Category: Impeachment

Trump’s Threat To The Constitution

The Daily Escape:

From Steve Inskeep, speaking about the legal plight of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who Trump says he can’t get back from El Salvador:

“If I understand this correctly, the US president has launched a trade war against the world, believes he can force the EU and China to meet his terms, is determined to annex Canada and Greenland, but is powerless before the sovereign might of El Salvador. Is that it?”

There is a lot of stuff happening. Trump has tested all sorts of limits, including defying a 9-0 Supreme Court order in  the case of Abrego Garcia’s extradition to El Salvador mentioned in Steve Inskeep comment above. He has turned the US economy into a giant guessing game by toggling tariffs on and off.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“….everyone is focused on Trump’s tariff policy. How could you not be? The stock market has been crashing, the bond market is freaking out, and worries about inflation and recession are mounting. When watching your retirement account drop like a rock, it’s hard to focus on anything else.

But we are also amid an emerging Constitutional crisis that could fundamentally reshape democracy.”

Last month, Trump deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador where he is being held in a notorious prison known for torturing and starving inmates. Abrego Garcia is from El Salvador and was in this country illegally. But a judge had ruled that he could not be sent home because the gangs there posed a threat to his life.

After Abrego Garcia’s illegal deportation, the case went to the US Supreme Court where the Trump Administration admitted that Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador in error, but they have refused to do anything to bring him back to the US. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared:

“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

In a bit of a coincidence, Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, was in Washington  Monday for a previously scheduled meeting with Trump, where Bukele said he refused to return Abrego Garcia  to the US.

Moreover, in the single most disturbing display since he was reelected, Trump asked Bukele to build several more Terrorism Confinement Centers to house US citizens. Trump also told reporters that he was open to deporting US citizens if they had committed violent, criminal acts. Trump said:

“If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem….We’re studying the laws right now. Pam [Bondi, the attorney general] is studying. If we can do that, that’s good.”

But, US citizens cannot legally be deported.

The only exception is if a US citizen is credibly accused of committing a crime in another country and the government decides to honor an extradition request.

The administration’s position is that they can remove people in error or in defiance of court orders, and once deported, they cannot be compelled to engage in any specific act of diplomacy or foreign policy since those are the exclusive powers of the Executive Branch.

What this all means is that Trump will most likely escalate to deporting US citizens. The courts can try to stop this by, for example, holding executive branch officials including the president in contempt. That is highly unlikely since the Supreme Court ruled last year that the office of the presidency cannot commit a crime if it is done in the pursuit of normal job responsibilities, which would include foreign affairs.

It seems that Trump may not be held legally accountable even for deporting US citizens.

There is nothing to stop him unless the Republicans in Congress decide to stop him. He could be impeached and removed from office, of course, But the Republicans have taken a pass twice already on that option, despite airtight cases against him.

Republican politicians are behaving with deference to power and a fear of standing out. From Kyla Scanlon:

“As Umberto Eco warned in Ur-Fascism, authoritarian systems don’t return with parades and uniforms. They return in a culture where obedience masquerades as patriotism – or as economic strategy.

When disagreement becomes disloyalty, when nuance is dismissed as weakness, when conformity becomes civic virtue, we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re participating in the performance of one.”

Congress could stop him. They have the authority, but they do nothing. This paralysis is what Umberto Eco described as a “fear of difference” where dissent is dangerous, alternative views are threatening, and deviation is punished.

What we get is a legislative body that performs democracy, but no longer willingly exercises its Constitutional powers.

Standing up to Trump would mean risking access to donors, media cycles, committee power, and the favor of a political ecosystem that now functions more like a loyalty marketplace than a deliberative body. So they completely ignore the Constitution at great costs to their constituents.

At this point, the Democrats can no longer treat Trump with any deference. The entire House Democratic Caucus should draw up articles of impeachment and seek to introduce them. The Senate Democrats should put a hold on everything until hearings are granted. Everything must stop until this is resolved.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“This is the moment. We are at a crossroads. It’s time to speak up. Corporations have bent the knee; law firms are submitting to Trump; Congress is ceding its authority, and corporate media is making excuses. The courts are trying to stop Trump’s worst offenses, but he ignores their dictates.”

This is the most serious threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

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We Must Resist This Extreme Court

The Daily Escape:

Broad-tailed hummingbirds mating, northern CO – June 2024 photo by Hilary Bralove. This is what John Roberts and his radical Conservative associates are doing to American democracy.

