Author: todd.lassa

Pro-choice v. MAGA in the Midterms

By Todd Lassa

(Surprise 1/6 panel hearing scheduled for Tuesday -- Details in The Gray Area.)

The Great Democratic Hope for November is that a majority of American voters -- somewhere around 60% favor some manner of abortion rights according to most polls – turn out for the November midterm elections and surprise the Republican Party, which is counting on flipping the Senate and make Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the majority leader again. It has been considered a given that the GOP will flip the House of Representatives and potentially make Rep. Kevin McCarthy its speaker, though he’s far from the certain choice of congressional Republicans lately. McCarthy has fallen from Trump’s favor yet again, this time for allowing hearings of the House Select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection to commence without any supporters of the ex-president to counter its testimony.

Evidenced by all the outrage over the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization issued Friday to reverse Roe v. Wade, and Justice Clarence Thomas indicating that gay rights, gay marriage and legal contraception are next, the Democratic National Committee expects voter turnout to be so strong as to repudiate the GOP’s midterm expectations.

Some Democrats now believe that with the overturning of Roe they might have a chance to hold on to the party’s House and Senate majorities – perhaps even gain a few seats. If the party can win two more Senate seats, there’s a chance to do what Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) are not willing to do: Get rid of the legislative filibuster and allow Biden’s agenda to go beyond last year’s bipartisan infrastructure plan victory. 

Of course, this all requires the DNC to, er, have a plan. A plan like working diligently on the long game, as the RNC and the Federalist Society have done together since the Reagan administration to make SCOTUS and the federal bench conservative enough to strike down Roe v. Wade, as well as a 108-year-old conceal-carry law in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen last Thursday. Give the DNC, oh, until 2062 to work this out. 

But Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans who turn out in outrage this November will face a much smaller but potentially much stronger group of MAGA hat-wearers. 

Just like last week’s revelatory House Select Committee hearings on the January 6 Capitol insurrection, in which we learned a repeat of Watergate’s Saturday Night Massacre nearly happened again on Sunday, January 3, 2021, the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention feels like ages ago. But that convention in Nashville took place just a weekend earlier, with Trump, of course, the headliner. This is the group of conservative Christians who now repudiate Mike Pence -- chosen six years ago to be Trump’s running mate in order to give Trump credibility with the Christian right --because the former vice president refused to stop the January 6 electoral vote count.

The Faith & Freedom Coalition reveres Trump even more than before, if that’s possible, for the greatest victory of his administration; appointing three Supreme Court justices who would assure the overturning of Roe.

There is little doubt that Democrats plus pro-choice independents and moderate Republicans have the numbers to prevail in the midterms. There is also little doubt that pro-Trump Republicans, fortified by this victory, have the will to make sure that majority will lose once again.

(MON 6/27/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Life & Truth

By Stephen Macaulay

A Google search for “what is life” came back with 15,340,000,000 results.

Clearly a case where there are lots of opinions.

A search for “when does life end” has 7,400,000,000, or about half.

We pretty much know when an organism is no longer alive, whether a goldfish or a grandfather.

We know that when the projectiles ripped through 19 children and two adults in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County, they died.

Where are all of the supporters of “the right to life” when it comes to addressing the Second Amendment, when it comes to keeping weapons of war out of the hands of people who they wouldn’t trust with their children?

Why does protecting a zygote seem to take precedence over the life of a third grader?

According to analysis of CDC data by Pew Research:

“Nearly eight-in-ten (79%) U.S. murders in 2020 – 19,384 out of 24,576 – involved a firearm. That marked the highest percentage since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online records. A little over half (53%) of all suicides in 2020 – 24,292 out of 45,979 – involved a gun. . . .”

And in another analysis Pew found:

“The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2019. The agency says there were 629,898 abortions nationally that year, slightly up from 619,591 in 2018.”

While the number of gun deaths is but a fraction of the number of abortions, one assumes that the abortions were predicated on at least some thought by the participant.

Someone doesn’t decide to be the victim of a murder.

But there are other things to consider in this space.

According to the CDC, “Almost 18 million women have experienced vaginal rape in their lifetime” and “Almost 3 million women in the U.S. experienced RRP [rape-related pregnancy] during their lifetime.”

These women didn’t get to decide. So what happens to them now? What happens to victims of incest? Do they get to decide?

Not if they live in the wrong state. Where’s equal justice?

(e) Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. The Court overrules those decisions and returns that authority to the people and their elected representatives.

