28 thoughts on “More Coverup”

  2. back in october last year Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli are asked to speak with House committee investigating January 6 – CNNPolitics

    The panel could be interested in speaking with Wolf and Cuccinelli about any influence the White House or others acting in concert with the White House may have exerted on DHS leadership and its agencies as part of a push to overturn the 2020 election results.
    In December 2020, The New York Times first reported that Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani called Cuccinelli, second in command at DHS at the time, and asked him whether the department could seize voting machines in certain states to be reexamined for evidence of widespread voter fraud.
    At the time, it was unclear if Trump facilitated the call between Giuliani and Cuccinelli.
    Cuccinelli told CNN on Tuesday that he did tell Giuliani the department had no legal authority to seize voting machines or interfere with state-run elections. Cuccinelli also said that “no one at any level pushed us to do anything outside of our existing mission sets.”
    A spokesperson for the House select committee declined to comment on any contact with Wolf and Cuccinelli.
    On the afternoon of January 6, Cuccinelli tweeted: “For months over the summer we rightly condemned Antifa for storming federal buildings in Portland. If you are entering the Capitol Building against police orders, you must leave. There is a proper venue to resolve grievances. This is not it.”
    DHS had set up a virtual situation room on January 6 to “facilitate department and interagency communication and coordination as we do for many large events in DC,” then-DHS spokesperson Alexei Woltornist said at the time.DHS does not have jurisdiction over the security of the US Capitol but is responsible for security of some federal facilities in DC and for responding to calls for assistance from other law enforcement agencies.

  3. and what’s with the IG holding back knowledge?

    from same wapo article referenced by fearless leader:

    The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’’s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with The Washington Post.
    The office of the department’s undersecretary of management also told the government watchdog that the text messages for its boss, undersecretary Randolph “Tex” Alles, the former Secret Service director, were also no longer available due to a previously planned phone reset.
    The office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari did not press the department leadership at that time to explain why they did not preserve these records, nor seek ways to recover the lost data, according to the four people briefed on the watchdog’s actions. Cuffari also failed to alert Congress to the potential destruction of government records.
    The revelation comes on the heels of the discovery that text messages of Secret Service agents — critical firsthand witnesses to the events leading up to Jan. 6 — were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered.
    In a nearly identical scenario to that of the DHS leaders’ texts, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari’s office seven months ago, in December 2021, that the agency had deleted thousands of agents’ and employees’ text messages in an agency-wide reset of government phones. Cuffari’s office did not notify Congress until mid-July, despite multiple congressional committees’ pending requests for these records.
    The telephone and text communications of Wolf and Cuccinelli in the days leading up to Jan. 6 could have shed considerable light on Trump’s actions and plans. In the weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had been pressuring both men to help him claim the 2020 election results were rigged and even to seize voting machines in key swing states to try to “re-run” the election.
    “It is extremely troubling that the issue of deleted text messages related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not limited to the Secret Service, but also includes Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, who were running DHS at the time,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson said in a statement.
    “It appears the DHS Inspector General has known about these deleted texts for months but failed to notify Congress,” Thompson said. “If the Inspector General had informed Congress, we may have been able to get better records from Senior administration officials regarding one of the most tragic days in our democracy’s history.”

  4. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/1114300388/matt-gaetz-olivia-julianna-abortion-gen-z-for-change

    As if this morning, she has raised a million dollars for abortion aid and, um, thank you Marty Gratz, I guess. Ha!

    “Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz attempted to humiliate a teenage girl after arguing that overweight and unattractive women don’t need to worry about getting pregnant or needing abortions. That same girl has since raised over $700,000 for abortion care.”

    “Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” he told the crowd.”

    “Nineteen-year-old political activist Olivia Julianna thanked Gaetz for his attack, which she credits for the wave of donations…”

    Matty, She’s too old for you anyway, not to mention too smart.

  6. jamie, 2 of stewart’s blasts i really liked:

    “Not one of these stab-vets-in-the-back senators should get to leave for the summer till this sh— is fixed. Not one.”

    and

    “Every one of those Republicans that voted against healthcare for veterans, voted for the slush fund for the war. They don’t support the troops. They support the war machine”

  8. Poobah, is the IG for DHS a “serve at the pleasure of the President” position? If it is Garland, as chief law enforcement officer might recommend to Biden that he should not be pleased.
     

  9. pogo, someone else with same name thinking along same line back in april

    POGO Calls on President Biden to Remove DHS IG Joseph Cuffari

    Dear President Biden:
    In order to preserve the integrity of the independent inspectors general system and to begin counteracting the pervasive culture of impunity at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we urge you to take swift and decisive action to address the chilling lack of independence demonstrated in multiple instances by DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, who was under investigation as of February of this year by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency’s (CIGIE) Integrity Committee. While POGO has said in the past that it would be reasonable to place Cuffari on administrative leave pending the findings of a CIGIE investigation, our enclosed reporting reveals such extraordinary and improper deference to DHS officials that we call on you to immediately remove Cuffari from his position as DHS inspector general.1
    The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the government fails to serve the public or silences those who report wrongdoing. We champion reforms to achieve a more effective, ethical, and accountable federal government that safeguards constitutional principles.

    [letter to prez continues]

  14. Flooding in Vegas streets and casinos. 1” of rain in an hour. Place yet bets. 

  15. Here is one for you Bob from the New Yorker
    People busy developing/building in AZ in places that may not have water soon.
     

