Orange Duce

[FannOLax]

If we are going to terminate the Constitution, let’s bring Obama back as president.

Now that all of those nettlesome due process, etc. rules no longer apply, let’s just take Trump directly to jail. Since the Constitution has been terminated, there is no longer any prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. I have a few ideas for how to punish the Orange Man once all of his Constitutional protections are stripped away.

He needs a shrink and some meds...PRONTO

Slowly losing what's left of his mind. At this rate,, he'll never make it to 2024....which will be a good thing.

But his voters will.

"His voters." How many believe that only he can fix all of this country's problems, that he is a godlike genius while all of the other politicians are just a bunch of crooks and liars? Would such voters go back to staying in their caves on election day? Or would they riot in the streets and try to tear down the system that spurned their messiah? Or would they dutifully transfer their allegiance to anyone with an R on their shirt because the Ds are all communists and pedophiles?

[Seacoaster(1)]

If we are going to terminate the Constitution, let’s bring Obama back as president.

Now that all of those nettlesome due process, etc. rules no longer apply, let’s just take Trump directly to jail. Since the Constitution has been terminated, there is no longer any prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. I have a few ideas for how to punish the Orange Man once all of his Constitutional protections are stripped away.

He needs a shrink and some meds...PRONTO

Slowly losing what's left of his mind. At this rate,, he'll never make it to 2024....which will be a good thing.

But his voters will.

"His voters." How many believe that only he can fix all of this country's problems, that he is a godlike genius while all of the other politicians are just a bunch of crooks and liars? Would such voters go back to staying in their caves on election day? Or would they riot in the streets and try to tear down the system that spurned their messiah? Or would they dutifully transfer their allegiance to anyone with an R on their shirt because the Ds are all communists and pedophiles?

The real takeaway from this story — Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution and reinstall him as the Great Protector of American Values — is how desensitized the media in particular is with his bizarre comments and behavior. Imagine any politician in you Mr lifetime prior to Trump saying this. They’d be done. Now, the GOP squirms a bit, yawns, and goes back to lying to their constituents. The media hardly bothers.

[cradleandshoot]

If we are going to terminate the Constitution, let’s bring Obama back as president.

Now that all of those nettlesome due process, etc. rules no longer apply, let’s just take Trump directly to jail. Since the Constitution has been terminated, there is no longer any prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. I have a few ideas for how to punish the Orange Man once all of his Constitutional protections are stripped away.

He needs a shrink and some meds...PRONTO

Slowly losing what's left of his mind. At this rate,, he'll never make it to 2024....which will be a good thing.

But his voters will.

"His voters." How many believe that only he can fix all of this country's problems, that he is a godlike genius while all of the other politicians are just a bunch of crooks and liars? Would such voters go back to staying in their caves on election day? Or would they riot in the streets and try to tear down the system that spurned their messiah? Or would they dutifully transfer their allegiance to anyone with an R on their shirt because the Ds are all communists and pedophiles?

The real takeaway from this story — Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution and reinstall him as the Great Protector of American Values — is how desensitized the media in particular is with his bizarre comments and behavior. Imagine any politician in you Mr lifetime prior to Trump saying this. They’d be done. Now, the GOP squirms a bit, yawns, and goes back to lying to their constituents. The media hardly bothers.

Out of curiosity, how does one go about terminating the constitution?? Would it take an executive order??? This is a perfect example of the dumpster talking out of his rump and some people taking his threat seriously. It was a pathetic threat not even worth your time of day. I am very curious how terminating the constitution is possible. Do you have any idea counselor how that could be accomplished? It does re-enforce just how insane the dumpster is. He needs to be indicted so his attention can be redirected towards keeping his rear end out of jail.

[CU88]

December 4, 2022
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
DEC 5

On Friday, November 25, 2022, just over a week ago, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced, “On the very first day of the new Republican-led Congress, we will “read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House—something that hasn’t been done in years.”

Yesterday, on Saturday, December 3, 2022, former president Donald Trump, the presumptive leader of the Republican Party, mischaracterized a Twitter thread to claim that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign had successfully pressured Twitter to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop—the thread actually said something else entirely—and called for overthrowing the Constitution. Trump wrote:

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential election results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

In case anyone didn’t get the point, Trump followed that post up with another: “UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!”

On Sunday, December 4, all but one Republican lawmaker who expects to stay in office for the next two years stayed resolutely silent about Trump’s open attack on the U.S. Constitution, this nation’s founding document, the basis for our government.

That one lawmaker was Representative Michael Turner (R-OH), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who this morning on CBS’s “Face the Nation” condemned Trump’s attack on the Constitution. But Turner would not say he would not support Trump if he were the party’s nominee in 2024.

Even at that, Turner’s was a lone voice. When George Stephanopoulos, host of “This Week” on ABC News, asked Representative David Joyce (R-OH) if he would support Trump in 2024 after the former president had called for “suspending the Constitution” (to be clear, Trump had called for “terminating” it), Joyce tried to avoid the question but finally said, “I’ll support whoever the Republican nominee is." Joyce is the chair of the Republican Governance Group, whose members claim they are the party’s centrists.

Not all Republicans reacted to Trump’s truly astonishing statement with such easy acceptance. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was removed from party leadership for holding Trump responsible for the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and who has lost her seat in Congress to a Trump supporter, responded to Trump’s statement by saying: “Donald Trump believes we should terminate ‘all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution’ to overturn the 2020 election. That was his view on 1/6 and remains his view today. No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.”

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who, like Cheney, took a seat on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and will also be leaving Congress, tweeted: “With the former President calling to throw aside the constitution, not a single conservative can legitimately support him, and not a single supporter can be called a conservative. This is insane. Trump hates the constitution.” Kinzinger tagged McCarthy, third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is expected to take over the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues involving the Constitution.

None of them commented.

Conservative Bill Kristol made his questioning broader: “The Federalist Society claims to defend the Constitution,” he tweeted. “Donald Trump, the ex-president with whom the Society worked so closely, has just attacked the Constitution in an incendiary way. Do the Federalist Society or its members have a word to say in defense of our Constitution?”

Crickets.

McCarthy’s statement a week ago that the whole Constitution hadn’t been read on the floor of Congress “in years” was technically true, but it was misleading. It sounded as if McCarthy was promising to do something novel to demonstrate the Republicans’ loyalty to the Constitution.

In fact, Republicans demanded a reading of the Constitution in the House for the first time in its history in 2011 to try to demonstrate that the government had gone beyond the Framers’ intent, although they also cut out all the parts the Framers wrote that have been amended since the document was written. (That meant they cut out the infamous three-fifths clause counting enslaved African Americans as three fifths of a white person for purposes of representation, leading to accusations that they were cherry-picking the Framers’ words.)

Since then, the House has read the Constitution at least twice more, in 2015 and 2017, to promote the idea that Republicans, and Republicans alone, are standing on the U.S. Constitution, while Democrats are abusing it.

The leader of the Republican Party has called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” and party leaders are silent.

Representatives had not taken the time to read the entirety of the U.S. Constitution on the floor of the House before 2011 because they were presumed to know it. What they did have to say aloud was something far more important for each individual to have on record: their oath of office.

It reads: “I…do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

[dislaxxic]

The real takeaway from this story — Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution and reinstall him as the Great Protector of American Values — is how desensitized the media in particular is with his bizarre comments and behavior. Imagine any politician in you Mr lifetime prior to Trump saying this. They’d be done. Now, the GOP squirms a bit, yawns, and goes back to lying to their constituents. The media hardly bothers.

TRUMP IS A MOB BOSS WHOSE OMERTÀ HAS STARTED TO FAIL

Like Marcus, I don’t think Trump’s desperate wails should be ignored. But I think there is an alternative to “giv[ing] him oxygen.” There’s certainly an alternative to disseminating his screed, which always reinforces the tribalism that Trump uses to survive. Disseminating Trump’s words unbroken, I’m convinced, only serves to signal to his supporters where the dividing lines lay, while heightening the import of that tribalism and Trump’s role in it. Trump is powerful because the liberals he has trained people to despise say he is by disseminating Trump’s words for him.

