The Rule Of Law Prevails

Posted: June 10, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

“The classified documents TRUMP stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.” — An excerpt from the indictment of Donald J. Trump

As most of us know by now, the twice impeached, once indicted, and found in another court to be liable for sexual assault and defamation, former president, is again, criminally indicted for his actions. To me, the indictment announced by Trump on Thursday and unsealed to the public by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday is the most egregious and damning offense of his to date. (Read an annotated transcript here.) One could hardly believe that a former Commander-in-Chief of the United States military would put our entire national security at risk. And for what? We do not know at this point whether it was his ego, for money, for childlike reasons (“mine!”) or for all of that. The acronym to understand people’s motivation for espionage is MICE (money, ideology, compromise, ego) and any given spy might be motivated by one or more of those reasons. We may never know Trump’s motivation, but it is a serious blow to our country’s security. We can likely guess the motivation for the other person named in the indictment Mr. Walt Nauta, as he is described as totally loyal to Trump and did much of the actual movement of the material at Trump’s direction. Then he lied about it to the FBI and a grand jury.

The indictment is thorough. It also is based primarily on information from those close to Trump, not FBI interviews or surveillance or other surreptitious means. It is based on information such as notes, photographs and text messages between and from his former attorneys, staffers and others. Apparently, all one had to do was walk around Trump’s club at Mar-a-Lago to view classified documents because the material was variously kept on a stage in the ballroom, in a bathroom, in Trump’s bedroom, easy access storage areas and at least some of it was taken to Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. The audacity of his actions are only matched by the callous and criminal exposure of our nation’s secrets. He literally put people’s lives in danger for his own personal purposes. Hundreds of events took place in his clubs where the information was kept and literally thousands of people attended those events. It will be nearly impossible to assess who had access to the material and whether or not any of it was copied or photographed or stolen. Or sold. Or given away.

Read the indictment. It is an easy read, straightforward and mostly free of obscure legalese. It is startling in what it contains. There are 37 separate charges against Trump for violating seven federal laws. Mr. Nauta faces six charges, mostly for conspiracy to obstruct justice with Trump, concealing evidence and false official statements. 31 of Trump’s charges are individual charges for keeping national security documents he as was not authorized to have. Reliable sources suggest that there were far more classified documents in Trump’s possession, probably over one hundred, but they may be too sensitive to use as evidence in a trial because of their content.

This is no administrative error or careless paperwork. The indictment makes clear that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and that he carelessly disregarded the impact of his actions. To which I might add, as per usual. If one takes the time to read and think about what is happening, Trump’s actions have no relevance or comparison to similar discoveries of classified documents in former Vice President Mike Pence’s or President Joe Biden’s homes and offices. Much will be made of the fact that Mr. Pence’s investigation ended without action and no one has brought charges against Mr. Biden. When their papers were discovered they took immediate action to cooperate fully with the relevant agencies and voluntarily opened their homes and offices to thorough and complete searches. Trump ignored subpoenas, hid documents from court ordered searches and openly showed them to people with no need-to-know or security clearances. They most definitely are not the same. To say so is to try and hide Trump’s criminal behavior. And please! Give Hillary Clinton a rest. There is simply no comparison even as die hard MAGA supporters try to obfuscate what Trump did. That said, we should be very clear that this is only an indictment. He will have a chance in court to defend himself and the prosecution must convince a jury of his peers — ordinary Floridians doing their duty — that he is guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt. No guaranteed thing.

This is a big deal. It is also a very sad deal. I take no pleasure in his indictment, although I do believe it is fully justified and necessary. It is sad on the first level because we should not have to worry about a president of these United States carelessly or deliberately exposing state secrets for his own purposes. It is also sad because the consequences of this necessary indictment are unknown. Trump is now the first and second former president to be indicted on criminal charges (his sexual assault case was in a civil trial that resulted in him having to pay monetary damages, not a criminal trial), We have never experienced this in our history and have no idea how it will play out. It could be quite damaging to our country as for nearly the past eight years we have had to deal with this man who is interested only in his own aggrandizement, greed and power. I fear that given a chance, he will take the whole country down with him should he be found guilty on these or other charges sure to follow later this summer in Georgia for violating election laws (“I just want to find 11,780 votes”) and for violating federal laws in conjunction with efforts to overthrow the 2020 election.

