Things You Think You Know

I was sure, once Richard Nixon was gone, that Republicans had done their worst and we would never again, at least in my lifetime, ever do as badly as that man in the White House again.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

GOP Senator Mitch McConnell on Then-President Donald Trump and His Guilt

From Republican Party Senator Mitch McConnell's own words and mouth yesterday after Trump's acquittal on his impeachment trial and charges. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very full and complete indictment of then-sitting Republican Party President Donald J Trump on a treasonous, traitorous insurrection and attack on our vote, our votes, our election and nation's Capitol right down to our very Democracy itself.

" January 6th was a disgrace.

American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.

They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election.

The House accused the former president of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law.

Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6th.

It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat’.

It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president.

I defended the president’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

This was different.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.

Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president.

Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

In recent weeks, our ex-president’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.

That is an absurd deflection.

74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

One person did...

From the article:

Transcript: Mitch McConnell’s Trump impeachment speech

Post-Dispatch Spanks Senators Blunt and Hawley

Yes sir and ma'am, I can't anything but love, love, love the editorial from Missouri's own St. Louis Post-Dispatch virtually spanking our Senators Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley for not finding now former President Donald Trump guilty of insurrection.

Hawley and Blunt deepen Missouri's embarrassment by refusing to see Trump's guilt

A bit from the article--

The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump should be an opportunity for Missouri Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley to redeem themselves for blindly supporting a man whose conduct was indefensible. Instead, they continue bringing additional embarrassment to the state after having flirted with the abolition of democracy in favor of keeping a dictator wannabe in the White House.

Hawley, of course, is the Senate’s biggest cheerleader when it comes to asserting that Trump won the Nov. 3 election and that Trump shouldn’t be held accountable for directing a mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6. Blunt had the gall to tell reporters that, until a 13-minute video of the Capitol attack was shown to senators on Tuesday, he had never taken so much time to watch what occurred on that “truly a horrendous day.” Both voted against allowing the trial to proceed.

Missourians must not allow themselves to be fooled by the weak boilerplate defenses by Hawley and Blunt. Hawley tweeted on Tuesday: “Today Democrats launched their unconstitutional impeachment trial while President Biden cancels thousands of working class jobs across this country. Americans deserve better.” In fact, a bipartisan majority of senators have deemed the proceeding to be constitutional. And the attempt to divert attention to Biden, who has not canceled a single job, is pathetic but oh-so-typical of Hawley.

I can't recommend the complete article enough.

Meanwhile, the Post0Dispatch doesn't stop there, either. They have yet more excellent, even powerful editorials on the Right Wing.

Editorial: Fox could finally face the (very expensive) music for its disinformation

Editorial: Unemployment beneficiaries get a heartless wake-up call from Parson

Editorial: Missourians should heed Danforth's warning. FrankenHawley is on the loose.

Seems clear the Republicans just can't seem to do us, the American people or even themselves, any favors.

Additional coverage:

Missouri newspaper hammers Hawley and Blunt

The Republican Party Now

Let's be clear on this. With today's actions, this is the truth, the facts.

The Republican Party, now, today, with this acquittal of Donald Trump, is now the political party of sedition.

#Travestyofjustice 

Impeachment Trial Blows Up--In a Good to Great Way

Great news, Mr. and Mrs. America!

News last night broke that none other than Republican Party Representative Kevin McCarthey, it was reported last night, phoned then-President Donald Trump to ask him, tell him to call off the attack on the Capitol. Not did he call him and ask/tell him to call off the attack, but they actually got into what ended up being a cursing, shouting match over it all. Out of that broke this--

GOP Rep. Herrera Beutler urges 'patriots' to talk about Trump call

Some of the article:

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler said Friday that she was told former President Trump initially sided with supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, with the Washington Republican urging "patriots" to come forward and share what they know about a key Trump call.

Herrera Beutler, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted for impeachment last month, issued a statement Friday night confirming key details of a CNN report that said Trump had told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Jan. 6 that rioters at the Capitol were "more upset about the election" than McCarthy was.

"When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol," Herrera Beutler said in her statement.

