Mar 26, 2022
March 23, 2022: He Committed Crimes, Facts Warranted Prosecution, Failure of Justice
"The following is the full text of the resignation letter by Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated former President Donald J. Trump, but left after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, halted an effort to seek an indictment.
Dear Alvin,
I write to tender my resignation as a Special Assistant District Attorney and to explain my reasons for resigning.
As you know from our recent conversations and presentations, I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition. His financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.
In late 2021, then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance directed a thorough review of the facts and law relating to Mr. Trump’s financial statements. Mr. Vance had been intimately involved in our investigation, attending grand jury presentations, sitting in on certain witness interviews, and receiving regular reports about the progress of the investigation. He concluded that the facts warranted prosecution, and he directed the team to present evidence to a grand jury and to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump and other defendants as soon as reasonably possible.
This work was underway when you took office as District Attorney. You have devoted significant time and energy to understanding the evidence we have accumulated with respect to the Trump financial statements, as well as the applicable law. You have reached the decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time. The investigation has been suspended indefinitely. Of course, that is your decision to make. I do not question your authority to make it, and I accept that you have made it sincerely. However, a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest. I therefore cannot continue in my current position.
In my view, the public interest warrants the criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, and such a prosecution should be brought without any further delay. Because of the complexity of the facts, the refusal of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization to cooperate with our investigation, and their affirmative steps to frustrate our ability to follow the facts, this investigation has already consumed a great deal of time. As to Mr. Trump, the great bulk of the evidence relates to his management of the Trump Organization before he became President of the United States. These facts are already dated, and our ability to establish what happened may erode with the further passage of time. Many of the salient facts have been made public in proceedings brought by the Office of the Attorney General, and the public has rightly inquired about the pace of our investigation. Most importantly, the further passage of time will raise additional questions about the failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his criminal conduct.
To the extent you have raised issues as to the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed, I and others have advised you that we have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury. No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice. As I have suggested to you, respect for the rule of law, and the need to reinforce the bedrock proposition that “no man is above the law,” require that this prosecution be brought even if a conviction is not certain.
I also do not believe that suspending the investigation pending future developments will lead to a stronger case or dispel your reluctance to bring charges. No events are likely to occur that will alter the nature of the case or dramatically change the quality or quantity of the evidence available to the prosecution. There are always additional facts to be pursued. But the investigative team that has been working on this matter for many months does not believe that it makes law enforcement sense to postpone a prosecution in the hope that additional evidence will somehow emerge. On the contrary, I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.
I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice. I therefore resign from my position as a Special Assistant District Attorney, effective immediately.
Sincerely,
Mark F. Pomerantz” (1)
This is a stinging indictment of the newly minted Manhattan District Attorney. On the job less than four weeks before he suspended Grand Jury proceedings. Pomerantz was brought into the office by former D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. because he is universally recognized as one of the nation's foremost legal experts on white collar crime having represented clients as well as prosecuting defendants, most notably the notorious crime boss John Gotti. It was widely reported that when Vance, who himself has been accused of going easy on the tRUMPs, especially in relation the the tRUMP Soho property, brought in Pomerantz that doing so meant that the D.A.'s office was getting damn serious about finally bringing the swine to justice. Alas, Cyrus having pledged to wind up the investigation before leaving office (he didn't run for re-election), failed to do so, leaving the decision to proceed up to his successor. Again, Vance himself has always been a bit squeamish when it came to the tRUMPs. Things started getting a bit 'squirrelly' during the interregnum between election day and the first of the year when Bragg was due to take office as murmuring began to be heard from the District Attorney's office that the smell of the pole cat had reached the barn door.
Indeed, in a matter of days Bragg moved to suspend Grand Jury testimony and then informed the team that he had pissed himself to his socks and could not muster the courage to confront the disgraced Caesar.
What Pomerantz, and indeed all of the pundits newsrooms and talking heads, failed to point out is that the bank depositors of the City and State of New York were bilked for over a billion dollars in the 1980's by tRUMP and his criminal organization by precisely the tactic of grossly exaggerating his assets in order to obtain loans he couldn't repay. This is a staggering omission, for doing so would have brought the question full circle demonstrating the long existing pattern of fraud, racketeering and tax evasion. But the larger issue is: why the fuck have the authorities consistently refused to indict, prosecute and imprison this bastard?
