At 4:22 this afternoon, the House of Representatives passed the number of votes necessary to impeach Trump. In the end, 232 Representatives—222 Democrats and 10 Republicans—agreed that the president had incited an insurrection and must be removed from office. But 197 Republicans disagreed.
It was interesting to hear so many Representatives speak about the need to unite the country, to heal our wounds, and to move on, then watch 197 of them vote in support of the man whose actions over the past 4 years destroyed almost every norm involving the presidency and common decency, and whose words last week launched a direct attack on the government itself.
Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Louie Gohmert stood on the floor of the House last night and danced, rehearsing the moves for the other 194 members who eventually joined in the Trumpist chorus line from hell that continues to support their seditious leader.
Meanwhile in the main ballroom, Mitch hasn’t quite decided if he will join this particular soiree – he’s holding his dance card ever so close to his chest, playing the coy, reluctant young thing, standing at the side of the room gazing at the assembled crowd and wondering whether the time has come to join in or refrain, protecting his sacred honor like a blushing debutante at the ball who spent the afternoon in torrid congress with the family gardener.
He knows the dance - he wrote the tune, choreographed the steps, and has danced it deftly before. But Mitch will not dance with just anyone, he will only dance with the partner that offers him the greatest prize. His choice will have nothing to do with honor - it will be a choice of expediency.
He and his fellows will dance and dance and dance the night away – going nowhere but in circles, until we all tire of the spinning – which is their hope. Let us not be fooled by this swirling, twirling obfuscation. Stop the music, deprive them of their masks – end this charade.
Elected officials who participated in any way in the Jan. 6 uprising, including having fore knowledge, are guilty of treason and felony murder. They must be indicted and tried by the Justice Department in as public a fashion as possible. Their crimes would be worse, far worse, than those of the insurgents; the officials swore an oath and carried the public trust.
I'm new to Heather's Letters and appreciate their directness and concise reporting. Life is particularly challenging in the USA now. My take is that we are at a momentous time of crisis, our very own American Heart of Darkness. The Army of Trump will not go away; its origins started in the 1980's, perhaps, earlier. The wounds of racism; white supremacy; the seismic changes in the world of work with people losing their jobs, unions, communities and sense of meaning; the greed and individualism (me, myself and I); the transfer of wealth to a very few; failures of government; the disappearance of local newspapers; the accumulation of firearms... it feels as though it is all crashing down on us. Mitch McConnell continues to connive through this collapse of state. Trump has no idea of what he's done.
For those interested in seeing an unusual 40 minutes of video consisting of a rolling shot of the breach on the Western staircase of The Capitol, I recommend Why the Capitol Riot Reminded Me of War by Elliot Ackerman. It contains a link to the video. The author was a soldier Iraq and Afghanistan. His Opinion was published in yesterday's New York Times,. It is a sharp and deeply felt reflection about what is going on.
In such an unsettling time, it is very helpful to communicate and share thoughts with each other. It is good to read Heather's Letters and to learn from you.
There's been a lot of hoopla about the Democrats' rationale for congressional Democrats unusual speed in drafting new Articles of Impeachment, and this past afternoon, voting to eject President Trump from the White House for the second time in roughly a single calendar year. I don't blame them in the slightest, and I think the arguments against impeachment are totally self-serving and unworthy of even the slightest consideration. Nobody on the House Republican side can seriously contend that it was others than a howling mob of Trump supporters that overpowered police and then proceeded to ransack our national Capitol.
Among the arguments that have been raised, and repeatedly so, justifying the Democrats' reflexive action to impeach Trump has been the idea that only through impeachment, the specter of Donald J Trump again running for the presidency at some future time between now and the 2028 presidential election. Indeed, our 'Disruptor in Chief' undoubtedly revels in the thought that his enemies are quivering in their Birkenstocks and tie-dyes over the thought of him running for president again.
This time, however, House Democrats drafted Articles of Impeachment with a real 'poison pill' buried inside in the form of a direct invocation of the Fourteenth Amendment which has an absolute prohibition against anyone being are the elected or appointed to a federal public office if that person has engaged in insurrection, rebellion, or offered aid and comfort those who engaged in seditious or treasonous acts or advocacy. The operative language is found in Section 3. It is too long to quote here; and, in Donald Jake Trump's case, given the unique circumstances under which he is being impeached, that would be an absolute bar to him taking public office again that will most likely be highly effective. Here's why.
