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solarbirdToday certainly got busy.
Tomorrow probably will be too.
There's a tweet I'm not including here, that talks about how the police certainly and possibly the US government as a whole has lost 'the mandate of heaven,' in that there's no assumption of legitimacy of any of these things by the protesters. It's a legitimacy crisis. For a chunk of the population, the mandate of heaven is gone.
It may not surprise you that I have to agree with the protesters. We have one fairly incompetent party that for all its flaws does at least recognise elections and legitimacy of outcomes it does not like. We have a second party which keeps engineering minority rule and has no respect for republican governance and does and will not respect outcomes which do not put it in power.
That's not a republic. That's not even really a government. That's a civil war on pause.
And with that, I give you the remaining headlines.
----- 1 -----
DOJ memo offered to buy out immigration board members
The buyouts were only offered to Board of Immigration Appeals members hired before Trump took office
By Tanvi Misra
Posted May 27, 2020 at 5:04pm
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/27/doj-memo-offered-to-buy-out-immigration-board-members/
The Justice Department offered buyouts to pre-Trump administration career members on its influential immigration appeals board as part of an ongoing effort to restructure the immigration court system.
Critics view the move as an effort to push out the civil servants on the board and stack it with new hires who would align with the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration agenda.
An internal memo viewed by CQ Roll Call shows that James McHenry, the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, offered financial incentives to longtime members of the Board of Immigration Appeals to encourage them to retire or resign. The buyouts and “voluntary separation incentive payments” were offered to “individuals whose positions will help us strategically restructure EOIR in order to accommodate skills, technology, and labor markets,” according to the April 17 memo.
EOIR is the Justice Department agency that oversees the Board of Immigration Appeals, a 23-member body that reviews appealed decisions by immigration judges and sets precedent.
According to two knowledgeable sources at EOIR who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, the memo was sent to the nine board members appointed under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, before Trump took office. No one accepted the buyout offers, according to both sources.
----- 2 -----
Trump vetoes bipartisan measure against DeVos’ loan rules
By COLLIN BINKLEY
The Associated Press
May 29, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/trump-vetoes-bipartisan-measure-against-devos-loan-rules/
President Donald Trump on Friday vetoed a measure that would have overturned a policy that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued in 2019 making it harder for students to get their loans erased after being misled by for-profit colleges.
The Senate gave final approval to the bipartisan measure in March, dealing a rare rebuke of DeVos from the Republican-led chamber. But Trump on Friday said DeVos’ rules are better than an Obama-era policy that would have been restored if the measure succeeded.
In issuing his veto, Trump said the rules created by former President Barack Obama “defined educational fraud so broadly that it threatened to paralyze the nation’s system of higher education.”
He added that DeVos’ policy “strikes a better balance, protecting students’ rights to recover from schools that defraud them while foreclosing frivolous lawsuits that undermine higher education and expose taxpayers to needless loss.”
Democrats condemned the move and promised a House vote to override the veto. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nevada, who led the the bill in the House, said the fight is “far from over.”
“President Trump sent a message to the American people that he cares more about enriching predatory schools than protecting defrauded students and veterans,” Lee said.
----- 3 -----
Flynn urged Russian ambassador to take 'reciprocal' actions, transcripts show
Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador were a key concern to FBI investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.
By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN and KYLE CHENEY
05/29/2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/trump-flynn-russia-ambassador-289905
Incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn told Russia’s ambassador to Washington in late 2016 to take “reciprocal” actions in response to Obama administration sanctions for election interference, rather than escalating the situation into a “tit for tat.”
“You might appreciate the sentiments that are raging in Moscow,” the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, replied to Flynn’s request on the Dec, 29, 2016 call.
“I know, I - believe me, I do appreciate it, I very much appreciate it,” Flynn responded. “But I really don't want us to get into a situation where we're going, you know, where we do this and then you do something bigger, and then you know, everybody's got to go back and forth and everybody's got to be the tough guy here, you know?”
The next day, the president-elect praised his Russian counterpart for declining to retaliate, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!” he tweeted.
When Flynn and Kislyak followed up on Dec. 31, 2016, Kislyak emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin opted not to escalate the sanctions battle because of his talk with Flynn — despite “raging” feelings in Moscow. And Kisylak argued that the Obama administration sanctions were aimed at damaging the incoming Trump administration just as much as they were the Kremlin.
“I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions have targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect,” Kisylak said.
The exchanges are at the heart of the controversy over the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump campaign aides’ contacts with Russian officials throughout. They were released Friday as part of a batch of declassified transcripts to Congress and obtained by POLITICO, detailing conversations between Flynn, the retired lieutenant general, and Kisylak in the weeks before President Donald Trump took office.
The documents at one point show Flynn engaged in a prolonged discussion with Kislyak over the sanctions the outgoing administration had slapped on Russia hours earlier for its campaign meddling, an apparent effort to convince Moscow not to retaliate and to embrace a new relationship with the incoming Trump team. They show no sign that he condemned Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to Kislyak.
