The REAL Scandal: Republicans Are Kompromized by the Kremlin

If the Republicans' efforts to dig up scandals on Joe Biden and his son Hunter - in an effort to weaken Biden's standing and cause embarrassment to cover for donald trump's real weaknesses and scandals (and upcoming criminal trials) - looked weak and ridiculous on their own, that's because the GOP's efforts to stir up scandal were weak and ridiculous.

And now, those Republican efforts have turned into a goddamned John Le Carre spy novel with the revelation that one of their key "witnesses" to Hunter Biden's business shenanigans was not only lying about his testimony but that he was passing along "evidence" fabricated by Russian Intelligence.

It's unsettling enough that the Special Counsel overseeing the investigation in Hunter Biden's potential criminal behavior had to pull a 180 on relying on this "witness" Alexander Smirnov and issue felony charges against him instead. And then, worrying that the Nevada magistrate who handled the bail release on Smirnov was giving Smirnov a chance to flee the country, they recharged Smirnov in a California court with more specific evidence - and that he was a flight risk - to ensure the guy stayed in custody.

How important was this "witness" to Republicans digging for Biden dirt? According to that AP News report from Lindsay Whitehurst, this important:

Smirnov’s claims have been central to the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.

They became a flashpoint in Congress in July as Republicans demanded the FBI release the unredacted form, a so-called FD-1023, documenting the unverified allegations. Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky had subpoenaed the form as Republicans deepened their probe ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Republicans acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if the allegations were true but said they were significant in their investigation of Hunter Biden.

The allegations of Russian contact with the source of those allegations should be a death knell for the impeachment inquiry, said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “It appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraudulent but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” he said.

Of course, the Republican leaders on this - Comer, Jim Jordan, the other clowns in that car - are running away from having Smirnov as their keystone to their entire impeachment effort, except for the fact they've been running away from every other tainted source they tried to rely on over the past year of sham hearings and "rumored" revelations.

What this twist exposes is not only their failure to find legitimate scandal against their true target Joe Biden (they honestly don't care if Hunter goes to jail or not), but exposes how corrupted and compromised the modern Republican Party leadership is towards a foreign power like Putin's Russia. The nominally conservative pundit at Washington Post Jennifer Rubin spells out the problem (this was via a gift link, don't know if it will paywall):

Are Republicans easy marks or willing participants in Russian anti-Biden operations? That’s a troubling question raised by the Feb. 14 grand jury indictment of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges of concocting a tale about President Biden’s supposed involvement in his family members’ business dealings.

Allegations by Smirnov — who appears to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the federal indictment — have formed the backbone of the House Republicans’ laughable attempt to build an impeachment case against the president. They championed him as their star witness. Now the Republicans’ fact-deficient storyline has been shredded...

Now Republicans are pretending that Smirnov wasn’t so important after all. They’re vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son’s business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son’s behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated...

The current House debacle overlaps with a Russian disinformation project described by the national security specialists Ryan Goodman and Asha Rangappa on the website Just Security in 2020. That scheme enticed Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to buy into the now-discredited scenario that as vice president Biden sought on behalf of his son to stop an investigation of Burisma. (It also added in another phony Ukraine election interference claim.)

And let’s not forget that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on Donald Trump’s behalf.

The current revelations concerning Smirnov should not merely spell the end of the comically inept impeachment proceedings; they should provoke questions about Republicans’ recklessness in peddling claims they apparently knew were unreliable.

At the very least, it is clear that House Republicans had reason to be skeptical of Smirnov’s allegations instead of embracing them. FBI briefers “warned lawmakers that the document, known as a 1023, containing Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens also included raw, uncorroborated intelligence that should not be made public,” CNN reported on Wednesday. Even if the Republicans did not know Smirnov might have ties to Russian intelligence, they certainly knew the basis for making wild allegations about Biden was extremely shaky...

Republicans’ affinity over multiple elections for Russian-backed plots should warrant wall-to-wall coverage. (Let us not forget Russian efforts detailed in the Mueller report to enlist the Trump campaign and sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) Responsible news outlets should press House Republicans to justify their refusal to vote for aid for Ukraine and habit of spreading Russian conspiracy theories.

In short, Trump (enabled by House Republicans) wants Ukraine aid blocked and invites Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries with military budgets Trump deems insufficient. He already has served as an indispensable helpmate in Putin’s assault on democracy and the international order. No wonder Russia appears yet again ready to pull out all the stops to boost Trump.

