Having a Classical Liberal/Age of Enlightenment view that we understand the world better with freedom of speech and evidence and logic and rule of law puts you orthogonal to the spirit of the Manadarin Class, academics, and the mainstream media.
On Wednesday Trump held a rally in front of the White House protesting election fraud. After the rally, a crowd of protesters marched to Congress and entered the premises. Some minor physical damage done. One protestor (35 year old white female, unarmed, Air Force veteran with multiple tours of service) shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer. One Capitol Police officer was badly beaten and subsequently died from his injuries by someone in the mob.
The mainstream media was quick off the bat with four dead, IEDs, multiple shootings, etc. None of which appears to have been true. They immediately characterized the event as a deliberate armed insurrection. They attributed it all to a riot incited by Trump himself.
Slowly a different picture is emerging. Many of the protesters were apparently admitted into Congress by the Capitol Police (much like as occurred during the Kavanaugh hearings). In other places, the mob clearly stormed barricades and forced their way in. Video from multiple locations show protesters being admitted peacefully and strolling the hallways without incident. Other video shows some violent clashes, entry into some offices, and similar illegal acts. Yet more video seems to show a large portion of the mob making peaceful protest. Others show the presence of Antifa and BLM protestors in violent mode. At least one Antifa video has surfaced posted by a self-acknowledged Antifa member.
Video and articles are beginning to circulate from participants in the mob/protest as well as from independent witnesses, many of them directly contradicting the partisan MSM representation of the facts.
That this is being bandied about for partisan purposes with grave misrepresentation of the facts is obvious. What actually happened is less obvious.
My best guess is that there were at least four different elements of the crowd; Antifa (2-3%?), BLM (2-3%?), peaceful Trump supporters (80-85%?) and some radical Trump supporters (10%?). Virtually impossible so far to tell who was responsible for how, which, and how much violence. At least some of the damage and violence was Antifa as there is video which appears to show peaceful protestors attempting to remove individuals in Antifa gear doing damage to Congress. There are several videos showing protestors thanking Capitol police for their service and the difficulty of their job.
Not unexpectedly, Democrats are alleging that this was a violent insurrection instigated by Trump to overthrow the results of the election. The multitude of articles and videos seem to belie this allegation.
What is enormously striking is that Democrats most objecting to the protests and most willing to characterize it as a violent insurrection are the very politicians and media journalists who spent this past summer endorsing and encouraging violent riots in cities across the US in which many citizens were killed, some police killed, and hundreds of law enforcement officers injured.
Sometimes the approved violence was against retail outlets, some towards residents of suburbs, much of it was directed at Federal and State office buildings and court buildings in select states and cities across the nation. All of this was endorsed and encouraged by members of Congress and by the mainstream media.
We expect the MSM to be ideologically biased and we certainly expect politicians to be hypocritical and morally inconsistent.
But I have been truly astonished at the most recent turn of events. Democrats have been trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election ever since their loss. They have sought to impeach Trump even prior to his inauguration in 2017. They sought to undermine Trump by multiple corruption or collusion investigations all of which have been now documented as cases brought based on false and supported allegations originating from Democrats themselves.
They have discussed impeaching Trump several times each year of his term and have already done so once baselessly with no evidence. There appears to be no breach of decorum or misrepresentation of evidence which they are unwilling to undertake.
From the mobbing of Capitol Hill, the repeated refrain has been that this was an armed and directed intentional insurrection. That claim seems to be falling apart but we don't know yet. From a partisan perspective, Democrats have once again been eager, as they have each year, to consider an impeachment or a 25th Amendment action to remove the President. Even though there are a mere eleven days remaining before the inauguration.
This ideological, partisan madness seems to have become completely unmoored. Among Democrats, there has been a persistent claim that Trump behaves unconstitutionally and treasonously. Claims rolled out yet again after the Congress mob.
It appears, however, that the only transparently and obviously unconstitutional actions are now coming from the Democratic leadership.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday took the unprecedented step of asking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about “available precautions” to prevent President Trump from initiating military action abroad or using his sole authority to launch nuclear weapons in the last days of his term.
In a phone call to the chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, Ms. Pelosi appeared to be seeking to have the Pentagon leadership essentially remove Mr. Trump from his authorities as the commander in chief. That could be accomplished by ignoring the president’s orders or slowing them by questioning whether they were issued legally.
But General Milley appears to have made no commitments. Short of the cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment or removing Mr. Trump through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, it is unconstitutional to defy legal orders from the commander in chief.
Pelosi seems to be confessing to suborning the military to disobey orders from their Commander in Chief. Perhaps there is another way of understanding her actions but this seems inescapably unconstitutional and treasonous
We have two long-established mechanisms to address her beliefs. She can make the case to Congress that the President has done something illegal and should be immediately impeached. If the impeachment is successful, then the President is judged by the Constitutional Court. If found guilty of the alleged crimes, he is removed. This option is entirely under the control of Pelosi herself.
The 117th Congress began on January 3rd, 2021 and she narrowly controls the House and the Senate is tied between the parties. The fact that there are only eleven days left in this administration makes this calendrically difficult but feasible. That she chooses not to execute this constitutional means of removing the President suggests that she does not have the evidence to support her claim.
The other avenue to address Pelosi's concerns is the 25th Amendment which deals with the death of the president, incapacitation or removal from office:
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with presidential succession and disability.
It clarifies that the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, and establishes how a vacancy in the office of the vice president can be filled.
It also allows for the temporary transfer of the president's duties to the vice president, either by the president alone or by the vice president together with a majority of the president's cabinet. In either case, the vice president becomes acting president. The amendment provides how the presidential powers and duties can be transferred back to the president.
If anything, this is even more improbable than impeachment. Her allegations must be self-evident to the Vice President and the majority of his cabinet. Highly unlikely.
Pelosi is at the very last minute trying to accomplish something she has failed to do over four years. The evidence has not been with her, nor the law.
But suborning the military to disobey a legal command from the President? That is shocking. And unconstitutional and treasonous.
My disgust for the establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans is pretty deep and it is partly based on their reluctance to act on behalf of all citizens, not just their own supporters; based on their self-enrichment of themselves and their network of Mandarin Class members; and perhaps the most, based on their reluctance to hold themselves to the same laws everyone else has to obey.
Interfering in the military chain of command is a profoundly serious matter and yet the Mandarin Class, MSM and academia are treating this crime as a mere political tactic. Shame on them. And as long as there are two systems of justice, one most forgiving for the Mandarin Class and another more consequential for ordinary citizens, the more likely the urge for reform will continue to build.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment