"There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election." — Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy
The above is somewhat comforting, but the fact that the Army secretary would need to make such a public statement has to be a first in American history.
It is increasingly obvious that Donald J. Trump is losing his mind. He has given up any pretense of governing and is spending what is left of his time in office in seditious plans to overthrow the free and fair election that he lost.
And where is the Republican Party as Trump and his Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight conspire to shred our Constitution in order to keep this American despot in power?
I'm tired of Republicans declaring their adherence to "Constitutionalism." The past four years have made plain that the GOP doesn't care a whit what the Constitution actually says.
I think it would be helpful if everyone stopped calling Trump and Trumpists "Conservatives." Whatever these people are, conservative isn't it.
At this point the label is more propaganda then anything else.
Trump is, strangely enough, apolitical, in that his politics (as in everything else) is entirely self-interested. If it helps him, makes him money, makes the base love him, or "owns the libs" he's for it. His continued fight to tear down American democracy demonstrates this. He would rather destroy the American system of government than lose; and if he is going to lose, he's going to do as much damage (and make as much money) as he can before he gets the boot.
Those who follow him are more Stalinist/bolshevik than anything else--party above all, and leader above party. They are completely on board with overturning an election because they don't like the outcome.
And I don't believe for a second more than a handful actually believe Trump won. They don't care. They're more than happy to tear down everything in order to keep Trump in power. They will call whatever is left "America"--because for them America is only them and Trump.
Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. The GOP has surrendered whatever was left of its principles to a liar, a cheat, and a fraud.
And that, my friends, will forever be the GOP's legacy.
Please read this:
”[T]he actual fact of the matter,” it said, is that “Trump is a loser.” Kruse points to Trump’s uncharacteristic absence from the public eye to wonder if he is breaking down mentally.
“His fragile ego has never been tested to this extent,” Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen told Kruse. “While he’s creating a false pretense of strength and fortitude, internally he is angry, depressed and manic. As each day ends, Trump knows he’s one day closer to legal and financial troubles. Accordingly, we will all see his behavior deteriorate until it progresses into a full mental breakdown.”
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Yesterday, Erica Newland, a former lawyer for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, published an op-ed in the New York Times saying she is “Haunted by What I Did as a Lawyer in the Trump Justice Department.” Lawyers like her, she said, hoped they were limiting the damage Trump could do but were instead, she concluded, finding ways to make his demands legal. Represented by the caliber of lawyers who are currently at his side—Giuliani and Powell, for example—Newland argues, he could never have made anything stick. Newland resigned from her post in 2018 and now says, “No matter our intentions, we were complicit.” They helped enable Trump’s assault on our democracy, and on reality. She offered her apology to the nation.
Meanwhile, right-wing media outlets Fox News Channel, Newsmax, and One America News are also concerned with the law. They are madly backpedaling as they face the consequences of their baseless accusations against election software company Smartmatic. Although that company was involved in the 2020 election only in Los Angeles County, right-wing media personalities have accused it of altering votes in several states in the 2020 presidential contest. The lawyer for the company’s founder, Antonio Mugica, has sent letters to the FNC, Newsmax, and OAN demanding that they retract their stories and warning them to keep documents for a forthcoming defamation suit. Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, also included in the news stories, has also hired legal counsel.
The threat of lawsuits has prompted the FNC and Newsmax to “clarify” at some length that they had no evidence of any of the improprieties they alleged. On Newsmax, John Tabacco also had to clarify that there was no relationship between Dominion Voting Systems and Dianne Feinstein, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.
As he descends into the fever swamps, Trump has largely given up any pretense of governing. His public schedule remains empty, and his private meetings appear to focus on how he can stay in office.
Today [12/21] we learned that Russian hackers broke into the email system used by the leadership of the Treasury Department, but the cyberattack from Russia has gone unaddressed except to the extent the president tried to blame the attack on China (although he has made no move to retaliate against China for the attack). He has made little attempt to shepherd any sort of an economic relief bill through Congress. And, most crucially, he is silent about the epidemic that is killing us. As of this evening, more than 18 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 319,000 have died."
