* Erik’s Editorial: The Guilty Parties Who Put American Democracy At Risk In The Name Of Donald Trump

US White House upside down (public domain).

I do not fault stupid people for making the stupid decision to elect Donald Trump in 2016.

I do fault smart people for making stupid decisions. These include:

1. Senators who voted to acquit Donald Trump in his no-witnesses-allowed impeachment trial, including primarily Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell:

* Impeachment of Donald Trump (2020-02-05)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Donald_Trump#Acquittal

* Mitch McConnell (2020-02-05)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_McConnell#Impeachment_trial

2. Members of the GOP who voted to disenfranchise voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – before, during, and AFTER the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol – including Paul Gosar (AZ-04), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jody Hice (R–GA-10), Mo Brooks (R–AL-05), Scott Perry (R–PA-10), Josh Hawley (R–MO), and Louie Gohmert (R–TX-01).

* 2021 Storming Of The United States Capitol (2021-01-06)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol

* 2020 United States Presidential Election Electoral College Count (2021-01-06 – 2021-01-07)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_Electoral_College_count

3. Donald Trump’s cabinet, who could have invoked the 25th Amendment to remove POTUS at any time:

* Cabinet Of Donald Trump (2017-01-21 – PRESENT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Donald_Trump

4. Social media, including especially Facebook and Twitter, for allowing their social networks to be used as platforms for hate speech.

* Donald Trump On Social Media (2017-01-21 – PRESENT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_on_social_media#2021

5. Mainstream media, including especially CNN (on the left) and Fox News (on the right) for not doing their jobs – asking questions until they get answers – and allowing POTUS to lie unchecked.

* Veracity Of Statements By Donald Trump (2017-01-21 – PRESENT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump

6. Lawmakers at all levels, for failing to fix bad laws and for failing to enact good laws. Changes that must be made going forward include:

Limiting POTUS power:

  • Executive order power must be limited.
  • All cabinet members (acting/interim/actual) must be confirmed by Senate.
  • Treaties and tariffs must be the role of Congress so that POTUS cannot engage in trade wars.
  • War Powers Act must be updated to limit POTUS power to deploy the military.
  • Special Counsel Act must be updated to make clear that POTUS cannot fire special counsel.

Writing better and new laws:

  • Impeachment Act of 2021, to define how impeachment is conducted, including the requirement to have witnesses.
  • Follow the lead of The Restatements Of The Law project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restatements_of_the_Law) and codify major SCOTUS cases, including especially Roe v. Wade.
  • Fix the Census.
  • Fix immigration.
  • Fix SCOTUS processes, such as limiting appointments to 2 per POTUS with the number of SCOTUS justices fixed at the number of Federal Circuits (currently 13).
  • Election reform, including who is qualified to run for POTUS and that tax forms must be disclosed to do so.

Just to name a few.

Stupid people, bad laws, and lies got us into this mess.

Smart people, good laws, and the truth can get us out of this mess.

LAW >> MAN.

#FailedPols
https://www.failblog.com/

Trump Denies Whistleblower Claims, and Deflects; Business as Usual

In August, an anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint with Michael Atkinson, Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), alerting him to multiple “troubling” conversations between Trump and a “mystery counterpart.” The counterpart was a (then) unidentified foreign leader. During at least one of the conversations, Trump allegedly made a promise to the leader, according to the whistleblower.

Though the U.S. Intelligence community determined that the whistleblower’s report was “urgent and credible” and forwarded it to acting director of national intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire, Maguire did not give the report to Congress, apparently on advisement from the White House and the Justice Department. 

According to the DNI, the report involved “confidential and potentially privileged matters relating to the interests of other stakeholders within the executive branch.”

Later, it was revealed that the “mystery counterpart” was from the Ukraine, and was in fact Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. 

In addition to suspecting a coverup and an abuse of power on the part of Trump, Democrats now suspect that Trump may have tried to use the promise of U.S. military aid to the Ukraine to initiate a probe into Ukraine business dealings by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son.

Trump allegedly told Zelensky “roughly eight times” to work with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to investigate Hunter Biden. Trump alleges that Joe Biden demanded that the Ukrainian government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son. 

Joe Biden denies this.

As if on cue, Rudy Giuliani, in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, first denied that he had asked Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, then later in the same interview, when asked again, said, “Of course I did!” Giuliani later said he had misspoken. 

Also as if on cue, Trump deflected attention away from the scandal and toward Biden: “It doesn’t matter what I discussed with world leaders,” he told reporters. “I’ll tell you this: Somebody ought to look into Joe Biden‘s statement.”

And though Trump claimed not to know the identity of the whistleblower, he slammed him or her as a partisan, calling the situation a “political hack job” and ridiculing the news media for covering it.

“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won’t get a very large amount of U.S. money, so they fabricate a story about me and a perfectly fine and routine conversation I had with the new President of the Ukraine,” Trump tweeted.

Biden responded by saying “Not one single, credible outlet has given any credibility to his assertion.”

“…I have no comment except the president should start to be president,” Biden added.

Meanwhile, Democrats are calling for impeachment while Trump supporters are citing this scandal as more “proof” that Democrats and the media are involved in nothing but a “witch hunt” aimed at bringing Trump down. 

Since its inception, this administration has regularly been the subject of scandals that would have ruined other politicians. For Trump, however. each instance seems to strengthen the support of his base. Though some say this whistleblower’s complaint, if proven, could be especially damaging to Trump, recent history has shown that it will most likely be all but forgotten when the next potentially ruinous Trump controversy du jour overshadows it.

President Donald Trump Blasts Growing Whistleblower Firestorm As ‘Ridiculous’ | NBC Nightly News [2019-09-20]

The Trump WHISTLEBLOWER Story Is A SHAM! | FOTM | ATS | Huckabee
[2019-09-21]