Sen. J.D. Vance demands Justice Department investigate Trump-critical Washington Post editorial

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/7/2210291/-Sen-J-D-Vance-demands-Justice-Department-investigate-Trump-critical-Washington-Post-editorial

Sen. J.D. Vance demands Justice Department investigate Trump-critical Washington Post editorial
Thursday, December 07, 2023 at 2:54:42p EST


On Nov. 30, Washington Post Editor-at-Large Robert Kagan wrote an extended opinion piece arguing that Donald Trump is on a "clear path" to establishing a dictatorship in this country, and that because the Republican Party and what were once "conservative" establishments are backing him from every side there would be little possibility of stopping him should he win reelection.

There would be no real checks on that power. At most, Kagan suggested, Democratic state governments could wage legal resistance to new federal mandates as "a form of nullification." They could "refuse to recognize the authority of a tyrannical federal government" in some limited situations. An example might be state refusals to abide the promised "mass deportation" of millions of residents, many of them American citizens from birth.

But Kagan darkly concluded that Trump could soon have the power to jail his political opponents, purge government workers who do not pass Trump-centric loyalty tests, and make good on all the other dictatorial threats he and his Republican allies have vowed to make happen.

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking that Kagan be investigated and potentially jailed for writing the editorial, which Vance suggested could be "an invitation to 'insurrection,' a manifestation of criminal 'conspiracy,' or an attempt to bring about civil war."

You do not need to wonder whether Trump will have Republican Party support for his plan to jail political detractors and scrub free-speech protections for the press. Other Republicans are even more eager than he is.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Yo Hillbilly!

Using the words of Dipshit himself has your panties in a bunch? Tough shit!

That is the TRUTH and you MAGAts CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Go suck an egg, JD.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. Nope! They are eager to display their obsequiousness!

[William Seger]

17. "We're not fascists! Lock that journalist up!" (nt)

[Lovie777]

3. Fascist pig.................................

[Lonestarblue]

4. J. D. Is auditioning to be Trump's VP or for a high-level job in his administration.

He’s an idiot, but he’s obviously Trump’s idiot.

[70sEraVet]

10. I guarantee, NOBODY wants to be Trump's VP!

But, Attorney General? Ahhh, that's where an ambitious henchman can REALLY get his hands bloody!

[llmart]

5. What a waste of skin this character is.

I still don't believe a lot of his stories in his memoir. I think many of them were "embellishments" of the truth. C'mon, Ohio. You can do better than this.

[TSExile]

6. All I can say is...

...as a lifelong Ohioan, I am proud that I voted for his opponent.

[lonely bird]

11. Myself as well

Vance is another in the long line of idiots who had success in business and thought that that made him an expert in politics.

[heckles65]

30. Yeah, but Vance is

on the level of Robert McNamara in "disastrously wrong."

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Vance confirms Kagan's thesis by asking to investigate a free press

[2naSalit]

8. Oh the irony!

[Ohioboy]

18. Yes, the irony...

Asking to have a journalist investigated for his opinion just proves that Trump will have henchmen to help him become a dictator.

[2naSalit]

21. I think that...

By the time late spring rolls around only the zombies will be unwilling to see it.

[Ohioboy]

25. I'm amazed at the capacity to ignore real signs in favor of their "woke" fake fears

For example, Trump has literally said he would take "retribution". He has denigrated the press. He has included loyalty pledges at rallies. He has referred to his people as "vermin". He has henchmen like Vance that will call for investigating journalists. He whipped up a mob that attacked the Capitol in order to change the outcome of an election. All real things that show he's an aspiring dictator.

All the above gets ignored , but ask a Magat to wear a mask during a world- wide pandemic and they think they're living in a tyrannical dystopia. Ask them to use someone's preferred pronoun and they think their free speech is being taken away. It makes no sense.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

48. The MAGAt mob is kept in an unthinking rage and frenzy by 24/7 propaganda

The Fascist Oligarch eXtremists propaganda network is joined by several others, now.

[ShazzieB]

51. Loyalty pledges at rallies?

This is the first time I've heard of those. What form does this take? Are people asked to sign something, or is he leading them in some sort of verbal pledge? Come to think of it, I'll bet it's the latter, because the other way would be too cumbersome.

[Ohioboy]

55. Here's a video

?si=XMCFSnQ4Cb6FFo9g

[ShazzieB]

59. Thanks.

That was ... interesting.

