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Donald Trump

Josh Hawley Declares 2024 Candidacy: Run, Josh, Run!

July 26, 2022
by Peter Feinman
RUN JOSH RUN! (CNN)

Expectations for the House Select Committee presentations were not high before it began.

“Don’t Expect Must-Watch TV” Jacob Bacharach (NYT 6/9/22)

But the Capitol riot hearings, which begin on Thursday night, may well be a dud.

            Even if they manage to drag a few million eyeballs away from the streaming platforms for a few evenings and days with some measure of spectacle and the promise of comeuppance for some minor and expendable figures from Trump-world, their scope and impact are likely to be minimal….
            They will serve as great font of rambling commentary on Twitter for a few days, among the relatively few people who regularly tweet about politics.   

Wouldn’t you like to have the opportunity to be so wrong in the lead editorial in The New York Times!

He concludes his piece with:

A terrifying historical counterfactual is that the only thing that might have gotten enough of the G.O.P. on board to matter would have been if the rioters had actually hung Mike Pence, and even then, it is hard to be sure.

We will never know what the reaction would have been if the insurrectionists had succeeded in killing Pence, Pelosi, or Hawley. It is possible that would have caused the 25th Amendment to be invoked and not just talked about. I have not seen any polls or interviews with Stop-the-Steal proponents about how they would have reacted then.

The Jan. 6 Committee Has Already Blown It

The op-ed below this editorial was “The Jan. 6 Committee Has Already Blown It” by David Brooks. He took issue with the Democratic goal of recasting the midterm election message by casting Republicans as being responsible.

They are expected to use witnesses like the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson [who testified on June 28, 19 days later] to show exactly what went on inside the administration that day and in the lead-up to it. One lawmaker told The Washington Post that voters have shifted their attention to issues like inflation and the pandemic, so it is key to tell a gripping story that “actually breaks through.”
No offense, but these goals are pathetic.

Perhaps he spoke too soon in his dismissal of Cassidy Hutchinson!

However his larger point in his final sentence about the threat to bring American democracy to its knees is valid as Liz Cheney well knows. Brooks is right to be concerned about the 2024 election and civil war in America. If anything, he should be concerned about the 2022 elections.

Eventually, skeptics saw the light about the hearings.

“I thought the Jan. 6 committee wouldn’t matter. I was wrong” by Max Boot (Washington Post 6/14/22)

The committee’s hearings are exceeding expectations, because it is not behaving like a typical congressional committee. There is no grandstanding and no preening. There are no petty partisan squabble…. There have been no anti-Trump, much less anti-Republican, rants. The committee members are focused with forensic, factual intensity on the question of Trump’s responsibility for the events of Jan. 6.

The House Select Committee has set a standard which the Hunter Biden investigations and Joe Biden impeachments won’t come even remotely close to matching. Those Republican clown shows will only be shown on Foxhub.

…There is only the relentless march of evidence, all of it deeply incriminating to a certain former president who keeps insisting he was robbed of his rightful election victory…. Trump’s own aides have made an open-and-shut case that he I not fit to run Mar-a-lago, much less the United States of America.

It would seem the Murdoch Wall Street Journal and New York Post agree as well. More to come.

Paul Krugman has joined the bandwagon as well:

Crazies, Cowards and the Trump Coup (NYT 6/30/22)

Like many people, I expected the worst from the Jan. 6 committee: long, droning speeches, grandstanding by posturing politicians, lots of he-said-she-said.
            What we’ve gotten instead has been riveting and terrifying.

The reviews are in. The House Select Committee is boffo at the box office. It has sustained an 8-show summer series with a sequel promised.

What “more”? Second seasons often do not live up to the promise of the original series. It looks like we may be teased with “leaks” while the show is on hiatus.

There is a spinoff. In fact more than one. The DOJ appears to be gradually upping ante for the insurrections. There should be a slew of subpoenas in the coming weeks. Even if the Hitman indictment is delayed until after the election, there are plenty of subordinates who could be indicted before the election season. How about the day before Trump announces his candidacy, the DOJ indicts the first round of insurrectionists? That would make for must-see TV.

The second spinoff is in Georgia. Fulton County is moving ahead with subpoenas and target letters. It is only a matter of time before the indictments.

In the meantime, we can content ourselves with some of the more amusing aspects of the work of the House Select Committee. We can anticipate that on Josh Hawley’s tombstone, the words “Run, Josh, Run” will be inscribed. The phrase will join “Tricky Dicky” and “Slick Willie” as a defining nickname.

When the movie version is made the scene of ketchup on the wall and plates on the floor are sure to generate gales of laughter.

The scene of grabbing the steering wheel of the car and the throat of the Secret Service will play differently depending on the audience. For the people who believe in the rule of law, it will be seen as the desperate attempt of the Loser at the last moment possible to salvage victory by leading the coup at the Capital in person. For the people who believe in the rule of Trump, it will be seen as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, fighting to the very end to save the country.

Keep in mind that Rusty Bowers has been excommunicated by the Arizona Republican Party for telling for truth.

Unfortunately, there is one area where Liz Cheney is seriously wrong. She stated that Trump “is a 76-year old man”: true. And he is “not an impressionable child”: false. He temporarily appointed Sidney Powell a special prosecutor to wreak havoc with his enemies.  Kurt Bardella, a former House GOP staffer speaking about the upcoming 2024 announcement said, “This guy has the impulse control of a freaking toddler.” He echoed the words of Mary Trump about her uncle having the emotional maturity of a three-year old.

The problem with trying to prove intent to overthrow the Constitution is that Trump lacks the mental necessities to understand what the Constitution is and or what he was doing to it. All he knows is that he wanted to keep playing President and people were telling him playtime is over. Perhaps the next hearings will address the fact that he is an immature child and not Rambo.

P.S. No matter what, Trumpican minds will not be changed.

Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden: The Heroes We Want vs the Leaders We Have

July 12, 2022
by Peter Feinman
We are a storytelling species who wants heroes (Wikipedia)

Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner are having a moment.

So are Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but in a different way.

The juxtaposition of these two pairs provides an opportunity to compare the people we admire as heroes with the actual leaders we have. The difference exposes the challenge to America today and in the next two elections this year and in 2024.

THE HEROES WE WANT

Tom Cruise has unexpectedly rocketed to a billion dollar gross in his new “Top Gun: Maverick” movie. Movies have suffered during Covid. Attendance plummeted. Movie studios wondered if people would return to the theaters, to the experience of seeing movies in-person with up to hundreds of other people. Maybe the next one would the blockbuster would be the one…. Maybe the one after that.

Then along comes the Tom Cruise move. BOFFO AT THE BOX OFFICE to use an old Hollywood term. Seemingly out of nowhere, this generation-later expansion of the original Top Gun movie startled everyone with its power. What gives?

One major difference is that the movie is a Tom Cruise movie. It is not a Roman numeral movie. It is not the latest incarnation of a super-duper movie reflecting Hollywood’s unending ability to crank out ever more new costumed beings. There are no dinosaurs in the movies or aliens of any kind. The story is not set in some mythical world in the past, present, or future. It isn’t even a special effects movie as many of the scenes that ordinarily would be special effects instead were real people learning how to fly.

In this regard, Tom Cruise represents a form of nostalgia to the good old days. You go to see (or not see) a Tom Cruise movie because it is a Tom Cruise movie. Do you really know the names of the characters he has played in his movies? Do you really know the name of the characters John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, or Gary Cooper played? No! You saw the movie because it starred John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, or Gary Stewart.

