 It was not the result that I wanted, but the American people have given Donald Trump a decisive victory over Kamala Harris. He won both the popular and electoral votes. Harris graciously conceded to Trump, and the transition is underway for the 47th President of the United States of America. The silver lining is that the election results are not being litigated in courtrooms across the country, and there will be a peaceful transfer of power. In the history of the United States there has never been a more uniquely flawed candidate at the head of a major party’s presidential ticket than Donald Trump. That is why I thought that Kamala Harris would squeak out a victory. But I was wrong. The American people had been expressing their dissatisfaction with the direction of the country throughout the campaign, and the Democrats were mostly tone deaf to the things that mattered most, namely high prices and border security. Joe Biden was an unpopular president, and by the time he begrudgingly dropped out the race it was too late for any replacement candidate to mount an effective campaign against Trump. Joe Biden was an 800-pound albatross around Kamala Harris’ neck, and she could never effectively articulate how her administration would be meaningfully different than Biden’s. Republican wins in the House and the Senate sent a clear message that the country wanted change, even if that meant bringing back Donald Trump.  The Democratic Party was clearly out of step with the mood of the country. The progressive politics of the Biden Administration pushed the party left while the majority of the country shifted right. The Trump campaign effectively portrayed the Democrats as a party trying to impose a radical left-wing agenda highlighted by racial, gender and identity politics, while the needs of ordinary Americans were being ignored. As a result, Donald Trump and his party will soon control the executive branch and both Houses of Congress.  But What About Trump? Donald Trump was an unpopular president and unpopular presidential candidate. In recent days his favorability rating surpassed 50% for the first time. Voters were willing to overlook the criminal indictments and convictions, the xenophobia and misogyny, the name calling and petty antics, and the circus atmosphere surrounding Trump. None of Trump’s nonsense and misdeeds impacted voters personally, but high prices and the sense of insecurity resulting from a porous border did. It’s true that Trump’s base of MAGA supporters is strong. But Trump was pushed over the finish line by anti-incumbent voters who rejected Joe Biden’s policies, and by extension his political party.  Trump Gets a Clean Slate: The electorate did more than just forgive Trump’s boorish behavior, it gave permission to the Justice Department to dismiss the two federal criminal cases against him. Within the past few days, a court in Washington D.C. dismissed the case which alleged Trump had attempted to overturn the 2020 election. This week the federal documents case against Trump in Florida was also dismissed. In the court filings to dismiss these cases Special Counsel Jack Smith cited a Justice Department policy that sitting presidents may not be prosecuted. Prosecuting a sitting president would certainly impair his ability to perform his duties, but I doubt that the framers of the Constitution intended the president to be above the law.  The door remains open for the prosecutions to be renewed once Trump leaves office, but the chances of that happening are remote. The American people handed Trump a get out of jail free card when they elected him to be the next president of the United States. Trump still faces state charges in the Georgia election interference case, but odds are that case will die a quiet death. It now appears that Trump’s sentencing for his 34 criminal convictions in the New York hush money case will be delayed until after he leaves office.  Going Forward: Despite his claims to the contrary Trump was not given a mandate by the voters to go “full MAGA” on the country. He received just under 50% of the popular vote, which means that half of the country voted against him. Nonetheless, Trump is newly emboldened by his election victory, the Republican takeover of both Houses of Congress, and the dismissal of the criminal cases against him. There will be little to no restraint on his ambitions to become an all-powerful executive in the Oval Office. His cabinet and other key government positions will be packed with loyalists ready to do his bidding, and Project 2025 will be their roadmap.  For the next two years Trump will yield nearly unfettered control over the reins of government. It’s time for Mr. Trump to put up or shut up and “Make America Great Again”. Without those pesky Democrats to get in his way he has no one to blame but himself if he doesn’t execute on his agenda. The good news is that the mid-term elections are two short years away and the American people get cranky when politicians swing too far to their ideologic extremes, just ask the Democrats. The 2nd Trump term will be a test of the resiliency of the Constitution and the rule of law. It will remind voters of the importance of the separation of powers, the need for checks and balances within the federal government and determine whether the co-equal branches of government actually function as such.  Some Crazy and Not So Crazy Predictions:
To sum it up, Harris lost the election because paychecks went further under Trump. In the immortal words of Democratic strategist James Carvel, “It’s the economy stupid!”  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 American @gmail.com.
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 In the past I have written that I have disqualified Donald Trump from consideration for the presidency due to his character flaws and lack of moral integrity. Nearly half of the American electorate, including many Christians disagree with me. Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States with over 63% of Americans identifying as such. In the latest national polls approximately 47% of registered voters support Donald Trump for president. Most of these voters are Christians who can separate Trump’s moral failings from his policies. I believe in the separation of church and state and have never voted for anyone because of their religious affiliation or beliefs. But the values I learned from my Christian upbringing are so opposed to Donald Trump’s lies and rhetoric that I would have to cast aside my foundational principles as a Christian to support him.  Trumpism: Volumes have already been written in the few short years that the MAGA movement and Trumpism have taken hold of the Republican Party. It has been equated to right-wing populism, Christian nationalism, national conservatism, authoritarianism, and even neo-fascism. Trump may indeed have certain tendencies which puts him into one or more of these political ideologies, but he really doesn’t have a political philosophy. Trumpism is simply a political movement that supports Donald Trump, and he will align himself with any group that supports him, and then coopt their views as his own. Rather than having a political philosophy, Trump has a moral philosophy which he learned from his friend and lawyer Roy Cohn. Trump learned from Cohn that in business and in life, in order to win you must “Attack, attack, attack. Admit nothing, deny everything. No matter what happens, you claim victory, and never admit defeat.” This philosophy of Trump’s is at the root of his conflict with Christian values.  Christianity: I am not a theologian, but I was born and raised a Catholic. I have come to believe that being a Christian doesn’t require affiliation with a particular church, but it requires a belief in and the practice of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christianity in America encompasses a diverse group of people from many different backgrounds, beliefs and churches. One thing that binds most of these groups together is the teachings of Jesus Christ as written in the New Testament. The teachings that I remember are those found in “The Gospel According to Matthew”, particularly the teachings known as the “Sermon on the Mount”. Before examining how Trump’s campaign rhetoric has diverged from Christian values and norms it is important to review some of the teachings of Jesus, which are foundational to Christianity.  Christian Values: This is just a partial list of Jesus’ teachings. Many of these are familiar to Christians and non-Christians, and also appear in the writings of other religions.