----- 4 -----
Florida says no evidence of fraud in 2018 mail vote fraud probe
“It is closed now, so prosecutors have determined no charges,” Jessica Cary, a spokeswoman for FDLE, wrote in an email Wednesday.
May 21, 2020
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/05/21/florida-says-no-evidence-of-fraud-in-2018-mail-vote-fraud-probe/
TALLAHASSEE — State law-enforcement officials found “no evidence of fraudulent intent” by the Florida Democratic Party after more than a year-long investigation into alleged vote-by-mail fraud, records show.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Wednesday released records tied to an investigation into Democratic Party members altering election forms at the tail end of the 2018 election cycle, which was dominated by three statewide recounts.
Investigators found “no evidence of fraudulent intent to use the altered forms” on April 20 and handed the case over to the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution to determine if there was enough evidence and information to file charges.
“It is closed now, so prosecutors have determined no charges,” Jessica Cary, a spokeswoman for FDLE, wrote in an email Wednesday.
Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said Wednesday there was a “lack of sufficient evidence to support prosecution” in the case.
----- 5 -----
Robert E Kelly
twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
29 May 2020
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1266535047860895746
[THREAD, starting at link above]
Just to be clear, Trump is provoking a cold war w/ China solely to cover his a** on corona. This is rank opportunism, not strategy. There is no Long Telegram here. You may believe we need to be tougher on CN or that a cold war-style contest is unavoidable. Maybe so. But that’s /1
not what this is. What T wants most is for Xi to praise him as a great leader and a friend. But China is the world’s second power and won’t flatter T like some toady. So if praise is not forthcoming, T will exacerbate tensions for its domestic, rally-round-the-flag effects. So /2
we’re engaging on a dangerous, expensive, and potentially conflictual geopolitical course simply bc T wants to get re-elected, not bc T himself is a China hawk or believes or understand the arguments that school makes. He doesn’t and doesn’t care. CN hawks are using his /3
desperation. T is a useful idiot for a whole slew of think-tankers & ideologues itching to go head-to-head w/ CN. For some1 who promised to end overseas misadventures, I’m amazed T can’t see this. This is a recipe for overreaction, misinterpretation,& self-fulfilling prophecies/4
Tomorrow probably will be too.
There's a tweet I'm not including here, that talks about how the police certainly and possibly the US government as a whole has lost 'the mandate of heaven,' in that there's no assumption of legitimacy of any of these things by the protesters. It's a legitimacy crisis. For a chunk of the population, the mandate of heaven is gone.
It may not surprise you that I have to agree with the protesters. We have one fairly incompetent party that for all its flaws does at least recognise elections and legitimacy of outcomes it does not like. We have a second party which keeps engineering minority rule and has no respect for republican governance and does and will not respect outcomes which do not put it in power.
That's not a republic. That's not even really a government. That's a civil war on pause.
And with that, I give you the remaining headlines.
- DOJ memo offered to buy out immigration board members
- Trump vetoes bipartisan measure against DeVos’ loan rules
- Flynn urged Russian ambassador to take 'reciprocal' actions, transcripts show
- Florida says no evidence of fraud in 2018 mail vote fraud probe
- Trump is provoking a cold war w/ China solely to cover his a** on corona.
----- 1 -----
DOJ memo offered to buy out immigration board members
The buyouts were only offered to Board of Immigration Appeals members hired before Trump took office
By Tanvi Misra
Posted May 27, 2020 at 5:04pm
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/27/doj-memo-offered-to-buy-out-immigration-board-members/
The Justice Department offered buyouts to pre-Trump administration career members on its influential immigration appeals board as part of an ongoing effort to restructure the immigration court system.
Critics view the move as an effort to push out the civil servants on the board and stack it with new hires who would align with the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration agenda.
An internal memo viewed by CQ Roll Call shows that James McHenry, the director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, offered financial incentives to longtime members of the Board of Immigration Appeals to encourage them to retire or resign. The buyouts and “voluntary separation incentive payments” were offered to “individuals whose positions will help us strategically restructure EOIR in order to accommodate skills, technology, and labor markets,” according to the April 17 memo.
EOIR is the Justice Department agency that oversees the Board of Immigration Appeals, a 23-member body that reviews appealed decisions by immigration judges and sets precedent.
According to two knowledgeable sources at EOIR who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, the memo was sent to the nine board members appointed under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, before Trump took office. No one accepted the buyout offers, according to both sources.
----- 2 -----
Trump vetoes bipartisan measure against DeVos’ loan rules
By COLLIN BINKLEY
The Associated Press
May 29, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/trump-vetoes-bipartisan-measure-against-devos-loan-rules/
President Donald Trump on Friday vetoed a measure that would have overturned a policy that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued in 2019 making it harder for students to get their loans erased after being misled by for-profit colleges.