Similarly Tom Cruise is larger than his movies. In almost every movie he plays himself or at least what we imagine him to be like off screen. We didn’t care what Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Cagney was really like. Even in one of the great Star Trek episodes where Kirk travels to the 1930s past, Joan Collins says her man (Kirk) is taking her to a Clark Gable movie. The title is irrelevant.

As a country we like the Maverick character of Pete Mitchell and flock to the multiplex to see it.

Kevin Costner also is having a moment. It is on the small screen and has been building for years. He has had an iconic career in movies starring in classics in American mythology. Perhaps it is coincidence but Durham began its most recent growth spurt with the movie “Bull Durham.”  Who would have thought that an actual corn field in Iowa split among two owners would become a tourist site where fathers could have catch with their sons.

Costner like Cruise performs in human roles. Generally, he lives in the present or the real world. In that sense he is always Kevin Costner. The Lakota Nation adopted Costner as an honorary member. As a result of his performance with Whitney Houston in “The Body Guard,” he was one of eight speakers at her funeral giving by all accounts a very moving eulogy. Name another actor with that kind of intimate cross-cultural acceptance. Name a politician.

But the real impetus for his success today is an outgrowth from a different movie, “Dances with Wolves.”  As with the TV series “Yellowstone,” Costner is the driving force behind both productions. In the movie he is John Dunbar; in the TV show John Dutton. In the movie, he encounters a wolf; in the TV series, his son has a vision quest with a wolf.

“Yellowstone” has snuck up on people. It is not one of those edgier shows that draws the attention of media critics. It is not gritty. It is not urban. It isn’t even about twisted tortured souls although that might not be true in all cases. It is not exactly the Ponderosa either. Times have changed. The fictional Broken Rock Indian Reservation and people are an integral part of the continuing story line.

So here we have two athletic male heroes with charm, good looks, and ease of appearance. And then there is the real world.

THE LEADERS WE HAVE

Only one week ago on July 5, I wrote SCOTUS and Hutchinson: The Howard Baker Moment Has Arrived. I claimed that it was all downhill for Trump from that point forward and that was exactly right.

Not only did a minion witness tamper with Hutchinson, but it seems that Trump himself tampered with a witness not yet revealed. Indictments forthcoming.

Foxhub has bad-mouthed some of the Trumpican candidates as unworthy of being elected. It remembers the debacle of the 2010 Senate races when Republicans lost sure-fire pickups by nominating nut cases. It does not want to see that happen again even if they are loyal to Trump.

Polls suggest Republicans are increasingly tired of Trump-shenanigans and it is only going to get worse. They are ready to move on if he will let them. Relitigating 2020 may be Trump’s only priority but it is not that of Republicans.

Polls show that even against the near-dead Biden with horrendous approval ratings, the Loser would lose again.

At some point soon, even closet Republicans in the Congress may be ready to stand up and be counted.

Of course, Joe Biden is having a rough spell himself. His is visibly aging and tiring in a way that cannot be hidden from the voters … even the ones who support him.

There is no end in sight for gas prices or Ukraine.

He was not a bold leader even in his prime and now he is past his prime.

According to a focus group reported on in The New York Times full-page in the Sunday Review on July 10 print, people are hungry for leadership. They want leaders who are willing to tell hard truths, go against the grain, and stand up for something unpopular. These were qualities found in leaders in the past like Churchill, suffragists, and Moses. But they also had a good explanation for why we do not have such leaders – if politicians today are not brave and courageous, it might be because We the People are not brave and courageous either.

As one CNN title put it:

Americans may get the one presidential race the country doesn’t want in 2024

In 2016, Democrats nominated the one candidate Trump could beat.
In 2020, Democrats nominated the one candidate who could beat Trump.
In 2022 Democrats need Trump to suck the oxygen out of the campaign with his revenge campaign, indictments, and 2020 fixation.
In 2024 Democrats need Republicans to nominate Trump again and may even secretly fund that effort.

When the movie “January 6” is cast there will be no roles for Tom Cruise or Kevin Costner. On the other hand, woman will clamor for the opportunity to play Liz Cheney.

SCOTUS and Hutchinson: The Howard Baker Moment Has Arrived

July 5, 2022
by Peter Feinman
Gorgan (Courtesy startrek.com)

The Howard Baker moment is here. It has been a longtime coming. It is not an exact repeat of original Howard Baker moment. At that time, a Republican Senator told the Republican President that it was game over and the President resigned. Hard as it may be to believe today, Baker succeeded because he had the votes in the Senate to back him up and Nixon knew it.

The current version is slower. Think of The Apprentice, the fake reality show that rescued the failed businessman from oblivion. There was a time when the show was gangbusters in ratings. “You’re fired” became part of the national discourse. And then it faded. Little by little the show declined. Finally it reached a point where it was past its expiry date like athletes who do not know when to retire. And then it was gone.

The double-dose of SCOTUS on abortion and Hutchinson to the House Select Committee is doing the same. Combined the decision and the testimony mark an inflection point in the political career of Donald Trump. From this point forward it is all downhill and he knows it. Hence the fuss and urgency about announcing his candidacy for 2024 now. It is a desperate attempt by him to regain the momentum which instead will highlight that he is headed in the wrong direction.

TRANSACTIONAL PRESIDENT

During the Trump presidency, we were introduced to a new concept – transactional. It is not the word was new but that its application was. It made a national policy of the President of the United States asking “what’s in for me?” with the “me” vacillating between the country and himself personally.

Now there were no more alliances. You want America to protect you? What’s in it for me? Countries were expected to ante up if they wanted the United States to shoulder the burden of protecting them. Obviously Ukraine was a money loser so if the Russian invasion had occurred on his watch Trump still would have done nothing even if he was not submissive to Putin. His cost-benefit analysis would have calculated that Ukraine was a big drain on American resources so why support it. Keep in mind this was a Commander in Chief who could not understand why people volunteered to serve in the military forces to begin with.

As it turns out, many people who voted for him also had a transactional relationship with him. They knew he was pond scum slime but he was their pond scum slime who could deliver for them. What he most famously could deliver for them was judges in general and Supreme Court judges in particular. Then with the help of Mitch McConnell, he fulfilled this promise. He did appoint people to the Supreme Court who had no qualms about lying directly to the face of Susan Collins and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Seriously how stupid a human being did you have to be not to know that the Trumptees on the Court would reverse Roe v. Wade as soon as they had the opportunity to do so?

The bargain had now been fulfilled and there is nothing left. People who turned a blind eye to the truth of Trump now no longer have to do so. There is nothing else for him to do. We saw the results in Georgia in 2020. The missing 11,780 votes were found and then some. Approximately 28,000 Georgians voted in 2020 and left the presidential line on the ballot blank. These people had decided to hold their noses no more. They would vote Republican but not Trumpican. The Republican voters Trump alienated in Georgia were the reason he lost the state. The Trumpican candidates in the primaries this year in Georgia did not fare well. His hand-picked Senate candidate is not faring well either according to the polls. Being totally unqualified for the job disqualifies him with enough Republican voters to overcome the alleged value of the Trump endorsement. Unfortunately for Democrats this means non-Trump Republican candidates may win in 2022 where Trump-endorsed candidates will lose.

In any event, it is game over for the transactional supporters of Trump. He has nothing left to offer them and has become a laughingstock criminal instead. Fatigue has set in.

