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LetMyPeopleVote

LetMyPeopleVote's Journal
LetMyPeopleVote's Journal
February 9, 2025

Musk has been targeting agencies who are investigating him

Musk is targeting agencies/groups/inspector generals who have targeted Musk.
https://x.com/Msdesignerlady/status/1888361289501565405

February 8, 2025

Nicolle Wallace: FBI internal letter is 'an urgent warning for every American'


Here is the text of this letter
Full letter transcript👇
Uncommon Sense was a Common Vice
Those with knowledge of the United States Marine Corps will recognize the irony of this title. I wish its words were not true, but as I write this, I believe they are.

Currently, there is an effort to cull a significant number of career Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is an unthinkable action that will gravely undermine the security of the nation well beyond what many of our citizens are aware of. For those seeking to raise their awareness, I offer this vignette, free of political bias or moral judgment. It is not about any one person, but an amalgamation of multiple FBI Special Agents.

I am the coach of your child’s soccer team. I sit next to you on occasion in religious devotion. I am a member of the PTA. With friends, you celebrated my birthday. I collected your mail and took out your trash while you were away from home. I played a round of golf with you. I am a veteran. I am the average neighbor in your community. This is who you see and know. However, there is a part of my life that is a mystery to you and prompts a natural curiosity about my profession.

This is the quiet side of me that you do not know: I orchestrated a clandestine operation to secure the release of an allied soldier held captive by the Taliban. I prevented an ISIS terrorist from boarding a commercial aircraft. I spent 3 months listening to phone intercepts in real time to gather evidence needed to dismantle a violent drug gang. I recruited a source to provide critical intelligence on Russian military activities in Africa. I rescued a citizen being tortured to near death by members of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. I interceded and stopped a juvenile planning to conduct a school shooting. I spent multiple years monitoring the activities of deep-cover foreign intelligence officers, leading to their arrest and deportation. I endured extensive hardship to infiltrate a global child trafficking organization. I have been shot in the line of duty.

Something else about me, I was assigned to investigate a potential crime. Like all previous cases I have investigated, this one met every legal standard of prediction and procedure. Without bias, I upheld my oath to this country and the Constitution and collected the facts. I collected the facts in a manner to neither prove innocence nor guilt, but to arrive at resolution.

I am now sitting in my home, listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days. Fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation. Fired for doing the job that he was hired to do. I have to wonder, when I am gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor?
February 8, 2025

Nicolle Wallace: FBI internal letter is 'an urgent warning for every American'


Here is the text of this letter
Full letter transcript👇
Uncommon Sense was a Common Vice
Those with knowledge of the United States Marine Corps will recognize the irony of this title. I wish its words were not true, but as I write this, I believe they are.

Currently, there is an effort to cull a significant number of career Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is an unthinkable action that will gravely undermine the security of the nation well beyond what many of our citizens are aware of. For those seeking to raise their awareness, I offer this vignette, free of political bias or moral judgment. It is not about any one person, but an amalgamation of multiple FBI Special Agents.

I am the coach of your child’s soccer team. I sit next to you on occasion in religious devotion. I am a member of the PTA. With friends, you celebrated my birthday. I collected your mail and took out your trash while you were away from home. I played a round of golf with you. I am a veteran. I am the average neighbor in your community. This is who you see and know. However, there is a part of my life that is a mystery to you and prompts a natural curiosity about my profession.

This is the quiet side of me that you do not know: I orchestrated a clandestine operation to secure the release of an allied soldier held captive by the Taliban. I prevented an ISIS terrorist from boarding a commercial aircraft. I spent 3 months listening to phone intercepts in real time to gather evidence needed to dismantle a violent drug gang. I recruited a source to provide critical intelligence on Russian military activities in Africa. I rescued a citizen being tortured to near death by members of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. I interceded and stopped a juvenile planning to conduct a school shooting. I spent multiple years monitoring the activities of deep-cover foreign intelligence officers, leading to their arrest and deportation. I endured extensive hardship to infiltrate a global child trafficking organization. I have been shot in the line of duty.

Something else about me, I was assigned to investigate a potential crime. Like all previous cases I have investigated, this one met every legal standard of prediction and procedure. Without bias, I upheld my oath to this country and the Constitution and collected the facts. I collected the facts in a manner to neither prove innocence nor guilt, but to arrive at resolution.