Rubin refers back to a particular matter that obsessed me during the trump years: The Mueller Report. It annoys me to no end that when then-Attorney General Barr - appointed by trump to shut down the Mueller investigation before it closed in on trump himself - ended that grand jury probe, he promoted - and the mainstream media bought into - the lie that the Report "exonerated trump" and that was the end of that. What everyone seemed to ignore were the factual elements Mueller's team found - the first half of his legal objectives - rampant and provable evidence that Russian Intelligence and their oligarch allies actively engaged in election interference in 2016. What Mueller couldn't prove was trump's direct involvement with those efforts (instead Mueller found at least five instances of Obstruction, which he couldn't criminally charge due to Presidential Immunity but tried to get House Democrats to attempt impeachment, which they failed to pursue).

I remain shocked and angered to this day that Congress both Democrats and Republicans failed to heed Mueller's - and the rest of the U.S. Intelligence agencies - warnings that Russia - above all the other foreign powers looking to interfere like China and Iran - will continue to attack America's electoral systems to force the results - like stealing the presidency AGAIN for trump - that benefits Russia instead of the U.S. and our long-standing European / Middle Eastern / Asian allies. There's been almost no legislation - no priority put to making our elections more secure nor passing legal sanctions and punishments on Russia for their crimes. We're talking about acts of war getting committed on us - our rights as Americans - and nothing, no response.

Worse: We have had solid evidence for almost a decade that Russia was, is, and will do anything they can to disrupt and divide the United States. And it's getting clearer that the Republican Party as a group are happy to help them.

I mentioned before how the Republican mindset - drawing from their deep conservative ideology - their One Truth is that they view only themselves as True Americans. To do so, everyone else - aka Democrats and those who do not fit in the Republican Culture War like women, Blacks, Latinos, gays and trans, and more - dare not and cannot be considered "American" even though geographically, demographically, philosophically, we are as American as they.

Their problem is that those conservative Republicans are not in the actual majority of Americans... and they know it. They've been sliding out of contention with the majority of voters since 2008, they'd been warned after the 2012 election cycle, and yet instead of moderating themselves to retain broad appeal the conservatives doubled down on Culture War extremism and RINO purging to keep party unity, tied into aggressive state-level and federal-level gerrymandering and voter suppression to skew elections to their favor.

Thing is, that Game of Demographics can only work for so long, as the Republican extremism on issues like abortion (and related issues like birth control and IVF) and tax cuts for the rich peel away the edges of their GOP voting base to where they can't "win" even with all the gerrymandering and suppression.

So the Republicans are desperate to get any help from anywhere they can. Even if that help is coming from a foreign power like Russia where their leader Putin and his cronies are openly threatening our allies and our own nation's safety/stability. Even when that help falls under open acts of sedition that rely on corrupted persons like Smirnov. 

Similar to how trump's 2016 campaign met with and tried to coordinate with Russian nationals over getting dirt on Hillary Clinton - in possible violation of 52 US Code sect. 30121 - the current House Republican leadership and their allies from trump's Justice Department (looking at you Bill Barr) have come dangerously close to breaking that law getting tampered/manufactured Russian intel just to pursue false claims against Biden. Not to mention more obviously legal problems like suborning perjury and presenting false evidence.

The GOP leaders did all this because they truly believe 1) they're above the law, 2) they're the Real Americans fighting against un-American Democratic "criminals," 3) the Russians are not the bad guys. That last part is important because the modern Republicans driven by their Culture War bullshit truly see Putin - with his open homophobia, his disdain for "librul" Western norms, and "traditionalist" worldview (not to mention his sadism towards his lessers) - as a serious ally in that Culture War.

I wasn't there to see it, but I read the history books about the Red Scare, the McCarthyism of the 1950s where conservative Republicans openly hunted liberals and left-leaning Americans as Communist threats buddying up to Stalinist Soviet Russia. "Pinko down to their underwear" was the accusations, and anybody who ever expressed solidarity with Soviet Russia were hounded until they were broken or dead. Today, we now see those inheritors of the conservative Republicans happily and publicly embracing a Russian regime that may no longer be Communist but is just as corrupt and tyrannical as anything Stalin ever led.

The irony of such betrayal is lost on these modern Republicans, too greedy and too desperate to stay in power to see how they've sold their own ideals and their own nation out to a Russian dictator.

This scandal ought to convince every American voter who truly wants what is best for our nation - for our families, for our communities, for our future - to stop voting for a Republican Party corrupted and compromised beyond redemption. 

Elections matter, people. There's a reason why Putin wants to corrupt ours this 2024 just like he tried in 2020 and succeeded in back in 2016. Get the vote out, America. For the LOVE OF COUNTRY  everybody, do NOT vote (R)epublican (R)ussia.