Two nights ago, on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show, one of his guests, a law professor, offered his opinion about the quantum of evidence that would be sufficient to make the ban against holding public office stick. The question turned on the quantum of proof that would be necessary to derail any future bid by Donald Trump to regain political office by running again for president. The same inquiry can and should be made about every one of Trump's hangers-on who participated in, aided or abetted Trump's effort to overturn the recent presidential election. The question essentially boils down to, 'How far could they go without exposing themselves to a charge of sedition', and who gets to decide.
That law professor, as well-trained as he is, waffled around the question about whether an acquittal in the Senate would upend the hope that a future Trump run for the presidency could be derailed because Trump had been acquitted by a complacent Senate that could not muster the two-thirds majority to convict him, expel him from the White House, and deny him the legal capacity to hold public office again. When asked, the man just couldn't say, muttering something about having to look at all of the evidence that might be relevant to the case. It was a lawyerly, professorial answer that looked to the vagaries of constitutional law rather than a straightforward reference to the Law of Evidence. Seriously.
I'm not trying to be snarky, but this is not all that difficult if you know something about statutory construction, and the evidentiary rules regarding burden of proof. If you read the operative language in the third section of the Amendment, you would notice that nowhere in that serpentine language is there any mention of the word 'impeachment'. None whatsoever. That's important, because the language of this amendment is a great deal broader than the language in Article II that talks about the President and officers of the Executive Branch of government who are appointed by the President. The prohibition also applies to those prospective candidates for elected seats in the Senate or the House of Representatives who might also have engaged in seditious or treasonous acts, subversion, or who offered aid and comfort to those who did by encouraging them and urging them on, as did Trump a week ago yesterday. And, in contradistinction from the two-thirds majority of the Senate needed to convict and oust a President, the language of the Amendment states that both houses of Congress must vote by two-thirds majorities to relieve in eligible persons from that constitutional disability incurred by them. You can see which people the drafters of the 14th Amendment had in mind, former politicians who had joined the Confederacy; and having lost their war to secede from the Union, now wanted to reenter the halls of Congress again.
What we have here today is an Article of Impeachment, voted on and approved by the House of Representatives that incorporates a set of facts justifying impeachment, considered by the House, and found to be true. In other words, these are legislative facts that Congress and state legislatures routinely incorporate into the statutes they enact which reflect the philosophy and purpose of the act, based upon specific facts found by those legislative bodies and for the purposes of that legislation are deemed to be true. Those facts set forth in the Article of Impeachment, bolstered by contemporaneous news reports, witness testimonies, news videos, and amount of other evidence, lends credence to the evidentiary value of the factual recitals that accompany the impeachment declaration set forth in the adopted Article. In effect, it is not a judicial trial, but it has the same effect, and it ends up in a judgment against the President based upon the underlying facts of his misconduct.
The fact that the Amendment does not require senatorial confirmation of a judgment that certain persons are in eligible to hold public office or to sit as members of Congress or the Senate has the effect of making that judgment provisional as to any body accused of the prohibited acts; but a provisional judgment has the same legal effect of a prima facie case of wrongdoing brought into the civil or criminal court. We know that a prima facie case is one in which all of the elements of an action or crime are present in the action, and the party against whom the evidentiary presumption of their validity and force operates is required to bring forth another set of facts that negates the presumption created by the statute. It is a little known fact that law school courses in the Law of Evidence sometimes give these matters short shrift, much to the eventual dismay of practitioners who suddenly find themselves out of court because they cannot overcome a statutory presumption embedded in the law. Shame on them, because some of them never do learn.
So, what I am really saying is that this particular constitutional amendment has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the party burden by the presumption that such person is not fit to be in public office because they engaged in sedition or rebellion at some time in the past; and the only way to overcome that presumption is to prove that they are completely innocent of the charge that prevents them from holding office. If this matter were to go to court, Donald Trump would need to have the judge hearing the case make an affirmative finding of factual innocence. Oh, and by the way, all of this argument is either at sidebar, or in the judge's chambers, and it never gets to the jury. It is strictly a question of law. This is done all the time when persons claiming that they were wrongfully convicted of crime petition a court under habeas corpus to convince that court that the original trial court got it wrong, and that they were actually, factually innocent. That's a real tough hole to get out of, and that's the hole that Trump finds himself in now.
Heather, you were too kind about Jim Jordan. He is positively the most obnoxious, unprofessional hunan in the House. He yells! I always hope that his blood pressure will pop his head off. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet.
