Illegitimi Non Condescendum

As much as public education and non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, or immigrant Americans, so we’re told, Trumpists hate being condescended to. So this column assumes that all such readers have fully familiarized themselves with and assimilated the contents of Jack Smith’s January Six indictment. Because they value enlightenment, they will have read it word for word. Or had it read to them. Or, in their pickups bearing Trump 2024 and F**k Biden flags, listened to the eight-track version narrated by Jason Aldean.

Having done so, they’ll have understood the lies behind Trump’s and his communals’ claims of criminalizing speech and thought. They’ve recognized that, like all of Trump’s and his media mouthpieces’ efforts at gaslighting, it’s the opposite. It begins, in fact, with clear statements that Trump has the right to continue his unbroken streak of lifelong lying, to his amygdala’s content. And they’ll have internalized this tidbit among many in the indictment: “Jan 3. When the Chairman and another advisor recommended that the Defendant take no action because Inauguration Day was only seventeen days away and any course of action could trigger something unhelpful, the Defendant calmly agreed, stating Yeah, you're right, it's too late for us...”

They’ll have understood why the indictment spends the first several of its forty-five pages enumerating the manifold times Trump was told his election lies were lies. And that it sources truth-telling, even from some people within his collection of cacoethic collaborators and many more outside; and the data on the basis of which he was so informed. If he still believed, he’s dangerously deranged and should be barred (!) from future office. If not, he’s a malignant liar who oughtn’t be trusted with a driver’s license, much less nuclear codes.

Nevertheless, the need to prove he believed he won (“all fifty states”) is, like the First Amendment claims, irrelevant; the indictment isn’t about either. It’s about using those lies, or psychoses, as the basis for creating buy-in to conspiracies to defraud the US government and its citizens; plotting to deprive voters of their Constitutional right to have their votes counted. Fraud, of course, is something of which Trump is even more of a practitioner than marital infidelity.

Nor is it protected speech. And, contrary to the declaration from the most recent of his revolving-door lawyers, who admitted attempting to overthrow an election is “a technical violation of the Constitution” but not “a violation of criminal law,” it IS. The consigliere also posited that since the unconstitutional fake elector cabal failed, it was merely “aspirational,” of no legal import. Like a bank robbery thwarted by calling the cops.

Less implicit in the indictment, probably still working its way through neuro-Trumpic pathways to their cerebral cortices, is debunkery of the notion that indicting a former “president” makes America a “banana republic.” Comes Mister Tallyman to tally they banana: Were we such a nation, Trump would have been rounded up long since, imprisoned without trial, left in solitary confinement till the next revolution. Prior to which, he might have been paraded, chained, through the town square, to jeers and taunts by the six-foot, seven-foot, eight-foot bunch.

But this is America. Trump’s crimes have been investigated for months, the vetted evidence therefrom presented to a grand jury of ordinary citizens, who concluded there were grounds for indictment. And he’ll have a trial in which he can defend himself.

If these facts could theoretically be grasped by the undeserving-of-condescension, they’re unlikely to disabuse them of the belief that calling Trump to account for his crimes is senile, sleepy, but somehow evil genius Joe Biden taking down his prevailing political opponent. That there’s no evidence of presidential involvement is no more convincing to the MAGAnlightened than the lack of proof of electoral fraud. Or of President Biden’s over-hyped, under-happened criminality.

Likewise, Trump’s insistence that the indictment’s timing proves deliberate election interference because Special Prosecutor Smith could have presented it sooner, dismisses the many months of delays occasioned by Trump’s claims of executive privilege and ignoring of subpoenas. In fact, he could get past it at least a year before the 2024 election, simply by demanding the speedy trial to which he’s entitled, by law.

His newest media-flooding lawyer also wants a venue change to West Virginia, because it’s “more diverse” (wink, wink) than D.C. The reality? West Virginia: 92% White, 3% Black; DC: 40% White, 45% Black. It seems Trump is deliberately choosing idiot lawyers to strengthen his case for innocence by virtue of following bad legal advice.

