Tag: January 6

The Biden Bubble

THURSDAY July 4, 2024

THE LATEST -- Donald J. Trump has extended his lead to six points over President Biden, the widest margin since late 2021, in a poll by The Wall Street Journal begun two days after the presidential debate. That's a bump from a two-point Trump lead in February. Also, 80% told the WSJ poll they consider Biden too old to run for a second term as president.

Meanwhile... President Biden has told key allies he understands the coming days of campaigning are "crucial" and that he may not be able to salvage his bid for a second term if he can't convince the voting public he is up to the task, The New York Times reports. Biden is scheduled for a Friday interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, plus campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

"He knows if he has two more events like that , we're in a different place," one of the allies told the NYT.

But in a call to his campaign staff, Biden said, "No one's pushing me out. I'm not leaving."

And White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president told her directly he had not spoken with allies about dropping out of the race.

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WEDNESDAY 7/3/24

A clear divide is bubbling to the surface between rank & file Democrats and the president's close advisors, friends and family, after his disastrous performance in last Thursday’s debate with Donald J. Trump. 

“In private, Democrats panic. For the Biden campaign, everything is fine,” reads a Wednesday headline in The Washington Post.

Veteran Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) became the first, and so far only, Congress member to call on Biden to step down from his campaign, telling NPR’s Morning Edition “we have a criminal and a gang who are about to take over our government.” 

The issue is not with Biden’s first three-and-a-half years, which most mainstream Dems heartily applaud. It’s about the next half-year, which Biden simply cannot win as far as they’re concerned.

“I think he’s behind and we need to put our best people forward,” Doggett told NPR. “I think the concerns I’m voicing are widespread.”

The Biden camp, consisting of his family and long-time advisors including Jennifer O’Malley, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Bruce Reed, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and his chief of staff while vice president, Steve Richetti, should be conferring with him at Camp David this long July 4 weekend. If any single one of them can pop Biden’s bubble and convince him it will take a younger Democrat to keep Trump out of office, the Democratic campaign for president will change very quickly.

We would say this will turn the 2024 presidential election on its head, but that happened nearly a year ago, when Donald J. Trump announced he would run for the Republican nomination. If Biden refuses to end his re-election campaign, “down-ballot” Democrats including House candidates, who until now were confident their party would flip the Republican Party’s wafer-thin margin in the lower chamber fear they will lose seats and not have the majority necessary to slow a second Trump administration’s radical agenda. 

To that point, Biden Wednesday morning issued a memo to his House allies that shows still-tight internal polling and greater fundraising than the Trump campaign in June. The Biden campaign “significantly outraised” the Trump campaign, $127 million to $112 million, according to the memo, revealed to Politico.

--Todd Lassa

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SCOTUS' 6-3 ruling Monday granting ex-President Trump immunity from official acts in connection with the January 6thattack on the US Capitol remains the topic of political discussion leading into the nation’s 248th birthday Thursday.  Should we consider 248 years without a king a pretty good run?

End of Democracy? -- TUESDAY 7/2/24

Trump Gets Another Court Delay -- Sentencing of Donald J. Trump on his conviction in a Manhattan court for falsifying business records in connection with a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels has been rescheduled from next Thursday, July 11 -- four days before the Republican National Convention begins -- to Wednesday, September 18, according to The Wall Street Journal. How did Trump manage yet another court delay? Two extra months gives Judge Juan Merchan time to consider whether the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity affects Trump's conviction.

More from Sotomayor – Monday we repeated Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s (pictured) minority opinion in which she was joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson in concluding; “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

Sotomayor began her dissent thusly: “Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President … the Court gives President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

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TRUMP WINS IMMUNITY -- MONDAY 7/1/24

UPDATE: SCOTUS Hands Trump ‘A Major Victory’ – A US president has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the Supreme Court said in a 6-3 ruling, which Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign calls “a major victory.” But the ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, sends the issue back to Tanya Chutkan, US district court judge for the District of Columbia, for the question of which acts Trump allegedly committed in conjunction with the January 6th attack on the Capitol are “official” and which are not (per NPR and the AP). 