I am now sitting in my home, listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days. Fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation. Fired for doing the job that he was hired to do. I have to wonder, when I am gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor?
February 8, 2025

Reagan-appointed judge slams Trump's approach to the rule of law

"The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore," a Reagan-appointed judge said in reference to Donald Trump.
https://bsky.app/profile/stubronstein.bsky.social/post/3lhmkkxnays2q
https://x.com/deviousfranklin/status/1888014358149496891
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/reagan-appointed-judge-slams-trumps-approach-rule-law-rcna191259

But in some instances, it’s not just the fact that Team Trump is losing that matters, it’s also how the White House is losing. Take the fight over birthright citizenship, for example.

The language of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment does not lend itself to wiggle room. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads. In other words, if you’re born in the U.S., you’re a citizen of the U.S.

Nevertheless, on Inauguration Day, the new Republican president kept one of his uglier campaign promises and issued an executive order that not only rejected the constitutional principle but also directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize U.S. citizenship for children who do not meet the administration’s new standards.....

But it’s worth appreciating the degree to which Coughenour — named to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan — lowered the boom on Team Trump. The longtime jurist concluded:

It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain. Nevertheless, in this courtroom and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow.


“The Constitution,” the judge added, “is not something the government can play policy games with.”

Ouch.

This was hardly the only recent example of Trump facing judicial eloquence in the midst of a legal setback — some of the rulings in Jan. 6 cases are especially notable — and given the scope of the lawsuits surrounding the White House’s agenda, it probably won’t be the last.


February 8, 2025

Maddowblog-AG Pam Bondi shutters the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force

Pam Bondi is the first attorney in history to have been a lobbyist for foreign governments. She also just disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.
https://bsky.app/profile/jacquesd59.bsky.social/post/3lhmi2vnqds2p
https://x.com/chrisser1951/status/1887969542627795312
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ag-pam-bondi-shutters-fbis-foreign-influence-task-force-rcna191221

But there’s something else from Bondi’s résumé that set her apart from every other attorney general nominee in American history: The Republican lawyer worked as a lobbyist for foreign governments. In fact, the nation’s chief law enforcement official, as recently as 2020, was a registered foreign agent who was responsible for “personally and substantially” engaging in delivering services for the government of Qatar, according to a consulting agreement filed with the Justice Department.

Ordinarily, this isn’t the sort of background one expects to find on a U.S. attorney general’s résumé. Senate Republicans, however, didn’t much care and confirmed Bondi anyway.

On Wednesday, Bondi took the oath in the Oval Office — with Trump nearby, looking over her shoulder. Hours later, as NBC News reported, the former foreign agent shuttered her country’s Foreign Influence Task Force.

In a little-noticed directive on her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a halt to a years-old federal law enforcement effort to combat secret influence campaigns by China, Russia and other adversaries that try to curry favor and sow chaos in American politics. Buried on the fourth page of one of 14 policy memos Bondi issued Wednesday, the order disbands the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and pares back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, despite years of warnings by U.S. intelligence agencies that foreign malign influence operations involving disinformation were a growing and dangerous threat.


This task force was established in 2017 — by Trump’s first handpicked FBI director, Chris Wray, before he fell out of favor — in response to several foreign influence operations......

But in the opening weeks of Trump’s second term, his handpicked attorney general nevertheless decided that it’d be a good idea to close the FBI office focused on combating foreign influence campaigns.

Frank Figliuzzi, former head of FBI counterintelligence and an NBC News contributor, called the developments “astounding,” adding: “It’s now a free-for-all for foreign intel services seeking influence.”

It’s going to be a long four years.


February 8, 2025

MaddowBlog-Trump makes an outrageous choice for his White House Faith Office

After Trump's 2020 loss, Paula White said "demonic confederacies" were trying to steal the election. She'll now lead the new White House Faith Office.
https://bsky.app/profile/turquoise-cat.bsky.social/post/3lhlwkxagdk2w

Trump makes an outrageous choice for his White House Faith Office
After Trump's 2020 loss, Paula White said "demonic confederacies" were trying to steal the election. She'll now lead the new White House Faith Office.