I am saddest of all about the reaction from most Republican elected officials including the Speaker of the House, Congress men and women, Senators, governors and on and on and on. Some of these elected officials are openly or implicitly advocating for violence against the agents, prosecutors, and judges that are trying to uphold our laws. In fact, Trump himself posted a picture of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor in this case, and disparaged his wife and family in a temper tantrum that doubled as a thinly veiled hint to his cult members to take action against him and his family. Some statesman. Here is the hidden kicker. Nothing in our laws or Constitution preclude an indicted individual from running for office. He could even run if he is convicted. He can run while in jail. A convicted felon in jail can be elected president. Only impeachment precludes someone from serving as president.

Some politicians incorrectly accuse President Biden of directing the indictment. Really?! Are they that ignorant or are they deliberately trying to destroy faith in our judicial system? Mr. Biden had no say in the matter. The indictments were handed down by a group of American citizens formed into a grand jury. The special prosecutor presented evidence to them as to the alleged crimes committed and they independently voted to indict. It is America at work. It’s how we roll. If the majority of elected officials in one of the two political parties of the United States are willing to put their allegiance to a cult leader over their stated oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States then they are showing us who they are as people. Check their integrity dip stick and you will find that they are running on empty.

I am saddened but not surprised by Trump’s indictment. It is deserved. The process will play out. The indictment likely contains only the tip of the iceberg as to all of the evidence that will be presented at trial, but what is in it, is damning. Yet, the jury gets to decide if Trump is guilty and his attorneys can present evidence in his defense. It is our judicial system at work. Open and there for all to see. Nothing nefarious. I wish we as a nation did not have to go through this but Trump brought all of this crashing down on his own head. All he had to do was comply with the rules. He chose not to do so. And then he lied about it. Then he tried to cover it up. Now he is being held accountable. Sad but fair.

I am flabbergasted by the majority of Republican officials who continue to try and make him the victim of some evil conspiracy and in retaliation want to defund the FBI and the DOJ. Defund law enforcement! So much for the patriotic party of law and order. That group is gone. I am ever more incredulous as they claim that this is an attempt to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. They shout from the rooftops that he is a declared candidate and therefore should not and cannot be indicted. How is that a thing? He is not the Republican nominee, he is a candidate running for office. While I admit that the timing could get tricky, one would have to be nuts to follow their logic. As president he could not be prosecuted. Now that he is a self-declared candidate he cannot be prosecuted either? That means any person could declare themselves a candidate, raise a little money, give a few speeches and say that they cannot be prosecuted because they are running for president. Right now his legal status is the same as any other citizen of our great country. And that’s a good thing.

This indictment is not a political instrument. It is not even about the Presidential Records Act or archival material or any of the other smoke screens floating out there. This case is about our national security. Period.

We are in uncharted waters. In my mind, we need to hold him accountable. Otherwise, future presidents may think that they are immune from the laws of our country. I am holding my breath about how our country reacts. Rabble rousing governors and members of Congress are using this indictment for their own political purposes and in so doing are playing with fire. Many would be happy to see political violence break out. As I have written in this space before, there are some in the Republican Party — and dare I say in what is now the Republican main stream, including Trump — that want to burn it all down in order to rebuild in their own image the country that they want, rather than the one the majority of us deserve.

America Held Hostage

Posted: May 8, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

As traditionally happens in this century, a Republican controlled House of Representatives is holding the nation’s debt ceiling hostage to get concessions from a Democrat president. So far, despite the cliff hanging last minute resolutions of the past, the U.S. has never defaulted on its debts. This time it feels different. I’ll explain why below.

As I have written in this space before, it is important to remember that the debt limit is based on commitments already made by the U.S. government based on the budget and appropriations authorized by past Congresses. It is not about new spending. It is about paying for past commitments, much like using a credit card to pay for a new suit and then later having to pay the credit company for the clothes you are already wearing. The laws creating the debt ceiling can be traced to the U.S. entry into World War I and were designed to make it easier for the government to expend funds in time of war. Since 1960 the debt ceiling has been raised 78 separate times, 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents. Indeed, it may surprise you to know that the debt ceiling was raised three times under the last administration with no muss, no fuss and in a bipartisan vote.

