US Politics: Hell Yes THEY Were Trying to Overthrow the Government

[Zorral]

Previous US Politics thread over 400.

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John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/john-eastman-comes-clean-hell-yes-we-were-trying-to-overthrow-the-government

Quote

 

I want to return to this revelatory interview with coconspirator John Eastman, the last portion of which was published Thursday by Tom Klingenstein, the Chairman of the Trumpite Claremont Institute and then highlighted by our Josh Kovensky.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/eastman-reiterates-support-for-full-insurrection

There’s a lot of atmospherics in this interview, a lot of bookshelf-lined tweedy gentility mixed with complaints about OSHA regulations and Drag Queen story hours. But the central bit comes just over half way through the interview when Eastman gets into the core justification and purpose for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and overthrow the constitutional order itself. He invokes the Declaration of Independence and says quite clearly that yes, we were trying to overthrow the government and argues that they were justified because of the sheer existential threat America was under because of the election of Joe Biden.

Jan 6th conspirators have spent more than two years claiming either that nothing really happened at all in the weeks leading up to January 6th or that it was just a peaceful protest that got a bit out of hand or that they were just making a good faith effort to follow the legal process. Eastman cuts through all of this and makes clear they were trying to overthrow (“abolish”) the government; they were justified in doing so; and the warrant for their actions is none other than the Declaration of Independence itself.

“Our Founders lay this case out,” says Eastman. “There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable. At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”

“So that’s the question,” he tells Klingenstein. “Have the abuses or the threat of abuses become so intolerable that we have to be willing to push back?”

The answer for Eastman is clearly yes and that’s his justification for his and his associates extraordinary actions.

Let’s dig in for a moment to what this means because it’s a framework of thought or discourse that was central to many American controversies in the first decades of the Republic. The Declaration of Independence has no legal force under American law. It’s not a legal document. It’s a public explanation of a political decision: to break the colonies’ allegiance to Great Britain and form a new country. But it contains a number of claims and principles that became and remain central to American political life.

The one Eastman invokes here is the right to overthrow governments. The claim is that governments have no legitimacy or authority beyond their ability to serve the governed. Governments shouldn’t be overthrown over minor or transitory reasons. But when they become truly oppressive people have a right to get rid of them and start over. This may seem commonsensical to us. But that’s because we live a couple centuries downstream of these ideas. Governments at least in theory are justified by how they serve their populations rather than countries being essentially owned by kings or nobilities who rule them.

But this is a highly protean idea. Who gets to decide? Indeed it came up again and again over the next century each time the young republic faced a major political crisis whether it was in the late 1790s, the mid-teens, in 1832-33 or finally during the American Civil War. If one side didn’t get its way and wanted out what better authority to cite than the Declaration of Independence? There’s an obvious difference but American political leaders needed a language to describe it. What they came up with is straightforward. It’s the difference between a constitutional or legal right and a revolutionary one. Abraham Lincoln was doing no more than stating a commonplace when he said this on the eve of the Civil War in his first inaugural address (emphasis added): “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

Yes, you have a revolutionary right to overthrow the government if you really think its abuses have gotten that intractable and grave. But the government has an equal right to stop you, to defend itself or, as we see today, put you on trial if you fail. The American revolutionaries knew full well that they were committing treason against the British monarchy. If they lost they would all hang. They accepted that. They didn’t claim that George III had no choice but to let them go.

From the beginning the Trump/Eastman coup plotters have tried to wrap their efforts in legal processes and procedures. It was their dissimulating shield to hide the reality of their coup plot and if needed give them legal immunity from the consequences. The leaders of the secession movement tried the same thing in 1861.