Delay is a win… Punting back “official” versus “unofficial” acts to Chutkan gives Trump the big win, as there is no chance special counsel Jack Smith’s case will come back to the district court before November 5. If Trump wins the presidential race, the case will die under his Justice Department. 

Opinions… Roberts’ majority opinion says the district and appeals courts did not take sufficient time to consider the questions of immunity and official v. unofficial acts. Writing for the minority, which included fellow liberals Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes that the majority opinion “reshapes the institution of the presidency,” and concludes: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

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Post-Presidential Immunity? – The Supreme Court Monday will issue its ruling on whether Donald J. Trump has immunity as an ex-president, in special counsel Jack Smith’s case charging him for his alleged efforts to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. SCOTUS also will issue its ruling on whether states, specifically Florida and Texas, can restrict social media companies from removing certain political posts or accounts, The Washington Post reports. Then SCOTUS goes on vacation until the first Monday in October.

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France Turns Right – As Democrats wring their hands over whether it has a better chance of not losing to Donald J. Trump this November with a new presidential candidate brokered at its Chicago convention this August, the far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen was leading France’s parliamentary elections after the first round of votes Sunday. The Wall Street Journal quotes a Harris Interactive poll that says National Rally and its allies took 34% of the first-round votes to 30% for a coalition of leftist parties. 

President Emmanuel Macron, who surprised and upset his supporters when he called for snap elections last month, clearly has lost – his pro-business party and its allies were in third place with just 22% of the votes. 

“I have never seen France more divided,” remarked NPR’s veteran Paris correspondent, Eleanor Beardsley.

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Britain to Turn Left? – The UK’s parliamentary elections are Thursday, July 4, where the Labour Party, led by former public prosecutor and human rights attorney Keir Starmer, has led the Conservative Party by double-digits for 18 months, according to The New York Times. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, of the Conservative Party, called for the elections in May, the first full parliamentary elections since December 2019, when Boris Johnson won in a landslide victory for the Conservatives, who have led since 2010.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

THURSDAY July 4, 2024 THE LATEST — Donald J. Trump has extended his lead to six points over […]

Republicans, Democrats Agree on Chinese Threat

WEDNESDAY 3/1/23

By Todd Lassa

In the refreshingly bipartisan House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party’s first public hearing Tuesday evening Republicans and Democrats pretty much agreed that U.S. acquiescence to China is boosting its economy and global prominence at the cost of our own. 

“We may call this a strategic competition, but it is not a polite tennis match,” Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said in his opening statement. “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st Century.”

At times, Democrats used their cross-exam time to promote Democratic policy, while Republicans used their time on the mic to promote Republican ideals. Even then, the committee’s three hours of testimony was almost unnaturally civil, with a panel consisting mostly of moderates from both sides of the aisle. Unlike an earlier House committee hearing earlier Tuesday on oversight of U.S. funding for Ukraine, there was no Matt Gaetz (R-FL). 

There was Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), who warned the federal government “should not embrace Chinese-style central planning.

“We should not try to counter China by being more like China.”

Barr followed Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), whose questions prompted witness Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, to say that public investment was needed – including infrastructure spending -- for local manufacturing of computer chips and other products currently dominated by Chinese industry. 

Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) warned that Congress’ potential failure to raise the federal debt ceiling this year would show weakness in our democracy to the Chinese. 

“Democracies that reach high don’t always reach the skies,” responded witness Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security advisor under the Trump administration. “People understand that it’s not always going to look pretty.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) .

“I believe fentanyl is committing diplomatic blackmail,” he said, and Pottinger cited FBI Director Christopher Wray’s assessment that a lab in Wuhan, China “most likely” released COVID-19 to result in the pandemic. (An Energy Department assessment leaked to The Wall Street Journal last week says it has “low confidence” in that conclusion.)