THE INSURECTIONIST PRESIDENT

For the insurrectionist president it is only going to get worse. As the “far-left Marxist” Washington Examiner exclaimed, Hutchinson’s testimony “ought to ring the death knell” for Trump’s political future. He is now on record with the House Select Committee as being “unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.” Apparently Hutchinson was able to accomplish what a million dead Americans due to Covid could not – publicly expose the shortcomings and inadequacies of Disinfectant Donny once and for all. From this point forward it will be easy for Democrats to ridicule Trump ceaselessly in ways everyone can understand.

Plus there is more to come. There are people in the White House past and present whom they public does not know. Journalists with their “sources” may know their names, but We the People do not. Now we know who Miles Taylor is. Now we know who Cassidy Hutchinson is. How many more people like them are there? If you are a twenty-something recent college graduate starting your career in politics with internships and paid-positions at the highest level, do you want to sacrifice your future for an insurrectionist? True you may be the recipient of phone calls and threats from Trump goons, but you can endure them. What about your next job? How many analysts can Foxhub hire to explain that January 6 was either ANTIFA or legitimate political discourse?

It is reasonable to expect more and more disclosures about the truth of January 6 in the weeks to come. Some apparently already have happened. Which of the inner circle will be the Michael Cohen of the insurrection? The avalanche has started and will only pick of speed and power in the weeks to come. The only issue for Garland will be when to indict the former president and not if.

This avalanche of truth my carry forth into Congress itself. As staffers come forth to corroborate Hutchinson’s tale of Trump insurrection, closet Republicans who have kept their heads down and swallowed their pride these past five years may suddenly regain their courage. They have been shown up by a 25-year old. I am not suggesting that Mike Pence will finally man up; let’s not get carried away. But some Representatives and Senators will stand up and be counted. After all, after August they cannot be primaried!

What do we have to look forward to?

More revelations.

More indictments.

More disclosures in ongoing Georgia and New York cases

A “Michael Cohen”

By election time, the three Trumigoes in Arizona running on a stolen election campaign mantra will look as absurd as the “abortion is human sacrifice/demons are transferred via intimate sex” secretary of state Republican candidate in Michigan. It is déjà vu 2010 for Republican candidates all over again.

It is possible to even be optimistic that 2024 will not lead to the destruction of America. It is hard to image Ron DeSantis rallying people to the Capital for a coup.

FINALLY

Way back on August 6, 2016, even before the presidential election that year, I wrote a blog about presidential candidates from New York State. In the blog I wrote about a Star Trek episode:

[In] the Children Shall Lead, the children on an outpost are rendered orphans but display no trauma over the horror of losing their parents. The cause is a beast called “Angel” by them and named Gorgan. The richly-costumed sleekly-haired human-looking monster is skilled in exploiting their  pain to service his gain. He dominates them and in the ways of science fiction takes control of the Starship Enterprise.

Not to worry. Kirk’s dedication to the spirit of Star Trek prevails. His hero and role model is, after all, Abraham Lincoln. He takes back his ship. He takes back his crew. He returns the Enterprise to its rightful path. He defeats the monstrosity that has temporarily commandeered them. In the final showdown between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, Kirk calls on the deceived children to see the ugliness of the monster who led them astray. He tells them:

Without you children he’s nothing.
The evil remains within him.
Look how ugly he really is.
Look at him and don’t be afraid.

With each phrase, the children see more and more of the truth and the image of the monster becomes uglier and uglier. In the end, Gorgan is revealed as the grotesque monster he always was underneath his superficial exterior. As befitting his debased nature, when exposed for the disgusting ugly incarnation of evil that he is, his parting words to his former admirers who now spurn him are:

Death to you all!
Death to you all!
Death to you all!

Thank you Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson. That moment of exposing the truth for all America to see has arrived.

Ketchup on the wall
Dishes on the floor
Grab the wheel
Grab the throat.
Rambo?

Giuliani’s Indictment: Previewing the President’s

June 30, 2022
by Peter Feinman
Soul mates, cell mates (Rose Hartman/Getty Images)

At this point in time, it is becoming easier to determine who will be indicted for sedition and the attempt to overthrow the government. The words of Eric Herschmann to John Eastman remain the best free advice a range of people should take: “Get a great effing criminal lawyer.” The Department of Justice has its work cut out for them if all the conspirators are to be indicted before the fall political campaigns. Others may only need to be subpoenaed by that time.

High on that list will be the country’s one-time mayor, Rudy Giuliani. It may be hard for younger people to realize that once upon a time not so long ago Giuliani was a true hero and not some inebriated clown peddling criminal nonsense. Still there are lessons to be learned that shed light on his client and his state of mind.

CENTER OF ATTENTION RUDY

Back in the 1980s and 1990s in New York City and through 9/11, Rudy was a center of attention in the Big Apple. He was a legendary prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a mayor of renown when crime really was bad. Looking back, this time period probably was the high point of his life.

During these years, his path crossed with another figure of perpetual media prominence who eventually would become President and seek to overthrow the government with Giuliani. The prosecuting attorney and career criminal were not friends then but they traveled in the same media circles. I think it is safe to say that no one in the 1980s-1990s predicted these futures for either one of them.

DOWNHILL RUDY

Leaving the center stage is a challenge. Prominent athletes may have trouble retiring. One moment the camera is on you and the next moment you are yesterday’s news. The abrupt change can be traumatic. Call it post-celebrity stress disorder (PCSD).

For Giuliani it was all downhill during the first decade of the new century and millennium. From being a short-lived Senate candidate to a failed Presidential candidate, he soon was a nothingburger. The camera was never on him and nobody cared what he had to say. It was as if he had disappeared.

A similar fate seemed to be in store for his perpetually-bankrupted soul brother. He had gone from being a media figure to being an afterthought if anyone ever thought of him at all. Then when he was on the brink of disappearing forever, he was rescued from oblivion from a totally unexpected source:

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success
With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency. (New Yorker, January 7, 2019)

So whereas Rudy faded from sight, Trump gained enough national notoriety to exploit the opportunity presented by Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

RUDY AND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

It was not until a decade later in Ukraine of all places did Giuliani return to the national spotlight. He had been entrusted by the President of the United States to do very important work. He operated almost as an independent Secretary of State and not the actual one he had wanted to be. Mow he was tasked with a supremely important mission. He was determined to find dirt on Hunter Biden, undermine Joe Biden, and pave the way for the re-election of a person he should have prosecuted in the old days. He was important again. He was with the most powerful person in the world.

Rudy Giuliani: ‘You Should Be Happy for Your Country That I Uncovered This’
President Trump’s personal attorney unleashes in a new phone call with The Atlantic while Trump allies turn on him. By Elaina Plott (The Atlantic, September 26, 2019)

Rudy was back where he belonged. He was saving the country.

“It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero.”

Rudy was going to be hero again just as he had been on 9/11. He was back on center stage. The spotlight would be on him.

RUDY THE INSURRECTIONIST

This same attitude carried over into the insurrection. Throughout the course of the insurrection there is probably no one more consistently ridiculous than Rudy. Séance Sydney, Pillowhead, and General Fifth have been one trick ponies. By contrast, Ridiculous Rudy has been everywhere. Let us count the ways.

1. Legal challenges – He traveled the country in one bogus case after another compiling a near perfect record not only for defeat but for absurdity. It got to the point where he was practically laughed out of the court and only welcomed on Foxhub. His antics resulted in his being sued along with others by Dominion and Smartmatic. He expressed another legal idea destined to mark him as a fool forever: “It’s not my job in a fast-moving case to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that’s given to me.” How about even one? He even had his law license suspended in New York although that not may be due to his insurrection activities. It would seem that there was only one person who believed the nonsense he was peddling and that was enough.

