This all needed to be openly debated for decades, and laws made to thwart this well-organized, massively funded, largely successful plot by America’s most cynical billionaires to maximize and ensure their hereditary privileges in perpetuity. It was done in secret until around the time of Obama, The Tea Party and Birtherism hit the news and the scales finally, decisively tipped in their favor..
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse lays it all out clearly and succinctly in a short presentation.
In this short clip Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) makes an excellent point about the “socialism” of wildly popular Medicare (even in its current no eyes, no teeth form) and Social Security (and by extension the Veteran’s Administration, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability Insurance, etc.) Forget the YouTube title and the hero shot of the giant Orange Polyp, there is barely a mention of the disgraced former would-be dictator. Durbin’s simple, well-stated point can only be refuted by an angry mob of freedom lovers shouting USA! USA!!! as their remaining privileges and immunities of citizenship are stripped away by the zero sum fascists they’re cheering for.
As for the Orange Polyp, things are finally closing in on him. There is now proof of three meetings he attended with a dozen Congressional lackeys to plan the spontaneous (ad budget to promote the lie that he won was a modest $50,000,000) January 6 “protest” that degenerate, Negro commies made to look so bad by dressing as a violent white MAGA mob and putting dozens of cops in the hospital, with help from the FBI, a dead Venezuelan socialist and other nefarious traitors, freedom haters and never-Trumpers. I really don’t see how he and his insurrectionist buddies get out of this one.
The impeachments were a joke, because, although strong cases were presented each time, his loyalists are so shameless and so terrified of his sadistic wrath they’d acquit him (after a trial with no witnesses, where the foreman of the impartial jury announced he was working closely with the defense) of publicly raping and eating a five year-old, but courts are a different matter. Even the zealot judges he appointed from the list given to him by the extreme right wing legal fraternity (The Federalist Society the Koch-funded Nazis call themselves) ruled against him in hundreds of cases — a couple even ripping him new assholes. Evidence or lack of it still rules in court and there are very few cases in which a judge can safely rule against the evidence (and those are mainly on the unappealable Supreme Court where the majority wins no matter how asinine their opinion). The numerous cases against Trump do not favor him.
Not to say he won’t bring a lot more pain on a lot more people before he’s done– and if they don’t prosecute him soon it may well be too late for all of us, AMERCA WHILL B GREAT AGIN, but it really looks like the tide is finally starting to turn against the enraged giant baby. The shit in his diaper doesn’t smell quite as sweet to many who used to pretend to love sniffing it, to coin a disgusting phrase.
No doubt, the Democrats, who were in charge of every ANARCHIST JURISDICTION under Trump, set the tone by DOING NOTHING when some protesters became violent, set fires and broke windows in outbreaks of violence at mostly peaceful anti-racism protests (when met by militarized riot police) which, of course, led directly and predictably to a violent attack on a joint session of Congress where other protesters broke windows, fought police and did only a few minor unlawful, though patriotic, things (for which they have become political prisoners and, in some cases, martyrs).
And horrifying as it is to hear a guy like Jim Jordan use reasonable sounding words to stir the shit pot, at times it still fascinates me to see a sphincter designed for pushing out solid waste forming actual words and stringing them into understandable sentences.
An unaccountable crime scheme never ends until the perpetrators are charged, arrested, prosecuted and convicted. The former president, an insane giant baby, angrily rants and his party stalwarts cower, doing whatever he says, no matter how insane or babyish (though, in recent days, more cracks in this united facade are showing). For the most part, publicly, it’s Whatever you want, Mr. Insane Giant Baby, sir!
“Sir, they say, they always call me ‘sir’, which is funny if you think about it…” notes the Insane Giant Baby with that winning fake smile.
You had virtually every leader of Trump’s constantly changing 2016 campaign team (with the exceptions of Jared and Kellyanne) arrested and/or briefly locked up for various crimes, including working directly with Russian intelligence officers and fleecing Trump supporters of millions of dollars (with a fake Build the Wall website), several convicted of perjury and other crimes, most pardoned by the man they loyally worked for. The same goes for at least five members of the former president’s cabinet, referred for criminal investigation, none charged by the Trump DOJ. This is not normal, as they used to say.
