It has only taken four years for the media to wake up

Now, at last, in the last few weeks of the Trump presidency, do our newspapers start ringing the alarm bells.

It’s a bit late, gang. All these years you’ve been printing pro-Trump columnists, and only now you notice what kind of monster you’ve created?

Facebook has finally banned Trump, Twitter is still thinking about whether maybe a fascist might be a legit part of their brand.

And Fox News…oh jesus, fuck Fox News.

Who attempted a coup? The Nazis, that’s who

Guess who was pushing and promoting the recent insurrection? A couple of freakish ex-YouTube personalities.

They were bragging in a livestream about trespassing, and who knows what other crimes they were cackling over. Come on, law enforcement, this is a case where you should be enforcing the law.

The recent half-assed rebellion

A revolution can be a good thing — after all, this country was founded by one. When that collection of rascals signed the Declaration of Independence, they knew that putting their name on that piece of paper was a deep commitment. They were either going to go through with their grand plan, or it was going to be a damning piece of evidence when King George III put them on trial, and the penalty otherwise was going to be hanging, prison, or at the very least, complete financial ruin. As Ben Franklin said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” They knew what they were doing, and the stakes were extremely high.

This was not the case in yesterday’s insurrection. Instead we had a mob of Confederate LARPers with no guiding ideology other than QAnon insanity and a philosophy of libertarian selfishness, with no plan for what they wanted to achieve other than to keep a demagogue in office, a demagogue who also happened to be a demonstrably incompetent buffoon who waddled through the last four years doing nothing but wrecking government while enriching himself and his cronies. It was embarrassing. They had no idea what they would do if they “won”, and didn’t even have a clear idea of what “winning” would be. They were just an instance of bumbling chaos.

But like those founding revolutionaries of the US, we know some people who eagerly signed on to that chaos. We know many people who were part of the chickenshit insurrection. Like Donald Trump.

For hours, Trump made little effort to quell the violence he had helped instigate, finally sharing a video at 4:17 p.m. in which he told people to “go home” — while continuing to promote the falsehood that he had won the election.

“We love you,” he told them. “You’re very special.”

And Ted Cruz. And Josh Hawley, who saluted the rioters. And Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, who threatened to challenge the election results. And this man.

And every MAGA-hat wearing, Q-slogan-chanting, gun-toting asshole who thought storming the capitol was a fun way to spend the day. They all signed their name to a commitment to criminal insurrection, without thinking it through. When they yell, “GIVE ME LIBERTY or give me death,” they kind of overlooked the second half of the phrase, which is a conscious expression of their awareness of the moral cost of the steps they have taken.

But no, they all think they can materially aid an insurrection, then the day after they’d just go back to their offices in congress, or back home to their gun clubs and bars, whether they won or lost. This was a weightless rebellion. A joke. A photo op for their Facebook accounts. Or, for the politicians, an opportunity to pander to the mouth-breathing yokels in their home districts, assuming they can get away with any criminal act as long as they’ve got enough idiot constituents to support it.

As Marcus points out, though, there are straightforward legal codes that spell out that conspiracy, sedition, and insurrection are illegal acts with severe penalties.

18 U.S.C. § 2384 – U.S. Code – Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

§2383. Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States

They want to challenge our constitutional government? Fine. But be aware that if they win, there are tremendous obligations to build a new government; if they lose, there is a tremendous personal cost to the rebellion. They gambled. They lost. It’s time to pay the price.

Trump needs to be arrested and tried immediately. His Republican co-conspirators need to lose their seats in the Senate. They all need to spend some time in prison, and never be allowed to run for office ever again.

It’s really that simple. If the Democrats won’t grow a spine and enforce the law, then be prepared for more half-assed rebellions by dumbass conspiracy theorists for year after year.

TREASON

Ilhan Omar is writing up articles of impeachment, which is fine, but far too polite.