Why the debt ceiling is important can be complicated. Likewise, so is the impact of failing to raise it this time. In part, no one knows exactly what will happen because the U.S. has never defaulted on its obligations to pay creditors. However, most economists and financial experts believe that a default, perhaps even the threat of a default as we inch closer to the deadline, could have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. economy and to the world economy. As Catherine Rampell succinctly outlines it in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, based on interviews with leading experts on the subject, the result would be a “financial Armageddon.” Briefly, much of our and the world’s investments and financial institutions are based on the ironclad belief in U.S. Treasury bonds. The U.S. has always made good on the interest and principal payments for those bonds. They are the bedrock of the financial system because they have always been considered risk free. If U.S. bonds are deemed unreliable and they are down graded, it has a cascading effect on other assets. As a result, interest rates would rise across the board, the stock market would plummet, companies holding bonds that count on bond interest payments for revenue and investments could collapse, investors accepting bonds as collateral could call in the money owed, which without the bonds and their interest, could cause borrowers to go bankrupt and if all of that happens at the same time, the system simply would collapse.

Kind of a big deal. That summary also does not mention that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military salaries, government workers salaries, etc. etc. would not be paid. Some believe that “selective” payments of certain bills over others could mitigate the impact of a full default but no one in government is sure how that would work, who decides and whether it is even legal under current laws.

That is why the MAGA Republicans are holding the debt ceiling hostage. The consequences are considered to be so dire, that surely the president must concede to their draconian demands in order to save the world. Bwaaaahahahaaa.

In theory, we have already broken through the ceiling. In practice, through the use of “special measures” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has been able to keep paying the bills. She now says that come 1 June, the special measures will no longer be able to meet the payments required.

The Republican controlled House did pass a debt ceiling increase in a bill last week. Many of the Republicans that voted for it expressed their opinion that it would never make it into law but rather that it was just a starting point for negotiations with the president. In fact, President Biden is scheduled to meet with the leaders of both parties in the House and Senate to discuss the issue tomorrow. The problem is that President Biden says he will not negotiate with terrorists. Well, I said that. He said he would not negotiate over the debt ceiling but was happy to do so for the budget and appropriations. The Speaker of the House refuses to separate the issues. Probably, because the House bill passed last week is so extreme, he knows it will not pass on its own and thus he must hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to squeeze out concessions.

Please note that President Biden put forth his budget over a month ago and the Republicans have yet to present their version of the budget, only the vague provisions in their debt ceiling bill. (A quick primer on U.S. government. The budget is the desired spending requirements and where, the Appropriations process is where the actual allocation of funds occurs and the Authorization committee allows for funds to be spent. The bills usually go through a lengthy committee process that involves detailed negotiations. That is the “regular order” that the president would like to see happen rather than the high stakes game playing out now.)

Here are some of the highlights of the bill pushed through by the MAGA Republicans in the House. The actual bill is hundreds of pages long, but here are areas that have drawn the most attention. The debt ceiling will only be extended until March of 2024. Thus if the president accedes to all of their demands, we will be in the same situation in less than a year anyway and an election year at that. They demand a 22% cut in all “non-defense discretionary spending.” They also say Social Security and Medicare are off the table. As Dana Milbank explains, that means that the areas cut will, among others, include the FBI, border security, airport security, highway construction, veterans health benefits, food stamps, national parks and a whole lot more. If they decide not to cut 22% from some programs (remember that they have not said where the cuts will come from, only that they are required), then the cuts will be more than 22% in some areas. Should this become law, it will have a devastating impact on our economy. Economists warn that the provisions of the current bill would greatly increase unemployment, significantly slow economic growth and raise the probability of a recession in the coming months.

Why would the MAGA Republicans want to do that? Two things come to mind. One, is if the economy is significantly disrupted, it increases Republican chances to retake the White House and the Congress in 2024. That’s the most charitable scenario. The second reason for playing with the economy is much more nefarious in my mind.

By definition, MAGA Republicans are ardent supporters of Trump, Trumpism and the insurrectionists on 6 January. Trump tried to overthrow the government in order to keep himself in the presidency. There is no question about that. Fake electors. Attacks on voting machine companies. Pleas to find phantom voters — “I just want 11,780 votes.” Fomenting violence against the Congress to preclude a fair and peaceful transition of power. It is all there. They are domestic terrorists. Too strong a statement? I think not. What else would we call people that supported overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States? If they supported Osama Bin Laden they would be called terrorists. He didn’t fly the planes into New York and Washington DC. Yet, clearly he was a terrorist. How is it different in this case? I cannot believe that anyone in these united states would support Trump for anything other than a long prison term. I cannot think of one good policy or decision that he made. But even if you named twenty wonderful things that he did, sorry, game over. He tried to foment a coup to overthrow the government. End of discussion. It did not work but I think he and his supporters will try again. Yet increasingly, Trump’s actions are being normalized. He has an upcoming one hour “town hall” on CNN. That is normalizing his actions and legitimizing his candidacy. To date, no other candidates have a one hour town hall scheduled. Why give him his infomercial to spread lies?