The Conspiracy Proved, trumpian Rot Exposed. Keep Going, Justice Department

Didn't plan on blogging much this week, but this news dropped about the ongoing trials for the trumpian insurrectionists who rioted on January 6 2021, especially one of the big fish to get caught (via Carrie Johnson at NPR): 

Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right Proud Boys group have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a federal jury in Washington, D.C.

Jurors also convicted Tarrio and the others of obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging their duties, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and destruction of government property with value of over $1,000 in one of the most important cases to date stemming from the siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021...

The convictions amount to a significant victory for the Justice Department, which has now secured them against top leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for their roles in the attempt to keep former President Trump in power and stop certification of the 2020 election...

The sprawling case included 500,000 chat messages, video clips, podcasts and even a police riot shield. FBI special agents, police on the front lines on January 6, and former members of the Proud Boys who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors made up the bulk of the Justice Department witness list...

As the then-leader of one of the more militant extremist groups in open support of donald trump's reign of terror, Tarrio is a big piece of the overall puzzle that makes up trump's efforts to overturn the legitimate election results of 2020.

trump regularly associated himself, through speech and through public appearances at his non-stop rallies, to the Proud Boys and a number of videos/photos show Tarrio in close proximity to trump at several of those events. Tarrio himself emphasized his ties to trump to bolster membership and stoke his followers into acts of protests, and as proved in today's jury decisions incited them to riot on trump's behalf.

There hasn't been a lot of evidence - at least not shown at this trial or any of the other Proud Boy and Oath Keeper trials that also found Guilty verdicts to most of the insurrectionists - of any direct ties between Tarrio and trump when it came to the planning and execution of the January 6th riot.

But there's a shit-ton of evidence linking Tarrio and his Proud Boys to Roger Stone. There's a shit-ton of evidence - some of it from Stone's own documentarians - that Stone was heavily involved in the planning and arguably evidence of him managing it from his war room that day.

And Stone is practically tied to trump by the hip.

With Tarrio's case proved - that Seditious Conspiracy on January 6th did take place - there's standing here to follow through on the conspiracy angle and go after everyone linked to Tarrio that day.

Tarrio gets you Roger Stone.

Roger Stone gets you trump.

Let justice be done.

Do Call It Sedition, What trump's Rioters Did (w/ Update)

In the ongoing legal drama that has been the aftermath of the January 6th Insurrection to interfere with Congress' duties to confirm the 2020 Electoral College results: A major courtroom matter involving the most serious charges yet - direct allegations of seditious conspiracy - got resolved today, with guilty verdicts for one of the major trumpian supporters. More via Ryan Lucas and Carrie Johnson at NPR: 

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, has been found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other offenses in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., also convicted Rhodes of obstructing an official proceeding and tampering with documents. He was acquitted of two other conspiracy counts.

Rhodes did not enter the Capitol during the riot, but instead stood outside like a "battlefield general" surveying his troops, prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler said.

All five defendants on trial in this case were charged with seditious conspiracy but only one in addition to Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, was found guilty. The three other defendants — Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell — were acquitted on that central charge...

The jury did seem to consider the weight of applying sedition to all five standing trial: They determined those three were not as involved as Rhodes or Meggs. Still, they were found guilty on other charges related to the insurrection:

But all of the defendants were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding as well as a mix of other charges.

Jurors returned their verdict after nearly three full days of deliberations...

The prosecution of the Oath Keepers leader and his co-defendants is the most consequential Jan. 6 case yet to have gone to trial.

Prosecutors accused the five of plotting to prevent, by any means necessary including force, the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.

Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers were the first Jan. 6 defendants to go to trial on seditious conspiracy charges. Two more seditious conspiracy trials — one involving more Oath Keepers and the other a group of Proud Boys — are set to start in the coming weeks...

The earliest trials of those arrested for their attack on the nation's Capitol to disrupt the Electoral College vote had focused on lesser charges, focusing mostly on assault and trespass and such. Those cases - either leading to guilty convictions or guilty plea deals - all built up to the evidence needed to convict Rhodes and Meggs on charges of seditious conspiracy, which is a very serious matter because - at least as I understand it - this opens up the door to pursue conspiracy charges with the insurrection's coordinators - hi Roger Stone and Steve Bannon! - who were tied to Rhodes' Oath Keepers and other groups involved in the violence.

The thing about a conspiracy: If you can prove one end of the partnership guilty of it, you ought to be able to convict the other partners of that conspiracy as well.

Every link between Stone, Bannon, and anybody else - especially any Congresscritters who aided in planning and staging the riots - to the Oath Keepers should now be under full legal scrutiny, and for there to be ANY justice at all in this matter those partners in sedition deserve getting charged for their crimes as well.

