Trumpism Menaces Democracy

The President clearly stated at a speech he presented at Independence Hall in Philadelphia that MAGA is an attack on American democracy. He pointed out that those supporting MAGA beliefs take the position that there are only two consequences of an election. Either they won or they lost due to a corrupt election.

In other words they do not accept any loss. That means there is no democracy. President Biden said American democracy remains in great peril and declared former President Trump and his supporters the biggest threat to American democracy. While it was a political speech meant to rally Democratic Party loyalists to go to the polls in November the point he made rang true.

When do the MAGA Republicans accept an election loss? Apparently the answer is they do not accept any loss. To me Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.

Destroying the American Democracy

The worship of Donald Trump has resulted in loyal Americans willing to destroy the American democracy. Many of those supporters of Trump are still in government service. Thus the destruction of phone records and email messages before the June 6 insurrection, during the insurrection, and days following that insurrection is no surprise.

The advocacy group American Oversight sought the texts through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, to learn more about the attack. The group requested emails, texts and calendar invitations for former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, his former acting chief of staff Kash Patel and former Defense Department general counsel Paul Ney.

“It now appears as if multiple federal agencies may have failed to preserve records surrounding the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” Heather Sawyer, executive director at American Oversight, said in a statement. “There are still too many open questions about the role of the Pentagon, Secret Service, and others before and during the attack.”

American Oversight says on its website that it is “a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog that uses public records requests backed by litigation to fight corruption, drive accountability, and defend democracy.”

It appears that there were and probably still are people in the Federal government that are intent on protecting Donald Trump and his lieutenants from prosecution related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

The Department of Justice will likely bring criminal charges against those who intentionally destroyed those records. The Guardian reports the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been asked to investigate yet another deletion of text messages and other communications by senior officials on 6 January 2021, this time by the Pentagon.

Trump’s Crimes Against the United States

The Los Angeles Times July 24, 2022 editorial defined some of Donald Trump’s crimes but not all. A Donald Trump trial could result in a civil war.

There is no doubt that Donald Trump is “guilty of conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding” but also plotting an insurrection, dereliction of duty and dishonoring his sworn oath when he took the office of president. He ought to be tried and convicted. Sadly millions of Americans still believe Trump won the 2020 election as evidenced on January 6, 2021 and are willing to take up arms. If found guilty, the country would experience a second civil war. His followers have demonstrated their willingness to do his bidding. There are an estimated 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the US and 20 million of them are AR-15 style rifles. Are those trying to uphold the Constitution prepared to go to war to retain this democracy?

An abridged version of this posting appears on the letters page of the July 26, 2022 Los Angeles Times.

What Was The Wall Street Journal Thinking?

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal opinion’s section posted a lengthy letter from Donald Trump in which the former president repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

“Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out,” Trump wrote at the top of his op-ed, insisting — contra facts — that he actually won the state of Pennsylvania.

Before we go any further, let’s revisit what happened in Pennsylvania in 2020.

Joe Biden won 3,461,221 to Trump’s 3,379,055, according to the Almanac of American Politics. That’s a margin of 82,166 votes.

Which is close!

And the closeness of that result led Trump to make several attempts in the wake of the election to have courts step in. A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit in November 2020, writing: “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. That has not happened.” Around that same time, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Trump’s campaign to stop the counting of some absentee ballots in certain areas that included Philadelphia.

On November 24, Pennsylvania certified the results in the state after all 67 counties had certified their results individually.

There is simply no there there. None. Zero. Zilch.

Which, of course, the Wall Street Journal and its editors know. (Sidebar: Trump’s letter was published in the “Opinions” section, which is separate from the news and reporting end of the publication.) And that knowledge makes what they did all the worse.

The op-ed section at the Journal will likely hide behind 1st Amendment free speech arguments to defend themselves. But that misses the mark, since our speech is bound in all sorts of ways already. You can’t yell “bomb” on a plane without repercussions. Or “fire” in a movie theater. (Remember when we used to go to the movies? Yeah, that was fun.)

Under that same logic, you can’t simply allow lies about the 2020 election to be printed in a major national newspaper under the guise of free speech. There is absolutely no evidence that any of what Trump wrote in the letter is true. (He appears to have cobbled much of it together from a group known as Audit the Vote PA, which touts a number of debunked theories about the Pennsylvania vote count.) And by giving Trump such prominent space, you are conferring some credibility to what we know are wild and fact-free conspiracy theories.

