One Insurrection at a Time

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Monday November 06, 2023 · 6:57 AM PST

2023/11/06 · 06:57

Some commentator was saying that Trump should not be jailed because his supporters would be enraged. The implication was that there would be riots and civil unrest, maybe rising to the level of civil war.

Maybe so, although the marked absence of demonstrators at the various court houses suggests otherwise.

But fear of the next possible insurrection is not a reason to fail to deal firmly with the last one. That would take the entire justice process hostage and further undermine it's already dubious fairness and impartiality.

Deal with one insurrection at a time!

JACK SMITH LOOKS LIKE AN IMPLACABLE DOMINICAN INQUISITOR FROM THE 13TH CENTURY. IN A GOOD WAY

DocMartin

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Wednesday June 14, 2023 · 9:40 AM PDT

2023/06/14 · 09:40

There are lots of moving parts to Jack Smith’s possible strategy.

First, Judge Cannon… I’m sure that Smith has gamed out the possibilities. One is that Judge Cannon got spanked so hard last time that she will now bend over backward to not delay or show bias toward Trump.

A second thought is that the current Florida indictment does not charge that Trump disseminated classified information. Yet there is evidence that he did, in Bedminster, New Jersey. This is a far more serious charge under the Espionage Act. Jack Smith could be keeping his powder dry to bring a separate indictment in New Jersey if Judge Cannon demonstrates bias in Florida.

A third thought is that Smith thinks his evidence is so overpowering that even Judge Cannon has to recognize Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, the Court of Appeals would probably overturn any blatantly biased rulings by Judge Cannon.

Second, there was talk about how the other pending cases in New York and Georgia would be derailed in deference to the Federal case. Letitia James said as much. It’s true that timing could be thrown off by trying to coordinate all these proceedings. But the Georgia case is as much about the fake electors as about Trump personally. The case against the fake electors could proceed unimpeded. Anyway, the DA in Atlanta has shown no sign of backing off.

Third, what about the valet? He has been charged but not arraigned because he did not yet have a lawyer who was admitted to the bar in Florida. His arraignment is postponed for two weeks. He could go to trial separately and much of the evidence against Trump could be laid out in that conspiracy trial.

And then there is the January 6 investigation. A couple of fake electors went in front of the grand jury at the same time as the arraignment was under way. That investigation is separate from the documents case and would certainly be brought in DC.

Summary: there are lots of ways that Jack Smith could proceed even if Judge Cannon turns out to be a problem. And none are good for TFG.

Google Balloons

DocMartin

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Saturday February 04, 2023 · 4:09 PM PST

2023/02/04 · 16:09

Not saying the balloon that was just shot down was not a spy balloon, BUT…

Google was testing the use of geostationary balloons for telecommunications a few years ago. They were basically cell towers in the sky. They were to be deployed over areas that lacked terrestrial infrastructure and were actually tested by Google in multiple locations including New Zealand and Kenya. I was involved in some work that proposed to deploy them over the Amazon, although that never went beyond the investigation stage. The project was shut down in January 2021, not for technical reasons, but for commercial reasons, according to the article

en.wikipedia.org/...

Clear and Present Danger

DocMartin

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Tuesday June 21, 2022 · 7:50 AM PDT

2022/06/21 · 07:50

I am a bit surprised that no one has seemed to pick up on Judge Luttig’s comment about the “Clear and Present Danger” presented by the MAGA crowd. Given the extreme care with which he chose his words, that phrase IMHO should have evoked a strong response.

“Clear and Present Danger” is the legal language that justifies a suspension of a speaker’s First Amendment rights of free speech. According to the Legal Information Institute:

“The clear and present danger test originated in Schenck v. the United States . The test says that the printed or spoken word may not be the subject of previous restraint or subsequent punishment unless its expression creates a clear and present danger of bringing about a substantial evil.

Requirements:

The clear and present danger test features two independent conditions: first, the speech must impose a threat that a substantive evil might follow, and second, the threat is a real, imminent threat. The court had to identify and quantify both the nature of the threatened evil and the imminence of the perceived danger.” www.law.cornell.edu/…

That Judge Luttig used this language suggests an avenue for going after some of those who use the media to incite riots, insurrection, secession, etc. I am a strong First Amendment believer, but recognize such limits as falsely yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. The ‘Clear and Present Danger’ test may apply in many of the situations arising from the Jan 6 insurrection.