I prefer to talk about why Trump continues to ratchet up his screeds, with each new week, using increasingly violent rhetoric to ensure he’ll go viral on Twitter. He has to. Or rather, as Marcus herself recognized, “He will say whatever he needs at the time he needs to say it.”

He’s contractually stuck on his loser social media platform, which means the quickest way to get attention is to invite the scolding of people like Marcus. He’s well aware that others — Elmo, Ron DeSantis, even Kanye West — have easier means to command people’s attention. Indeed, at this point, Trump was a mere prop in the reality show that Kanye’s handlers orchestrated.

And most importantly, Trump can no longer promise to wield the tools that led others to believe they could respond to Trump’s calls with impunity — the power to corrupt the FBI and DOJ, the increasing stranglehold on the Republican party, perhaps most importantly, the power of clemency. Trump’s latest wails came on a day when, after having been smacked down by two of his own Appellate appointees, even his most reckless and ill-suited attorneys were probably explaining to Trump that he has almost no options left but to try to minimize the consequences for stealing classified documents. His wails came on a day when the two Pats, Cipollone and Philbin, men who know how he used pardons to pay off coup-conspirators and how he incited a mob to assassinate his Vice President and how he refused to use the power of the Presidency to protect Mike Pence, testified for a combined ten hours to one or more grand juries. Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, and two others of Trump’s close aides also testified against their former boss last week. Trump even interspersed his calls for a coup with feeble attempts to discount any verdict a jury might soon — today, perhaps! — deliver against his eponymous corporate person.

Trump’s a mob boss whose omertà has started to fail.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump is dangerous as hell, and his mob will continue to pursue political violence whether or not Trump faces accountability. Trump will not melt away and even if he did those liberated from his control may prove to be more dangerous without even something as squalid as Trump to believe in.

But he is also, at this moment, as vulnerable as he has been in at least a decade.

And to a significant extent, his increasingly shrill wails are an attempt to hide that.

Yes, they are also an attempt to mobilize political violence to reverse that vulnerability. But we would do far better to describe all the ways he can no longer deliver his part of the bargain — impunity — than to willfully serve as content mules for his words of incitement.

..

[Farfromgeneva]

The real takeaway from this story — Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution and reinstall him as the Great Protector of American Values — is how desensitized the media in particular is with his bizarre comments and behavior. Imagine any politician in you Mr lifetime prior to Trump saying this. They’d be done. Now, the GOP squirms a bit, yawns, and goes back to lying to their constituents. The media hardly bothers.

TRUMP IS A MOB BOSS WHOSE OMERTÀ HAS STARTED TO FAIL

Like Marcus, I don’t think Trump’s desperate wails should be ignored. But I think there is an alternative to “giv[ing] him oxygen.” There’s certainly an alternative to disseminating his screed, which always reinforces the tribalism that Trump uses to survive. Disseminating Trump’s words unbroken, I’m convinced, only serves to signal to his supporters where the dividing lines lay, while heightening the import of that tribalism and Trump’s role in it. Trump is powerful because the liberals he has trained people to despise say he is by disseminating Trump’s words for him.

I prefer to talk about why Trump continues to ratchet up his screeds, with each new week, using increasingly violent rhetoric to ensure he’ll go viral on Twitter. He has to. Or rather, as Marcus herself recognized, “He will say whatever he needs at the time he needs to say it.”

He’s contractually stuck on his loser social media platform, which means the quickest way to get attention is to invite the scolding of people like Marcus. He’s well aware that others — Elmo, Ron DeSantis, even Kanye West — have easier means to command people’s attention. Indeed, at this point, Trump was a mere prop in the reality show that Kanye’s handlers orchestrated.