2. State Vote – Another technique deployed by the insurrectionists was to have voter recounts in swing states and/or fraud investigations. In the previous blog, I addressed his efforts in Arizona which led to the extraordinary line “We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”  His efforts in Georgia also in the Day 4 testimony included a video showing an extensive diatribe of great impassioned conviction about criminal behavior by the state election workers. His racist-based attacks comparing election workers to drug dealers probably will not help him when he is brought to trial.

His totally bogus claims leading to the disruption of the lives of two civic-minded Americans working to make the election work will not help either. Helping people to vote, especially older people, was an act of great personal satisfaction to Shaye Moss. Her mother Ruby Freeman testified: “There is nowhere [now] I feel safe. The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one.” From standing up to Osama bin-Laden to targeting Ruby Freeman through lies — how much lower could he degenerate?

3. State Insurrection Electors – Rudy also peddled the effort to create insurrection electors, an effort which already is being investigated by the DOJ.

4. January 6 – The full story of what transpired in the Willard War Room has yet to be told. Some of it will be revealed in future hearings by the House Select Committee. Some of it will remain hidden as Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows present by phone refuse to testify. In the meantime we have this tidbit courtesy of Cassidy Hutchinson.

As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something to the effect of “Cass, are you excited for the sixth? It’s going to be a great day.” I remember looking at him and saying, “Rudy, can you explain what’s happening on the sixth?” And he responded something to the effect of “we’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The President’s going to be there. He’s going to look powerful. He’s going to be with the members. He’s going to be with the senators. Talk to the chief about it. Talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.”

Rudy’s going to be the hero again. At the center of the action. The President is going to trump his domination of Lafayette Park. I’ll be walking with Rambo. We are going to seize the moment when weak Mike Pence fails us. It will be like 9/11 all over again.

In Giuliani’s desperate and pathetic need to be the hero again, we gain insight into the mind of Donald Trump. Time was running out on him. Even with his limited grasp of the real world he knew that January 6 was critical. Everything done so far had failed. He knew his Vice President would fail him.

Even though BoneSpur Boy is a weak person who limits himself to being mean, nasty, and insulting and fighting in the professional wrestling arena only when it is rigged, he knew that this time he would have to be the one to take the lead (Suppose He Had Led His People to the Capitol on January 6… January 12, 2022). This was his last chance at remaining President. He was not going to let some car driver or Secret Service agent prevent him from remaining President. This was his chance to go into the arena for real. Oh, to be deprived of his moment of glory and end up in a prison cell with Rudy.

Day 3: Countdown Continues to Clear and Present Danger in 2024

June 20, 2022
by Peter Feinman
Dan Crenshaw the Future of the GOP? (M. Scott Mahaskey for Politico Magazines. March 2, 2019)

The countdown continues to a clear and present danger in 2024. The third session of the House Select Committee introduced a new element into the proceedings. So far the bulk of the effort has been directed to establishing a criminal case for the Department of Justice to pursue against the insurrectionists. Part of that effort includes informing the American people of the truth of what happened. This way the pending investigation and indictments will not simply be a “witch hunt” per Foxhub but a legitimate search for justice.

While all that is well and good, it also is looking backward — an attempt to reconstruct the past. It is critical to keep our eye on the future. 2024 will not simply be a repeat of 2020. It will be an enhanced version of that failed insurrection. The Trumpicans have learned from the failure and now are preparing to plug those holes to ensure success. In this blog, I do not wish to recapitulate the ongoing efforts in voter suppression, creation of the army of Trump Goons in selected voting districts, or the election of secretaries of state and/or governors who will prevent Joe Biden from winning their states in 2024 regardless of the actual votes. Instead, I wish to focus on the consequences of that effort no matter how it actually plays out in the vote results.

PROPHET MICHAEL LUTTIG

Sometimes a judge can be a prophet. No, I am not referring to the judges from the Book of Judges but to Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge and highly respected conservative in legal circles who testified on the third day of hearings. However, he is not well-known to the general public yet alone to the Trumpicans who support the BIG LIE. As a result, the impact of his testimony on them probably is minimal. The impact of his testimony on the DOJ is likely to be more substantial. He augments the words of United States District Judge David Carter on John Eastman’s efforts as “a coup in search of a legal theory”

In his testimony, Luttig asserted that the actions of January 6, 2021, brought the country to the precipice of a constitutional crisis that could have ended the existence of the constitutional republic just before the 250th anniversary of the country’s declaration. In his words, the actions were “tantamount to a revolution.” The rule of law was under direct attack. If the Vice President had succumbed to the pressure from the President and successfully thwarted the peaceful transfer of power, it would have been “the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the Republic.” When I first blogged about political thrillers in movies and books from the 1960s on January 3, 2021 (Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie), it never occurred to me that we would be living one in real world to the extent that we are.

Nor that there would be a sequel. Prophet Luttig warned us that the threat to the constitutional Republic remains alive and well, continuing to foment trouble. For the most part we have moved on past the silly scenarios of Biden stepping down and being replaced now or in the immediate future by the “rightful President.”  Of course, no sooner had these words been written than I learned that the Republican Party of Texas at its state convention resolved that:

We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud.

So at least the gaze is shifting politically to the upcoming elections.

PREPARING FOR THE DIVORCE

Prophet Luttig’s words are a call to action in the present. The danger exists now and it is building towards an explosion in 2024. The wheels are already set in motion for the chaos he alluded to. It is not a question of if it will happen, but what will be done to prepare for it when it does. What does “it” mean?

The “it” was clearly enunciated by White House counsel Eric Herschmann in an oft-played tape of his testimony about a telephone call will coup-designer Eastman about his plan to have the Vice President rig the electoral count in plain sight to obtain the results Trump wanted:

You’re going to cause riots in the streets.

To which Eastman blithely replied:

There’s been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or protect the Republic.

This exchange about what would have happened on January 6, 2021, if Pence had weakened foretells what will happen on January 6, 2025. Eastman has legitimated the right of Biden supporters to take to the street to protect democracy and the republic from a Trump victory. It is unlikely that Eastman intended to do this. Naturally, he meant only the right people have the right riot in the street to challenge an injustice (January 6, 2021) and not that the wrong people (BLM, ANTIFA, Team Normal Americans) have the right to do so if Trump is declared the winner. That subtlety may be lost on people who are opposed to letting the Hitman return to the White House under any circumstances.

In the meantime, we have been reminded vividly of the violence that is in store for America following the 2024 presidential election.

Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he received a letter that threatened to execute him, his wife and their newborn. “There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” he said on ABC “This Week.”

The next day, Eric Greitens, one of the “man’s man” beloved by Bone-spur Boy, running for the Republican Senate nomination in Missouri, released a new video saying:

I’m Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL, and today we’re going RINO hunting. Join the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.

This is the political professional wrestling arena trash talk Trumpicans love. As in any cult, it bespeaks the effort to cleanse the cult itself even before attacking others. It also legitimates the effort to go Trumpican hunting in the event Democrats stop bringing a plastic spoon to a gun fight and expect to win.

THE TWO PRESIDENTS BICENTENNIAL

In 1824, there were two claimants to the Presidency – John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Of the five sectional candidates that year, these two emerged in the leading positions. The first party system of Federalists and Republicans had dissolved and the second party system of Whigs and Democrats was being born. While Jackson claimed he had been cheated out of victory that was rightfully his (a questionable claim) due to a backroom deal between Adams and Henry Clay, he accepted the results and lived to fight another day in the 1828 election which he won.