This wouldn't be terribly important but for the fact that it shows, in the most raw terms, that a) then-President Trump was aware, very aware of the attack on the Capitol and its effects, and that b) he squarely, firmly, blatantly decided he would do no such thing and not call off the attack.

If this, ladies and gentlemen, along with all the other evidence going back at least months, doesn't, in fact, prove Donald Trump's guilt in this treasonous, traitorous attack on our nation's Capitol, what does?

Consequently, that all lead to this.

Senate Votes To Call Witnesses In Trump's Impeachment 

At this point, the trial is on recess until 12:30 pm Eastern time.

They are trying now to decide if they will hear from witnesses--one or two or more--on this that was thought to be the last day of the impeachment trial.

Think happy thoughts, campers. 

It's very much going our way, the people's way.

Thank God and thank goodness.

More goodness:

Trump lawyer irked after senators laugh at him

'Convict Trump' banner flies over Mar-a-Lago

New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters 

Trump World stunned by move to call witnesses

Why We Need to Impeach

This, this is why we need to impeach Donald J Trump.

And the next guy that tries this may well be less reckless, ignorant and clumsy and more shrewd and conniving and clever than Mr. Trump.

The Dangerous Place We Stand Now

Between Donald Trump, his traitorous, treasonous insurrection and now his political party's work and efforts to stand for their own political party instead of for truth and the people and our Democracy and against the attack on our nation's Capitol, it's nearly frightening where we stand now. Examples.

Senate Republicans are working hard on excuses to acquit Trump despite the powerful case against him

This one scares me most, frankly.
Republican state parties stand ready to rip any GOP senator who betrays Trump
“Trump left everyone in the Capitol for dead” as mob hunted for victims like VP Pence
Once more, God help us.
It would be so, so nice if all the Senators would put our nation and people and Democracy first on this vote this week and not their own political party. Meanwhile, a last glimmer of hope today.
Republicans will to have to work to blow off the impeachment case against Trump
A freight train is bearing down on the Republican Party ahead of impeachment vote
The case against Donald Trump is already rock-solid, and it isn't done yet
FBI Provides Proof of Incitement

On Republicans and this Impeachment

"The punditry says that fewer than 10 Republican Senators are likely to vote for Trump’s conviction. 

This will be an outrage, a sign that a once great party has surrendered to craven opportunism or, worse, brutal authoritarianism."

-- EJ Dionne, The Washington Post

From the article:

Opinion: The impeachment managers have sealed off Republicans’ escape hatches

Quote of the Day -- Quote of this Impeachment Trial

                                                                                       

“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”

--Republican Senator Mitch McConnell 

Even he recognized this. He makes the case, right here for the trial this week.

#Impeach45

Link:

McConnell: Trump ‘provoked’ Capitol siege, mob was fed lies

A Question for All Republican US Senators Just Now

 

How could you, as a US Senator, Democrat or Republican, sit in the Senate chambers--that were just attacked January 6--and listen to the evidence on both sides of this impeachment trial, knowing you yourself had to take cover and hide from the insurrectionist attackers, and then vote that Donald J Trump didn't incite them, invite them to do so, time and again, even that very morning of January 6, right there in Washington, on video?

Political power for your political party and for yourself is that much more important? 

More important even than your own safety, which was threatened that day? 

More important than your nation's safety? 

And election?

Really?

Links:

Trump Incited Real Harm on January 6. His Impeachment Trial Must Reflect This.

US Capitol riot mob wanted to kill Mike Pence

Guardsman is arrested for threatening to kill VP Pence

National Guardsman who threatened to kill Mike Pence

Pro-Trump extremists sought to kill the vice president 

The Impeachment Trial, Simply

The facts. The simple, straightforward facts.

--Trump denied our vote, our votes and our election. Repeatedly. For weeks.

--He called his supporters to come to our nation's capitol and attack.

--He asked and invited his supporters to interrupt and stop the counting of our votes that day, January 6, in Congress.

--Then, finally, he had our nation's Capitol be there unprotected.

