I was really excited about the new indictments against Feckless Loser until I read them. Yup, I read the whole document, and while there's lots of stuff in there, the one thing I didn't see was a charge dealing with the possible sharing or sale of defense information with a foreign government or leader, like Putin or Kim Jong Un. I was really hoping to see that. Someplace. Any place. Instead, there were a whole lotta middleweight charges that a good defense lawyer could go to town on.
So Bombastic Loser assures his adoring sycophants this is a politically motivated witch hunt while DeSantis is rattling on and on about the weaponization of the Department of Justice while demanding to know why Clinton, Biden, and Pence aren't being indicted but not exactly defending what Feckless did. Instead, he was playing outta both sides of his mouth...for a change.
The rhetoric, however, does not compare apples to apples....it compares apples to space rocks. There is no sentient comparison to be made. I mean really? Just how dumb are We, the People?
Wait. Don't answer that.
Here's the primary difference:
President Biden and former VP Pence provided access to homes and offices; any papers found were returned without question. At no time did either of them attempt to hide or destroy documents. Feckless, however, played musical storage with dozens of boxes, instructing a variety of people to move things around. In the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett addresses that very scenario:
President Biden and former VP Pence provided access to homes and offices; any papers found were returned without question. At no time did either of them attempt to hide or destroy documents. Feckless, however, played musical storage with dozens of boxes, instructing a variety of people to move things around. In the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett addresses that very scenario:
Notably, however, the indictment does not charge Trump with the illegal retention of any of the 197 documents he returned to the archives.
That shows that if Trump had simply returned all the classified documents he had, he probably never would have been charged with any crimes, said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor.
“This is not a case about what documents were taken, it’s about what former president Trump did after the government sought to retrieve those documents,” said Mintz, who noted that willful-retention cases often hinge on how much evidence prosecutors can find that a person deliberately hid material or refused to give it back.
Let's be real clear about the indictments: they are the product of the Department of Justice. As Heather Cox Richardson, commentator extraordinaire, observed:
Still, the indictment came not from Smith, but from a federal grand jury of ordinary American citizens in Florida who reviewed evidence and determined that there was probable cause to believe that Trump committed crimes and should be tried for them. Trump’s defenders are trying to blur this reality by saying it was Biden who charged Trump, when it was really the members of a grand jury.
In case you don't remember this from 7th grade civics, under federal law, a federal grand jury consists of 23 people who must be randomly selected from a fair cross section of the community in the location where the grand jury will convene. Names of potential jurors are drawn at random from lists of voters. The people whose names were chosen, unless exempt or excused, must appear before the court. In the most recent challenge to Feckless Loser's delusional post-presidential actions, that location was Miami, Florida, home state of DeSantis, ergo, not a foregone conclusion it was hijacked by Democrats.
Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN and current GOP candidate for President, said:
This is what I'll tell you, two things can be true at the same time: One, the DOJ and the FBI have lost all credibility with the American people, and getting rid of just senior management isn't going to be enough to fix this. This is going to take a complete overhaul, and we have to do that," Haley said during an interview on Fox News.Two, the second thing can also be true. If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security," she said.
More than that, I’m a military spouse, my husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger if you are going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we would go about invading or doing something with one of our enemies. And if that’s the case, it’s reckless, it’s frustrating and it causes problems.
Meanwhile, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, their Governor Kevin Stitt, a DeSantis supporter, called the indictment a "political tool to take out an opponent," adding "The weaponization of the federal government is very, very concerning for Americans and Oklahomans."
Hey! This misogynistic pyscho-ceramicist is in Oklahoma! Notice how he doesn't mention the weaponization of medicine or Christianization of his state. Nah, why would he? Frankly, if I lived in Oklahoma, chas v'chalilah (heaven forbid!) weaponization of the federal government would be pretty low on my list of things to worry about. Constitution? We don' need no stinking Constitution.
Recent polls indicate a majority of Americans believe Feckless behaved in a manner inconsistent with the protocols for national security. HOWEVER, and isn't there always one of those...the majority of GOP folks polled may have had a problem with musical document storage, but also think the DoJ is a political arm of the White House operated and controlled by President Biden pulling Merrick Garland's string. Funny thing is that they didn't think that when Barr was the attorney general and Trump was loud and clear in public about what he wanted/expected the DoJ to do.
Does anyone besides me see a disconnect there?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, why am I worried about this indictment?
Because the spin equates the DoJ to a banana republic-type government where at the president's discretion, political enemies are silenced. The disconnect between this...and say Richard Nixon's demise is that in 1972, Democrats and Republicans pretty much agreed that the President's actions were an obstruction to the investigation of the burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters. Both parties viewed that very apparent attempt to undermine that investigation as a threat to our democracy. Whether or not you were a Nixon supporter wasn't an issue; the president's actions were illegal and that cast significant doubt on his ability to serve out his second term.