What does all of this have to do with the debt ceiling? My point is that there are MAGA Republicans willing to do anything to get rid of President Biden and bring in Trump (or some other autocrat wannabe like him). If that means tanking the world economy and throwing everything into chaos, then so be it. Terrorists use every means available to gain their desired end state.

I have absolutely no doubt that there are members of the House that would be perfectly happy to see the U.S. default on its debt. Just the price of doing business to create the conditions for an autocrat to assume power.

There are ways to stop the madness. I am not sure that there are any Republican “moderates” left in the House that could be counted upon to do the right thing. They all voted for the current mess of a bill that we have now. Yet, the Speaker only has a four vote majority. There may be five or ten Republicans willing to break ranks and join the Democrats to pass a reasonable debt ceiling bill. There are at least 18 House districts where Republicans won, but President Biden won the presidential vote handily. The Democrats already have a bill in committee that could be used to create a “discharge petition” that under certain rules, could bring a bill to the floor despite the Speaker’s objections. It requires the signed support of the majority of the House, which while a long shot, has a chance. Unfortunately, the window between proceeding with collecting the signatures and the date of default is very narrow.

Another option may be the 14th Amendment which reads in part, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” The original intent of this portion of the amendment was a reaction to Civil War debts, and it has never been used in modern times. Some legal experts believe that it gives the president authority to exceed the debt limit on his own, but should it be invoked, it will surely end up before the courts and that process could lead to a long period of uncertainty which would be nearly as disastrous to the economy.

What is certain is that no one knows exactly how this will be resolved. Current proposals include a few months extension for more negotiations, but personally, I do not see how the situation will change by then. The simplest answer is to raise the debt ceiling with a “clean” bill (no amendments or poison pills attached) and then do as the government should do — negotiate separate budget and appropriations bills.

But then when was the last time that things unfolded as they should?

Under The Big Top

Posted: January 28, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung.

— P.T. Barnum

As expected, the 118th Session of Congress got underway with a real spectacle after fifteen ballots to finally elect Kevin McCarthy (RMAGA – CA) as the Speaker of the House. In his vision quest to finally achieve his lifelong dream to be Speaker, he gave enormous power to the clowns that constitute his main supporters in the Republican caucus. Some observers argue that he gave away too much power, and thus will have little ability to actually govern or to accomplish much of anything. Assuming that the Republicans in the House of Representatives really intend or desire to accomplish anything of substance, those observers may be right. The bottom line, however, is the same. Not much of value will come out of the House in the next two years. Anything that does is likely to be ridiculous — such as their current effort to do away with the Internal Revenue Service and eliminate federal income taxes — and is almost certainly assured to fail in the Senate and absolutely will be vetoed by President Joe Biden.

There are, however, some elements of Mr. McCarthy’s concessions to the most extreme elements of his caucus that can cause real harm to our country. (I say most extreme in the context of believing that all elements of the House Republican Party are extreme. I don’t think that there are any “moderates” left. There are only hard right wing and dangerously hard right wingers in the Party now. The evidence is based not on public pronouncements, but rather on actual votes. So far, no matter how extreme the issue, the Republicans have voted unanimously. We will see if some long time Republican members realize that the country is being taken hostage and form their own bloc to counter the crazies.)

Many analysts have focused on the moves inside the House and how damaging they may prove to be. Some of it is arcane to the casual observer, but has real consequences to how things are accomplished. Or not accomplished. I do not intend to go into each and every corner of Mr. McCarthy’s concessions to the extreme right. However, there are two that we should pay attention to as the consequences could impact us all. One is the impending battle over raising the debt limit in the United States. The other is the formation of a new committee called The Select Subcommittee On The Weaponization of the Federal Government. The Chair of the Judiciary Committee Representative Jim Jordan (RMAGA – OH) will chair the subcommittee. Some critics grimly call it “The Tin Foil Hat Committee” or “The Committee to Obstruct Justice” because its primary goal is to investigate the Department of Justice, the FBI, our intelligence agencies and according to Mr. Jordan, to investigate why conservatives are being targeted by the federal government and therefore he needs to protect the First Amendment, including such violations of the amendment as is embodied in the investigations into the events on and before 6 January 2021.