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., and KAVANAUGH, J., filed concurring opinions. ROBERTS, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion.

So here is a moral question for Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett: What responsibility do you take for those who are being murdered by weapons that were unimaginable by the Framers? Did the meaning of “arms” in the 18th century encompass something like the AR-15 that can handle 30 round magazines? It took about 30 seconds to load a gun in 1791. This isn’t a quibble. This is a deadly serious consideration.

And here’s another moral question, based on statements by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV),“I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanagh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans,” and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), “This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon.”

Is lying under oath acceptable for someone who is trying to get a job on the highest court in the land?

Somehow the Sixth Commandment is something they believe in, but they give the Ninth a pass.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump’s Injustice Department 

By Ken Zino

Ex-president Trump didn’t just put his hand on the scales of justice to steal the election from President Biden, he used the full force of his position –- giving new meaning to bully pulpit –- to uphold his own personal interest. Thursday’s Select Committee hearings concentrated on exposing that during the final weeks of his presidency, Trump became increasingly desperate to cling to power. Trump Justice isn’t blind -- Trump Justice means allowing the ex-president to unleash his blind fury to pursue his own interests against anyone involved in trying to uphold a free and fair election.

Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in her opening: “The President oversaw and personally participated in an effort in multiple states to vilify, threaten and pressure election officials, and to use false allegations to pressure state legislators to change the outcome of the election ... President Trump worked with and directed the Republican National Committee and others to organize an effort to create fake electoral slates, and later to transmit those materially false documents to federal officials, again as part of his planning for January 6th.”

In testimony Thursday, Jeffrey Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the January 6 coup attempt, was in a democracy-threatening meeting in the Oval Office with Trump on January 3. That was three days before the Capitol insurrection failed to stop the transfer of power to the duly elected President Biden – albeit not peacefully. The Lord of Mar-a-Largo in this confrontation was about to replace Rosen with an unqualified, but highly ambitious and ethically bankrupt bureaucrat, Jeffrey Clark, who was ready to support Trump’s fraudulent election claims that numerous DOJ officials starting with former Attorney General Barr said were without merit. Clark has never been in front of a grand jury, although that might be about to change. Clark had never tried a case. Although now he might have a front row seat at the defendant’s table. Barr had resigned on December 23 -- I’m surprised he lasted that long after November 3. 

In those last desperate days Trump wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies by saying the election was corrupt and to appoint a special counsel to investigate ‘election fraud’ and to send a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the results. All without any evidence. 

Lowlights today include a direct quote from Trump recorded by Rosen in his own hand at the meeting; “Just say it [the election] was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

DOJ would not do this -- having told Trump there was no evidence of fraud… that there was no evidence of widespread irregularities that would change the outcome of the election. This was a shamelessly political act by Trump directed to the DOJ, which has no standing whatsoever to get involved with states’ election administration. 

What saved us was a sequel to Watergate’s Saturday Night Massacre, but in this case the threat of mass DOJ resignations stopped Trump from appointing a man whose sole qualification was that he would do whatever Trump wanted.

It is without question and beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt that it is time for DOJ to do its job by enforcing 18 United States Code 301 – conspiracy to defraud the United States. Trump, Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani, DOJ lawyer Ken Klukowski, among others still to be named, used deceit, craft and trickery to attempt to stop an official proceeding of the U.S. Government, which is DOJ’s actual client. More will be implicated in what looks like treason. More subpoenas and depositions are coming. Then, let them all, possibly dozens upon dozens, explain such flagrant acts of law-breaking in front of a jury. 

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Attempted DOJ Grab and Blanket Pardon Requests

By Todd Lassa

(Go to The Gray Area for a link to the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.)

Republican House members Matt Gaetz (FL), Louis Gohmert (TX) and Scott Perry (PA) asked Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, for a blanket pardon. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH) and Andy Biggs (AZ) didn’t ask her directly, though they were named Thursday. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (GA) asked for a blanket pre-emptive pardon after January 6 as well.

“The only reason I know you ask for a pardon is that you think you committed a crime,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL), one of two Republicans with Liz Cheney (WY) on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, concluded after hours of testimony from then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Assistant Attorneys General Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel on their efforts to quash Donald J. Trump’s schemes to overturn the Electoral College count. 

“Justice Department lawyers are not the president’s lawyers,” Kinzinger said. 

And in their pushback against Trump’s efforts on January 3, 2021 to install Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer who had never handled a criminal case nor a court case, as acting AG in what would have been a more-intense, Watergate-like Sunday Night Massacre, Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had commitments from DOJ’s other assistant attorneys general – save one who would remain to prevent complete chaos – to resign under such circumstances.

Hours before Thursday’s public hearings, the 1/6 panel’s fifth, CNN reported that federal investigators had conducted a search on Wednesday of Clark’s home, and that panel members were not made aware of the search prior to the hearing.

Leading the hearing, Kinzinger introduced evidence and heard testimony of how Trump and his supporters tried to push Rosen’s DOJ to investigate several conspiracy theories to back the former president’s false assertion that the November 2020 election had been stolen from him. 

Clark’s only qualification to replace Rosen, Kinzinger said, was “that he would do anything the president wanted him to do to overturn the election.”

Between December 23, 2020, when William Barr resigned as attorney general, and January 3, when Trump threatened to replace Rosen with Clark, Rosen and Trump met “every day, with one or two exceptions,” on Christmas Day. Trump told Rosen he thought the Justice Department had not done enough to investigate “voter fraud,” wanted Rosen to meet with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and wanted the DOJ to file a suit in the Supreme Court to stop the January 6 Electoral College count. 

“The Justice Department declined all of them,” Rosen said. “We did not think they were appropriate considering the facts and laws as we understood them.” 

Among Trump’s fraud/conspiracy theories that Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had rejected – as described in earlier testimony by Barr -- included a report by the Allied Security Group that claimed Antrim County, Michigan’s “error” rate in counting ballots from Dominion Voting Systems was 68%. Yet the county’s election officials hand counted its 15,000 presidential election ballots and found “exactly one” miscount, or 0.0063% error, Donoghue said. 

In another theory derived from the Internet, a semi-truckload of ballots allegedly was driven from New York to Pennsylvania on November 3. “It was not true,” Donoghue said (the driver has never been identified.)

“There was a series of others, mostly in swing states,” he said. 

Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called Rosen and asked him to meet with Bradley Johnson, described in an internet video as a retired CIA official, who claimed to have evidence that an Italian defense contractor uploaded software to a satellite that zapped votes to switch them from Trump to Joe Biden. 

Rosen told Meadows that Johnson could take his theory to any of 55 FBI field offices. Meadows “first accepted, then called back” and said he spoke with Giuliani, who said it was “insulting that (Johnson would) have to go to an FBI field office.” Kash Patel, chief of staff to the acting defense secretary, told Rosen that Johnson was in custody in Italy at the time under cyber-offense charges.

Unlike Rosen, Clark was willing to send the Georgia general assembly a letter calling on them to hold a special session and consider a new slate of electors (a draft letter first reported late last year). In the January 3 Oval Office standoff, Trump backed down when faced with Rosen and his assistant AGs resigning over Rosen’s refusal to sign the letter. Trump asked Rosen whether he should fire Clark.

After Kinzinger’s closing comments, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) addressed Trump supporters, saying the committee has heard from nearly a dozen Republicans, with more to come in next month’s hearings. “It can be difficult to accept that Donald Trump abused your trust,” she said, “that he deceived you. But that is a fact. I wish it weren’t true, but it is.”

(THU 6/23/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Truth to Power

By Stephen Macaulay

It must have been quite a scene: Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue on January 3, standing outside the Oval Office where a meeting was going on regarding Trump’s planned appointment of an attorney who dealt with environmental issues (like that was a concern in the Trump White House) to the position of attorney general of the United States.

It was a Sunday. Donoghue and some of his colleagues had gotten together earlier in the day to discuss the topic. Donoghue was not dressed for “work.”

Donoghue was told to come into the Oval by Trump to join the meeting.

Donoghue recalls he was wearing an Army T-shirt, jeans and muddy boots.

Donoghue had been brought to Washington by Donald Trump.

Donoghue had told Trump that he would not say that the election was corrupt.

Donoghue told Trump that were he to put Jeffrey Clark in the position of attorney general, Donoghue would resign, as would a large group of other people in the Justice Department.

Here was a man, who had served in the 82nd Airborne, telling the truth, standing up for the truth, standing up for America.

The Army oath:

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

“Support and defend the Constitution.”

“All enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“True faith and allegiance.”

“I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.”

While Donoghue is no longer in the Army, while Donoghue is no longer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, he evidently knows what those words mean.

It is sad that the former President of the United States didn’t. And doesn’t.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

From the Left

Scroll down to read our coverage and analysis of the first four public hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, in the center column.