“What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from’” –Marilyn Vos Savant

The American colonies fought to get free from a king who ruled with absolute power. And on Monday, once again in America, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in substance overthrew the American Revolution by saying that any US president could have the rights of a modern-day king, broadly immune from prosecution under the law for his/her acts.

This betrayal of the American revolutionaries, Founders and Framers was delivered in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the Conservative radicals who make up the majority of the SCOTUS. It hurts even more because it is designed to protect the most corrupt and dangerous person to ever hold the office of President of the US. Looking at the opinion, it becomes clear that the Conservative majority is more concerned with concentrating power in the hands of the president than in how a president might abuse that power.

This usurping of power is not implied anywhere in the Constitution, nor implied by the centuries of precedent in opinions by the SCOTUS. For you fans of Originalism, remember this, written by historian Joseph Ellis in 2018: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Most members of America’s founding generation would have regarded this situation as strange. If you read the debates among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and then read their prescriptions for judicial power in Article III of the Constitution, it becomes clear that the last thing the 39 signers of the document wanted was for the Supreme Court to become supreme.”

Bu real power in this country no longer lies in the People. It now resides at the Supreme Court.

For generations, doomsayers have warned us about the imminent collapse of the American republic, not by outside forces, but by inside elements gnawing at the nation’s gut like a cancer. Watch out for the Communists. Watch out for the foreigners swarming our borders. Watch out for leftists. Watch out for the Jews. Watch out for the Muslims. Watch out for rock and roll. Watch out for Disney.

Now the US as we knew it is tottering. But the collapse wasn’t caused by any of those things. It was caused by radical ideologues who knew how to pervert the very mechanism that was supposed to ensure the stability of American democracy: Its system of checks and balances. You know, the three branches of the federal government empowered to crack the whip on each other, and all of them answerable to The People. But for all their wisdom, the Founders were unable to foresee that two centuries on, there would be plotters and schemers who found a means to exploit the chinks in the wall. And possibly to bring the whole thing tumbling down.

We’re talking about the fallout from the SCOTUS 6-3 decision in Trump vs. US. As Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) noted:

“This is a profound change to our fundamental law—an amendment to the Constitution…”

Here’s a brief summary by Robert Hubbell: (Emphasis by Hubbell)

“Today, the Supreme Court invented a rule (found nowhere in the Constitution) granting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution as follows:

Core presidential functions are absolutely immune (“conclusive and preclusive”), for example, when granting pardons.

Official acts are preemptively immune from criminal prosecution for a president’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility—which is almost anything tangentially related to the president’s enumerated powers

Evidentiary rules. The Court also imposed two evidentiary rules on prosecutors seeking to navigate the above two rules:

A prosecutor may not use official acts as evidence in a prosecution of unofficial acts.

A prosecutor may not examine a president’s motives in attempting to distinguish between official and unofficial acts.”

HCR reminds us that at his confirmation hearing in 2005, now–Chief Justice John Roberts said:

“I believe that no one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution, and statutes.”

But he’s now changed his mind. Roberts’ opinion went even further than Trump had requested. And instead of reciting what the SCOTUS has now allowed the president to do without fear, let’s take a look at how we got here:

  • A jury found that Trump committed 34 felonies to help win in 2016.
  • After committing those crimes, once he took office, Trump then appointed three Supreme Court justices.
  • Those justices then delayed efforts to hold Trump accountable for allegedly committing more crimes to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election.
  • Now, those same justices support the idea that Trump enjoys absolute immunity for “official acts”—thereby drastically weakening efforts to hold Trump accountable.

One Constitutional flaw the founders left us is the Electoral College (EC). Its original purpose was to advance the interests of slaveholders. And while we no longer have slaveholders, their spiritual descendants now control the Supreme Court.

While the EC was supposed to safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority”, it has instead promoted the tyranny of the minority. The EC allowed the Supreme Court to be hijacked by authoritarians. Five of its current members were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and another who helped one of those popular vote losers, GW Bush, ascend to the Oval Office. That is Clarence Thomas, also married to a conspirator in the Jan. 6 insurrectionist plot.

This has cost us control of our politics and our courts. Control is now held by a minority, supported by some technocrats in the middle, and enabled by the apathy of most of the rest of us.