For the bicentennial year in 2024 of that presidential election, we already know that there will be no agreement on the results. No matter what, there will be no peaceful transfer of power from Joe Biden to the Hitman; no matter what there will be no acceptance by the Hitman of another four years in office for the worst candidate ever.

Choices will have to be made.

Will California or South Carolina be the first to secede?
Will the military support the president in the White House or the one in Mar-a-lago?
Who will the world recognize as the American president?
Who will have the nuclear football?
What happens after both are sworn in on January 20, 2025?

The odds on this division being resolved peacefully are slim. More likely are armed clashes in the nation’s capital and in scattered locations throughout the country. The situation will be scary…. Unless we recognize now that the divorce is our future and start to plan for it to minimize the violence.

Day 2: Will Jury Trials Survive the Insurrection if Facts Do Not Matter?

June 17, 2022
by Peter Feinman
!2 Angry Men (1957) - from a time when reasoning was possible

The jury trail is a bedrock staple of the American democracy. People are very familiar with the phrases “see you in court” or “have your day in court.” It bespeaks the right of every American to have a dispute adjudicated or an action punished through the mechanism of the jury trial. As we were recently reminded, the best free legal advice a criminal can receive is to get the best “trumping-lawyer” you can get.

There is more to a jury trial than simply having one’s day in court. The resolution is not decided by the king or president or any elected magistrate. Normally, it is not rendered by the sitting judge either. Instead the decision-makers are the peers of the defendant. They are chosen from among We the People in that particular jurisdiction where the alleged crime occurred. These peers are then charged by the judge with the responsibility to pass judgement on the merits of the case.

Wait. There is more. How are the people on the jury supposed to discharge this duty? They do so through evidence. During the course of the trial, evidence is presented by both sides for the jurors to consider. The evidence may be testimony from people who are cross-examined during the trial. The evidence may be physical, something jurors can see and/or touch. The arguments of the competing lawyers in the opening and closing are not evidence. However, a lawyer who can construct a more forceful narrative based on the evidence and/or who can do so in a more compelling way, may help the jurors to decide what evidence to accept as true.

To assist in this process, jurors are screened to weed out people with biases one way or another. The goal is to create a jury who can fairly analyze and weigh the evidence to determine what really happened. If people cannot be reasoned with then the whole process collapses.

BARR VS. TRUMP

On Day 1 of the House Select Committee report, we heard the opening argument by Liz Cheney on the crimes committed and how the committee would prove the seven charges against the former President.

On Day 2, the House Select Committee presented evidence concerning the knowledge of the accused that the claim of the stolen election was a big lie. The foremost witness to that presentation was Bill Barr, the former Attorney General to the Hitman.

Barr recounted his various discussions with the Loser about his loss in the presidential election in 2020. According to the video clips shown, Barr uttered some lines that are destined to become part of American legal lore if not folklore.

“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.”   

“There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”

We also heard about “Team Normal” in the effort to convince the Loser that there was no fraud and he had really lost. As we know, all these efforts were for naught. While Team Normal pushed its message, Intoxicated Rudy was whispering sweet nothings into the Loser’s ear and those messages were much more palatable.

THE FAILURE WHEN TREATING TRUMP AS AN ADULT

My position for years now has been that Donald Trump is an immature child in the body of an adult. Brain scans will show that certain portions of his brain never developed beyond the stage of when he was a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. To understand him one should consult child psychologists, seventh grade guidance counselors, and seventh grade teachers. He never developed a conscience. He has no ethics, He has no morality. He has no sense of right and wrong. There is only whether or not the child will be allowed to play his game for his benefit without being stopped. So far he has a pretty good record of being able to do exactly that.

Barr and Team Normal made the common mistake of treating Little Donee Waney as if he were an adult. They made the common mistake of thinking he was someone who could be reasoned with. But no matter how many times he was told that the election was not stolen and the supposed fraud was bogus, it never sunk it. His mind was never changed. He never challenged the evidence presented, he simply moved on the next “What about this…” in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole.  As Representative Zoe Lofgren said:

The directly told the president over and over again, they were false. These were his people. This is Trump World, telling the president that what he was saying is false. And he continued to say the same thing.

There was no getting through to him because any attempts at the adult level to reason with him were doomed to failure. The only surprise now is that people still think of him as an adult capable of being reasoned with. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. He has been an immature child for over 60 years and will be one until the day he dies. He will keep playing his game and advise others to do so without knowing or caring about the law or the Constitution because who is going to stop him? He will even con his own followers out of $250 million plus the travel expense of going to Washington on January 6 plus the legal expense incurred for defending their actions in court. What does he care? It is all about him.

Here we can see the appeal of Ridiculous Rudy with his intoxicated rantings. He never drew a line a sand. Quite the contrary, he constantly fed more and more outrageous claims into the ear of the immature child. Rudy enabled the game to be played longer. No adults in the room. No Team Normal. Just people playing into his delusions where facts do not matter to a mind incapable of understanding them. He could never grasp what Bill Barr was telling him; he could only move on to the next item. With Rudy, he never was confronted with reality. For the immature child, it was a dream come true. Just keep playing the game until someone stops you.

THE FATE OF JURY TRIALS

Imagine you are selecting jurors for a trial. Suppose you are confronted with candidates who are:

QAnon
Anti-Vaxxers
Stolen Election believers
Ivermectin users.

Would you want such people analyzing evidence rendering judgment on you? How about as a surgeon or a pilot or anything that involved critical thinking skills? Do you think anyone who participated in the insurrection now realizes that there was no there “there” and that they were conned? Do you think the Trumpican voters in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Nevada and elsewhere now realize that the election was not stolen but that their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name was the one who tried to steal it? Do you think the testimony of Bill Barr and Team Normal has any more effect on Trumpicans then it did on Trump himself? Can I sell you a bridge in Brooklyn?

How can a jury system survive where facts are irrelevant?

How can a jury system survive when only what you want to be true matters?

How can a jury system survive when jurors lack the ability to think or choose not to?

I do not know the answer to these questions, but the example of a New Mexico Republican election board refusing to certify results in a Republican primary because they feel uncomfortable with machine results is an example of how trumpism is metastasizing throughout the country. Jury trials may be one of the causalities.

Day 1: Cheney Skewers Trump – DeSantis Flotilla Smells Blood in the Water

June 15, 2022
by Peter Feinman
DeSantis smells blood in the water. Thank you Liz.

It is not the Mueller Report. That report became the Great Disappointment. All that time. All that effort. All that anticipation. And for what? A dull boring presentation and report that led to nothing thanks in part to Attorney General Bill Barr who had not yet seen the light. Also the format led to numerous opportunities for Congressional Trumpicans to bloviate hot-air nonsense to their hearts content. Thanks to the shortsightedness of the would-be future Speaker, the House Select Committee was able to function as a responsible entity. It shows what Congress is capable of when it focuses on getting the job done and the job is working for the American people and not themselves.

LIZ CHENEY: A STAR IS BORN

For Liz Cheney, it is as if all her life she was waiting and preparing for this moment. The fate of the American democracy literally is on the line. We survived a close call after the 2020 election – not realizing how close it was to ending – and we still face a moment of truth in the 2024 election, but Cheney provides hope that America will emerge triumphant from the January 6 Day of Infamy. Unfortunately, the futures of both Ukraine and the United States are on the line and both Putin and Trump are determined to prevail.