Read commentary by contributing pundits Ken Zino and Jim McCraw in this column. Tweets to @NewsHustings on the opening arguments from the first hearing are in the left and right columns on Page 2. 

We will have analysis and commentary on Thursday’s hearings in this space on Friday.

Join the conversation by writing your comment on this page, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(THU 6/23/22)

UPDATE -- The Senate has approved the bipartisan gun violence bill, 65-34. See "Gun regulation this week," below.

•••

SCOTUS expands Second Amendment rights … The Supreme Court struck down, 6-3 (you know the split) a New York State gun law requiring “proper cause” for obtaining a concealed-carry gun permit. The court ruled that the law prevents “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense,” SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe writes. 

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for defense outside the home,” according to the AP, which notes the decision is expected to allow more people to carry guns in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and other major cities. 

The New York State law has been on the books since 1913. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island each have similar laws likely to be challenged as a result of the SCOTUS ruling, AP says. New Jersey’s acting attorney general, Matthew Platkin, told NPR’s Morning Edition prior to the ruling announcement that his state’s law is consistent with the Second Amendment, and that New Jersey has one of the lowest gun violence rates in the country.

“What works in Wyoming doesn’t necessarily work in the densest state in the country,” Platkin said of open carry laws.

•••

1/6 Committee Hearing V today … The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection holds its last hearing of the month at 1 p.m. Eastern Thursday. The committee will delay two more hearings initially scheduled for next week “to sometime in July,” says Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS). This gives the panel time to study new evidence: Documentary film footage taken by filmmaker Alex Holder, who had access to then-President Trump, his family members and associates before the insurrection.

Meanwhile: As Donald J. Trump continues to complain “there is no one to defend me” in the hearings, per Roll Call, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy openly ignores the 1/6 panel hearings after refusing to have pro-Trump representation on the committee. This continues to widen the rift between Trump and McCarthy, jeopardizing McCarthy’s prospects for becoming House Speaker if/when Republicans win a majority of the House this November, The Washington Post reports.

Next week: The July 4 holiday recess begins and Meanwhile will be on a reduced posting schedule. We do expect major Supreme Court decisions, including the court’s ruling on whether it will overturn Roe v. Wade.

•••

Can’t touch the gas tax … The 18.4 cents per-gallon federal gas tax has been untouchable since Congress raised it to that level in 1993. Over the years there has been some talk, primarily from Democrats, of raising the federal tax – which is 24.4 cents per-gallon for diesel fuel – particularly when oil prices were very low as a measure to wean the nation off fossil fuels and from dependence on foreign oil. Such proposals never went anywhere.

Now President Biden has called for a 90-day moratorium on the federal gas/diesel tax to ease prices at the pump for American consumers, particularly during the summer vacation season. Like those proposals for tax rate increases, Biden’s initiative is going nowhere, with Republicans on Capitol Hill arguing the White House should ease drilling restrictions instead – which would affect the global supply, but even then not for at least a few years. 

Some Democrats also are opposed. Saving 18 cents on $5 per-gallon gas isn’t the same as saving 18 cents on $2 per-gallon gas, and anyway, there is no way to assure that oil companies won’t pocket the extra cash as a windfall profit.

Meanwhile: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm meets today with Big Oil, including BP and Chevron, to discuss refining capacity, Roll Call reports. But just as with easing drilling rights, expanding refining capacity would not have any immediate effect on gas/diesel prices the way a federal gas tax holiday might.

•••

Gun regulation this week … The Senate passed a procedural hurdle to gun regulation Wednesday, 63-14, including 14 Republicans, indicating full passage is imminent, according to the New York Post. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to bring the legislation to the Senate floor before the end of the week. 

Touted as the most significant gun legislation since the 10-year assault rifle ban of 1994, it is not close to that. The bill would provide federal funds for state mental health programs and to implement “red flag” laws, expand background checks on those under 21 for assault rifles, increase penalties for “straw purchases” and close the “boyfriend” loophole – the latter the sticking point earlier in bipartisan negotiations. 

Note: The NRA, which does not support the legislation, will help its member gunmakers sell more weapons off fears it’s just the beginning of violations of the Second Amendment.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

From the Right

Scroll down to read our coverage and analysis of the first four public hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, in the center column.

Read commentary by pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay in this column. Tweets to @NewsHustings on the opening arguments from the first hearing are in the left and right columns on Page 2. 

We will have analysis and commentary on Thursday’s hearings in this space on Friday.

Join the conversation by writing your comment on this page, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

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View of the 1/6 Hearings from the Left

What More Do You Need?

By Jim McCraw

I would like to ask of all those who voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election, what more do you need?  You were lied to, repeatedly, for months, about election fraud that didn’t happen. Lied to not just by the president, but by dozens of his political allies and members of his own family. He lost. Legally, and by a lot, whether in the popular vote or in the Electoral College. He lost. But he was so overcome by ego and power madness that he could not accept the loss, so he invented The Big Lie, and ensnared millions of people in it.

He and his minions tried every legal and extralegal method to get the election overturned. More than 60 cases alleging election fraud were thrown out of court. His own attorney general characterized Trump’s election fraud allegation as “bullshit.”

Then the pressure started on state elections officials to either recount the votes or, if that didn’t work, change the slate of electors. Tuesday, a trio of elected Republican officials from Arizona and Georgia testified that they had been pressured directly by Trump and/or his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to violate their oaths of office and try to change the outcome in their states.

In recent weeks, we have seen a bipartisan committee of the House investigating the January 6th Capitol riot show dozens of pieces of incriminating evidence that the sitting president of the United States of America lied to his audience again and again about a stolen election, then, when all other efforts failed to change the outcome of the election, he tried to pressure the vice-president to intervene in the Electoral College process to throw out the results and keep him in power. When Vice President Pence refused, he exhorted an army of his supporters gathered in Washington to overrun the Capitol. Violence and death followed the Big Lie into the building.

For me, that’s all that matters. He did it, we all know he did it, and we will all be either a lot older or dead by the time he is prosecuted for his crime against the American people, the American system, and the Constitution, the single worst crime ever perpetrated by a sitting president. Prosecutions of anyone else resulting from these hearings are gravy.

•••

Trump's Fake Electors, Threats of Violence and Death

By Ken Zino

In what was the most emotional hearing so far, the Select Committee presented a devastating case against ex-President Trump and the intimidation and mob violence that was central to the plan to overthrow President Biden’s legal election. There was and is an ongoing human cost to people who were trying to do the right thing. This includes a stunning number of Republican officials and officeholders who refused to violate their oath of office.  Thank goodness because that is what it is; Goodness. Civic goodness.

Here I yield to Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), who once again put the case against the ex-president clearly. “In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level…   

“First, today you will hear about calls made by President Trump to officials of Georgia and other states ... keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he made those calls -- he had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense…  

“Second, you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to pressure state officials to reverse the election outcome. Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence.  He did not condemn them; he made no effort to stop them; he went forward with his fake allegations anyway.

“This is serious. We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence,” Cheney said.

Now, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): “Federal district judge David Carter, said former President Trump and others likely violated multiple federal laws by engaging in this scheme -- including conspiracy to defraud the United States. You will hear evidence of the former president and his top advisor’s direct involvement in key elements of this plot, or what Judge Carter called a coup in search of a legal theory.”

As I said earlier this despicable mess will need the Justice Department to act. So here we are: Was there a conspiracy to defraud the United States? 

It comes down to a reading of the DOJ manual that says it’s illegal for an individual to disrupt a government function by deceit, craft or trickery. 

The first person to be in indicted for fraud against the United States should be Donald Trump. Others should follow. 

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

1/6 Committee Public Hearings IV: From the Heart

By Todd Lassa

Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who warned Donald J. Trump on December 7, 2020 to “stop inspiring” his followers to violence against election officials who didn’t back the Big Lie, told the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection he thought his department’s message was getting through to the public. Poll workers counting ballots at the State Farm Arena in Fulton County did not pull out 12,000 ballots for Joe Biden from under their table. The ballots were placed into ballot carriers under the desk by the workers “in plain view” of election monitors and the press. 

“And what’s really frustrating is the president’s attorney had the same videotape,” but that attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tried to pass it off as massive fraud in a meeting with Georgia state senators. “It was frustrating, but at the same time I thought the message was getting out,” Sterling told the 1/6 panel’s public hearing Tuesday under questioning by committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA). 

But still, Sterling got pushback from Trump supporters, including members of his own family. And this is where the whole committee and its hearings runs into a wall.

“The problem you had was getting to people’s hearts,” Sterling said. Quoting unconvinced MAGA supporters; “’I just know in my heart that those people just cheated.’”

Whether the four public hearings so far have changed any minds is hard to determine, although Trump may be finally feeling some heat. 

“Unfortunately, a bad decision was made. This committee – it was a bad decision not to have representation on this committee,” Trump told right-wing podcast host Wayne Allen Root Monday, per the New York Daily News. Referring to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to set up a bipartisan committee, “That was a very, very foolish decision.”

It's hard, although perhaps not impossible, to imagine how a pro-Trump Republican Congress member like Ohio’s Jim Jordan would counter the testimony of Sterling, his boss Raffensperger, Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Russell Bowers or Tuesday’s final witness, former Fulton County election worker Wandrea ArShaye Moss who, with her mother Ruby Freeman, are seen in the television news video counting ballots at State Farm Arena past midnight that November 3. 

Moss said the best part of her job was helping older voters cast their ballots, especially during the pandemic, and she relished getting absentee ballots out to young students who were away at college on election day. But in the 67-minute call with Raffensperger in which he asked the secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes, Trump called out Moss by name 18 times. 

When her supervisors advised Moss to check her seldom-used Facebook account, she found death threats, threats she would go to jail along with her mother, and a message to “be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.”

“A lot were racist. A lot were just hateful. … I just felt it was my fault for putting my family in this position,” including her grandmother, who faced mobs who forced their way into her house.

Online attacks, doxing and death threats by Trump supporters also extended to Sterling, Raffensperger, and Arizona state speaker Bowers, who also took a call from Trump after the November 2020 presidential election. According to the committee, a staffer from Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) office offered to deliver fake electors directly to Pence from Wisconsin and Michigan. [Johnson’s office denied the account.]

Schiff Tuesday produced a statement Trump put out in which the former president called Bowers a “RINO” after claiming Bowers told Trump the election was rigged and that he won.

“I did have a conversation [with Trump] but that was not it. Anywhere, anyone, anytime someone would say I said the election was rigged, that is not true,” Bowers responded.

Trump and his team wanted Bowers to get the Arizona House to go along with a plan to provide “alternate” electors in Washington January 6. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said, “we’ve got lots of theories” of voter fraud, “we just don’t have the evidence…”

“I just don’t know whether that was a gaffe,” Bowers said of Giuliani’s admission.

Bowers told Trump, Giuliani, and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who also pressured him to decertify electors for Biden, that his oath made it impossible for him to do so. Bowers quoted Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural address in which he called out how special it is that the U.S. allows its citizens to choose its leaders, and transfers power peacefully.  “I have a lot of admiration for him,” Bowers said of Reagan.

“The fact that we allow an election, support an election, and move on without disturbance and we choose to follow the will of the people – it means a lot to me and I know it meant a lot to him.”

That’s from the heart, too.

(WED 6/22/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Shame

By Stephen Macaulay

So there was the absolute thugishness.

  • Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers getting threats, including his family members, for not breaking the law on Donald Trump’s behalf.
  • Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s wife being harassed and his widowed daughter-in-law’s house being broken into, again because Raffensperger wasn’t going to violate his oath to “find” votes for Trump.
  • Shaye Freeman Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, both former Georgia election workers, were called out by Trump and Rudy Giuliani for unsubstantiated fouls in the counting of ballots.
  • Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson testified that she had protestors outside of her house which led her to think “Are they coming with guns, are they going to attack my house? I’m in here with my kid.”

Really?

This is what Donald Trump and his supporters caused because he lost the election.

The issue of election fraud is not an issue.

Team Trump has presented no evidence. Donald Trump — even before his loss —claimed that it would be a crooked election. Had he won, presumably those claims would have disappeared, just like he said COVID would.

What is going on? Trump had a job. He was fired. But he didn’t want to go. And he has a posse of sycophants who didn’t want to give up their access so they support the fictious “Stop the Steal.”

A consequence of this is that those who find it easier to chant than to think claim that they are “defending democracy” by supporting Trump, even though the fundamental definition of democracy has it that the ones in charge are determined by the majority, not by the loudest.

In the political sphere the term “putting country ahead of party” is often heard. Well, it used to be heard with some frequency.

We are presently in a situation where people are putting a person ahead of everything that they claim to be in favor of: Democracy, rule of law—things that make America great.

What I wonder about is this: where are the Republicans of pre-2016, Republicans who are still, in many cases, still in office? Do they stand for person over country?

Or are they simply worried about keeping their jobs long enough to get the sweet retirement benefits?

These men and women should be ashamed of themselves.

That’s something we don’t hear about anymore either. Shame.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Supreme Court to Rule on its Own Conflicts of Interest

By Ken Zino

Virginia Thomas is a clear and present danger to democracy, based on publicly available information about her lobbying role promoting the overthrow of the legally and fairly elected president. It’s just the latest twist of the seditionist plot that is unfolding as the House Select Committee’s docudrama continues.