Worse, those in the current minority are extremists. The Supreme Court is now no different from the Senate: An explicitly partisan, supra-legislative body that, because of the EC, has a built-in bias for the rural party.

It took just eight years for a game show host who was unable to win a plurality of the vote to expose our entire political order as rotten and decayed. He demonstrated that the impeachment mechanism was a dead letter and then got the Supreme Court to declare that the president was, by definition, above the law.

How do we now save our Constitutional republic?

During this Fourth of July week, let’s remember that our common enemy is the partisan power of a partisan minority. This weekend is our opportunity to set a battle plan against that common enemy. That would be a plan to maintain control of Congress for the next two years. The Democrats are just five seats away from having majority control of the House of Representatives. It is a heavier lift to retain control of the Senate, but it isn’t beyond possibility. As Wrongo said the other day, focus on these seats may also help push Biden over the goal line. And even if it doesn’t, the incoming president Trump would be effectively blocked from implementing much of his agenda.

Ultimately, we need political power to dilute the power of this Extreme Court that has taken control of the duties of the other branches of government. If there’s a better argument for voting for Biden (or anyone else who’s not Trump) Wrongo doesn’t know what it is.

There is no option, we have to resist, no matter what. We have to fight.

At this difficult, traumatic time, we must convert the shock of this latest extreme judicial overreach into action, to achieve an overwhelming victory in November. Just as Dobbs fueled a massive turnout, so too should Trump v. US.

(This is Wrongo’s last column before the Independence Day holiday. The next column will be published on Monday, 7/8)

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The Supreme Court Is Officially Corrupt

The Daily Escape:

Moonrise, Boston, MA – April 2024 photo by Kristen Wilkinson. The Jenga-style building is Boston University’s Data Science Center.

Wrongo spent part of Thursday morning listening live to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) over Trump v. United States, which concerns former president Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal charges for “official acts”: In this case, whether Trump can claim immunity as a defense in the Jan. 6 case brought by Jack Smith, the DOJ’s special prosecutor.

While the decision in this case is unclear at this point, the questions the Conservative justices asked of both sides were very disheartening.

A short walk through the history of this case: The Conservative majority granted Trump a victory before the hearing began by refusing Jack Smith’s request to skip the intermediate step of an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Then the Court improved on that by refusing to hear the matter on an expedited schedule. Finally it appears that the Court probably won’t issue what pundits think will be a fractured opinion until the last possible  day (June 30). It’s possible that the Court will order the DC trial court to engage in pre-trial fact-finding about the difference between “private” and “official” acts. Meaning further delays, possibly until after the November presidential election.

And if Trump were to win, the Jan. 6 case will be quashed by the incoming DOJ.

So even if the Supremes don’t grant Trump a total victory, they have already granted Trump what he most wanted: a lengthy delay. Their lackadaisical approach to resolving the question of immunity smells of the current politicization of the Court. From Jamele Bouie:

“Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law.

It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it. “

Chris Hayes reminded us when Republicans aggressively took the other side of the immunity argument:

Taking a wide view, Alito is 74. Thomas is 75. Roberts and Sotomayor are 69. The next president could be in a position to nominate four replacements for these justices if Trump wins, or if Biden wins a second term. If it’s Trump, say goodbye to the SCOTUS for at least 30 years, and say goodbye to your Constitutional rights. That would also mean that Trump can commit crimes with impunity, including a complete dissolution of the Voting Rights Act, implementing legalized voter suppression, and much more.

Is it totally lost on the American people that the very same Supreme Court who ruled that 172 million women should no longer have the freedom to decide their own pregnancy choices, is now, suddenly, struggling with the idea whether ONLY ONE MAN in America should have the freedom to commit crimes without punishment?

Watergate and Nixon doesn’t come close to the stench surrounding today’s Supreme Court and its propping up of Trump. Josh Marshall had this to say:

“The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party . . . That’s the challenge in front of us. . . . But things become more clear-cut once we take the plunge and accept that fact.”

But, there’s really nothing you can do about it individually. So relax and cruise into our Saturday Soother, where we turn off all political news for a few minutes and try to find the will to rejoin the fight next week.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a hard frost on Friday morning, and expect 80° on Monday. It’s weather like this that keeps us from planting the vegetable garden until early May. To help you get into a proper frame of mind, grab a seat by a south-facing window. Now watch and listen to “Suite Opus 34 for flute, harp, violin, viola and cello” by Marcel Tournier. Tournier is among the relatively few important composers who were also virtuoso harpists. He composed several dozen solos for harp, and a few chamber works that feature the harp. Tournier wrote this Suite in 1928. He died in 1951.

