16 XII 2021: Sedition is a federal crime, prosecute it!

The hand-wringing continues in D.C. and on the airwaves about the possibly illegal behavior of Trump and his entourage in their attempts to disparage and undo our election. The latest hesitancy to emerge is due to uncertainty about whether the Jan 6 Committee can subpoena other members of Congress like Coach Jim Jordan and other members of the self-styled “Freedom Caucus.”

It is an error to have a congressional committee do what should be a criminal investigation. All the seditious conspiracies and maneuvers should be turned over to the Dept. of Justice and the F.B.I. If we permit the current campaigns of lies and stonewalling to continue, if we allow probable criminals to escape investigation, and fail to bring these enemies of the United States to justice, we will be admitting that democracy lacks the means to defend itself against enemies from within.

15 XII 2021: Rep. Scott Perry appeals to the bigots in his district

Scott Perry will soon be up for re-election. He must anticipate that the primary race will be very close, for he is getting the jump on possible rivals by an anti-Islamic stunt that would appeal to the prejudiced in his community. I don’t know whether Perry is a bigot. I’d not be surprised to learn that he is. But whatever his personal views and biases may be, he’s making a splashy first bid for the bigot vote in his district.

10 XII 2021: SCOTUS votes along doctrinal lines

As predicted, the Supreme Court has declared by a vote of 5-4 that Texas’ unconstitutional abortion law can stand, thus handing another easy victory to misogyny. The vote was only partly political. The five justices are obligated to the people who made them what they are. But this vote was primarily religious, for it supported the Republican-Catholic party line. I fear we’re going to see a lot more of “good old religion” in the Court’s future decisions.

7 XII 2021: Prosecute or fail

I am nauseated by the failure to prosecute Trump & Co. for their attempt to overthrow the government. Bannon won’t cooperate, Eastman pleads the Fifth, Meadows thought maybe he would cooperate but has since changed his mind, Jeffrey Clark is likely to refuse to answer any significant question, the whole Republican Party refuses to cooperate, and all the House Committee can do is seek an ineffective charge of Contempt of Congress

The House of Representatives is not the body that should be acting on Jan 6. The House and the Senate are incapable of doing anything at all constructive. That is their contribution to the overthrow of the government. Trump and his entourage have been active in their attempts at a coup. The Congress’ inaction is a coup attempt as well.

No, the investigation of Jan 6 should be assigned to the F.B.I. and the Justice Department should then prosecute on the basis of the incriminating evidence that the investigation is sure to find.

Our American justice system is not making a very good showing. What are we learning from current developments? We have learned for sure that if you are sufficiently shameless and have enough money to hire enough lawyers, you can virtually shut down the justice system. You can delay and appeal and delay and appeal so long that you are likely to be dead before you come to trial.

Again I say, justice delayed is justice denied. If a plot to overthrow the government, a plot that is still ongoing, is not taken seriously enough to prompt immediate action, a dismal future for the United States of America can with confidence be predicted..

If America simply “moves on” from Jan. 6 and the Big Lie Campaign with barely a friendly admonition to the conspirators, American democracy will be completely vulnerable to the next coup. And unless we deal sternly and quickly with the Jan 6 conspirators, another coup attempt is inevitable, if not from Trump & Co., then from another demagogue who would like to be king, and the Republican Party is now dominated by people of that kind. Putin and the Russian Empire are not a greater threat to the United States than Trump and his co-conspirators and those who will come next to follow their example.

6 XII 2021: Wisdom of the right

Today’s news reported the medical pronouncements of several of the brighter Republicans in Congress. Sen. Ron Johnson accused Dr. Fauci of “hyping up” COVID19 just as he “hyped up” AIDS. Badboy Matt Gaetz insists that actually contracting COVID19 is “nature’s vaccine,” the best protection against the disease. Margorie Taylor Green wonders, since 600,000 die annually from cancer, why we are making such a big deal of COVID19 deaths. And Coach Jim Jordan has announced that “Real America is done with #COVID19.” I suppose that by “real America” all those people who are dying because they are guided by misinformation like this.

2 XII 2021: Of course Trump appointees to Supreme Court were lying

Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court all claimed to have an open mind about Roe v. Wade. But they came to the Senate Committee already tainted from their contact with Trump, and are, like Trump, not to be trusted. And it wouldn’t have taken much imagination to conclude that in any deliberation about reproductive rights they would be guided by their own religious and political positions.

Trump and McConnell had, by a mixture of good luck and native shamelessness, managed to pack the Supreme Court, but they could not have succeeded in doing so if their nominees had told the truth to the Senate Committee. Two of Trump’s appointments added to the other reactionary Roman Catholics create a right-wing Catholic majority on the Court: Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. These justices, given the kind of Catholic they are, are barred by personal convictions from supporting Roe v. Wade, whatever they may have told the Senate about an open mind.