If some Democrats had listened to the warnings about Fake 45 and Russia that Hillary made, we would not be a witness to these crimes. Alas, that didn’t occur.
One of the major instigators to this uprising, is black, which astounds me. His first name is Ali. He is now in hiding but somehow revealed three names of Congress members who gave him information about the inner workings of the Capitol. One of them is Gosar whose family members want to see him removed from office. It also should be pointed out that Mikie Sherrill, a former Air Force pilot and prosecutor bad-ass, from New Jersey, observed tours being given one day before the insurrection, by members of Congress. Mind you, no tours were permitted at all since March 2020 because of Covid. Sherrill made note of these members but, of course, because of pending investigation, she cannot reveal their names...alas.
We also heard from the QAnon lady, Greene, who announced that she is going to file articles of impeachment against Biden. Mind you, she only recently got a GED. Alas, she is an ass.
Good ole Matt Gaetz got applause for yelling out stupid comments. He and Jordan are competing for the Most Annoying Voice award. Alas, he is an ass too.
Last but not least, was Steny Hoyer’s reading of Liz Cheney’s letter stating her reasons why she is voting for impeachment. Her life has been threatened and she chose him to read it.
Alas, our country has reached new lows..on sacred grounds.
The Independent is reporting that the panic buttons in Ayanna Pressley's office had been torn out before the attack. It seems beyond doubt that there was inside help for the insurrection.
We know who the radical Republicans are. We know they will lie, they will blame, they will claim victimhood, while they go about sabotaging our government through their dangerous parliamentary games which are now hollowing out the trust of citizens in our political institutions. When that trust is fully gone, rebuilding it will be very difficult if not impossible.
The current Republican party in congress, with only a few exceptions, is an immediate threat to national security and our democratic way of life. These are people with power who have neither the moral right nor the necessary wisdom to hold it.
There can be no backing down from the truth of what damage they have done to our republic. It is not business as usual no matter how hard these seditious minds try to spin it.
Every citizen in this nation has an immediate interest in bringing these dishonorable people to justice.
The chapter titled "I Can't Breathe" continues to be written. A shamefully small number of Republican members of Congress had the moral fiber to stand up and say Enough! They, along with Democrats, corporate donors and those of us who have been appalled for far too long by the behavior of President Trump and those who align themselves with him must continue the steady march toward justice. With every step, reminding all that we are a nation of laws and of truth. Calls for unity from those who would undermine our principles and our Constitution should be treated as what they are: a desperate attempt to escape responsibility for wrongdoing.
AOC has stated in an hour-long Instagram video that her life and the lives of "many other members" were in serious jeopardy at one point of the intrusion. She said she was not sure she was allowed to make specifics public.
As long as it is only AOC making these statements, they must be treated as unsubstantiated allegations.
AOC's story had the ring of truth to me. I am now hoping that other representatives will come forward to confirm what she has said. If these allegations are true, the public needs to know the details sooner or later, and sooner would be better.
We have allowed a culture of intimidation against f our elected officials. It is never ok, whether chasing Lindsey Graham through an airport or threatening to kidnap the governor of Michigan. People act as if receiving death threats is just part of the job. It is not. Dehumanizing our representatives as if they are not people with families and gardens and dogs they walk just like the rest of us is just bizarre. Along these lines, while it is clear that Graham is hitching his star to the Trump train AGAIN because it is the only way he can win an election, there are many reports that others are in fear for their lives. This is unconscionable. I also wonder what people are doing about their own Trump-supporting friends? I have called out one on his social media after posting some seriously deranged memes, another for copy-pasting one of those stupid lists that point out every slight against the President, and now my high school best friend is in on the game. Yes, high school was decades ago and I live halfway across the country now, but do I want to go there? On one hand I had decided not to sit idly by while people repeat stupid stuff, on another I might as well kiss any happy reunions at the Big Ten Pub goodbye.
Why, when so many rats are leaving the sinking ship, are people blindly supporting this grifter? Even after the events of Wednesday?
To me, the most telling indication of Trump's real time state of mind, is his behavior in the hours after he ducked out of the assault on the Capitol and fled to the safety and comfort of the White House. I have seen no report or evidence so far that he lifted as much as his little finger to intervene and attempt to stop the mayhem. He does not appear to have made any attempt to contact key cabinet members, military leaders or security officials. By all indications he was fixated by the events as they played out on TV and is said by some to have been delighted by the spectacle.