It has become a twenty first century game for Republicans to try and hold the debt ceiling hostage when a Democrat is in the White House. When a Republican is president, the necessary legislation passes without remark or notice. Separating the hyperbole from the facts is important. Without going into all of the history, one should note that the Fourteenth Amendment (one amazing Amendment, by the way) says in part, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” In other words, pay the bills lawfully incurred by the U.S. government. Simple, right? All it means is that we as a country, just like most consumers, buy things on credit and pay them off over time. And it’s in the Constitution. There should be no problem but somehow in this century Republicans try to use it as a way to cut spending by the federal government (and thereby shrink the size of the government and eliminate or shrink programs they don’t like). Their concerns are over future spending. That’s legitimate and should be debated in every Congress. But they present it to the American public as some kind of current fiscal responsibility, not future. Again, let’s look at the facts. The debt ceiling was originally an accounting step that Congress took during World War I to allow more flexibility to the Treasury Department to spend during the war without continually coming to Congress for approval. It was not meant to be the same as a budget, appropriation or authorization. It is only in recent decades that it has become a weapon that the Republicans use against the Democrats, depending on which party is in power. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s official web site, the debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1960. Forty-nine times under Republican presidents and twenty-nine times under Democratic presidents. That is not exactly a Democrat spending problem. Math can be a tricky subject and one can manipulate the numbers a lot of ways whether discussing absolute dollars, percentages, relative dollars or other measures. That said, most experts conclude that the three presidents to have the national debt grow the most were, in order, Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump.

Here is the bottom line. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt. We have already passed the debt ceiling but the Secretary of the Treasury is using “extraordinary measures” to keep paying the bills until there is a new limit (which allows more borrowing). Those measures run out around June. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt in our entire history. No one knows exactly what will happen because it has never happened before. However, there is near unanimous agreement by serious financial experts and economists that it will trigger a world wide recession, including sky rocketing interest rates in the U.S., millions of jobs lost, the government shut down, social safety nets dry up and an economic nightmare for the average citizen. No one wants that to happen. And that’s the rub. Republicans know that Democrats can never allow that to happen and so, voila, the perfect hostage situation. Speaker McCarthy wants to “negotiate” with President Biden over spending cuts in order to raise the debt. The president says that there can be no negotiation because raising the debt limit is the normal business of the Congress under the Constitution and has nothing to do with future spending. Here’s the problem for the president. Mr. McCarthy is coming to the table with a wide ranging and drastic reduction in government programs, including in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. If the president gives in to even a little bit of that agenda in exchange for raising the limit, the Republicans have scored a tremendous political victory without having given up anything in return, merely doing their Constitutional duty. That is not a “negotiation.” Further complicating the issue is that members of Mr. McCarthy’s caucus probably would not mind seeing the U.S. default on its debts. Their goal is create as much chaos, anarchy and division as possible in order to fill the vacuum with their own autocratic policies and leaders. In other words, there is no guarantee Mr. McCarthy can pass anything without the Democrats help.

Some of those same extremists that would not mind destroying the American and world economy are on the Weaponization Committee. Chairman Jordan is under investigation for his actions leading up to the attempted coup on 6 January 2021. Other prominent members of the committee include MAGA supporters that are also under investigation. The panel will have thirteen members and Mr. McCarthy has already put eleven Republicans on it. Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) automatically gets a seat as the senior minority member on the Judiciary Committee. That leaves space for two other Democrats. Democracy in action.

It is a dangerous situation. While little of substance will come out of that committee, it will be used to try to investigate the investigators and as a cudgel against any other member of the government or a particular agency that irks them. Mr. Jordan has already demanded that the Department of Justice turn over all of their investigatory information on the 6 January coup. This would be unprecedented in American history. The Congress cannot interfere in ongoing criminal investigations. It would completely undermine the rule of law in our country. DOJ rebuffed the request but I am sure that the committee will haul the Attorney General, Director of the FBI and others before their panel to brow beat them, bully them and otherwise yell and put forth misinformation. In other words, their goal is to create more chaos, more attempts to undermine American’s faith in the government and our institutions and to foment more efforts to bring down our democracy. Also in their aim is the Department of Education and “Big Tech.” They are chartered with the ability to access the same information shared with the Intelligence Committee, another unprecedented move. They will investigate the “unfair” search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and the discovery of classified papers found in President Biden’s home (but not those recovered from Mar-a-Lago because, as one Representative put it, “he’s been investigated enough.”) They most certainly will project the insurrection on 6 January as a group of patriots exercising their First Amendment rights (see above) and of course try to cover up their own involvement in the coup attempt. Recall that 147 Republicans voted on 6 January 2021 to overturn the election. All eight of the Senators and 118 of the Representatives are part of the current Congress.