Here is his “Opus 34” performed by the Cracow Harp Quintet:

Wrongo and Ms. Right first learned about Tournier and saw this live last summer as part of a local concert series by the Washington Friends of Music.

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The Colorado Case

The Daily Escape:

Squam Lake, NH – December 2023 photo by Robert John Kozlow

”If you aren’t paying attention to the courts, you aren’t paying attention to democracy”. – Mark E. Elias

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection was a bombshell. The plaintiffs included four Republican voters and officials, and two Independents. The organization bringing and managing the lawsuit was CREW and its chief attorney, Marc Elias, quoted above.

Some people are saying that it doesn’t seem right to toss him off of the ballot without a conviction. At issue is whether Trump is such a danger to the country that he’s ineligible to be a candidate at all, and the Colorado Court’s reasoning for this seems very tight. It’s not an interpretation about his rhetoric or an evaluation of his political extremism. It’s solely a determination of whether he took an oath to protect the Constitution, and then fomented an insurrection against the government. And although the verdict was 4-3, all seven judges agreed that Trump had fomented insurrection.

The Court found that he’s ineligible. Regarding the “he must be convicted to be ineligible” argument: The criminal cases against Trump that are wending their way through the courts are varied in their accusations. None of them were brought solely or even primarily to prevent Trump from being elected president, although the Colorado case was. The others charge real crimes. The importance of those cases transcends the individual who committed them. A failure to bring them would set a precedent that we as a country think these behaviors permissible by a future president.

As for letting the people decide about Trump, we did that already. Biden got seven million more votes than Trump. Yet Trump’s still spouting the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Even after 60 court cases, Trump couldn’t prove there was any election fraud. Conservative Judge Luttig says that the 14th Amendment isn’t about removing someone from qualifying for office. Rather it’s about meeting a baseline qualification in order to be considered a QUALIFIED candidate.

There’s also an argument on the Right that Trump shouldn’t be in court at all. But we have a Justice system and in the Colorado case, the legal process was followed. The Court didn’t take any shortcuts; no extraordinary maneuvers were made.

Jon V Last asks why Republicans were on one side of the law in 2020 and on a different side today: (brackets by Wrongo)

“So ask yourself this: All throughout December 2020, everyone insisted that, no matter how foolish or baseless President Trump’s claims might seem, he was entitled to pursue the legal process vigorously to its end.

Why is that not true in this case? Why is it that Trump…[in 2020 was] entitled to have his day in court, but the forces [today] looking to apply different laws to a different end are not?”

Last reminds us that many of the same people who insisted that Trump could pursue all available legal remedies in 2020 wanted a result that would keep him in power. Now, they’re outraged that the people in state of Colorado also pursued legal remedies and won a result that might keep him from returning to power. There’s more from Jon Last. Those who are complaining about the result in Colorado are complaining not about the legal process, but the legal result:

“Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him?

You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger.

You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr.

You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents because you’ll rile up his base.

/snip/

There is a…..helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse.

Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view?

That’s not how parents deal with children.

It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations.

And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.”

From Robert Hubbell: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Every hesitation, reservation, and exhortation to ‘make an exception’ because of potential violence or political chaos is an invitation to abandon the Constitution. We do so at our grave peril and possibly for the first, last, and only time—because if we set our great charter aside once, there is no logical stopping point for setting it aside again when it serves the pleasure of a president who views the Constitution as an obstacle rather than a safeguard.”

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot for engaging in insurrection is probably on its way to the US Supreme Court. Wrongo isn’t a lawyer, so you should look elsewhere for a discussion of the finer points of the law in this case, and he has no confidence that the Supremes will decide against Trump.

But Wrongo wants to address one item, the question of whether a candidate should be tried while running for office. Just the Mar-a-Lago charges of mishandling highly classified information and then obstructing their return makes it clear that he should be tried regardless of his candidacy. The government needed to secure the secret documents Trump had stashed all over his club. Trump thwarted those efforts. And the case was developed before Trump declared himself as a candidate for 2024.