I was slightly relieved that he only asked them to pledge that they will vote for him. I was half afraid that he would make them promise to always support him in everything, which I personally would have found scarier.

On the other hand, the part he tacked on at the end about how bad things will happen to you if you don't keep your word was definitely ominous to me. The crowd seemed to take it as a joke, but from what I know about him, I didn't find it at all funny!

[Ohioboy]

61. It's not the worst thing he's ever done, but added to all the other stuff it's weird.

He does demand loyalty from those around him. Look how he treated James Comey.

[AverageOldGuy]

9. About hillbillies

Ol' JD came to the public's attention with his book "Hillbilly Elegy" in which he described his roots in Appalachia and how he escaped inter-generational poverty.

Now it appears as though JD has -- as we say in Central Appalachia -- "That boy done got above his raising."

[Maeve]

12. Yeah, I have trouble believing his Grandma would be proud of him

[LastDemocratInSC]

22. He is not above his raising. He's a product of it.

His book, and the subsequent movie, tell a tale of extreme dysfunction that was cascading from one generation to the next. A bad underlying culture, bad family, and bad judgement cobbled into a mess that could ruin anyone. He ended up making good money as a lawyer but it seems that he is still heavily influenced by the sociological superfund site of his upbringing.

[Freethinker65]

29. His upbringing made him easy to manipulate.

Because of his backstory, he was put on a conservative pedestal and invited to a conservative think tank to easily convince him he owed his success to conservative ideas. The fact that Ohio elected this anecdotal spewing idiot with no experience as their Senator was/is very depressing.

[heckles65]

33. I remember that in his book

he described someone else paying for a T-bone with food stamps. This seems to have been copied from similar stories in the rightist media about seeing people on food stamps paying for crab legs or lobster.

Not only would this say that the food-stampee is showing bad judgment in managing his her allotment - nothing more - what kind of jerk looks over the shoulder of someone paying in the checkout line to see how he / she pays? My only concern is "hurry the f___ up I want to get out of here."

[tenderfoot]

57. His family may have been from Appalachia but Vance grew up in the burbs of Cincinnati

He's no "hillbilly" and there are many articles from actual "hillbillies" that pushed back on his shitty book.

https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article96779312.html

https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/07/31/nonfiction-hillbilly-elegy-jd-vance/

https://www.jwilkey.com/post/my-mother-wasn-t-trash

[LetMyPeopleVote]

13. JD Vance is an idiot

[riversedge]

14. Vance is a dangerous idiot-He is a danger to ALL the people, esp to those to refuse to

acknowledge his dangerous speech. Of course, ALL will suffer in the end.

[mwb970]

15. ANOTHER grotesque embarrassment to my once-great state of Ohio.

Wasn't Gym Jordan enough?? Good God.

[NoMoreRepugs]

16. JD stand for Just Dumb??

[Marthe48]

36. His real name is james david bowman

He ran for office with his alias already established. Right down there with george devolder.

[rubbersole]

50. Junior Dick.

[gab13by13]

19. Maybe if Vance raises enough hell

so as to not seem partisan, Merrick Garland will appoint a special counsel. Don't laugh, he appointed a special counsel for Hunter Biden, appointed one for President Biden.

Bring on the criticism, I can take it. The main strategy for Magats is to bring President Biden down to Trump's level of criminality.
As Trump said when he started the Burisma bullshit, I don't need proof or facts, just open an investigation and Congressional Magats will do the rest.

I also see that Congressional Magats are on the road to impeaching President Biden.

The facts are plain to see, there is no evidence to exonerate Trump from his numerous crimes, so the best strategy is to make shit up that there is no difference between what Trump did and what Biden did and Merrick Garland helped facilitate that bullshit.

Waiting on the bullshit report from the special counsel who has been investigating President Biden, when will that report come out, in the fall of next year?

Before you come after me, I want proof that Garland is a Democrat. What Democrat would monitor a dozen Federalist Society conferences? Think about that. They even gave Garland a nickname because he monitored so many conferences.

I don't hate Merrick Garland, he would have made a fantastic SC justice, but he's in the wrong job now, we are on the verge of losing our democracy, and when Federalist Society member Christopher Wray lied to Congress about the intelligence leading up to J6, why wasn't he fired?

What did Churchill say about Hitler? He said that the problem wasn't all of the terrible things that the evil man Hitler did, the problem was that decent people stood back and allowed it to happen.