What it wasn't was exposing classified military and security to an uncleared number of people. The documents withheld were not in any way protected from public access, and there was enough hard evidence to conclude they had been moved around to shield them from discovery. In an analysis of the 37 indictments, NBC news reported the following, including a citation of an earlier report by CNN:
From NBCChief among the examples prosecutors lay out in the indictment of Trump sharing classified intelligence with unauthorized individuals took place during a July 2021 sit-down he had with an author and a publisher for an upcoming book on his presidency. Two Trump staffers without proper clearances were also in the room for the discussion.While the indictment does not name the author and publisher, it does include a transcript of a conversation Trump had with the two about a classified military document described as a “plan of attack” against another country. That conversation, which stems from an audio recording, was reported earlier Friday by CNN.“Secret. This is secret information,” Trump said. “Look, look at this."
The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.
In the end, there is overwhelming evidence that Feckless Loser not only ignored requests to return classified documents, he shared them with others without security clearance of any kind.
Did he put the United States at risk? Absolutely.
But unless someone comes up with concrete proof/evidence/photographs that he sold our military secrets to the highest bidder, a significant portion of We, the People, will continue to believe this witch hunt is orchestrated by the Democratic Party.
Considering the militia-minded cadre that supports this guy, you gotta wonder why they don't see this as a national security problem. Congressclown Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) tweeted this after the indictments were handed down:
Jeff Sharlet of The Atlantic provided an excellent analysis of the tweet:
Note that Higgins begins with “President Trump,” not “former President Trump.” That Trump is still president has been a Higgins claim since at least 2021, when he mourned Trump’s Facebook ban in a post of his own describing Joe Biden as “iPOTUS” controlled by a “cabal.” Cabal is a QAnon term; iPOTUS appears to be Higgins’s own coinage, possibly for “imposter POTUS.”
“This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors,” Higgins’s tweet continues. The “oppressors,” of course, are members of the “cabal,” the tyranny decried by Three Percenters. Higgins has also referred to them as “Leviathan.” A perimeter probe is reconnaissance meant to determine your force’s strength.
“Hold,” Higgins writes. Another way of putting that is “Stand back and stand by.” The term rPOTUS translates as “the real president, Trump.” “rPOTUS has this” will be read by some QAnon adherents—and the many more Trumpists who don’t identify with Q even as its mythology has seeped into standard GOP rhetoric—as “Trust the plan.” Trump has it under control. Everything is happening for a reason. “God wins.”
“Buckle up”: Get ready. Remember what rPOTUS said in January after he stood for the J6 Prison Choir’s hit single “Justice for All”? That “2024 is the final battle.”
Then comes the phrase that mystified those who don’t spend their weekends “training” for insurrection or doomsday: “1/50K know your bridges.” 1:50,000 is a scale used on military maps. It’s also used on some U.S. Geological Survey maps, largely in relation to areas surrounding military installations. Know your bridges isn’t jargon or metaphor. For the militia-minded, it means knowing the approaches to your location—especially bridges, which can be seized, much the way Canadian far-right truckers blockaded the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit in 2022. And it can mean more than that. The liberal nightmare of militias marching on government institutions—realized on January 6—doesn’t match the fascist fantasy of retreating to strongholds. That is, of closing off counties under the authority of the “Constitutional sheriffs,” a popular movement that devolves—or escalates—from states’ rights to counties’ rights, with sheriffs empowered to enforce or not enforce laws as they see fit.
“Rock steady calm,” writes Higgins. The moment, he is saying, is not now. Not yet. Hold your fire. Hold the line. Necessary rhetoric, because Higgins and the whole Freedom Caucus put together don’t have the status to actually summon the armed masses into action. So Higgins—like Andy Biggs, like Kari Lake, like Trump himself—alludes to the threat that fascism may yet pose. It’s a tidy maneuver: They spook liberals into mocking them. That mockery feeds their own base.
On June 10th, Congressclown Clay backed off, tweeting:
Just so you know: Congressclown Higgins was US Army, a former cop, and is now a militia supporter. He's been associated with a variety of far-right groups, including the Three Percenters. And you wanna good laugh? Here's his congressional committee assignments:
- Committee on Homeland Security
- Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations (Ranking Member)
- Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery
- Committee on Oversight and Reform
- Subcommittee on National Security
- Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Really? Really.
And you're wondering why I think the indictments are flawed? Doesn't matter if they're true or not. They're gonna be politicized and weaponized. It's what the far right fringe does best.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
If you're driving in a smokey area where the air quality sucks,
use the AIR RECIRCULATE setting in the car.
It will slow the amount of irritants being sucked into the car.
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