A thought experiment: Let’s imagine that Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis had run for US president in 1868. Either of them could probably win a solid South and be competitive in several border states. Making sure that they didn’t win at the ballot box what they couldn’t on the battlefield is why Clause 3 was included in the 14th Amendment in July, 1868.

Would supporters of Lee or Davis have complained that they were ineligible for public office? Certainly! But, too bad. Insurrection and rebellion (still) have consequences. And nobody said that they had to be convicted before being ineligible.

When a president of the US loses an election and attempts to stay in power through violence, there really is no way to deal with it that doesn’t have a political component. But that means nothing to the merits of the case. Should we prosecute it only to the point that the ex-president decides to run again, and then drop it?

The whole Republican “let the voters decide” talking point was trotted out after the Colorado decision. It’s hilarious. We did that. We did let the voters decide. Biden won. And Trump refused to accept the results and sent a violent mob to overturn it. That’s the whole point of this case. We must apply the Constitution and the rule of law to Trump in the same way it would be applied to any other citizen.

Whatever lies ahead, let’s not underestimate the significance of the Colorado Court findings. They will figure prominently in the outcome in 2024. Our job is to fight for the soul of democracy and for a free and responsible government by popular consent.

Let’s close with a Christmas tune that is new to Wrongo: The Tractors perform their 2009 hit “The Santa Claus Boogie”, from their second album, “Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas”. The band no longer exists, as several of the members have died:

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Saturday Soother – January 8, 2022

The Daily Escape

Hopi Buttes, AZ – January 2022 photo by Jon Ray Doc

January 6 should have been a national day of mourning. The president spoke in the very place that symbolized the attempted coup, the Rotunda of the Capitol. From Biden: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“We saw with our own eyes: rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the Speaker of the House, directing to hang the Vice President of the United States of America. What did we not see? We did not see a former president, (Trump) who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in a private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, the national Capitol under siege.”

You can watch his speech here.

But except for a very few, Republicans boycotted Thursday’s 1/6 events. We have to accept that means they support the insurrection and the candidate who mobilized it:

“Top Republicans were nowhere to be found at the Capitol on Thursday as President Biden and members of Congress commemorated the deadliest attack on the building in centuries, reflecting the party’s reluctance to acknowledge the Jan. 6 riot or confront its own role in stoking it.”

Trump won the argument within the Party over his efforts to nullify the election results. McConnell, McCarthy, and their allies abandoned the thought of considering impeaching Trump over January 6. That instead became a rallying cry for Democrats. When the second impeachment went forward, the Republicans closed ranks behind Trump.

Wrongo argued for the second impeachment. With hindsight, that effort has ended any bipartisan effort to get to the truth about who and what caused Jan. 6. Republicans initially supported a commission to investigate it, but soon abandoned even that.

A bit of history: When Hitler attempted his putsch in 1923, he got off with a slap on the wrist thanks to a sympathetic right-wing judge. A decade later he was chancellor. That’s a stark history lesson for AG Merrick Garland.

The attempted putschists who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6 are being prosecuted, but it’s the principal organizers who should now be getting the primary attention of law enforcement. Republicans are hoping that Garland will sweep the potential crimes committed by Trump and his organizers, like Bannon, Meadows, and Navarro, under the rug.

We now find ourselves in a place where whatever the Democrats say Republicans did on Jan. 6 is mirrored: Republicans are saying that it’s the Democrats who are doing those exact things. The Republican Party is trying to end anything resembling democracy in America by relying on the claim that the Democratic Party is trying to end anything resembling democracy in America.

This is the ultimate expression of the rule that every accusation made by the Republicans is in fact a confession. From the AP:

“….since that day, separate versions — one factual, one fanciful — have taken hold. The Capitol riot — the violent culmination of a bid to delegitimize the 2020 election and block its certification — has morphed into a partisan ‘Rashomon,’ the classic Japanese film about a slaying told from varying and conflicting points of view.”

Instead of receding into the past, the story of the Capitol riot is yet to be fully written. America needs the DOJ and the House Select Committee to tell the story by criminal referrals.

Leave the history of the event to historians.

We need to take at least a momentary break from thinking and talking about January 6. It’s Saturday and time for our Saturday Soother, and boy, we need one today. It snowed quite a bit in New England on Friday morning, with totals between 3” and 15” depending on location. Once again, Wrongo’s repaired snowblower served as an insurance policy against a heavy snowfall. We got a mere 5”, so Wrongo got to exercise his snow shovel instead.