This was a good day for America (also because the U.S. Men's Soccer team beat Iran 1-0 and advanced in the World Cup. That's right. Americans are finally good at soccer!) but this day needs a follow through.

This sedition didn't start with Rhodes or his Oath Keepers or Roger Stone or Steve Bannon. It started with donald trump refusing to admit he lost, and demanding violence to keep himself him power. All conspiracy links point to him. trump needs to see his day in court for this sedition as well.

Still waiting on trump to get arrested. Let justice be done.

Update 11/30/22: David A Graham at the Atlantic does a good job spelling out the importance of nailing Rhodes with sedition:

Sedition (or seditious conspiracy, as federal law defines the crime) is likely unfamiliar to many people, and for good reason: It’s extremely rare. The charge involves “conspir[ing] to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States … or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States...”

Tellingly, the federal law against seditious conspiracy dates to the Civil War; on January 6 of last year, rioters carried the Confederate battle flag in the halls of the Capitol, a desecration that never happened during the war. But actual cases are few and far between, in part because instances of seditious behavior that actually amount to anything—much less a ransacking of the Capitol—are rare. The last time the government successfully prosecuted someone under the charge was in a mid-1990s case against the radical Muslim cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman and some followers for a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. In 2010, the Justice Department charged members of a bizarre far-right militia called the Hutaree with seditious conspiracy, but they were acquitted two years later.

These rare successes made some observers wonder whether DOJ had erred in bringing the charge against the Oath Keepers, either because it might be too hard to prove or because it might open the door up to dubious future prosecutions. But the convictions offer some vindication for the decision. Not only did the prosecutors succeed in convicting Rhodes and company, but by convicting him of this particular charge, they put the lie to the idea that what happened on January 6 was simply a few overzealous people who got a little excited but posed no threat to the peaceful transfer of power. It also shows why the riot at the Capitol was not equivalent to violence that broke out in cities in summer 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, which was lawless but not part of any conspiracy against the federal government...

What happened on January 6 2021 was a concerted, planned attack to disrupt a constitutional confirmation of a legal Presidential election. It wasn't a protest, it wasn't a groundswell of outrage by the majority of Americans. It was a very small, very violent minority of trumpian worshippers riled up by lies, fearmongering, and rage to seize power they feared was no longer theirs.

The Justice Department has successfully proven there was a conspiracy behind it all. Now they need to go after the ones who planned it and especially go after the one who demanded the attack. Still waiting on trump to get arrested.

Quick Followup On 1/6: Accountability and Arrests

 It's getting up to two months now, and the criminal charges stemming from trump's 1/6 Insurrection are picking up momentum (via Dina Temple-Raston at NPR):

The Justice Department charged six more people Friday it says are members of a right-wing militia group that plotted in advance of Jan. 6 to attack the U.S. Capitol.

The indictment offers the most sweeping evidence so far that members of the far-right extremist group known as the Oath Keepers had spent months allegedly planning to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's victory in a bid to keep former President Donald Trump in power.

The federal charges say 52-year-old Kelly Meggs, the self-described leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, and his wife Connie, joined four other alleged militia members to breach the Capitol...

Last month, the Justice Department charged three members of the Oath Keepers with conspiring to undermine President Biden's win. Officials said that Thomas Edward Caldwell, Jessica Marie Watkins, and Donovan Ray Crowl had allegedly set up training for urban warfare and riot control in preparation for the Jan. 6 siege shortly after then-President-elect Joe Biden's election victory and had allegedly briefly discussed bringing weapons into Washington, D.C., by boat...

It's not just the Oath Keepers facing criminal scrutiny for their sedition: trump's favorite crowd The Proud Boys are also facing serious jail time. So far, there's been about 250 or so arrested and charged with their involvement in the violent attempt to disrupt Congress' role in confirming Biden's electoral victory.

And yet, this isn't anywhere near the number of people who rioted that day. There are thousands more out there yet to answer for their actions that day, especially the ones involved in the possible murder of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick. 

There's still a serious need by federal, state, and even DC investigators to pursue possible criminal charges against trump for his incitement to riot that day.

And all of this on top of the reality that a strong plurality - if not a majority - of Republicans still think violence rioting to promote trump's "stolen election" lies is the way to move forward against their fellow Americans. it doesn't help that these conspiracy-addled wingnuts have bought into ANOTHER scheme that somehow March 4th is the "Official" Inauguration and that every President since U.S. Grant was illegitimate, therefore trump can be sworn back in as the legitimate one next month (never mind that theory would negate trump's one-term administration in the first place). 

