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patriottruth · 9 days ago

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2024 U.S. Presidential Election: Ronald Reagan's Informed Patriotism: donald j. trump Is Not the President Elect Because No Sworn Official Can Count Even One Vote For An Insurrectionist. The Immediate Disbarring of All 6 MAGA SCOTUS Injustices, Denying donald j. trump Even One American/Electoral Vote, Denying donald j. trump and all of his allies Access to Their MAGA Insurrectionist SCOTUS Injustices For All 2024 Election Litigation, and Immediately Restoring National Roe vs. Wade Protections Via The Remaining Three SCOTUS Justices.

After Democratic nominee Joe Biden easily won the 2020 United States presidential election with a massive American mandate and landslide victory of 81 million votes, failed Republican nominee and then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack by donald j. trump's deranged and vicious cult of supporters in an attempted self-coup d'état where a police officer died after being assaulted by deposed donald j. trump's insurrectionist rioters. Many people were injured, including 174 police officers, and donald j. trump's uncivilized and mindless MAGA cult members defecated and smeared their feces all over the U.S. Capitol complex. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by donald j. trump's and his MAGA cult's insurrection against the United States of America, We The People of the United States of America, and the U.S. Capitol complex exceeded $2.7 million.

A week after the attack, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached the failed and undeniably deposed U.S. President donald j. trump for incitement of insurrection, making him the only U.S. president to be impeached twice while also legally and constitutionally disqualifying him from running for reelection in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, or holding any public office anywhere in the United States of America ever again due to his betrayal of his Presidential Oath of Office, the United States of America, the U.S. government, and We The People of the United States of America.

Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote false claims and conspiracy theories asserting the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international conspiracy. Trump pressed Department of Justice leaders to challenge the results and publicly state the election was corrupt. However, the attorney general, director of National Intelligence, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – as well as some Trump campaign staff – dismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also determined the claims were baseless. Trump's legal team sought to bring a case before the Supreme Court, but none of the 63 lawsuits they filed were successful. They pinned their hopes on Texas v. Pennsylvania, but on December 11, 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Afterward, Trump considered ways to remain in power, including military intervention, seizing voting machines, and another appeal to the Supreme Court.

In June 2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack said it had enough evidence to recommend that the Department of Justice indict the failed and undeniably deposed former U.S. President donald j. trump, and on December 19, the committee formally made the criminal referral to the Justice Department. On August 1, 2023, Trump was indicted by a D.C. grand jury for conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Republicans in support of the indictment Mike Pence, who was Trump's vice president and, at the time, was also running for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, issued a statement strongly condemning Trump, stating that this indictment was "an important reminder [that] anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States". In an interview with reporters at the Indiana State Fair the next day, he expanded on his comments, stating that he could not have overturned the election results as vice president.

Former U.S. attorney general William Barr said the case against Trump was legitimate and that he will testify if he is called.

Adam Kinzinger, a member of the January 6 Committee and a former Illinois representative, tweeted that "Today is the beginning of justice" and added that Trump is "a cancer on our democracy".

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who was running for the 2024 presidential Republican nomination at the time, said Trump "swore an oath to the Constitution, violated his oath & brought shame to his presidency."

Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who was running for the 2024 presidential Republican nomination at the time, said "Trump has disqualified himself from ever holding our nation's highest office again."

On August 14, 2023, nearly a dozen former judges and federal legal officials, all appointed by Republicans, submitted an amicus brief saying they agreed with Jack Smith's 1proposed trial date of January 2, 2024. The brief states "There is no more important issue facing America and the American people—and to the very functioning of democracy—than whether the former president is guilty of criminally undermining America's elections and American democracy in order to remain in power […]".

On August 14, Trump and 18 co-defendants, were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia for their efforts to overturn the election results in that state. Ten leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Capitol attack. As of May 6, 2024, of the 1,424 people charged with federal crimes relating to the event, 820 have pleaded guilty (255 to felonies and 565 to misdemeanors), and 884 defendants have been sentenced, 541 of whom received a jail sentence. Failed and deposed U.S. President and insurrectionist presidential candidate donald j. trump hails and salutes his imprisoned insurrectionist supporters at his 2024 presidential election rallies while he plays their January 6 Insurrectionist Choir version of a completely corrupted and deranged anti-American version of the U.S. National Anthem, and then he repeatedly promises to pardon all of his caged animal, shit-smearing, anti-American MAGA Nazi cult traitors should he be elected back into the White House on November 5, 2024.

LAW AND ORDER!!! United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, Waltine Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira is a federal criminal case against Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, Walt Nauta, his personal aide and valet, and Mar-a-Lago maintenance chief Carlos De Oliveira. The grand jury indictment brought 40 felony counts against Trump related to his mishandling of classified documents after his presidency. The case marks the first federal indictment of a former U.S. president.

In May 2022, a grand jury issued a subpoena for any remaining documents in Trump's possession. Trump certified that he was returning all the remaining documents on June 3, 2022, but the FBI later obtained evidence that he had intentionally moved documents to hide them from his lawyers and the FBI and thus had not fulfilled the subpoena.

This led to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, in which the FBI recovered over 13,000 government documents, over 300 of which were classified, with some relating to national defense secrets covered under the Espionage Act.

On June 8, 2023, the original indictment with 37 felony counts against Trump was filed in the federal district court in Miami by the office of the Smith special counsel investigation. On July 27, a superseding indictment charged an additional three felonies against Trump. Trump was charged separately for each of 32 documents under the Espionage Act. The other eight charges against him included making false statements and engaging in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. The most serious charges against Trump and Nauta carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

LAW AND ORDER!!! The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Section 3: Disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The President of the United States of America is the Chief Executive and Judicial Officer over ALL U.S. states and territories both individually and as a whole. Therefore, there was never a question for the Supreme Court to decide regarding impeached insurrectionist donald j. trump appearing on any U.S. presidential election ballot on any U.S. state or territory. The Supreme Court of the United States is one of two checks and balances for the President of the United States; and the individual states, and all U.S. residents and citizens, can and do attempt to have matters settled at a local and state level by the Supreme Court of the United States. The "Take Care" clause of the United States Constitution firmly places the responsibility of ensuring the SCOTUS doesn't go rogue or overstep their authority upon the President of the United States as the Chief Executive and Judicial Officer over the entire United States as a whole, and each state and territory individually, via Presidential Executive Orders and the U.S. Department of Justice. Congress then serves as the other check and balance for both the President of the United States and the SCOTUS.