His behavior was at best immoral and a clear dereliction of his Constitutional duties as chief executive and commander in chief. That alone is sufficient cause for impeachment and conviction. In addition, I see Trump's unwillingness to act and to intervene in an ongoing attack on the Capitol building, the legislative bodies gathered within it, and the counting of votes from a duly certified presidential election as contemporaneous evidence of his unmistakable intent to overthrow our constitutional form of government and declare himself president. This is the monarchical tyranny that the writers of our Constitution correctly feared.
Did anyone else notice the gaffe in Trump's speech last night in which he claimed to "unequivocally condemn" violence? Quote: "I cannot emphasize that there must be no violence, no law breaking and no vandalism of any kind."
This is what he actually said. Various media outlets report it as such. But leaving out "enough" after "emphasize" entirely changes its meaning. Another dog whistle? Freudian slip?
If he truly condemned the violence, he could have done so at any time since it began. Told the rioters "unequivocally" to stop while they were attacking the Capitol. Instead, he was allegedly enjoying the scenes on TV, and later told them "we love you." (I note his frequent use of the "Royal we".) He is careful with his words when he wants to send a message; his followers a rabid about routing out his buried messaging - like his reference in a previous "disavowal" to his "first" presidency. "Read this carefully!" I saw emblazoned on FaceBook from one of his unabashed enablers (a man whose bid for Congress failed at the primary level).
So I can't help wondering about that missing "enough".
If you want an update on the continuing of the gobsmackingly awful Josh Hawley's descent into Trumpian mendacity, more large corporate MO donors are refusing to support him financially and he has the chutzpah to write an Op-Ed in a little local paper called the Southeast Missourian claiming that his support of Trump's lies about the election has NO RELATION AT ALL to the attempted coup last Wednesday. https://wsiltv.com/2021/01/13/more-companies-pause-contributions-to-hawley-others/ Claire McCaskill had a great interview on one of my local NPR station's programs where she laid out the many ways his corruption has served him. She was a little giddy about his sudden dive from what he assumed would be the top of the heap. https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2021-01-13/claire-mccaskill-on-the-insurrection-trump-and-hawley
Btw, for anyone who wants to know: Hawley uses his sister's home address as his "place of residence" in order to claim to be living in Missouri, but he actually lives in the White-Squared enclave of Fairfax County, VA and does not own a residence in the state he claims to be representing. He's always been a lying liar who lies.
The only way to keep up the pressure on these people is to:
1. Arrest the Congresspeople who colluded with the insurrectionists and operated as the coup-plotters. They are guilty of sedition and treason. In particular the ones who are menacing their colleagues by bringing guns into the Capitol, such as Gohmert and Boebert.
2. Pressure--through petitions, constant phone calls, whatever it takes--corporations that give money to Republicans to stop doing so or lose financially.
3. Overturn the Citizens United case with appropriate election reform passed by both houses of Congress.
4. Start a very public and transparent re-education program that reaches into the Fox News, Gamergate, etc. communities.
5. De-nazify the military, the police departments, and the Fraternal Order of Police.
We have to be absolutely vigilant about this and we cannot let up.
The situation’s reminiscent of that in Italy in 1924, following the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, who had spoken out constantly in Parliament against the Fascist Party’s use of fraud and violence, especially in recent elections, and was on the point of exposing serious corruption on the part of Mussolini, his family and the Fascist leadership, bribed by a US company, Sinclair Oil, to obtain exclusive drilling rights in Italy and its colonies.
For a while, the survival of the Fascist government was in the balance. In the end, Mussolini pulled through, abandoned the legal forms observed during its first years and installed a totalitarian dictatorship.
Now, the balance of power in America is unfavorable to Trump and the Republican Party, the president is a deluded old man who has always resembled Mussolini gone to seed, rather than the able political operator who made himself Duce, yet the danger to America remains as real as ever. The would-be dictator has done a great job for those conspirators who’d had the bright idea of taking over a respectable political party and who used him as a demolition ball to shatter the country’s institutions. Systematic cheating and a rolling barrage of lies enveloped America and the world in a cloud of toxic dust and confusion. Above all, President Trump has built up a mass movement of angry, resentful and heavily armed followers who believe his every word—even when it contradicts his last one, even, it seems, when he has thrown them under the proverbial bus.
Now, both those politicians who propagated the lie and those who went along with it live in terror of the mob, the Frankenstein monster they themselves created.