 Jesus also taught about the importance of following the ten commandments. The most relevant commandment for our discussion of Trumpism is “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” To bear false witness against others is to lie about them, and the word “neighbor” as written in the English translations of the bible means an associate, brother, neighbor, companion, fellow, friend, husband, or anyone else. Jesus taught us to be good neighbors to others, to be kind and generous, to help those in need, to be forgiving, to be humble and honest. How do these teachings square with our understanding of Trumpism and the words and deeds of Donald Trump?  Can a Vote for Trump be Morally Justified: The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant, and second largest Christian organization in the United States. In 1998 it wrote about the candidacy of Bill Clinton in a resolution which stated that “۰۰۰moral character matters to God and should matter to all citizens, especially God’s people, when choosing public leaders.” The resolution further urged “۰۰۰all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honest, moral purity and the highest character.” Twenty-six years after many conservative Christian organizations spoke out against the moral failings of Bill Clinton, how is it that they can now support Donald Trump who falls much lower on the moral purity scale? I don’t consider myself a conservative Christian and will not attempt to justify something that I don’t understand. All I can do is assess the words and deeds of Donald Trump which speak to the character of the man who may very well be the next president of our country.  The Violation of Christian Values: In the final days of the 2024 presidential race, the violation of Christian values by Donald Trump are on full display. He tells lies and spreads false rumors to instill fear, divide the American people, and denigrate a large segment of our population. He calls immigrants rapists, murderers, and blood thirsty criminals “poisoning the blood of our country”. Trump uses rhetoric such as, “the Haitians are eating the pets” to promote hate and set people against one another. He portrays America as a country in decline, ravished by criminal gangs of illegal immigrants. Trump has a record of mistreating women, distaining the rule of law, and undermining public trust in government institutions. He lacks the humility to admit that he lost the 2020 election and continues to push the false claim that the election system is rigged against him. His false claims that the Biden/Harris administration withheld hurricane relief funds from predominately Republican areas, have led to threats of violence against FEMA employees and the closing of FEMA offices. Trump’s lies have led to violence and threats of violence against Capitol police officers, poll workers, elections officials, immigrants in this country legally, and public officials who have attempted to hold him accountable for his actions. Trump has promised retribution against those who have wronged him and to use the power of the presidency to punish those who disagree with him. He has vilified his political opponents by calling them the “enemy within” our country and has suggested that he will use the military if necessary to crush them. Are these examples of love for one’s neighbor, kindness and compassion towards others, forgiveness, humility, and not judging others? Well, the answer goes without saying.  Trump is Not Pro-Life: For decades many conservatives supported the Republican Party due to its pro-life stance. Trump was hailed as a hero in conservative circles for appointing three Supreme Court justices who supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But Trump is an unprincipled man who has changed his views on abortion several times to fit the prevailing political winds. Evangelicals and other conservative Christians have supported Trump over the years because he was the pro-life candidate. But it is difficult to reconcile that support with Trump’s shifting position in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe. Trump now claims to be the champion of women’s reproductive rights. He is against a national abortion ban and has called Florida’s six-week abortion ban “too harsh” and “a terrible mistake”. Will this cause conservative Christian voters to withhold their support for Trump? We will know in a few short weeks.  I have made my views on Donald Trump crystal clear during this election cycle. As I have expressed in a previous blog, character counts in the selection of any candidate for public office. My views on the character traits that I feel are important in a candidate were formed by my Catholic upbringing and the teachings of Jesus Christ. That is why I question the morality of supporting and putting into power a man who has hate in his heart, is vengeful, and lacks humility and integrity. Donald Trump has told conservative Christian groups that he “loves Christians” and will defend them against the radical-left. Even for Trump that is a wildly self-serving proposition. If he truly wants to align himself with Christians and their values, I suggest that he reads the Bible rather than hawking his own “God Bless the USA” Bible. One final piece of advice for Donald Trump, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you”.   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Thanks, Armchair American  I have not been affiliated with a political party for over twenty years. Officially I am known as a No Party Preference voter in the state where I live. I am dissatisfied with both major political parties and feel that they play a role in Congressional disfunction, and in the political polarization across the country. I have voted for Democratic, Republican, Independent, and write-in candidates. I don’t vote for a candidate based on party affiliation. I vote for a candidate’s strength of character and temperament, followed by the policies they champion. The character of the individual candidate says a lot about the type of leader they will be. If a candidate lacks a minimum level of standards and moral integrity, I deem them unfit for office and won’t even consider them when casting my vote. To me character trumps (no pun intended) all other things that a candidate brings to the table, including political affiliation, policy positions, and promised giveaways to voters.  Integrity: This is perhaps the most important aspect of a candidate’s character. Integrity implies a high level of honesty, morality and trustworthiness. In the context of a candidate for the presidency it also implies that they will respect the rule of law and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.  President Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk which read “The Buck Stops Here!” This was a demonstration that he was personally responsible for his actions and those of his administration. Taking personal responsibility for your actions is another attribute which shows character in a leader. This point brings me to Donald Trump. His moral lapses are well documented, his shady business dealings are legendary, and his legal entanglements could fill a law library. But rather than owning up to his many shortcomings he has perfected the art of denial, deflected his failings onto others, and has draped himself in the cloak of victimhood.  In case you don’t follow Trump’s exploits as closely as I do, here are just of few of the legal entanglements he has faced in recent years which are reflective of his character:
 True to his character, Donald Trump has not taken any personal responsibility for any of his actions relating to the aforementioned criminal cases. Trump simply claims that he is the victim of election interference and political persecution. The prosecutors and judges in each one of these cases are “corrupt” according to Trump, and political lackeys of Joe Biden.  Character as a Guidepost to Leadership: This November we will not be electing a candidate for sainthood; we will be electing a president. No candidate for higher office is perfect, they are human after all. It is incumbent upon us to elect a candidate who has the character to rise above their inherent flaws and self-interest to do what’s right for the American people. Donald Trump’s leadership capabilities during his presidency and in the aftermath of his loss to Joe Biden were shaped by his character. Here are some of the things about Donald Trump that I have learned over the past nine years:
 There are several of my friends who readily acknowledge that Trump has flaws and cringe at some of his pronouncements, but are voting for him anyway. They agree with many of his policies and claim that they are voting for the Republican platform and not necessarily for Trump. But what they fail to realize is that Donald Trump has taken complete control of the Republican Party, and he is the platform. The world is a complicated and dangerous place, and the U.S. President commands an influential and very powerful position. The presidency is perhaps the most difficult leadership position of all, requiring physical and mental stamina, courage, resilience, intelligence, competency and the highest level of integrity. Unchecked power in the hands of an unethical and morally corrupt person, backed up by the enormous resources of the federal government and military establishment, could lead to injustice, cruelty, and much, much worse. After the Supreme Court’s inexplicable decision this summer to strip away the Constituent’s checks on presidential power, it is more important than ever to elect a president of the highest moral character. Donald Trump is not that person.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  There was a seismic shift in the 2024 presidential race on June 27 when Joe Biden’s debate performance showed the country that he was not up to the challenge of winning another term against his challenger Donald Trump. The more that President Biden dug in and tried to reassure his party and the country that he was up for the job, the further behind in the national polls he fell. Things began to fall into place for Trump’s return to the White House.  Trump was handed a get out of jail free card on July 1 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of his immunity claims. The Court ruled that presidents have broad immunity when conducting official acts while in office. This casts doubt on the legality of the remaining state and federal indictments that Trump is facing. To put an exclamation point on Trump’s legal victories, a federal judge in Florida dismissed the classified documents case, finding that the special counsel handling the case had been appointed unconstitutionally.  Surviving an assassination attempt on his life on July 13 cemented Trump’s image among his base of supporters. He was viewed as the divinely chosen candidate destined to retake the White House. Trump himself believed in the inevitability of his winning the presidency. This is borne out by picking J.D. Vance as his running mate. J.D. Vance is the youngest and most inexperienced of the VP candidates that the Trump campaign had vetted. He won’t bring in many new voters, and more importantly, he won’t help Trump’s odds in the all-important swing states. The pick of J.D. Vance shows that Trump was convinced that he would win the election, and he wanted a VP whose ideologic views were aligned with his and who could be the future of the MAGA movement.  Just days after the failed assassination attempt, Trump was welcomed at the Republican National Convention as a concurring hero. The reverence for Trump among his MAGA supporters had never been higher, and even the Democrats thought that it would take a miracle to defeat him in November. That miracle came on July 21 when Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race and throwing his support behind VP Kamala Harris.  Harris Becomes the Democratic Nominee for President: Kamala Harris quickly garnered the support of Congressional Democrats, big donors, and party leaders such as the Clintons and Obamas. Within days of Biden dropping out of the race delegates to the nominating convention began to pledge their support for Harris. On August 6 Harris received enough delegate votes during an online voting process to become the Democratic nominee for president.  Enthusiasm among Democrats for Harris’s candidacy has exploded to levels not seen since Barack Obama was the nominee in 2008. Donors both big and small have been pouring money into the Harris campaign, and in the runup to the Democratic National Convention Harris was ahead of Trump in most national polls.  Readjusting to a New Reality: The Trump campaign was built around defeating Joe Biden, and is scrambling to recalibrate against a new opponent. The past three weeks have not gone well for Trump’s campaign or his psyche. The cloak of invincibility has been pulled from Trump and what’s underneath is disturbing. With all the light shining on Harris, the Trump campaign and the Republican Party have tried to recapture the narrative, but with limited success. Republicans attribute Harris’s surge in the polls as her honeymoon period, but there is more to it than that. The main obstacle to the Republican’s message getting through to swing and undecided voters is Donald Trump himself.  Trump Goes on the Attack: Over the past two weeks Trump has tried to shift the momentum back to his campaign through a series of press conferences and interviews. The press conference at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 was the first of these events and was a prelude of things to come. The Trump campaign had hoped that their candidate would present a substantive case for his election, including his accomplishments and important policy prescriptions. But that didn’t happen. Trump has an inexplicable inability to stay on message and quickly defaults to his old playbook of personal grievances, untruths, bizarre theories, and petty personal attacks. The Trump campaign, and even Trump himself realizes that Harris is vulnerable on some key policy issues, namely the border and inflation. Rather than sticking to a winning strategy against Harris, Trump resorts to personal attacks, nonsensical theories and blatant lies. Below are a few choice examples of Trump’s failing message.  Personal Attacks on Harris: The personal attacks by Trump won’t stop because he claims that he is entitled to them due to the mistreatment he has received from the Biden/Harris Administration. The personal attacks are petty and undignified for a candidate running for the highest office in the country. Here are some of Trump’s recent public comments about Harris:
  Bizarre Theories and Nonsense:
 Untruths and Scaremongering: Trump has always been fast and loose with the truth, but the rapidity with which he tells lies has reached a fever pitch with the rise of Kamala Harris. This makes it difficult to accurately access anything that Donald Trump says, which is why some people dismiss anything he says outright, and others support him out of blind faith. Here are just a few notable lines on his current play list:
 The Democratic Party came to the realization that their presidential candidate was unelectable in the days following the June 27 presidential debate. President Biden’s age, mental acuity and physical stamina were preventing him from being an effective spokesperson for the party and could no longer assure victory in the November election. Party leaders persuaded Biden to drop out of the race for the good of the party and the country. After several agonizing weeks, Biden did the right thing by dropping out of the race and passing the torch to Kamala Harris.  Today the Republican Party is worried that their candidate may be slipping and turning off voters that they will need in November. In many of his public appearances Donald Trump comes across as paranoid, delusional, and stuck in the past. Campaign officials are frustrated with Trump because they are well aware that Kamala Harris is vulnerable on key issues, particularly border security and the economy. If Trump could stay on message his campaign might have a winning strategy. Trump’s dystopian view of America does not play well against Harris’s joyful optimism. Trump should take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook, who with hope and optimism portrayed America as that shining city on a hill. It is Donald Trump’s election to lose, and if he does, he has no one to blame but himself. Trump is already setting the stage to contest the election if he falls short on November 5, 2024. But that is a topic for another day.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Like most Americans I didn’t know much about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz until Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate last week. From what I have read he is a decent man with a long and proud record of public service. He has strong mid-western roots and seems to be a regular guy who can appeal to both urban and rural voters. This has got the Trump campaign worried, and it didn’t take long for it to go on the attack. Swiftboating: This term was coined in 2004 to describe an unfair or untrue political attack and was first used during the 2004 presidential race against the Democrat nominee John Kerry. Kerry was an officer in the U.S. Navy, served a tour of duty in Vietnam in charge of a Swift boat, and received several combat medals for that service. A partisan group called the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” attacked Kerry’s war record during the 2004 campaign, claiming that Kerry had embellished it. The claims were later discredited and proved to be politically motivated, but the damage to Kerry’s campaign was significant. The architect of the “Swift Boat” campaign against John Kerry was political operative Chris LaCivita who happens to be a co-manager of the Trump campaign. Is Tim Walz the victim of swiftboating? Let’s take a look.  