In addition to this and similar posts elsewhere, at least in my county (all mail-in, like the rest of the SoW) there’s a block on the return envelope where the voter signs. And they do check: a couple of years back my essential tremor reached the point where it affected my signature, and I was contacted by the county elections board to verify. After confirming that it was indeed my ballot I submitted a new sample, and will probably have to do so again in the soon future.
Seconded. There’s allegedly a cabal of Trump-supporting FBI agents in the New York field office who may have been leaking information to Rudy Giuliani during the campaign. I’ve also seen some speculation that the reason Comey felt it necessary to write that letter right before the election was that some of those people were going to leak it if he didn’t. If any of that is accurate then the people involved are at least as culpable as Strzok and arguably more so, since they were actually doing stuff to influence the election rather than just griping about it.
Basically, I’ve got no problem with firing people in the FBI/Justice Department who take biased actions based on their personal beliefs. But we’ve got to allow them to have their personal opinions in their private lives. And I’m sure as hell against standing beside this allegedly lofty principle to purge law enforcement of people suspected of disloyalty to Trump.
The endless drumbeat by Trump and his administration that somehow, only Republicans can investigate… well, anyone.
Trump constantly bleats on about “12 (or is it 17?) angry Democrats” making up Mueller’s investigators. It’s not true, and more importantly, it is irrelevant unless it can be shown that their biases – which we all have – somehow tainted their work. In the case of Peter Strzok, there was a clear finding that his bias did not taint his work.
The all-pervasive implication that the only reason the FBI is investigating Trump and his administration is because they are Republicans – fully ignoring the fact that they are being investigated as likely criminals.
Like Jack Batty, I wonder what biases might be found among traditional conservative FBI agents. Hatred for Hillary, anyone?
In either instance, these biases should be immaterial to the job being done by each agent. The only question is: Were you able to put aside your biases, as we all must when working in civil service roles, to do your job with impartiality?
Trump’s pursuit and firing of anyone who does not personally support him and his agenda within agencies that are intended to be as apolitical as possible is extremely troubling.
I don’t care who is investigated, be it Republican or Democrat, so long as it is being done on the basis of objective evidence of criminal activity, and not solely for political manipulation. The issue should be whether crimes were committed, and if so, that all are treated in adherence to the same set of rules. That is not what is happening now.
I don’t know about NY (where the Bunkers lived) but many states, such as mine ¶ don’t issue absentee ballots for no reason. It requires a doctor’s note or some sort of proof that you’ll be unavoidably away from home on election day.
Regarding the Bunkers, I recall Edith shooting down Archie more than once and I doubt that she’d fold on this. But that’s an argument more suited to CS and doesn’t really affect your overall point.
The FBI with a political bias? Hard to imagine, when I think back on the warm and encouraging letters J. Edgar Hoover sent to Dr. King.
Well, this is good news, at least:
Reuters:
Ok, I thought you initially meant that the FBI was pursuing investigations for partisan political ends. Right now, Trump supporters are claiming the FBI is “politicized” because the FBI is a bunch of Hillary lovers.
I see now that you are objecting to people projecting their partisan political views into an agency that is pretty much playing it straight. That answers my question, and I agree with you.
I think a lot of Republicans are hoping this will pay dividends in the future. Look what the FBI did in 2016 and imagine what lengths they’ll go to in order to steal elections when the agency has been completely purged from top to bottom.
I think two sets of opposing facts can be simultaneously true and valid at the same time. It’s true that Republicans are politicizing the Department of Justice and have been since before the election. But I think it’s unfortunately - perhaps conveniently - true that Comey, McCabe, (Lisa) Page, and Strzok have been guilty of poor judgment in one form or another. Michael Horowitz conducted a thorough investigation and there’s nothing yet that suggests he himself was partisan or acting at the president’s behest.
I don’t know who actually fired Strzok. I read how the personnel department made its recommendations, and clearly someone with authority overrode them. For some reason, I don’t know who signed that. I don’t have a clear picture of what extraordinary circumstances the personnel department didn’t know about. Did he and that lawyer lady make a porno? What?
So, never mind as far as that goes… This guy.
So, Manafort’s defense rests without presenting a case? That can’t be good for Manfort, can it?
It was Deputy Director David Bowdich.
Well, it’s not that uncommon if the defendant chooses not to testify. Remember, the defense doesn’t have to prove anything, so they can get everything they need by cross-examining the prosecution’s witnesses and challenging the prosecution’s evidence to raise reasonable doubt. I practice civil defense, not criminal defense (which has numerous important differences), but it’s not that uncommon for me to rest as soon as the plaintiff does without putting on any positive case of my own.
What’s really not good for Manafort is the extensive evidence against him, not the fact that they didn’t put on a defense case.
ISTM that these are flip sides of the same thing.
To the extent that the evidence against you is not all that compelling (possibly as a result of your lawyers shredding the prosecution witnesses) then you have that much less need to put on your own counter-evidence or witnesses. But if there’s a lot of evidence against you, and even after your lawyers’ cross-examination the assessment of most observers is that you’re in trouble, then the fact that you have nothing else to offer is a problem.
Well, that is what I was thinking. With all the evidence I would have thought they would try more than to just say everything is Gates’ fault.
Well, they already cross-examined Gates, and by blaming Gates for everything they’ve basically foreclosed an attempt to make an effort to justify Manafort’s finances as being entirely on the up-and-up. What else is there to say? The jury will either buy the theory that it’s entirely Gates, or not.
Any witness the defense puts up would get cross-examined and torn to shreds by the prosecution. They’re in deep enough hole as it is.
I thought they might try to bring up witnesses to buttress their claims about Manafort re Gates.
For example, suppose they had a witness who could testify that “Manafort didn’t pay much attention to his finances and relied heavily on Gates”, then that would make their version of events much more plausible. They already had witnesses saying Manafort paid a lot of attention to the numbers, and while they tried to counter these witnesses on cross, having other witnesses who supported their narrative might have been helpful. Of course, it could be that there were no such witnesses available …
Omarosa claims she spoke to Mueller about corruption in the campaign and administration.