In a way I admire Eastman for coming clean. I don’t know whether he sees the writing on the wall and figures he might as well lay his argument out there or whether his grad school political theory pretentiousness and pride got the better of him and led him to state openly the indefensible truth. But either way he’s done it and not in any way that’s retrievable as a slip of the tongue. They knew it was a coup and they justified it to themselves in those terms. They thought they were justified in trying to overthrow the government, whether because of OSHA chair size regulations or drag queens or, more broadly, because the common herd of us doesn’t understand the country’s “founding principles” the way he and his weirdo clique do. But they did it. He just admitted it. And now they’re going to face the consequences.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Zorral

[A True Kaniggit]

Yes. So you are also aware that my original statement is true. That throughout the South the vast majority of people vote Republican because that is how they are raised, and the election data supports this. 
 

Your smart grandmother is an outlier.
 

@Ser Scot A Ellison Carrying over from the last thread. 

[Zorral]

Not knowing which years and how old Scott's grandmother and he were when he was made a Dem at a school exercise -- but could it have been in that time when the South WAS all Dem because of Lincoln and the War of the Rebellion, and before LBJ and the Civil Rights acts? 

And speaking of our current CIVIL WAR, this is chilling reading past what I pull from the article, the descriptions of how the lawyers for the State of TX browbeat and abused the 13 women testifying in the case they'd brought --

I wonder if this will it stop women and children from being forced to carry non-viable fetuses, nearly/or die because of that, abortions denied to 11 year olds?  The reason I'm skeptical that it will is the penalties for elective abortions, abortions not performed in "good faith" are still in place, and they are draconian.  Who decides whether the provider was in possession of good faith, and any abortion can and will be characterized as 'elective' in TX, as has been the case all along.  Though all along there were to be exceptions for health reasons, very very very few exceptions have been granted and exercised, and women have been made very ill, and have died.

Texas Judge Says Doctors Can Use ‘Good Faith Judgment’ in Providing Abortions
The ruling sought to clarify the medical exceptions in the state’s bans, and was in a response to a lawsuit from women who were denied abortions despite medical emergencies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/us/texas-abortion-ban-lawsuit-ruling.html

Quote

 

A Texas judge ruled on Friday that the state must allow doctors to provide abortions to pregnant women whose health or lives are in danger, or whose fetuses have little likelihood of survival.

The ruling broadens and clarifies the limited exceptions granted in the state’s bans, among the strictest in the country. And it temporarily bars state officials — until the full case is decided — from prosecuting doctors who, in their “good faith judgment and in consultation with the pregnant person,” determine that an abortion is medically necessary.

The Texas Attorney General’s office said late Friday it appealed the ruling, which would immediately put the order on hold, calling it “an activist Austin judge’s attempt to override Texas abortion laws.”

Texas law already has exceptions that allow for abortion in some cases of serious health risk or risk of death. But doctors and abortion rights advocates have complained that the law is vague.

In her ruling, Judge Jessica Mangrum, elected as a Democrat in 2020, wrote that “the uncertainty regarding the scope of the medical exception and the related threat of enforcement of Texas’ abortion bans has created an imminent risk” for doctors who “will have no choice but to bar or delay the provision of abortion care” to women who require the procedure to prevent death or serious health risks. ....
 

 

 

[A True Kaniggit]

9 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Not knowing which years and how old Scott's grandmother and he were when he was made a Dem at a school exercise -- but could it have been in that time when the South WAS all Dem because of Lincoln and the War of the Rebellion, and before LBJ and the Civil Rights acts? 

 

 

Perhaps. I was trying to be polite by not bringing up this possibility.

Edited August 5, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Ormond]

14 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

 

Yes. So you are also aware that my original statement is true. That throughout the South the vast majority of people vote Republican because that is how they are raised, and the election data supports this. 
 

Your smart grandmother is an outlier.
 

@Ser Scot A Ellison Carrying over from the last thread. 

I am sure Scot's grandmother was smart, but really her statement doesn't make her much of an outlier from her generation. Scot is now 52, as you can see from his profile. His grandmother has a good chance of being over 100 if she is still alive. As such she would have grown up way before the time when the South turned Republican, and most likely was a Democrat because she was raised when the "Solid South" was solid for the Democrats. 