On December 19, 2023, in the case Anderson v. Griswold, the Colorado Supreme Court held that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, the court held it would be a "wrongful act" under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. This decision was stayed until January 4, 2024, in the expectation that Trump would seek certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. The Colorado Republican Party appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Colorado Secretary of State announced that Trump will be included on the primary ballot "unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling."

On December 28, 2023, Maine announced that Trump would not appear on the ballot when the Secretary of State decided that Trump had committed insurrection, although the ruling was stayed for judicial review. Trump appealed to Kennebec County Superior Court. On January 17, the case was remanded back to the Maine Secretary of State for reconsideration after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the Colorado case.

On January 3, 2024, Trump appealed to the US Supreme Court on the Colorado matter. His attorneys argued that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment should not apply to the presidency because the president is not an Officer of the United States. The Supreme Court announced on January 5, 2024, that it would hear the Colorado case, scheduling oral arguments for February 8.

"As President, I was never an 'officer of the United States' and I did not take an oath 'to support the Constitution of the United States'. Therefore, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to me, can't be applied to me, and can't prevent me from running for or holding office for my actions on January 6, 2021."- donald j. trump (November 27, 2023)

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick suggested that President Joe Biden could be removed from the ballot via Section 3 due to his immigration policy having permitted "invasion". Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft threatened to take such action in retaliation. Three Republican members of state Houses of Representatives announced intent to parody the Colorado decision via introducing legislation towards removing Biden as an insurrectionist from their states' ballots.

On January 30, 2024, a challenge that cited Section 3 to argue against inclusion of Biden on the Illinois Democratic primary ballot was dismissed by the Illinois State Board of Elections.

On March 4, 2024, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson reversed the Colorado Supreme Court decision, holding that Congress determines eligibility under Section 3 for federal officeholders and states may only bar candidates from state office.

While all nine justices agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment grants this power to the federal government, and not to the individual states, two separate opinions were issued. Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred in the Court's decision that states cannot enforce Section 3 against federal officials, but wrote that the court should not have addressed "the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced." Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in an opinion co-signed by all three Justices, concurred in the judgment, but said that the court went beyond what was needed for the case and should not have declared that Congress has the exclusive power to decide Section 3 eligibility questions, stating that the Court's opinion had decided "novel constitutional questions to insulate this court and petitioner [Trump] from future controversy."

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision, that failed and deposed insurrectionist 2020 election loser and former president donald j. trump had absolute immunity for acts he committed as president within his core constitutional purview, at least presumptive immunity for official acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility, and no immunity for unofficial acts.

Berger v. United States, 255 U.S. 22 (1921), is a United States Supreme Court decision overruling a trial court decision by U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis against Rep. Victor L. Berger, a Congressman for Wisconsin's 5th district and the founder of the Social Democratic Party of America, and several other German-American defendants who were convicted of violating the Espionage Act by publicizing anti-interventionist views during World War I.

The case was argued on December 9, 1920, and decided on January 31, 1921, with an opinion by Justice Joseph McKenna and dissents by Justices William R. Day, James Clark McReynolds, and Mahlon Pitney. The Supreme Court held that Judge Landis was properly disqualified as trial judge based on an affidavit filed by the German defendants asserting that Judge Landis' public anti-German statements should disqualify him from presiding over the trial of the defendants.

The House of Representatives twice denied Berger his seat in the House due to his original conviction for espionage using Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding denying office to those who supported "insurrection or rebellion". The Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 1921 in Berger v. U.S., and Berger won three successive terms in the House in the 1920s.

Per the United States Supreme Court's "Berger test" that states that to disqualify ANY judge in the United States of America: 1) a party files an affidavit claiming personal bias or prejudice demonstrating an "objectionable inclination or disposition of the judge" and 2) claim of bias is based on facts antedating the trial.

All 6 criminal MAGA insurrectionist and trump-loyalist U.S. Supreme Court Justices who've repeatedly and illegally ruled in donald j. trump's favor are as disqualified from issuing any rulings pertaining to donald j. trump (a German immigrant) as the United States Supreme Court ruled U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was when he attempted to deny Victor L. Berger (a German immigrant) from holding office for violating the Espionage Act and supporting or engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States of America.

Again, as the text of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly reads, and ONLY reads:

Section 3 clearly and ONLY gives Congress the power to remove a disability of an insurrectionist to "be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State".

Section 3 clearly DOESN'T give Congress the power to impose or enforce a disability of an insurrectionist to "be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State". That's what Impeachment is for, and donald j. trump was impeached for insurrection and referred to the Department of Justice by a Congressional committee for prosecution for his and his supporters acts of insurrection against the United States of America on January 6, 2021.

Section 3 clearly DOESN'T give the United States Supreme Court the authority to illegally and criminally engage in insurrection against the United States of America by MODIFYING the U.S. Constitution AND LEGISLATING from the bench to relieve their own political party and the former insurrectionist U.S. President who appointed them from needing a two-thirds vote of each House to remove the disability of an insurrectionist to run for President of the United States and hold the office of the President of the United States should they be legally elected in a free and fair election. The insurrectionist MAGA cult that's taken over the former Republican Party of the United States knows that there was no way they were getting a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress to put impeached insurrectionist and convicted felon donald j. trump on the ballot, and so they had their six legally disqualified U.S. Supreme Court criminal MAGA insurrectionist injustices legislate from the bench AND ILLEGALLY and CRIMINALLY modify the U.S. Constitution to put Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and impeached insurrectionist donald j. trump on the 2024 U.S. presidential election ballot.