Trump Reportedly Rebuffed Repeated Requests to Call In National Guard to Quell Capitol Riots

Oh, yeah. #Impeach 

Quote of the Day -- Second Impeachment Edition

 

"When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'”

--Alexander Hamilton, Founding Father of our United States, arguing including impeachment in the Constitution

It's almost as though he knew him. It's nearly as though Hamilton met and knew Donald Trump, from this description.

Well, except that "possessed of considerable talents" part.

Happy Second Impeachment, everyone. Enjoy. I know I am.

All of the Many, Wide Ranging and Honestly Huge Benefits of Going to Green, Sustainable Energy

Yes, it needs to be known that going to green, sustainable energy is not just that we all pollute less though that's huge.  It's not just that we'll address climate change and global warming, though it certainly will.  It's more than that, more than even just those two huge benefits. 

From this article:

With 10-Point Declaration, Global Coalition of Top Energy Experts Says: '100% Renewables Is Possible'

Check out all these benefits.

"The solutions will not only save consumers money, but also

• create jobs and
• provide energy and
• more international security, while
• substantially reducing air pollution and
• climate damage from energy."

Incredible. And true.

Let's do this.

Quotes of the Day -- Second Impeachment Edition

"We call on the Senate to stand up for democracy and send a clear signal to all Americans that those who levy violence and sedition against our country will be held accountable," the bipartisan "Trump Is Not Above the Law" coalition said in a statement.

"We are an imperfect nation, but one that was founded on a clear set of democratic ideals that must be upheld," said the coalition, which includes Public Citizen, Stand Up America, Common Cause, and more than a dozen additional organizations.

According to the coalition, "The president of the United States incited a murderous insurrection, then used his bully pulpit to fan the flames of hatred."

Source:

'The Senate Must Convict. America Is Watching': Watchdogs Demand Trump Be Held to Account

Second quote:

Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC

Castor and Schoen must be the most incompetent legal representation of any modern President, incumbent or otherwise.

Informative, Helpful, Hopeful Signs and Information About Tomorrow's 2nd Impeachment

And from--who else?

Heather Cox Richardson

February 7, 2021 (Sunday)

Pundits are saying that the Senate will vote to acquit former president Donald Trump at the end of his second impeachment trial, set to start on Tuesday. 

I’m not so sure.

After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the House of Representatives passed an article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The article accuses the former president of engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors “by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” It charges him with lying about voter fraud, trying to get the Georgia secretary of state to falsify election results, and encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol to stop the process that would certify Biden’s victory.

The article charges that the former president “has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution… and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law…. [He] warrants… disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”

The House passed this article of impeachment with 232 representatives voting yes and 197 voting no. Ten Republicans joined 222 Democrats to impeach Trump in his last days in office. The Senate will hold a trial to determine whether to convict the former president of this charge. If all 100 senators are present, the number needed to convict is seventeen. But there is no requirement that all senators be present.

Pundits are basing their belief that senators will vote to acquit on the fact that 45 Republican senators voted against a motion proposed by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), calling for a debate over the constitutionality of trying a former president. Paul insisted that vote was a proxy for conviction, but a vote immediately after that one, on the structure for the trial, drew only 17 no votes from Republicans. Thirty-three voted yes. My guess is that neither vote is a definitive sign of what is to come.

There are a number of things going on.

This trial brings into public view the fight for control of the Republican Party. Business Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have run the Republican Party since the 1980s. They cultivated the populists for their votes, but business Republicans never intended to give them power.

The two wings jockeyed along together because both like tax cuts and originalist judges, who reject the idea of business regulation and government protection of civil rights. But that uneasy alliance is wrenching apart. Trump gave his populist supporters a taste of power, and they do not want to give it up. The Trump wing has become a personality cult, embracing violence and an attack on the rule of law in order to keep the former president in office.

Business Republicans cozied up to the Trumpers because they need the votes Trump turned out and the money he raised. But it is no longer clear that he can keep commanding votes or raising big money.