You can’t make this craziness up!!!🤪

https://x.com/kkalmes2/status/1887985205996085302
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-makes-outrageous-choice-white-house-faith-office-rcna191170

There was, however, a substantive dimension to the remarks. Trump announced, for example, that he’s creating a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty, as well as signing an executive order intended to target what he described as “anti-Christian bias.”

But as a Reuters report noted, there was one other element of the president’s vision that stood out:

The president on Thursday also announced he will create a White House Faith Office, led by Rev. Paula White, who has served as a religious adviser to him for many years.


As a practical matter, this White House office, which also existed during Trump’s first term, probably won’t have a dramatic impact on public policy. It is, however, worth pausing to appreciate who the president is welcoming onto his team......

The Hill also noted that White delivered an opening prayer before Trump’s re-election campaign kickoff, saying “demonic networks” had aligned themselves against the Republican. As People for the American Way noted, it was a familiar refrain: In the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat, the same televangelist held multiple emergency prayer services to battle the “demonic confederacies“ that were supposedly trying to steal the election.

The same report from People for the American Way added:

White joined Trump at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, where she prayed that God would give rallygoers a “holy boldness” and that “every adversary” would “be overturned right now in the name of Jesus.” ... White has repeatedly declared that her mere presence in the White House makes it “holy ground” and warned that to oppose Trump is to oppose God.


It’s not altogether clear what White’s responsibilities will be leading the White House Faith Office, or whether she intends to accept a taxpayer-funded salary. Watch this space.
February 7, 2025

MaddowBlog-Why the new cover of Time magazine is likely to get Trump's attention

Exactly eight years ago this week, Steve Bannon appeared on Time magazine's cover, and he departed the White House soon after. Is it Elon Musk's turn?
https://bsky.app/profile/lmariev.bsky.social/post/3lhm4xfrss22o
https://x.com/asytactrain/status/1887922012716413298
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/new-cover-time-magazine-likely-get-trumps-attention-rcna191200

Exactly eight years ago this week, Time magazine published a memorable cover story on Steve Bannon. The headline used for the piece inside the magazine asked, “Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?”....

Around the same time, The New York Times reported that Trump “quietly expressed annoyance” at the attention Bannon was receiving. The president was especially unhappy, the report added, about “the ‘President Bannon’ puppet-master theme promoted by magazines, late-night talk shows and Twitter.”

But it was the Time cover that, according to multiple reports, especially bothered Trump, who has long invested great importance in the magazine’s cover images. (At one point, he even took a fake Time magazine cover, featuring his image, and hung it up in at least five of his properties around the world.)....

Eight years to the week after Bannon graced the magazine’s cover, getting Trump’s attention, Time published a similarly striking report. The Hill reported:

A new cover of Time magazine features billionaire Elon Musk behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office at the White House. The photo illustration teased a cover story titled “Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington,” which chronicles his efforts to implement massive government reforms during President Trump’s first weeks in office.


The cover image, showing Musk behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as if he were the real president, is not at all subtle.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc prh6raya2ntwnpyzte5u5hc/post/3lhltm7wooc2d

To be sure, it’s entirely possible that the president will put aside his legendary insecurities and be entirely unbothered by the magazine’s cover.

But it’s also possible that Trump, desperate to be the only star in his White House production, will find the image infuriating, and this will mark the beginning of the end of Musk’s powerful role in the administration.
February 7, 2025

The Borowitz Report- Massive Computer Error by DOGE Donates Musk's Entire Fortune to Save the Children

We need satire in this crazy world
https://bsky.app/profile/cirellan.bsky.social/post/3lhlz3xtav22e
https://x.com/Charlie85915085/status/1887915073408041348
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/massive-computer-error-by-doge-donates

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a disastrous setback for Elon Musk, on Friday a coding error by a teenaged member of DOGE resulted in the tech titan’s entire fortune being donated to Save the Children.

Treyson Parlow, 16, said that he had apologized to Musk, whose net worth now stands at zero dollars.

“In fairness, he never should have hired me,” the sophomore said. “I got a C in computer science last semester.”

According to sources, frantic attempts by the newly impoverished Musk to reach Donald J. Trump have gone straight to voicemail.

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