Bragg, for his part, responded to the ensuing firestorm by contending that releasing Pomerantz' letter of resignation would somehow reveal sensitive information relating to what he called a still ongoing investigation, no doubt hoping against hope that the public would soon move on to what, in any case involving the orange bastard, would be the next series of outrages, with the investigation itself dissolving into a whimper. It didn't work. The letter was leaked giving lie to the D.A.'s version indeed calling into question the judgement of the office. Bragg was merely trying to suppress, and cover up, this egregious miscarriage of justice. We are having none of it. This is simply yet another outrage in a long series of outrages regarding the tRUMPs. And it must stop.
An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh.
____________
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Mar 13, 2022
Mar 7, 2022
March 4, 2021: Putin's Cock Puppets, Intellectual Levitation, Don the Bow-Tie
For well over a decade now, the ReSCUMlickan Party has been worshiping fascists and 'strongmen' throughout the world. Highest in the hierarchy of fascist dictators is Russia's Vladimir Putin.
The connections between our ReSCUMlickan friends and the various fascist movements weave through the Jesus Junkies and far-wrong religious zealots to the moneyed interests and political operatives like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon, the likes of which have been working not only to degrade and destroy the republic at home but representative governments in Europe as well. And so we see Putin funding fascist movements in Hungary, Poland, Germany and France and Manafort and Bannon working to coordinate with these movements in order to destroy the Western political system and, with it, the NATO alliance.
Manafort and, of late, Bannon have been working closely with foreign fascist movements since Disgustus was shown the door. Stone is still up to his ass in the January 6 imbroglio. But the most incessant apologists for Putin's behaviors have been his cock puppets Sucker Carlson and Donald J. tRUMP.
Recoiling from the outrage over Putin's barbaric behavior in Ukraine Rupert Murdoch, it appears, has suddenly sensed that if his foul mouthpiece persists in its idolatry he may well wear out his welcome. Accordingly, Faux News host Seen Hannity quickly reversed himself going so far as to call for Putin's assassination. Sucker, always late on the uptake, has finally begun to alter course, calling out Putin saying that “(W)e've been taken by surprise by the whole thing. We're not the only ones who were, but we're willing to admit it”, before blaming the Biden administration for leading him astray. This bit of intellectual levitation was accomplished by declaring with a straight face that sending the Vice President to confer with our allies led him, as if the Vice Presidency is of no account, to discount the gravity of the situation.
Like his hero, Sucker cannot bring himself to admit his woeful ignorance and his total lack of judgement. The truth is that he and his audience were indeed the only ones fooled by the spectre of OZ. Anyone with any understanding of Russian and European history knows the score. But history is a complex study, far beyond the talking heads at Faux News.
The striking thing about Sucker is that whenever the camera catches the idiot in freeze frame one beholds, etched upon his face, a permanent look of complete bewilderment and non-comprehension. Whenever he receives an answer to one of his sophomoric slow-pitched 'soft-ball' questions that is not a knee-jerk piece of conservative bullshit, he immediately presents his slack-jawed look of bewilderment. Don't take my word for it watch, if you can, 10 or 20 minutes of the fool.
And so the idiot, who has spent years dredging the depths of the conservative cesspools, from Mike Liddel to Rudy Giuliani to Roger Stone, has found himself setting up broadcasts from Hungary declaring, as he has for Putin, his undying admiration.
The other Cock Puppet, tRUMP, welcomed the Russian invasion of Ukraine declaring Putin's actions 'smart' and his judgment “brilliant”.
From Fox and Fiends, in the morning to Ingraham, Hannity and Carlson at night, Faux News has quickly done an about face. Putin has lost not only the court of world opinion, but is losing his cock puppets here at home as well.
And, as the world reacts to the outrages in Eastern Europe, it is high time to consider sanctions upon Faux News as well. Repeal the Communications Act of 1996, Re-institute the 'Fairness Doctrine” with its equal time provisions. Strip Murdock and his larvae of United States Citizenship, Freeze and Seize his assets and send him packing back to Australia to face justice. (1)
It is also time for sucker to, once again, don his bow-tie and leave the newsroom.
_________________
See www.yahoo.com/entertainment-tucker-carlson-admits-wrong-ukraine for a synopsis of Carlson's ongoing reaction to the crisis.
Mar 3, 2022
March 3, 2020: Perils of Miscalculation, Choke on Ukraine, The World is Pissed
Vladimir Putin has seriously miscalculated. Alone and isolated, increasingly believing his own propaganda, and with visions of grandeur dancing in his fevered dreams, he imagined a quick strike, a blitzkrieg in the best Nazi tradition, in which he would make short work of the local authority and quickly digest Ukraine. He bit off more than he can swallow. Putin will choke on Ukraine.