If the preceding amounts only to desperation and baseless, losing arguments, there’s a powerful case Trump has yet to make: Given his childish, schoolyard insults hurled hourly on “Truthless Sociopathic,” including whining that Nancy Pelosi was being “mean” when she called him a “scared puppy,” he could legitimately argue it’s a miscarriage of justice to try him as an adult.

What's At Stake

How inured we’ve become to Trump’s atrocities. The Republican-majority Senate Intelligence Committee just released its final report on Trump/Russia, and it’s been practically ignored, especially by Republicans. 

It’s damning. They concluded Trump and Roger Stone lied to Robert Mueller, and that Trump’s first campaign manager “represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” and did business with “a Russian intelligence officer.”

The Republican-led investigation also concluded the White House “significantly hampered” their efforts, and coordinated the testimony of witnesses before they appeared. It found that WikiLeaks, with which Roger Stone was conspiring on behalf of Trump, was “knowingly collaborating with Russian government officials.” It stated that Trump’s campaign encouraged and received Russian help in electing him, and are doing it again. Collusion.  

Knowing all this, Republican members of the committee still voted to deny Democratic requests for witnesses during impeachment, continuing a traitorous perjurer’s squatters-rights to the Oval Office. “Ho,” say Trumpists, “hum.” The friend of our enemy is our friend, too.  

We know what’s at stake. The surprisingly watchable “virtual” Democratic Convention made it clear: decency vs. indecency; common cause vs. deliberate division; compassion vs. cruelty; DACA vs. border cages; addressing climate change vs. making it worse; celebrating vs. demonizing diversity; inspiration vs. invective; science vs. conspiracy theories. Empathy vs. sociopathy. In short: America’s best vs. Trumpism.  

“I thought it was divisive,” said Trump of Michelle Obama’s heartfelt speech. Said the man who claims liberals want to destroy you; calls journalists enemies of the people; urged “liberation” of covid-fighting Democrat-run states; leads chants to imprison opponents, urges violence at rallies, calls neo-Nazis “very fine people;” who retweets a call to “… Let [Democratic cities] rot.” (Rule of thumb, fingers, and palm: when Trump accuses someone of something, it’s he who’s doing it.)  

After four years of so-called conservatives condoning Trump’s lies and incompetence, coddling dictators and insulting friends, making Americans unwelcome and pitied worldwide, suckered by China and North Korea – and much more -- no one imagines Joe Biden can completely heal us. Those still supporting Trump’s demagoguery will never heed President Biden’s calls for clarity and compassion. 

But whereas Trump would continue to stoke acrimony and alienation, Joe Biden will try to rid us of them. Only those who need someone to hate would miss it; only those unwilling to pull together as Americans to face our increasingly challenging future would turn away.  

Just from last week, here’s more proof of November's importance:  

• Having pig-headedly reneged on the Iran nuclear agreement because Obama, Trump implored nations to renew the arms embargo against it. You no longer matter, they said. In an unprecedented, humiliating defeat for the US, they rejected Trump’s plea; whatever good might come from the UAE/Israel accord is on even shakier ground. 

• Trump finalized plans to drill in ANWR, one of America’s most pristine and environmentally fragile places. Simultaneously, he reversed President Obama’s regulation of methane, the worst of greenhouse gases. It’s as if he wants to burn us down on his way out.    

• When reminded there’s no evidence of mail-in ballot fraud, Trump’s Chief of Staff said lack of evidence is “the definition of fraud.” Seeing no dinosaurs on your lawn proves they’re there. It’s science.     

• Trump and pillow-guy are pushing untested, poisonous oleandrin: yet another fake Covid-19 “cure.” 

• Trump’s second campaign manager was arrested for defrauding investors with a phony border-wall-funding scheme. On its website, Trump is seen up-thumbing the plan.  

• Enough damage done, Postmaster PFC DeJoy says he’ll suspend further dismantling the USPS till after the election.   

• To keep Trump from descending into a rage of denial, intelligence agencies hide evidence of Russian interference in his briefings. 

