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Josh Hawley

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.

If the Democrats Didn’t Control the House the 2020 Election Would Be Reversed

December 30, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Will Josh Hawley Succeed where Benedict Arnold and Robert E. Lee failed? (Samuel Corum / Getty Images)

These are times that try men’s souls. And women, too. We are watching in slow motion the United States of America being brought to the brink of ceasing to exist as a single country governed by the Constitution and becoming a divided country with two presidents … once again.

The first effort failed but at a tremendous cost. It took years of fighting, the death of hundreds of thousands, and untold destruction throughout the land to preserve the Union. Ultimately the effort failed to create a single country despite the veneer of having done so. There remain huge swaths of the country where Abraham Lincoln remains persona non grata. Tens of millions of Confederates still prefer Robert E. Lee to him. They now have a president who does as well. The Woke assault on Lincoln expands his rejection creating an even third “country” or division in America. I have repeatedly invoked the possibility that the United States as a single country we know today may not legally exist on July 4, 2026 when it otherwise would be celebrating its 250th birthday. Now we are moving even closer to that fate.

At this point, all that separates the United States from dissolving after January 6, 2021, is the Democratic control of the House. Imagine what would happen on January 6 if the Democrats were not in control of the House. Is there any doubt that if the Democrats did not control the House that the Trumpican House and Senate would vote to reverse the election results and hand the election to their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name? That is how close we are to becoming a country where regardless of how the people vote, the House and the Senate will determine the winner if one party has the majority in both. Our checks and balances would fail us save for the fact that Democrats did so well in 2018 they could barely hold on in 2020. A few more losses by the Democrats and the Presidential election results would be reversed.

Mitch McConnell’s advice to Trumpican Senators not to support the effort to reverse the election is not based on principle. He did not offer the advice out of his commitment to the democratic process or because no fraud occurred. He did so out of the practical reality that the Democratic-controlled House would not approve anything the Trumpican Senate passed. Therefore the vote was futile.

He also knew it was possible the Trumpicans would not have a Senate majority after the Georgia elections. He knew that Romney and perhaps a very small number of Republicans might oppose the coup attempt. His concern is for 2022, too: Trumpican Senators running for re-election in a Biden presidency will have the label traitor affixed to them. Trumpican Representatives don’t care. The way House districts are configured, these people have little to worry about in terms of backlash as 126 already demonstrated. The situation is different in statewide elections. Being a traitor will help Ron Johnson stave off a challenge or win the Wisconsin primary unopposed but will it help him win the election where the Democrats won in 2020? So the Trumpican Senator votes are for show and to prevent the wrath of the Sore Loser being unleashed upon them.

Consider the prospects for 2024. As repeatedly stated here in these blogs since 2016, there is no Republican Party as the party of Lincoln. It’s dead. Even the Lincoln Project knows there is no hope for taking the party back. They have become Independents or Democrats. If Chris Christie or Larry Hogan want to run as Republicans in 2024, they will have the same chance Bill Weld did in 2020. It’s the Trumpican Party.

Assuming for the moment that THE DONALD does not run in 2024 and only designates his daughter as the Vice Presidential candidate, who will be the Trumpican nominee?

Mike “sold his soul” Pence?
Mike “sold his soul” Pompeo?
Nikki “sold her soul’ Haley?
Ted “sold his soul” Cruz based on the presumption he has one?
Josh “sold his soul” Hawley?

How will Trumpican voters be able to differentiate among the candidates? They all will boast of having sold their soul. The real question is not how will the Trumpican voters decide among this cast of soul-sellers, but who THE DONALD will pick as his heir to run with his daughter. The issue for all the soul-sellers is not to get on the wrong list, the one where the disloyal people go if they fail to be loyal and support the coup. Pence and Pompeo already may be on that list. Pence still has a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of THE DONALD even if the Senate vote fails.

Neil Katyal likes to say that the Vice President on January 6 is like the envelop-opener at an awards ceremony. Yes, you are the Master of Ceremonies, but you have no authority to change the vote totals. You can’t simply say, “I want my favorite movie to win and who cares how the academy voted?” True enough but so what? The Vice President has and will take advantage of the opportunity to let the coup have maximum coverage. He will let Trumpicans throughout the land know that regardless of what the Supreme Court, dozens of judges, the Attorney General, and a host of others have said, the election really was stolen, THE DONALD really won in landslide and the only reason he is not being recognized as the duly elected winner is because Democrats control the House.

That will be the message on January 6th or 7th when the debate is over and the votes have been taken. Depending on how many well-armed Trumpicans have gathered in Washington, that is when all hell will break loose. As in 1861, many states will not recognize the results of the presidential election. In exactly what form they do that remains to be seen.

If the Democrats did not control the House, the election would be reversed, the coup would succeed, and the American experiment would come to an end.

Since Democrats do control the House, the election results will stand but many states as in 1861 will not recognize the authority of the illegitimately-elected President.

After that, all bets are off. Josh Hawley deserves the credit for letting his desire to be President of the United States of American in 2024 jeopardize whether or not there will be a United States of America in 2024 as there is today.