J.D. Vance Levels Accusations Against Tim Walz’s Military Record: Within days of Walz being picked to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, the Trump campaign rolled out its vice presidential nominee to go on the attack. Vance served for four years in the Marine Corps, so he was tasked with attacking Walz’s 24 years of service in the Army National Guard. Vance accused Walz of abandoning his unit right before they went to Iraq. Tim Walz filed papers to run for Congress on February 10, 2005, and retired from the National Guard that May. In August of 2005, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit in preparation of deployment to Iraq. The timing might look suspect to some, but there is no proof that Tim Walz timed his retirement to avoid being deployed to Iraq. He did nothing improper in how and when he retired. J.D. Vance also accused Tim Walz of “Stolen Valor” for claims he made in 2018 while speaking to a group about gun control. In support of common-sense gun control laws Walz said that “we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.” Tim Walz never served in a combat zone, so according to J.D. Vance it was a mortal sin for Walz to claim that he had carried a weapon in war. It is true that Walz never served in combat, and therefore did not carry a weapon into battle. But Walz certainly trained with weapons of war in preparation of going into a combat zone during a time of war. The argument is purely semantics, and the Harris campaign was quick to scrub any of its campaign materials referencing Walz’s “weapons of war” comments. The final allegation against Tim Walz’s military record is that he claims to have retired at the rank of Command Sergeant Major. The truth of the matter is Walz did serve as a Command Sergeant Major, but he did not complete the requirements to retire with that rank. He retired at the lower rank of Master Sergeant. The Harris campaign’s website has been updated to reflect that Tim Walz did not retire as Command Sergeant Major, but only served as one. Tim Walz has held political office for nearly two decades. Like any politician running for office he may have embellished his record to cast himself in a more favorable light. In a vacuum that doesn’t look good. In the context of the current political race, it is insignificant and downright laughable when you consider who is leveling the charges. Donald Trump as head of the Republican ticket has no standing in the military community and has an aversion to telling the truth.  What has Trump to Say on the Matter: Donald Trump has been silent on the matter, and for good reason. He has no credibility when it comes to military service, and that’s why J.D. Vance was tasked with the attacks on Tim Walz’s military record. Trump avoided military service during the Vietnam War through dubious means. He received a deferment helped by a medical examination by a private foot doctor who diagnosed bone spurs in his heal. A New York Times investigation in 2018 revealed that the doctor who performed the medical evaluation was a tenant in a building owned by Trump’s father, and that the deferment recommendation was done as a favor to the family. In addition to not serving in the military Trump has often disparaged those who have served. He belittled John McCain’s military career because he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When Trump visited a French cemetery for Americans killed during World War I he said it was filled with losers and suckers. Trump lacks any understanding of the service and sacrifice that our veterans have made in defense of our country. Comparing the Public Service Records of the Candidates: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have spent nearly their entire careers in public service, not so for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Let’s compare the public service records of each candidate and you decide which record is more deserving of your vote.  Donald Trump: Trump was never in the military and never held a public sector job. The only elected position he held was a four-year term as President of the United States. J.D. Vance: Vance served in the US Marine Corps for four years. He was a combat correspondent in a non-combative role, including a six-month deployment in Iraq with the Public Affairs Department. He has served as a U.S. Senator from Ohio since 2023.  Kamala Harris: From the time of her graduation from law school in 1989 to the present-day, Harris has worked in the public sector. From 1990 to 2003 she worked as a prosecutor, first as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County, then as an Assistant District Attorney for San Francisco, and finally as a special prosecutor with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. In 2003 she was elected to the office of District Attorney of San Francisco and served in that role from 2004- 2011. In 2010 and again in 2014 she was elected to serve as the Attorney General of California. She successfully campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and served in that capacity from 2017-2021. She became Joe Biden’s vice president in January of 2021 and serves in that role to this day. Tim Walz: Walz started his career in public service when he enlisted in the Army National Guard at the age of 17. During his 24 years of service, he acquired a college degree and went on to teach and coach in public high schools for approximately 15 years. Waltz left teaching to run for Congress where he served for 12 years. In Congress he sat on the Agriculture, Armed Services, and Veteran’s Affairs committees. Tim Walz is now in his second term as governor of Minnesota.  Let’s hope that the American people can see through this blatant attempt by the Trump campaign to discredit Walz’s honorable military career by spreading falsehoods and casting aspersions. Donald Trump is not even in the same league as Tim Walz when it comes to honesty, integrity, and dedication to public service. Disparaging Tim Waltz’s military career is a losing hand for the Trump campaign and is the height of hypocrisy.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. 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Thanks, Armchair American Two Non-Newsworthy Events Create Outrages of the Week. One From the Left and One From the Right.7/31/2024  We are officially in silly season when any innocuous event can trigger outrage in the hyper-partisans and culture warriors. I am referring to Donald Trump’s remarks to a Christian group which Democrats quickly embraced as proof that he would dismantle democracy if elected, and to the segment of the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics which outraged Christians on Friday night. These people need to take a deep breath and enjoy the remaining weeks of the summer. Let’s first review Trump’s remarks which have many on the left in a tizzy and then move on to the opening ceremony in Paris.  Trump’s Remarks: Trump addressed a group of Christians on Friday night at “The Believers Summit” in West Palm Beach, Florida. Wrapping up his speech Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” He went on to say, “In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good; you’re not going to have to vote.” Was this a threat that the 2024 election could be the last before Trump plunges the country into authoritarianism? No, it was just classic “Trump Speak”. He doesn’t fully think through his thoughts before going off script, particularly at campaign rallies and other friendly venues. You must remember that Trump only cares about this election, which if he wins will be his last. Trump is self-absorbed, so whether Christians vote in the next election doesn’t concern him, because he won’t be running.  Olympic Opening Ceremony Riles Christians: The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic games did not take place in a stadium, which is typical. Rather, it took place in the heart of Paris along the Seine River and incorporated the Eiffel Tower and some of the city’s historic bridges. All the bridges along this stretch of the Seine contained dancers and other performance artists highlighting France’s diverse cultural identity. The performance on the Passerelle Debilly bridge was misinterpreted by many Christian groups as a depiction of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper”. Christians were outraged that Jesus and his disciples were depicted by drag queens and other members of the LGBTQ community. All this anger proved to be misguided. Even the French know that it wouldn’t be wise to offend Christian communities around the world while the Olympic torch illuminates their capitol city.