You had four years and counting of seamless obstruction of justice by the sitting president using the DOJ as his personal legal cover-up team. Inauguration Committee chairman Tom Barrack was investigated for serious crimes (similar to those committed by QAnon advocate and martial law/MyPillow enthusiast Mike Flynn) by the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions and/or Barr and never charged with anything. Using the same evidence reviewed by Trump’s personal DOJ, Barrack has been indicted and is facing many years in prison if his criminal case goes to trial. The tax returns Trump fought so doggedly to hide, that the DOJ now says Trump’s DOJ and Steven Mnuchin illegally refused to turn over to Congress? Nothing to see! Personal! Nobody’s business, NANCY PELOSI, ASHLEY BABBIT, POWERFUL PEDOPHILE CANNIBALS, LIARS, ENEMIES, COMMUNISTS, DR. SUESS, MR. POTATOHEAD!!!!
The other day, apparently because Trump, frenetically trying to fix the “fake” election results, did not get around to classifying all DOJ notes and memos in the waning days of his presidency, when he was super busy trying to stay in power by any means necessary, some incriminating notes of a conversation he had with the corrupt Bill Barr’s successor as interim-acting AG (after even Barr had to bail) are now public. These contemporaneous notes show Trump had actual knowledge that he was lying about the election he lost, as he and his most ardent followers continue to brazenly do. Trump knew the truth, he just wanted the DOJ’s help to sell the lie.
This proof that he had knowledge that he was lying about the election shows his clear criminal intent for the many illegal actions he took, an intent his followers, especially Barr, kept obfuscating while they were all busily obstructing justice. At minimum they show Trump’s corrupt intent in, most recently, promoting his Big Lie, including $50,000,000 spent on ads (how is this not a big thing?) and countless calls (at least one recorded and heard by the public) and meetings during his unhinged “charm offensive” trying to pressure state Republicans to overrule their states’ voters.
Barr had already informed Trump, in a heated private exchange, that Trump’s continued claims of election fraud, and a rigged, stolen election were “bullshit.” Though Barr provided one last enthusiastic reach-around in his letter of resignation (“you are the greatest of all-time, sir, and the most passionately loved and admired compulsive liar in American, yea, world history. Your member is enormous and millions worship you”) he went on the record then and now as saying the election had not, in fact, been stolen. There had been no fraud, he concluded, on behalf of the DOJ, on a level that would have changed any election result. Too little and way too late, after all of Barr’s truly herculean efforts to shield Trump from accountability for anything, but even he left the sinking Trump administration before he could be directly tied to the attempted violent coup his boss was openly planning.
The “incriminating” notes, taken by the acting assistant deputy to then brand new interim-acting AG Jeffrey Rosen, show Rosen again informing Trump that there was no evidence of a rigged, corrupt or stolen election. The conversation took place on December 27, shortly after Barr left and ten days before the January 6 MAGA riot. Rosen corrected Trump’s false and mistaken claims. When Trump claimed there was a 68% miscounted vote/fraud rate in Michigan, Rosen corrected his number, it was actually a 0.0063% miscount rate, Sir, less than one hundredth of a percent. A small math error, fortuitously in his own favor, Trump’s rate was more than 10,000 times more than the actual rate. Anybody can get confused by decimals.
Trump remained undeterred with his political appointees, continued to try bending them to his will. The note quotes Trump’s response to being told by Rosen that the DOJ cannot just “snap its fingers and overturn the election results”. The Insane Giant Baby said he understood that, all he wanted was for the DOJ to do him a favor, though:
“just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. congressmen”
“These notes reveal that a sitting president, defeated in a free and fair election, personally and repeatedly pressured Justice Department leaders to help him foment a coup in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power,” Laufman [a former DOJ official] said. “And that should shock the conscience of every American, regardless of political persuasion.”