Cheney already has earned a place in the history books. She has done so in a literal sense. Her opening argument will join the ranks of the Lincoln-Douglas debates for theater and brilliance … and this time we have a visual record and not just the printed word. Her words will become standard reading in law classes in how to prepare an opening argument for a jury trial. She will be studied by debate teams. She will be remembered in American history classes.

Think of all the remarks raised against her. Think of all the comments/tweets by Trump, McCarthy, Jordan, Taylor Greene, Gaetz, and the other assorted characters that populate the former Republican Party. As the students of history, law, and politics in the future study and contrast her presentation with the sad, pathetic remarks by her adversaries, they will laugh in amazement that such simple-minded imbeciles actually could be in positions of power. Of course, this assumes the America remains a democracy otherwise all bets are off.

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE  

The audience for Cheney and the House Select Committee is not simply the American people. When people audition on Foxhub, they are speaking to an audience of one. Similarly, here, Cheney and the House Select Committee have one person in mind during their presentations and for the final report. That one person is not the current President of the United States or even the former President who is the target of the investigation. Obviously, the one person is the Attorney General.

So far and in his own way, Merrick Garland has been as big a disappointment to the House Select Committee as Barr was with the Mueller report. To be fair, the times they are a changing. Like a turtle finally sticking its head out of its shell, Garland appears to be elevating his position in the investigation. The round-up of hundreds of lesser figures appears to have reach its limit. The low-hanging fruit has and is being prosecuted. Many have pleaded guilty. Now it is time to move up the chain of command, to indict the people who initiated and organized the multiple attempts (7) to over through the government and steal the election. At this point, it does seem that the Attorney General is listening.

Unfortunately, the clock keeps ticking. While the House Select Committee will have completed its work prior to the 2022 Congressional election that may not be enough. Preventing the Trumpicans from shutting down the committee in the new Congress is insufficient. The information collected needs to be turned over to the DOJ prior to that. Furthermore the DOJ needs to act before the campaign season picks up in earnest. For the sake of saving the American democracy, We the People need the co-conspirators to be indicted so they are a campaign issue (In the 2022 Congressional Elections, How Many Candidates Will Have Been Indicted?  December 22, 2021). Taking action in January is too late.

THE STAIN OF DISHONOR

From time to time, I have written about the opportunities to be a profile in courage. Think of the people who have had the chance: Mike Pence, Sean Hannity, Kevin McCarthy and the list goes on and on. One desperate Hail Mary was that there would come a time when the Congressional closet Republicans would finally shed their fears and publicly embrace the truth that they know in their hearts to be true: the President was “bat crazy” as Hannity delicately put it. As day after day, week after week, and month after month passed by, the chances of these closet Republicans overcoming their fear of being mocked as “weak RINO” seemed slimmer and slimmer. The last chance was when they would have nothing to lose. The primary season would be over so they could not be replaced. That final moment of truth is fast approaching as Cheney said:

I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.  

When the Unpresidential Library is built and the wall of dishonor is created the names of many of Cheney’s Republican colleagues will be on it. The House Select Committee is their last chance to redeem themselves.

January 6, 2025: Suppose Biden Loses?

February 7, 2022
by Peter Feinman
County-level secession in New York, February 3, 2022 (https://www.wivb.com)

Civil war talk is in the air. It is in books. It is in articles. It is on talk shows. Whole cable show series may be dedicated to the prospect of the new American Civil War. In fact, the question seems to have moved from being a debating point to being a fait accompli.

On one hand, such talk is good. After years of writing about America’s third civil war, it is gratifying to see that people in the know now are taking seriously the possibility that the 2024 election could be our last one as a free country with the current 50 states…. our ranking as a free society already has deteriorated significantly among the nations by people who track such things.

On the other hand, it also is quite fearful to realize that the end of days for our country as we now know it may be occur before a student who entered college in the 2021/2022 school year may graduate.

So to put the scare talk aside for a moment, in the real world what actually may happen on January 6, 2025, when Congress meets to certify the election results.

NO GETTYSBURG/WASHINGTON DC SHOWDOWN

The chances of a military showdown comparable to the battle at Gettysburg or any other National Park Service site in the Confederacy are slim. True both sides are more than capable of deploying forces in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands at the national capital. Realistically, will that happen?

As we are seeing in the Russian massing of forces to invade the Ukraine, there are logistical challenges to assembling large-scale forces. First, it takes time to do it. Second, it is a highly visible process. Third, someone needs to be in charge of the effort. So while on paper one can envision large-scale forces targeting the Capital, there are numerous problems along the way.

Both sides will be traveling on the same roads.

Both sides will be flying to the same airports.

Both sides will be making reservations at the same hotels and motels.

None of this will be done in secret. There will be news coverage of the prospective participants marching off to battle.

The military is well-aware of the possibility of another January 6 and will be prepared for it.

The commander in-chief will not be welcoming the tourists exercising their second amendment rights to legitimate political discourse at the Capital to kiss and hug cops.

The possible participants know the legal problems currently faced by the participants from the 2021 assault.

Some of the Trump militias may have been weakened by the arrests from the last attack.

In short, the overall odds for a repeat of January 6, 2021, on January 6, 2025, seems low.

STATES SECESSION

Another possibility sometimes talked about is that states that object to the final outcome of the presidential vote will voice that displeasure as South Carolina did in the last Civil War. There has been talk of succession or in the new term, “divorce.”

The state most frequently associated with this path is Texas. The possibility of “Texit” has been around for several years now (The Texas Secession: Legally Dividing America, December 14, 2020).  Let’s say, for example, Texas or any other Confederate state or any of the other six states with the illegal Electors decided it did not accept the results of this second stolen election and therefore declared its independence. What would that mean in practice?

No state is pure. Every Confederate state contains Unionists. In the 2024 election, a Confederate state might vote 60% or more against Biden but that is about the limit. When the states seceded in the last Civil War, each state could be reasonable sure that it had the support of the white males who had voted. The electoral demographics are quite different know. Even the white people in the South include descendants of people who fought on the Union side. If a Governor seeks to arbitrarily assert independence or does so through the state legislature, the result would be successions within the state. In other words, a state that secedes will immediately face the reality of internal secession.

My recommendation has been that he Confederate states need to divide into their Union and Confederate components anyway. That still remains the only political solution even though it has zero traction nationally. However, if any state attempts to secede, it would lead to the division of the state into its distinct parts. At that point, the people bellowing for withdrawal will have to eat their words when they see how little of the state would actually join them.

STEVE BANNON

So far, the most practical action Trumpicans can and are taking is following the playbook of seditionist Steve Bannon. His calls for a grassroots effort to control the country already is occurring. He has identified local elections as the point of vulnerability. Few people run for these offices such as school boards and election officials. An organized voting bloc can propel their candidates to victory. Indeed, that is precisely the purpose of the off-election year non-November elections in the first place. Don’t let local elections get caught up in the hullabaloo generated by state and federal elections. Keep them under the radar so the established leaders and their friends can dominate them.

Bannon proposes a tried and true method for winning local elections. Of course, the opposition is quite capable of catching on to what is happening. Still, the national effort to coordinate a local takeover is something only Communists have been accused of in the past. Whether or not it can swing a national election remains to be seen. The more likely result is incessant confrontations at school board meetings.

Bannon’s local strategy mirrors what the Hitman has called for.

If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.

One logical outgrowth of the Bannon strategy as reflected in this call for nationwide protest, is that January 6, 2025, will be a day of nationwide protests similar to what happened after the murder of George Floyd. While such demonstrations and counter-demonstrations at the local level will tax and exhaust local law enforcement and National Guard, it seems unlikely that they would cause a reversal in the certification vote in Congress.