I wonder if an earlier Catholic justice, the now much reviled Roger B. Taney of Dred Scott fame, would have been more candid with the Senate.

23 XI 2021: Trump has a right to a speedy trial.

A piece on the Politico site about the trial of one of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists reports that the judge speculated about the criminal culpability of one who tried to bully Mike Pence into throwing the election his way. The report observed: “The in-court discussion of Trump’s potential criminal culpability in the Capitol riot raised a nagging and uncomfortable question for the Justice Department: whether it is making a serious effort to investigate whether the former president committed any crimes in connection with the events of Jan. 6.”

I and many other Americans are weary and suspicious of the failure of the Justice Department to take serious action against Trump, the known leader of a criminal conspiracy against the United States. I know that the mill-wheels of justice can be expected to grind slowly, and especially in anything that has to do with Trump. But isn’t it time to make an effort to speed up those wheels, time for Trump, not some one of his hangers-on, to be thoroughly investigated and then prosecuted on the basis of the evidence of criminal conspiracy that a thorough investigation will surely reveal?

Trump’s plot was not just another Trumpy-being-Trumpy peccadillo, but was a crime by a would-be dictator trying to seize control of the country.

14 XI 2021: Justice delayed is justice denied.

Donald Trump continues to delay any reckoning of and with his crimes. He has been getting away with this all his life. I believe that the failure to bring Trump to justice is yet another sign of the collapse of American democratic government. How is the American government to protect itself against those who would destroy it when it is wholly incapable of defending itself? Trump’s lawyers have obtained a stay of the lower court’s opinion, and will now seek a hearing before the appeals court, and if he strikes out there, it’s off to the Supreme Court. If the Trumpites on the Supreme Court enable Trump’s escape from justice, that will be the Republic’s epitaph.

6 XI 2021: A letter from the N.R.A.

I received yesterday a letter from Mr. Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the N.R.A. The envelope is as interesting as the letter it contained. In lieu of affixed postage in the upper right corner it bore the legend: NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION. 

On the middle right side of the envelope it says, in large black letters: NOTICE OF GUN CONFISCATION. Beneath this, in smaller letters enclosed in a black-line box, we have: “Official notice to named addressee. Delivery authorized under Section 703.1.2.2, United States Postal Regulations.”

Good grief, this piece of mail looks like the real thing, GUN CONFISCATION and “Official notice to named addressee,” that’s me, and they’re coming after my gun!!!

Shaken by this official-looking envelope, we are ready to read Mr. LaPierre’s enclosed exhortation to join the N.R.A. (they are currently offering memberships at a discount at the N.R.A. membership site!). By way of motivation, his letter warns: “For the first time in American history, a powerful gang of federal and state gun-ban politicians, unelected bureaucrats, elitist billionaires, and media propagandists are openly calling for your guns to be rounded up by force.” This sentence is a Trump rally enemy list: gang, gun-ban politicians, bureaucrats, elitists, media! Later comes reassurance: “That’s why gun owners like you need to join NRA right now. NRA is the only national organization that can STOP GUN CONFISCATION.”

Comically shameless demagoguery, but this emetic letter will surely have its intended effect. 

2 XI 2021: The Josh Hawley jukebox

Sen. Josh Hawley is a right-wing juke box. Put in a quarter, and you can select any reactionary golden oldie you like. The “National Conservatism Conference” at which he spoke must have pushed the button for “Manhood.” There Josh denounced the idea of “toxic masculinity,” wailed that “manhood” is being treated as a disease, and called for a return to traditional roles — by which I’m sure he means that men give the orders and women obey. I’m sure he was enthusiastically applauded by the attendees at this convention. His topic is a favorite of his audience and he himself embodies what he had undertaken to defend. For Hawley is one of the more notable examples of latter day toxic masculinity as manifested in his desperate ambition and energetic deceit and menu of the right-wing Top Ten. 

He said something to the effect that men are being so side-lined in America that many of them are resorting to idleness, pornography, and (oh Heavens!) computer games. He lamented “Manhood, it seems, is a disease that needs to be defeated.” What can he mean by manhood? The best he can offer is a re-run of a traditional caricature, and this cartoon manhood is, he says, being ground down by persecution. But what he really means is “Yikes, guys, we’re losing control!”

As I look around the world around me, I see no diminution of “traditional manhood,” among men and among women who imitate men. But manhood is not the disease. It’s testosterone poisoning that is the ancient pandemic that we’ve not yet learned to treat.