In simple terms, the Weaponization Committee can try, and will try, to investigate anything that they want to anywhere in the country and anywhere throughout the government. Witch Hunts, indeed. More dangerously they will attempt to gain access to the most sensitive information available to our justice and intelligence systems. No one knows what they may do with that information or how destructive they may be. Every Republican in the House voted to authorize this committee. That is why I despair that there are no moderates left on the Republican side of the aisle.

The clowns are in charge in the House. The circus is underway. It will be quite the show. One hopes that it results only in fury and showboating and lots of air time on Fox News rather than causing real harm to our democracy.

The Continuing Assault on Democracy

Posted: December 8, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

What is it with the former Republican Party? Even as I write, they continue their assault on the foundation of our republic. Likely, this will cause permanent long-term damage to our country. Tens of millions of people in the United States think, thanks to the rantings of Donald J. Trump and the continued efforts of national Republicans, that last month’s election was riddled with fraudulent practices and was rigged in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. To what end is this lie continuing even as the Electoral College is preparing to cast the majority of their votes for Mr. Biden on Monday 14 December?

Mr. Trump is nearly out of legal moves to dispute the election and is moving on to illegal attempts to change the outcome of the election. In every sense of the word, he is attempting a coup. Within the past week he twice telephoned the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House to pressure him into calling a special session of the legislature to replace the duly elected Electors with a slate pledged to Mr. Trump. This is the third state that he directly and personally meddled with trying to get them to change the results or overturn them outright. (The other two are Michigan and Georgia.) Last night a leading Trumpist Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina went on Fox News to berate the Republican Governor of Georgia to “not sit on your a**” and to call a special session of the legislature to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory in the state.

To date, state officials, Democrats and Republicans, are holding the line, upholding the law, and refusing to cave to Mr. Trump’s demands. However, pressure is mounting on Congressional Republicans to challenge the Electoral College results when they are certified on 6 January 2021. Two Republican Congressmen say that they will challenge the results. Under the 12th Amendment and the 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act, the word “certifies” is not well defined. It takes only one Representative and one Senator to object to certifying a particular electoral slate. The objection must be in writing and signed by each. The House and Senate then decides separately on how to resolve the issue via a vote. (Normally they confer and often use a Joint Committee to resolve any issues.) The last time a slate was challenged was in 2005 when there was an objection to Ohio’s electoral slate. The issue was debated and quickly resolved.

More foolishness came today when the Republicans on the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies refused to vote in favor of saying that the inauguration was for Mr. Biden and his running mate Ms. Harris. They argued that the process was still playing out and yet to be officially resolved. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a law suit today with the U.S. Supreme Court against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin claiming that those states “used the Covid-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws.” Over the weekend the Washington Post released the results of their survey of all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate asking if they accepted that Mr. Biden won the election. Only 27 said that they did. Two claimed that Mr. Trump won. The other 220 said that it was too early to say or refused to answer the question.

And on and on. What in the good name of democracy is going on? Why aren’t more people upset by this direct assault on our most fundamental right as American citizens? What inspires national Republicans to stay in this cult of personality and with unwavering loyalty bring down our democracy in the process?

I have heard a variety of explanations. They fear him, still, even as a loser. That he will run for president again in 2024 and they want to be on his good side. That if they don’t support him they will be “primaryed” by someone Mr. Trump supports. That they are letting him work through the various stages of grief until he realizes that he is a loser. There are lots of driveling excuses floating around. None of them make any sense any longer. Even if they did make sense once, c’mon man, it’s over! Let’s follow the norms and traditions that make this country great.

Reflecting on why we are in this situation it occurred to me that possibly, maybe probably, none of those answers trotted out by the pundits are accurate. There may be elements of truth in them, but that is not the main motivator of their abhorrent actions.

The real reason is that the true believers like what he is doing.

Some may be cynical in that they believe their own political self-preservation depends on Mr. Trump remaining in power. Others may have the same autocratic tendencies that Mr. Trump daily exhibits. Some may just believe that Democrats in government, all of them — every one — are so inherently evil that they have to do everything, and that means everything, in their power to stop them from taking over the government. Any end is better than that.

