January 24, 2021

The Unthinkable Question?

Should Donald Trump be arrested and tried for Sedition against the United States of America?

I ask the question in the spirit of free speech and open discussion, with utmost honesty and sincerity, understanding that some words and thoughts can be revolutionary. Our thoughts have evolved with each passing day since January 6th. We learn more with each day's revelations.

The "Capitol Coup" was not his first rodeo. It was planned over some period of time.

The latest bombshell that has exploded states that he wanted the DOJ to act on his behalf when he fired the "acting" Attorney General. We do not know how much William Barr knew about these conspiracies when he resigned?

But the "Capitol Coup" was not a solitary event. It was the final attempt to overthrow an election that Mr Trump had lost by a large margin. Although he had never reached 50% approval in the polls during his four years in the White House, he insisted that he had won in a landslide.

But there were indicators of sedition from his first day in office when the FBI overheard suspicious conversations between National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador. Everything Mr Trump did from that day forward seemed to favor Russia and Vladimir Putin. But no one knew why? We still do not know.

He stood on a stage with Putin in Helsinki and took the side of Russia over American intelligence. That moment still stands out in the roadmap of his betrayal.

Would it be worth it to try Donald Trump in a court of law? Would it create too much division and violence for our country? Those are questions that need to be asked. Justice itself is on trial.

January 24, 2021

All You Fascists Bound To Lose

January 23, 2021

The Supreme Court Has No Role in Impeachment

https://www.lawfareblog.com/supreme-court-has-no-role-impeachment


The suggestion was met with derision, including widespread suggestions that President Trump simply does not understand the Constitution. Laurence Tribe called the argument “idiocy.” “The Constitution? How Does It Work?” tweeted Dan Drezner. It’s tempting to write this off as just another ill-tempered presidential tweet. And it’s true that, without a dramatic change in the underlying case law, Trump’s suggestion of appealing an impeachment conviction to the Supreme Court is genuinely absurd. The Constitution establishes that “[t]he House ... shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that “[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

But Trump’s suggestion of resorting to the Supreme Court to appeal an impeachment did not come out of nowhere. Prominent Trump defender Alan Dershowitz recently made an argument along the same lines, writing in an essay on “The Case Against Impeaching Trump” that “[w]ere a president to announce that he refused to accept the actions of the Senate in voting for his removal … and that he would not leave office unless the Supreme Court affirmed his removal, the people might well agree with him.” In the past, Trump has managed to make fringe legal arguments into commonplace talking points on Fox News. And so, while it’s easy to write off Trump’s tweet, it’s worth considering Cornell law professor Josh Chafetz’s suggestion that the statement should be read as “part of an ongoing effort to shift the constitutional debate around president-checking mechanisms.”

In that vein, below is an effort to examine why the Supreme Court has no power to review an impeachment and conviction.

The Supreme Court has already barred the possibility that it could serve as a court of appeals for impeachment in Nixon v. U.S. In that case, Judge Walter Nixon sought judicial review after he was removed from office following impeachment and conviction, arguing that the Senate had unconstitutionally used a special committee to conduct hearings rather than conducting the proceedings before the entire body. The court found Nixon’s claim to raise a political question and therefore to be nonjusticiable: Impeachment is characterized both by “a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department” and “a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it,” two of the criteria for political questions as defined in Baker v. Carr.

In arguing that the Constitution commits “the issue to a coordinate political department”—that is, Congress—the court delves into the history of the impeachment provisions. Most notably, James Madison and the Committee of Detail originally proposed that impeachment should be the responsibility of the Supreme Court before the matter was moved to the Senate. It’s true that the Supreme Court has some link to impeachment insofar as the Constitution provides for the chief justice of the Supreme Court to preside over the Senate trial in an impeachment case. But Justice Joseph Story argued in “Commentaries on the Constitution” that the chief justice’s role is mainly due to “the necessity of excluding the vice president from the chair, when he might have a manifest interest, which would destroy his impartiality.”

January 23, 2021

Since they have a couple of weeks to strategize, should the Senate call witnesses in the trial...?

...of Donald J Trump?