The madness won't end until the Republican Party and their Far Right nihilist fanbase go away. /headdesk

The Second Impeachment of trump Began Today

...and I'm too busy at work during the day to watch it, and already utterly convinced that trump should be removed and blocked from running for future office, and also utterly convinced the godless and cowardly Republican Senate bloc will look the other way and let trump walk.

If the nine blog readers want to follow along, Balloon Juice already set aside some Impeachment threads you can follow on their site, for legal input I think Emptywheel's site might be helpful, and Digby is good to follow as well.

As far as I can tell, trump's main legal counsel Bruce Castor's opening arguments were so twisted they couldn't even count as a Chewbacca defense. It was so bad it cost the Republicans one of their Senators today (via Burgess Everett, Andrew DeSiderio, and Marianne Levine at Politico): 

“The House managers were focused. They were organized. They relied upon both precedent, the Constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump’s team were disorganized. They did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). “And when they talked about it, they kind of glided over, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments.”

Cassidy even voted with 55 other senators that the trial should go forward and was not unconstitutional, changing his position from last month. “If I’m an impartial juror and one side is doing a great job and the other job is doing a terrible job on the issue at hand? As an impartial juror, I’m going to vote for the side that did the good job.”

Cassidy’s shift was the most electric moment of the day and highlighted what could only be seen as an incoherent defense by Castor. The Trump lawyer singled out senators who are mulling conviction and conceded he had changed his entire presentation after three of the House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), made their opening arguments.

“I thought the first attorney for the president today did not present a case, which surprised me. Did not make any arguments,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who also voted to uphold the constitutionality of the trial. “The second attorney representing the president clearly did, and did a competent job. I’m puzzled by the presentation of the first attorney...”

trump's not working anymore with his "Best and Brightest" (cough Rudy cough) which wasn't all that great to begin with.

And the horrifying thing is that all this kabuki theater will still end with a "hung jury" of not enough Republican Senators choosing the Constitution and Rule of Law over their own unhinged, violent voting base.

Wake me when 17 Senate Republicans openly agree with the Democratic caucus that what trump did on January 6th was Incitement to Insurrection and riot. Until then, the only things we should be counting on are the state and federal criminal charges trump and his crooked circle of power still face.

One Month Later: An Insurrection Is Still An Insurrection No Matter How Much the Far Right Whines About What They Did

Remember, on January 6 donald trump summoned a mob of his supporters outside of the Capitol building to stir up anger towards the official counting of state Electors. 

Once he finished his speech and got out of the way, his mob stormed onto what was supposed to be one of the most secure buildings on the planet and proceeded to attack Capitol police and Congressional staffers, raiding the Senate and House floors, stealing laptops and papers and podiums.

Some of trump's rioters killed officer Brian Sicknick, and for some godforsaken reason nobody has been arrested for that murder yet. Two other officers committed suicide from the emotional aftermath. Several rioters died in the chaos, while one woman was shot by a police officer when she charged at him inside the building.

Enough people have died to make this a historic tragedy, multiplied an infinite fold due to the constitutional implications if trump's mob had succeeded in forcing Congress to violate existing election laws and legal requirements of the Electoral College.

Remember, the rioters weren't there to speak their mind: trump's mob was there to commit acts of violence. Gods, someone had enough planning to bring a damned gallows:

Photo taken by Andrew Callabero-Reynolds, via Getty Images

A number of witnesses report that the rioters were openly talking about finding Vice President Pence - trump's own Veep - and dragging him out to compel him to toss out the Electoral votes so trump could steal the win. If a Democratic Representative or Senator had been caught by the mob, there was every likelihood that person would be beaten or killed.

Everything that happened on trump's orders, on trump's organization, on his planning with cronies and allies, fits the very definition of insurrection. trump compelled his most fervent followers into acts of violence against the established government (It matters not that trump at the time was President Loser of the Popular Vote, he encouraged insurrection against Congress).

trump's rioters fit the definition of seditionist conspirators.

And remember this: As law and history calls on other elected Republicans to stand up against what trump and his rioters did, many of those Republicans are ignoring it, looking the other way, pretending none of it happened, blaming everyone else, and even censuring their own members who have enough courage to call trump's criminal acts for what they are. When goddamned Liz Cheney is the goddamned voice of reason - with what her family represents - the rot in the Republican Party sinks deeper than the goddamned Marianas Trench.

There may be an impeachment vote to remove trump - not from the Presidency, since he's no longer in office, but to block trump from running any future elective campaign - but everyone on the planet knows the plurality of GOP Senators don't have the balls to do the right thing and hold trump accountable on the Charge of Incitement of Insurrection.