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) noted that China has increased its holdings in farmland outside its own borders by 1,000% in recent years. While Chinese entities, mostly governmental have purchased relatively little farmland in the U.S., it’s mostly close to military system installations, replied witness H.R. McMaster, Trump administration national security advisor in 2017 and 2018.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) suggested then-President Trump’s withdrawal from an Asian trade pact with China was a boon to the Chinese president’s plans for world domination. 

“January 6, 2021 was Xi Jinping’s best day in office,” Auchincloss said. He suggested negotiation of a new trade agreement involving the U.S. and Taiwan.

The hearing’s fourth witness, Chinese dissident Tong Yi (above), said tech experts here should “research how to bring down the great firewall,” China’s blocking of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google. “The truth is powerful on its own,” she said, and journalists and rights lawyers are “heavily repressed” inside China. 

The U.S. must watch not only the social media site TikTok, but also WeChat, Tong said, “a must-have inside China, but also a must have” for Chinese-Americans to communicate with their relatives inside China who must self-repress what they convey to those relatives to keep from being blocked by Xi’s government.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On the Left

(The government of leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pictured, has survived a January 6th-like attack on Brazil’s Congressional building, federal court and presidential palace by supporters of right-wing ex-President Jair Bolsonaro.)

Let us know your thoughts in the Comment section of this column or the one on the right, as appropriate, or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

Brazil’s 1/6 on 1/8 -- Inspired by the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol in support of Donald J. Trump’s Big Lie, thousands of supporters of Brazil’s far-right populist ex-President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Congressional building, federal supreme court and presidential Panalto Palace in Brasilia (Semafor, NPR and AP) Sunday, demanding military intervention to return the government to the ex-president. Security forces have since regained control, says NPR’s Morning Editon. Leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat Bolsonaro for the presidency in a close runoff last October. 

He’s Gone to Disney World!: Bolsonaro, who has long made claims of “election fraud,” much like ex-President Trump begun well prior to the 2020 U.S. election, did not attend da Silva’s inauguration, and has been in Orlando, Florida, since at least last December, Morning Edition reports. 

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McCarthy’s Next Fight – Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) next battle was set to begin Monday night, as he faces potential opposition – this time from moderate Republicans -- against his rules package for the 118th Congress. Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) are concerned over the concessions McCarthy had to make to hard-right MAGA House Republicans in order to get the majority vote for the speakership, including gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics, NPR’s Morning Edition says.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On the Right

(Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, pictured, violently stormed Brazil’s Congressional building, federal court and presidential palace Sunday in an attack that very much resembled the January 6th attempted siege of the U.S. Capitol.)

WSJ Op-Ed on House Rules – Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the House Freedom Caucus’ “spiritual leader” confirmed to Fox News that defense spending is on the chopping block as a component of the deal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reached with the hard-right in order to secure his gavel after 15 roll calls late last week, according to the reliably hard-right op-ed section of The Wall Street Journal. But the op-ed section is not behind Freedom Caucus rhetoric on this one.

Jordan told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that House Republicans will look at cutting excessive defense general officers and public relations jobs, “and maybe focus on getting rid of all the woke policies in our military…” WSJ says.

The op-ed counters that “woke training is a matter of culture, not money,” and warns “If the GOP rebels honor their demand for ‘regular order,’ defense hawks may have more votes. But it’s worrisome that some Republicans are joining the progressive calls to shrink the military when the world grows more dangerous.”

Left Unsaid: This is really about warnings by some House Republicans that U.S. military aid to Ukraine for its defense against Russian aggression will not be a “blank check” under its thin majority.