And most importantly, Trump can no longer promise to wield the tools that led others to believe they could respond to Trump’s calls with impunity — the power to corrupt the FBI and DOJ, the increasing stranglehold on the Republican party, perhaps most importantly, the power of clemency. Trump’s latest wails came on a day when, after having been smacked down by two of his own Appellate appointees, even his most reckless and ill-suited attorneys were probably explaining to Trump that he has almost no options left but to try to minimize the consequences for stealing classified documents. His wails came on a day when the two Pats, Cipollone and Philbin, men who know how he used pardons to pay off coup-conspirators and how he incited a mob to assassinate his Vice President and how he refused to use the power of the Presidency to protect Mike Pence, testified for a combined ten hours to one or more grand juries. Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, and two others of Trump’s close aides also testified against their former boss last week. Trump even interspersed his calls for a coup with feeble attempts to discount any verdict a jury might soon — today, perhaps! — deliver against his eponymous corporate person.

Trump’s a mob boss whose omertà has started to fail.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump is dangerous as hell, and his mob will continue to pursue political violence whether or not Trump faces accountability. Trump will not melt away and even if he did those liberated from his control may prove to be more dangerous without even something as squalid as Trump to believe in.

But he is also, at this moment, as vulnerable as he has been in at least a decade.

And to a significant extent, his increasingly shrill wails are an attempt to hide that.

Yes, they are also an attempt to mobilize political violence to reverse that vulnerability. But we would do far better to describe all the ways he can no longer deliver his part of the bargain — impunity — than to willfully serve as content mules for his words of incitement.

..

Only reading your excerpts this makes sense and aligns with what I've been thinking for a little bit here.

[HooDat]

Hopefully what we are hearing is the wailing of a dying political career.

[youthathletics]

Hopefully what we are hearing is the wailing of a dying political career.

Agreed

[CU88]

Hopefully what we are hearing is the wailing of a dying political career.

Nope, he will win GOP 2024 primaries for POTUS.

[HooDat]

Hopefully what we are hearing is the wailing of a dying political career.

Nope, he will win GOP 2024 primaries for POTUS.

I am not so sure of that. He may try to run a 3rd party (thus ensuring a Dem victory) but I am starting to get the sense that Trump's political days are waning. This screw up where he flouts the Constitution is a big F-up for the majority of his base, even the white-sheet brigade. They will let him wiggle out of it, but I think it leaves a mark.

[Kismet]

Trump Organization Found Guilty on all 17 counts in criminal tax fraud Scheme in New York. The former president’s company had been accused of providing off-the-book benefits to executives. The testimony of its former chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.

Mike Flynn ordered by appeals court to testify in the Fulton County GA grand jury investigation.

More classified docs found! At "a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Fla., used by the former president."

[Brooklyn]

Trump Organization Found Guilty in criminal tax fraud Scheme in New York. The former president’s company had been accused of providing off-the-book benefits to executives. The testimony of its former chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.

While tRump was not directly charged in this case, it will be interesting to see if the government can prove he signed off on illegal transactions. That should make him culpable and could result in some stiff sentencing. Hopefully, it'll mean jail for the crook.

[jhu72]

Trump Organization Found Guilty on all 17 counts in criminal tax fraud Scheme in New York. The former president’s company had been accused of providing off-the-book benefits to executives. The testimony of its former chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.

... jury decision in less than 24 hours. So the smart money is betting that NY files criminal indictment against Trump to follow up on this criminal conviction, where the stakes for Orange Duce go up!

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump Organization Found Guilty on all 17 counts in criminal tax fraud Scheme in New York. The former president’s company had been accused of providing off-the-book benefits to executives. The testimony of its former chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.

Mike Flynn ordered by appeals court to testify in the Fulton County GA grand jury investigation.

He was the most investigated person in the history of the planet! Leave him alone.

[Farfromgeneva]

Real news..

rump Organization Found Guilty of Criminal Tax Fraud in New York Trial
Jury finds Trump family business unlawfully paid top executives in cars, apartments and other off-the-books perks

The two Trump Organization entities that were found guilty could face more than $1.6 million in fines.
PHOTO: TED SHAFFREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Corinne RameyFollow
Updated Dec. 6, 2022 5:06 pm ET

SAVE

PRINT

TEXT
957

Former President Donald Trump‘s family business was convicted Tuesday of criminal tax fraud, with a New York jury finding the Trump Organization engaged in an off-the-books compensation scheme to pay some executives in car leases, apartments and cash.

