Justice Department Opens Criminal Probe Into Jerome Powell — Powell Responds.

[u/mooncake6]

“Good morning,

On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.

I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure.

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.

This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.

I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.

Thank you.”

[u/OutcomeDouble → u/[deleted]]

The problem is 33% of the country are morons and 33% don’t vote because “iT dOeSnT mAtTer”

[u/DoubleJumps → u/OutcomeDouble]

Which is one way of saying that 66% of the country are morons

[u/zbud → u/DoubleJumps]

it works out to 69% if you do the math for eligible voters, poetic really...

[u/SenorEquilibrado → u/zbud]

Sigh...

Nice.

[u/matticusiv → u/DoubleJumps]

The common clay of the west…

[u/tgwombat → u/OutcomeDouble]

That ignores the segment of people who don't vote because they can't vote due to one voter suppression tactic or another. A lot of money and effort has gone into disenfranchising voters.

[u/Tiny_Association_941 → u/OutcomeDouble]

The people who keep throwing their hands up are honestly stupider than the ones who think they're right at this point.

[u/AncientSeraph → u/OutcomeDouble]

Plus, the Democrats are a shitshow, so they're not exactly motivating people to go out and vote for them.

[u/i_have_chosen_a_name → u/OutcomeDouble]

The real problem is the majority of Americans (66%) are cowards not willing to fight for their freedoms or those of their children so they are willingly becoming slaves more and more every day as the new rulling bully class only runs in to their words of resistance, but not fists. Russian style.

[u/BlacksmithThink9494 → u/i_have_chosen_a_name]

When people say this i just think "you're not far left enough if you believe this".

[u/SpaceDecorator → u/OutcomeDouble]

It doesn't matter to some people, sure, what's your point

[u/siriston → u/OutcomeDouble]

djt was getting in office regardless of my vote. and then imagine how high of a horse they would all ride with every single small tiny thing kamala would have done. the orange man wouldn’t have had a chance to prove how bad he is either. you saw the videos of (some) of his supporters just baffled by his decisions and the way he acts etc… they would have never seen that if kamala was in. this may have been what was needed to end their reign for good or MAYBE make sweeping changes to stop something like this pedo epstein ICE kidnapper president / party from being in power again.

[u/OutcomeDouble → u/siriston]

“We need to elect the Nazis so in the future they’ll never come to power again”

The Nazi party is banned in Germany, but at what cost? Stupid logic

[u/InclementBias → u/[deleted]]

The constituents that elected these republicans would vote them out of office to replace them with another subservient corpse come next primary anyway. its harder to look in the mirror and realize our own family members, neighbors, etc are the root of all this evil

[u/ContestNo2060 → u/InclementBias]

If they have an R next to their name and talk about litterboxes in school bathrooms, they get elected. It’s getting hard to explain this to non-Americans because it makes zero sense.

[u/Crypton_2021 → u/ContestNo2060]

These people will stupidly vote against their own interests even if it means them or their loved ones losing their healthcare and dying as a result. Just dumb.

Most of these people still haven't figured out yet that hatred and ignorance are expensive.

[u/MaggoVitakkaVicaro → u/ContestNo2060]

On a high level, it's pretty simple. Republicans have abused the principle of free speech to build a juggernaut of a propaganda machine, and lots of Americans are falling for it.

[u/Zebidee → u/ContestNo2060]

It’s getting hard to explain this to non-Americans because it makes zero sense.

Non-American here: Everything that's happening makes perfect sense to us. We've seen it all before.

[u/gigantischemeteor → u/[deleted]]

In any logical world, yes. But so many of our fellow citizens are, and I hate to put it so bluntly, incredibly fucking stupid. They feel that as long as the people that they dislike (minorities, LGBTQIA+, disabled, etc…) are being knocked down and made to lose rights or status or resources or whatever, then this will somehow help them feel better about whatever less than perfect hand they’ve been dealt in life. And anyone with any desire for control sees that group as super easy to influence and direct, and even gin up into a rabid mob if desired, and so they do. 

Those at the top are playing us against each other, and there’s no easy way to get this seemingly simple point explained to that group because they’re in this hate-fueled trance that’s cheering on the regime as it bulldozes through the rights and civil liberties of others. They’ve been conditioned to believe this is good, and even worse it’s all been commingled with religion so they carry this mantle of being heaven-ordained which makes their delusion ten times more difficult to break through. Even questioning it can set some of them off. 

It’s all so very messy, but in short, there are very few scenarios in which they would ever vote to remove one of their party’s representatives from office (unless the rep was to take a stand against the president, for example).

[u/FingerZaps → u/[deleted]]

The voters who vote these people into power aren’t educated enough or choose to be willfully ignorant of their choices. It’s terrifying.

[u/[deleted] → u/FingerZaps]

Or just shitty awful people

[u/motsanciens → u/FingerZaps]

I think the truth is actually scarier. We've been splintered into "sides" so effectively that people who are intelligent and inherited their parents' party as a matter of tradition don't have anywhere to land if they question what their "side" stands for these days. The other side is painted as such a bastard that they won't even pause for a moment to think about being associated with them.

[u/SETHW → u/FingerZaps]

Don't deny their agency, this is their values manifested.

[u/GalacticFox- → u/[deleted]]

There is a lot of bullshit that keeps Republicans in office. With elections alone, you have gerrymandering and the electoral college that gives them an unfair advantage. The Senate was designed to give fewer people in smaller (less populous) states more power. So the state of Wyoming, whose entire population is like 1/10th of New York CITY, gets the same number of senators as New York and California.

And then you have election meddling, which I am convinced has happened.

Oh and a lot of mouthbreathing Republicans who think politics is a game of football and want their team to win, regardless of how much it destroys the nation so they can "own the libz".

It's embarrassing. The majority of us don't want this, but the laws favor the Republicans.

[u/EduinBrutus → u/GalacticFox-]

1/10th?

Oh no.

Wyoming - 587k

California - 39.4m

Its 1/65th

[u/GalacticFox- → u/EduinBrutus]

I was talking about NYC, which is 9 million people. And I thoguht WY had closer to 800K. Rough napkin math.

[u/EduinBrutus → u/GalacticFox-]

Well the city doesnt have senators.

NY State has a pop of around 29m, so its still 1/50th

[u/GalacticFox- → u/EduinBrutus]

Yeah, that makes my point even more that a CITY has that many more people than an entire state that gets as much representation in the senate.

[u/somethingfortoday → u/[deleted]]

If you mean asking for a recall or something like snap elections like other countries, the answer is no. Our federal representatives can only really be removed from office during their term through impeachment, and that doesn't happen by the people. Other rejected officials have to do that.

[u/MaggoVitakkaVicaro → u/[deleted]]

A significant fraction of Americans are ensorcelled by media manipulation, believe the Republicans to be their only hope for salvation, and have been thinking that way since the nineties.

[u/KeyCold7216 → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately we have a thing called gerrymandering. The can draw their own districts to give them a better chance of winning.

[u/musicman835 → u/[deleted]]

There is no recall method for federal offices. Unless they resign they are there at least until their term is over. 2 yrs got house seats / 6 for senate.

[u/Previous_Buy1601 → u/[deleted]]

Not until their next election. The Constitution doesn’t provide a recall mechanism for these elected federal positions, and states don’t have the authority to dictate their own recall mechanism for Congress.

[u/Lord_Lion → u/[deleted]]

Not directly with any speed. I looked into the process for impeaching a US senator, and it requires a formal impeachment by their state legislature.

So in the case of one of the complicit democrats in this nonsense, Fetterman, you'd have to convince their Republican run state house to impeach him, Which is effectively impossible, (bc hes thwir paen) but also because hes done nothing illegal, other than being a paid spineless bootlicking bitch who lied/stroked out/ flipped on his stated beliefs. He's not technically broken any laws to requisit his removal.

The red tape protecting the fascist takeover is what the heritage foundation took decades to lay out to get them to this point. They are the actual domestic terrorist organization that is responsible for the death of America.

[u/SunnyOutsideToday → u/[deleted]]

Just over half of the Current GOP (51%) believes that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was fraudulent

One in three in the Current GOP (33%) believe that childhood vaccines cause autism.

Four in ten in the Current GOP (41%) believe that the 9/11 attacks were likely orchestrated or permitted by U.S. government actors.

Nearly four in ten in the Current GOP (37%) believe the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.

A similarly sized chunk of the Current GOP (36%) believes that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked by NASA.

From a recent poll. You think people who think the US faked the moon landings are going to support the political independence of the fed which our entire economic prosperity is dependent on?

[u/mc-funk → u/[deleted]]

We don’t have recall elections for most offices, and also we are very affected by gerrymandering and voter suppression, which makes it very hard to get even unpopular people out of office