At this point, the war-weary American conscience is pretty darned hard to shock and there are always appeals and legal delays that can be employed by Trump and his myrmidons until there is a GOP majority in Congress again. Biden appears to believe (and is betting American democracy on that belief) that keeping Americans safe from the pandemic, giving them security, help with poverty, providing millions of jobs, repairing our crumbling infrastructure and starting the hard work of slowing catastrophic climate change will convince committed anti-fact fanatics to no longer support the Insane Giant Criminal Baby they faithfully adore. The moderate American president seems to actually believe that the results of his popular programs will speak for themselves, without a real need to overturn dozens of GOP voter suppression laws in many closely fought “battleground” states, laws that leave the final counting and certification of votes in the unchallengeable hands of GOP partisans. In less than a hundred days, after all, Biden’s legal experts will issue their report about the constitutionality of increasing the number of federal judges (no controversy, Congress can actually do it any time, absent the filibuster), including unpacking the 6-3 Federalist Society Supreme Court. What’s the rush? Americans aren’t that stupid… surely they’ll understand the radical Democrat commies improved their lives…
As for the seriousness of the new revelations about our criminally-inclined former Teflon Don and whether they will prompt any federal action?
I can hear the demented argument of former civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz, opining that, perhaps, had this been known at the time, while Trump was in office (where he could not have been legally prosecuted, even for murder, according to a generous reading of a famous memo) the notes might have, arguably, been a convincing part of a larger argument that the president had knowingly abused his power to spread a self-promoting lie and facilitate illegal efforts to make it the “truth”, although, as Trump’s first impeachment and second impeachment demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, abuse of power, by itself, is neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor if the powerful abuser is known to be supremely vindictive, petty and sadistic, and has at least 50 votes in the Senate.
Now, some will say that this new “note” by Jeffrey Rosen’s deputy is much ado about nothing. EVERYBODY knows Trump lies, thousands of times as president, many, many, many times since he lost the election he tenaciously claims, without any evidence, that he won. Everybody knows you either love Trump unconditionally or hate him without boundaries. Those who love him admire his unbeatable ability to say “fuck you” to anybody, at any time, with no consequences. Those who hate him consider him a deadly cancer on decency and democracy. Who’s to say who’s right?
The stodgy New York Times printed an editorial the other day, entitled, circumspectly enough “ Trump and His Allies Still Aren’t Telling the Truth about January 6th” (Trump and his Allies are still lying about January 6th might have seemed biased, right?) contrasting numerous counter-factual GOP talking points to the truth as established by actual evidence and the fact that it actually happened. It was an impressive collection of fact and often absurdist alternative fact, but, of course, it proves nothing to those millions who are convinced that had faithless Brad Raffensberger and other powerful RINOs, including Trump’s loyal but spineless VP, homophobic lapdog Mike Pence, had merely done the right thing, finding Trump ONE more vote than Biden in each of the several swing states Trump “lost”, we wouldn’t be having this annoying fucking discussion now, while vicious Satanist cannibal child-fuckers like “affable” Communist Tom Hanks are running free and gleefully unaccountable for monstrous crimes they continue to blissfully get away with (sorry, Tom, but, you know people are sayin’… ‘sir’ they say ‘Tom the actor is not a good guy’).
It’s been said many times lately, prominently by justice-obsessed former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, that the ongoing GOP authoritarian insurrection will not be halted until its leaders and organizers are charged, arrested, tried and convicted. Elected insurrectionists, who seem to have played key roles in the lead-up to Trump’s MAGA riot (and its follow-up), still loudly talking shit, must be held accountable and, if merited, forced off the political playing field, that much is clear.
The proof of Trump’s criminal intent is there, Trump’s actual intent in his many criminal undertakings since losing the presidency can be easily established by deposing Barr, Rosen and his deputy assistant. It is beyond question that Trump knew he was lying when he sought extra-legal help overturning a fair election, he refers to others he enlisted, Mo Brooks organized three pre-January 6 strategy meetings with at least ten other elected Republicans, and still they persist, “doubling down” on the Stolen Election Lie at every opportunity.
