Cannon here. Sorry, again, for not attending to my duties. I'll be ready to face the world again soon, I hope. Right now, I beg you to read D-Jay's piece, because he and I have had the much the same thought. As much as I want the new Biden DOJ (or any other prosecutor) to "get" Trump, I've come to realize that seeing Trump behind bars won't satisfy me, and won't bring about the needed changes in our society.
What we want is the truth. Confessions. The straight skinny on what has really been going on during the past five years -- perhaps the past five decades.
One man knows. (I certainly suspect that he knows the truth about Q.) If it takes a deal-with-the-devil, make the deal. Devilish deals are at the heart of most RICO cases. We must know what this man knows. Justice is good; knowledge is even better.
* * *
The
Deprogramming Dilemma - 12
Everybody
must get Stone
By
D-Jay
Keep
your fingers crossed.
Potential
lawsuits and criminal charges against Trump and his cohorts are multiplying and
picking up steam.
Georgia,
New York, Washington DC. Federal, State,
City, County. Election fraud, bank
fraud, tax evasion, incitement to insurrection, libel, rape, obstruction of
justice, even Mar-a-Lago zoning violations. A veritable cornucopia of legal
issues await the orange avatar of the right.
And, if
the feds at the Southern District of New York want the judicial equivalent of
an easy layup, let’s not forget that Trump has been identified by Michael Cohen
as “Individual One,” the person on whose behest he illegally paid off porn star
Stormy Daniels.
Cohen
assures us that Donald is going to be a very busy boy hopping around from one
courtroom to the next – assuming, that is, that he can even find anyone to
represent him.
Oh, and
Nancy Pelosi is getting serious about setting up a 9-11 style commission to do
a deep dive into the causes of the Trump terrorists’ January 6th assault on the
Capitol.
Think
they might want to spend some time looking into the dear leader’s role in the
matter…and have him up for several days of grilling under oath?
How’s
that going to go for him?
I don’t
doubt for a minute that “FG” (short for the “former guy” - to borrow President
Biden’s delightful new phrase) has self-issued pocket pardons in hand for
anything and everything he might have done in his four years as President, but
they won’t protect him at all from perjury or contempt of congress charges
going forward. Legal scholars also tell
us that these very pardons that protect him could also work against him, since
they apparently void his right to invoke the 5th Amendment. If a
pardon eliminates your criminal liability, it also eliminates any need you
might have to avoid self-incrimination.
And
now, it looks like 45, together with court jester/lawyer Rudi Giuliani and the
American Brownshirt wannabe organizations, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, will
also be facing a federal lawsuit brought by Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of
the House Homeland Security Committee.
Based
on the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, a post-Civil War law designed to prevent violent
interference in Congress’s constitutional duties, the well-crafted court
filing alleges that Trump and his cronies illegally conspired to intimidate
and block Congress’s certification of the 2020 election, thus preventing him
Rep. Thompson and his congressional colleagues from fulfilling their constitutionally
established duties.
This
passage sums up the argument nicely:
The insurrection at the Capitol was a
direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful
conspiracy. It was instigated according to a common plan that the Defendants
pursued since the election held in November 2020, culminating in an assembly
denominated as the “Save America” rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C.
on January 6, 2021, during which Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited a crowd
of thousands to descend upon the Capitol in order to prevent or delay through
the use of force the counting of Electoral College votes. As part of this
unified plan to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes, Defendants
Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to
spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump
and Giuliani incited descended on the Capitol. The carefully orchestrated
series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of
the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable
culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal
process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.
Can’t
wait for the discovery.
Along
with Trump, Giuliani and the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers,
however, there is one more person I do hope will spend a long time talking –
under oath – with the investigators.
Roger
Stone.
Talk
about déjà vu. Way back in 2016, who was the Trump world figure doing most of
the communicating
with Julian Assange about which of the Russian hacked emails should be
leaked, and when?
Roger
Stone.
Fast
forward to 2021 and, in the days running up to the attack on the Capital, which
of FG’s cronies was spending the most time hanging with the leaders of the
Proud Boys and Oath Keepers – the very people now
being investigated for coordinating and leading the assault?
You
guessed it, Roger
Stone.
Coincidence,
coordination or collusion?
Is he a
simple right-wing influencer, or full-blown insurrectionist? Has Stone really just been using the hate
groups as his
volunteer bodyguards, as he suggests, or is it something more…maybe much
more?
Was he
acting on his own, or was he a link in a larger pre-meditated scheme. If so, how high up did it go?
Like I
said, déjà vu.
Let’s
hope the FBI gets to the bottom of his role this time. With his buddy Donald no longer in the White
House, his silence in this round of investigations can no longer be bought with
the promise of a pardon.
If he
is once more facing the real possibility of serious jail time, will Roger
finally flip?
Let’s
hope that this time around, the FBI will leave no Stone unturned.
*****************************************************************************************
Contributing
factors to our democratic decline:
From
the Right
Truth Decay – Destruction of
the Ability to Distinguish Fantasy from Reality
Ever Worsening Demonization of
the Media
Manufactured Distrust of
Science and Expertise
The Iron Bubble of
Disinformation
The Dark Money Conspiracy
Information Warfare Aimed at Us
Domestic Terrorism
Emergence of a Full-blown Cult
of Personality
Ongoing Voter Suppression and
Gerrymandering
Election Security
Continued Weaponization of
Social Media
Toxic Right-wing Pseudo-Christianity
Racism
Sexism and a Pseudo-Macho
Mentality
Putinism and the International
Neo-Fascist Movement
Lack of Education in Civics and
Critical Thinking Skills
Destruction of Crucial
Democratic Norms
The Collapse of Good Manners
and Propriety
Radicalization
Sedition
From
the Left (and Sometimes the Center)
OTT PC (Over-The-Top Political
Correctness)
Inept Messaging
Lack of Media Investment
Arrogance
Surrender of Rural America
Without a Fight
Failure to Call Out and
Counteract Toxic Right-Wing Christianity
Failure to Call Out Right-Wing
Racism, Sexism and Fascism for what it is, and Counteract it in Time
Framing Too Many Issues as
Being Rooted in Race Rather than Economics and Class
Failure to Recognize Just How
Bad Things Can Really Get
Forever Bringing Beanbags to a
Knife Fight
Failure to Protect Critical
Norms