With that epiphany, it is not that the Republicans are afraid of Mr. Trump and have lost their spine. They are not. They want him to succeed. Think of that. One of the two major parties in our democracy would rather see an election overturned by unethical and un-American methods rather than give up power. Autocracy? They are down with that. For four years I have tried to figure out why they go along with absolutely every crazy thing this president does, even if it goes directly against everything they said they stood for in the past. The explanation was actually quite simple. They like it, they like the power they have, and they don’t want to give it up.

If they have learned anything from Mr. Trump, they have learned that if you have the power you can do anything. There really are no laws or Constitutional limits to what you can do if you are just nervy enough to do it. Who can stop the president? It turns out that if you just ignore subpoenas, hearings and inquiries nothing happens. Impeached? Who cares if you have a Senate that wants to keep you in power no matter what. Pack the Supreme Court? Sure. You need a little luck through resignations or deaths but if you are in charge you can set any rules that you want. Hand out pardons to your political cronies and dirty tricksters? No problem, no one can stop you. Staying in power is paramount. Once in power, you are in control. Of everything.

Here is where it gets scary.

The national Republican Party is selling the same bill of goods to their supporters that Mr. Trump is selling. There are millions of people in the country that are convinced that Mr. Trump will be sworn in as president on 20 January 2021. Convinced. As the Wisconsin conservative pundit Charlie Sykes said recently, the realization that Mr. Trump is no longer the president will be such a shock to their beliefs and world view that their actions will be totally unpredictable. We already had armed protesters over the weekend show up at the home of the Michigan Secretary of State in a pure move of intimidation. When the true believers realize that they have been lied to, they are not going to take it out on Mr. Trump. They will default to the Trumpian explanation that their votes were stolen, the election rigged and that democracy is dead. There are both short and long-term dangers in that explanation and the fact that millions of people will believe it.

Add to that sweet mixture the many white nationalist groups that have long had a goal to start another American Civil War. This could be their pretext to take to the streets. There is a clear and present danger from domestic enemies willing to foment violence. That would give openings for our foreign enemies to take advantage of the situation. It is a dangerous time. It is not a game that those Republicans supporting Mr. Trump’s lies are playing. They are playing with fire. I am very concerned that real people will be injured or killed as Mr. Trump continues to incite violence in barely disguised rhetoric as he continues to live in fantasyland.

Is such a scenario inevitable? I think not. The rule of law and the Constitution can still prevail. My concern is that Mr. Trump is becoming increasingly desperate and cares not a whit about democracy or the country’s well-being. Therefore, it is well past time for Senate and House Republican leaders to state the obvious. Make clear and unambiguous statements that the system worked, it was tested in the courts, the law was upheld, and the results of the election are undisputed. Unless they do that, Mr. Trump and millions of Americans will think that they were robbed.

The Assault on Democracy

Posted: November 20, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | 1 Comment

Donald J. Trump is conducting a disturbing and dangerous assault on the very foundation of our democratic republic. Such an assault began well before the election and continues unabated weeks after Election Day. How or when it stops we may not know until 20 January when Joseph R. Biden Jr. is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Mr. Trump told us what he was going to do and, for once, was true to his word. He is undertaking the most blatant exercise of raw power to overturn a presidential election in our history.

As alarming as Mr. Trump’s efforts to undo an election that he lost by nearly 6 million votes may be, more alarming is the fact that the majority of Republican Senators support his efforts, some by actively engaging in attempted voter disenfranchisement — I’m looking at you Lindsey Graham — and others by their continued silence while Mr. Trump and his cronies blatantly attempt to overturn a fair and fraud free election. The Republican Party is dead and now they have put the last nail in the coffin.

That Mr. Trump lost is a great thing for our country. As his actions continue to show, should he have won, and absent a Senate that is willing to confront him, he would have run roughshod over every Constitutional boundary that has protected our country for over two hundred years. As it is, his current actions are those of a despot. The very foundation of our country is under assault by this president as he tries to convince us that he “won in a landslide.” And national level Republican politicians are letting him try.

Thankfully, there are still elected officials, Republican and Democrat, at state and local levels that have a firm grasp on reality and retain the backbone to do their job faithfully, fully and in keeping with the oath that they took to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States, regardless of pressure from the President of the United States.