There are two steps in the amendment process of modifying the U.S. Constitution. Proposals to amend the Constitution must be properly adopted and ratified before they change the Constitution. First, there are two procedures for adopting the language of a proposed amendment, either by (a) Congress, by two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, or (b) national convention (which shall take place whenever two-thirds of the state legislatures collectively call for one). Second, there are two procedures for ratifying the proposed amendment, which requires three-fourths of the states' (presently 38 of 50) approval: (a) consent of the state legislatures, or (b) consent of state ratifying conventions. The ratification method is chosen by Congress for each amendment. (Wikipedia)

The necessary CONTEXT for the LEGAL UNMODIFIED ORIGINAL text of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is this: At the time of the drafting of the United States Constitution, the Americans known as "We The People" were fighting and dying to liberate themselves out from under a tyrannical king! Obviously, a President or Vice President who'd engage in insurrection against the United States of America DURING OR IMMEDIATELY AFTER the creation of the United States Constitution would be executed for TREASON; and because it'd be impossible for "a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any officeholder, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State" to BE IN A POSISTION TO IMMEDIATELY PROCLAIM THEMSELVES THE NEW TYRANNICAL DIVINE KING FOR LIFE OVER THE UNITED STATES AMERICA; and because all traitors were being actively and immediately executed for TREASON, it'd have been impossible for an insurrectionist traitor President or Vice President to run for any office again - because they'd be dead; therefore, it was unnecessary to include an executed treasonous President and/or Vice President in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. With full knowledge and understanding of these facts, the criminal insurrectionist MAGA extremist U.S. Supreme Court injustices ILLEGALLY and CRIMINALLY legislated from the bench to modify Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution so that, as far as the 6 MAGA extremist U.S. Supreme Court injustices are concerned, it now reads as such WITHOUT having been LEGALLY amended by a both two-thirds vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress AND the approval of 38 of 50 U.S. states:

Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. As of March 4, 2024, six partisan Justices on the United States Supreme Court bypassed the legal and proper constitutional amendment process, legislated from the bench, and added the following illegal and unenforceable legislation to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution without Congressional or States approval and ratification: "Only Congress determines eligibility of insurrectionist candidates under Section 3 for federal officeholders and states may only bar insurrectionist candidates from state office. Federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced upon insurrectionist candidates for federal office."

How many elected Republicans, Democrats, and Independents in the House of Representatives and the Senate provided the necessary two-thirds vote to amend the U.S. Constitution in this manner? What are the names of all of these so-called elected officials and where are the official voting records? What dates did these voting sessions occur?

Which of the 38 U.S. states ratified this Congressional two-thirds-vote-approved constitutional amendment so that the Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and insurrectionist donald j. trump could appear on the 2024 U.S. presidential ballot?

This is where the presidential Take Care Clause is automatically activated and the U.S. president enforces the laws of the United States and upholds, protects, and defends the U.S. Constitution, and perpetuates American democracy.

This is where all six MAGA criminal insurrectionist SCOTUS injustices face both immediate and permanent disbarment from ever practicing law anywhere in the United States of America AND Congressional Impeachment and removal from the Supreme Court of the United States of America for giving aid, comfort, and support to criminal defendant donald j. trump's felonies involving moral turpitude, forgery, fraud, a history of dishonesty, consistent lack of attention to the American people, the United States, his oath of office, and the U.S. Constitution, drug abuse, thefts of taxpayer and U.S. government monies, thefts of at least 13,000 classified documents and other U.S. government property, and a pattern of violations of all professional codes of ethics.

Article Two of the United States Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, which carries out and enforces federal laws. Article Two vests the power of the executive branch in the office of the president of the United States, lays out the procedures for electing and removing the president, and establishes the president's powers and responsibilities.

Clause 5: Caring for the faithful execution of the law The president must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This clause in the Constitution imposes a duty on the president to enforce the laws of the United States and is called the Take Care Clause, also known as the Faithful Execution Clause or Faithfully Executed Clause. This clause is meant to ensure that a law is faithfully executed by the president even if he disagrees with the purpose of that law. The Take Care Clause demands that the president obey the law, the Supreme Court said in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, and repudiates any notion that he may dispense with the law's execution. In Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court explained how the president executes the law: "The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the president, it says, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," Art. II, §3, personally and through officers whom he appoints (save for such inferior officers as Congress may authorize to be appointed by the "Courts of Law" or by "the Heads of Departments" with other presidential appointees), Art. II, §2." In Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. 475 (1867), the Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary may not restrain the president in the execution of the laws. In that case the Supreme Court refused to entertain a request for an injunction preventing President Andrew Johnson from executing the Reconstruction Acts, which were claimed to be unconstitutional. The Court found that "[t]he Congress is the legislative department of the government; the president is the executive department. Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed, are, in proper cases, subject to its cognizance." Thus, the courts cannot bar the passage of a law by Congress, though it may later strike down such a law as unconstitutional. A similar construction applies to the executive branch. (Wikipedia)

The Take Care Clause is the constitutional checks and balances guardrail to counter judicial activism, legislating from the bench, and a rogue U.S. Supreme Court that's supporting and actively engaging in insurrection against the United States of America and We The People of the United States with the purpose of overthrowing the U.S. government, installing a dictator/King for life, ending American democracy, and engaging in tyranny against We The People of the United States of America. Due to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, President Joe Biden can simply overrule MAGA SCOTUS, remove donald j. trump from the 2024 U.S. presidential ballot, demand a new election with a new Republican or Independent candidate, and issue an Executive Order barring all six of the criminal insurrectionist MAGA extremist SCOTUS injustices from taking or ruling on any 2024 U.S. presidential election matters and/or any matters pertaining to donald j. trump, per the Berger Test that legally disqualifies them from doing so. President Biden can also simply issue an Executive Order proclaiming that no sworn election official or law enforcement official anywhere in the U.S. or its territories can attempt to cause even one vote for the Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and insurrectionist donald j. trump to be counted for the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

And all of that is EXACTLY why dumbass dumpster diaper cryin' lyin' anti-American MAGA Nazi and convicted felon, insurrectionist, serial sex offender, serial adulterer, serial rapist, lifetime incestuous pedophile groomer and lowlife sleazeball scum and failed, fraudulent and repeatedly bankrupted "businessman" and grifter/con artist donald j. trump and all of his supporters, enablers, donors, and voters want to destroy and abolish the U.S. Department of Education AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

Anti-American MAGA School Book Bans:

What Would a Reagan Republican Do?

"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the People.' 'We the People' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the People' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast.

Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the People' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the People' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past 8 years.

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-60s.

So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, 'we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.' Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still." - Ronald Reagan (1989 Farewell Speech)

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 months ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 28, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 29, 2024

Former president Trump appears to have slid further since last night’s news about a new grand jury’s superseding indictment of him on charges of trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Over the course of about four hours this morning, Trump posted 50 times on his social media platform, mostly reposting material that was associated with QAnon, violent, authoritarian, or conspiratorial.

He suggested he is “100% INNOCENT,” and that the indictment is a “Witch Hunt.” He called for trials and jail for special counsel Jack Smith, former president Barack Obama, and the members of Congress who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. And he reposted a sexual insult about the political careers of both Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has today escalated the fight about Trump’s photo op Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, where campaign staff took photos and videos in Section 60, the burial ground of recent veterans, apparently over the strong objections of cemetery officials. Then the campaign released photos and a video from the visit attacking Harris.

Arlington National Cemetery was established on the former property of General Robert E. Lee in 1864, after the Lee family did not pay their property taxes. At the time, Lee was leading Confederate forces against the United States government, and those buried in the cemetery in its early years were those killed in the Civil War. The cemetery is one of two in the United States that is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army, and it is widely considered hallowed ground.

A statement from the Arlington National Cemetery reiterated: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio first said there was a “little disagreement” at the cemetery, but in Erie, Pennsylvania, today he tried to turn the incident into an attack on Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy.

VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”

In an interview with television personality Dr. Phil that aired last night, Trump suggested that Democrats in California each got seven ballots and that he would win in the state if Jesus Christ counted the votes. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post pointed out today, Trump has always said he could not lose elections unless there was fraud; last night he suggested repeatedly that God wants him to win the 2024 election.

When asked his opinion of Vice President Harris, Trump once again called her “a Marxist,” a reference that would normally be used to refer to someone who agrees with the basic principles outlined by nineteenth-century philosopher Karl Marx in his theory of how society works. In Marx’s era, people in the U.S. and Europe were grappling with what industrialization would mean for the relationship between individual workers, employers, resources, and society. Marx believed that there was a growing conflict between workers and capitalists that would eventually lead to a revolution in which workers would take over the means of production—factories, farms, and so on—and end economic inequality.

Harris has shown no signs of embracing this philosophy, and on August 15, when Trump talked at reporters for more than an hour at his Bedminster property in front of a table with coffee and breakfast cereal at what was supposed to be a press conference on the economy, he said of his campaign strategy: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that’s going to destroy our country.”

Trump uses “Marxist,” “communist,” and “socialist” interchangeably, and when he and his allies accuse Democrats of being one of those things, they are not talking about an economic system in which the people, represented by the government, take control of the means of production. They are using a peculiarly American adaptation of the term “socialist.”

True socialism has never been popular in America. The best it has ever done in a national election was in 1912, when labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, running for president as a Socialist, won 6% of the vote, coming in behind Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft.

What Republicans mean by "socialism" in America is a product of the years immediately after the Civil War, when African American men first got the right to vote. Eager to join the economic system from which they had previously been excluded, these men voted for leaders who promised to rebuild the South, provide schools and hospitals (as well as prosthetics for veterans, a vital need in the post-war U.S.), and develop the economy with railroads to provide an equal opportunity for all men to rise to prosperity.

Former Confederates loathed the idea of Black men voting almost as much as they hated the idea of equal rights. They insisted that the public programs poorer voters wanted were simply a redistribution of wealth from prosperous white men to undeserving Black Americans who wanted a handout, although white people would also benefit from such programs. Improvements could be paid for only with tax levies, and white men were the only ones with property in the Reconstruction South. Thus, public investments in roads and schools and hospitals would redistribute wealth from propertied men to poor people, from white men to Black people. It was, opponents said, “socialism.” Poor black voters were instituting, one popular magazine wrote, "Socialism in South Carolina" and should be kept from the polls.

This idea that it was dangerous for working people to participate in government caught on in the North as immigrants moved into growing cities to work in the developing factories. Like their counterparts in the South, they voted for roads and schools, and wealthy men insisted these programs meant a redistribution of wealth through tax dollars. They got more concerned still when a majority of Americans began to call for regulation to keep businessmen from gouging consumers, polluting the environment, and poisoning the food supply (the reason you needed to worry about strangers and candy in that era was that candy was often painted with lead paint).

Any attempt to regulate business would impinge on a man's liberty, wealthy men argued, and it would cost tax dollars to hire inspectors. Thus, they said, it was a redistribution of wealth. Long before the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brought the fears of a workers' government to life, Americans argued that their economy was under siege by socialists. Their conviction did indeed lead to a redistribution of wealth, but as regular Americans were kept from voting, the wealth went dramatically upward, not down.

The powerful formula linking racism to the idea of an active government and arguing that a government that promotes infrastructure, provides a basic social safety net, and regulates business is socialism has shaped American history since Reconstruction. In the modern era the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 enabled wealthy men to convince voters that their tax dollars were being taken from them to promote the interests of Black Americans. President Ronald Reagan made that formula central to the Republican Party, and it has lived there ever since, as Republicans call any policy designed to help ordinary Americans “socialism.”

Vice President Harris recently said she would continue the work of the Biden administration and crack down on the price-fixing, price gouging, and corporate mergers that drove high grocery prices in the wake of the pandemic. Such plans have been on the table for a while: Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) noted last year that from July 2020 through July 2022, inflation rose by 14% and corporate profits rose by 75%. He backed a measure introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—who came up with the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—that would set standards to prevent large corporations from price gouging during an “exceptional market shock” like a power grid failure, a public health emergency, a natural disaster, and so on. Harris’s proposal was met with pushback from opponents saying that such a law would do more harm than good and that post-pandemic high inflation was driven by the market.

Yesterday, during testimony for an antitrust case, an email from the senior director for pricing at the grocery giant Kroger, Andy Groff, to other Kroger executives seemed to prove that those calling out price gouging were at least in part right. In it, Groff wrote: “On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #socialism #Marxism #racism #American History #election 2024 #Arlington National Cemetery

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justinspoliticalcorner · 7 months ago

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Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

An Arizona grand jury has charged 18 people involved in the scheme to create a slate of false electors for Donald Trump, including 11 people who served as those fake electors and seven Trump allies who aided the scheme. Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, announced the charges on Wednesday, and said the 11 fake electors had been charged with felonies for fraud, forgery and conspiracy. Beyond the fake electors themselves, high-profile Trump affiliates have been charged with aiding in the scheme: Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman.

Those charged over their roles as false electors include two sitting lawmakers, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, have been charged, as has Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point USA executive, and Jim Lamon, who ran for US Senate in 2022. The others charged in the fake electors scheme are Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten. The indictment says: “In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as president on November 3 2020. Unwilling to accept this fact, defendants and unindicted co-conspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep unindicted co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters. This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, a close margin in the typically red state that immediately prompted allegations of voter fraud that persist to this day. The state has remained a hotbed of election denialism, despite losses for Republicans who embraced election-fraud lies at the state level. Trump has not been charged in the Arizona case. The indictment refers to Trump himself as “unindicted co-conspirator 1” throughout, noting how the former president schemed to keep himself in office, and how those around him, even those who believed he lost, aided this effort. Some involved have claimed they signed on as an alternate slate of electors in case court decisions came down in Trump’s favor, so they would have a backup group that could be certified by Congress should Trump prevail.

An Arizona grand jury handed down 18 indictments to those involved in the scheme to award 11 fake electors to give Donald Trump the state of Arizona in 2020, despite the fact that Joe Biden flipped the state in his narrow win. Donald Trump has been named unindicted co-conspirator #1.

The persons indicted for aiding and abetting efforts to help the fake electors: Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Christina Bobb, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Boris Epshteyn.

Some of the notable fake electors charged include: former AZGOP chair Kelli Ward, TPUSA employee Tyler Bowyer, and 2022 GOP US Senate candidate Jim Lamon.

#Fake Electors #The Big Lie #2020 Arizona Elections #2020 Presidential Election #2020 Elections #Arizona #Donald Trump #Kelli Ward #Tyler Bowyer #Jenna Ellis #Kenneth Chesebro #Rudy Giuliani #Mike Roman #Christina Bobb #Mark Meadows #John Eastman #Jim Lamon #Boris Epshteyn

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reasonsforhope · 2 years ago

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"A New York grand jury has indicted Donald Trump on allegations linked to a business records investigation related to a "hush money" payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges. His attorney Susan Necheles confirmed the indictment. No other details have been released yet.

The specific charge or charges have not yet been made public, and one Trump attorney told CBS News his legal team is "still waiting to learn" details of the indictment.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg's office said in a statement that it had contacted Trump's attorney "to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.'s office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal," and more guidance would be provided "when the arraignment date is selected." ...

The case stems from a payment made just days before Trump was elected president in 2016. His former attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 wire transfer to Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged affair...

The indictment comes as Trump faces other potential criminal cases. In Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is mulling charges in an investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and more than a dozen of his allies to undermine [Georgia]'s results in the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. A special purpose grand jury conducted a six-month probe last year and delivered a report with its findings to Willis in January. The majority of that report was ordered sealed, at least until charging decisions are made.

In Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing two Justice Department investigations into alleged efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, and Trump's handling of sensitive government documents [note: specifically top secret, classified documents] found at his Mar-a-Lago home and possible obstruction of efforts to retrieve them."

-via CBS News, 3/30/23

TRUMP'S BEEN INDICTED

And by the way he is going to have to surrender himself to the Manhattan DA's office...

Where he will be arrested, fingerprinted, and have his mug shot taken.

(Obviously/sadly he's going to be released instead of held in jail until trial, but STILL)

-via BBC News, 3/30/23

#donald trump #trump #us politics #united states #indictment #trump indictment #trump insurrection #georgia #new york #manhattan #district attorney #alvin bragg #stormy daniels #corruption #2020 election #us president #good news #hope

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 5 months ago

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Supreme Court Overturns DOJ's Use of Key J6 Felony Court

"Today's decision means Attorney General Merrick Garland and federal judges in Washington wrongfully prosecuted roughly 350 J6ers with the post-Enron felony"

JULIE KELLY

JUN 28, 2024 In a devastating but well-deserved blow to the Department of Justice’s criminal prosecution of January 6 protesters, the U.S. Supreme Court today overturned the DOJ’s use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the most prevalent felony in J6 cases.

The statute, commonly referred to as “obstruction of an official proceeding,” has been applied in roughly 350 J6 cases; it also represents two of four counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s J6-related criminal indictment of Donald Trump in Washington.

In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the “c2” subsection is tethered to the “c1” subsection that addresses tampering with a record, document, or “object.”

From the opinion:

Roberts was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the dissent (!) joined by Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Today’s decision means hundreds of Americans have been wrongfully prosecuted by Attorney General Merrick Garland as he insists his department is dedicated to upholding the “rule of law” and pursuing justice “without fear or favor.”

An Irreversible Black Eye for DOJ and Federal Courts in Washington

The matter originated in the case of Joseph Fischer, a Pennsylvania man who attended Trump’s speech and later went to the Capitol. According to court documents, Fischer briefly entered the building around 3:25 p.m., nearly an hour after the joint session of Congress to certify the electoral college votes had recessed. He exited about four minutes later.

In March 2021, a D.C. grand jury indicted Fischer on numerous counts including 1512(c)(2). The statute reads:

Whoever corruptly—

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.

It is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Fischer, in addition to many J6ers facing the count, asked his judge to dismiss the charge. Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump, dismissed the count against Fischer and two other defendants by finding the language in the post-Enron/Arthur Anderson statute covered tampering with records or documents not interrupting a meeting of Congress. The DOJ appealed Nichols’ decision.

In December, SCOTUS granted Fischer’s petition to grant cert seeking to reverse the appellate court’s mandate. Oral arguments were held on April 16.

Nichols is the only judge to have dismissed the count; 18 district and circuit court judges in Washington refused to dismiss the count. The judges essentially enabled the Biden DOJ’s unlawful pursuit of Americans who protested Biden’s election that day.

The List of Shame:

Judge Beryl Howell (Obama, former chief judge)

Judge James Boasberg (Obama, current chief judge)

Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama)

Judge Trevor McFadden (Trump)

Judge John Bates (GW Bush)

Judge Amit Mehta (Obama)

Judge Dabny Friedrich (Trump)

Judge Royce Lamberth (Reagan)

Judge Richard Leon (GW Bush)

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (Clinton)

Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Obama)

Judge Timothy Kelly (Trump)

Judge Randolph Moss (Clinton)

Judge Paul Friedman (Clinton)

Judge Christopher Cooper (Obama)

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Florence Pan (Biden)—Pan wrote both appellate court decisions upholding 1512c2

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker (Trump)

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Cornelia Pillard

There Goes Your Summer, Your Honor

The federal courthouse in Washington has been bracing for a flood of motions post-Fischer; a few judges have released individuals from prison in anticipation of a reversal. Roughly 110 J6ers have been sentenced to prison on 1512(c)(2) convictions; several J6ers were held under pretrial detention for being charged with the nonviolent obstruction count alone.

But despite the law’s legal limbo over the past year, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee, continued to indict J6ers on 1512(c)(2) while some judges continued to sentence those convicted to lengthy prison terms. Last month, Beryl Howell, the former chief judge who upheld the 1512(c)(2) charges for defendants in her courtroom, sentenced a Missouri man to 60 months in prison for the 1512 conviction and assault on police.

In January 2022, Howell gave the green light for her colleagues to support the DOJ’s use of the obstruction count. Here is what she said in denying a motion to dismiss filed by two J6ers:

“For over 200 years, the peaceful transition of power from one presidential administration to another has been marked with Congress's certification of the Electoral College vote; and this event has been respectfully observed by American citizens, but not on January 6, 2021. And I start with this historical fact because what happened on January 6th was a chilling new type of criminal conduct to which our criminal laws have never before had to be applied. Application of criminal laws to conduct never before seen, like what occurred on January 6, 2021, appropriately generates the kind of legal questions the defendants raise here about whether the criminal law fits the charged criminal conduct.”

The first judge to uphold the obstruction charge in J6 cases was Trump-appointee Dabny Friedrich. In 2021, she agreed that interrupting a meeting of Congress met the definition of “official proceeding” and that the statute’s broad language did not require the government to prove the conduct involved tampering with records or documents.

Ironically—or not—Friedrich is married to Matthew Friedrich, a former DOJ official who worked on the Enron Task Force alongside Andrew Weissman and current deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco. The 1512(c)(2) statute was a product of the Enron/Arthur Anderson investigation; Weissmann, as the lead prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the bogus Russiagate probe, pushed the DOJ to charge Trump with 1512(c)(2) while in office.

Retired judge Thomas Hogan recently warned how a SCOTUS’s reversal of 1512(c)(2) would affect the DC courthouse. Here is Hogan, who upheld the statute in J6 prosecutions, with former DOJ official and FISAgate mastermind Mary McCord:

Reacting to the SCOTUS decision, Geri Perna, aunt of Matthew Perna, told me this by email:

“When Matthew was unexpectedly charged with the felony of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding—after initially facing only misdemeanors—his world collapsed. The weight of a potential lengthy prison sentence bore down on him, filling his days with insurmountable worry and anxiety. At that time, there was no glimmer of hope that this severe charge would be dropped.

Matthew has now been dead for 28 months. In the wake of his passing, the Supreme Court of the United States is finally set to rule on whether the Department of Justice wrongfully applied 1512(c)(2) in January 6 cases. As much as I am hopeful for a just ruling in favor of the January 6 defendants, I am consumed by a profound sense of loss and anger. My nephew's death was both avoidable and senseless.

I feel cheated, and if that sounds selfish, then so be it. The pain of losing Matthew under such circumstances is a burden I carry every day. I fervently hope that those responsible for wielding this charge erroneously will be held accountable in a court of law. However, I am not holding my breath.”

#freedom of speech #free J6ers #free speech #free trump #jan 6

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lboogie1906 · 19 days ago

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Attorney Fani Taifa Willis (October 27, 1971) is an attorney. She is the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which contains most of Atlanta. She is the first woman to hold the office.

She was born in Inglewood. Her father was a member of the Black Panthers and a criminal defense attorney.

She graduated from Howard University with a BA in Political Science, cum laude. She moved to Atlanta to attend Emory University School of Law, graduating with a JD. She spent 16 years as a prosecutor in the Fulton County district attorney’s office. Her most prominent case was her prosecution of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. She went into private practice. She ran for a seat on the Fulton County Superior Court and lost. In 2019, she became chief municipal judge for South Fulton, Georgia.

In 2020, she was elected district attorney for Fulton County, defeating a six-term incumbent and her former boss.

On February 10, 2021, she launched a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to influence Georgia election officials—including the governor, the attorney general, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger via a telephone call—to “find” enough votes to override Joe Biden’s win in that state and thus undo Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

In January 2022, she requested a special grand jury to consider charges of election interference by Trump and his allies. In May, a 26-member special grand jury was given investigative authority and subpoena power and tasked with submitting a report to the judge on whether a crime was committed.

On April 24, 2023, she announced the decision to charge Trump and his associates during the Georgia Superior Courts.

In May 2022, her office indicted Young Thug for 56 counts of gang-related crimes under Georgia’s RICO statute and felony charges for possession of illicit firearms and drugs that were allegedly discovered after a search warrant was executed. The rapper has been held in Cobb County jail since his arrest.

She married Fred Willis (1996-2005). They have two daughters together. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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noirandchocolate · 1 year ago

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With Donald Trump being formally charged with 37 counts alleging he illegally retained classified government documents after leaving office and then obstructed investigations into this activity, you may be interested in learning more about U.S. federal criminal procedure so you can understand what's already happened so far and how the case will proceed going forward.

The Department of Justice's website has a nice section outlining the different parts of a criminal case prosecuted in federal court, from investigation to sentencing and appeal. The descriptions of each segment of a case's life are in basic, layman's terms so little to no prior knowledge of legal concepts should be needed to understand.

Just thought I'd share, since folks are throwing around legal terms like "indictment" and "arraignment" that not everyone might be familiar with!

Also a few more points to be aware of:

A grand jury is called that because it is bigger than a trial (petit) jury, not because it is more important. A grand jury voting to indict someone is just the beginning of a case!

To obtain an indictment the government must show that there is probable cause to believe the defendant has committed the crime(s) sought to be charged. This is a much lower standard than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt one used to convict a person. However, the grand jury is a very key step, particularly with highly publicized, politically sensitive cases like this one. It's meant to prevent prosecutors from just going after anyone with any charges without any proof--to, for example, stave off the kind of political "witch hunt" Trump continuously claims is happening. So the fact that a jury of average citizens has found that there's even enough evidence to charge a former President with federal felonies is huge.

Trump was arrested, but he is not currently being detained pretrial. This is not unusual.

Discovery, the pretrial period during which the parties gather and exchange evidence (in particular, the government must share anything it plans to rely on with the defendant) can last quite some time. So it may be a while before the case proceeds to trial.

Ditto the above regarding pretrial motions. It's very likely Trump and his legal team will be seeking to have evidence thrown out or even have charges dismissed. This is the part of the case during which the judge (who is unfortunately a Trump appointee) will be making crucial decisions about what evidence will eventually go before the jury.

Juror selection may well also be time-consuming since the usual goal is an unbiased jury that knows nothing about the defendant and, well...yeah.

Following trial, if Trump is convicted, it is extremely likely he will appeal to the Circuit court (the level between the District court and the Supreme Court). Additionally, although the charges against him do carry the possibility of serious prison time, there are ranges within which the judge can choose to set the amount of that time. I haven't researched this issue in detail.

In conclusion, it's a very big deal that Trump has been indicted in federal court, but there are a lot of things that still have to happen before he goes to trial. If you're interested on how cases proceed, check out the link above!

Disclaimer: I'm an attorney but for ethics purposes nothing I say on here is legal advice.

#kidk says stuff #trump #trump indictment

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posttexasstressdisorder · 2 months ago

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Is this the October Surprise?

Thom Hartmann

September 28, 2024 2:20PM ET

U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith makes a statement to reporters after a grand jury returned an indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the special counsel's investigation of efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, at Smith's offices in Washington, U.S., August 1, 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

— October surprise?Jack Smith has filed a massive collection of evidence demonstrating Trump’s direct involvement in an attempted coup against the government of the United States, and Judge Chutkan may make it publicly available. The next two to three weeks will decide what we see and when, as Trump’s lawyers first will file their opposition to the release. For anybody who’s been paying attention, we all knew Trump and his buddies were criming against our country during the last weeks of his presidency (apparently Merrick Garland missed that for two years), but the release will probably drive a short news cycle which may inform a few low information voters.

— For the first time ever, Democrats make it rain in all 50 states. Over at Daily Kos, Morgan Stephens is reporting that the DNC is sending money to every state in the union, something we haven’t seen since Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy” back in 2008. This is great news; rightwing billionaires have been funding Republicans, particularly in low population states, for decades and the result has been the Red sweep of rural states and areas. Democrats are going to try to break some Republican supermajorities and help out down-ticket Red state candidates; the Harris campaign has also pitched in $25 million for the effort. Now, if they’d just convince some leftie mega donors to buy radio stations in those Red states (media is cheap in those areas!), we could seriously get about flipping a few purple or even Blue.

— Speaking of radio… Louise and I are in New Orleans where yesterday I was the opening keynote speaker for the Grassroots Radio Conference. Last night we hung out with old friends David Sirota and Sam Seder (who keynoted this morning) and new friend Wajahat Ali at the home of the conference organizers, Dr. MarkAlain Dery and his extraordinary wife Liana Elliott, who also started and run WHIV here in New Orleans. The conference is about and for mostly low-power FM stations that are popping up all around the country (my show is on many of them). This is a very encouraging trend!

— Justice Department sues Alabama for purging voters off the rolls. As I’ve noted in several of my newsletters here, Republicans across America are purging their voting rolls, depriving literally millions of people of their right to vote. Ever since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court said a state can do this if a voter fails to vote in the last election, they’ve been going whole hog, but in a few cases they’ve been stopped or slowed down. Most recently, the Justice Department sued Alabama for their purges, saying it’s too close to the election. If you live in a state Republicans control, go to vote.gov and double-check your voter registration; if you live in a Blue part of the state and didn’t vote in the midterms, chances are they’ve already removed you from the rolls and you’ll have to re-register to vote.

— Jews and Catholics warn against Trump’s latest attack on religious voters. In two rallies, Trump has told Jewish people that if he fails to win the election it’ll be their fault. He made similar comments in a Truth Social post about Catholics. Now some religious groups are starting to push back by warning their people about political tests for religious people, but they’re massively outnumbered by the thousands of churches and televangelists and religious radio stations that are blatantly and illegally promoting Republican candidates this year. The IRS really needs to enforce the law!

— Will NYC Mayor Adams claim he was just taking tips? Ever since six Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that if a politician does favors for somebody (in this case, the country of Turkey) and then gets paid or spiffed, that’s not a bribe that can be prosecuted but a tip. It’d be a novel defense and its probable that Adams took gifts before he helped out the Turks, so it’ll be interesting to see if his lawyers try this one out. The level of corruption among the six Republicans on the Court is truly breathtaking, and it’s a bad sign for our democracy as they continue to promote a corrupt political culture.

— Once again, the media will refuse to do their damn job and fact-check Republican lies, this time in Tuesday’s Vance/Walz debate. Expect Vance to use the “firehose of lies” strategy, where you throw out a half-dozen or so lies in a single sentence or two, forcing your opponent to burn his time rebutting them. Trump tried it with over 30 lies in his debate with Harris, and the moderators only called him on two of them. Now CBS “News” says they’ll allow Vance to tell all the lies he wants and it’ll be up to Walz to fact-check them because, apparently, facts don’t matter any longer in the American news media culture. Disgusting.

— Crazy Alert! JD Vance is attending an event today with a corrupt evangelist who said Harris uses “witchcraft.” Lance Wallnau is a big-shot in the evangelical world, and he’s doing a tour of swing states this month to encourage people to vote Republican. His efforts, by the way, are being subsidized by your and my tax dollars, as he claims a nonprofit statute. Earlier this month, Wallnau tried out the misogynistic and hateful old “Jezebel” trope against Vice President Harris, saying, “She can look presidential. That’s the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft. That’s the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her.” If anybody is channeling evil spirits, in my opinion it’s Wallnau; he’s the embodiment of the people Jesus warned us about.

NOW READ: Comrade Trump isn’t defending capitalism — he’s defending white power

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misfitwashere · 3 months ago

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August 28, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 29

VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”

—

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fandomsandfeminism · 2 years ago

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mauxanhduong · 2 years ago

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[ID: the “officer down!” meme but with the headline “Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump” with an exclamation mark drawn at the end. End ID.]

#donald trump #us politics #trump indictment #politics

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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On April 25, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. United States. The case, which grew out of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, calls on the Supreme Court to determine to what extent, if any, a former president enjoys immunity from being prosecuted for committing allegedly criminal acts during his tenure in office and perhaps in the course of his official duties. Regardless of the decision, by persuading the Supreme Court to hear the case, Trump may have already achieved victory. If Trump prevails on appeal, the charges against him will be dropped, and if he loses, the Court’s decision may make concluding this case before the election impossible—a Trump goal.

On August 1, 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump on four counts related to his actions following the 2020 election. He is charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States, by knowingly making false claims of election fraud with the aim of overturning the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election; with conspiring to corruptly obstruct the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 20211 and with conspiring to engage in actions that illegally interfere with voters’ rights to have their votes counted. Trump claims that whether or not he committed the charged crimes, he cannot be tried for them because no court may hold a former president accountable for any actions he took in his official capacity.

It would be naive to think that the justices’ political views will not affect their decisions in this case, but it would be equally wrong to think that the justices’ votes will be determined by their politics—making a Trump victory inevitable. Not only are justices’ political leanings intertwined with and affected by their views of the law, but also when the Court is defining the powers of the president, it typically seeks to maximize the number of justices who join the majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts, in particular, seems to prioritize this concern. Efforts to achieve unity or something close to it fosters compromises on the language and reach of rulings.

The brief that Trump’s team filed might be characterized as throwing a number of arguments, none of which is necessarily persuasive, against a wall to see what sticks. This is not a bad strategy. Trump needs five votes to win. Even if eight justices rejected each of Trump’s arguments, if five justices were each persuaded by a different argument, Trump would receive the immunity he seeks.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 5, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 06, 2024

The U.S. government continues to tighten the screws against Russian malign activity. This morning the Department of Justice announced an indictment charging Dimitri Simes for violating U.S. sanctions against Russia. Simes allegedly worked for a sanctioned Russian television station and laundered the money from his work. Simes advised Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

A second indictment charged Simes’s wife, Anastasia, with sanctions violations and money laundering through the purchase of fine art.

The Justice Department also issued a grand jury’s superseding indictment against six Russian computer hackers. Five were officers in Russia's military intelligence agency; one is a civilian. The six are charged with hacking into and leaking information from, as well as destroying, Ukrainian computer systems. The hackers also attacked systems in European countries that support Ukraine and in the U.S.

The State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information on the defendants’ locations or their malicious cyberactivity.

The fallout from yesterday’s revelation that six powerful right-wing media figures were on the Russian payroll continues. One of the right-wing commenters referred to in yesterday’s indictment, Tim Pool, has pushed the idea that the U.S. is in a civil war, interviewed Trump on his podcast in May, and has been fervently against American aid to Ukraine. Today, he posted: “Upon reflection I now understand that Ukraine is our Greatest ally[.] As the breadbasket of Europe and a peace loving people we cannot allow the Fascist Russians to continue their crimes against humanity[.] We must redouble our efforts and provide and additional $200b at once[.]”

By this evening, though, he was making a joke of the news that his paycheck had come from Russia.

Notably, Trump posted on his social media site a rant that tied his own 2016 campaign to yesterday’s indictments, although the indictment itself did not do so. He accused “Comrade Kamala Harris and her Department of Justice” of “resurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely FALSE.”

Vice President Harris is not in charge of the Department of Justice.

By tying yesterday’s indictments to his campaign’s involvement with Russian operatives in 2016, Trump might have been trying to suggest the story was old news, but it does highlight the parallels between Russia and right-wing operatives trying to get him reelected. Along with his colleague Donie O’Sullivan, Jake Tapper put it like this on CNN: “Today, the U.S. government is trying to peel back more layers of what officials say are massive and complex efforts underway to influence your vote in the upcoming election. One part of these alleged plots: replacing your average 2016 Russian social media bots with actual conservative Americans, right-wing influencers with a combined millions of followers, influencers promoted by Elon Musk, some visited by Republican politicians such as former president Trump.”

Then Trump fell back on the old trope that his opponents are communists, posting on his social media platform: “We are fighting true COMMUNISM in this Country. We have to save our Elections, our System of Justice, our Constitution, and our FREEDOM, but that can only be done after we win BIG on November 5th, and proceed to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

Economists for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. say that a Trump win in November would hurt the U.S. economy, while a Harris win—if she also gets Democratic control of the House and the Senate—would make it grow.

Trump’s 2024 campaign is not at all about reality; it’s about a worldview. When asked at an event at the New York Economic Club “what specific piece of legislation will you advance” to make child care affordable, the 78-year-old Trump answered:

“Well I would do that. And we’re sitting down. You know I was somebody. We had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that because—look, child care is child care. It’s—couldn’t, you know, it’s something you have to have it—in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to—but they’ll get used to it very quickly—and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have—I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it.”

There is no specific legislation here, or even a grasp of the specific nature of the problem of paying for child care. What there is, apparently, is an argument that high tariffs will solve all of the nation’s problems. In the New York event, Trump called again for slashing taxes on the wealthy and insisted that new, high tariffs of 20% on all imports, and as much as 60% on Chinese imports, will end federal deficits and bring trillions of dollars into the country, although he is wrong about how tariffs work.

Trump insists that tariffs are taxes on foreign countries, but they are not. They are essentially taxes on imported products, and they are paid by consumers. Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, recently tried to claim that economists disagree about whether consumers bear the cost of tariffs, but as Michael Hiltzik explained in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, economists agree on this.

When he was in office, Trump launched a trade war in 2018 by putting tariffs of up to 25% on $50 billion worth of Chinese products. The next year he added another set of 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, and the next year he did it again, this time on an additional $112 worth of Chinese products. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculates that this amounted to an $80 billion tax a year on American consumers, costing the average household about $300 a year and costing the U.S. about 142,000 jobs.

There are reasons to use tariffs. They can be used to protect a new industry from cheaper foreign products until the new industry can compete, or to stop foreign countries from flooding a country with cheap products that destroy a domestic industry. When he took office, Biden kept those of Trump’s tariffs that protected certain industries.

Trump’s insistence that tariffs will solve everything is not about economics, it’s about pushing a worldview from the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, one embodied by the 1890 McKinley Tariff. “If you look at McKinley,” Trump told right-wing media host Mark Levin on Sunday, “he was a great president. He made the country rich.” In fact, McKinley (R-OH) pushed through the tariff named for him while he was in the House of Representatives from his position as a spokesperson for wealthy industrialists. They insisted that high tariffs were imperative to the survival of the country, that such tariffs were good for workers because they protected wages, and that anyone who disagreed was a socialist. But in an era without business regulation, industrialists actually kept wages low and used the tariffs to protect high prices that they passed on to consumers.

In the late 1880s, the American people demanded a lower tariff, but when Republicans in Congress went to “revise” it, they made it higher. In May 1890, in a chaotic congressional session with members shouting amendments, yelling objections, and talking over each other, Republicans passed the McKinley Tariff without any Democratic votes. They cheered and clapped at their victory. “You may rejoice now,” a Democrat yelled across the aisle, “but next November you’ll mourn.”

Democrats were right. In the November 1890 midterm elections, angry voters repudiated the Republican Party. They gave the Democrats a two-to-one majority in the House—McKinley himself lost his seat. Republicans managed to keep the Senate by four seats, but three of those seats were held by senators who had voted against the McKinley Tariff, and the fourth turned out to have been stolen.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #heather cox richardson #american history #history #russia russia russia #tariffs #Russian Military Intelligence #Russian malign activity

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