to Congress in late June he knew of political pressure "from the highest levels" of the Justice Department to cut Stone a break.

 

Trump commuting the sentence of Roger Stone is pure fascism in action.

Not "a bit fascist" - it's the real thing.  Conviction for serious crimes now has no consequences for those loyal to the POTUS.

Edit to add statement from the WH:

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting the unjust sentence of Roger Stone, Jr.   Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency.  

I detest Trump and everything he represents, but one thing that has always struck me about America is how it often goes to the brink, but then always pulls back just as it is about to step over. Even the Civil War can be seen as an example of that. More recent ones are McCarthy and Nixon. People forget, or don’t know, the history of that time. Some give Nixon credit for opening China or other political achievements, but ultimately he was just a cynical criminal operating a criminal organisation trying to seize power. His vice president, Spiro Agnew, whose loud-mouthed public persona could have served as a model for Trump, was investigated for criminal conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud. He was known to have taken kickbacks from contractors that extended into his vice-presidency, though he was only sentenced for tax fraud due to a plea bargain agreement.

In addition to his corrupt aides, who went to jail, and his corrupt vice president, Nixon also appointed a corrupt Attorney General (sound familiar?) who ended up in prison as well. These were all people prepared to undermine and even overthrow American democracy for their own ends. What stopped them were individuals and institutions that were not corrupt. Fortunately those still exist.

I don’t know if American democracy will survive this latest dance with the devil, but I do believe it still can. Right-wing extremists are nothing new there. Neither are armed militias, or evangelical zealots, or corrupt politicians. All of these things have always been part of the fabric of American society, yet democracy has always survived them. The final chapter is yet to be written.