Which painting is the more likely inspiration?The Paris Olympic organizers were quick to apologize for any offense taken and to explain that the performance had nothing to do with “The Last Supper”. The performance had been inspired by Dionysus, the Greek god of winemaking, fruitfulness, and ecstasy. According to the ceremony’s artistic director, the performance was meant to celebrate diversity and pay tribute to feasting and French gastronomy. Come on folks, the French invented decadence after all. They have been at the forefront of food and fashion for centuries and have pushed the limits on behavioral norms along the way. The French have the center stage at the Olympics, let them showcase Paris and their culture in a way only the French can. Now let’s get back to watching the Olympic Games and enjoying all that French culture.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  A lot has happened in the country since I posted my last blog in early March. It was good to tune out the barrage of news focused on the ongoing wars, politics, the Trump trials, and college protests. But as I reenter the fray, I want to make a few comments on some of the stories that caught my attention.  Speaker Johnson Shows Some Leadership: On March 22 House Speaker Mike Johnson, despite fierce opposite by far-right members of his own party, pushed through a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending package that will fund the government for the rest of the year. The Senate approved the bill the following day and it was signed into law by President Biden that afternoon. By reaching across the aisle to get Democrat support for the spending bill, Speaker Johnson showed that he was willing to act in a bipartisan way to avert a government shutdown. In April Speaker Johnson once again showed his willingness to put country ahead of party by getting the House to approve the $95 billion foreign aid bill. Among other things, the bill provides urgently needed military aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Getting this bill passed in the House was the right thing to do despite opposition from many Republicans. House member Marjorie Taylor Greene will likely call for a vote in the House to have Johnson removed as Speaker. Many Democrats have vowed to support the Speaker, so his job should be secure. House Republicans are not foolish enough to remove another Speaker and throw the House of Representatives into chaos this close to a presidential election.  “No Labels” Drops Out of Presidential Contest: The centrist political organization No Labels announced in early April that it would not nominate a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Several nationally recognized politicians were under consideration, such as Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. But in the end no politician of consequence was willing to run as a third-party candidate and potentially spoil the election for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Whoever wins the presidential election will do so by a very slim margin. A third-party candidate backed by No Labels would have certainly swayed the election by pulling many independent voters and some Democrats that are not thrilled that Joe Biden is running for reelection. I am not opposed to third-parties, but with the stakes so high in this election, I am happy that No Labels is not running a candidate for president.  Trump on Trial: Donald Trump is currently on trial in a New York courtroom facing thirty-four criminal counts of falsifying business records. He is the first ever former U.S. president to face criminal charges. The so-called “hush-money trial” revolves around $130,000 paid to former porn actress Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump. The prosecution claims that Trump falsified checks and invoices to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to disguise the payments as legal expenses. Paying people for their silence is not a crime. Disguising the payments as legal expenses runs afoul of business and tax laws. Prosecutors are also trying to show that the payments were a criminal effort to deceive voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election. If the payments to Stormy Daniels and others were indeed meant to influence the 2016 election, then Trump’s campaign committee violated campaign finance laws by not reporting them as campaign expenses. Donald Trump will likely get convicted on one or more of the 34 counts that he is facing, but will it matter? Probably not. If Trump is convicted, the conviction will immediately be appealed, and the outcome will not be known until after the election. For me, whether or not Trump is convicted is not as important as the spotlight the trial shines on his character. The salacious and unsavory details brought out in the trial are reminders of the character of the man currently leading the Republican Party. Through his several bankruptcies we know that Trump has always been reckless in his business life. The trial reminds us that ethical behavior, morality and the practice of family values are not his strong points. His personal associations, his ability to twist the truth, and his seeming inability to take responsibility for his actions demonstrate his true character. Trump’s violations of the court’s gag orders during the trial show how undisciplined he is and highlights his disdain for authority. Donald Trump will continue to claim that the trial is proof that the Department of Justice has been weaponized against him, and he will raise millions of dollars in campaign donations as a result. Trump has called the trial “election interference” since it prevents him from being out on the campaign trail. But isn’t the payment of “hush-money” to keep damaging reports of extramarital affairs from the American people the real election interference?  College Campus Protests: Pro-Palestinian rallies on U.S. college campuses began soon after the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023. But as the war has dragged on and the suffering of the people in Gaza has intensified, pro-Palestinian protests at over 46 college campuses has escalated. Since the middle of April protestor encampments have sprung up at many college campuses to show solidarity with Palestinians and to voice opposition to what they view as a war of aggression by Israel. Protest leaders vowed to keep their encampments in place until the colleges agreed to meet such demands as divestment from Israeli companies and companies that do business with Israel. Many Jewish students have felt unsafe and unprotected on campus, and in some cases have been the victims of intimidation and antisemitism. There have been calls from Congress for colleges and universities to do more to protect Jewish students. Since the beginning of the war, campus protests have been mostly peaceful. But this all changed in recent weeks as counter protests have sprung up on some campuses, aided by outside agitators, leading to violence, destruction of property, and the upheaval of campus activities. This has led many college administrations to call in law enforcement to clear the encampments, leading to over 2400 arrests to date. Most of the protests have been peaceful and lawful. But some, like Columbia University and UCLA , were allowed to get out of control by the campus administrators leading to destruction of property, violence and mass arrests. Colleges need to balance the 1st Amendment rights of students and faculty with campus safety while maintaining orderly operations of their institutions. The exercise of free speech and the right to peacefully assemble should be guaranteed on all college campuses, within limits. These limits should include:
Students have the right to protest, but not at the expense of the rights of other students to study and learn in peace. Students should be allowed to voice their opinions on the Israel-Hamas war, or on any other topic. But when that speech interferes with the rights of other students, or it becomes unlawful, then a line has been crossed and it is no longer protected.  War protests are not new on our college campuses or public squares. Free speech and peaceful protests are protected by our constitution. But expressions of hate and the threats of violence against another person or group are not protected speech. Hate speech should be condemned in the strongest possible way, regardless of which side of the conflict you are on. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  This month the Congressional Republicans proved once again that doing what’s right for the country takes second place to appeasing Donald Trump. On February 3, 2024 the U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan border security bill which included aid to Ukraine and Israel. Within hours Trump slammed the bill as a win for Democrats. Trump’s lobbying efforts turned many Republican Senators against the bill and it quickly failed to advance. The fact that Trump can dictate to Republican members of Congress which policies to back shows a real lack on Congressional leadership, and is illustrative of today’s Republican Party.  Politics and the Border: Immigration and border security are among the top issues for both Republican and Democrat voters. The problems at the U.S. border with Mexico have been decades in the making, but they have gotten worse under President Biden, as I outlined in a previous blog. As soon as President Biden came into office, the House Republicans seized on the “border crisis” as an issue to attack him with. Last October, while the House Republicans were scrambling to elect a new House Speaker, the Biden Administration requested more than $105 billion from Congress, mostly to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel. The request also included about $14 billion to improve security at the southern border. Among other things, the funds would have been used to hire more border agents, install new inspection machines to detect fentanyl, and increase staffing to expedite asylum cases. With the House of Representatives in chaos, it was up to the Senate to move forward on a spending package for Ukraine and Israel. Senate Republicans approached the Democrats with a way forward. They would only back additional assistance to Ukraine if the Democrats agreed to their border security proposals. The Senate leadership soon put together a bipartisan group of Senators to negotiate a deal.  Even before the text of the bill was finalized, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions and Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country! Also, I have no doubt that our wonderful Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, will only make a deal that is PERFECT ON THE BORDER.” Speaker Johnson, who speaks with Trump regularly, declared the bill “dead on arrival” in the House if it was approved by the Senate. If there was any doubt about Trump's motives, he clearly spelled them out on a post to “Truth Social” on Feb 5, 2024. Part of the post read, “This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for the Republican Party. It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans.” In case Republican Senators didn’t get the message, Trump called several of them to tell them that the bill was helping Joe Biden, and he (Trump) needed the crisis at the border to continue in order to get elected.
Hypocrisy Over Border Bill: For months Republicans in Congress have demanded new border security measures, only to reject them once they were in hand. Even Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, said that Republicans couldn’t get a better deal even with a Republican in the White House. The bipartisan Senate bill would have provided $20.2 billion for the most substantive changes to border and immigration policy in over a generation. The bill would have overhauled the asylum system, making it more difficult for migrants to qualify. The practice of “catch and release”, in which migrants are released into the U.S. while their claims are being processed, would end. Funding would be available to hire more border agents, asylum officers, support for border states, and even some border barriers. The bill would have granted the president new authority to shut down the border during periods of high migrant crossings, and visas for legal immigrants would be increased by 50,000 a year. The National Border Patrol Council, which represents more than 18,000 border agents, came out strongly in favor of the border bill. The council’s president called the bill transformative and far better than the current status quo. He went on to say that the bill would “drop illegal border crossings nationwide and allow our agents to get back to detecting and apprehending those who want to cross our border illegally and evade apprehension.”  House Impeaches Secretary Mayorkas: If the House Republicans were serious about border security, they would have worked with their Senate colleagues to get it done. But that was not going to happen with Donald Trump calling the shots in an election year. Instead, they chose to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust” amid a surge in unauthorized migrant crossings. The Republican’s first attempt to impeach Secretary Mayorkas failed last week by three votes. Their second impeachment attempt earlier this week passed by only one vote. The impeachment of Mayorkas is a pathetic attempt to deflect attention away from the House Republicans, who are not serious about passing border security legislation, and place the blame for the border problems on the Biden Administration. The articles of impeachment will go nowhere in the Democrat controlled Senate, and will have accomplished little more than appeasing Donald Trump.  Democrats May Get the Last Laugh: Fixing the broken immigration system and securing the border are top of mind for most voters. But the Republicans can no longer claim that the Democrats did nothing to fix the problem. The Republicans were the ones who killed the Senate bill that would have provided billions of dollars to secure the border and improve the broken immigration system. Democrats in the House and Senate backed the bill, as did President Biden. Donald Trump is responsible for the bill failing so that he could keep the “border crisis” a campaign issue.  The failure of the “National Security and Border Act, 2024” is further proof that the Republican Party has lost its way. It is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary for not securing the border when they helped defeat a bill that would have done just that. This seems to me to be a dereliction of duty and un-American. The amount of sway that Donald Trump holds over the Republican Party should give all Americans pause. He rules the Congressional Republicans like a puppet master, and will stop at nothing to get reelected. The Grand Old Party is no longer the party of Lincoln when it is beholden to a man who puts himself above the rule of law, above the Constitution, and above the needs of the American people.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, there has been a lot of speculation that Donald Trump’s involvement would disqualify him from ever holding public office again. The legal justification for disqualification is spelled out in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The first legal action to test whether or not Donald Trump can be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment took place in a Colorado District Court last week. The nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, on behalf of six Colorado voters, filed a lawsuit against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. The lawsuit was filed to prevent Donald Trump from appearing on Colorado’s Republican presidential primary election ballot and any future election ballot based on his disqualification to hold public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The lawsuit also seeks to prevent Colorado’s Secretary of State from taking any action that would allow Donald Trump to appear on the ballot. Does the lawsuit in Colorado have any merit, and will it prevent Donald Trump from appearing on the Republican primary ballot? Before we can answer these questions let’s first exam Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to see if it has any application to Donald Trump and the 2024 Presidential election.  Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment: It was adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War to prevent military officers, federal officers, and state officials who served in the Confederacy from holding any future public office. Sometimes referred to as the disqualification clause, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment reads as follows: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or an executive or judicial officer of any State, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”  Ambiguities Exist: Like many sections of the U.S. Constitution, there is a lot of ambiguity in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and its applicability in the aftermath of January 6th is uncertain. After about 1869 there has been very little case law to provide clarity about this section of the Constitution. Some of the issues yet to be resolved include:
 Recent Court Action: There was a court case last year in New Mexico which merits mention due to its relevance to January 6th. Couy Griffin, a New Mexico County Commissioner, was convicted of illegally entering the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021. As a result of his conviction a group of New Mexico voters sued to have him removed from office on the grounds that he violated Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. A state judge agreed and had him removed from office and disqualified him from holding any office in the future. The New Mexico Supreme Court refused to overturn the ruling. Griffin vows to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The removal of Couy Griffin from public office was the only successful case to be brought under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment since 1869. The significance of this case is that it was the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021 were an “insurrection”.  Applicability to Donald Trump: Donald Trump has called the use of the Fourteenth Amendment to keep him off any election ballot simply “election interference”. In a recent social media post, he stated that “almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election”. Many of us watched the attack on the U.S. Capitol live on television or at least read about it. No one can dispute that there were crimes committed at the Capitol on that day and perhaps on the days leading up to January 6, 2021. Millions of Americans believe that Donald Trump incited the Capitol riot and fanned the flames of insurrection. But there are millions of other Americans who believe that Donald Trump isn’t guilty of any crimes, and is not responsible for the violence that took place at the Capitol. Therefore, there is no clear consensus on Donald Trump’s role in the January 6th Capitol riot.  The Department of Justice has charged more than 1,100 defendants with various crimes related to January 6th, and over half have pleaded guilty. The most serious charge any of the defendants has been convicted of is seditious conspiracy. Seditious conspiracy does not rise to the level of a Section 3 violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. More to the point, Donald Trump has not been convicted of any crime related to January 6th and none of the indictments that he currently faces are for insurrection, rebellion, or giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States. I am not a lawyer, but is seems improbable that any State could keep Donald Trump off of an election ballot based on violations of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Final Note: The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued its final report on December 22, 2022. Recommendation 4 in the report addresses the need to clarify the provisions of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and how it may be used against Donald Trump and other defendants. The Select Committee referred Donald Trump and others to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution “for assisting and providing aid and comfort to an insurrection.” The final report also makes note of the fact that two members of the committee have introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to declare the January 6th assault an insurrection, and legislation “to establish specific procedures and standards for disqualification under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.” The recommendations in the final report are going nowhere in the Republican controlled House of Representatives. The pending lawsuit in Colorado to keep Donald Trump off of the Republican presidential primary ballot will not be the last case of its kind. Other states will be following this case closely and are already considering similar legal actions against candidates or officials who were involved in the January 6th Capitol riot. But without further guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court or the Congress, these cases have little chance of succeeding. It is important to remember that despite his numerous criminal indictments, Donald Trump has not yet been convicted of any federal crimes. Therefore, he should be presumed innocent until he is proven guilty. Further use of the judicial system to prevent Donald Trump from running for president will only feed into his narrative that the legal system is being weaponized against him. It will also foster more distrust of the judicial system and further embolden Trump and his supporters. The only way to beat Donald Trump is at the ballot box.  Let the American voters decide. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Donald Trump did the American people a favor by not participating in the Republican primary debate last Wednesday night. It allowed viewers to assess the qualifications of Trump’s eight top challengers without the distraction and chaos that he would have brought to the debate stage. In order for the Republican Party to remain relevant, and for the good of the country, it must move beyond Donald Trump. Most of the eight challengers who debated on Wednesday are highly qualified, and one might emerge as a successor to Donald Trump. But let’s be clear, as it stands today Donald Trump should easily win the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Depending upon which poll numbers you read, Donald Trump is ahead of his nearest challenger, Ron DeSantis, by nearly 40 points. Last Wednesday’s debate did nothing to change the polls in any significant way. From my perspective Donald Trump emerged as the clear winner from the debate. The only thing that can derail Trump’s nomination for president is Trump himself. It is possible that his campaign implodes from the sheer weight of the four criminal indictments (91 individual charges) that he faces. If that happens, one of the eight candidates on the debate stage Wednesday night could emerge as the Republican nominee for president. Therefore, the race is on to be the number two candidate behind Donald Trump. Let’s take a look at how each of the candidates performed in the debate and some of my thoughts on each. I have listed them in the order of their current polling.  Ron DeSantis: By most accounts the current Governor of Florida did nothing in the debate to undermine his standing as the number two candidate behind Donald Trump. But he did nothing to close the gap with Trump. DeSantis didn’t take any risks and most of his remarks were part of his canned stump speech from the campaign trail. Two of his remarks put me in the “never DeSantis“ camp. His opposition to more funding for Ukraine, and his statement about using deadly force at the border to stop the flow of illegal drugs. But I didn’t need the debate to sour me on a DeSantis presidency. His “anti-woke” rhetoric and the laws he has passed in Florida to back up the rhetoric have become extreme. The Republican Party has traditionally stood for limited government and self-reliance. But Ron DeSantis wants to dictate what schools can teach, what textbooks they can use, how companies conduct diversity training, and the reproductive health care of women. This smacks of fascism to me. No thanks Ron!  