Friday, May 24, 2019

A New New Low

I don't post as often here as I should. Every crazy thing that happens is followed by a thing that is even crazier, and I hate to fall behind. The government has become so chaotic that you cannot keep up with the actual crimes committed, never mind the horrible policy decisions, the lies, the absurd things that are said. The standard is set low, and then every day they set it lower.

For example, yesterday the President was asked by an NBC reporter, “Sir, the Constitution says treason is punishable by death. You’ve accused your adversaries of treason. Who specifically are you accusing of treason?” The President thought for a few seconds and then mentioned James Comey and Andrew McCabe, and “People probably higher than that.”

This is nothing, just another day in Washington. Let's execute my political enemies, shall we?

Yesterday, too, Trump posted a video on the Internet that was heavily edited to make it seem to show Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, with his descriptor: “PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE.”

The Washington Post has a video showing how the video was altered. The voice was slowed down to 75 percent of its original speed, and then the pitch was shifted back up to Pelosi's natural range -- slowing the video, of course, lowers the pitch. WATCH HERE. This seems to be a pretty effective way to make somebody look bad. It is not a good way to run a government.

There was also another altered video of Pelosi speaking, which was shared online by Rudy Giuliani, and the edited videos were discussed on Fox News as if they were real, as if Pelosi was either drunk or maybe aging ungracefully.

By the time the President posted the video, the news had been out for hours that it was fake. He knew it was fake.

Millions of Americans have seen these videos. Since Trump followers are generally not people who follow the news outside their bubble, we can assume that many people who saw this stuff actually believe there is something wrong with Nancy Pelosi. In fact, she was extremely lucid and articulate in the briefing and had some important things to say about Trump storming out of the infrastructure meeting. Yes, she is trolling him, of course. She has completely gotten under his skin. Pelosi, it turns out, is the one politician who can stand up to Trump and win. She is not speaking drunkenly in public, and she is aging quite well, thank you.

The idea that the President of the United States posted a fake video of the Speaker of the House is off the rails. We have seen people twist words, misquote, misconstrue, and so on, this is old political stuff. We have even seen fake videos get traction in Washington, causing heads to roll. But this President sets a new low standard, posting this on his official Presidential Twitter account. No President before would have done this, and nobody thinks it's okay, to borrow Adam Schiff's wording. This sort of stuff embarrasses the whole country.

The Post's fact-checkers this week announced that Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims.

Ten thousand.

The President of the United States.

I understand the reluctance to impeach but hopefully as the public becomes aware of the contents of some of these ongoing investigations, impeachment will become a priority for Republicans as well as Democrats. This President's behavior is dangerous, it is embarrassing, and it undermines our American democracy.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Lock Him Up Like You Would Anybody Else

Donald Trump Jr. has been subpoenaed to appear in a Senate hearing, and Reuters is saying that he does not intend to show up for it.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. is unlikely to comply with a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena to testify about his contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said on Thursday as the president publicly defended his eldest son.

The sources said Trump Jr is expected to cite his Fifth Amendment constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, a day after reports that the Republican-led panel had issued what is the first publicly known subpoena for a member of the president’s family. Donald Trump Jr. seen resisting Senate committee subpoena: sources
Note that Trump Junior does not hold any position in the government. He does not have executive privilege or, apparently, a security clearance, or anything else that would make his testimony inappropriate or even controversial, nothing that would raise Constitutional questions about the checks and balances in our system of government.

He is just a guy who made some statements to Congress which were contradicted by findings of the Mueller report. The Senate committee will want Junior to explain some statements from his last visit.

The committee is chaired by a Republican, in a Republican-dominated chamber of Congress, and so it is likely they will toss him some softballs and let him go. But still, this is a subpoena, it is not a party invitation.

If you or I got such a subpoena and didn't appear, do you know what would happen? Yeah, they'd come find us and throw our butts in jail until Congress could schedule another hearing, and then they would drag us down there and make sure we sat in the chair and answered the questions.

I don't know about you, but I want to see how this works. Donald Trump Junior is a regular private citizen, just like you and me. Handcuffs fit around his wrists just like they fit on the rest of us. The jail door can clank shut behind him just like it clanks shut on anybody else who disobeys the law. I don't actually hope anybody goes to jail but it's totally his own choice at this point.

This administration routinely breaks the law with everything from emoluments to nepotism to giving clearances to a bunch of traitors. And the thing is, nothing happens. It's like there is no law, or it doesn't apply to the Trump family, business, or government administration. So once, just once, I'd like to see one of those smug crooks go sit on a metal bench in a room with a concrete floor and steel bars for walls. Maybe just overnight. Give one of them a taste of what the other ninety-nine percent experiences when we break the law.

I don't have any problem with Junior asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. The good ol' Constitution protects him. Of course, we understand you only need to be protected from self-incrimination if you have done something incriminating in the first place. I expect this the first of many.