We’re having a belated Christmas party today. Between Covid and suspected Covid, this is the first time that some of us can occupy the same space. So, before the family descends on the Mansion of Wrong, let’s brew up a strong cup of Conquistador coffee ($18/12 oz.) from San Francisco’s Henry’s House of Coffee.

Now grab a comfy seat by a window, look out on the winter wonderland and listen to the “To Kill A Mockingbird Suite” written by Elmer Bernstein for the 1962 movie. Bernstein was one of the most prolific composers to emerge in Hollywood in the 1950s. It’s played here by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, in Krakow Poland, with Sara Andon on solo flute:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 14, 2021

Happy Valentine’s Day! Of course, you may still be bummed out, reflecting on the Senate voting 57-43 to acquit Trump yesterday. While that wasn’t enough votes to convict, it wasn’t an exoneration. Once again, a group of horribly shitty human beings proudly showed themselves to be horribly shitty human beings.

But we need to give this some time. OJ was a pariah after his acquittal, but soon there were a series of state and civil cases that sent OJ away for a few years, and took most of his money. Also, the FBI has charged only 207 people so far. Most of the militia-types haven’t been charged yet. Those FBI charges will lead to people telling grand juries about who organized them to attack the Capitol. And the Democrats in the Senate now have subpoena power, so expect to see some hearings on what Trump knew, and when he knew it.

Let’s start today with other Republican outrages in Georgia and Tennessee. Legislation proposed by members of the Republican Party. You know, the party that says they want to keep the heavy hand of the state off your back. First, Georgia:

“Genitalia assessment boards” will surely win the 10th grade male vote. This could be enough to get Alabama’s former governor Roy Moore to move to Georgia. Wrongo is pretty sure “assessing” the genitalia of high school freshman girls is his dream job.

Second, in Tennessee, Republican lawmakers have put forward a bill that would grant a man the power to veto a woman’s abortion. Wrongo hasn’t read the bill, but couldn’t they at least make the man show a deed or a receipt to prove that he is in fact the legal owner of the pregnant woman?

On to cartoons: Many are showing love for the shot:

No worries about injection deniers. GOP has them covered:

Finally, all Republicans decide to wear masks:

GOP experiments with CDC guidance on more masks:

 

Trump lawyers present false equivalence about what “fight” means:

Rather than presenting the merits of their case, Trump’s lawyers delivered sound bites that reinforced what the right-wing media have been echoing for months. They insisted that Trump’s language leading to the riot was the same sort of rhetoric all politicians use. They claimed Trump was the victim of years of witch hunts by Democrats who hate him. Some Republican Senators bought it.

When you just can’t see what’s in front of you:

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Saturday Soother, Moral Cowards Edition, February 13, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Winter,  Rocky Mountain NP, CO – 2021 photo  by tompettyhs

House Democrats wrapped up their case against Donald Trump by zeroing in on the central reason why a conviction is so important: If he is given the chance, Trump will do it again. Rep. Jamie Raskin emphasized that point:

“Is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he is ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way?….Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that? Would you bet the safety of your family on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that? If he gets back into office and it happens again, we have no one to blame but ourselves.”

It’s clear that Trump will be exonerated by Republican Senators who are proving that they are moral cowards. They took an oath to be impartial, but oaths are obviously for suckers and losers.

Some aren’t even making a pretense of listening to the arguments. Some Senators of the jury have actually met with Trump’s defense team. Sen. Cruz said they were “sharing our thoughts” about their legal strategy. Many Republican Senators are saying they won’t vote to convict because they don’t believe it is Constitutional to try a former president. They are saying this just days after the Senate voted 56-44, saying that the trial was Constitutional. This is the same as saying that majority rule is meaningless in the Senate, that Republicans are exempt from following it.

This is also what many of them said about America’s vote in the November election: that it didn’t count. What kind of American political party places loyalty to an individual above loyalty to the country and its democratic system?

Yesterday, we presented a study that found widespread support among the Republican base for the use of force and even violence:

“A majority (55%) of Republicans support the use of force as a way to arrest the decline of the traditional American way of life.”

Today, they refuse to convict, even though there is no contesting the facts of the case.