[Zorral]

14 minutes ago, Ormond said:

As such she would have grown up way before the time when the South turned Republican, and most likely was a Democrat because she was raised when the "Solid South" was solid for the Democrats. 

That's along the lines I was thinking.  But, as you know, I don't know whether that was the case!   

[A True Kaniggit]

21 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am sure Scot's grandmother was smart, but really her statement doesn't make her much of an outlier from her generation. Scot is now 52, as you can see from his profile. His grandmother has a good chance of being over 100 if she is still alive. As such she would have grown up way before the time when the South turned Republican, and most likely was a Democrat because she was raised when the "Solid South" was solid for the Democrats. 

Then I don't know why she was even brought up in his response to my original post. (See the previous thread) It doesn't seem to make sense in the bolded scenario.

Which is why I was giving Scot the benefit of the doubt on the morality of his grandmother. 

Edited August 5, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[A True Kaniggit]

@Zorral.

Honest face, I don't like the thread title. Please change it maybe?  I think for the posters of the forum, "We" were not trying to overthrow the government. Doesn't seem to make much sense.

US Politics: Debates Incoming.

Yeah, that feels better.

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Zorral]

11 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Honest face, I don't like the thread title. Please change it maybe?  I think for the posters of the forum, "We" were not trying to overthrow the government. Doesn't seem to make much sense.

Done! You are a thousand percent correct -- it was THEY not We.

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Done! You are a thousand percent correct -- it was THEY not We.

Comprise: Acceptable. 

[Zorral]

We all did see that defendant threatened the DOJ prosecution team last night, directly against the orders of the Judge in the pretrial arraignment?

"Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan has ordered ex-President Donald Trump’s team to file a response to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion amid dueling claims over a social media threat."

News broke Friday night that Smith reacted to a Trump  Truth social post — which said “If you go after me, I’m coming after you” — by filing a request for a protective order, arguing Trump posts could have a chilling effect on witnesses.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/breaking-judge-orders-trump-response-to-jack-smith-amid-crossfire-over-trump-social-media-threat/ar-AA1eQ1rd?

Quote

 

In the motion, Smith wrote:

All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public. Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago:

If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details—or, for example, grand jury transcripts—obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.

 

On Saturday, Judge Chutkan ordered Trump’s team to file a response, as well as their own version of a proposed order. The judge wrote:

MINUTE ORDER as to DONALD J. TRUMP: It is hereby ORDERED that by 5:00 PM on August 7, 2023, Defendant shall file a response to the government’s 10 Motion for Protective Order, stating Defendant’s position on the Motion. If Defendant disagrees with any portion of the government’s proposed Protective Order, ECF No. 10-1, his response shall include a revised version of that Protective Order with any modifications in redline. Signed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on 08/05/2023

 

 

[A True Kaniggit]

US Politics: Debates Incoming

So according to the Internets, the first Republican debate is only 18 days away.

How many contenders will there be for the first round?

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I am sure Scot's grandmother was smart, but really her statement doesn't make her much of an outlier from her generation. Scot is now 52, as you can see from his profile. His grandmother has a good chance of being over 100 if she is still alive. As such she would have grown up way before the time when the South turned Republican, and most likely was a Democrat because she was raised when the "Solid South" was solid for the Democrats. 

She was born in 1921.  She’d be 102 if she were still with us.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I am sure Scot's grandmother was smart, but really her statement doesn't make her much of an outlier from her generation. Scot is now 52, as you can see from his profile. His grandmother has a good chance of being over 100 if she is still alive. As such she would have grown up way before the time when the South turned Republican, and most likely was a Democrat because she was raised when the "Solid South" was solid for the Democrats. 

I’m honestly not sure.  I’ll say this.  My Paternal Aunt has always been a Democrat and my first cousin (her eldest daughter) was Mel Watt’s chief of staff for almost ten years.  