We must all hope (those of us who are not Trumpists) that the water in the pot that is slowly heating now under the Giant Insane Angry Baby and some closely related frogs will get hot enough, soon enough, to make some of his loyal, betrayed co-conspirators start making deals to get out of the bouillabaisse, soon.
Why not take a one-month vacation now, Congress, you’ve certainly earned it! Nothing of great importance that won’t wait a month or two, or six, or … whatever.
Six Republican members of the House, escorted by a man in a giant Trump costume bearing the message “TRUMP WON,” marched on the Justice Department Tuesday afternoon to speak up for those they called “political prisoners” awaiting trial for their roles in the insurrection.
“These are not unruly or dangerous, violent criminals,” Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) proclaimed at a news conference outside DOJ headquarters. “These are political prisoners who are now being persecuted and bearing the pain of unjust suffering.” Rep. Louie Gohmert (Tex.) speculated that “we have political prisoners here in America.”
from As Jan. 6 hearings begin, Republicans side with the terrorists
Opinion by Dana Milbank
Most Nazi humor is based on humiliation of the powerless. They also love to attack the victims of their violence, as well as any and all perceived anti-fascists. Our extreme right is the same way, their “humor” and “entertainment”, “infotainment” editorials are designed to delight bitter sadists, and to make their coffers cah-ching.
Since the 1950s, when Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered constructing a false narrative to attract voters, the Movement Conservative faction of the Republican Party focused not on fact-based arguments but on emotionally powerful fiction. There are no punishments for lying in front of television cameras in America, and from Ronald Reagan’s Welfare Queen to Rush Limbaugh’s “Feminazis” to the Fox News Channel personalities’ warnings about dangerous Democrats to Rudy Giuliani’s “witnesses” to “voter fraud” in the 2020 election, Republicans advanced fictions and howled about the “liberal media” when they were fact-checked. By the time of the impeachment hearings for former president Trump, Republican lawmakers like Jim Jordan (R-OH) didn’t even pretend to care about facts but instead yelled and badgered to get clips that could be arranged into a fictional narrative on right-wing media.
Now, though, the Movement Conservative narrative that “socialist” Democrats stole the 2020 election, a narrative embraced by leading Republican lawmakers, a story that sits at the heart of dozens of voter suppression laws and that led to one attempted coup and feeds another, a narrative that would, if it succeeds, create a one-party government, is coming up against public testimony under oath.
As you will recall from the two impeachments of America’s Greatest Compulsive Liar, the mere attempt to do something, if done by or on behalf of the sitting president, is not a high crime or even a misdemeanor. Ukrainian president Zelensky never actually went on CNN to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden, so… no crime, no quid pro quo. On January 6, a mob may have tried to stop the certification of the election, at Trump’s strong suggestion, even succeeded for a few hours, but an ATTEMPTED coup is not the same as a successful coup, which is why Pence, Pelosi, AOC, Liz Cheney, Kevin McCarthy and company are all still alive to talk about it.
We need to recall this principle, even though it might seem objectively absurd, and the above purely academic definition, as we march toward authoritarianism.
As the House Select Committee on the January 6 MAGA riot began its first hearing, the man who called to beg Trump to stop the riot, and then asked him “who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” when Trump mocked him, held a press conference to ask the most important question of all about the day a hoard of outraged Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and attacked police: What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?
This is a typical diversionary obstructionist move and brazeness is sometimes the main point of the exercise. The provocative yet senseless question can be answered easily enough by anyone who read accounts of the riot. Nancy Pelosi knew the Capitol was under attack when her security team hustled her to a safe location, with freshman Congress member and QAnon adherent Lauren Bobert texting out Pelosi’s movements and realtime location to the armed rioters who were looking for her.
Again, the brazen nature of this in-your-fucking face distraction is the point of the exercise. If you are trying to provoke rage in your supporters, you want to go big — give them more reason to really hate those they already blame. Plus, it will drive your hated enemies crazy! Forget that more than one Capitol police officer is in the House chamber testifying about a crowd of snarling “protesters” calling him a “fucking nigger” and daring him to put down his gun and have a fair fight against the twenty of them. It looks bad for some of the very fine militia member supporters of America’s most openly racist president that his peeps would use the ‘n-word’ so openly, and toward Blue Lives Matter. No problemo. Flip the script, give Newsmax, OANN, FOX a BIG alternative headline.
