Tag Archives: country over party

Wise Words Of Warning …

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Judge Michael Luttig first came to my attention last year when he testified before the January 6th committee.  I was impressed with his insight and honesty then … he came across as an intelligent, knowledgeable judge who, while himself a Republican, did not support the shenanigans of the party in the aftermath of the 2020 election.  Yesterday, I came across a guest post he wrote for the New York Times that I think is well worth sharing … he pulls no punches and “tells it like it is.”  Take a look …

It’s Not Too Late for the Republican Party

By J. Michael Luttig

(Judge Luttig was appointed by George H.W. Bush and served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.)

25 June 2023

Donald Trump this month became the first former or incumbent American president to be charged with crimes against the nation that he once led and wishes to lead again. He cynically calculated that his indictment would ensure that a riled-up Republican Party base would nominate him as its standard-bearer in 2024, and the last few weeks have proved that his political calculation was probably right.

The former president’s behavior may have invited charges, but the Republicans’ spineless support for the past two years convinced Mr. Trump of his political immortality, giving him the assurance that he could purloin some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets upon leaving the White House — and preposterously insist that they were his to do with as he wished — all without facing political consequences. Indeed, their fawning support since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has given Mr. Trump every reason to believe that he can ride these charges and any others not just to the Republican nomination, but also to the White House in 2024.

In a word, the Republicans are as responsible as Mr. Trump for this month’s indictment — and will be as responsible for any indictment and prosecution of him for Jan. 6. One would think that, for a party that has prided itself for caring about the Constitution and the rule of law, this would stir some measure of self-reflection among party officials and even voters about their abiding support for the former president. Surely before barreling headlong into the 2024 presidential election season, more Republicans would realize it is time to come to the reckoning with Mr. Trump that they have vainly hoped and naïvely believed would never be necessary.

But by all appearances, it certainly hasn’t occurred to them yet that any reckoning is needed. As only the Republicans can do, they are already turning this ignominious moment into an even more ignominious moment — and a self-immolating one at that — by rushing to crown Mr. Trump their nominee before the primary season even begins. Building the Republican campaign around the newly indicted front-runner is a colossal political miscalculation, as comedic as it is tragic for the country. No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning.

The stewards of the Republican Party have become so inured to their putative leader, they have managed to convince themselves that an indicted and perhaps even convicted Donald Trump is their party’s best hope for the future. But rushing to model their campaign on Mr. Trump’s breathtakingly inane template is as absurd as it is ill fated. They will be defending the indefensible.

On cue, the Republicans kicked their self-defeating political apparatus into high gear this month. Almost as soon as the indictment in the documents case was unsealed, Mr. Trump jump-started his up-to-then languishing campaign, predictably declaring himself an “innocent man” victimized in “the greatest witch hunt of all time” by his “totally corrupt” political nemesis, the Biden administration. On Thursday, he added that it was all part of a plot, hatched at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., to “rig” the 2024 election against him.

From his distant second place, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida denounced the Biden administration’s “weaponization of federal law enforcement” against Mr. Trump and the Republicans. Mike Pence dutifully pronounced the indictment political. And both Governor DeSantis and Mr. Pence pledged — in a new Republican litmus test — that on their first day in office they would fire the director of the F.B.I., the Trump appointee Christopher Wray, obviously for his turpitude in investigating Mr. Trump. It fell to Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, to articulate the treacherous overarching Republican strategy: “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

There’s no stopping Republicans now, until they have succeeded in completely politicizing the rule of law in service to their partisan political ends.

If the indictment of Mr. Trump on Espionage Act charges — not to mention his now almost certain indictment for conspiring to obstruct Congress from certifying Mr. Biden as the president on Jan. 6 — fails to shake the Republican Party from its moribund political senses, then it is beyond saving itself. Nor ought it be saved.

There is no path to the White House for Republicans with Mr. Trump. He would need every single Republican and independent vote, and there are untold numbers of Republicans and independents who will never vote for him, if for no other perfectly legitimate reason than that he has corrupted America’s democracy and is now attempting to corrupt the country’s rule of law. No sane Democrat will vote for Mr. Trump — even over the aging Mr. Biden — when there are so many sane Republicans who will refuse to vote for Mr. Trump. This is all plain to see, which makes it all the more mystifying why more Republicans don’t see it.