• Seventy Republican national security officials wrote a letter.

• The former DHS Chief of Staff revealed Trump’s temerarious attempts to make the department his personal instrument of power.   

• Trump called for boycotting Goodyear (cancel culture!) because they banned MAGA hats in the workplace. In fact, they banned ALL political paraphernalia, which is good business.  

•  Trump thinks the stock market is the economy. He golfed while his brother died. He repeated the debunkum that President Obama spied on his campaign. He praised people who believe the world is controlled by Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles who spread Covid-19 via 5G.  

Barack Obama laid down the stakes like railroad ties, his words a cri de coeur for country and constitution.  Joe Biden made it clear he understands the challenges of the future and the failings of the present and is ready to take them on for ALL Americans.

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The Lowest Barr

My upcoming newspaper column:

More than the rampant corruption revealed in Robert Mueller’s report, what defines these times, when lies are truth and facts are lies, is the confidence with which Attorney General Barr stood before us and lied. That he felt empowered to say what he did, knowing his falsehoods would become immediately obvious, says it all. 

Maybe favor from the Fogfather was more important to him than preserving the integrity of his office or the rule of law. Who can say it’s impossible? People with better reputations to protect than Barr’s have capitulated to Trump’s lies and autocratic excesses. 

Since November, 2016, there’s been a fire sale on souls in our country. Barr is just the latest to surrender his. His job is to defend the Constitution and prosecute the law on behalf of all citizens. We’re his clients, not the “president.” His pre-release snake-oil salesmanship made it clear he doesn’t see it that way.  

More probable is that Mr. Barr assumes – rightly – that Trump’s supporters haven’t and won’t read the report. That they’ll take his word, just as they do Trump’s. That by disgorging a smog of deception, no subsequent revelation will dissuade those who breathed deep. They’re proving him right. Disinterested in becoming informed, loyalists are claiming, ever since, that Trump was completely exonerated, that no evidence of obstruction was found. 

The disturbing revelations in Mueller’s report are unimportant to thirty-nine-percent of Americans, who actively avoid knowing them. It’s consistent with Barr choosing to deliver his dissembling in the first place. In no prior instance has a report from a special prosecutor been described beforehand by an Attorney General, dishonest or otherwise. But this is how he and Trump view supporters. 

Were Trumpophiles willing to think about it, they’d see how they’ve been insulted and dismissed. Were they dragged, fighting it, outside the Fox News/rightwing-radio bubble, they’d learn what’s been going on where reality lives. Here’s but a tiny sampling: 

Mueller said he “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.” He made it clear that, were it not DOJ policy not to indict a sitting president, he’d have made the case. Unable to do so, he considered it unfair to level charges when the president couldn’t rebut in court. One man’s integrity saved the other’s lack of it. Professing that Mueller said the DOJ policy had nothing to do with his decision, Barr flat-out lied. 

Barr claimed Mueller hadn’t left it up to Congress to do what he, Mueller couldn’t. What Mueller wrote, in fact, was “… that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.” And “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, … because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders ...” The report implicitly called upon Congress to do its Constitutional duty. 

When Barr quoted the investigation, saying it “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government …” he left out the preceding words: “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency … and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, …” By omission, it’s a lie. 

Also: “[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgement.” “No obstruction,” said Barr; and, several times, “No collusion.” Mueller described multiple contacts between Russians and Trump’s campaign, and the stupidity that kept direct cooperation from happening. He also noted that many documents had been destroyed.

Trump refused to appear in person and, having bragged “I have one of the great memories of all time,” replied “I don’t remember” thirty times in his written responses. Barr insisted he “cooperated fully.” 

So here we are: lying as policy. No resistance from Republicans. Not even as Trump rejects Article I of the Constitution, ordering staff to ignore Congress. In its silence, the Republican Party has become as dangerous as Trump himself. If they once did, they no longer even pretend to believe in constitutional democracy. 

It’s 2020 or never. 

