Tag: Black Lives Matter

The Final Steps to Trump’s Acquittal

By Todd Lassa

Once the votes were counted Saturday afternoon and Donald Trump was acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, both sides declared a victory. Because 10 Republicans joined 48 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with the latter party, lead House impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, could lay claim to the “most bipartisan” trial vote ever (click on Forum to read Stephen Macaulay’s commentary on the impeachment trial, “The Long Con”). 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, had it both ways, too, having been among the 43 Republicans in the minority who nonetheless snagged an acquittal because the 57-43 vote was 10 “guilties” short of the two-thirds needed to convict. 

“They did this because they followed the wrong words of the most powerful man on earth,” McConnell said on the Senate floor after the vote, in what pundits were describing as the most critical excoriation of Trump made by either side. “There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

McConnell, who when he still was Senate majority leader before President Biden’s inauguration, told his caucus they could vote their conscious in the impeachment trial, said he voted “not guilty” Saturday because the trial of a president after leaving office is unconstitutional. Last Tuesday, the Senate voted 56-44 that trying an ex-president is indeed constitutional, in a decision that required only a majority decision. A major point in the House impeachment managers’ argument was that if an ex-president could not be tried thusly, it would risk the nation with a “January surprise,” with carte-blanche to commit high crimes and misdemeanors as a lame-duck. 

But McConnell forced delaying the trial until after the inauguration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said Saturday afternoon. The House voted for impeachment on January 15, while Trump was still in office.

Prior to the final Senate vote, Raskin moved to call a witness to give a video deposition in the case. Trump attorney Michael van der Veen objected, and Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, threatened to call many witnesses for the defense, including House Speaker Pelosi, and draw out the trial to disrupt Biden’s agenda for weeks or even months to come.

In the end, the two sides agreed that the statement of Raskin’s intended witness, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-WA, would be admitted as evidence and that defense would stipulate to its veracity. 

Herrera Beutler’s statement is that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, had called Trump during the siege urging him to call off the violent protesters. Trump had replied that the violent protesters were Antifa and Black Lives Matter, not pro-MAGA. 

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump replied, according to Herrera Beutler. CNN reported her description of the call Friday night, but according to various news reports, Herrera Beutler told about overhearing the conversation to a local Washington state newspaper and to constituents. 

In his closing arguments, van der Veen said the defense was not admitting to the statement’s truthfulness, though the House impeachment managers apparently were satisfied with the outcome.

The trial itself came down to House impeachment managers building a case that then-President Trump called for his supporters to rally on the Capitol January 6 to “Stop the Steal” of his November 3 “landslide victory,” a.k.a., “the Big Lie,” and did nothing to prevent members of Congress and vice president Mike Pence, from the danger of the mob. Trump’s defense attorneys argued that the impeachment was a continuation of Democratic and mainstream Republican “hatred” since before he took office January 20, 2017, and that the trial was unconstitutional.

But the nine House impeachment managers appear satisfied that the trial and its bipartisan verdict achieved their goal overall and are looking forward to investigations in New York for Trump’s business practices, and especially in Fulton County, Georgia, for his phone call with secretary of state Ben Raffensperger. In the meantime, however, Trump continues to maintain control of the GOP, especially on state and local levels. Rep. Herrera Beutler, for example, faces potential censure from Washington state’s GOP and a Trump PAC-funded primary challenger next year for her statement in the impeachment trial.

•Click on Forum to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take on Trump’s impeachment trial.
•Address comments to editors@thehustings.news

Words Do Not Equal Violence

By Andrew Boyd

When my now wife and I were early in our dating relationship, some 25 years ago, she took a position as a “scab” at the Detroit News in the midst of a writers’ strike. I recall listening to a local NPR affiliate interview with the union’s leading spokesperson, who justified physical violence as a response to verbal violence, and I thought “no.”

The next morning, I was dropping my wife off at the curb and as she sought to navigate the picket lines, same said person put a megaphone to her ear and yelled a series of pejoratives. A minute or so later, people were pulling the two of us apart. Wait, did I just expose my hypocrisy? Yes, although one might argue the proximity of the megaphone threatened real physical damage. I’m not perfect, and I failed to live to my own standards, not for the first or last time. 

Silence isn’t violence. Words aren’t violence. Violence is violence, and those who commit it are due their punishment. Left, right, center.

British psychologist Havelock Ellis observed that all civilization has, from time to time, become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution. We’ve been taking a pickax to that crust for the better part of two decades, and there are more fingerprints on that tool than we can reasonably name in this column. 