It was interesting to hear so many Representatives speak about the need to unite the country, to heal our wounds, and to move on, then watch 197 of them vote in support of the man whose actions over the past 4 years destroyed almost every norm involving the presidency and common decency, and whose words last week launched a direct attack on the government itself.
Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Louie Gohmert stood on the floor of the House last night and danced, rehearsing the moves for the other 194 members who eventually joined in the Trumpist chorus line from hell that continues to support their seditious leader.
Meanwhile in the main ballroom, Mitch hasn’t quite decided if he will join this particular soiree – he’s holding his dance card ever so close to his chest, playing the coy, reluctant young thing, standing at the side of the room gazing at the assembled crowd and wondering whether the time has come to join in or refrain, protecting his sacred honor like a blushing debutante at the ball who spent the afternoon in torrid congress with the family gardener.
He knows the dance - he wrote the tune, choreographed the steps, and has danced it deftly before. But Mitch will not dance with just anyone, he will only dance with the partner that offers him the greatest prize. His choice will have nothing to do with honor - it will be a choice of expediency.
He and his fellows will dance and dance and dance the night away – going nowhere but in circles, until we all tire of the spinning – which is their hope. Let us not be fooled by this swirling, twirling obfuscation. Stop the music, deprive them of their masks – end this charade.
I loved Adam Schiff's description tonight of Kevin McCarthy (R-Dumbfuckingokiefornia): "unlimited ambition unmoored to any principles or conscience."
Elected officials who participated in any way in the Jan. 6 uprising, including having fore knowledge, are guilty of treason and felony murder. They must be indicted and tried by the Justice Department in as public a fashion as possible. Their crimes would be worse, far worse, than those of the insurgents; the officials swore an oath and carried the public trust.
I'm new to Heather's Letters and appreciate their directness and concise reporting. Life is particularly challenging in the USA now. My take is that we are at a momentous time of crisis, our very own American Heart of Darkness. The Army of Trump will not go away; its origins started in the 1980's, perhaps, earlier. The wounds of racism; white supremacy; the seismic changes in the world of work with people losing their jobs, unions, communities and sense of meaning; the greed and individualism (me, myself and I); the transfer of wealth to a very few; failures of government; the disappearance of local newspapers; the accumulation of firearms... it feels as though it is all crashing down on us. Mitch McConnell continues to connive through this collapse of state. Trump has no idea of what he's done.
For those interested in seeing an unusual 40 minutes of video consisting of a rolling shot of the breach on the Western staircase of The Capitol, I recommend Why the Capitol Riot Reminded Me of War by Elliot Ackerman. It contains a link to the video. The author was a soldier Iraq and Afghanistan. His Opinion was published in yesterday's New York Times,. It is a sharp and deeply felt reflection about what is going on.
In such an unsettling time, it is very helpful to communicate and share thoughts with each other. It is good to read Heather's Letters and to learn from you.
There's been a lot of hoopla about the Democrats' rationale for congressional Democrats unusual speed in drafting new Articles of Impeachment, and this past afternoon, voting to eject President Trump from the White House for the second time in roughly a single calendar year. I don't blame them in the slightest, and I think the arguments against impeachment are totally self-serving and unworthy of even the slightest consideration. Nobody on the House Republican side can seriously contend that it was others than a howling mob of Trump supporters that overpowered police and then proceeded to ransack our national Capitol.
Among the arguments that have been raised, and repeatedly so, justifying the Democrats' reflexive action to impeach Trump has been the idea that only through impeachment, the specter of Donald J Trump again running for the presidency at some future time between now and the 2028 presidential election. Indeed, our 'Disruptor in Chief' undoubtedly revels in the thought that his enemies are quivering in their Birkenstocks and tie-dyes over the thought of him running for president again.
This time, however, House Democrats drafted Articles of Impeachment with a real 'poison pill' buried inside in the form of a direct invocation of the Fourteenth Amendment which has an absolute prohibition against anyone being are the elected or appointed to a federal public office if that person has engaged in insurrection, rebellion, or offered aid and comfort those who engaged in seditious or treasonous acts or advocacy. The operative language is found in Section 3. It is too long to quote here; and, in Donald Jake Trump's case, given the unique circumstances under which he is being impeached, that would be an absolute bar to him taking public office again that will most likely be highly effective. Here's why.
