The Dutch are so quaint

The Dutch government has resigned en masse. What was the massive scandal that brought them all down? Prepare to be shocked.

Mark Rutte’s government has stepped down after thousands of families were wrongly accused of child welfare fraud and told to pay money back.

Families suffered an “unparalleled wrong”, Dutch MPs decided, with tax officials, politicians, judges and civil servants leaving them powerless.

Many of those affected were from an immigrant background and hundreds were plunged into financial difficulty.

Mr Rutte submitted the cabinet’s resignation to the king.

“Innocent people have been criminalised and their lives ruined,” he then told reporters, adding that responsibility for what had gone wrong lay with the cabinet. “The buck stops here.”
[Read more…]

What did they expect? They’re just the hired help after all

Now that the Trump family is on the way out, people are less hesitant to describe the negative aspects of their behavior such as this.

In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.

According to the Washington Post the president’s daughter and her top White House adviser spouse have apparently exiled the squad of men and women assigned to keep them from harm’s way from using the toilets in their sprawling Washington DC mansion.
[Read more…]

Trump is a loser

Now that he has become the first president in history to impeached twice, he is slowly starting to lose his allies too.

Donald Trump has fallen out with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and is refusing to pay the former New York mayor’s legal bills, it was reported, with the president feeling abandoned and frustrated during his last days in office.
…

According to the Washington Post, relations between Trump and Giuliani have dramatically cooled. Trump has instructed his aides not to pay Giuliani’s outstanding fees. The president is reportedly offended by Giuliani’s demand for $20,000 a day – a figure the lawyer denies, but which is apparently in writing. White House officials have even been told not to put through any of Giuliani’s calls.
[Read more…]

“White privilege on peak”

Yesterday Trump became the only president to be impeached twice, with 10 Republican congresspersons joining with the Democrats to pass the measure by a vote of 232 to 197. That nearly 200 Republicans stuck with Trump may have more to do with their fear of angering the Trump mob than not agreeing with the impeachment resolution.


[Read more…]

Jordan Klepper reports from the riot

Jordan Klepper has made it his niche to embed himself at rallies where angry Trump supporters gather and talk to them. He was at the insurrection at the Capitol last Wednesday, though he did not enter the building. I have mentioned before that I wondered if at some point these crowds would attack him because his reports show them in a poor light and this time his cameraperson was attacked, though I am not sure if they were targeted specifically or as part of the general attack on media personnel.

Stephen Colbert has been on a roll following the riot and yesterday he had another rant.

Dominion’s court filing against Sidney Powell is a doozy

The company that manufactures voting machines has followed through on its threat and filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit in the federal district court in DC against nutjob erstwhile Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. I was aware of some of the wild allegations she had made against the company as being part of a vast conspiracy to deny Trump victory but the filing contains much, much more. Pages 3, 4 and 5 contain all the outlandish assertions that Powell has made.

I do not like companies using their greater financial resources to seek massive damages against individuals, even those as recklessly idiotic as Powell. It is obvious that she does not have billions of dollars so this is just meant to scare the heebie-jeebies out of her. I hope she recants and apologizes and they drop their suit.

If that does not happen, that raises the questions: Will Trump pardon Powell? And does the presidential pardon power extend to civil cases?

As a sideshow it should be noted that congressperson Louie Gohmert and Sidney Powell had filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court no less arguing that Pence has the power to overturn the Electoral College votes. This was filed on January 6th, the day of the riot, after the certification process had started and Pence had issued a letter saying that he does not have that power. They seem to be taking the sentiment ‘better late than never’ a little too far.

Can the insurrectionists shift the blame to Trump?


Trevor Aaronson writes about those people who in the past have been inspired by Trump’s rhetoric to commit or plot to commit violent acts, and then tried to use Trump’s incitements as a defense when they were on trial. Judges didn’t seem to buy it.

James R. Pratt, a defense lawyer in Kansas, represented a man who was inspired to violence by Trump in 2016. Patrick Stein conspired with a couple of friends, as well as a pushy FBI informant, in a plot to bomb Somalis who lived in their community. “Number one, the cockroaches got to go, period,” Stein said of the Somalis. Stein had believed Trump’s rhetoric from the 2016 presidential campaign: that the Obama administration was allowing Muslims, and possibly terrorists, into the country without background checks.
[Read more…]

California’s covid-19 vaccination plan

In addition to Trump botching the response to the pandemic by dismissing its seriousness and deliberately undercutting common-sense precautionary measures like wearing masks, the vaccination process has also been rocky, leading to a much slower rollout than anticipated, while leaving the public confused as to when and where they will be able to get the vaccine and how they will be told.

My local newspaper the Monterey Herald lays out California’s plan for vaccinating people that I suspect is similar to what other states are planning so I am posting it for the benefit of those who are curious as to when they might be getting the vaccine.
[Read more…]

Trump’s allies abandon him

Thanks to Tabby Lavalamp, I leaned that the PGA tour has canceled its plans to have its 2022 championship tournament at Trump’s Bedminster golf course.

As he faces a lonely end to his presidency, Donald Trump learned Sunday evening that, in the wake of last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, he has lost one of the relationships he values most: his partnership with the Professional Golfers’ Association.

While the embattled president has been hunkered down to try and preserve his political career, the PGA of America, the proprietors of one of golf’s four major championship tournaments, announced that it plans to move its 2022 PGA Championship away from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J
…

Holding the tournament at Trump Bedminster, Richerson said, would be “detrimental” to the PGA of America’s brand and put the organization’s ability to function “at risk.”.
…

As of Sunday, the 2022 PGA Championship was the only upcoming tournament listed on the Trump Organization’s website, so the PGA of America’s decision appears to sever his last remaining ties to the golfing establishment, effectively exiling him and his courses from the prestigious and lucrative world of professional golf.

[Read more…]