COULD NANCY PELOSI BECOME THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT?; A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

That was the title of my blog on April 3, 2020. The question asked in the blog was:

Is it possible that as of January 20, 2021, that the Electoral College will not have elected anyone to the two highest offices in the land?

I did not factor the January 6 certification into my calculations. It was not something I had really given any thought to back then.

The issue raised was suppose there were so many legal challenges that they could not all be resolved in time for the scheduled inauguration (or certification). If there was no duly certified winner, then the incumbent does not get to stay in office until everything is resolved. Even Rudy Giuliani had to step down as mayor after 9/11 because his term was up. So too at the presidential level. On January 20, the term expires and if there is no duly certified President then the Speaker of the House becomes President. Hello, Nancy Pelosi, the first female President.

Of course she would pick Joe Biden to her Vice President. Once confirmed by the Senate, Pelosi would shortly afterwards retire and Joe Biden would become the President.

This rumination presumes Democratic control of the two Houses. It is also quite possible that both Houses will be awash in legal challenges of their own. Next time, an attack on the Presidential vote means an attack on the whole ballot and not just the top one. The legal turmoil would extend not only to the House of Representatives and the Senate but to the state level. Both Governors and state legislature results would be on hold until the validity of vote is certified. Who knows what state governments would even be in place or who would be in Congress as of January 1, 2025? In short, there could be a complete meltdown. I am not saying this will happen. I am saying it is a possibility. The legal civil war could be far more extensive than a physical civil war.

And then there is the 14th Amendment. On February 1, 2022, Bruce Ackerman and Gerard Magliocca published “Biden vs. Trump: The Makings of a Shattering Constitutional Crisis.” They also proposed a sequence of events whereby the (unnamed) Speaker of the House could be President. Specifically, they focused on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment called the Disqualification Clause. It expressly bars any person from holding “any office, civil or military, under the United States” if he “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution after previously swearing to uphold it “as an officer of the United States.” Could it be applied in 2024?

Right now we are witnessing its application in North Carolina at the Congressional level with Rep. Madison Cawthorn. The authors suggest the same technique could be used in 2024 against the chief insurrectionist. One may add that the more the House Select Committee and the Department of Justice use that term “insurrectionist” the more individual states are likely to do the same to disqualify the Hitman. One possible outcome is that his name will not appear on the ballot in all fifty states.

The article proceeds to describe various scenarios with massive demonstrations if the disqualification is applied. Realistically, there are too many variables to factor to know what will happen. For example, the authors assume that there will be a Congress in place. That well may be true for representatives from unchallenged states and holdovers in the Senate but who knows what will have been resolved by January 1 in the challenged states. The authors propose some remedies in anticipation of this imbroglio just as a bipartisan group is working on revisions to the Electoral College law.

But in all these configurations, one obvious one is being overlooked – suppose Biden legitimately loses the election, what if Trumpicans do not need to rig the election to win? What will Democrats do then? How will you know if the results are legitimate or not? Should Biden vacate the White House then? What will the impact of the House Select Committee and the criminal investigations be? When I first started writing about political action thrillers on January 3, 2020, I had no idea that Hollywood could not match the real world and at this point no one really knows what will happen.

Kevin McCarthy and the Anti-VAXXer Who Gets COVID

February 2, 2022
by Peter Feinman
Shredding Government Documents (http://lewisperdue.com/archives/4052)

People who make non-medical decisions to not be vaccinated do so for many reasons. Some reasons may be legitimate from a fear of needles to a fear that the vaccine was rushed. Some may even be theological-based. There is also a longstanding American tradition of people who do not like being told what to do (Would the Dukes of Hazzard Be Vaccinated?). Perhaps that contributes to the country having such a poor record of vaccinations on the global level compared to other industrial countries.

But in this situation, there also are people who refuse to be vaccinated for political reasons. To be vaccinated is to accept the decree of the illegitimate President and they would rather die than do that. Sometimes the decision backfires. When media-prominent people die from COVID, the response may be one of great glee and truly nasty comments rained down upon that individual’s website. The schadenfreude is off the Richter scale!

Fortunately for the people who play Russian roulette with their lives, COVID is not that lethal compared to smallpox or bubonic plague. As a result, not being vaccinated can be a reasonable gamble. In addition, there are people with limited mental necessities who survive a mild case of COVID and then declare that it is no worse than the flu.

And then there is Kevin McCarthy’s decision not to have any Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating the attempted coup on January 6, 2021. The way things look right now, McCarthy is looking more and more like the anti-VAXXer who gets COVID and dies a painful death.

DELAY, DELAY, DELAY

The standard Trumpian playbook calls for delay, delay, delay, delay. Everyone knows about the Election Day deadline for the House Select Committee to complete its report before being disbanded by a future Trumpican House majority. That deadline was no secret. Therefore as one should reasonably have expected, the Committee will issue reports prior to that date. It will name names, identify crimes, and recommend action by the Department of Justice.

McCarthy had the opportunity to delay that report. The best way to have forestalled that scenario was to disrupt the proceedings of the Committee. By now we have all witnessed the defiant actions of people who are going to be named as conspirators despite their lack of cooperation. We can see that the people who have chosen not to comply with subpoenas or who have taken the 5th on virtually every single question have not succeeded in removing themselves from designation as conspirators. All they are really doing is admitting their guilt that they have something criminal to hide.

We know this because of the mountain of evidence which has been collected by the Committee. We know this from the hundreds of people who have been interviewed including from the office of the Vice President. We this from the troves of data which has been accumulated from those people, the recalcitrant Mark Meadows, and the National Archives. And McCarthy proudly declared he would nothing to prevent that accumulation of data.

For those of us who remember the great fuss over the acid-washed servers, the torn documents delivered to the National Archives from the President of the United States are both déjà vu and a possible criminal charge. Remember the shredded document scenes from the movie Argo?

In the movie, we watch breathlessly as the Islamic militants painstakingly sift through the piles of shredded paper. We do so because as the shreds are meticulously pieced together in the attempt to identify the American embassy staff who are fleeing Iran by air. The shifting scenes Hollywood-fashion leads to a final chase scene where naturally the plane takes off just in the nick of time as our hearts slowly return to their normal level of beating. It turns out the shredding incident was based on a Washington shredding incident and a book on the actual Washington scandal appeared as background in the movie.

The point of this rumination is to note that McCarthy chose not to be a disruptive force in the gathering of evidence to charge the Hitman with sedition. When the movie of the Committee’s work is made, there will be a scene of McCarthy self-righteously refusing to participate in the sham investigation witch hunt only to have the decision backfire on him. Think of how smoothly, harmoniously, and effectively the Committee has been able to work together devoid of any Trumpican interference. Thank you Kevin McCarthy.

THE JANUARY 6 TV SHOW

Because McCarthy forsook the opportunity to delay the work of the Committee, he instead will be treated to what is sure to be a blockbuster spring TV series. The show “How the Hitman Tried to Steal the Election and Overthrow the Constitution” will be riveting TV. It may even draw Rachel Maddow back from her hiatus. What cable news reporter not on Foxhub is going to want to miss the story of the millennium so far since 9/11?

Speaking of Foxhub, think of the cognitive dissonance the Trumpican viewers will experience if they dare to watch the hearings. Unless they have been watching CNN or MSNBC on the sly or reading The New York Times or Washington Post in secret, they have no idea of what the Committee has been doing. They may know all about Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Roger Stone and other lesser lights heroically resisting the House Select Committee just as they have been heroically resisting wearing a mask or being vaccinated. However, they are clueless about what has been happening.