Two nights ago, on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show, one of his guests, a law professor, offered his opinion about the quantum of evidence that would be sufficient to make the ban against holding public office stick. The question turned on the quantum of proof that would be necessary to derail any future bid by Donald Trump to regain political office by running again for president. The same inquiry can and should be made about every one of Trump's hangers-on who participated in, aided or abetted Trump's effort to overturn the recent presidential election. The question essentially boils down to, 'How far could they go without exposing themselves to a charge of sedition', and who gets to decide.
That law professor, as well-trained as he is, waffled around the question about whether an acquittal in the Senate would upend the hope that a future Trump run for the presidency could be derailed because Trump had been acquitted by a complacent Senate that could not muster the two-thirds majority to convict him, expel him from the White House, and deny him the legal capacity to hold public office again. When asked, the man just couldn't say, muttering something about having to look at all of the evidence that might be relevant to the case. It was a lawyerly, professorial answer that looked to the vagaries of constitutional law rather than a straightforward reference to the Law of Evidence. Seriously.
I'm not trying to be snarky, but this is not all that difficult if you know something about statutory construction, and the evidentiary rules regarding burden of proof. If you read the operative language in the third section of the Amendment, you would notice that nowhere in that serpentine language is there any mention of the word 'impeachment'. None whatsoever. That's important, because the language of this amendment is a great deal broader than the language in Article II that talks about the President and officers of the Executive Branch of government who are appointed by the President. The prohibition also applies to those prospective candidates for elected seats in the Senate or the House of Representatives who might also have engaged in seditious or treasonous acts, subversion, or who offered aid and comfort to those who did by encouraging them and urging them on, as did Trump a week ago yesterday. And, in contradistinction from the two-thirds majority of the Senate needed to convict and oust a President, the language of the Amendment states that both houses of Congress must vote by two-thirds majorities to relieve in eligible persons from that constitutional disability incurred by them. You can see which people the drafters of the 14th Amendment had in mind, former politicians who had joined the Confederacy; and having lost their war to secede from the Union, now wanted to reenter the halls of Congress again.
What we have here today is an Article of Impeachment, voted on and approved by the House of Representatives that incorporates a set of facts justifying impeachment, considered by the House, and found to be true. In other words, these are legislative facts that Congress and state legislatures routinely incorporate into the statutes they enact which reflect the philosophy and purpose of the act, based upon specific facts found by those legislative bodies and for the purposes of that legislation are deemed to be true. Those facts set forth in the Article of Impeachment, bolstered by contemporaneous news reports, witness testimonies, news videos, and amount of other evidence, lends credence to the evidentiary value of the factual recitals that accompany the impeachment declaration set forth in the adopted Article. In effect, it is not a judicial trial, but it has the same effect, and it ends up in a judgment against the President based upon the underlying facts of his misconduct.
The fact that the Amendment does not require senatorial confirmation of a judgment that certain persons are in eligible to hold public office or to sit as members of Congress or the Senate has the effect of making that judgment provisional as to any body accused of the prohibited acts; but a provisional judgment has the same legal effect of a prima facie case of wrongdoing brought into the civil or criminal court. We know that a prima facie case is one in which all of the elements of an action or crime are present in the action, and the party against whom the evidentiary presumption of their validity and force operates is required to bring forth another set of facts that negates the presumption created by the statute. It is a little known fact that law school courses in the Law of Evidence sometimes give these matters short shrift, much to the eventual dismay of practitioners who suddenly find themselves out of court because they cannot overcome a statutory presumption embedded in the law. Shame on them, because some of them never do learn.
So, what I am really saying is that this particular constitutional amendment has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the party burden by the presumption that such person is not fit to be in public office because they engaged in sedition or rebellion at some time in the past; and the only way to overcome that presumption is to prove that they are completely innocent of the charge that prevents them from holding office. If this matter were to go to court, Donald Trump would need to have the judge hearing the case make an affirmative finding of factual innocence. Oh, and by the way, all of this argument is either at sidebar, or in the judge's chambers, and it never gets to the jury. It is strictly a question of law. This is done all the time when persons claiming that they were wrongfully convicted of crime petition a court under habeas corpus to convince that court that the original trial court got it wrong, and that they were actually, factually innocent. That's a real tough hole to get out of, and that's the hole that Trump finds himself in now.
Heather, you were too kind about Jim Jordan. He is positively the most obnoxious, unprofessional hunan in the House. He yells! I always hope that his blood pressure will pop his head off. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet.