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Rats, All The Way Down

My next newspaper column:

Everybody loves somebody someday. Domestic abusers get bailed out by the abused, escaped felons find shelter on the outside. Human nature being what it is, even serial killers get fan mail and marriage proposals. Let’s assume, however, that few saw attempts to bring such people to justice as nothing more than politically motivated hit-jobs. Or, even as the bodies piled up, witch hunts. (American Wiccans are protesting current usage of the term.) In societies that value the rule of law, it’s accepted that criminals should be punished, and people about whom there’s reason to suspect outlaw behavior should be subject to scrutiny.  

In the US, not long ago considered the world’s greatest democracy, on whose constitution other countries based their own, thirty-eight-percent of the population still believes any suggestion that the current “president” is the common denominator in a conflagration of crimes is merely the stuff of sore losers. How comforting to consider such criticism to be born of irrational hate, rather than reckoning with the implications for our country and the world in having a “president” who’s a constant, and possibly criminal, liar. 

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If a well-worn cliché, Californians can testify to the truth of it. By now, the smog of scandal in the center of which Trump lies requires medical-grade respirators. Yet hardcore Trumpists frolic outside, breathing deep, claiming, eyes tearing, that coughing is good for us all. 

Leaving much of our public lands ready for ruin, trailing the fumes of fifteen separate ethics investigations, Ryan Zinke is the latest of Trump’s “best people” to work the revolving door. Courts just smocked the EPA, ordering reversal of the damage Scott “Also the Best” Pruitt would have done to our environment and children by lifting restrictions on a poison banned by President Obama. 

There are plenty more liars, incompetents, and thieves Trump has gathered close, but they’re not even the prime evidence of his flagitious conduct. He, his family, and businesses, his campaign, inaugural committee, transition team, and his fake “foundation” (which he just agreed to shutter under court supervision) have attracted investigations; seventeen so far. That’s a lot of boil, boil, toil, and trouble to have been cooked up from nothing. 

There’s also smoke signaling Trump’s dalliances with crime networks, home-grown and foreign, for his whole career. It was, at least in part, because of his connections with criminals, laundering money, and phony, failed business deals, that when he was on the verge of personal bankruptcy, no US bank would bail him out. Forced to turn to Russians, Saudis, and Deutsch Bank, he left himself, and now us, vulnerable. Don’t believe it? Plug “Trump mafia ties” into your favorite search engine. And ask yourself: is a temporary tax break, or the deportation of immigrants, fourteen-thousand kids incarcerated at the border, or however else Trump is floating your boat, a fair return for de-facto complicity? 

Even a Fox “news” commentator suggested to Trump that he stop calling Michael Cohen a “rat,” because that’s what mobsters call a guy who sings to the cops. You can’t “rat” with lies, but rats do leave a sinking ship of state. Trump’s rodents see the rising water.  

Trumpists would have us believe it’s “entrapment” by Mueller, et al., that’s causing the exodus from S.S. Trump. Hardly. Even Mike Flynn’s lawyers admitted he wasn’t entrapped. It’s the writing on the walls: prison walls. Grifters and crooks who, seeing Trump’s own malfeasance and greed as protection, once believed themselves untouchable, are reading between the bars. This includes Trump’s ironically-named pal and fake-news-purveyor. Could it be a Pecker that brings down the p---- grabber?  

From a new report to the Senate, we’ve learned Russia’s 2016 disinformation efforts were even more extensive, sophisticated, and purposeful than was known. Also revealed is that a letter of Russian intent (cf: Steele dossier) which didn’t exist, actually did. But wasn’t signed. Was. Trump’s lies about Russian connections may be the least of his legal problems, but colluding with a foreign adversary is still kinda serious. If confirmed (smoke/fire), there’s a word for it. 

Even conservative news outlets like WSJ and Forbes are making his corruption undeniable. So Trump suggests criticizing him should be illegal. Baseless hate? Well, admittedly, it’s hard to love.  

As the winds of investigations blow the smokescreen from the rubble, Trumpists may have to look for their missing conscience and reconsider where they stand. Blaming messengers isn’t a forever firewall.

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