Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

looks like Liz Cheney will soon be back in the progressives' enemies column

 

I mean, the only thing Cheney has ever done that has become anti-conservative is to call Trump out for violating presidential norms.

 

I think she always has been. Even when myself or others have praised her on these boards it was for having and standing by principles, but never for being on what I and other liberals might consider being on the right side of issues.

 

Is there but one lousy play in your playbook?

 

The article ignores that there were attempts from Trump to get alternate delegates there and approved. Over 100 congressional members voted not to have the actual votes of the people accepted.

One of the reasons it didn't succeed is that some of the people Trump appointed stayed loyal to the constitution. Of course, he already had plans to replace those people.

It was dangerously close to working. There are people running for races and elections that have already pledged to back that kind of power grab again. If someone wins who appoints certain people they will be able to nullify the election.

Already, there are GOP people who don't trust results and will never believe them again. The orderly transfer of power is absolutely at risk.

The recent overturning of Roe V Wade shows that it is foolish to not take threats to rights we take for granted, lightly

 

Correct. There was a buffoon side of everything (the violent yahoos + the peaceful yahoos), but there was also the internal federal and state government actions that accompanied the public buffonery .

 

Prosecuting Trump will ruin our nation — and might not hold him accountable

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-h...ur-nation-and-might-not-hold-him-accountable/

excerpt:

One of the great acts of statesmanship in modern American history was President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in the wake of Watergate a half-century ago. It is remembered as an act of clemency that was, for Ford, not merely selfless but self-destructive. In the short run, it was deeply unpopular as he struggled to get footing under his fledgling, unelected administration. In the longer term, so narrowly did he lose the 1976 election to President Jimmy Carter that it is impossible to say whether lingering resentment was the deciding factor.

Ford’s pardon of Nixon has lived better than it launched. It was initially misunderstood as shielding Nixon from accountability. Nixon was held accountable. He resigned because he otherwise would have been impeached by the House and almost surely convicted by the Senate. He was effectively ousted from office and, as a practical matter, the other penalty for impeachment, disqualification, was irrelevant. Despite Nixon’s historic landslide victory less than two years earlier (he won 49 states in the 1972 election), he left the White House almost universally condemned. It was inconceivable that he would ever have sought public office again.

The lesson of the pardon is that President Ford preserved domestic tranquility and insulated the Department of Justice from the deeply corrupting effects of immersion in partisan politics that a prosecution of Nixon would have made unavoidable. It is a lesson we have to hope President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have learned.

***
On the other extreme, the hard left controls the Democratic Party, pulls the strings of the Biden administration, and pervades the legacy media. Hence, the enthusiasm for Trump’s prosecution and cheerleading for the House committee, despite the partisan flaws in its composition that ensure much of the country will ignore its hearings and eventual report.

For these Democrats, Trump’s prosecution is the proxy for Congress’s failure to disqualify him via impeachment. But this is an emotional position, not a logical one. The failure to grasp this would tear our already divided country apart and irreparably damage the Justice Department.

Prosecution is not a substitute for impeachment. The latter is a political remedy, in which public officials lose the privilege of high office for abuses of public trust. That is why it does not require proof of penal crimes, why the due process requirements are minimal, and why its obvious lack of objectivity is tolerable. Prosecution, by contrast, is a judicial proceeding, in which an accused may lose the right to liberty for private wrongs. That is why it demands proof beyond a reasonable doubt of penal crimes, the due process protections are immense, and the proceeding must be fair and impartial.

There may be a viable criminal case that Trump corruptly obstructed congressional proceedings (the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session to count state-certified electoral votes), but that is highly debatable. If the Justice Department brought such a case, much of the country would condemn the indictment as political payback. Such a prosecution of a former president could take years, enmeshing the federal courts in unprecedented questions.