Fucking Pelosi is a witch. This is yet another illegal, purely partisan witch hunt. She could have stopped the riot at any time, merely by surrendering and letting the lawless mob bring her to justice. Did she? No, she selfishly hid, like the radical communist coward she is. What did she know? When did she know it? Real Americans need to know!!!
Not far away, during the mayhem on January 6, we all know what the man who was the focus and instigator of the riot was doing. He was glued to the television. When McCarthy called him, in reasonable fear for his life, and was finally put through, and asked his leader to call off the rioters, Trump reportedly delivered a very catty line — “well, Kevin, I guess some people are more upset about this stolen election than you are”. The line pissed stressed out Kevin off, he raised his voice to America’s Greatest Snarkmeister, even used the fucking f-word. 140 Blue Lives Matter folks were seriously injured in the ongoing lovefest (presumably from excessive hugging and kissing) as the former president swelled with pride watching the riot, seeing how many still loved him unconditionally, and showed it by openly, violently violating the law to carry out his gentle suggestion that they “stop the steal”.
So, naturally, the REAL question is not why Capitol Police were unprepared for the attack [1], who ordered the DC National Guard to stand down during the riot (Trump ordered the interim-acting lackey who headed DOJ to do so), not who donated the $50,000,000 in advertising funds to promote #Stop the Steal, not who worked directly with the White Supremacist militias who took care of the logistics of the actual violent insurrection at the Capitol, not who failed to act to stop the riot for hours, not who gave aid and comfort to the criminals who stormed the Capitol — none of that matters. The only question before real Americans today, in this great nation, under God, indivisible, is “What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?”
My next question is will Pelosi authorize the House Sergeant at Arms to arrest and lock up McCarthy when he tries to pull a Don McGahn, defy a legal Congressional subpoena to answer the many questions he is desperately ducking as he audaciously tries to reframe the exercise in accountability as a purely partisan witch hunt by the very witch responsible for the riot in the first place, Nancy Pelosi, who, indisputably DID NOTHING TO STOP IT!
I’ll tell you this, if Nancy Pelosi stops short of having McCarthy arrested for contempt of Congress, she will embolden every other Trump apologist and Nazi wannabe that Congress subpoenas to testify. This is not a situation where anybody has a year or two to spare while federal judges slowly work on this Rubik’s Cube of a constitutional conundrum, the binding legality of a Congressional subpoena.
Democracy is under direct, sustained, serious attack. When did Pelosi know this and what does she know?
[1] blah, blah blah… WHAT ABOUT PELOSI?!!!
Three days before the siege, a Capitol Police intelligence assessment warned of violence from supporters of President Donald J. Trump who believed his false claims that the election had been stolen. Some had even posted a map of the Capitol complex’s tunnel system on pro-Trump message boards.
“Unlike previous postelection protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th,” the threat assessment said, according to the inspector general’s report. “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike.”
But on Jan. 5, the agency wrote in a plan for the protest that there were “no specific known threats related to the joint session of Congress.” And the former chief of the Capitol Police has testified that the force had determined that the likelihood of violence was “improbable.” . . .
. . . The Department of Homeland Security warned the Capitol Police on Dec. 21 of comments on a pro-Trump website promoting attacks on members of Congress with a map of the tunnel system, according to the inspector general’s findings.
“Supporters of the current president see Jan. 6, 2021, as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election,” said the assessment three days before the riot. “This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent.” . . .
. . . “Several comments promote confronting members of Congress and carrying firearms during the protest,” a Capitol Police analyst wrote.
Among the comments reported to the Capitol Police: “Bring guns. It’s now or never,” and, “We can’t give them a choice. Overwhelming armed numbers is our only chance.”
On Jan. 5, the F.B.I.’s Norfolk field office, in Virginia, relayed another threat from an anonymous social media thread that warned of a looming war at the Capitol.
“Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled,” the message read. “Get violent … stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”
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