The judge’s language at least deserves some discussion and consideration.

PUTIN IS NOT JUST FIGHTING A WAR. HE IS WAGING A RELIGIOUS CRUSADE.

DocMartin

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Sunday April 10, 2022 · 6:33 PM PDT

2022/04/10 · 18:33

The motivation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a bit of a mystery. The commentariat has emphasized geopolitical factors such as Ukraine’s expressed desire to join the European Union, a desire that led to the Orange and Maidan Revolutions. This forced the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to resign and flee to Russia. The Ukrainian perception of itself as a free and sovereign nation, separate from Russia, emerged from these upheavals. (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/how-ukraines-orange-revolution-shaped-twenty-first-century-geopolitics/)

But this separation from Russia did not extend into the religious realm. The Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church are deeply intertwined and the Patriarch of Moscow is one of Putin’s strongest supporters.

The Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a unified entity under the authority of Moscow since 1618. This changed in October 2018, when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church officially split from Russia. It did this with the approval of the Patriarchate of Constantinople who is considered the “First Among Equals” of the world’s Orthodox Churches. This split represented a major advancement in the separation of Ukraine from Russian political, economic and religious subservience.

The reaction in Russia was furious. About a third of the Russian Orthodox Church’s 36,000 parishes were in Ukraine. With the schism, the Russian Orthodox Church lost its spiritual and symbolic authority over Ukraine. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill strongly condemned the Ukrainian action. Patriarch Kirill has supported the invasions of eastern Ukraine and urged in the name of their common religion that the Ukrainian troops not resist Russia.

WHY NOW?

Putin has claimed repeatedly that Ukraine is not a real country. He bases this assertion in part on the notion that the Ukrainians are religiously Russian Orthodox people who share 300 years of subservience to the Moscow Patriarchate. That story held until 2018. Before that, the invasion of Ukraine was justified by claims that Russian speakers in Donbas were victims of repression, and the same arguments were used earlier in Crimea - to protect Russian – speakers there from ‘far-right extremists.”

The current invasion began with similar claims, but the rhetoric has shifted to assertions of “one Russia,” a claim that relies heavily on the religious unity that Ukraine has ruptured in the interest of its own sovereignty. Putin would not be the first autocrat to buttress authority using religion. He needs the support of the Russian Orthodox Church to provide moral authority to his governance and the invasion.

Asking the wrong questions inevitably leads to wrong answers. At least part of the answer to “Why?” is this religious schism. Ignoring that influence will lead to incomplete and unsustainable outcomes.

REPUBLICANS HAVE ABANDONED SECURITY AS THEIR PLATFORM

DocMartin

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Monday March 15, 2021 · 12:06 PM PDT

2021/03/15 · 12:06

Security has five dimensions:

National security
Law and Order
Right to Religious and cultural practices
Economic stability
Safe products and environment

Republicans once claimed the promise of security as the basis for their appeal to voters. But at least since Ronald Reagan, (and since Goldwater and Nixon in some areas) that promise has been widely betrayed. Under Republican administrations:

-“National security” has morphed into the war on terror, xenophobia, coddling tyrants, and weapons sales.

-“Law and Order” has morphed into the war on drugs, racist policing, domestic terrorism, overt public corruption, political encouragement of a gun culture.

-“Right to Religious and cultural practices” have morphed into discrimination, systematic racism and tolerance of white supremacy.

“Economic stability” has morphed into the greatest income inequality in the developed world, soaring headline inflation (including food and fuel and which are not counted in official core inflation calculations), high child poverty rates, unaffordable health care, rising monopolization, and financial fraud

“Safe products and environment” has morphed into tainted water, opioid epidemics, crumbling roads, bridges and dams, unenforced occupational safety regulation, accelerating climate change, environmental degradation with associated ‘natural’ catastrophes, antivaxxing, and successive waves of disease including HIV, H3N2 flu, SARS, ebola, covid-19.

The vacancy of the Republicans on these issues leaves a space for the Democratic Party to become the party of security. It cannot let this moment pass.

Pardons Don't Apply to Impeachment

DocMartin

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Monday January 04, 2021 · 10:14 AM PST

2021/01/04 · 10:14

Constitution (Section 2, Clause 1), which provides: ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.