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Let us know your thoughts in the Comment section of this column or the one on the left, as appropriate, or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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Investing in Ukraine

UPDATE -- The House can go home now. That is, those who served as proxy for colleagues who weren't present for the House of Representative's 225-201 vote approving the $1.7-trillion omnibus spending bill, (The Washington Post) which now proceeds to the White House for President Biden's signature. The bill consists of $858 billion in defense spending and $773 billion in domestic spending.

Senate Passes Long-Term Spending Bill – The Senate passed the $1.7-trillion omnibus spending bill, 68-29, to fund the federal government through September 2023 and avert a shutdown deadline of midnight Friday. The bill includes $45 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine, which is $8 billion higher than President Biden’s request. 

The bill also reforms the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to prevent another January 6 by making the counting of Electoral College votes ceremonial. 

No Charity Case -- Three-hundred days after Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a joint session of U.S. Congress Wednesday evening that “Against all odds, Ukraine didn’t fall. …

“Ukraine is alive and kicking. … We defeated Russia in the battle for minds of the world. We have no fear, nor should anyone in the world have it. Ukrainians gained this victory, and it gives us courage which inspires the entire world.

“Americans gained this victory, and that’s why you have succeeded in uniting the global community to protect freedom and international law. Europeans gained this victory, and that’s why Europe is now stronger and more independent than ever. The Russian tyranny has lost control over us. And it will never influence our minds again.”

“Next year,” Zelenskyy said, “will be a turning point.” This, in spite of the Russian army using a cold winter as a weapon against the people of Ukraine and Putin showing no sign of giving up even as a reported estimate of 100,000 of his troops have been killed or have deserted. 

“Your money is not charity,” Zelenskyy said. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

The Biden administration announced Wednesday it is sending the advanced MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine as part of a $1.8-billion package announced just ahead of Zelenskyy’s arrival in Washington, D.C., where he met with Biden and other officials ahead of his address to Congress.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Loses, Again

By Todd Lassa

As expected, on The Day After, the U.S. Senate is still up for grabs. With Democrat John Fetterman (pictured) beating Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz and picking up the Pennsylvania Senate seat made open by the retirement of never-Trumper Republican John Toomey, Republicans must win at least two of three undecided races currently held by Democrats, among Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. The Georgia race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed challenger Herschel Walker is likely to go to a December 6 runoff.

Donald J. Trump’s Senate victories Tuesday came in Ohio, where J.D. Vance beat U.S. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan for the seat of another retiring moderate Republican, Rob Portman, and in Wisconsin, where incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson held off Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.

The House of Representatives is still up for grabs too, with the GOP having gained just two of the five seats needed to flip the majority. NPR’s Domenico Montenaro told Morning Edition Wednesday that Republicans are likely to end up with a seven- to nine-seat gain. The resulting slim majority could pose a problem for Republican Speaker-in-Waiting Kevin McCarthy, who bent a knee for ex-President Trump shortly after the Senate voted to acquit him after his impeachment for inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

McCarthy’s own vague plans for impeaching President Biden may be tougher than he had expected.

One surprising race that could flip a House seat to the Democrats: In Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, pro-Trump Republican incumbent Lauren Boebert trails Democrat Adam Frisch in her re-election bid.

What the GOP had come to expect was this: Republicans lost 41 House seats in 2018 with Trump in the White House, and Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010 under President Barack Obama. 

It seems the same problem polling organizations had tracking Donald J. Trump v. Hillary Clinton in 2016 afflicted those organizations in 2022. Perhaps some of the intended voters who counted inflation and the economy as top concerns did not blame Biden for high inflation and the wobbly economy. 

Clearest indication that Trump is done as head of the GOP is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ trouncing of Democratic candidate Charlie Crist for re-election, by nearly 20 percentage points, a day after the ex-prez warned “DeSanctimonious” he could “hurt himself very badly” if he launches a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Florida is now a deep-red state, with DeSantis having flipped formerly blue Miami-Dade Tuesday. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also easily won re-election Tuesday.

Trump apparently still plans to make his “big announcement” next Tuesday to run again in 2024.

