Everybody must get Stone

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.

 

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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 5^th 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.

 

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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