The jury found two Trump Organization corporate entities guilty of all criminal counts they faced, including conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The two entities could face a total of more than $1.6 million in fines.

The guilty verdict is a blow to Mr. Trump, who, while facing civil lawsuits and criminal investigations, declared his third consecutive presidential bid last month. The conviction and subsequent penalties for his company could compound the weariness from some Republicans who want to move on to other party leadership.

A judge set the company’s sentencing for Jan. 13.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the verdict holds the Trump business accountable for a long-running criminal scheme. “This was a case about greed and cheating,” Mr. Bragg said in a statement. “In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law.”

NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP

The 10-Point.

A personal, guided tour to the best scoops and stories every day in The Wall Street Journal.


Preview

Subscribe
Mr. Trump wasn’t charged in the case, but his presence loomed over the trial. Prosecutors said that Mr. Trump sanctioned the tax-free benefits, and personally signed some checks for private-school tuition for former finance chief Allen Weisselberg’s grandchildren. During closing arguments, a defense attorney said Mr. Trump relied on an outside accountant who never told him the perks in question were illegal.

“Mr. Trump and his family are not here on trial before you,” the judge instructed the jury on Monday.

Mr. Trump has railed against the case on his social-media site, calling the charges “a case the likes of which has never been charged or tried in such manner before.”

A lawyer for the Trump Organization said the company would appeal.

A company spokeswoman said Mr. Weisselberg testified that he acted for his own personal gain. “The notion that a company could be held responsible for an employee’s actions, to benefit themselves, on their own personal tax returns is simply preposterous,” the spokeswoman said.

During the trial, which began in late October, jurors heard testimony from Trump Organization employees, a longtime Trump accountant and Mr. Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer and star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty to 15 felonies for his role in the scheme.

Under an agreement with prosecutors, Mr. Weisselberg is expected to be sentenced to five months in jail, and likely serve just a portion of that, so long as he testified truthfully at trial.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 19.


Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was a witness for the prosecution.
PHOTO: MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
Prosecutors portrayed the Trump Organization as fostering a culture of fraud and deception, where off-the-books compensation extended beyond Mr. Weisselberg to other executives. Mr. Weisselberg told the jury that he illegally avoided paying taxes on benefits he received, including leased cars and a rent-free Manhattan apartment.

The verdict, which came on the second day of deliberations, largely turned on the question of whether Mr. Weisselberg intended to commit tax crimes to help not only himself, but also his employer. Under a New York law defining corporate criminal liability, jurors were required to find a high-ranking officer acted “in behalf of” his employer, or with an intent that there could be some benefit to the Trump Organization.

Defense attorneys cast Mr. Weisselberg as a rogue employee who sought to save money on his personal taxes. “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg,” Trump attorney Michael van der Veen repeatedly told the jury throughout the trial.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Donald Bender, a partner at accounting firm Mazars USA LLP, testified for the defense. He told the jury that he relied on the information Mr. Weisselberg provided and didn’t notify the Trumps of anything illegal. “Bender failed in his job,” said Susan Necheles, another lawyer for the Trump business.

A spokeswoman for Mazars said that during its work for the Trump Organization, the firm had no knowledge of illegal or criminal activity involving the company or Mr. Weisselberg.

The tax-fraud case was an offshoot of a larger investigation into Mr. Trump and his company by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The probe began under Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat who formerly led the office. Under his leadership, the probe first examined hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, then expanded into a battle over access to Mr. Trump’s tax returns that ended at the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Vance investigated whether Mr. Trump and his company inflated and deflated assets on statements provided to banks, insurers and tax authorities. Mr. Trump and the company have denied wrongdoing.

After Mr. Bragg took office at the beginning of the year, two top prosecutors resigned from the probe. One of them said in a letter that Mr. Bragg had decided against bringing a criminal case. Mr. Bragg has said his investigation continues and that he will tell the public whether it concludes with an indictment or without bringing charges.