So… I suspect Grandmommy would still be a Democrat.

[Zorral]

Whine, whine, whine --

""How can I get a fair trial from this nasty woman [the judge presiding at defendant's arraignment] after I implored my followers to murder her? She's clearly biased against me!"

[Ormond]

57 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

She was born in 1921.  She’d be 102 if she were still with us.  

Born the same year as my mother.

[Celestial]

I have one observation to make regarding this remark of Tywin et al: "If you still vote for Republicans, you're a lost soul at this point". I think this kind of appeals and similar ones we see from publications like The Atlantic and others pointing out the damage which Trump did and will do if re-elected are pointless at this point because the problems goes deeper than mere racism/misogyny/xenophobia etc.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has shown that there is a significant percent of the population who is totally irrational or downright insane. For instance, a reluctance to get vaccinated because the vaccine could have been rushed and there could be some side effects down the years is understandable: after all, such a scenario is technically possible. But I've seen the anti-vax crowd arguing that the vaccine is some international plot by the "globalists" to exterminate the world population down to 10%, that these globalists are working for Lucifer (literally, not in a metaphorical way, as a figure of speech for designating some evil men, but really like in The Exorcist - the pandemic is referred as the "plandemonia"), that the vaccine is changing your DNA and is interfering with God's work, that is the mark of the beast and the vaccinated won't get into Heaven, etc.

Why am I saying this? Because there is a big overlap between those who believe the above and the Trumpists. The same crowd who spouts the garbage above about vaccines also believes that there is an international plot by the same globalists ("the left") to destroy the western civilization by perverting its morality and corrupting the children, of which the feminist movement, the right to abortion and the emancipation of the LGBT community were the first steps and whose final goal is the destruction of the family and  of Christianity. If you believe that the Left plans to turn America and the West in a modern Sodom, worshipping the devil, which God will destroy with fire and brimstone, and that Trump is a kind of modern king David who stands in the way of this plan, then voting for Trump is the only logical and moral choice. What does even the fate of American democracy amount to in comparison with the fate of God's church?

For a lot of the Trumpists, many of the liberal gains of the last 50 years, in particular the abortion, the LGBT right to marry and the acceptance of the trans people, are inspired by Satan. Literally. In such circumstances, appealing to their support for democracy and their reason is pointless - first, because they would actually welcome some messianic tyrant after the model of some of the Old Testament kings to burn down the heretics (meaning gays, trans and abortion doctors) and second, because those who believe the above are well past the event horizon of insanity, delusion and paranoia.

Anyone who retained some reason has understood who Trump is a long time ago. I do not live in America, so I did not have to vote in American elections, but I was sympathetic to the Republican Party in the past, due to Reagan's role in ending the Soviet Union and the Cold War (I am from Eastern Europe, so for me it was more than a political affinity - I felt personally indebted to Reagan and Bush the Elder for the way they handled the end of the Cold War). Trump's nomination in 2016 put an end to that. I did not need to wait until now to see that Trump is a clown. Granted, it proved to be worse than I was expecting in 2016: I never would have imagined that Trump would try to stage a coup. I thought he would whine and be as ungracious as possible, but I believed this would be as far as it went. Obviously, I was wrong, but any reasonable former conservative would not have needed to witness a failed Beer putsch to abandon the Republican boat.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Celestial

[ThinkerX]

Started thinking about this last week as a means of calling to heel the unethical Supreme Court Justices. Conservatives loudly insist (as does the likes of Alito) that there is no ethical standard that can be applied to the supreme court, and that the ONLY way misbehaving justices can be disciplined is via impeachment.

However, the Supreme Court Justices are also Federal employees, and federal employees are subject to an ethical code that has stood since 1989. Nominally, this is applied to members of the executive branch, but it might be possible to apply it to the judicial branch as well.