Meanwhile…

Pence has issued his own statement saying that “those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” However, that also remains to be seen. Having gathered his followers together under the promise of a “wild” time; having spent months inflaming them with lies about a stolen election; and having spent years teaching his followers to disregard every other source … there is every reason to expect that, far from prosecuting the terrorists, Trump will issue a blanket pardon.

At 4 PM EST, President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement in which he said: “This is not protest. It is insurrection.” He called on Trump to go on national television and end this attempted overthrow of the nation.

Fifteen minutes later, Trump issued a statement to the terrorists saying: “I love you. You’re very special. I know how you feel.” In the video, Trump continued to insist that the election was stolen and he won in a landslide.

Trump did say for terrorists to “go home in peace.” That’s one hell of a lot different from “prosecuted the fullest extent of the law.”

Twitter has suspended the account of the criminal-in-chief for 12 hours, which is rather pathetic.

Trump has committed and incited treason against the United States. The police have arrested 13 or 14 rioters; I’d be content if it were just one. They should walk in, arrest Trump, and drag him out in handcuffs. That is the only appropriate response to this level of treason.

You want more good news?

OK, I can do that. Today is the day the final nail gets pounded into Trump’s coffin.

Vice President Pence and his team have huddled for hours with the Senate parliamentarian. They have studied historical examples of other vice presidents who have presided over election results.

And they have begun anticipating the ire of President Trump — likely to come in the form of angry tweets — in the aftermath of Wednesday’s certification of the electoral college vote count before a joint session of Congress.

The role of Pence, who will preside over the certification, is largely ceremonial, one of the few official duties of the vice president in his capacity as president of the Senate. But Trump’s continued and baseless insistence that he won the 2020 presidential election has thrust Pence into a vise between the Constitution he swore to uphold and the president he has promised his fealty.

Oooh, “angry tweets”. That’s what the wrath of Trump has been reduced to. This act by Pence is also his final doom — he sold his soul to Trump, and now this is what he looks like to the rest of the world.

Pence’s performance Wednesday in the Senate chamber will serve as a fitting coda for a vice president who — through a combination of deference, obsequiousness and studied self-effacement — has made navigating the whims and loyalty requirements of his mercurial boss a full-time pursuit.

Go find a nice hammock in rural Indiana, go to church a couple of times a week, and relax for the rest of your life. Your political influence has been snuffed out, Mike. Mr Obsequious. Mr Deference. Mr Spineless.

You might want a good solid fence and a couple of bodyguards, Mr Chickenshit, because the former president is going to sic the right-wing goons you spent the last four years enabling after you.

Good news/bad news

You get the good news first.

  • Warnock has definitely defeated Loeffler in Georgia.
  • Ossoff has a strong lead over Perdue that will probably strengthen as mail-in votes are counted.
  • Democrats will gain control of the Senate, narrowly.
  • Moscow Mitch’s stranglehold will be broken.

Now the bad news.

  • These were close races. Almost half the voting citizens of Georgia voted for two rabidly conservative, corrupt Republicans.
  • The Democrats are a conservative party, just less mad than the Republicans. Don’t expect rapid advancement of progressive legislation.
  • The Blue Dog will have his day. The Democrats will be trying to appease Joe Manchin, the West Virginia DINO, so that he doesn’t defect to the other party.

It’s going to be interesting. Watch the Democrats drag their heels over doing the right thing over and over again, and then watch them lose in the next round of elections. At least they won’t be able to hide their sympathies anymore!

I presume he’ll be arrested and tried for treason and extortion now?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The presidential candidate who infamously claimed he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose any voters is putting his belief in his immunity to the test by openly trying to convince the Georgia secretary of state to change the election results to make him the winner. Just like that. It’s an attempted coup, right in front of our eyes, in a recorded phone call, and the response of a select subset of Republicans (like Cruz and Rubio and Rand) is to refuse to recognize the criminality, and instead conspire to overthrow the certification of the results in the Senate.