What happened at the Capitol wasn’t spontaneous. It was the result of a campaign to delegitimize any result that didn’t include Trump’s winning re-election. He and the others in his movement embarked on a disinformation campaign knowing that sowing chaos was his best weapon. Their looking the other way at an attempted insurrection should serve as a warning that conviction or not, an actual insurrection is alive in America.

Rep. Raskin wrapped up the impeachment managers’ case for conviction by quoting Thomas Paine. Paine published a pamphlet called “The American Crisis,” in December, 1776, in which he said:

“These are the times that try men and women’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will shrink at this moment from the service of their cause and their country, but everyone who stands with us now will win the love and favor and affection of every man and every woman for all time. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, but we have this saving consolation: the more difficult the struggle, the more glorious in the end will be our victory.”

General Washington found the first essay so inspiring, he ordered that it be read to the troops at Valley Forge.

Charlie Pierce links Paine’s comment to the Senators in the Sedition Caucus: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“What he meant was, good luck living with your consciences after you vote to acquit this guy. You’re betraying everything this country has claimed to believe about itself all the way back to its founding. And you’re doing it on behalf of someone who gladly would’ve welcomed a bloodbath if it kept him in office.”

We have video evidence of a Capitol riot. Those on the Right say no one is responsible but the rioters themselves: They operated in a vacuum and Trump isn’t culpable, that we shouldn’t believe our lying eyes.

So, what will the Senators who refuse to convict Trump say to their friends and their kids? Something like: “I was forced into it. If I went against him, I would have lost my job, or possibly my life.”

What lesson does this teach our kids and future generations? That loyalty is everything, truth and principle are nothing.

There can’t be a truly Soothing Saturday when we are witnessing the dismissal of what is before the eyes of Republican Senators. Instead, take a few moments on this cold winter weekend to watch a short movie clip from the 1960 film, “Inherit the Wind”.

It fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial and lays out the chilling effect of the McCarthy era investigations on intellectual discourse. In the scene, two old friends who have drifted apart, played by Frederick March and Spencer Tracy speak about their beliefs:

When you watch, notice that the two men never rock in unison. If you are interested the full movie can be seen on Amazon Prime.

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GOP Senators’ Choice: Convict, or be Complicit

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Jefferson, NH – 2021 photo by Dorothy Benjamin Bell

Long time blog reader David P. commented on Thursday’s column about the demographics of the Capitol insurrectionists:

“This analysis suggests that they look like the folks who the rest of us see at the grocery store, gas pump or PTA meeting (especially if we live in a county where Trump scored 40-60 % of the vote). Not “those people,” but “our people”…..neighbors.”

Following up on the idea that these are our neighbors, Political Violence at a Glance (PVG) says that we should be focusing on movements not groups. Movements are often the lifeblood of militant groups, but the groups often die out before the movements. The movement can remain, inspiring both groups and individuals to act on their own.

And PVG says that recent violence in the US has tended to come more from individuals linked to broader movements.

Does this compute with what we saw at the Capitol? We learned that only 10% of the rioters were members of militias or militant groups. That means 90% were as David P. says, our neighbors, albeit our right-wing neighbors.

Let’s link this idea up with the findings of a new poll by the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The AEI conducted a survey of 2,016 US adults between Jan. 21 and Jan. 30. They found that politically motivated violence has the support of a significant share of the US public: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“….nearly three in 10 Americans, including 39% of Republicans, agreed that, “If elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.”

The use of violence has more support among Republicans than Democrats. Only 17% of Democrats support taking violent action along with 31% of Independents. Here are more findings:

  • 66% of Republicans say Biden was not legitimately elected:

  • 75% of high-school educated Republicans don’t think Biden won the election.
  • About 60% of white evangelicals said that Biden was not legitimately elected, and don’t think that Trump encouraged the attack on the Capitol. These views were not held by most white mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, or Catholics.
  • 27% of white evangelicals said it was mostly or completely accurate to say Trump “has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites.”
  • 55% of Republicans support the use of force to prevent a further decline of the traditional American way of life.

The AEI poll shows us that Republicans have become a fringe group of extremists, embracing conspiracy theories that support their basic world view that everyone is against them. Their worldview persists even when it’s clear that our political system is heavily stacked in favor of conservative white people: The Senate, the federal courts, Republican gerrymandering of state legislatures, and the most-viewed media.

So, how are these sentiments playing in the show trial happening in the US Senate? This is the oath that each Senator took:

“I solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.”

