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FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

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Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#101

Post by apical_dendrite »

roenxi wrote: post #99
apical_dendrite wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initiating criminal investigations into the administration's political opponents without evidence is NOT "pretty minor".

Are you talking about when Obama admin did it, Biden admin did it or Trump admin did it? I mean, I agree but I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the people complaining aren't worried about the idea in principle and they just hate Trump. There is this weird thing where the big government people have suddenly had a revelation that the day-to-day operation of government is threatening. And I welcome that because i…

Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#102

Post by roenxi »

apical_dendrite wrote: post #101
roenxi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about when Obama admin did it, Biden admin did it or Trump admin did it? I mean, I agree but I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the people complaining aren't worried about the idea in principle and they just hate Trump. There is this weird thing where the big government people have suddenly had a revelation that the day-to-day operation of government is threatening. And I welcome that because i…

Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago

If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#103

Post by FireBeyond »

roenxi wrote: post #93
wenwolf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.

On the scale of Wild Things happening in US politics, this one is pretty minor. Provoking that sort of constitutional crisis over it seems poorly advised - it'd be better if the judicial system sticks to their traditional role of telling people to do things differently when it has been established that the government is acting illegally. In my lifetime politicians have associated with flagrant lies that led to 100,00…

No, it's pretty major. You're freezing funds to charities who are providing in some cases life-changing/saving services.

Locking them out of THEIR money because some petty fucking despot and his unelected sidekick decides that's the best way to claw back SOME money that was legally granted because fuck it, it'll hurt/anger/annoy some libs along the way, too.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#104

Post by FireBeyond »

roenxi wrote: post #102
apical_dendrite wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.

What exactly did the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago find?

It was believed that Trump had improperly stored classified documents there...

... and he had.

And was lying about it too.

So yeah, how was that not good faith?

"These documents are missing. They were last in the possession of the President. He's on video seen with staffers loading up similar documents to take to Florida. We apply for a search warrant when he denies what's on video, a judge grants it, and we go look, and find exactly those documents."

You: "Witch hunt! Bad faith witch hunt!"

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#105

Post by apical_dendrite »

roenxi wrote: post #102
apical_dendrite wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.

FBI search of Mar-a-Lago???? Seriously??? There was plenty of evidence of criminal behavior. Read the wikipedia article that you yourself linked.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#106

Post by bufferoverflow »

kristjansson wrote: post #80
bufferoverflow wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you didn’t have the benefit of your preferred news sources, would you still believe this?

I found out about Biden's family money laundering from NYTimes

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/arts/design/hunter-biden-...

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#107

Post by garyfirestorm »

wenwolf wrote: post #3
sharemywin wrote: post #2

“Can you proffer any evidence that [the grant] was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery — that any of that was improperly or unlawfully done, other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. Judge Chutkan also ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with details about the alleged fraud, “because I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required.” This whole cal…

The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.

And disbarring lawyers for malpractice - for knowingly bringing frivolous lawsuits

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#108

Post by dghlsakjg »

michaelt wrote: post #49
dghlsakjg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just custom not to exercise it? Why do these judges allow people to show up to court and make exceptionally stupid arguments?

As I understand it, in an "adversarial" legal system, each side is represented by a lawyer who is obliged to put forward the strongest argument they can; then the court decides between the arguments. And so even incredibly guilty people are entitled to have a lawyer on their side, lawyering as effectively as they can. So to them, there's no shame in representing an asshole and advancing a terrible argument, if that's…

I guess I should have been clear that when I said stupid arguments, I meant breaking the rules, not necessarily arguing from a position of weakness.

I’m not asking why there are people representing shaky cases. Even bad people are entitled to a competent defense.

I’m talking about why judges allow lawyers to get away with breaking courtroom procedure and rules.

I don’t think there is as much class solidarity among lawyers. Most lawyers I know are happy to shit talk other lawyers, hell, many of them would jump at the chance to find an idiot in contempt.

After a few decades of dealing with clowns and reaching a federal judgeship, you’d think they would take the opportunity to knock some heads.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#109

Post by roenxi »

FireBeyond wrote: post #104
roenxi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.

What exactly did the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago find? It was believed that Trump had improperly stored classified documents there... ... and he had. And was lying about it too. So yeah, how was that not good faith? "These documents are missing. They were last in the possession of the President. He's on video seen with staffers loading up similar documents to take to Florida. We apply for a search warrant when he denies…

Obama famously looked the other way when asked whether the war crimes of the Bush administration were going to be investigated. Trump was impeached for looking in to Biden's Ukraine links and it turned out that the Biden family needed multiple pardons for it although they were very generally worded so they didn't ever admit what exactly they were up to.

All these politicians are committing things that are crimes. Raiding your opponents house because you think they're improperly storing documents is blatant intimidation and harassment and the follow up was absolutely criminal prosecutions of political opponents without justification. The only silver lining is the US public had the rational response and supported Trump against the bullying.

Re: FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

#110

Post by Terr_ »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #16
Terr_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to try and revert something from under the previous administration More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President. Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress , which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse". Same l…

> … as if … This hasn’t happened already?

Not precisely: Trump fired so many people that the IRS can't check whether the rich are submitting fake paperwork to cheat on their taxes.

Related outcome, but different in mechanics/constitutionality.

[0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-hamstrung-irs-is-a-gift...

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