The madness of the Far Right is not calming down, not reverting to moderation in any way. The Republican Party is long dead, has been for years, gone to hell thanks to letting the Social Conservatives, the Greedheads, and the Racists to rule over them all.

Remember this: The Republicans as a group still answer to trump, weeks after he's been punted out of the White House, and they are showing no signs of bipartisanship and comity that our nation needs to rebuild from these dark times.

The Republicans would rather whine, proclaim themselves the "true" victims, and continue on selling their hate and denial.

Gods help us.

Down In the History Books

Nixon: Dare I ask, will I be remembered?

Eleventh Doctor: Oh, Dicky. Trick Dicky. They're never going to forget you.

-- "Day of the Moon"

Never happened to John Tyler, although Congress tried. Never happened to James Buchanan, although it almost came up in committee. Never happened to U.S. Grant. Never happened to Warren Harding, but shoulda.

It happened once to Andrew Johnson, who barely survived by one vote. It happened once to Bill Clinton, but the charges were so farcical he was never at any risk.

It almost happened to Richard Nixon, who was the most likely candidate to have actually lost the matter and would have been the first President removed via Impeachment, except that he resigned before a full vote in the House could send the matter to the Senate.

Most of those names are for men who went down in U.S. History - save for Clinton, who's generally packed in the middle of passable Presidents - as the Worst Presidents our nation have ever seen.

They are joined by one more, a man more divisive than inspiring, a man more con artist than competent, a man who was already making the Worst Of list during his own tenure by historians who didn't want to wait the customary 20 years before passing judgment.

Except that donald trump has now set a standard no other Worst President ever reached:

Getting impeached twice in a single term of office. 

To David A. Graham at The Atlantic (paywalled):

This afternoon, Donald Trump, the third president in American history to be impeached, became the first to be impeached twice. The House of Representatives voted 232–197 to impeach Trump for inciting the attempted coup on January 6 and for trying to overturn Joe Biden’s election as president. The matter now goes to the Senate, where a trial is unlikely before Biden’s January 20 inauguration. No president has ever been convicted and removed.

It takes effort to get impeached, and it must be doubly so to be double-impeached. And to think, trump's been the laziest least-working President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice! Oh hey, it's a trend) since Coolidge (and at least Coolidge had an excuse). Back to Graham:

No matter what happens now, Trump will leave the presidency by January 20. But the circumstances of his departure and his future in politics are up in the air, because we don’t yet know what will happen in the Senate. It is not clear where Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stands, nor how he might manage his caucus. It is not clear if GOP senators will break with Trump. It is not clear when a Senate trial will begin. It’s not clear who will defend Trump in a Senate trial or how the trial will run...

Yesterday evening, The New York Times reported that McConnell “has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats’ move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party.” Other outlets matched that reporting; Axios says McConnell is in fact leaning toward conviction. (His wife, former Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, resigned from the administration after the attempted coup.) In a letter to colleagues today, however, McConnell said he had not made a decision about how to vote.

Parsing these reports is difficult. Such stories don’t get out without McConnell and people around him wanting them out, for whatever reason. The powerful Republican leader is sending a message, but it isn’t clear what he’s signaling, or to whom. McConnell’s support for conviction would be essential to any effort to convict. While the past month has already shown the cracks in his normally rock-solid control, the 17 Republicans needed to convict will not break ranks without his go-ahead, but his support might encourage senators who have long disliked or even loathed Trump privately to turn on him publicly...

It is unlikely the Republican-led Senate - which will flip soon when the Democratic winners from Georgia take their seats - will risk party division by getting the two-thirds needed to convict and remove trump. Even if the Democrats hold a legitimate Senate trial if the process is delayed long enough for them to hold it, they'll need 17 Republican Senators to risk the wrath of trump's voting base.

However, the Republicans themselves are at a crisis point: The two major factions - divided between the Old School pro-business tax-cut deregulation types who don't want to break the nation, and the New Blood Anti-Government Rapture-seeking nihilists who want to watch the world burn - know that whatever happens to trump decides the near- AND long-term future of their own party.

The Senators are going to have to gamble on the possibility that if they impeach trump, they break his hold on the political reins of the Far Right fanbase, who might move on to the next demagogue who can promise them cruelty and pain upon their enemies that trump can no longer offer. But they risk the possibility that the rabid Far Righters are already too far gone, that they will still follow up on their attack of the Capitol and on Congress to continue their Anti-Government Crusade and unleash more violence across their homes as well as the liberals'.

The thing is: The Democrats tonight are more organized and outraged by trump's acts of sedition and lawlessness than the Republicans are trying to defend themselves or defend trump. The Republicans are finding a little too late they cannot defend both.

One week to go, before Biden gets sworn in.

One week to go, to see the Worst President Loser of the Popular Vote trump go down not only in the history books, but going down to the local precinct to get booked for his crimes against the United States.

Some Lovely Parting Gifts For trump's Train Wreck

If trump wanted to make the history books, he's definitely earned this distinction of being the ONLY President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) to get impeached TWICE in his one term of office. Let's take it to Andrew Prokop at Vox:

House Democrats claim to have already locked down nearly unanimous support for impeachment within their caucus, and if that’s true, that will make Trump the first president to be impeached on two separate occasions. House leaders are planning for a vote on Wednesday, January 13.

Trump has, of course, been here before. The House of Representatives impeached him for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019, because of his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s government into investigating then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. But the Senate acquitted Trump on both counts in February 2020, falling well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to convict him and remove him from office. The verdict votes split almost entirely along party lines, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) being the sole Republican to vote to convict Trump on one count.

A major difference this time around, though, is that impeachment proceedings are happening mere days before Trump’s term in office expires. Though some Democrats have argued that Trump’s immediate removal is a necessity, it’s obviously less of one if he’s going to be gone in a week anyway. It’s also unclear if the Senate would hold a trial before Biden’s inauguration...

Yes, this all seems a bit "too little too late." trump is out the door anyway in a week, and it does not look like trump is able (or willing) to cause more damage - other than motivate his followers into another round of seditious rioting - before his time is up.

However, the principle of the thing matters. The reason for Impeachment - again - is to make this stick out to future generations that trump's actions must be held accountable no matter what. Back to Prokop:

If it goes forward, the main question would shift from whether Trump should be removed from office to whether he should be banned from holding future federal office, effectively blocking him from running for president again in 2024. But whenever a Senate trial might happen, getting two-thirds support in the Senate for conviction — which would require at least 17 Republican senators — remains a tall order...

The impeachment is a response to the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters that took place last Wednesday.

Specifically, a resolution authored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and other key members of Congress would impeach Trump on one count: incitement of insurrection.

The article of impeachment alleges that Trump incited violence against the government of the United States. It recounts how, as members of Congress gathered to count the electoral votes that would make Biden’s victory official, Trump spoke to a large crowd, made false claims that he was the true winner, and urged them to “fight like hell.”

“Thus incited by President Trump,” the article continues, “members of the crowd he had addressed... unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts...”

We all saw what happened that day. Violence within the halls of Congress itself, something that both Democrat and Republican had to have seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, feared with their own lives at risk.

A number of Republicans are still out there, trying to shill to the public the same outrageous claims of mass voter fraud (that they can't prove) and the same excuses that the rioting was done by "Antifa" (even as too many of the rioters were proudly MAGA up to the moment the FBI and local police across the nation showed up at their doors to arrest them for the riots).

But a number of Congressional Republicans are refusing to play by trump's Narrative anymore. Liz Cheney of all people - her father Dick was a notoriously pro-authoritarian figure of his own - has gone public against trump and pledging her vote for the impeachment charge. Others are signaling they will follow suit. It arguably won't include the 140-odd Republicans who already doubled down on trump's plotting to overthrow a clean election, but this is a big sign that trump is not leaving on good terms with party leaders he'll need to deal with if he even thinks about returning in 2024.

trump's fate is now tied not to the past or the present, of what he can deliver to the Republican Party anymore. trump's fate is now tied to a future - of impending fraud lawsuits in New York, of criminal investigations involving his electoral interference and insurrection in Washington - that displays no mercy for him.

It'd be nice to say "Good Riddance" to the dumpster fire that has been the donald trump Era.

It's just there's still only one week left to go.

trump Twitter in Twilight

Things have been hectic since Wednesday, when our government almost fell to a seditious riot by trumpian Brownshirts, but one major development since then has been Twitter - the social media app trump used the most to stir up rage and madness the last five years - finally banning trump for his ongoing hate-filled rhetoric. 

They first suspended his account for 12 hours because of a Tweet he posted post-riot that called for more "protests" (hint hint, more violence), with the promise he could get back online once he removed the offending Tweet. So he deleted it, and he got back on...

And pretty much posted a more rage-filled Tweet that proved he didn't learn his lesson to behave by Twitter User Agreement policy.

After all that drama, Twitter suspended his account permanently (they may recover it later, after January 20, because of national archival reasons) and then had to give a public statement to why they had to do this:

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence. 

In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. 

However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement...