We have seen the GOP ready to “move on” before, from the time he lost the 2020 presidential election to the the January 6thCapitol insurrection and last August 8 when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for confidential government files. Is it for real this time? An article on FoxNews.com Wednesday contained the whole story in the headline, “Conservatives point finger at Trump after GOP’s underwhelming election results: ‘He’s never been weaker.’ Many conservatives say Tuesday’s election results show it’s ‘time to move on’ from Trump.”

After two years enduring Trump’s Big Lie, we may have taken a step back toward democracy.

(WED 11/9/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Beware 1/6 Redux, Graham Warns

How is GOP leadership reacting to the latest Trump scandal that would immediately end any other politician’s career, at the least? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News’ Sunday Night in America there will be “riots in the streets” if Trump is indicted for storing the documents at his Florida estate and private club. Just a bit more subtle than Steve Bannon’s January 5, 2021 tweet; “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow!”

Graham is arguably the most “mainstream traditional” of Trump’s acolytes. A grand jury subpoena of Graham in the Fulton County, Georgia investigation of Trump’s alleged interference in the state’s Electoral College count after the November 2020 presidential election is on temporary hold to determine whether the senator “is entitled to a partial quashal or modification of the subpoena to appear before the special purpose grand jury,” according to Vanity Fair.

Meanwhile: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which officially keeps all presidential records and papers has joined the FBI and Department of Homeland Security in facing “a spike in threats and vitriol in the weeks since the FBI search” of Mar-a-Lago, August 8.

What do you think?: Is there any excuse for Sen. Graham’s warning of another MAGA uprising? Will Donald J. Trump survive yet another legal scandal? Should the Justice Department filed charges against the former president?

Hit the Comments box in this column or the left column, or email editors@thehustings.news and identify yourself as “leaning right” or “leaning left” in the subject line.

--TL

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An Appeal to Reason, and Reasonable Gun Control

By Andrew Boyd

First off, I’d like to suggest we set aside absolutism in order to have a meaningful discussion around gun rights. There are few if any ways in which appeal to absolute rights are useful. We have the right to free speech, but it has its limitations, most notably the incitement of violence. I have some problems with that one, in that speech of one does not equate to action of another, and people with agency (that is, people), are responsible for their actions as individuals, but I can understand the argument for such a constraint. Collectivism or socialism is another hot one. In reality, we practice collectivism in many areas of law, regulation and economic cooperation. The argument revolves around how much collectivism and at what cost to liberty.

Such is the debate around gun control. Few people will argue that the Second Amendment prevents the government, the collective, from placing constraints on the individual. You can’t own a tank, a missile, a bazooka, or a mortar. These are arms, but not something that, collectively, we feel would be of net benefit to the polity in the hands of private citizens. So, the right to bear arms does not appear to be absolute as we practice it today.

Second, let’s abolish terms that serve no purpose but to obfuscate, namely “military-style assault weapons.” No one has ever made a reasonable attempt to define these terms. An AR-15 is a military-style weapon in aesthetics only. It’s one of hundreds of types of semi-automatic long rifles that offer the same levels of lethality to the user, regardless of their appearance. It does not have selectable burst or fully-automatic fire, as does an M-14 military rifle. If you want to ban the AR-15 on any objective standard, you’re banning all semi-auto long rifles. If that’s your poison, so be it. A bolt-action rifle is plenty good for hunting. What about semi-automatic single action handguns, whose lethality is not so much different given a bullet of similar caliber? Yes, less velocity and long-range accuracy, but more easily concealed. 

What about capacity, then? We can decide on capacity limits as a function of lethality, which seems not all that intrusive to me. Six, eight, 10? Somewhere in there is fine with me. My line, as pertains to 2A, is my capacity to mount a defense against a home invader. My Glock 17 with single stack magazine, holding eight rounds, and the capacity to exchange magazines with relative alacrity is sufficient to me, as is my Remington 12-gauge shotgun with a seven-shell capacity. 