Besides the fact that it could lose, the Justice Department would find itself in a never-ending cycle of political investigations and prosecutions. When Republicans eventually retake the White House — and, for that matter, retake Congress, perhaps a few months from now — the GOP base that elected them would demand prosecutions of Biden administration officials and congressional Democrats. We will have razed the vital wall separating law enforcement from partisan politics.

President Ford knew better than to consign the nation to that abyss. And while the impeachment case against Nixon was compelling given the abuses of power, the chances of convicting him at a criminal trial would have been low. The costs to the country, though, would have been ruinous.

President Trump should be held to account. Prosecution would be the wrong vehicle. Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail.
​

more at the link

 

The article couldn't be further off from the current situation. Using the pardon of Nixon doesn't help. Nixon wasn't still trying to hold campaign events and run for president again.

What Nixon did was illegal, but he didn't try and knowingly lie to denounce the whole system.

It is idiotic to believe that not prosecuting a criminal with tens of thousands of die - hard followers will do anything but make them think they were right and there are no consequences for their actions.

Yes, prosecuting Trump will cause his deceived followers to be upset. But it will be another opportunity for them to have exposure to the truth and see that they were knowingly lied to by Trump. That won't eliminate them all but it might lessen their number and the resolve of of some of the others.

If he's found guilty, the followers will be upset. It will be the initial pain of ripping off the band-aid. We can do a more thorough job of cleaning house, arresting and prosecuting those that are violent, breaking up the organized insurrection-oriented groups and help rid our nation of criminals.

These Trump supporters and Trump himself will never allow healing. They are potentially going to use violence every time they lose. So we don't hold criminals accountable and the nation still isn't healed, there is still violence and the majority of the nation loses faith because they believe there are no consequences for trying to overturn and weaken our democracy.

Prosecute and the majority are happy that the government is holding criminal leaders accountable.

Don't prosecute and Trump and his supporters won't all of a sudden become peaceful, stop lying about the Steal, and accept democracy even when they lose.

The band-aid needs the quick rip, not the painfully slow pull.

Bring it on so we can deal with it and start to move forward.

 

Trump should be held to account, but likely never will be. His popularity is perhaps higher now than it was during his Presidency.

 

If the Capitol had better doors, the fake elector thing would have never happened.

 

Don't fall for this BS distraction. Whether law enforcement did it's job well has nothing to do with who planned the coup attempt, how they carried it out, and what laws they broke. The riot itself was just one component, the minutia of what the rioters and cops did that day is beside the point.

 

Is it positive or negative popularity....

A majority of the individuals that he has backed have lost and this is just to see who will represent the GOP... So I don't know if Trump has the pull he once had...

T_Man

 

That's a very poor article.

Not holding Trump accountable for his actions has so far ruined this country. The idea that holding him accountable would ruin it more simply implies that a large segment of Trump supporters will not accept any accountability and will go on some kind of violent temper tantrum. That's not a reason to not prosecute Trump, at least not in a society that value laws over violent temper tantrums.

If Trump ack the wrongs he has done and asks for forgiveness or if he simply goes away, I think forgiveness can be considered in the interest of moving on. But keep telling us to move on when he is still fighting with the bold lies? LOL.

 

Imagine holding someone responsible for their actions

The GOP is the party of zero accountability. Just b**** and moan as much as you can until things go away.

 

Would you call it cult mentality when all critical thinking skills have left your brain, and you are in such denial that you can't see the truth if it slaps you in the face?

Trump supporters' comments on the investigation hearings say it all.

 

Cheney's opposition towards Trump are based in Conservative principles. Her sin in the eyes of the rest of the GOP isn't a violation of Conservative principles but in failing to sacrifice them for gaining and maintaining power.

 

LEO not following the law and aiding rioters to get access to the people and institution they are sworn to protect is much more than a distraction.

 

This surprise hearing tomorrow is going to be interesting. I wonder when Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Boebert, and MTG's involvement will come up. One thing is for sure, and that is that Trump is the leader of the coup.

 

This is precisely why you go at him hard, we have to stop letting things slide and hope that they go away....they don't....FIGHT HARDER.

DD