Politics is blood sport, and it has a way of bringing out the worst in people on the margins socially, emotionally and ideologically. We saw that in full measure this past summer, and again, to a much lesser degree, yesterday. In neither case would I lay the responsibility legally at the feet of anyone whose rhetoric may have played a role. We can’t equate speech with physical violence. It’s not right on principle, and on the basis of that argument, I cannot support the notion of impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment.

Here we are talking about the difference between legal and moral obligations, a critical important distinction. Are Trump’s fingerprints on that pickax? Yes. So, too, Hillary with her “deplorables” invective, and Maxine Waters, and media who run cover for BLM and Antifa activist rioters, and popular voices on both sides of the aisle.

I’m not happy with Trump. Indeed, I’m deeply, deeply disappointed. His narcissism would seem to know no bounds. He shirks all responsibility for the power and purpose of his words. Managerially and ideologically, I’ll still take him six days a week and twice on Sunday over the likes of Joe Biden, but it’s fair to wonder about the net gains or losses for the Republican Party over time.  

Trump bears no small moral stain, but none that rises to the level of legal or constitutional action, IMHO. I feel bad for Pence, though. That guy has probably endured assaults to his character that would lay low a lesser man, like me. He didn’t deserve the opprobrium leveled at him by DJT in this refusal to take extra-constitutional action. Perhaps he’ll arise as the new voice of a more principled conservative movement that stands stalwart in the face of the morally bankrupt swamp.   

In the meantime, please, everyone, talk and act with care, and imagine that the person with whom you disagree, even vehemently, may not in fact be your enemy.  

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Defending ‘Defund the Police’

By Chase Wheaton

A few weeks ago, President Obama made headlines and bolstered Republicans’ political arsenal when he referred to “Defund the police” as a “snappy slogan” during a Snapchat interview. While this doesn’t come as a major surprise given Obama’s relatively moderate stance regarding police and criminal justice reform, it serves as a massive disappointment to the Progressive wing of the Democratic party, and more importantly, to the communities that have been ravaged by police violence for many years, as the fight for meaningful criminal justice reform carries on. Not only do these comments by President Obama do irreparable damage to the movement for defunding the police, but they also show how much establishment politicians are disconnected from the community members whom they’re elected to serve and represent.

With all due respect to President Obama, “Defund the police” is not a “snappy slogan”. It is a policy proposal. It is a demand for structural and systemic change. It is a cry for help. The phrase, “Defund the police” arose during the George Floyd protests this summer from those most disproportionately affected by police violence – the Black community and other people of color – and during a state of crisis. 

The world had just witnessed the video-recorded murder of a nonviolent Black man by a white police officer, a tragic reality that the Black community was unfortunately already too familiar with. From this devastation came months and months of protests against police violence, marches for the Black Lives Matter movement, and demands for criminal justice and police reform. These demands, which included “Defund the police”, were created by everyday community members and organizers in the face of constantly overlooked police violence – not by PR companies and career politicians who operate in the realm of campaigns and public perception. In fact, I’d argue that it is the job of President Obama and other politicians to do the work of grappling with public perception and of worrying about how palatable a phrase may be to the general public, not those who are making these cries for help. After all, as Stephen Macaulay wrote in the center column, “When someone [in this case, an armed police officer] is pointing a gun at you [in this case, someone from the Black community], you’re not worried about nuanced phrasing”, you’re worried about doing anything you can “to keep [yourself] from being permanently perforated”. 

The purpose of protesting is to disrupt the culture of our society, challenge the status quo, and make people uncomfortable. As such, the movement to defund police has succeeded. The phrase “Defund the police” has received unparalleled attention from the mainstream media, has led to countless conversations about police violence and criminal justice reform in households across the country, and has already led to several significant changes in funding for police departments around the country. That’s a lot more than can be said of the criminal justice reform (or lack thereof) that was achieved during President Obama’s administration. Ultimately, President Obama’s remarks delegitimize and invalidate these movements, and I hope that he and other politicians remember that their role is to help facilitate and create meaningful and positive change for the most marginalized members of our society, not to stand in the way of progress and act as the gatekeeper to a more just and equitable world.

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The Turbulent Winds of Joe’s Presidency Have Just Begun to Blow

By Andrew Boyd

President-elect Biden (there, I said it) was speaking recently to a group of Black Lives Matter activists and mistakenly, I imagine, said the quiet part out loud, in essence imploring the group to drop the “Defund the police” sloganeering, just until after the Georgia Senate runoffs, mind you. Joe isn’t great on the nuance. He’s also the guy who keeps saying stupid crap like police should just shoot perpetrators in the legs.