As to the rules for buying a gun, I’m all for criminal background checks and the closing of any loopholes that allow the avoidance of same. And if you want a federal gun registry, that also doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me. I’ll go further and suggest it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for someone purchasing a gun to have demonstrated some level of proficiency in handling, safety and use, much like we require with a driver’s license. 

Will any of that substantially reduced incidents of gun violence? I don’t think so. Will it reduce the capacity of individuals to protect themselves and their property? Also, not substantially to my mind. So, will it have changed anything? I’m afraid not, but I’m prepared to accept these as reasonable constraints on my Second Amendment rights. Is that enough from the leftist perspective? I can’t really answer that definitively, but I suspect that what the left is really aiming for is the complete abolishment of guns held legally, and that I feel is only giving criminals greater freedom to steal, rape, maim and kill.

Add in defund or defang the police, unsubstantiated claims of systemic and widespread racial animus in policing, and the selective application of red-letter law, as I believe we’re seeing now in the investigative and prosecutorial actions of law enforcement with respect to the awful, terrible January 6 Capitol Hill incursion and the BLM/Antifa summer of mayhem, and you’re getting perilously close to a hill I’m prepared to die on.

Leftists must decide on what principals they stand, as must we all.

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Email comments to editors@thehustings.news

Trump Needs to be Rebuked for January 6

By Bryan Williams

Impeachment Part II has come and gone, and its result has surprised no one. Did there need to be a trial? I still say “yes.” President Trump had to be properly rebuked for what he did, and didn’t do, on January 6. He is forever besmirched as the only U.S. president impeached twice, and the only president who incited a mob to storm our seat of government. I have written before about the possibility of Trump running again in 2024, and I still believe he doesn't have the attention span to run again in in three-and-a-half years. There was a lot of talk about Hillary Clinton running again in 2020 and she didn't. She is a damaged good and her chances of winning were slim. I think the same can be said of Trump.

How much further should the "punish Trump" train go? Investigations in New York, Georgia and possibly Washington, D.C., could lead to more indictments of Trump. Of these, I think the Georgia attorney general’s fraud investigation of Trump’s call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has the most legs, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking Trump is going to face a prison sentence for it. 

Several congressional Republicans have also let me down. I have enough experience with party politics to never expect legislators to impeach or convict a president from the same party. But this last impeachment was all kinds of weird. It is clear that Trump’s actions after last November’s election resulted in the Capitol insurrection and threats to the health of duly elected officials and the vice president. And let’s not forget the five people who died from it. 

Key to the Senate’s lack of a two-thirds vote to convict, and the reason Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, gives for voting to acquit is whether it was constitutional to try a president after he is out of office. I wish the U.S. Supreme Court had been compelled to weigh in on this; It is a burning, relevant constitutional question and Chief Justice John Roberts turned a deaf ear, declining even to preside as judge of the trial and turning that duty over to senior Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. When will our government start working for us?

I voted for Trump in 2020, and I still stand by that vote. I do not believe in Joe Biden, and so far, his governance is exactly as I expected. I liked a lot of Trump’s policies, but I did not like Trump's tweets and the uglier aspects of his personality. But I could never vote for him again. Those who stood up and voted their conscience on this impeachment (Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, etc.) deserve a second look (and boy, was I excited about Mitt Romney back in 2012 -- I was waving campaign signs for him every night). 

We need principled leadership now, more than ever. Cheney and Romney are the only two politicians I think currently fit that bill, and their chances of going anywhere right now are nil. I’m going for a walk.

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

Laws, Not Men

By Stephen Macaulay

The hand-wringing has been going on since, oh, about January 7, after Congressional Republicans, by and large, started thinking about their personal paychecks, which could be, they fear, taken away by Trump’s base. And so we begin to see the mewing about how the Trial of Donald Trump, the Sequel, will do nothing but tear the fabric of society still further.