When Republicans faced an 11th-hour reckoning with another of their presidents over far less serious offenses almost 50 years ago, the elder statesmen of the party marched into the Oval Office and told Richard Nixon the truth. He had lost his Republican support and he would be impeached if he did not resign. The beleaguered Nixon resigned the next day and left the White House the day following.

Such is what it means to put country over party. History tends to look favorably upon a party that writes its own history, as Winston Churchill might have said.

Republicans have waited in vain for political absolution. It’s finally time for them to put the country before their party and pull back from the brink — for the good of the party, as well as the nation.

If not now, then they must forever hold their peace.

September Surprise?

Posted on by under cartoons, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

No, my friends, it is NOT fake news.  Yesterday afternoon, the New York Times published a report about Trump’s taxes for the past decade or so.  Not surprisingly, we have learned from this report that Trump is a lousy business manager, that he has lied and cheated to keep from paying taxes, and that his businesses are profiting from his position as president, among other things.

Trump immediately held a press conference to deny deny deny, but his denials fell flat.

According to the report:

  • In both 2016 and 2017, Trump paid exactly $750 in federal income taxes. Look back at your own taxes for those two years … I bet you paid a significantly higher amount in taxes, though you aren’t a billionaire or even a millionaire.  In 2016, my daughter, a nurse earning under $50,000 per year, paid $3,431 in federal income taxes, and in 2017 she paid $3,969.  She paid more than 5 times what Donald Trump, a billionaire, paid.
  • Trump had paid no taxes at all in 10 of the 15 years prior to his election. Think about that one for a minute, folks … he paid no taxes … not a single dime … 2 out of every 3 years.  If you’re not angry yet, then please go get a cup of coffee to wake yourself up!
  • In 2010, Trump claimed and received a tax refund of $72.9 million. The IRS has reportedly been auditing him over this and he stands to owe more than $100 million to We the People if when they find his refund requests were fraudulent.  $72.9 million of our money went to this jackass!
  • He has claimed as business expenses … his personal/family residences, the cost of the aircraft he uses to shuttle him between residences, and even $70,000 to style his “hair” … what hair??? He wears a critter atop his bald pate!
  • And speaking of ‘hair’, his ‘daughter’ Ivanka has been paid over $100,000 to be his hair and makeup ‘artist’. So, she gets paid to make his skin turn orange and place the critter on his head???  And he uses his payment to her to reduce his tax burden?
  • Trump is often hailed by his followers as a “successful businessman”, yet his golf courses alone have lost more than $315 million, and his Washington hotel, which opened in 2016, has already lost more than $55 million.
  • Within the next four years, Trump has $421 million in loans coming due, much of which he is personally responsible for.

A good businessman?  Hardly.  It should come as no surprise, for we already knew that Trump has declared bankruptcy six times due to his inability to pay his massive debts.  A good conman is more like it, for he conned some 40% of this nation into believing his outsized lies.  The Times promises there will be more to come about Trump’s taxes and financial records, and even that will be only the tip of the iceberg.  This conman has been living a life of luxury … paid for by other people’s money.  We always suspected it, I always said that if he had nothing to hide, he would have put the issue of his finances to bed by releasing his tax returns as every other president has done for decades, but now we have proof.  Stay tuned for more …

Claytoonz

In other news, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, a lifetime Republican, penned an OpEd in The Philadelphia Inquirer stating that …

“I will cast my vote for Joe Biden on Nov. 3. It will be my first vote for a Democratic candidate for president of the United States. But it is not the first time I have said ‘no’ to Donald Trump. I urge my fellow Pennsylvanians to join me.

Donald Trump has proven over these last four years he is incapable of such leadership. It is not within him. He lacks the empathy, integrity, intellect and maturity to lead. 

He sows division along political, racial and religious lines. And he routinely dismisses the opinions of experts who know far more about the subject at hand than he does — intelligence, military, and public health. Our country has paid dearly in lives lost, social unrest, economic hardship and our standing in the world.

Vice President Biden and I both know that supporting his candidacy now certainly won’t dissuade me from speaking out later when I disagree with him. But we surely will do so with civility and respect, not with childish name-calling and Twitter tirades.

I believe the responsible vote is for Joe Biden. It’s a vote for decency. A vote for the rule of law. And a vote for honest and earnest leadership. It’s time to put country over party. It’s time to dismiss Donald Trump.”

