Tuesday, June 3, 2025
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Informed
Confluence

25th Amendment: The Political Apocalypse

Reading Time: 4 minutes Both the 25th amendment and impeachment have deeply painful ramifications for our nation. Our republican led congress seems to lack the will to take on the duty of protecting our nation from a madman. This is why the midterms are so critical. However, the NYT op-ed gives me both hope and a shudder of terror at the prospect that impeachment is not our only way out. “Adults in the room” are doing what they have to do. If it turns out the executing the 25th is what must be done, Trump may be gone but chances are high no one will like it when the dust settles.

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Informed
Confluence

You Decide: Understanding Obstruction of Justice

Reading Time: 4 minutes Our forefathers framed the Constitution around one simple belief. A President would not be allowed to abuse his power. These people were trying to build something that wouldn’t devolve into tyrannical abuses of kings and queens. They had some experience there. They knew what they wanted to avoid. The power handed to a president is a sacred trust, and if abused should be revoked. If you want to know what the founders had in mind, read the Declaration of Independence, which formed the essential backdrop for the constitutional debates.

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Informed
Confluence

What’s Wrong with Having a Good Relationship With Russia? – Confluence Daily

Reading Time: 4 minutes The company a person keeps will tell you a lot about that person. Same goes for countries. That concept is what diplomacy is built on. As a nation, you ally yourself with other countries that share your values and vision for the future.

In theory, there would be nothing wrong with having a stronger relationship with Russia. The problem with that theory is Vladimir Putin.

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Informed
Confluence

The Most Important Article You Can Read Right Now About Trump is from the New Yorker

Reading Time: 3 minutes Suppose we are currently making the same mistake we made at the outset of this drama — suppose the dark crevices of the Russia scandal run not just a little deeper but a lot deeper. If that’s true, we are in the midst of a scandal unprecedented in American history, a subversion of the integrity of the presidency. It would mean the Cold War that Americans had long considered won has dissolved into the bizarre spectacle of Reagan’s party’s abetting the hijacking of American government by a former KGB agent. It would mean that when Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in on the president and his inner circle, possibly beginning this summer, Trump may not merely rail on Twitter but provoke a constitutional crisis.

And it would mean the Russia scandal began far earlier than conventionally understood and ended later — indeed, is still happening. As Trump arranges to meet face-to-face and privately with Vladimir Putin later this month, the collusion between the two men metastasizing from a dark accusation into an open alliance, it would be dangerous not to consider the possibility that the summit is less a negotiation between two heads of state than a meeting between a Russian-intelligence asset and his handler.

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Uncategorized
Confluence

Brian Benczkowski: 8 Things You Need to Know About the New Top Official at the DOJ

Reading Time: 2 minutes Does this signal serious trouble for the Special Council’s investigation?

Yes. It does. 

Is it the beginning of the end?

It’s hard to say. I’m sure the Republicans and the Trump Administration would like to think so. However, it’s likely the momentum of the investigation will make it nearly impossible to walk it all backward in any substantive way. The real litmus test of where we are will happen at the midterms in November because, at the end of the day, the will of the people still runs a democracy, assuming we still have one.

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Informed
Confluence

Trump Pardons Rightwing Extremists with Militia Ties and It’s a Very Big Deal

Reading Time: 4 minutes The Hammond pardons tie our President to a group of people and ideology we should all be afraid of. We’ve known all along Trump’s words and attitudes have empowered the racist words and attitudes of others out of the shadows and into the light. Now, the group being empowered are the kinds of people who have blatantly disregarded the law and used arsenals of weapons to make their point and ideology public.

Every single day in this administration is a new day.
Every single day things happen we couldn’t have imagined possible.
These pardons may quietly be shuffled into the books in a news cycle that can’t keep up. However, it’s very possible that history will show this was one of the darkest days yet. Actions have consequences and the consequences for allying yourself with the most violent and extreme among us probably won’t be good.

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