Nationalism is mostly a product of foreign invasion and oppression. It was Napoleon's armies marching across Europe that gave birth to Germany. It was the German armies marching across Europe that gave birth to the collapse of the old royal regimes, replacing them with bona fide nations. It was war that gave birth to numerous national movements throughout the world from Indochina to the America's. Where national consciousness is only emerging, one thing is certain: armed conflict will intensify nationalism. By waging war against Ukraine, Putin has transformed his nemesis Zelenskyy from celebrity to hero, from a television personality to a Winston Churchill. In the process his actions serve to forge a nation in the fires of conflict.
He misjudged the reaction of the west as well, with the NATO alliance reacting swiftly as one, uniting in days in response to a clear and present danger. Germany has reversed 70 years of national policy by contributing arms to a conflict, reversing in days its reluctance to increase military spending and, in effect, re-arm. Poland is sending jet aircraft and other arms to Ukraine. Germany is sending hundred of old soviet era anti-aircraft shoulder mounted missiles left over when it was reunified with East Germany. France, Britain, Sweden, Denmark are sending, as of this writing, small arms and other weapons. Spain, responding to Zelenskyy's call for nations to send volunteers in order to form 'volunteer brigades', as was done in the Spanish Civil War, has responded accordingly. Turkey has closed the Bosporus and Dardanelles to the Russian navy, has sent drones and fighter planes. Azerbaijan has likewise sent drones and other military equipment to Ukraine.
Vlad, with the aid of his American Lackey, has spent years trying to divide the west, fostering dissension within member countries using cyberspace and anti-social media, funding nascent fascist organizations throughout Europe and the ReSCUMlickan Party in the United States, and working to elevate the political scum in this country so as to wreak havoc upon our international alliances. It almost worked.
But he miscalculated.
He failed to take the measure of the man. Having a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out understanding of politics outside his immediate domain, he mistook Biden for Bush and Obama. Biden has spent nearly 50 years on the national stage. He knows wherein lies the levers of power. He was chairman of the foreign relations committee while in the United States Senate. He was 8 years Vice-president of the United States. He has been recieving top-level military and intelligence briefings for years. He has been on the world stage, meeting national leaders as well as their opposition for decades. And, when Obama equivocated it was usually when he didn't listen to old Joe.
The ugliness of Russian behavior has served to quickly solidify the western alliance, and old Joe knows how to go about setting concrete. Putin should have invaded when his useful idiot was in the White House.
The whole world is watching.
In this day and age, with cell phones equipped the cameras, photos and videos become immediately viral on the internet. The young especially know how to use the technology, they grew up with it. The Russian assault on the television tower in Kiev will not keep the atrocities being committed hidden from the world, nor from the Russian people. Censoring Russian media will not keep the truth from being told, just as the outrages in this country perpetrated by our treasonous ex-'president ii**” cannot be swept under the rug, nor conveniently or quickly forgotten. Putin will savage his own people at his peril. Greater leadership than he have fallen to an outraged citizenry, just ask Louis XVI, or the Romanov's.
So onerous have the Russians become that the United Nations general assembly voted 141-5 with 35 abstentions condemning Putin and his regime for the outrages being committed against Ukraine. The United States and the several members of European alliances are in a race with each other to see who can confiscate the most wealth stolen by the Russian Kleptocracy and spirited out of the country. Money skimmed from monopolies stolen from the people, invested in yachts, luxury apartments, estates, and foreign currencies, bank accounts and investments. Within the last 24 hours France and Germany have seized two mega yachts owned by Putin's kleptocrats: one valued at about 600 million dollars, another over a billion dollars.
Multi-national corporations are canceling contracts, automakers are pulling up stakes in Russia, as are Shell Oil and British Petroleum. Russian Banks have been cut off from the international banking system and Wall Street rating services like Moody's have declared Russian Bonds 'junk'. The Russian banks have been closed all week, the Russian Ruble is now worth less than a penny in U.S. currency, and the prime interest rate in the Russian Federation now approaches 20 per cent.
In case you haven't noticed, Vlad, the world is pissed.
March 2, 2022: Viva Ukraine, Molotov Cocktail Hour, Putin's Waterloo
“And the young men girded up their loins, and there were burnt offerings in the streets, And there was a gnashing of teeth, and the smashing of buildings, for it was the Molotov Cocktail Hour. And the people descended upon the invaders, and lo, there was instant Karma.