Worse, Ginni Thomas’ husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has already ruled in a case* where he had distinct personal and financial conflicts of interest. He didn’t recuse himself, because the authority to decide such conflicts of interest lies within the Supreme Court. 

Perhaps, I shouldn’t be surprised over this latest travesty. No surprise that the January 6 Committee now wants Ginni Thomas to come forth and discuss her active role in the Stop the Steal Movement that led to the insurrection. 

“We have sent Ms. Thomas a letter, asking her to come and talk to the committee,” the chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters after the three-hour public hearing last Thursday. Thompson and committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said it was time for her to come in voluntarily to provide testimony to the nine-member panel after investigators discovered communications between her and John Eastman, the Trump personal attorney that the panel painted last Thursday as a key architect in the attempt to get Pence to reject the Electoral College ballot count on January 6.

This occurs while The Department of Justice is apparently deep into its own criminal investigation of the insurrection. It has requested the January 6 Committee provide it with transcripts from more than 1,000 interviews. The committee has publicly said there is a “cooperative process” with the department. Presumably, if or when Gini Thomas is interviewed, the tapes or transcript will also be headed DOJ’s way. It’s looking to me that she too will need an effing-good criminal lawyer. 

It’s also clear more legal actions concerning the insurrection will be forthcoming. Moreover, the last stop before becoming a guest of the federal prison system is, ahem, the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court? The final say on all forthcoming insurrection matters will or could come from the same court that decided Dred Scott was property. The Supreme Court that also once claimed racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution if the facilities for each race were "separate but equal." 

The Supreme Court that Clarence Thomas now is on.

So here we are on the sane side of the looking glass, once again bewildered. Go ask Alice; How this can be? 

*In 2021, Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to block the turnover of documents from his White House to the January 6 House Select Committee, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the documents were vital to investigators. On January 19, 2022, the Supreme Court published its ruling, which said that of its nine members, only Justice Thomas had voted to approve the former president's request. This allowed the presidential records of former President Donald Trump to be transferred to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

(TUE 6/21/22)

Tune in your favorite news outlet (so long as it’s not Fox) 1 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday for the House 1/6 committee’s Hearings Part IV and see Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) explain how and why he did not ‘find’ the 11,780 votes necessary to turn over his state’s 16 electors to Donald J. Trump. 

Our democracy for a MAGA hat … Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA) told the Los Angeles Times he will show evidence Tuesday that ex-President Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, wanted to send autographed “Make America Great Again” hats to people conducting an audit of the presidential election results in Georgia.

•••

Fascism of MAGA … In case the Texas GOP platform unveiled at its convention last weekend wasn’t a sufficiently scary warning about looming authoritarianism, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told ABC News This Week host George Stephanopoulos that his wife received a death threat in the mail. “I’m not worried personally,” said one of the two Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. “It threatens to execute me as well as my wife and my 5-year-old child.”

•••

Greitens’ ‘RINO hunting’ video de-Facebooked … Facebook has removed an ad from GOP Missouri senate candidate Eric Greitens in which he appears with a gun alongside other men in combat gear and says, “we’re goin’ RINO hunting.” The former Navy Seal concludes his campaign commercial with, “Join the MAGA crowd  -- get a RINO hunting license.” Twitter has let the ad remain, but with a warning, according to Forbes. 

Wonder whether an Elon Musk-owned Twitter would remove that warning. 

Greitens is running for retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s seat. Missouri’s primary is August 2.

•••

Gun legislation … The bi-partisan group of senators led by Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) working on gun legislation is expected to file legislative text today, already two days later than hoped for, according to Punchbowl News. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hopes to begin the process by the end of the day so the full Senate can vote on the bill before leaving for recess next week.

Federal gas tax holiday? … President Biden says he will decide by the end of the week whether to temporarily lift the 18.4-cents per-gallon federal gas tax as the price-per-gallon hovers around $5 per gallon. But such relief would face a vote in Congress, where it already faces opposition. 

•••

Primaries today … A Senate runoff race in Alabama, Republican runoffs in Georgia and House primaries in Virginia.

--Todd Lassa

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(MON 6/20/22)

Oh, do tell … Ginni Thomas, who apparently does not discuss such matters with her husband and “close friend” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions,” with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, which last Thursday announced it was planning to seek her testimony. “I look forward to talking to them,” the Murdoch-owned tabloid New York Post reports, quoting an interview Thomas gave with the considerably further-right Daily Caller. 