Suddenly, live on TV day after day and night after day, there will be testimony documenting the Hitman’s attempt to steal the election and overthrow the Constitution. The evidence will come from Republicans. It will be Republican testimony, Republican texts, Republican emails, and Republican memos that will be on display. It will be shredded Trump documents, Trump family members, and the Hitman himself who will provide the evidence that will be shown to the country.

For people who have not been following the events, the TV shows will be shocking. I first wrote about political thrillers on January 3, 2021. Now we will see one not as a movie but live on TV. Thank you Kevin McCarthy.

OVERTURN THE ELECTION

One of the recurring comments made during the impeachments was that he should not be allowed to take the stand. His lawyers strenuously resisted his insistence that he wanted to testify. His vaunted negotiating skills that would save him under oath were exposed as bull-trump when his own lawyers questioned him in a mock session. For a person incapable of telling the truth except by chance, testifying live would be a nightmare. We have all seen how he walked away from the White House press corps when he could not handle the question. Imagine the setting where he does not have that option, where he will be held in contempt and possibly thrown in jail if he does.

Now we have seen in Texas how he can be the gift the keeps giving to the House Select Committee. No one expected that at a professional political wrestling arena campaign event, he would on his own accord and without any provocation openly acknowledge that he had tried to overturn the election. He still is mad at his Vice President for not doing so. How many times will those words come back to haunt him? Who knows what he will say next?

His throwing of Lindsay Graham under the bus is a sign of things to come. Yes, all the conspirators now expect to be pardoned if convicted and if he runs and if he is re-elected. They make take that gamble just as people do when they refuse to be vaccinated, just as Kevin McCarthy did when he refused to allow Republicans to disrupt the proceedings of the Committee. Do you think there will be any schadenfreude when the political grim reaper comes calling for them then?

Make Room at Gitmo: The Trumpicans Are Coming

January 19, 2022
by Peter Feinman
The Newest Trump Resort

Trumpicans are right – there was a conspiracy to steal the 2020 Presidential election. Trumpicans are right – it is time to name names, kick ass, and lock up the people responsible for the attempt to steal the election. And finally, Trumpicans are right that the conspiracy to steal the election, override the votes of the American people, and overthrew the Constitution involves people at the highest level of American society.

There needs to be a lot of room at Gitmo to hold all the terrorists responsible for the Big Lie.

A MULTI-PRONGED ASSAULT

The story is a still unfolding one with new surprises constantly coming to light. And this is even before the National Archives now releases the relevant documents and people in the inner circle begin to sing.

There should be an investigation underway right now of all the alternate electors from the seven states and of Stephen Miller who publicly expressed awareness of this initiative. That investigation should quickly grow to include the people in the seven states who initiated the effort as well as Jeffrey Clark and others in the White House who masterminded it. Of course the Hitman himself was aware of it.

So in this one maneuver, there is enough to populate an entire wing at Gitmo of people who sought to overthrow the government.

On the other hand, give credit where credit is due. The actual event on January 6 of invading the Capitol was a slapdash, unorganized, confusing effort. In other words, it was exactly the type of inept incompetence one would expect from the immature child President. True, we have yet to learn the details of what transpired in the Willard war room the night before. But given the small turnout and the even smaller armed turnout, what were the expectations on January 5 of what would happen? Hopefully, more information will become available and there are glimmerings that the Department of Justice is pursuing obtaining information about an “organized conspiracy” involving the former president.

In the meantime we should stand back and appreciate the thought that went into the planning for certification process on January 6.

First we learned about the six-point plan culminating with the Vice President doing the right thing to certify the Loser as the winner. Even though there was no Constitutional basis for the plan, we should appreciate the thought that went into the planning to overthrow the Constitution in a seemingly legal way.

Second we have now learned that the Vice President was supposed to have an alternate slate of electors to choose from. The conspirators must have known that the Trumpicans in Congress had insufficient votes to disqualify the real electors. They were really counting on Mike Pence to have the strength and courage to do the right thing and arrange to designate the alternate electors as the real ones…with an audience in the gallery to cheer him on.

Third we now understand the tortured and elongated mantra the Vice President pronounced before the accepting of the electors from a state as legitimate. His words signify that he was aware of the alternate elector ploy and rejected it. Even as the Hitman was outside stoking the crowd by imploring Mike Pence to have the necessary courage, Pence undermined it and sabotaged any effort to advance the alternate electors with his little recitation before each certification. If he ever decides to become a profile in courage and testify to the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help him God before the House Select Committee, he will have quite a story to tell.

THE POLITICAL IMPACT   

Will the House Select Committee’s interim and final reports have any political effect? Legally it should spur the Attorney General to act more aggressively even before the Trumpican-rigged 2022 election. For Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, the exposure of the widespread and nearly-successful conspiracy to steal the election, override the will of the people, and overthrow the Constitution may, I say “may,” cause them not to support any of Trump’s Traitors for any elective position at any level anywhere.

However, for Trumpicans, the House Select Committee report will have no impact. It will be fake news. It will be a Deep State witch hunt. It will avoid dealing with the real effort to steal the election on November 3.

Oftentimes, non-Trumpicans speak derisively of Trumpicans as living in an alternate reality. They recite all the failed court challenges by Ridiculous Rudy, Séance Sydney, and Pillow Head AS IF SUCH LOGIC WILL BE CONVINCING TO TRUMPICANS SO AS TO CAUSE THEM TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS ABOUT THE BIG LIE! Now, who is living in an alternate reality? One would think by now these advocates would have caught on to the folly of trying to reach Trumpicans with the facts. Trumpicans know the election was stolen. They know that hundreds of thousands of votes were switched or lost. They have mountains of the evidence that the courts refused to examine. And as we heard and saw in the Arizona rally, they are ready to name the names of the election workers and lock them up.

Trumpicans have signaled Democrats their Achilles’ heel. It is up to the Democrats to listen and respond intelligently.

THE ONLY WAY TO EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE WITH SOMEONE IS IN A LANGUAGE THE OTHER PERSON UNDERSTANDS.

Trumpicans have said they understand the language of the Big Steal on November 3. Call their bluff. Create a Put Up or Shut up Stop the Steal Committee chaired by Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz. Its mission should be to identify the people who should be prosecuted for stealing the election. To name names.

Who are the people who voted more than once? Name the names.

Who are the people who voted for dead people? Name the names.

Who are the illegal aliens who voted? Name the names.

Who are the people who voted in districts other than their own? Name the names.

Who are the election workers who counted Joe Biden votes more than once? Name the names.

Who are the election workers who did not count Donald Trump votes? Name the names.

Who are the people who programed the voting machines improperly? Name the names.

Everyone who thinks the election was stolen should send their evidence and names to Jordan, Greene, and Gaetz. Put up or shut up.

To all the candidates who said they would not have certified the election – send your proof to Jordan, Greene, and Gaetz. Put up or shut up.

To all the officials who said the election was stolen – send your proof to Jordan, Greene, and Gaetz. Put up or shut up.

To all the Trumpicans who know the election was stolen – send your proof to Jordan, Greene, and Gaetz. Put up or shut up.

As long as the Democrats continue to bring to a plastic spoon to gunfight, they should expect to lose. Instead create a Put Up or Shut Stop the Steal Committee to name the names of the people who should be prosecuted. It worked when the Hitman named the two people in Georgia and they sued him. It worked when Pillow Head name the voting machine companies and they sued them. It will work for Jordan, Greene, and Gaetz when they name the names as well.