Since the January 6 coup attempt, social media giants Twitter and Facebook, as well as others, have banned the former president, taking away his ability to marshal his troops. Lawsuits from voting machine companies that Trump surrogates attacked have shut up media personalities, hampering the Trump team’s ability to spread their narrative.

Trump and his inner circle have also lost their access to major publishing venues: the last major publisher willing to buy books from Trump’s people turned away from them after January 6, handing them back to smaller publishers.

At the same time, Trump supporters increasingly look unhinged. Their face is the new Georgia representative who has, in the past, embraced political violence and QAnon. Since January 6, Republican voters have been leaving the party. Their timing is a red flag: voters usually only change parties before an election.

Voters are not the only ones disgusted by the riot. Major Republican donors have announced that they will not donate to anyone who voted to challenge the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 and 7. Others have announced at least a temporary hold on political donations.

So for a Republican senator, what’s the political calculation on impeachment?

The course for Trump Republicans is easy: they will defend their man. Today, in what appeared to be a coordinated publicity maneuver, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tried to argue that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is to blame for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. (Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani blamed “Antifa” and “BLM.”)

But the calculation for the business Republicans is not so clear. They don’t want to alienate either Trump voters or anti-Trump voters, and they need to raise money.

Trump and his supporters have tried to lock up the party apparatus. The former president controls money and email lists, and is trying to put his people into positions of power at the state level. They are publicly challenging the ten Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) actually traveled to Wyoming to urge voters to turn Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the third-ranking member of the Republican House leadership, out of office. It is likely the Trump wing will launch primary challengers against anyone who votes to convict the former president.

At the same time, Trump’s support is falling. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released today shows that 56% of Americans believe that Trump should be convicted and barred from ever holding office again. By a 17-point margin, Americans say that the Republican Party has more radical extremists than the Democrats.

There is another problem: it is likely that the more we learn about what happened on January 6, the worse the participants are going to look. And, if indeed the Department of Justice decides to use RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, against those who participated in the insurrection, it might well sweep in Republican lawmakers or operatives who spoke at, raised money for, or planned the January 6 rally. In that case, a vote to acquit the president would tie a senator who is not associated with the rally to those that are.

Republican senators have tried to stay quiet about the upcoming trial. When forced to comment, some leading business Republicans have pushed back against the Trump wing. McConnell has called the right-wing fringe a cancer that must be cut out, and today Cheney—who won Gaetz’s challenge to remove her from leadership by a 2-1 vote-- went for Trump himself, saying he “does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.” On “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney told host Chris Wallace that Trump lied when he said the election had been rigged. She warned that Republicans had to face reality or face defeat in the future.

In contrast, Democrats are operating from a position of strength. It seems likely they will use the impeachment trial to explain to the American people what happened on January 6. Using videos and the words of those who were in the Capitol when the mob stormed in, they will paint a picture of an attempted coup, incited by a former President of the United States.

Think happy, hopeful thoughts, campers!!  IMPEACH!

Precisely Why We Need to Impeach

Heather Cox Richardson

February 2, 2021 (Tuesday)

Today, on the same day that the remains of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who was killed in the January 6 insurrection, lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, the House impeachment managers filed their trial brief for the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. The charge is that he incited the insurrection attempt of January 6, 2021, in which a mob stormed the Capitol to stop the counting of the certified electoral ballots for the 2020 election. 

Led by Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former professor of constitutional law, the managers laid out Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his incitement of a violent mob to stop Congress from confirming the victory of Joseph Biden in the election. They note that Trump bears “singular responsibility” for the tragedy of January 6 and dismiss his argument that the Senate cannot convict him now because he is no longer in office, countering that such an understanding would give a president “a free pass to commit high crimes and misdemeanors near the end of their term.” 

The managers detailed Trump’s deliberate attempt to convince his followers of a lie: that he won the election in a “landslide,” and that Democrats had “stolen” the apparent victory. They say he “amplified these lies at every turn, seeking to convince supporters that they were victims of a massive electoral conspiracy that threatened the Nation’s continued existence.” But the courts rejected his arguments, and state and federal officials refused to cave to his demands that they break the law to alter the election results. So Trump announced a “Save America Rally,” urging his supporters to come to Washington, D.C., to “fight” for his reelection. He promised the rally would be “wild.”