----Parody of 'The Begatting of the President'
The
quote above is inspired by, and a parody of, a recording by Orson
Welles; itself a satire summarizing the presidency of Lyndon Johnson
and the presidential election of 1968. Stealing from Shakespeare,
television commercials and biblical prose the biting satire has many
memorable lines.
Overhearing National Public Radio's Morning Edition as I entered my shop, these lines came immediately to mind as NPR reported that President Zelenskyy had called upon the people to take up arms, every man-jack of them, and to prepare Molotov Cocktails with which to toast the arrival of the Russian invaders.
The appeal touched off what have become “Molotov Cocktail Parties,” in which Ukrainians set about preparing for the 'celebrations', going so far that newlyweds were reported holding such fetes immediately upon the tying of the knot. This is war, and war brides are celebrating with concoctions of gasoline, tar, kerosene with bottles and rags which will be used in the coming emergency. Resistance by any and all means necessary.
The “Molotov Cocktail” is a Finnish invention, used against Russian tanks in the Russian invasion of Finland leading up to the outbreak of World War II. Named after the Russian foreign minister the weapon proved effective, much more so than it will against modern armor. Nevertheless, it is a lethal weapon and the wholesale enthusiasm with which the people of Ukraine have responded is indicative of the level of resistance growing within the nation.
Ukraine will not go lightly into that good night. The resistance will be fierce and prolonged. It will cost Putin and his Russian armed forces dearly, for the hubris of leaders and the arrogance of power will be Putin's Waterloo.
_______
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Begatting of the President
March 1, 2022: Dogs of War, Swallow It Whole, Ukraine's Winston Churchill
“Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial”
----William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”.
A week ago Vladimir Putin, in a fever of deranged madness, ordered his troops to invade the sovereign state of Ukraine. Convinced of his infallibility, certain of the soundness of his judgment, fearless in the face of his opposition, and confident in a quick and easy conquest, the fascist leader of the Russian Federation launched his assault upon the peaceful Republic of Ukraine.
No one should have been surprised.
Putin has always displayed a certain messianic complex who, like Hitler, had early convinced himself that he is the great political leader that will restore the territorial conquests, if not the former glory, of the old Soviet Union. Like Hitler, grousing in a field hospital on the day of the Armistice, Putin, a midldling KGB officer stationed in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, swore revenge and reconstitution. And, like Hitler, he has gone about the business of trying to muscle the break-away republics back behind the 'iron curtain'.
Like Hitler, he will not succeed. And, if he pushes matters far enough, he will meet the same end with his nation and, perhaps the planet itself, in ruin.
Putin is turning 70 this year. Putin is getting old. Time is running out if he is to realize his grandiosity. To stand beside Catherine the Great, he must reconquer the lost provinces and he has little time left. Therefore, he will not digest Ukraine piecemeal. He will attempt to swallow it whole.
He said as much a few days before he launched his enterprise, declaring that Ukraine was a Russian invention and that, in effect, it had always been and will always be an integral part of Russia. Brazenly declaring, with no sense of irony, that Ukraine was being led by drug-crazed Neo-Nazis, he protested to the world that Russia not only has legitimate claim to the territory but that it had the moral responsibility to eradicate this evil.
Like our Caesar Disgustus, Putin is here projecting his own evil intentions upon those who stand in opposition. For it is Putin, among those presently standing upon the world stage that best resembles Hitler, who rattles his sabres and threatens the world with all out nuclear war if any nation deign interfere.
There are reasons why the people of Ukraine are standing as one behind their leader. Rule through fear requires terror. Kelenzkyy is a former comedian and actor. He has a sense of humor. Putin, like Hitler, Mussolini and tRUMP, are never seen laughing in public; never give a speech in conversational tone; never see the humor in their own conduct. There is something menacing about a man whose ego is so fragile that he cannot, even upon occasion, be brought to laugh. There is something terrifying about a man whose ego is so fragile that he cannot, even upon occasion be brought laugh at himself.
Voloddymyr Zelenskyy is a comedian turned politician, Ukraine's Al Franken transformed by war into Ukraine's Winston Churchill. While Putin reigns through terror, ensconced upon his golden throne lording over his people. Zelensky, moving among them is one with his people. While Russian ministers and oligarchs tremble, like scarecrows and cowardly lions, before the almighty Oz, Zelenskyy is greeted with smiles, love and admiration. Zelenskyy will emerge from this conflict a national hero, loved, respected and admired; Putin, a crypto-Nazi will, like Hitler and Stalin, leave a legacy of fear and loathing. Ukraine will raise monuments to it's leaders and the cause. Russians will learn to rue their infatuations with Putin and will tear down his monuments and attempt to erase his memory.
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