Speaking of fabrics: that brings to mind the American flag. You know, that symbol of this country that was used by one of the insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6 to beat a prone police officer.

MAGA, huh?

This country is predicated on principles. There is codification in the Constitution.

To paraphrase John Adams, this is a country of laws, not men.

And to quote someone who is probably more well recognized, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Did the man who said, on more than one occasion, “"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's, like, incredible," ever believe that he wasn’t above the law?

But he isn’t.

Like all presidents Trump swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

Article II, Section One, of the Constitution is about the Executive Branch. In it, it states, “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

That day was January 6. The Congress was doing its Constitutional duty. 

And Trump, who had been claiming for months — even before the election was held —that it would be fraudulent, claims with not a scintilla of proof before or after, wasn’t having any of it.

Article II, Section One, also states, “The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.”

So let’s see: Biden had the greatest number of popular votes. Biden had the greatest number of electoral votes.

Constitutionally he won the election.

So to go against that, didn’t Trump not “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution”?

(Let’s not enter into some hypothetical where an election could be rigged and the wrong person wrongfully elected. Again, we are a country of laws, and so were there to be evidence that that happened, then it would be addressed. Rudy Giuliani waving his arms is not proof of anything.)

According to the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, “No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” (Emphasis added)

Clearly there was an “insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution of the United States on January 6, given that the elected representatives were in the Capitol performing their Constitutional duties.

Trump, having whipped up the crowd on January 6, told the assembled that “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you.” That is walk down to the Capitol. He, of course, lied.

So they walked down. They broke into the Capitol. Some claimed that they were going to hang the Vice President of the United States.

And Trump said in a tweet (before his ability to tweet was rescinded due to his vague association with what most of us know as “truth”) to the throngs who were doing things like urinating and rubbing feces on the walls of the Capitol, “We love you, you’re very special.”

Sounds like “aid or comfort” to me.

Let’s not count the number of Republican senators who may vote to convict Trump.

Let’s count the number of elected officials who believe in the rule of law and who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.

If they give this a pass because they think it will cause more division, then isn’t that just giving in to the people who have broken the law?

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Click on News & Notes for details of the impeachment article against former President Trump.

The New Boss

By Stephen Macaulay

When people get new jobs, and they happen to be at upper management or executive positions, they like to change things to make it more in line with how they do things. For example, I once had a new boss who detested paper clips and demanded that everything be stapled. While that seems like not a big deal, it surely was to those who had spent years accumulating paper clips.

So imagine what happens when you become the President of the United States and have the ability to do things somewhat more substantive than determining when breaks can be taken or expense reports filed or whether transoceanic trips can be flown in Economy Comfort rather than steerage. New bosses have lots of power.

Joe Biden is the new guy. He wants to do things his way. After all, he did win the election. (Guess I might have stuck “Spoiler Alert” at the beginning of this paragraph.) One of his biggest priorities is to reverse the Trump administration’s harsh initiatives that put restrictions on immigration. 

Recently departed President Trump tried to prevent counting non-citizens in the 2020 Census. As a result, the Trump administration has delayed the census count past its Constitutionally mandated due date. While it may seem odd, not counting non-citizens violates Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. Yeah, that Constitution. The resulting delay of the count past the Census Bureau’s December 31 deadline also means state Electoral College vote numbers and House of Representative districts cannot be apportioned.

Another Biden administration executive order also ends the “Muslim” travel ban. This called for restricted travel and immigration from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia Yemen, Eritrea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania. Not specifically a “Muslim” travel ban, it was one with a wink. Do you think that were there not such a restriction, people from those countries would have been at the Capitol in numbers on January 6?

Biden’s easiest EO puts a hard stop to building The Wall. According to FactCheck.org, as of late December 2020, of the 438 miles of the “border wall system” built under the Trump administration, “365 miles of it. . .is replacement for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or of outdated design. In addition, 40 miles of new primary wall and 33 miles of secondary wall have been built in locations where there were no barriers before.” My math has it at 73 miles. Given the number of times that Trump mentioned The Wall you might imagine there’d be more. There isn’t. There was a lot that was said during the past four years that was Fake News. Much of it from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Spoiler alert: Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020.

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Other first-day executive orders:

  • 100 Days Masking Challenge. With over 403,952 dead of COVID-19—no, it didn’t “just disappear”—let’s stop making this partisan. Viruses don’t vote. So asking all Americans to wear a mask and for enforcement on federal properties, it is an acknowledgement that it is still a massive problem—a fatal, massive problem.
  • Create the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. Remember when Trump was whining about how Obama dealt with the 2014 Ebola epidemic? Well this position was created by Obama, and like many things done by that administration, eliminated by the Trump administration. How did that work out? See above.
  • Rejoin the World Health Organization. Maybe it was snowed by China. And if we’re talking about being snowed: remember the chest thumping after the U.S. China Phase One trade agreement was put into effect? According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, through November 2020, “China’s year-to-date total imports of cover products from the United States were $86.9 billion, compared with a prorated year-to-date target of $153.8 billion. Over the same period, U.S. exports to China of covered products were $82.3 billion, compared with a year-to-date target of $141.7 billion.” That’s one hell of a dealmaker. As for the WHO specifically: viruses don’t carry passports. They get fought globally. Or they do far more damage than they otherwise would.
  • Extend eviction and foreclosures moratoriums. This is a multiagency lift. Had the pandemic been addressed early on, perhaps this wouldn’t be necessary. It wasn’t. This is.
  • Pause student loan payments until September 30. Again, see previous.
  • Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. If Ford Motor Company — a major U.S. corporation that sells hundreds of thousands of pickup trucks every year—thinks climate change is real and that the Paris Accord is worthwhile, isn’t it?
  • End the Keystone XL pipeline. Check the price of gas at your local station. The Biden administration also wants to reverse the decisions that turned over what had been national monuments in places like Utah and Maine to development. Seriously: Once they’re developed they’re done.

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The Teachable Moment About Lying

By Michelle Naranjo

Last week, I overheard an 8-year old say to her parent, "Maybe I would vote for Trump because if I robbed a bank, I could probably lie and get away with it." The parent laughed, and exhaustedly sighed through another teachable moment.

We have persevered four years of this presidency, so it seems as if we should all be able to trudge through the final 12 days.

But we can't, and we shouldn't. 

This human-made disaster isn't about the personal indiscretions, the golf, the taxes, the children, or the fascination with dictators. 

It is about the lies. They added up until there was a tipping point that has caused a historic amount of damage. 

Inciting an insurrection with repeated and documented lies should have consequences. 

If the 25th Amendment is not brought forward immediately, then there should absolutely be an impeachment as soon as possible. 

But impeachment is just the start of the means to make the wrongdoer be held accountable. There should also be prosecution to return public trust and send a strong message to the treasonous supporters alike. 

Too many have turned a blind eye too often to Trump's treasonous acts during his presidency. It is almost as if some forgot their inalienable roles as inhabitants and allowed themselves to become viewers to be bought and sold. Too many found the manipulations and bungles...funny. 

The supporters of the inciter should also be held accountable, in whatever shape that might take. Historian Timothy Snyder recently wrote, "Politicians who do not tell the simple truth perpetuate the big lie, further an alternative reality, support conspiracy theories, weaken democracy, and foment violence far worse than that of January 6, 2021."

From the eight senators and 139 representatives who consciously chose to support the lies against democracy to those who claimed that believing was more important than their fellow citizens, violence and destruction is not an acceptable tactic to change the minds of non-believers.

 The chasm in the culture of this country is repairable but is so very fragile right now. 

Democracy is showing us a teachable moment. It is exhausting; it is not amusing. 

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