Sunday, April 7, 2019

What Republic?


Collusion. Obstruction. Cover-up. These are not legal terms, but are very real elements in the dirty workings of powerful and corrupt individuals, corporations, government agencies, or administrations.

For those of us who are not lawyers, we need to at least understand how Merriam-Webster defines obstruction of justice.

“the crime or act of willfully interfering with the process of justice and law especially by influencing, threatening, harming, or impeding a witness, potential witness, juror, or judicial or legal officer or by furnishing false information in or otherwise impeding an investigation or legal process”

The Barr/Trump Cover-up of the Mueller Report is rolling along, just as intended. 

All we really have is, “Trust us. We promise.”

Nothing else. They don’t have to cover up the report forever; just long enough to dupe the public into buying their summary and spin as the actual report. 

They’d like to stall on this until the election, of course.

It’s safe to say If Democrats hadn’t taken the majority of the House, we would never see the report. It will be enough of a fight as it is. 

After all, Nunes and the rest of Trump’s House loyalists exonerated him with their not-so-thorough committee investigation, under coaching from the White House, of course.

Since there WAS obvious collusion and conspiracy with Russians, and there WAS obstruction of the investigation in plain sight, the propaganda machinery of the Party of Trump is working feverishly to distract us from what we already know.

“But, intent and motive for conspiracy are difficult to prove,” one may fairly assert. That may be so, but again, it’s all in plain sight.

Numerous campaign cronies were caught lying about numerous contacts with Russians running up to, and after, the election.

In glaring plain sight was, “Russia, if you’re listening...”  And they were. 

His cronies and offspring delighted in meeting with Russian agents in Trump Tower, seeking their support in the election. 

And in Helsinki, our intelligence community was thrown under the bus because Putin “strongly denies” interfering in the United States presidential election.

Who ya gonna trust, Trump or your lyin’ eyes?

Something else is in plain sight. Somehow a few inconvenient words slipped through Barr’s filter. Now the Party of Trump’s mission is to deflect from one annoying little passage from the report.

"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,"

Or as the Liar-in-Chief puts it, “Complete and total exoneration!”

In the tradition of all authoritarian followers, this is what his cult of true believers shall believe. And so does his loyal party of authoritarian enablers, sycophants, stooges, corporate elites and shills calling themselves the “Republican Party”.

Okay. Time out. 

I need to clear this up right now. They are NOT a “republican” party. That’s history. Their name has become a lie.

Merriam-Webster defines a republic as:

“ a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch... and a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law”

So much for the Party of Trump being that of a republic. He is their monarch and is above the law. He is protected from the law by those abetting his crimes, obstruction, lies, betrayals, and treachery.

Hey, they are Right-wing Authoritarians after all. They have no conscience. They prove it daily.

Any defense of the indefensible is fair in their war against democracy, education, journalism, and equal justice under law.

Rand Paul told Fox(R) News on March 26, 2019, “I think that you can’t obstruct justice when there wasn’t a crime. How do you cover up for a crime that didn’t occur? So if President Trump and nobody in his campaign colluded with Russia, which was the accusation, if they didn’t do that, how can they be covering up for something they didn’t do?”

Gee, that just makes simple common sense, doesn't it? So, how do we know there “wasn’t a crime” again? Perhaps because there wasn’t enough evidence or proof?

What happens when process, evidence and proof are suppressed by obstruction? Proof there was no crime?

No. What happens is there is no conviction for the crime.

“...if they didn’t do that, how can they be covering up for something they didn’t do?”

They same way they’d cover up something they DID do. The report that “does not exonerate” the Tangerine Tyrant is precisely what is covered up now.


Then something else emerged into plain sight:


As Marcy Wheeler wrote in the New Republic: 

Barr’s letter doesn’t address something else Mueller investigated: whether a series of exchanges between Trump’s campaign and Russians amounted to a crime. The sworn testimony of Trump’s aides reveal that, at least through June 2016, he continued to pursue a $300 million real estate deal in Moscow that required Vladimir Putin’s assistance. While hoping to land that deal, Trump’s son, Don Jr., took a meeting with some Russians offering dirt on Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” At the end of the meeting, Don Jr. said his father would consider sanctions relief for Russia if he won.

Then, on August 2, 2016, in the same meeting where Manafort gave Kilimnik polling data, he discussed a “peace” deal in Ukraine that would also amount to sanctions relief for the Russians.