Principles of Ethical Conduct for Government Officers and Employees | ethics (nih.gov)

1. Public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain.
2. Employees shall not hold financial interests that conflict with the conscientious performance of duty.
3. Employees shall not engage in financial transactions using nonpublic Government information or allow the improper use of such information to further any private interest.
4. An employee shall not, except pursuant to such reasonable exceptions as are provided by regulation, solicit or accept any gift or other item of monetary value from any person or entity seeking official action from, doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by the employee's agency, or whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the employee's duties.
5. Employees shall put forth honest effort in the performance of their duties.
6. Employees shall make no unauthorized commitments or promises of any kind purporting to bind the Government.
7. Employees shall not use public office for private gain.
8. Employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual.
9. Employees shall protect and conserve Federal property and shall not use it for other than authorized activities.
10. Employees shall not engage in outside employment or activities, including seeking or negotiating for employment, that conflict with official Government duties and responsibilities.
11. Employees shall disclose waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption to appropriate authorities.
12. Employees shall satisfy in good faith their obligations as citizens, including all just financial obligations, especially those such as Federal, State, or local taxes that are imposed by law.
13. Employees shall adhere to all laws and regulations that provide equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or handicap.
14. Employees shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards promulgated pursuant to this order.

This one might be a better fit.

Ethics Policies | United States Courts (uscourts.gov)

Might be interesting were this to be attempted sometime. Conservatives and the Supreme Court would almost certainly object.

 

[Tears of Lys]

On 8/5/2023 at 3:46 PM, A True Kaniggit said:

US Politics: Debates Incoming

So according to the Internets, the first Republican debate is only 18 days away.

How many contenders will there be for the first round?

 

It's beyond obvious that the Republican party is in shambles.

EHK is probably dancing jigs in his grave.  Wasn't his tagline, "The Republican Party should be destroyed"? 

[Tears of Lys]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:21 PM, ThinkerX said:

Started thinking about this last week as a means of calling to heel the unethical Supreme Court Justices. Conservatives loudly insist (as does the likes of Alito) that there is no ethical standard that can be applied to the supreme court, and that the ONLY way misbehaving justices can be disciplined is via impeachment.

However, the Supreme Court Justices are also Federal employees, and federal employees are subject to an ethical code that has stood since 1989. Nominally, this is applied to members of the executive branch, but it might be possible to apply it to the judicial branch as well.

Principles of Ethical Conduct for Government Officers and Employees | ethics (nih.gov)

1. Public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain.
2. Employees shall not hold financial interests that conflict with the conscientious performance of duty.
3. Employees shall not engage in financial transactions using nonpublic Government information or allow the improper use of such information to further any private interest.
4. An employee shall not, except pursuant to such reasonable exceptions as are provided by regulation, solicit or accept any gift or other item of monetary value from any person or entity seeking official action from, doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by the employee's agency, or whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the employee's duties.
5. Employees shall put forth honest effort in the performance of their duties.
6. Employees shall make no unauthorized commitments or promises of any kind purporting to bind the Government.
7. Employees shall not use public office for private gain.
8. Employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual.
9. Employees shall protect and conserve Federal property and shall not use it for other than authorized activities.
10. Employees shall not engage in outside employment or activities, including seeking or negotiating for employment, that conflict with official Government duties and responsibilities.
11. Employees shall disclose waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption to appropriate authorities.
12. Employees shall satisfy in good faith their obligations as citizens, including all just financial obligations, especially those such as Federal, State, or local taxes that are imposed by law.
13. Employees shall adhere to all laws and regulations that provide equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or handicap.
14. Employees shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards promulgated pursuant to this order.

This one might be a better fit.

Ethics Policies | United States Courts (uscourts.gov)

Might be interesting were this to be attempted sometime. Conservatives and the Supreme Court would almost certainly object.

 

And a couple of the non-Conservative ones too, IIRC.  

The SCOTUS has fallen mightily.