But first, up next: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who fended off then-President Trump’s efforts to get him to find 11,780 votes in order to overturn the state’s Electoral College votes from Joe Biden, is scheduled to appear in the fourth hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, CNN reports. Raffensperger’s deputy, Gabriel Sterling, also is scheduled to appear in the hearings, which begin 1 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, June 21. 

A second hearing this week is scheduled for Thursday, June 23, again beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

Meanwhile, in trade relations: Trump administration trade advisor Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty last Friday to two counts of contempt of Congress related to the January 6 insurrection (per Reuters). Navarro had “entirely ignored” a February subpoena by the House Select committee demanding he provide documents and appear for a deposition.

•••

Texas GOP pounds a nail into our democracy’s coffin … Holding its first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans approved a measure that President Biden “was not legitimately elected,” The Texas Tribune reports. Its 5,100 delegates and alternatives also voted to rebuke Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for taking part in bi-partisan gun regulation talks and voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and says Texas school children must “learn about the humanity of the unborn child.”

Meanwhile, in Colombia: Conversely, conservative presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernåndez had this to say when Gustavo Petro was declared the first left-wing candidate – ever – to win an election for leadership of the country: “Colombians, today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate. As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of the election.” That, Mr. Trump, is how it’s done in a free country. Petro, a former rebel and longtime senator, took more than 50% in Sunday’s election to Hernåndez’s 42%, The New York Times reports. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Scroll Down…

For our coverage and commentary on the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s hearings so far, including:

•”Eastman Sought Trump Pardon,” from Thursday, June 16’s hearing.

•Ken Zino, left column, “Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall: Conspirators Face Legal Consequences.

•Stephen Macaulay, right column, “Truth and Consequences.”

•“Trump Listened to ‘Team Crazy,’ Raised Cash” from Tuesday, June 14’s hearing.

•Stephen Macaulay, right column, “He Heard It, He Knew It.”

•Ken Zino, left column, “One Subpoena, Two Subpoena, This Stops at DOJ’s Door.”

Whether right or left, never-Trump or pro-MAGA, we seek your civil comments. Email editors@thehustings.news or hit the comment button this column, and let us know whether you belong in the left or the right column.

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Humpy Dumpty Sat on a Wall; Conspirators Face Legal Reckoning

By Ken Zino

“What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional,” committee co-chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said in her opening statement last week. Given the testimony, videos and statements presented Thursday at the House Select Committee hearings, it seems that Donald Trump along with his legal advisor John Eastman and campaign advisors and supporters have stepped Through the Looking Glass into an insurrectionist wonderland that is completely baffling to those of us -- including Mike Pence, the White House Counsel, and a conservative federal judge -- who remain on the sane side. 

In the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Alice has a debate with Humpty Dumpty that roughly goes like this: Alice notes that Humpty looks "exactly like an egg." Humpty objects. Alice explains she said he looks like an egg, not that he is one. A debate ensues with Humpty declaring "When I use a word…" Humpty Dumpty replies "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." 

Donald Trump remains acting like he is Dumpty, rather than legally dumped by voters. Words mean what he chooses them to mean, and the constitutional crisis is still happening.

“Today, the Select Committee is going to reveal the details of that pressure campaign,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in his opening statement.  “But what does the vice president of the United States even have to do with a presidential election? The Constitution says that the vice president of the United States oversees the process of counting the Electoral College votes -- a process that took place on January 6th, 2021” [and was extended to 3:42 a.m. on the 7th due to the insurrectionist breach]. Pence refused to leave until the electoral count was complete. Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done. “The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong,”  

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Note these words from a pragmatic – versus semantic -- viewpoint in a statement released just before the hearing, by respected conservative retired federal judge Michael Luttig: “A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge. America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other -- over our democracy. January 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date…

“Though disinclined for the moment, as a political matter of fact only the party that instigated this war over our democracy can bring an end to that war. Like our war from a distant time, these twin wars are testing whether this nation or any nation . . . so conceived in liberty . . . can long endure.” We must hope that January 6 was the final battle of at least the deadly war for America’s democracy. 

Oh, another problem the Committee has with these Looking Glass wars; It cannot indite Trump and fellow insurrectionists no matter what their actions and words mean in the real world. 

For more information I recommend a new Brookings report “Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Committee Hearings and the Question of Criminality.” 

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news