Trump, they note, “spent months insisting to his base that the only way he could lose the election was a dangerous, wide-ranging conspiracy against them that threatened America itself.” He urged them to stop the counting on January 6, “by making plans to ‘fight like hell’ and ‘fight to the death’ against this ‘act of war’ by ‘Radical Left Democrats’ and the ‘weak and ineffective RINO section of the Republican Party.’”

On January 6, he urged his supporters to go to the Capitol to stop what he called the massive fraud taking place there. He told them, “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Carrying Trump flags, the mob marched to the Capitol and broke in, searching specifically for Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump blamed for counting the votes accurately, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One shouted, “What are we waiting for? We already voted and what have they done? They stole it! We want our f*cking country back! Let’s take it!” Others shouted, “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Tell Pelosi we’re coming for that b*tch.”

Allegedly “delighted” at the interruption to the vote count, Trump retweeted a video of his rally speech telling his supporters to be “strong” and, even as Pence and his family were hiding from the violent mob, tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” This sent the mob into a frenzy.

Then, while the Senate was evacuated, Trump tried to reach the new senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, to urge him to continue to delay the counting of the electoral votes.

Members of both houses from both parties called the president to urge him to call off the mob, but for more than three hours, he refused. When he finally issued a video telling his followers to go home, he said, “[i]t was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.” He told them: “We love you, you’re very special.”

Later that night he tweeted: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Trump’s new legal team issued its response to the House impeachment managers today, as well. They stand on the ground that, because Trump is no longer president, it is unconstitutional to try him on an article of impeachment. They also deny that the former president incited the insurrection and say he was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Far from backing down from his position, Trump is continuing to assert his argument that he won the election. “With very few exceptions,” his lawyers’ response reads, “under the convenient guise of Covid-19 pandemic ‘safeguards’ states [sic] election laws and procedures were changed by local politicians or judges without the necessary approvals from state legislatures. Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false.”

Trump’s argument has been dismissed in more than 60 court cases, so there is plenty of evidence to conclude that it is false. But he is doubling down on what scholars of authoritarianism call a “big lie:” that he was the true winner of the 2020 election, and that the Democrats stole it. The big lie, a key propaganda tool that is associated with Nazi Germany, is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous.

In this case, Trump supporters insist that there was massive fraud in the 2020 election (there wasn’t) and that Trump really won (he didn’t). As Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) pointed out last week, the Republicans who supported Trump’s big lie and challenged the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 still have not admitted they were lying.

Big lies are springboards for authoritarian politicians. They enable a leader to convince followers that they were unfairly cheated of power by those that the leader demonizes. That Trump and his supporters are continuing to advance their big lie, even in the face of overwhelming proof that it is false, is deeply concerning.

If there is any need to prove that Trump’s big lie is, indeed, a lie, there is plenty of proof in the fact that when the leader of the company Trump surrogates blamed for facilitating election fraud threatened to sue them, they backed down fast. The voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems was at the center of Trump supporters’ claims of a stolen election, and its leadership has threatened to sue the conservative media network Newsmax for its personalities’ false statements. When the threat of a lawsuit first emerged, Newsmax issued an on-air disclaimer.

Today, even as Trump’s lawyers were reiterating his insistence that he really won the election, the issue came up again. When MyPillow founder Mike Lindell began to spout Trump’s big lie on a Newsmax show, the co-anchor tried repeatedly to cut him off. When he was unsuccessful, the producers muted Lindell while the co-anchor said, “We at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of those kinds of allegations…. We just want to let people know that there’s nothing substantive that we have seen.”

He read a legal disclaimer: “Newsmax accepts the [election] results as legal and final. The courts have also supported that view.” And then he stood up and left the set.

Additionally, breaking today:

Hundreds of congressional aides sign open letter telling bosses to convict Trump

They describe hiding ‘behind chairs and under desks’ and barricading themselves in offices, while others watched events of 6 January on TV while they ‘frantically tried to reach bosses and colleagues as they fled for their lives’

We must do this, America. We must.