If some Democrats had listened to the warnings about Fake 45 and Russia that Hillary made, we would not be a witness to these crimes. Alas, that didn’t occur.
One of the major instigators to this uprising, is black, which astounds me. His first name is Ali. He is now in hiding but somehow revealed three names of Congress members who gave him information about the inner workings of the Capitol. One of them is Gosar whose family members want to see him removed from office. It also should be pointed out that Mikie Sherrill, a former Air Force pilot and prosecutor bad-ass, from New Jersey, observed tours being given one day before the insurrection, by members of Congress. Mind you, no tours were permitted at all since March 2020 because of Covid. Sherrill made note of these members but, of course, because of pending investigation, she cannot reveal their names...alas.
We also heard from the QAnon lady, Greene, who announced that she is going to file articles of impeachment against Biden. Mind you, she only recently got a GED. Alas, she is an ass.
Good ole Matt Gaetz got applause for yelling out stupid comments. He and Jordan are competing for the Most Annoying Voice award. Alas, he is an ass too.
Last but not least, was Steny Hoyer’s reading of Liz Cheney’s letter stating her reasons why she is voting for impeachment. Her life has been threatened and she chose him to read it.
Alas, our country has reached new lows..on sacred grounds.
The Independent is reporting that the panic buttons in Ayanna Pressley's office had been torn out before the attack. It seems beyond doubt that there was inside help for the insurrection.
We know who the radical Republicans are. We know they will lie, they will blame, they will claim victimhood, while they go about sabotaging our government through their dangerous parliamentary games which are now hollowing out the trust of citizens in our political institutions. When that trust is fully gone, rebuilding it will be very difficult if not impossible.
The current Republican party in congress, with only a few exceptions, is an immediate threat to national security and our democratic way of life. These are people with power who have neither the moral right nor the necessary wisdom to hold it.
There can be no backing down from the truth of what damage they have done to our republic. It is not business as usual no matter how hard these seditious minds try to spin it.
Every citizen in this nation has an immediate interest in bringing these dishonorable people to justice.
The chapter titled "I Can't Breathe" continues to be written. A shamefully small number of Republican members of Congress had the moral fiber to stand up and say Enough! They, along with Democrats, corporate donors and those of us who have been appalled for far too long by the behavior of President Trump and those who align themselves with him must continue the steady march toward justice. With every step, reminding all that we are a nation of laws and of truth. Calls for unity from those who would undermine our principles and our Constitution should be treated as what they are: a desperate attempt to escape responsibility for wrongdoing.
AOC has stated in an hour-long Instagram video that her life and the lives of "many other members" were in serious jeopardy at one point of the intrusion. She said she was not sure she was allowed to make specifics public.
As long as it is only AOC making these statements, they must be treated as unsubstantiated allegations.
AOC's story had the ring of truth to me. I am now hoping that other representatives will come forward to confirm what she has said. If these allegations are true, the public needs to know the details sooner or later, and sooner would be better.
We have allowed a culture of intimidation against f our elected officials. It is never ok, whether chasing Lindsey Graham through an airport or threatening to kidnap the governor of Michigan. People act as if receiving death threats is just part of the job. It is not. Dehumanizing our representatives as if they are not people with families and gardens and dogs they walk just like the rest of us is just bizarre. Along these lines, while it is clear that Graham is hitching his star to the Trump train AGAIN because it is the only way he can win an election, there are many reports that others are in fear for their lives. This is unconscionable. I also wonder what people are doing about their own Trump-supporting friends? I have called out one on his social media after posting some seriously deranged memes, another for copy-pasting one of those stupid lists that point out every slight against the President, and now my high school best friend is in on the game. Yes, high school was decades ago and I live halfway across the country now, but do I want to go there? On one hand I had decided not to sit idly by while people repeat stupid stuff, on another I might as well kiss any happy reunions at the Big Ten Pub goodbye.
Why, when so many rats are leaving the sinking ship, are people blindly supporting this grifter? Even after the events of Wednesday?
To me, the most telling indication of Trump's real time state of mind, is his behavior in the hours after he ducked out of the assault on the Capitol and fled to the safety and comfort of the White House. I have seen no report or evidence so far that he lifted as much as his little finger to intervene and attempt to stop the mayhem. He does not appear to have made any attempt to contact key cabinet members, military leaders or security officials. By all indications he was fixated by the events as they played out on TV and is said by some to have been delighted by the spectacle.
