This time, it’s Portugal’s Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, who last Saturday walked the streets of Irpin, Ukraine, along with Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mykola Tochytsky. Irpin is a suburb on the northwestern edge of Kyiv and was savaged by the Russians during the barbarian’s occupation.
Where’s our President Joe Biden (D)? He went to eastern Asia, still determined to stay as far away from Ukraine as he can.
…and do what you’re told. We wouldn’t have accused you if you weren’t guilty.
The SEC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement, Gurbir Grewal, doesn’t like it when lawyers defending their clients from SEC accusations get too much in his way.
The SEC also is seeing instances where lawyers repeatedly interrupt witness testimony to lodge frivolous objections….
Of course, it’s Grewal’s definition of frivolous. If he were serious, he’d be in court getting the frivolity sanctioned. And this:
In some instances, lawyers are representing companies and individuals in cases where they have a conflict of interest[.]
If that were true, he’d be objecting in court. Where are his objections?
And some lawyers are asserting legal privilege to shield documents from the eyes of SEC staff in cases where that privilege doesn’t apply[.]
Again, that’s Grewal’s position. And he asserts it as if, because he’s asserted it, it must be so.
And this:
Mr Grewal said he had recently learned about an entity with billions of dollars in assets that produced a mere 200 documents in a six-month period, after being served with a request for customer account and trading data.
Grewal is being disingenuous on two counts with this bellyache. One is that he’s been the Enforcement Director for nearly a year; how is it that he’s only just “recently” learning of this situation? Is he in charge, or isn’t he? If he is, does he read his staff’s input, or doesn’t he?
The other count is his beef that this represents an accused company’s delaying tactic. If he didn’t like it the slow production, why did he allow it to persist for so long? Why wasn’t he trying to force the pace—in court if necessary?
Grewal gave the SEC’s game away with these, as cited by the WSJ:
…[he] called on lawyers to work more cooperatively with the agency….
And
Lawyers who do cooperate in a genuine way with the SEC are better positioned to win credit for their clients in the form of a more lenient resolution of the agency’s investigation
This is one more reason the SEC cannot be trusted. I’ve mentioned another earlier.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board is concerned about the House of Representatives’ abuse of its subpoena power. Rightly so, but they’re too narrow in their concern.
Republicans are sure to see the subpoenas [of five Republican Representatives, by the January 6 Committee] as a case of turning the investigative power of the House against the opposition party.
So are will Americans see this abuse.
Republicans will argue that any such effort [to hold Representatives refusing to answer the subpoenas in contempt and seek their prosecution] is a violation of the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.
So will Americans see this abuse.
…in image form:
Each bureaucrat with some form of a medical certificate more interested in her checklist than in the patient in front of her.
This is yet another reason to disband the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA, and return all personnel to the private sector (not reassign them elsewhere in government). Instead, use the current and putative future VA budgets to provide vouchers for our veterans so they can seek their own care with the hospitals, clinics, and doctors of their choice and with far more responsive attention in a far more timely manner.
Veteranos Administratio delende est.
Think about the continued protests by abortion activists outside conservative Supreme Court Justices’ homes, protests nakedly intended to force those Justices to change their alleged votes on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, votes which might aggregate into significant alteration, if not reversal, of the Court’s prior ruling in Roe v Wade.
Keep in mind that those…protests…are intended to achieve their goal by terrorizing the Justices and, especially, their families.
Keep in mind, also, that both of those—protests to intimidate court officials into producing a particular outcome to a case, and terrorizing the targets of those so-called protests—are plainly illegal:
Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
The press is rife with videos of the protests and of the protestors. The protestors are easily identifiable in those videos. There are police present whose bodycams also would provide ample identification capability regarding those protestors.
The Department of Justice, though, is studiously silent and determinedly inactive on the matter. No arrests have been made. No indictment proceedings have been initiated. No one has been brought before a judge for arraignment.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is simply refusing to do his job and enforce the law.
We dodged a bullet when we managed to avoid having Garland on our Supreme Court. Imagine the destruction to law, to order, this man could have inflicted on our nation had he gotten that lifetime appointment. He’s being destructive enough in just one year and will wreak plenty of additional havoc on rule of law over his four-year term.