To Anyone Who Doesn't Think We Should Impeach

Let's' do this, America.  We need accountability. We also, God knows, need to make sure nothing, nothing even remotely close to President Donald J Trump ever, ever takes place again in our nation.

Quote of the Day -- Justice/Impeachment Edition

Let's be clear on this impeachment of now former President Trump. This is from historian Michael Beschloss:

“This is the only president in American history who incited an insurrection against Congress that could have resulted in assassinations and hostage-taking and, conceivably, the cancellation of a free presidential election and the fracturing of a democracy, That’s a fact, and it won’t change in 50 years. It’s very hard to think of a scenario under which someone might imagine some wonderful thing that Donald Trump did that will outshine that. He did, literally, the worst thing that an American president could ever do.”

Oh, yeah. For the country. For the nation. For the people. For what's right. For our laws. For accountability. And so it's clear that this nor nothing like it ever, ever happens again.

Impeach.

Happy Second Impeachment Day!

Yes sir and ma'am, wishing you all a very, very happy Second Impeachment Day! I know it's a great one for me and not just because we have wonderful mild weather here in the Heartland today.

Congress is, at this very moment working on the 2nd impeachment---history making!--of this Republican Party President one Donald J "Jenius" (or is that "The John"?) Trump.  And rightfully so after fomenting his treasonous, traitorous insurrection at our nation's Capitol last week which ended up costing 5 American lives and threatening the lives of our representatives in Congress and their staffs.

So were are we now, today, at this moment? There is nowhere better to look than here to a historian to  give us a summary and put things into clearer perspective.

Heather Cox Richardson

 

January 12, 2021 (Tuesday)

The news continues to move at a breathless pace. 

After making no comments on the January 6 coup attempt since the day after, when he continued his assault on the validity of the 2020 election, Trump today refused to acknowledge he has done anything wrong. He told reporters his speech to the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., that prompted the assault on the Capitol, was “totally appropriate.” He insisted that “other people” had said that the “real problem” was “the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places.”

Instead of addressing his role in the crisis, on his way to Alamo, Texas (not The Alamo, which is in San Antonio, Texas, about four hours away from Alamo), Trump blamed the Democrats for attacking him unfairly. He said that the Democrats who were pushing for impeachment were once again on a “witch hunt” that was “causing tremendous danger to our country.”

No one is buying it.

There are three real stories right now with regard to this crisis. The first is that what happened on January 6 when rioters stormed the Capitol, and what led to that attack, is getting clearer, and none of the details are good. The second, and related, story is that the Republicans are splitting, and their leadership is trying desperately to find a way to remain powerful. The third ties the first two together: lawmakers are preparing to throw Trump out of office.

Today the FBI finally briefed the public on the events of January 6. Contradicting reports that said there was no sign of trouble in advance, an FBI official said that on Tuesday, the bureau warned that extremists were going to muster in Washington, D.C., to launch a “war.” Today, the bureau announced 160 case files on the insurrection and said this was just the beginning. Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin said people will be shocked about some of the things that happened inside the Capitol. He also said the Department of Justice is considering filing charges of sedition against some of the riot’s participants.

A separate briefing for House Democratic committee chairs seemed to leave them shaken by the scope of the insurgency. “This was not a peaceful protest that got out of hand,” they said in a statement. “This was an attempted coup to derail our Constitutional process and intimidate our duly elected leaders through violence.” “[W]e have grave concerns about ongoing and violent threats to our democracy. It is clear that more must be done to preempt, penetrate, and prevent deadly and seditious assaults by domestic violent extremists in the days ahead.”

Calls for Trump’s impeachment continue to escalate. Today the New York Times editorial board blamed Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the right-wing media for the Capitol attack, “a crime so brazen that it demands the highest form of accountability that the legislature can deliver.” Perhaps of more interest to Trump’s accomplices is that today Walmart joined other corporations in refusing to donate money to the Republican lawmakers who voted against counting the electoral votes for Biden in the states Trump falsely insisted had voted for him.