None-the-less we now know how fragile our democracy really is. Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators are incompetent. They cannot pull it off. But, they have put forth a roadmap that a more competent administration could follow in the future to steal an election. It is imperative that the Congress work to close the loopholes in our election process to preclude any future attempts to overturn a fair election.

The effort hit an all time high of danger and of farce yesterday during a press conference headed by a sweating, hair dye dripping, Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Committee Headquarters. After every legal attempt to halt vote counting or to throw out votes was dismissed in court for lack of evidence (currently, the Trump campaign is zero for thirty) they resorted to wild claims invoking everything from Venezuela to Cuba to a mysterious national conspiracy to change votes electronically from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. None of the claims were supported by any facts whatsoever. Mr. Giuliani stated that he could not share the evidence because it was classified, but that it would be produced at a later time.

Furthermore, the Trump campaign’s efforts are racist, pure and simple. The challenges and conspiracy theories apparently are only relevant to certain cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Atlanta and Las Vegas. In each case they are focused on precincts and counties that are predominately Black or Latino. This is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise minority voters.

Remember that Mr. Trump earlier this week “terminated” Christopher Krebs — his own appointee — who was responsible for the country’s cyber security and for overseeing the integrity of the voting process. He was fired for doing the unthinkable. He told the truth. After Election Day Mr. Krebs declared “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.” He did his job. In this administration that is grounds for being fired. Additionally, his deputy was forced to resign and as is his habit, Mr. Trump had a more “loyal” appointee assigned to the job.

In a Tweet, Mr. Krebs called Mr. Giuliani’s performance yesterday “the most dangerous 1 hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest.” He is right. What Mr. Trump is attempting through his surrogate Mr. Giuliani is un-American and a grave threat to our democracy.

Today Mr. Trump is inviting members of the Republican controlled Michigan legislature to the White House in an attempt to get them to interfere in the Electoral College process. This seems to be the new strategy. Since they have failed at the ballot box, in the courts, and everywhere else, they think that they can mess with the Electoral College, or delay its vote, or something (I’m not sure they know) in order to throw the election into the Congress where they think that they can win. They lost the popular vote by 6 million votes. They lost the Electoral College count by 74 votes. They are trying to overturn the will of the people with unfounded, unproven, and ridiculous claims as if we do have an autocrat in charge of our government.

This course of events goes beyond letting “Trump be Trump” or giving him time to assimilate the fact that he is a loser or any other psychological double talk that Republicans are putting forth about his behavior. This is simply a case of an autocrat trying to steal an election by claiming that no, really, the other guy stole it.

Unfortunately, the longer this goes on the number of people that believe his unfounded claims will grow. What happens then is impossible to predict, but I fear that the nut cases in our great land will feel that they somehow have to rectify the situation and force the country to accept that Mr. Trump really won.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump sits whining in the White House, only leaving to play golf, while the Covid-19 pandemic grows into a massive crisis. The situation now is the greatest threat to our well-being since it began in February. The number of deaths is fourth on the list of our country’s greatest losses of life behind the Civil War, the Second World War and the 1918 flu pandemic. On the current trajectory it could move up the list to be the second worst in our history. Nothing from Mr. Trump except to claim that he is responsible for the vaccine that will soon be in production. No effort to put forth economic relief for the millions struggling to make ends meet. No effort to keep the government from shutting down on 11 December because there is no bill to provide the money to keep it functioning. Crises everywhere and Mr. Trump is putting all of his energy into convincing people that he really won the election and therefore will overturn the certified results.

From the vast majority of the members of the Republican Senate? Crickets.

We are in danger. Serious danger. Our enemies foreign and domestic see that we are in turmoil. They see that our democracy is fragile and not functioning as it should. They see that we have a distracted, weak president that is only interested in taking money from his supporters and amassing power. The next 60 days will be fraught with ever greater threats as we fail to address that which is staring us in the face and we see an increasingly unhinged president willing to do anything to stay in office.

I am out of the prediction business. I will only say that it would not surprise me that Mr. Trump never concedes, never allows a transition, and does everything in his power to turn over a domestic and international situation that will undermine any policies Mr. Biden hoped to address during his presidency. For at least his first year, Mr. Biden simply will be too busy putting out the fires that Mr. Trump set on his way out.

The only thing that I am sure of is that Mr. Biden will be sworn in at noon on 20 January 2021 and that millions of people will believe that he stole the election away from Mr. Trump.

Thank God Trump only had one term.