The Senate gave final approval to the bipartisan measure in March, dealing a rare rebuke of DeVos from the Republican-led chamber. But Trump on Friday said DeVos’ rules are better than an Obama-era policy that would have been restored if the measure succeeded.
In issuing his veto, Trump said the rules created by former President Barack Obama “defined educational fraud so broadly that it threatened to paralyze the nation’s system of higher education.”
He added that DeVos’ policy “strikes a better balance, protecting students’ rights to recover from schools that defraud them while foreclosing frivolous lawsuits that undermine higher education and expose taxpayers to needless loss.”
Democrats condemned the move and promised a House vote to override the veto. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nevada, who led the the bill in the House, said the fight is “far from over.”
“President Trump sent a message to the American people that he cares more about enriching predatory schools than protecting defrauded students and veterans,” Lee said.
----- 3 -----
Flynn urged Russian ambassador to take 'reciprocal' actions, transcripts show
Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador were a key concern to FBI investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.
By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN and KYLE CHENEY
05/29/2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/trump-flynn-russia-ambassador-289905
Incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn told Russia’s ambassador to Washington in late 2016 to take “reciprocal” actions in response to Obama administration sanctions for election interference, rather than escalating the situation into a “tit for tat.”
“You might appreciate the sentiments that are raging in Moscow,” the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, replied to Flynn’s request on the Dec, 29, 2016 call.
“I know, I - believe me, I do appreciate it, I very much appreciate it,” Flynn responded. “But I really don't want us to get into a situation where we're going, you know, where we do this and then you do something bigger, and then you know, everybody's got to go back and forth and everybody's got to be the tough guy here, you know?”
The next day, the president-elect praised his Russian counterpart for declining to retaliate, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!” he tweeted.
When Flynn and Kislyak followed up on Dec. 31, 2016, Kislyak emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin opted not to escalate the sanctions battle because of his talk with Flynn — despite “raging” feelings in Moscow. And Kisylak argued that the Obama administration sanctions were aimed at damaging the incoming Trump administration just as much as they were the Kremlin.
“I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions have targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect,” Kisylak said.
The exchanges are at the heart of the controversy over the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump campaign aides’ contacts with Russian officials throughout. They were released Friday as part of a batch of declassified transcripts to Congress and obtained by POLITICO, detailing conversations between Flynn, the retired lieutenant general, and Kisylak in the weeks before President Donald Trump took office.
The documents at one point show Flynn engaged in a prolonged discussion with Kislyak over the sanctions the outgoing administration had slapped on Russia hours earlier for its campaign meddling, an apparent effort to convince Moscow not to retaliate and to embrace a new relationship with the incoming Trump team. They show no sign that he condemned Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to Kislyak.
----- 4 -----
Florida says no evidence of fraud in 2018 mail vote fraud probe
“It is closed now, so prosecutors have determined no charges,” Jessica Cary, a spokeswoman for FDLE, wrote in an email Wednesday.
May 21, 2020
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/05/21/florida-says-no-evidence-of-fraud-in-2018-mail-vote-fraud-probe/
TALLAHASSEE — State law-enforcement officials found “no evidence of fraudulent intent” by the Florida Democratic Party after more than a year-long investigation into alleged vote-by-mail fraud, records show.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Wednesday released records tied to an investigation into Democratic Party members altering election forms at the tail end of the 2018 election cycle, which was dominated by three statewide recounts.
Investigators found “no evidence of fraudulent intent to use the altered forms” on April 20 and handed the case over to the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution to determine if there was enough evidence and information to file charges.
“It is closed now, so prosecutors have determined no charges,” Jessica Cary, a spokeswoman for FDLE, wrote in an email Wednesday.
Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said Wednesday there was a “lack of sufficient evidence to support prosecution” in the case.
----- 5 -----
Robert E Kelly
twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
29 May 2020
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1266535047860895746
[THREAD, starting at link above]
Just to be clear, Trump is provoking a cold war w/ China solely to cover his a** on corona. This is rank opportunism, not strategy. There is no Long Telegram here. You may believe we need to be tougher on CN or that a cold war-style contest is unavoidable. Maybe so. But that’s /1
not what this is. What T wants most is for Xi to praise him as a great leader and a friend. But China is the world’s second power and won’t flatter T like some toady. So if praise is not forthcoming, T will exacerbate tensions for its domestic, rally-round-the-flag effects. So /2
we’re engaging on a dangerous, expensive, and potentially conflictual geopolitical course simply bc T wants to get re-elected, not bc T himself is a China hawk or believes or understand the arguments that school makes. He doesn’t and doesn’t care. CN hawks are using his /3
desperation. T is a useful idiot for a whole slew of think-tankers & ideologues itching to go head-to-head w/ CN. For some1 who promised to end overseas misadventures, I’m amazed T can’t see this. This is a recipe for overreaction, misinterpretation,& self-fulfilling prophecies/4