[gopiscrap]

37. exactly

[Wuddles440]

39. Exactly!

While the investigation and prosecution of the organizers of the insurrection (especially politicians and those closely associated to them) should have been the number one priority by the DOJ in 2021, it was not and the reason that we're experiencing these nightmarish scenarios now. In the effort by Garland to appear "nonpartisan" , he has actually succumbed to partisan demands by the MAGAts and their media machine to appoint/retain GOP hacks in the investigations and potential prosecution of the Biden administration.

[Ohioboy]

20. Can't blame me I voted for Tim Ryan

Kagan needs to write another editorial and use Vance's request for an investigation as more proof Dump could become a dictator.

[canuckledragger]

23. These traitorous assholes just can't stop projecting their actions and desires on others.

Since their coup attempt failed, they've been desperate to scapegoat liberals (and anyone else that stands against them) for their actions.

Every act of defiance against them is an 'insurrection'. Every attempt to retrain their fascist ways and keep them from hurting women, poc, LGBTQ folks, etc is an 'invitation to civil war'

Fuck off cowards.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

54. They are diluting the meaning of the words while confusing the MAGAts.

[samplegirl]

24. Let walk that dictator for a day

comment under the rug.
JD Vance you little swarmy fake!

[Joinfortmill]

26. J.D. Vance turned out to be a real 'dick'.

[AllaN01Bear]

27. this is still america and we can still say anything we want. so there , too also.

sticks out tounge.

[XorXor]

28. I wonder if Vance understands what it looks like when he says stuff like this

Is he trying to create supporting evidence for the articles premise?

[Boomerproud]

31. If Garland doesn't shred this letter than I don't know what.

[Ocelot II]

32. That's one way to apply for the AG job.

But maybe he should sit down and read Brandenburg v. Ohio first.

[summer_in_TX]

34. The Robert Kagan column is brilliant and chilling.

Everything he describes is feasible and within the realm of probability. I would not have read it if I hadn’t seen that JD Vance was hyperventilating about it. Glad I did. One of the few that I’ve shared with several other people.

From JD Vance’s reaction I expected the column to call for rising up or something similar, but it doesn’t. Just a description of what is quite possible, going to happen in our near future. It’s very well reasoned.. Trump has a realistic path to the presidency, and that should terrify us all. It should make us work harder than we ever have before to register voters, have conversations about what’s going on with the rising authoritarianism, and turn out the vote.

[onecaliberal]

35. They used the same free speech to tell the truth that you use to incite violence

And send them to kill Capitol police on J6.

[Aviation Pro]

38. Hillbilly can fuck the right off

Ever hear of the 1st Amendment, you scurrilous fuck?

[republianmushroom]

40. Good luck with that Sen. Vance.

Like I said, good luck. Senator.

[republianmushroom]

41. removed by author

[edhopper]

42. Thank you Ohio

you turned your back on a good man to give us this vile POS.

[Trekologer]

43. What a snowflake

Can't withstand even a little bit of criticism and melts

[GreenWave]

44. No way Jack Doff Vance.

Another Trumpster who needs training wheels.

[Mz Pip]

45. Vance takes the bait

and proves the writer’s point.

[SouthernDem4ever]

46. Vance needs to get his nose out of trump's ass

He's the biggest fu&*ing hypocrite in the party right now just for saying something so stupid in support of a criminal would be dictator.

[niyad]

47. A couple of comments here. I see that nobody here is mentioning that kagan

is married to Victoria Nuland, current UnderSecretary of State for Political Affairs. hillbilly boy is demanding that her clearances be examined and revoked.

And, before anybody gets excited thinking kagan might be a good guy, he is at least partly to blame for the current gqpuke party, as one of the founders of pnac (project for the new american century). Seeing the light a but late, robert.

[spanone]

49. Hillbilly Nazi

[Captain Zero]

52. Somebody tell that hilljack goober to

Read the 1st Amendment.

[Rebl2]

53. So he

wants to get rid of freedom of speech and opinion or editorial pieces in newspapers.

[TNNurse]

56. I love when assholes like Vance and Musk make demands,

as if they had authority on the subject.

[DFW]

58. If Trump ends up NOT being their nominee..........

What are all these mentally deficient Republican members of Congress going to when they realize they are not in contention for the Vice-Presidential nomination?

[emulatorloo]

60. Hey Bro, ever heard of the First Amendment?