The pressure of those two things made Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), the third most powerful House Republican, today come out in favor of impeachment. McConnell acknowledged that Trump had committed impeachable offenses and told other Republican leaders he welcomed the House's actions. In the House, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opposes impeachment personally, but has decided not to try to lobby fellow Republicans against it, turning them loose to vote as they wish. For her part, Cheney announced she will vote to impeach the president.

Cheney’s statement suggests that part of what is driving the Republican willingness to entertain impeachment is that there will be more coming out about January 6 and Republicans want to dump Trump rather than be associated with him. She wrote: “Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

It is undoubtedly also of great significance to McConnell that the actions of Trump and his supporters in Congress have led major donors to close their wallets. The less money McConnell has to dole out, the less power he has, and the weaker the Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate in 2022. McConnell wants that spigot of money to reopen.

He would also like to use this moment to get rid of Trump and his supporters from Republican leadership. Trump has led the party to a major defeat and made it so reviled that it has lost the White House and the Senate, defeats for which McConnell blames the president. Indeed, the Trump administration is so reviled that today European officials took the unprecedented step of refusing to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a scheduled trip to Europe this week. He was forced to cancel his trip at the last minute. 

McConnell may have been announcing his support for impeachment to put pressure on Trump to resign, which would enable Republicans to avoid voting on the issue and head off an irreparable split.

For their part, the Trump Republicans are doubling down. Law enforcement has installed metal detectors for congress members to enter the House chamber, and Louis Gohmert (R-TX), for one, simply walked around it. “You can’t stop me; I’m on my way to a vote,” he told the police officers.

Tonight, by a vote of 223-205, the House passed the Raskin resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and begin the process of removing Trump from office. Pence had already told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he would not do so. In a letter to Pelosi, Pence said, “I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution.” He maintains that the 25th should be used only in cases when the president is incapacitated or disabled, neither of which, he says, is the case now. Pence’s statement gave Republicans in the House cover to vote against the Raskin resolution. Only one, Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) voted in favor.

That leaves Congress to move forward with impeachment, which it will do tomorrow. (Today, Wednesday). As of today, five House Republicans have announced they will join the Democrats in support of the measure.

Meanwhile, all eight of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military, including chair Mark Milley, today reminded service members of their oath to the Constitution and warned against “violence, sedition and insurrection.” They reminded members of the military that “any act to disrupt the Constitutional process is not only against our tradition, values, and oath; it is against the law.”

“On January, 20, 2021," they wrote, "in accordance with the Constitution, confirmed by the states and the courts, and certified by Congress, President-elect Biden will be inaugurated and will become our 46th Commander in Chief.”

There you are, Mr. and Mrs. America.  And yes, it is a glorious, beautiful, unfortunately very necessary day in our nation and in our nation's history. Oh, and by the way, we are now down to precisely only 7 days left in this President's administration.

Indeed, it is a beautiful, beautiful, very hopeful day. Enjoy.

This Unbelievable President and Presidency

Once again, this President leaves me disbelieving just where, exactly, we all, as a nation, are. 

Yesterday's debacle and insurrection and assault on our nation was nothing if not unforgivable. There's so much to say on it. I could write and write here and then post other's information, too. Obviously, that won't help and no one could read it all. I'll just put where we are now.

And that is, we are, it seems clear, stuck with this greedy, absurd, self-centered, selfish, ignorant, reckless, now obviously dangerous dolt for a few more days. Thirteen to be exact. That and we just have to hope and maybe pray, if we do that sort of thing, that he doesn't do anything else stupid. That is a tall, tall order for this man, as we've repeatedly seen in the last 4 years.

One outcome of all this, sort of shallow as it is, is that he's suspended, indefinitely, on Facebook and Instagram.

Think of that.

Not a teenager but no less than this Republican Party President is blocked from posting on social media because he tells so many untruths--read: lies--and emotionally incites his followers. Again, unreal. For any other President, this would be unthinkable, unbelievable. Heck, for any other adult it would be unheard of.

Then there's his administration.  People are now, no big surprise, bailing on him and it all, and left and right. There have been 9 quit so far with the most notable being Elaine Chao. Yes, THAT Elaine Chao. None other than Senator Mitch McConnell's own wife. 