After a multiyear probe, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a separate civil-fraud lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and his company earlier this year. She accused the Trumps and their company of engaging in a decadelong scheme to falsely value their assets and generate $250 million in ill-gotten gains. The Trumps have denied the allegations.


Write to Corinne Ramey at [email protected]

[cradleandshoot]

December 4, 2022
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
DEC 5

On Friday, November 25, 2022, just over a week ago, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced, “On the very first day of the new Republican-led Congress, we will “read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House—something that hasn’t been done in years.”

Yesterday, on Saturday, December 3, 2022, former president Donald Trump, the presumptive leader of the Republican Party, mischaracterized a Twitter thread to claim that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign had successfully pressured Twitter to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop—the thread actually said something else entirely—and called for overthrowing the Constitution. Trump wrote:

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential election results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

In case anyone didn’t get the point, Trump followed that post up with another: “UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!”

On Sunday, December 4, all but one Republican lawmaker who expects to stay in office for the next two years stayed resolutely silent about Trump’s open attack on the U.S. Constitution, this nation’s founding document, the basis for our government.

That one lawmaker was Representative Michael Turner (R-OH), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who this morning on CBS’s “Face the Nation” condemned Trump’s attack on the Constitution. But Turner would not say he would not support Trump if he were the party’s nominee in 2024.

Even at that, Turner’s was a lone voice. When George Stephanopoulos, host of “This Week” on ABC News, asked Representative David Joyce (R-OH) if he would support Trump in 2024 after the former president had called for “suspending the Constitution” (to be clear, Trump had called for “terminating” it), Joyce tried to avoid the question but finally said, “I’ll support whoever the Republican nominee is." Joyce is the chair of the Republican Governance Group, whose members claim they are the party’s centrists.

Not all Republicans reacted to Trump’s truly astonishing statement with such easy acceptance. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was removed from party leadership for holding Trump responsible for the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and who has lost her seat in Congress to a Trump supporter, responded to Trump’s statement by saying: “Donald Trump believes we should terminate ‘all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution’ to overturn the 2020 election. That was his view on 1/6 and remains his view today. No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.”

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who, like Cheney, took a seat on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and will also be leaving Congress, tweeted: “With the former President calling to throw aside the constitution, not a single conservative can legitimately support him, and not a single supporter can be called a conservative. This is insane. Trump hates the constitution.” Kinzinger tagged McCarthy, third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is expected to take over the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues involving the Constitution.

None of them commented.

Conservative Bill Kristol made his questioning broader: “The Federalist Society claims to defend the Constitution,” he tweeted. “Donald Trump, the ex-president with whom the Society worked so closely, has just attacked the Constitution in an incendiary way. Do the Federalist Society or its members have a word to say in defense of our Constitution?”

Crickets.

McCarthy’s statement a week ago that the whole Constitution hadn’t been read on the floor of Congress “in years” was technically true, but it was misleading. It sounded as if McCarthy was promising to do something novel to demonstrate the Republicans’ loyalty to the Constitution.

In fact, Republicans demanded a reading of the Constitution in the House for the first time in its history in 2011 to try to demonstrate that the government had gone beyond the Framers’ intent, although they also cut out all the parts the Framers wrote that have been amended since the document was written. (That meant they cut out the infamous three-fifths clause counting enslaved African Americans as three fifths of a white person for purposes of representation, leading to accusations that they were cherry-picking the Framers’ words.)

Since then, the House has read the Constitution at least twice more, in 2015 and 2017, to promote the idea that Republicans, and Republicans alone, are standing on the U.S. Constitution, while Democrats are abusing it.

The leader of the Republican Party has called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” and party leaders are silent.

Representatives had not taken the time to read the entirety of the U.S. Constitution on the floor of the House before 2011 because they were presumed to know it. What they did have to say aloud was something far more important for each individual to have on record: their oath of office.

It reads: “I…do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Any of you remember the reason for the 3/5 compromise?? The constitution would likely never have been ratified without it.

[Typical Lax Dad]

December 4, 2022
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
DEC 5

On Friday, November 25, 2022, just over a week ago, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced, “On the very first day of the new Republican-led Congress, we will “read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House—something that hasn’t been done in years.”