I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that the House of Representatives could issue articles of impeachment against Trump, and for those accusations included in the article, Trump would not have the power to pardon himself, even if he might have that power otherwise (which everyone seems to doubt.) The fact that the proceedings would become moot after inauguration day so that the Senate would not get to conduct its trial is irrelevant. The Constitution says “Impeachment” , not “conviction.”

KEVIN McCARTHY: WE CALL BS!

DocMartin

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Monday August 05, 2019 · 10:11 AM PDT

2019/08/05 · 10:11

Kevin McCarthy rolled out the usual tropes in response to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. WE CALL BS!

“The problem is video games.” WE CALL BS

We can’t know whether that is true because YOU WON’T ALLOW ANY RESEARCH on the causes of gun violence go forward. So WE CALL BS.
People all over the world play video games, and THEY DON’T COMMIT MASS MURDER BECAUSE OF THEM. WE CALL BS.
My five year old grandson assures me he knows the difference between games and reality; I expect that is generally true. WE CALL BS

“The problem is mental health” WE CALL BS.

Murder is mostly criminal and often targeted to relatives and acquaintances to revenge imaginary wrongs, e.g. workplaces and Columbine. Suicides are often caused by mental health issues like depression.
But most mass killings are caused by ideology. From John Brown and Quantrell’s Raiders to Japanese kamikaze pilots to German death camps to Cambodian killing fields to Islamic suicide bombers to the Unabomber to the Manson Family to Oklahoma City to New Zealand to El Paso; these are politically motivated acts perceived by their perpetrators as acts of war against enemies and oppressors.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” WE CALL BS.

People with guns kill people. Countries with stricter gun controls have far fewer deaths from gun violence than the US. The major difference is the prevalence of an American gun culture.

“The Second Amendment is intended to give Americans the ability to protect against tyranny and foreign invasion.” WE CALL BS.

The second amendment was put in place to allow outnumbered southern slave owners to put down slave revolts.
There has never been an example of a foreign invader driven out by local guerilla actions. In every case, guerillas were either defeated (e.g. Malaya) or heavily supported by outside forces (US versus Soviets in Afghanistan; US and Britain versus Germans in WW 2; Viet Cong supported by Russian and China.) Even the American War of Independence against Britain would have been lost without French support.
When black men exercise lawful Second Amendment rights, the police tend to kill them. The opposite of “Black Lives Matter” is not “White Lives Matter.” It is “Black Lives Don’t Matter.”

Kings, Presidents and Corruption

DocMartin

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Sunday December 16, 2018 · 4:59 PM PST

2018/12/16 · 16:59

During my career, I spent a great deal of time working in Indonesia and Egypt. During those periods, the former was ruled by the Suharto family and the latter by the Mubarak family. To understand them, it is important to realize that, although the title of both Suharto and Mubarak was “President” both were in fact “Kings.” They controlled and supported the military, they were supported by the religious majority and they maintained this loyalty through carefully doling out goodies to key supporters who thus had a financial interest in keeping them in power. With their children, wives and in-laws, they constituted a royal family.
I became familiar with a number of common features that now seem applicable to the Trump administration in the United States.
First of course is the staggering level of corruption. In both the cases of Egypt and Indonesia, most of this was directed toward enriching the family members of the rulers. In both countries, the main vehicle for this was a law that required that any international investment was required to have 51 percent local ownership. In very many cases, this was accompanied by the requirement that the government provide licenses, favorable tax treatment, and tariff treatment. The children of the ruler were facilitators in accomplishing this, so they naturally found themselves in possession of a substantial share of the minority investment.

In the case of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak’s sons Gamaal and Alaa were partners in the biggest industrial and trading companies in Egypt, paying almost nothing for their ownership. They reportedly owned shares in restaurants, car dealerships, hotels and resorts, as well as multiple international properties.

A similar pattern emerged in Indonesia, where the children of Suharto accumulated incredible wealth. Tommy, Banbang, and Sigit and their sister Tutut were the President’s closest advisors. His daughter was the chairman of the ruling party; a son-in-law was a general. Suharto constantly shuffled senior officials as they acquired too much power, so the children became the only reliable source of influence. For an investor to “get” a Suharto required surrendering as much as 35 percent share. Tommy was given the franchise to manufacture cars in Indonesia under a contract with Kia, and the company was not assessed a 35 percent tax that was levied on all its competitors. The industries in which the First Children participated range from airlines, telecommunications, hotels and toll roads, to sugar and oranges.
In both cases, the corruption was assisted by the active participation of a foreign power. In Indonesia’s case, it was Japan. In Egypt’s case, it was the United States, primarily through foreign aid, primarily military, that represented a payoff for the peace treaty with Israel.