Then there's very Right Wing nutjob Mick Mulvaney. He quit, too. It was too crazy in Trump's White House now even for him.  You can the rest of the list of the people who have so far, to this minute, bailed here:

Everyone Who Has Quit the Trump Administration After Wednesday’s Anarchy

People are, deservedly, asking, telling him to resign or be thrown out. And not just Democrats are saying it. In fact, this is the first person I heard call for him, Trump, to step down or be removed and he's GOP.

Illinois GOP Congressman: Trump Must Be Removed

Meanwhile, it's ratcheted up since his call hours ago.

Top congressional Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi say Trump should be removed by office by 25th Amendment or impeachment

As for yesterday's insanity and obscenities, I was certain that, because we knew they, Trump's supporters/protesters were going to Washington, that all the security would be in place and it would be inconsequential. I forgot we live in Trump's world, at least now.

If there is any silver lining, so to speak, from this ugliness yesterday in Washington, it is that the Republican Party is in meltdown just now, before our very eyes.

Ex-GOP Senator Says Republicans Must Form New Party

We have at least that to thank Mr. Trump for. Ironically, very ironically, none other than Right Wing, Republican Trump lapdog Senator Lindsey Graham predicted this.

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

Who knew he'd be so prescient?

Think about yesterday's attack on our Capitol, too.  The only leadership we get from this pathetic excuse for a President is to have his delusional followers attack our capitol building in Washington DC. Meanwhile, record numbers of Americans are dying from this pandemic.

A record number of people died from Covid the last two days in America as rioters stormed U.S. Capitol

Which now brings us to the far more local party of this unfolding news and that is our own Missouri Senator Josh "I'll Do Anything For a Vote" Hawley. He rightly isn't coming out of this well. The following is from our own Kansas City Star.

Assault on democracy: Sen. Josh Hawley has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt

A bit from the article:

No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.

This, Sen. Hawley, is what law-breaking and destruction look like. This is not a protest, but a riot. One woman who was apparently part of the pro-Trump mob was fatally shot by Capitol Police as lawmakers took cover. Some of those whose actions Trump encouraged and later condoned brought along their Confederate flags.

And no longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, “Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?” Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed.

Hawley was first to say that he would oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. That action, motivated by ambition, set off much that followed — the rush of his fellow presidential aspirant Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Sedition Caucus to put a show of loyalty to the president above all else.

Meanwhile, Senator Hawley has been very rightly savaged in the media across the nation for this words and actions leading up to yesterday's Trump supporters' travesty. At one point, at the beginning of the Right Wing assault on our Capitol in Washington, Senator Hawley actually went outside the building to cheer on the Trump troops. Not surprisingly, it prompted lots of backlash on social media. This was my person al favorite.

Again, certainly deserved.

None other than deeply Right Wing, very conservative, very Republican columnist George Will had this to say about our Senator.

Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are the US Constitution’s 'most dangerous domestic enemies'

Which leaves us rather incompletely at where we are now. Both the 25th Amendment and another impeachment would take far longer than the less than two weeks we have now so chances are strong that, unless Trump does abdicate or bail, chances are strong we are, in fact, stuck with him. I think Vice President Mike Pence is far too much both a coward and opportunist and won't invoke the 25th Amendment. He doesn't want to burn himself with even the nutcase Trump supporters of the party.

But one more good thing that could well come of this, however, is that Nancy Pelosi and the House may well put him, Donald J "Jenius" Trump up for impeachment anyway.  And here's the great thing about that.

Donald Trump would then be the only, only President, of all 45, that has been impeached twice.

Among the things we can't have is this.

Trump asking aides and lawyers about self-pardon power

This is what we need to keep in mind going forward, I think.

You Don’t Heal a Nation By Forgetting About Fascism. You Heal a Nation by Punishing Fascism Swiftly

Think happy thoughts, campers.

Also, hope---and pray, if you're into that--that the worst of this man Donald Trump and his Presidency are behind us.

Stay and be safe and well.