So, why did the Journal do it?

Well, their opinion section has long been quite conservative. And a letter from the former president of the United States is not the easiest thing in the world to say “no” to. Plus, the letter was sure to be a massive traffic driver for the Journal’s website; it is currently the third most popular Opinions piece on the site and spent much of the first hours after publication in the number one slot.

None of these reasons, however, are good enough to justify the publication of a lie-filled letter from Trump, a letter which will continue to foment the misguided belief among his loyal supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Especially since we saw on January 6 what all of those lies can create.

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) plan to restore Trump presidency

CPAC attendees handed a “7-pt. plan to restore Donald J. Trump in days, not years,” which involves installing Trump as speaker and ousting Biden & Harris. It is more entertainment provided by the host of The Apprentice.

Many attendees are taking this as a serious happening.

My questions:

Who is the Good Witch of the North?
Will Donald Trump play the part of the wizard?
Is this a remake of The Wizard Of OZ?
Will the movie be on Netflix?

Arizona Recount is an Extension of “The Apprentice”

To Matt Masterson, the review of 2020 ballots from Maricopa County, Ariz., that’s underway is “performance art” or “a clown show,” and definitely “a waste of taxpayer money” reports NPR.

Copies of some of the voting system data being analyzed might not still be in Arizona at all. A report from CNN last week confirmed that the data had been shipped more than a thousand miles away, to Montana via truck.

Every other news media outlet from the New York Times to ABC News to the Washington Post are calling this “audit” a charade.

We can accurately guess the outcome will be. The Arizona Republicans will claim proof of a stolen election. Their next step will be to present their proof to the courts. If they do not do that the exercise will be pointless.

Donald Trump believes he will be reinstated as president as soon as August. That would wake extraordinary acts by the Supreme Court.

The problem for Trump is that after the president and vice president cannot serve the next in line is the Speaker of the House.

Donald Trump is a master at reality show entertainment. His television program The Apprentice was lasted 14 seasons. It only stopped when he announced his candidacy for president. The Arizona audit is just an extension his ability to entertain. If the auditors don’t find fraud will they be fired?

The Buck Stops…. Nowhere

I remember well when I had my first full time job as a youth, working in the hardware department of Sears. On the store manager’s desk was a prominent sign that read, “The Buck Stops Here.” He meant it. President Truman fostered the idea years before with the famous sign on his desk and it stuck with a lot of Americans. Like many of my generation, I embraced this philosophy as a very young man and it has guided my personal and professional life ever since. Personal responsibility is a necessity, not an option. It is what built America into a great country. However, things have become a tad different.

That was then and now is now. Today it is always about the blame game. When did this country slip on its ass and fail to get back up?

– A man kills a lion but pleads it was his guide’s fault.

– A man kills another man and says it was the Twinkie’s fault.

– A man gets lung cancer and claims it was Marlboro’s fault.

– One mass killing after another and it’s always the gun manufacturer’s fault.

– A woman burns herself with hot coffee and it was McDonald’s fault.

– A teenager gets fat and claims it was Coca Cola’s fault.

– (You can fill in the list yourself from here.)

It took the U.S. government decades to finally acknowledge its responsibility for the many health problems suffered by U.S. service personnel because of Agent Orange. Even then, they tried to shove the blame off to chemical companies who made the stuff. Through the years, personal responsibility has fully given way to blame gaming and has transformed our once proud humanity into a listless mob seeking to foist our personal responsibility onto others.

In basketball, when a player makes a foul, he raises his hand to acknowledge responsibility. It’s one of the few examples left in which responsibility is openly accepted. When something goes wrong in the rest of America, the government and its people tend to just shrug and say, “The buck stops…. nowhere.” The very concept of responsibility seems to have vanished in America. Maybe we need more basketball players in government and in our society as a whole.

Responsibility cannot and should not be passed to someone or something else.

If you have an opinion on this subject, please share it here. As for my opinions, “The Buck Stops Here!”

author Allen E. Rizzi

My response:

Sadly in Trump’s world someone else is to blame. The Chinese are to be blamed for the corona virus. Past presidents are blamed for everything that is wrong in America. The media is blamed for reporting information that puts Trump in a bad light. The political polls are all formatted to report he, Trump, is behind. Loss in the November election will be blamed on millions of fraudulent ballots.

Kristen Welker of NBC asks Trump whether he takes responsibility for the lag in making test kits available.

Trump’s reply:

No.

I don’t take responsibility at all.