     
    As the Southwest enters its second decade of megadrought, and the Colorado River sinks to alarmingly low levels, Rio Verde, a largely upscale community that real-estate agents bill as North Scottsdale, though it is a thirty-mile drive from Scottsdale proper, is finding itself on the front lines of the water wars. Some homeowners’ wells are drying up, while others who get water delivered have recently been told that their source will be cut off on January 1st. “It’s going to turn into the Hunger Games,” Harris said grimly. “Like, a scrambling-for-your-toilet-water-every-month kind of thing.” The fight over how best to address the issue is pitting neighbors against one another. “Water politics are bad politics,” Thomas Loquvam, the general counsel and vice-president of epcor, the largest private water utility in the Southwest, told me. “You know that saying, ‘Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting’? That’s very true in Arizona.”

  17. and they blame joe for inflation?

    the guardian:

    The US’s biggest oil companies pumped out record profits over the last few months as Americans struggled to pay for gasoline, food and other basic necessities.
    On Friday, ExxonMobil reported an unprecedented $17.85bn (£14.77bn) profit for the second quarter, nearly four times as much as the same period a year ago, and Chevron made a record $11.62bn (£9.61bn). The sky-high profits were announced one day after the UK’s Shell shattered its own profit record.
    […]
    The record profits came after similarly outsized gains in the first quarter when the largest oil companies made close to $100bn in profits.
    High energy prices are one of the leading factors driving inflation to a four-decade high in the US. Gas prices have fallen slightly in recent weeks but are now averaging $4.25 a gallon across the US, more than $1 a gallon higher than a year ago.
    Consumers are facing high fuel prices not just at the pump. Soaring energy prices are being baked into delivery costs, which is driving up the cost of everything from apples to toilet paper.
    [continues]

  19. Yep! Inflation is not Joe Biden’s fault,  nor is it the fault of folks getting pay raises.   It’s CORPORATE GREED! 

  20. patd – the history of these united states is to not support the troops or veterans. George Washington spent his own money on his troops. That the greed old perverts pissed on the veterans this time is nothing new.  We have had to endure lies about support and life long health care, money and much more. 
     
    At some point you would expect vets to stop voting for the stinkers, but no, remember not all who joined the military did so because they were smart.  Some of us were “invited” to by the draft.  Others were given a choice between the “freedom” of the military or the confinement of a small, very small, room (that of course is illegal folks).  And others could not get a job, even making french fries. 
     
    Sad that many veterans organizations are pro-sfb, and their members are too.  It is like people of color joining a party that is quite blatant about not liking people of color.  One would hope they could get the hint.

  21. Craig – a little bit ago you asked about battery technology.  I answered as best I could at the time.  Since then I have been exploring the U.S. world in the Mid-Atlantic world for information about current (read that “modern”) battery technology.
     
    I learned a lot.  Although still not in use beyond a small percentage of the possible users, battery technology has advanced to the point of being economically useful.  Combining batteries with solar panels and controllers has brought the payoff of many single family homes down to a couple of years.  This includes running all appliances, heating and air conditioning.  Some locales and states offer subsidies making the payoff earlier. 
     
    Vehicle battery use is still in flux.  The numbers that I have seen is the cost is still too high for most buyers.  The move by Ford to add a popular truck, E150, to the floor is important.  I have not seen anything negative about Ford doing a recall of the truck last week.  That is important as it means there is no scrambling for panic by the masses.
     
    Is battery technology at its limit?  No.  Right now the common commercial battery is the LiIrPo4, lithium iron potassium, because it works and it is available.  What is next?  Lots of possibilities, but we don’t know which one will win.  The whole thing about batteries is storing energy in the best way to use it in the future, at the lowest cost. 
     
    I bought a battery powered chain saw last week to clean up some storm damage.  I am not able to pull a start cord anymore.  I was surprised at how well it worked.  I bought a battery powered trimmer today.  I was surprised at how well it worked.  I have been trying battery powered garden tools since the sixties.  Until now the technology was not equal to the desire.  Now I can saw the power is there.   It will take several batteries to do the job of the yard, but it finally has the power.

  24. A water emergency, but the casinos are flooding.  The gods are laughing. Puny humans. 

  25. i’ve seen some F-150 Lightnings, and the design is stupid: with a technology where efficiency is paramount, it’s shaped like a brick and unnecessarily large
     
    Try again, Ford

  26. Funny thing is, the inefficient design of a billion-dollar enterprise is the consequence of contemporary American toxic-masculinity, as the typical truck consumer in such a culture so concerned with projected strength demands an aggressive looking vehicle, with some even speculating such consumptive predilections are an expression of a primal urge to kill.
     
    Incidentally, pedestrian deaths increase year-over-year, and a cursory examination of automotive design trends and their ever-larger and blockier presence seems to indicate why (along with driving while texting).
     
    See?  i had a point. 🖖

  27. …and on top of that, new gasoline-powered cars and trucks in the American market still get terrible gas-mileage because they’re so big and heavy because Americans want big and heavy.
     
    Global-warming as a consequence of American toxic-masculinity.  
     
    If we are going to attempt to address the issues concerning the collective welfare of humans, then an awareness of, and, dare i go so far to say, an understanding of, cultural psychological phenomena of them is essential.
     
    That was the point. ✌️

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