The one thing that a king fears most when he is toppled from power is that the next regime will “kill” his children. In historic times, this was a literal fear, but in more enlightened modern times, it takes the form of arrest, incarceration and maybe banishment, usually without the wealth that was expropriated during the period of power. This threat or the promise not to undertake these threats may be the best way to convince the king to abdicate. Otherwise, removal tends to be accompanied by violence and destruction.

LOCK HIM UP

DocMartin

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Saturday August 26, 2017 · 3:28 PM PDT

2017/08/26 · 15:28

The presidential oath enjoins the new president to swear or affirm that he "will to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

By pardoning Joe Arpaio, Trump has violated his oath of office. Arpaio was found guilty of violating the constitutional rights of American citizens, and charged with contempt of court for continuing to do so in the face of a lawful order from the court. In pardoning Arpaio, Trump has indicated that he is willing to pardon, not just those who are convicted of commiting criminal acts and show appropriate remorse, but even those who fundamentally violate the Constitution of the United States. In so doing, he also shows contempt for the legal process embodied in the Bill of Rights, and hints again at his willingness to undermine the special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Combined with his continued violation of the emoluments clause, it is apparent to me that articles of impeachment are justified and warranted.

Flake is Jerry Maguire

DocMartin

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Monday August 07, 2017 · 5:33 PM PDT

2017/08/07 · 17:33

Is it just me or does the Senator Flake book remind anyone else of the plot of ‘Jerry Maquire?’ The Tom Cruise character finds himself ostracized and unemployed, deserted by his girlfriend and all clients but one after secretly writing a memo decrying the policies of his colleagues. I don’t see a happy ending for Flake.

TRUMP, LOYALTY AND BERIA

DocMartin

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Sunday May 14, 2017 · 11:51 AM PDT

2017/05/14 · 11:51

The news media has fastened onto the Comey story in two ways: one, as a potential obstruction of justice in the matter of Russian interference with the US presidential election, and two, speculation about whether Comey’s successor will pursue that investigation adequately and independently. I fear that these approaches are short-sighted and miss the real point of the firing of Mr. Comey.

The greater concern is that Trump will choose the next FBI Director primarily on the basis of his/her loyalty. Here, Loyalty is defined as “interpersonal, i.e., a relationship between a lord and vassal, parent and child…” It also means “This relates to the authority of a master over his servants (as per Ephesians 6:5), who, according to Biblical law, owe undivided loyalty to their master (as per Leviticus 25:44–46).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty] And a Loyalist is a person who is loyal; a supporter of the sovereign or of the existing government, especially in time of revolt. [http://www.dictionary.com/browse/loyalist].

Now put that view together with the fact that Trump learned his theory of politics and governing at the knee of Roy Cohn, possible the most deliberately self-centered and evil man to walk the planet [“Citizen Cohn”, Nicholas von Hoffman] since Reynald of Chatillon [“The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” Amin Maalouf, p. 156].

Comey exhibited ethics, a respect for the rule of law, and a willingness to a fault to defend the independence of the FBI from politics. Comey was fired in large part because of these; because in Trump’s view he was not pursuing leaks and “unmaskings,”as directed, instead focusing on links between the Trump campaign and Russia, and thereby displaying disloyalty. This fact has not been much addressed by the press, maybe because it makes the press part of the story. It is likely that Comey’s more loyal replacement will follow directions, investigating leaks. Leaks are evidence of intolerable disloyalty.

The extreme danger is that this will lead to the use of the FBI much like the NKVD was used by Stalin to purge enemies, silence dissent, and punish opponents in Congress, the courts, the media, and the public at large. That would be consistent with the approach of Roy Cohn. By compiling dossiers as J. Edgar Hoover did during his tenure as FBI Director, subtle or overt blackmail and extortion for political advantage is likely. This is not a fantasy; it happened under Hoover and Beria. It also happened and is now happening under a variety of despots – Peron, Erdogan, Hugo Chavez/Maduro are just a few examples.

Those who should be made most aware of this potential are the senators who must advise and consent on the appointment of the next FBI Director. They must ensure that his/her loyalty is not to President Trump, but to America, the Constitution and the rule of law. But such a person is not likely to be nominated by Mr. Trump.

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