Yesterday, on Saturday, December 3, 2022, former president Donald Trump, the presumptive leader of the Republican Party, mischaracterized a Twitter thread to claim that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign had successfully pressured Twitter to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop—the thread actually said something else entirely—and called for overthrowing the Constitution. Trump wrote:

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential election results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

In case anyone didn’t get the point, Trump followed that post up with another: “UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!”

On Sunday, December 4, all but one Republican lawmaker who expects to stay in office for the next two years stayed resolutely silent about Trump’s open attack on the U.S. Constitution, this nation’s founding document, the basis for our government.

That one lawmaker was Representative Michael Turner (R-OH), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who this morning on CBS’s “Face the Nation” condemned Trump’s attack on the Constitution. But Turner would not say he would not support Trump if he were the party’s nominee in 2024.

Even at that, Turner’s was a lone voice. When George Stephanopoulos, host of “This Week” on ABC News, asked Representative David Joyce (R-OH) if he would support Trump in 2024 after the former president had called for “suspending the Constitution” (to be clear, Trump had called for “terminating” it), Joyce tried to avoid the question but finally said, “I’ll support whoever the Republican nominee is." Joyce is the chair of the Republican Governance Group, whose members claim they are the party’s centrists.

Not all Republicans reacted to Trump’s truly astonishing statement with such easy acceptance. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was removed from party leadership for holding Trump responsible for the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and who has lost her seat in Congress to a Trump supporter, responded to Trump’s statement by saying: “Donald Trump believes we should terminate ‘all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution’ to overturn the 2020 election. That was his view on 1/6 and remains his view today. No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.”

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who, like Cheney, took a seat on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and will also be leaving Congress, tweeted: “With the former President calling to throw aside the constitution, not a single conservative can legitimately support him, and not a single supporter can be called a conservative. This is insane. Trump hates the constitution.” Kinzinger tagged McCarthy, third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is expected to take over the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues involving the Constitution.

None of them commented.

Conservative Bill Kristol made his questioning broader: “The Federalist Society claims to defend the Constitution,” he tweeted. “Donald Trump, the ex-president with whom the Society worked so closely, has just attacked the Constitution in an incendiary way. Do the Federalist Society or its members have a word to say in defense of our Constitution?”

Crickets.

McCarthy’s statement a week ago that the whole Constitution hadn’t been read on the floor of Congress “in years” was technically true, but it was misleading. It sounded as if McCarthy was promising to do something novel to demonstrate the Republicans’ loyalty to the Constitution.

In fact, Republicans demanded a reading of the Constitution in the House for the first time in its history in 2011 to try to demonstrate that the government had gone beyond the Framers’ intent, although they also cut out all the parts the Framers wrote that have been amended since the document was written. (That meant they cut out the infamous three-fifths clause counting enslaved African Americans as three fifths of a white person for purposes of representation, leading to accusations that they were cherry-picking the Framers’ words.)

Since then, the House has read the Constitution at least twice more, in 2015 and 2017, to promote the idea that Republicans, and Republicans alone, are standing on the U.S. Constitution, while Democrats are abusing it.

The leader of the Republican Party has called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” and party leaders are silent.

Representatives had not taken the time to read the entirety of the U.S. Constitution on the floor of the House before 2011 because they were presumed to know it. What they did have to say aloud was something far more important for each individual to have on record: their oath of office.

It reads: “I…do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Any of you remember the reason for the 3/5 compromise?? The constitution would likely never have been ratified without it.

Why don’t you explain it to us.

[jhu72]

Really informative documentary. This was released a few months ago. It interviews a half dozen original Trump supporters, who have since left him and/or the republican party. The interviewees come from the various demographic groups which originally supported Trump. All of them pretty articulate. A few are really impressive individuals. All admit to falling for Trump's bullsh*t initially. Really recommend it if you are interested in understanding the various groups, their thinking and their experience.

[NattyBohChamps04]

Trump team finds more classified material in Florida storage unit: report

More process crimes?

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump team finds more classified material in Florida storage unit: report

More process crimes?

He’s entitled to it!!