Finally, after he was elected but before he was president, Trump undercut President Obama’s response to the Russian hacks, suggesting that he would give Russia sanctions relief.


The hack-and-leak is not the crime Trump may have committed. It is, instead, a quid pro quo deal by which Russia would help Trump win and Trump would relieve Russia of the sanctions imposed for engaging in human rights violations, annexing Crimea, and hacking the election to help Trump win.


Obstruction is committed before the crime is proven in order to destroy, conceal, or suppress evidence, and to impede or undermine the process of investigation. This is exactly the purpose for the obstruction.

There is never a “crime" when obstruction is successful.  Funny how that works out.

What a beautiful system of justice we have for those very special people.

Next up, also in plain sight, we'll see how beautifully "Individual 1" slithers out of his campaign finance crime.

And he will. The authoritarian Party of Trump will do everything and anything to hold power and defend their Monarch from the rule of law.

And you thought we had a republic?

Sorry, Ben Franklin, we couldn't keep it. The Republican Party destroyed our republic. 


6 comments:

U.P. Tim said...

Dave,
Just a quick quote from Rick Wilson's book " Everything Trump Touches Dies". He states that since Trumpism, his party has displayed many examples of " Profiles in Chickenshit ". The Republicons are deathly afraid of the Liar-in-chief and like you said will do about anything to cover-up his corruption and law breaking.
Check out the book, I think it's a pretty good read.

Jefferson's Guardian said...

"Collusion. Obstruction. Cover-up. These are not legal terms, but are very real elements in the dirty workings of powerful and corrupt individuals, corporations, government agencies, or administrations." ~~ Dave Dubya

Recall the day, awhile ago, when collusion associated with multinational price-fixing was heavily monitored and appropriately prosecuted.

That was during a bygone era, when the regulation of corporations was in the best interest of citizens and consumers.

Now the regulatory agencies are run by and work for the benefit of corporate interests.

It only took a few decades of corporate influence, combined with complicit corrupt elected officials, to pull off the quietest slow-motion coup d'état in the history of civilization.

Welcome to the corporate state.

Dave Dubya said...

Tim,
Thanks for the reference. Sadly our republic was terminally ill before the toxic effect of the Tangerine Tyrant finished it off.

He's both the symptom AND the tumor.

JG,
The second Civil War is over. The US government has been overthrown and democracy has been defeated by the pervasive and persistent hostile corporate takeover.

Corruption is the rule, and the justice system is rigged and impotent. A racist criminal defiles the Oval Office.

White nationalists and ICE are the brown shirts of this inverted totalitarian regime.

The terrorizing of minorities and detention/torturing of children will continue.

...But apart from all that, things are good, right? ;-)

A sick sense of humor is a healthy coping mechanism in these sick, twisted and dark times.


Jefferson's Guardian said...

"A sick sense of humor is a healthy coping mechanism in these sick, twisted and dark times. ~~ Dave Dubya

It's one of the few coping mechanisms for late-night talk show viewers. It's late-night talk show hosts who speak the truth with a measure of sardonic humor. They're the ones who keep it real.

The rest is the horrible nightmare we all live within. It only promises to get more nightmarish.

Jefferson's Guardian said...

"So much for the Party of Trump being that of a republic. He is their monarch and is above the law. He is protected from the law by those abetting his crimes, obstruction, lies, betrayals, and treachery." ~~ Dave Dubya

"We have bad laws. We have the worst laws of any country in the world." ~~ Donald Trump, in response to question about submitting his tax records to Congress, April 9, 2019

I wonder which Hitler henchmen, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, Herman Goring or Heinrich Himmler, would best be personified by Trump's head henchman, Stephen Miller?...or even William Barr?

Miller's a very dangerous and evil man. He's soulless. You can see it in his eyes.

Barr is Trump's toady. He'll get burned and thrown under the bus soon. He doesn't possess the evil under-being of Miller. He won't last. Miller is a different story.

We haven't seen the most dangerous times yet. Be ready.

Dave Dubya said...

JG,
"I wonder which Hitler henchmen, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, Herman Goring or Heinrich Himmler, would best be personified by Trump's head henchman, Stephen Miller?"

I'd say SS/Gestapo leader Reinhardt Heydrich, of Kristallnacht infamy. The evil Butcher of Prague was a co-architect of the holocaust.

He and Miller look like they could be brothers. They share the same dark, cold, reptilian eyes.