Cohen and Campaign laws

Dear Mr. President,

Just watched your interview. Let me educate on a couple of things.

Obama's campaign "crime" was being late in filing a report on who small donors were. This is an administrative error, not criminal.

Conspiring to make a payoff for someone to directly affect the election is Criminal. And guess what Mr. President, it is a crime. It does not matter if the money came from the campaign or not. It impacted the campaign.

All the things that Mr. Cohen admitted to are indeed crimes. He is a lawyer, so he and his counsel should know which things are crimes. The judge knows what crimes are. He would not accept a plea of guilt for something that was not a crime.

Finally, Mr. President, as the head of the executive branch of the government, you have the power to fire Sessions and Rosenstein. If you don't like what they doing, you can fire them for cause. But there will be political consequences. And you won't get a confirmation hearing until next year.

My advice to you is the advice my father gave me many years ago. When you find yourself in hole, stop digging. Interviews on FOX and tweeting is just digging your hole deeper. In this case, if you keep digging political, the hole eventually turns into a grave.

Signed,

An Informed Citizen.

SCOTUS and Impeachment

The Mueller investigation has brought up a couple interesting things about the Constitution. One of them is impeachment.

The left talks a lot about impeaching Trump. Yet they seem to not understand the basic mechanics of the process. They talk about Nixon and completely ignore Clinton.

The right is currently going on about impeaching Rosenstein. Heck, Nuenes was caught on tape talking about plans and timelines for an impeachment.

Impeachment is just another word for indictment from the House of Representatives. It does not remove the person from office. For that, you need 67 Senators to vote guilty after a public trail. Not going to happen in this current environment unless something outrageous is shown.

Than why is Nuenes and his buddies trying to impeach Rosenstein? It is a PR stunt and a way to provide cover for the President. If Rosenstein is impeached, this gives Trump cover to fire him.

Trump and crew have been trying to find a way to shut down Mueller since the moment it started. Yet to do so without some serious charge would be political suicide. Impeaching Rosenstein would be that "serious" charge. A lack of confidence by the Oversight committee and the House would provide that cover, as thin as it may be.

But now a new wrinkle has been added. See Nuenes just got caught on tape discussing their plans and the reason why. Can he and his colleagues still go forward with the plans? He talked about need to get the SCOTUS nominee through first.

What purpose does this serve? Distraction. The Republicans are hoping that with the fight over SCOTUS, the American public will forget about Mueller. Especially with the midterms happening shortly thereafter.

It is truly sad that the supposed party of Law & Order, is so afraid of justice. They appear to have forgotten that the American public has learned how to multitask. By not letting the investigation run its natural course, the Republicans are showing a complete lack of faith in the Constitution and the American people.

Manafort

Dear Mr. President,

Mr. Manafort is sitting in jail for tampering with a witness. He got his day in court concerning this crime. He lost. He is not in solitary confinement. In fact, he got moved to be closer to his lawyers and the court.

"He only worked for me for a short time." What a bunch of bologna. He joined the campaign as a delegate wrangler in March 2016. The man worked as your campaign manager from June 20 to August 19. He was in the infamous Russian meeting in Trump Tower on June 9, 2017.

So, from March to the end of August, he was with your campaign in one form or another. Heck, he even lived in Trump Tower. You even sang his praise just before the Convention.

You hardly knew him? Again with the bologna. Roy Cohn (a man you admit to admiring) introduced to him to you in 1980. You were his firm's first customer. You met him again in 1988, at the Republican Convention. In 1993, you are on record about how loyal Manafort and his company were to you. You knew him and knew him well.

Paul Manafort got to live in his house while waiting for the trail. He was quit comfortable. Al Capone had to sit on jail like the common criminal he was. How is he being treated worst?

One final point, Mr. President. The entire investigation started when a drunk Popadolis was in a London bar and started bragging to an Austrian Ambassador about the "dirt" they had on Hillary. The Steele dossier had nothing to do with the beginning of the investigation. Whether or not it was used does not matter. Evidence is evidence, not matter where it came from.

Paul Manafort is getting his day in court like any citizen. If he is found guilty, there are processes to appeal that conviction. Stop interfering in the due process of a trail and the defendant, and get to the business of the country. The American people are waiting.

Signed,

An Informed Citizen.

Groceries and IDs.

Dear Mr. President,

Time for another bit of education.

I know that you have been rich your entire life. And I know that you have not done things that that the average person does on a daily basis. One of these things is buying groceries.

At your rally last night in Florida, you complained about the need for a picture ID to buy groceries. Watching the speech, I noticed the blank look on your followers face.

This the educational part. You don't need a picture ID for groceries. I just spent $150 and never once did they ask for an ID. Any person, legal, illegal, rich, or poor, can buy the products and nobody cares.

Now if you want to pay by check, you have to give ID. Yet this has been happening for decades. Yet most people use a debit card. Which is not an ID.