It’s time to put country over party … that says it all, my friends.  Maybe it’s also time for the Republican Party to reassess its values, or lack thereof, to put the people of not only this country, but the world, ahead of corporate greed and profit.  Think about it.

“Country Over Party” Say These Republicans …

Posted on by under Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

The Lincoln Project is a political action committee formed in late 2019 by several prominent Republicans. The goal of the committee is to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election.    Members of the advisory board have written an OpEd in The Washington Post that I think is worth sharing here.  Remember, as you read, that these are all Republicans who clearly see what Trump is doing to this nation and want something better.

We’ve never backed a Democrat for president. But Trump must be defeated.

By

George T. Conway III, Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson

April 15, 2020 at 2:35 p.m. EDT

The authors are on the advisory board of the Lincoln Project.

This November, Americans will cast their most consequential votes since Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. We confront a constellation of crises: a public health emergency not seen in a century, an economic collapse set to rival the Great Depression, and a world where American leadership is absent and dangers rise in the vacuum.

Today, the United States is beset with a president who was unprepared for the burden of the presidency and who has made plain his deficits in leadership, management, intelligence and morality.

When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. We are in extraordinary times, and we have chosen to put country over party — and former vice president Joe Biden is the candidate who we believe will do the same.

Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee and he has our support. Biden has the experience, the attributes and the character to defeat Trump this fall. Unlike Trump, for whom the presidency is just one more opportunity to perfect his narcissism and self-aggrandizement, Biden sees public service as an opportunity to do right by the American people and a privilege to do so.

Biden is a reflection of the United States. Born into a middle-class family in coal-country Pennsylvania, he has known the hardship and heartbreak that so many Americans themselves know and that millions more are about to experience.

Biden’s personal tragedies and losses tested his strength, his faith and his determination. They were enough to crush most people’s spirit, but Biden emerged more compassionate toward the suffering of others and the burdens that life imposes on his fellow Americans.

Biden did what Americans have always done: picked himself up, dusted himself off and made the best of a bad situation. In the years since he first entered office, Biden has consistently demonstrated decency, empathy and humanity.

Biden’s life has been marked by triumphs that didn’t change the goodness in him, and he is a man for whom public service never went to his head. His long record of bipartisan friendship and cross-partisan legislative efforts commends him to this moment. He is an imperfect man, but a man who loves his country and its people with a broad smile and an open heart.

In this way, Trump is a photonegative of Joe Biden. While Trump has innumerable flaws and a lifetime of blaming others for them, Biden has long admitted his imperfections and in doing so has further illustrated his inherent goodness and his willingness to do the work necessary to help put the United States back on a path of health and prosperity.

Unlike Trump, Biden is not an international embarrassment, nor does he demonstrate malignant narcissism. A President Biden will steady the ship of state and begin binding up the wounds of a fractured country. We have faith that Biden will surround himself by advisers of competence, expertise and wisdom, not an endless parade of disposable lackeys.

For Trump, the presidency has been the biggest stage, under the hottest klieg lights in a reality show of his making. Every episode leaves the audience more shocked and divided. Trump’s only barometer is his own ego. The country, our values and its people do not factor into Trump’s equation.

Biden understands a tenet of leadership that far too few leaders today grasp: The presidency is a life-and-death business, that the consequences of elections have real-world effects on individual Americans, and that all of this — all of the struggle, toil and work — is not a zero-sum game.

The coronavirus crisis is a terrifying example of why real leadership looks outward. This crisis, the deaths and economic destruction are immeasurably worse because Trump and his administration were unwilling to do what was necessary to mitigate its worst effects and bring the country back as quickly as possible.

We asked ourselves: How would a Biden presidency handle this crisis? Would he spend weeks lying about the risk? Would he look to cable news, the stock market and his ratings before taking the steps to make us safer? The answer is obvious: Biden will be the superior leader during the crisis of our generation.

We’ve seen the damage three years of corruption and cultish amateurism can do. This country cannot afford to be torn apart for sport and profit for another term, as Trump will surely do. If Biden takes office next January, he won’t need on-the-job training.

We are in a transcendent and transformative period of American history. The nation cannot afford another four years of chaos, duplicity and Trump’s reality distortion. This country is crying out for a president with a spine stiffened by tragedy, a worldview shaped by experience and a heart whose compass points to decency.

It is our hope that when the next president takes the oath of office in January, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. will be the president for a truly united America. The stakes are too high to do anything less.