I've gotten in a few debates about Free Speech before, regarding how Hate Speech was - and still is - a serious violation of what Free Speech stands for. We have to remember the First Amendment is NOT an absolute right. For example, shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater to cause a panic will get you arrested. Threating to kill someone will get you arrested for harassment/verbal assault. Standing before a mob encouraging them to go storming into a government building to disrupt an election count should get you arrested for incitement to riot.

This is all trump's public speeches have been, ever since he rolled down that escalator in 2015 and launched his campaign on a diatribe against Mexicans and the Chinese. trump has been crossing the line of decency on social media for years, throughout every call to Twitter's ownership and internal security that trump was violating their code nearly every day.

It had to take an actual coup attempt with people wounded and killed in the Capitol building for Twitter (and Facebook) to realize they couldn't pander to trump's hate anymore.

What is happening now with shutting down trump's main pipeline to his rabid fanbase are arguments from trump's still-pandering Republican allies whining about how Twitter's shutdown is a threat to Free Speech. No, it is not.

This is about Hate Speech. This is about speech designed to enrage others and drive them to madness and violence. We've watched that Hate Speech roll out and infest our national psyche. We've just seen the results of all that Hate: Our nation's Capitol raided and vandalized, rioters and now a police officer dead from the violence, our global prestige degraded by trump's words (and the deeds he's driven others to commit in his "honor").

Words have power. It's one of the few things trump - the eternal lying bullshitter, the constantly grifting con artist - understands all too well. It's a power he's used to drive this nation apart.

And while trump's been cut off from his Twitter feed, he will find a way to keep lashing out at the fate that awaits him on January 20, 2021.

Gods help us, how far into madness and the void trump's Hate will drive us.

trump's Desperation to Make a Crooked Deal

I was going to blog about sedition, but then THIS shit dropped (via AP Newswire from Jeff Amy, Darlene Superville, and Kate Brumback):

President Donald Trump badgered and pleaded with Georgia’s election chief to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state, suggesting in a telephone call that the official “find” enough votes to hand Trump the victory.

The conversation Saturday was the latest step in an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to pressure a state official to reverse the outcome of a free and fair election that he lost. The renewed intervention and the persistent and unfounded claims of fraud by the first president to lose reelection in almost 30 years come nearly two weeks before Trump leaves office and two days before twin runoffs in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate.

If you do listen to the audio of the conversation - which will be hard if you can't handle listening to trump's whining nasal voice - you'll notice how this self-proclaimed "Master" of "the Deal" is incapable of selling his pitch or convincing his mark to buy into his bull.

 Audio snippets of the conversation were posted online by The Washington Post. A recording of the call was later obtained by The Associated Press from a person who was on the call.

The president, who has refused to accept his loss to the Democratic president-elect, is heard telling Raffensperger at one point: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

Georgia’s certified election results show Biden won the state’s Nov. 3 election by 11,779 votes...

Biden senior adviser Bob Bauer said the recording was “irrefutable proof” of Trump pressuring and threatening an official in his own party to “rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”

“It captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy,” Bauer said.

At another point in the conversation, Trump appeared to threaten Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s legal counsel, by suggesting both could be criminally liable if they failed to find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County had been illegally destroyed. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim...

This is where trump The Bully shows up, where the con artist tries to flip the pressure on everybody else in order to weasel his way out of trouble. It's telling that trump is accusing others of "crimes" that never happened in order to get them to commit crimes for himself.

There was no widespread fraud in the election, which a range of election officials across the country, as well as Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, have also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices.

Perhaps what trump is committing right now is seditious. trump, his lawyers, his political allies in Congress, all of them may be committing sedition right now. It depends on if I'm reading the U.S. Code properly:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

trump and his cronies are attempting by bullying and threats "to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution" of electoral laws of the United States. In some respects, trump is opposing the authority of the rest of the government that's trying to uphold a legitimately run election as part of our nation's ability to manage itself. And that's just at the federal level: What trump is trying to do in Georgia and other states is to violate their state laws establishing how their elections are held.

trump is so unable to accept a loss he will burn the whole nation down if he could. The terrifying thing is the number of fellow Republicans willing to hand him the torches to do so.

January 6 is coming up, it's the official day that both houses of Congress have to certify the Electoral College results. There's already been a lot of storm and fury about what Pence could do in the formal role of Senate President. It's a moment where the nation can very well hit a brick wall one way or another.

Where I grew up, January 6 is also a great religious holiday, a day of Epiphany and the blessing of the waters.

I can only pray that our national Epiphany is that trump lost and that our nation not need to tear itself apart in violence defending his crooked efforts to deny that loss.

Gods help us.