Barack Obama, by contrast, is an exceptionally talented messenger, and respected as such, I believe. The party would be wise to listen, but its radical left is young, avaricious and impatient for change, and when the old guard says “shhh,” well, they're likely to do what young whippersnappers do, which is to double down. Where things go from here is anyone’s guess. 

The AOC wing (God save us all) has made it plain that when they say defund the police, that’s precisely what they mean. Credit for the honesty on at least this one point, I suppose. Indeed, the prevailing rhetorical winds of the D part blow straight from the mouths of the social justice squad, and it’s going to be an incredibly hard gale against which to tack, particularly for the likes of Joe, who is less the accomplished sailor than the well-oiled old weathervane. Also, he’s got Kamala with a strainer full of Chai Cyanide Evening Brew hanging from a chain about her neck, just waiting to strike. Poor old goat.

Oh, and for the record, while it might surprise some, I too believe that we need police reform, though my prescription runs afoul of the ‘defund’ bit. I think what we really need is more policing, a hell of a lot more, including aggressive stop and frisk, and broken windows policies of the kind a somewhat saner Rudy Giuliani used to astonishing effect during his tenure as America’s mayor. 

Moreover, I think police are overworked, underpaid and asked to do the hardest job there is this side of soldier or Biden’s food taster: to be in near-constant contact with the worst elements of our human nature, and still behave rationally and with infallible precision. Among the roughly 800,000 men and women in blue, there are undoubtedly more than a handful of really bad apples, and they should be sorted appropriately. 

More training, education, rest, and emotional and psychological support is needed; and with that, unquestionably, an absolute maximum of transparency and full accountability within the bounds of the law.

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Coastal Elitist Harris Brings Democratic Party’s Radical Shift to the Veep Debate

By Henry Payne

In these strange times, the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate was fittingly strange theater.

There were ridiculous, plexiglass stage props. No questions from the moderator about riots that have toppled statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There was a fly. 

But study the script of Sen. Kamala Harris, and history will record a Democratic ticket representing the most radical Party shift in 50 years. Life-long government apparatchiks, Biden/Harris represent the Elite vs. Main Street divide at the heart of today’s politics.

Harris checks the demographic boxes for the Democratic coalition but, most importantly, she hails from California. The Democratic Party’s biggest electoral treasure, California is the epicenter of Democratic ideology and Hollywood fundraising. It betrays – with Biden’s Northeastern roots – a coastal Party with a continent of red states in between.

It was not always so. At the end of the 20th century, Democratic leadership was geographically diverse – Gephardt of Missouri, Michigan’s Dingell, Clinton from Arkansas, Bradley of New Jersey, Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey – and rooted in the working class. 

The coastal Party of Sanders-Pelosi-Schumer-Harris-Biden is very different. It takes its policy prescriptions from Democratic-Socialist Europe – Paris Climate Accords, Medicare for All, Green New Deal.

Trump/Pence was a direct reaction to this elitist takeover. 

For all of carnival barker Trump’s lack of decorum, he is a businessman who fundamentally gets Main Street – thus his populist base in working-class neighborhoods of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. He chose Pence, a heartland governor, as his running mate. 

Harris’ (which GovTrack.us rates “the most liberal member of the Senate”) debate talking points, by contrast, put her a long drive from Main Street.

She echoed Black Lives Matter, a radical group that wants societal change as unpopular as the forced busing policies that tore America apart 50 years ago – policies Harris still cheers.

I covered the Black Lives Matter riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, which did enormous harm to black lives. Protestors burned businesses and jobs to the ground. Six years later, Ferguson still hasn’t recovered. 

Now Chicago, New York, Kenosha, Wisconsin and other cities have seen crime and violence skyrocket. Victims of homicide in Chicago, for example – mostly Black – are up 50 percent due to diminished policing and COVID shutdowns that Biden/Harris threaten to reinstate.

Solutions for vulnerable communities (including in my Detroit backyard) – charter schools, police protection – are under assault by Harris’s Party.

As are manufacturing jobs. Harris claimed global warming an “existential threat” despite all evidence to the contrary – most obviously healthy Great Lakes levels that Democrats just a decade ago were scared would dry up due to melting snow pack. 

Shouldn’t she have been preparing for the existential threat of global viruses?

Harris supports a California-inspired national mandate forcing U.S. automakers to make only climate-fighting electric cars. Similar European mandates pushed Volkswagen to cut 7,000 jobs last year as it faced high EV costs.

That is tragic theater.

Henry Payne is The Detroit News auto columnist, radio host, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist with Andrews McMeel, and National Review contributor. He was inside The Beltway for 13 years before escaping to Motown.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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