The Post reports: “President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.” In the call, Trump asked Raffensperger to change the certified vote that was subject to multiple recounts: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

In fact he threatened him. The Post reports, “During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.” Trump, sounding like a mobster as he often does, said, “That’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.” Nice career, there Brad. Shame if anything happened to it.

You can listen to, or read the transcript of, Trump’s hour-long phone call.

It’s an embarrassing spectacle. Trump is whiny and desperate, a rat frantically scratching at the walls of his cage, accusing the FBI and everyone else involved in verifying the results dishonest and incompetent, bringing up every ridiculous conspiracy theory he found on Twitter, just lashing out absurdly. This was Trump’s Captain Queeg moment, and he’s caught in this recording rolling his ball bearings around and looking like a demented fool.

Trump and Meadows dominated the phone call, talking non-stop and mostly incoherently. When he could get a few words in edgewise, Raffensperger quietly shot down all of Trump’s accusations. Here’s a few words from the Georgia secretary of state.

Well, I listened to what the president has just said. President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned. I’ll go through that point by point.

What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue and then on the state House, the government affairs committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago, we met with our U.S. congressmen, Republican congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you’ve talked about here focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.

I don’t think there’s an issue about that.

Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised.

But they — I guess there was a person named Mr. Braynard who came to these meetings and presented data, and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.

Mr. President, they did not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

It’s a remarkable criminal performance by the president. It’s going to be our eternal shame if he is not prosecuted for his blatant abuse of power.

Showing their teeth as a sign of smug arrogance

Oh look! It’s Officer Friendly! He looks nice, all clean cut and smiling, like he belongs on a poster for community outreach.

He has a Parler account where he brags about wanting to murder nurses who give vaccines, and an assortment of liberal politicians. He wants to smash down their doors and shoot them.

He has quite the gun collection, naturally.

He has also been fired.

Oh look! It’s a cheerful white woman! She’s some kind of upper-level Karen, though. Notice the Trump hat, and the mask shielding her chin in case it explodes. It’s not obvious from the photo, but she got her picture snapped as she was saying, “Have a nice day, n****r!”

She had boarded a plane in Seattle and refused to wear a face mask during the flight. She just stood there grinning, forcing the airline to disembark all the other passengers so the police could kick them off the plane.

She and her friend have been banned for life from ever flying on Frontier Airlines.

Yeesh. Happy smiling white people are the scariest monsters of them all.

Stupid politics → stupid, pointless death

Luke Letlow was described as a “mainstream Republican”, whatever that means any more. It used to be I’d picture an Eisenhower Republican when I heard those words — a cautious conservative. Now the words say to me “someone not quite as openly racist as Louie Gohmert”. Anyway, Letlow got elected to congress in Louisiana, where he did things like this:

As the coronavirus ravaged Louisiana, Letlow urged residents to follow social distancing guidelines and to listen to doctors, noting that Abraham, a physician, had returned to Louisiana to help treat covid-19 patients.

But photos on his Twitter page show he had an inconsistent record of wearing masks while campaigning, sometimes covering his face at meet-and-greets but also speaking indoors without a mask on to rooms of mask-free residents. At a candidate forum in October, Letlow urged the state to ease pandemic restrictions, saying, “We’re now at a place if we do not open our economy, we’re in real danger.”

You know where this is going. He’s dead of COVID.

After his symptoms worsened earlier this month, Letlow was first taken to St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, where he sounded a hopeful note on Dec. 21, tweeting that he was “confident” in his recovery. Two days later, he was taken to a Shreveport hospital and placed in an intensive care unit, where he was treated with remdesivir and steroids, according to a statement from his office.

This week, he was in critical condition but showing signs of recovery, G.E. Ghali, the chancellor of LSU Health Shreveport, told the Advocate. But on Tuesday, he suffered a “cardiac event” and died, Ghali said. Asked whether any underlying conditions might have contributed to his death, Ghali said, “None. All covid related,” the Advocate reported.

He was only 41, with two kids, and that’s a hard death. I have sympathy for the man, but not his politics, and it’s his politics that killed him.