Who should they call?

Perhaps another Congressperson or Senator that feared for their lives during the storming of the Capitol?

Perhaps a few of the people who participated in the insurrection?

Perhaps Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley? Or Lindsey Graham? (If they are called as witnesses, can they still be part of the "jury"?)

January 23, 2021

The trial in the Senate will be short.

They will not need a week.

Republicans will be ready to end it before the rooster crows on the third day.

After all, how many days do they need to offer evidence in support of Donald Trump?

For those worried that it will take up all the time that could be used for Biden's agenda, no need to worry.

It will be over before Valentine's Day.

January 23, 2021

There are 50 Republican Senators. At least 34 would have to approve of Trump's actions...

...during the attempted coup, in order for him to escape conviction.

That sounds like an apple rotten to the core?

If Mitch McConnell votes to convict, I cannot see 34 other Senators voting opposite from him?

If they cannot defend this vote, they cannot defend anything.

If a couple of Senators had been killed, would they still have been able to excuse it? They were likely very lucky that did not happen?

Some morons, like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy can rationalize anything. But this is beyond rationalization.

It's like someone slapped them in the face and they say, "Did he really hit me?"

January 23, 2021

Time

January 22, 2021

The "I have no lawyer because I have done nothing wrong" defense.

Did Donald Trump actually think his "coup attempt" would work?

What did he think would happen if Pence and Pelosi would have been killed?

Would they have called off or postponed the inauguration of Joe Biden?

Would the military have stepped in and announced him the "Temporary Leader" until the next election could take place?

Could he have been successful in persuading America that the election was a "fraud" and that he was really the winner?

How did he plan to pull off this coup?

January 22, 2021

Justice Requires Accountability

As much as we might like to forget Donald Trump and the mob attack upon our Capitol, it is not possible at this time.

Just as Republicans like to talk about "individual responsibility", we must hold people that commit crimes individually responsible. No one can be permitted to say they committed the crime because their leader told them to do it. That doesn't cut the mustard.

Many people would prefer that we put this all behind us and move forward. They would rather we talk about "unity". But, when people incite a mob to attack our Capitol, the symbol of our democracy, and kill people in the process, we cannot move forward until we resolve the matter. That is the basic reality that all Americans must understand.

Those that provoked violence and terror and threatened to kill VP Pence and Speaker Pelosi must be held accountable.

If Donald Trump refused calls for help as Congress and the Senate feared for their lives, and if he was gleeful as he watched it on TV, then he must be held accountable. If no one is above the law, then the President is not above the law either. Our Legislature must stand for the rule of law, not mob rule. Even if the mob is a big part of their base, they must denounce them. There is no other option.

Should the Republicans attempt to block nominations and play politics with this critical constitutional matter, then perhaps President Biden should borrow a leaf from Trump's playbook, and name them as "acting" Department heads, until they can come to some sense of reality?

This is a critical time for our democracy and our Constitution and we must defend it. We can take no shortcuts. We must not look for revenge but those that have committed sedition against our country must be held accountable.

Senators that may have assisted in inciting their base to commit criminal acts are in a rather unique position, in regards to the laws. The Senate may censure or expel them but it is a difficult and divisive measure to take. Perhaps it will be required that they wear the large, red, invisible "S" on their foreheads for their seditious acts? Perhaps they should be regarded as political pariahs if there is no other justice for them?

But those that stormed our Capitol, and violently attacked the Capitol police and terrorized every person in the Capitol, cannot claim Donald Trump made them do it. They must be held accountable for their actions. Perhaps they could use the power of propaganda as part of their defense, but it does not excuse them?

The first step to unity and reconciliation of the political Parties is to admit to the Big Lie, and to hold accountable, if in words only - such as FOX News- all those that promoted it. We can never move forward under the guise of the Big Lie, no matter how much some would like to believe it.

Justice is required under these circumstances. Those that brought this disgraceful act to our doors must be held accountable.

January 21, 2021

I think the Trumpsters are really butthurt ??

They wanted the coup to be successful.

They waited until they saw him land in Florida before they gave up hope.

They want nothing to do with "uniting".