So far, the evidence to convict in the trial is overwhelming, but it’s certain that the Senate won’t convict Trump. This is because many of these so-called “impartial” jurors acted throughout the post-election period as accomplices to Trump’s Big Lie about the election. They have no defense. There is only complicity, whether motivated by their fear of their base, or by sharing in the conspiracy

And the House managers have forced every Republican Senator to feel that complicity. The Republicans reflect what the AEI poll shows about their constituents. They are now a Party largely defined by conspiracy theories and irrationality.

The Senators sitting as jurors are facing this choice:

Photo by Erin Scott for Reuters

JFK’s 1956 book “Profiles in Courage” was only 272 pages, mostly because political courage is rare. Politicians want to be re-elected, so they have no intention of convicting Trump. They will be complicit in his effort at sedition. But they must be confronted; they can’t be let off the hook.

After Trump is exonerated, each Republican Senator must face an uphill fight to win reelection. This cannot be dropped down the memory hole.

Republicans won’t voluntarily morph into a responsible governing force simply by walking away from Trump. Think about those white male voters who didn’t get beyond high school: They prefer conspiracy and violence against their enemies.

Will Republicans confront the truth about these people? You know, their neighbors and our neighbors, or will they continue to surrender to them?

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Demographics of the Insurrection

The Daily Escape:

Winter at Oak Creek, Sedona, AZ – 2021 photo by mwinaz3106

With the impeachment trial underway, we’re seeing lots of video of the insurrectionists. Now, more than a month later, what do we know about the people who attacked the US Capitol on January 6? The truth is, we don’t know a whole lot, because we can only examine the demographics of those who have been arrested.

But that number has been growing, and two University of Chicago political scientists Robert A. Pape and Keven Ruby, have analyzed the demographics of 193 individuals arrested for entering the Capitol. Here are some characteristics of those arrested on January 6:

  • They are 94% white, and 86% male.
  • By age, 32% are between 35 to 44, 24% are aged 45 to 54, and 12% are 55-plus.
  • By economic status, 9% are unemployed, 27% are white-collar workers, and 13% business owners.
  • 10% are members of a right-wing militia/violent group.

Pape and Ruby have been studying right-wing violence for years, and they say the characteristics of those arrested on Jan. 6 are different from those arrested for right-wing violence in prior years. They are older, less likely to be unemployed, and less likely to be affiliated with right-wing groups.

They conclude that the differences are troubling because:

“Pro-Trump activists joined with the far right to form a new kind of violent mass movement….This is not about a few hundred arrests,….We need to understand who we are dealing with in the new movement. Targeting pre-2021 far-right organizations will not solve the problem.”

Pape and Ruby warn that the ingredients are there for a violent mass movement to grow. The ingredients are:

  • A leader (Trump) willing to engage in extra-legal activity.
  • Grievances perceived by large numbers of people (the “stolen” election).
  • A deadly focal point event (January 6).

An important finding from the Pape and Ruby study was that more than half came from counties that were won by Biden. And nearly 17% came from counties that Trump won with less than 60% of the vote. They found that 39% of suspected insurrectionists came from battleground counties, where Trump received between 40 and 60% of the vote, while 12% came from counties where less than 60% of the population is white. More from the study: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Importantly, our statistics show that the larger the absolute number of Trump voters in a county—regardless of whether he won it—the more likely it was to be home to a Capitol arrestee. Big metropolitan centers where Biden won overwhelmingly…still have hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters. A third of suspected insurrectionists come from such counties; another quarter come from suburban counties of large metro areas.”

They conclude:

“This breakdown mirrors the American population as a whole—and that is the point. If you presumed that only the reddest parts of America produce potential insurrectionists, you would be incorrect.”

Again, we’re dealing with limited data, but Trump has actively been fomenting division for the past five years. He has been aided and abetted by most of the Republican Party. This has made the people who attacked the Capitol and those around America who still think that Trump won the election into a bunch of entitled assholes who have no regard for democracy.

The bottom line is that regardless of their financial histories, they feel that they’ve been wronged. They’ve developed a grievance, and they tend to connect that to a broader issue, in this case, Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

But in what world is being a fuckup somehow a reason to riot? How did that get to be the government’s fault? Or the fault of Pelosi and Pence, the people they wanted to assassinate at the Capitol?

Life is hard for everyone, but not everyone gears up and invades the Capitol.

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