His behavior was at best immoral and a clear dereliction of his Constitutional duties as chief executive and commander in chief. That alone is sufficient cause for impeachment and conviction. In addition, I see Trump's unwillingness to act and to intervene in an ongoing attack on the Capitol building, the legislative bodies gathered within it, and the counting of votes from a duly certified presidential election as contemporaneous evidence of his unmistakable intent to overthrow our constitutional form of government and declare himself president. This is the monarchical tyranny that the writers of our Constitution correctly feared.
Did anyone else notice the gaffe in Trump's speech last night in which he claimed to "unequivocally condemn" violence? Quote: "I cannot emphasize that there must be no violence, no law breaking and no vandalism of any kind."
This is what he actually said. Various media outlets report it as such. But leaving out "enough" after "emphasize" entirely changes its meaning. Another dog whistle? Freudian slip?
If he truly condemned the violence, he could have done so at any time since it began. Told the rioters "unequivocally" to stop while they were attacking the Capitol. Instead, he was allegedly enjoying the scenes on TV, and later told them "we love you." (I note his frequent use of the "Royal we".) He is careful with his words when he wants to send a message; his followers a rabid about routing out his buried messaging - like his reference in a previous "disavowal" to his "first" presidency. "Read this carefully!" I saw emblazoned on FaceBook from one of his unabashed enablers (a man whose bid for Congress failed at the primary level).
So I can't help wondering about that missing "enough".
If you want an update on the continuing of the gobsmackingly awful Josh Hawley's descent into Trumpian mendacity, more large corporate MO donors are refusing to support him financially and he has the chutzpah to write an Op-Ed in a little local paper called the Southeast Missourian claiming that his support of Trump's lies about the election has NO RELATION AT ALL to the attempted coup last Wednesday. https://wsiltv.com/2021/01/13/more-companies-pause-contributions-to-hawley-others/ Claire McCaskill had a great interview on one of my local NPR station's programs where she laid out the many ways his corruption has served him. She was a little giddy about his sudden dive from what he assumed would be the top of the heap. https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2021-01-13/claire-mccaskill-on-the-insurrection-trump-and-hawley
Btw, for anyone who wants to know: Hawley uses his sister's home address as his "place of residence" in order to claim to be living in Missouri, but he actually lives in the White-Squared enclave of Fairfax County, VA and does not own a residence in the state he claims to be representing. He's always been a lying liar who lies.
The only way to keep up the pressure on these people is to:
1. Arrest the Congresspeople who colluded with the insurrectionists and operated as the coup-plotters. They are guilty of sedition and treason. In particular the ones who are menacing their colleagues by bringing guns into the Capitol, such as Gohmert and Boebert.
2. Pressure--through petitions, constant phone calls, whatever it takes--corporations that give money to Republicans to stop doing so or lose financially.
3. Overturn the Citizens United case with appropriate election reform passed by both houses of Congress.
4. Start a very public and transparent re-education program that reaches into the Fox News, Gamergate, etc. communities.
5. De-nazify the military, the police departments, and the Fraternal Order of Police.
We have to be absolutely vigilant about this and we cannot let up.
The situation’s reminiscent of that in Italy in 1924, following the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, who had spoken out constantly in Parliament against the Fascist Party’s use of fraud and violence, especially in recent elections, and was on the point of exposing serious corruption on the part of Mussolini, his family and the Fascist leadership, bribed by a US company, Sinclair Oil, to obtain exclusive drilling rights in Italy and its colonies.
For a while, the survival of the Fascist government was in the balance. In the end, Mussolini pulled through, abandoned the legal forms observed during its first years and installed a totalitarian dictatorship.
Now, the balance of power in America is unfavorable to Trump and the Republican Party, the president is a deluded old man who has always resembled Mussolini gone to seed, rather than the able political operator who made himself Duce, yet the danger to America remains as real as ever. The would-be dictator has done a great job for those conspirators who’d had the bright idea of taking over a respectable political party and who used him as a demolition ball to shatter the country’s institutions. Systematic cheating and a rolling barrage of lies enveloped America and the world in a cloud of toxic dust and confusion. Above all, President Trump has built up a mass movement of angry, resentful and heavily armed followers who believe his every word—even when it contradicts his last one, even, it seems, when he has thrown them under the proverbial bus.
Now, both those politicians who propagated the lie and those who went along with it live in terror of the mob, the Frankenstein monster they themselves created.