Stop saying this stupid stuff, Mr. President. By doing so, you are showing how out of touch you are with the American public. And that didn't work out so great for Bush the Elder.

Signed,

An Informed Citizen.

Streaming, broadcasting, and the future.

Just finished reading an article in the NY Times about the 20th Century and Disney merger. One of the big points that came out is that everybody is betting on streaming. With viewers of broadcast and cable down, there is a business case for this view.

But here is what struck me. As more broadcasters start to fail/go out of business (see the more rural areas of the country), an interesting thing will develop. As with radio stations having the same problem, what happens to the bandwidth on the radio spectrum.

Now for those you that don't what this means, please allow me to explain some (but not all) points. In the United States, the radio band is leased to radio stations, television stations, and cell phone providers. Government/military get certain spots that the rest of are not allowed to touch. There is more about this, but you get the general idea.

When a station goes belly up, ownership of the bandwidth is up for grabs. Recently, cell phone companies have been snatching these up. At some point, they will reach a point that won't need anymore. Hence ownership will become too expensive, they will either let them lapse or try to sell them. (If no one buys them, they will lapse)

So what then. Will nobody use it? Or will we see a return to pirate stations? Radio broadcasting is fairly easy and cheap. I was the voice over person for a pirate station in the 1980s. Technology has gotten cheaper, smaller, and more powerful.

If everything goes on-line (entertainment and news), will the government even care about the pirates like they did in the 1980s and 1990s? There is plenty of dystopian fiction concerning this future. But we are on the edge of this now. Time to re-start your thinking.

Helsinki and Russians

Dear Mr. President,

It appears that I have to give you another lesson on how the real world works. You seem to think that the American people don't have a memory or know how to use modern tools, like the internet.

At the Helsinki press conference, Vladimir Putin stated point-blank that he wanted you to win the election. We all heard it and can show you the video to prove it. But you did a couple things that insulted our intelligence.

First is a tweet you stated that the Russians want the Dems to win the midterms. An incredibly laughable statement. The Russians love what you are doing.

The second is your speech that you gave today to the VFW. You told the members in attendance they should not believe what they are seeing and hearing. They should only believe what you are telling them.

Finally, in the White House transcript of the Helsinki press conference, you or aides left out the question where President Putin was asked if he wanted you to win.

Why do I bring up the transcript? This is where I have to educate you about the modern world. You see the video of that event is not only in the hands of the media, it also all over the internet. And in case you have forgotten, once on the net, it is out there forever. It can never be forgotten, only slightly misplaced. But it will be found. Again and again and again.

You can try to remove it via legal means or other ways. And guess what, it won't work. You see the internet was created by the Defense Department to survive a nuclear war. There are servers all over the world holding data. This includes videos. You can't get to them all.

Stop trying to gaslight the American public, Mr. President. We won't stand for it. The evidence is too easy get and to show you and your supporters where you are wrong. Deal with it or face the voter’s wraith come 2020.

Signed,

An Informed Citizen.

Security and Clearances

The White House wants to revoke the security clearances of 8 critics. All of them are former national security officials. The funny thing is that 2 of them already don't have security clearances, thanks to Rand Paul.

But the reason as to why is truly laughable. They are accused of "monetizing their public service and security clearances." What does this mean? The President and hanger-on’s don't like the fact that these people went for jobs that were based on past experience. They also wrote books about their experiences and analysis of current situations. Finally, they are getting paid for making speeches.

It seems that they don't like others making money. They only want it for themselves. But making monies off your past experiences is how you get new jobs.

But why did they still have them? Basically, it was for continuity of control and information. The new people need to know what was going on before them and sometimes that information is not in reports. They also need to know about the personalities of the people being dealt with. You can only get this by talking to your predecessors.

Why remove these clearances, now? These people have been critical of the administration pretty much since it began. Two reason jump right out. First is the political disaster that the last 2 weeks were. The NATO meeting and "summit" with Putin even scared the Republicans. Look at how much was spent on Trump spent on the trip to Scotland. Monetizing public service is something this administration does very well.

The other reason is the Mueller investigation. Every time something new happens or is about to happen, this administration creates some disaster or stupid policy change. Manafort's trail starts next week, Cohen is announcing he has tapes, and the Russian spy trail starts tomorrow. All things that Trump does not want the American people and media talking or thinking about.

What this group of cutthroats and misfits seem to have forgotten is that many know how to multitask. And with this thing called the Internet, nothing ever disappears from modern history.

But the real question here is about free speech and the right to make a living. College kids are encouraged to go get a government internship, just to get a security clearance. This now practically a requirement for upper level jobs in corporate America. Now the Administration wants to eliminate this from its critics. Does this mean that everyone that says something that is not in lockstep with the President and his cronies will lose their clearance?

It is starting to look like that. What is next? Shutting down media outlets, webpages, or midnight raids? We know where that leads. History has shown it. And where will history place us?