Vivek Ramaswamy: He is a biotech entrepreneur and author with no government experience. The last Republican president had no prior government experience, and how did that turn out? Mike Pence had it right when he stated in the debate, “Now is not the time for on-the-job training.” Ramaswamy’s poll numbers have risen significantly in recent weeks due to his slick and polished manner and his extreme right-wing views. He was probably the most pro-Trump candidate on the stage. At one point he called Donald Trump the “greatest president of the 21st century”. If he really believes that, why is he running against Trump for the nomination? Ramaswamy stated during the debate that “The climate change agenda is a hoax”. He is playing to Donald Trump’s base, but has no chance in a general election. His lack of government experience and his lack of foreign policy experience are deal breakers for me. One of the best exchanges of the debate came from Nikki Haley who highlighted Ramaswamy’s lack of foreign policy experience. “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, let China eat Taiwan, stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends”, she said.  Mike Pence: The former Vice President and former Governor of Indiana certainly has the experience to be president. He is intelligent and articulate, and he had a good debate performance on Wednesday night. The usually mild-mannered Pence was aggressive and garnered more speaking time than any other candidate. He took on Ramaswamy for his lack of experience and justifiably defended his actions on January 6, 2021 by standing up for the Constitution rather than giving in to the pressure tactics of Donald Trump. Mike Pence is a decent and principled man. His deeply held religious views form the foundation of most of his beliefs and policy decisions. I can respect that, but Mike Pence wears his religion on his sleeve. Not only does this not play well to the general electorate, it has no place in our secular institutions of government. I applaud Mike Pence for standing up for the Constitution on January 6, 2021. But he was one of Donald Trump’s enablers and his criticism was too little, too late. Mike Pence has no chance of winning the Republican nomination due to his current criticisms of Trump.  Nikki Haley: As a former Governor of South Carolina and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump Administration, Nikki Haley has governing and foreign policy experience. I think that she had the best debate performance and was probably the only candidate to jump in the polls as a result of their performance. Haley came across as smart, informed, and not afraid to take on the Trump wing of the Republican Party. In the debate Nikki Haley showed her strong foreign policy credentials, was pragmatic and compassionate on abortion, and she was one of the few candidates who acknowledged that climate change is real. She directly criticized Donald Trump and the exploding national debt under his watch, and went so far as to say that Trump could not win in a general election. Of all the candidates on the debate stage on Wednesday night, my views probably align most closely to those of Nikki Haley. She would be a formidable opponent against President Biden in a general election and is someone to watch in the months ahead. At the very least, Nikki Haley will be on any Republican nominee’s short list for Vice President or Secretary of State.  Tim Scott: The Senator from South Carolina didn’t do himself any favors in the debate. His calm demeanor and “nice guy” personality prevented him from getting much speaking time. In order to win a Republican primary debate, much less the nomination, you have to be seen as a fighter and not be afraid to step on toes. That is just not Tim Scott, who got overshadowed by most of the other candidates on the stage. Tim Scott is a decent man and a true conservative, but my biggest knock against him is his defense of Donald Trump. In the debate he stated that “As next president of the United States I will make that border wall complete”. I don’t think that Tim Scott will be in the race for very much longer.  Chris Christie: As a former Governor of New Jersey and a U.S. attorney, Chris Christie is no stranger to politics. He got into the race to be a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. Christie has known Trump for decades and is on a crusade to educate the electorate on Trump’s shortcomings. Most of his remarks made during the debate were booed by the Trump supporters in the audience. Even though I agree with Christie’s views on Trump, he has alienated most of the Republican base and has no chance of winning the nomination. Christie sealed his fate when he admitted onstage that he would not support Trump if he was convicted and became the nominee.  Asa Hutchinson: The former governor and congressman from Arkansas has plenty of government experience. He is a decent man who believes that the only hope for the Republican Party is to move beyond Donald Trump. Along with Chris Christie, he was the only candidate on stage who would not support the nomination of Donald Trump. Like Christie, Hutchinson’s lack of support for Donald Trump has doomed his candidacy.  Doug Burgum: The former software entrepreneur and current Governor of North Dakota is bright and has a lot of good ideas on economic and foreign policy issues. But he has low name recognition and did not distinguish himself in the debate. He literally had to buy his way on to the debate stage. In order to qualify for the debate, a candidate needed at least 40,000 individual donors to their campaign. Burgum secured these individual donors by giving away $20 gift cards to 50,000 individuals who donated $1 or more to his campaign. Burgum has no chance of winning the Republican nomination. But he does have enough personal wealth to continue his campaign to get his views aired.  Wanted for Crimes Against Democracy.In order for the Republican Party to remain relevant it must move beyond Donald Trump. The party cannot win a general presidential election with him at the head of their ticket. The Republican primary debate last Wednesday night showed that there are some serious candidates capable of being the standard bearer for the Republican Party. Donald Trump will not go away until the Republican electorate sends him packing. For the sake of the country, let’s hope that they have the sense to do just that.
If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  In one of my blogs last year I raised the question “Would Ukraine be better off if Trump was president?” The answer, for me at least, is a resounding no! Without the financial and military support from NATO countries, Ukraine would not be able to stand up to the military might of Russia. Russia would overrun Ukraine’s territory and annex it, much in the same way as it did to the Crimea in 2014. Soon Ukraine would no longer exist as an independent country.  The United States’ policies toward aiding Ukraine, under the leadership of President Biden, have strengthened the Western alliance and made NATO more united than it has been in decades. Finland was recently admitted to the alliance, and President Biden helped negotiate a deal with Turkey’s President Erdogan to remove the final roadblock to allowing Sweden to join NATO. President Biden also helped to secure commitments from all NATO member nations to allow Ukraine to join the alliance once the war with Russia is over. Under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, an attack on one member is regarded as an attack on all of them. If Ukraine became a member of NATO before the end of the war, it would put the United States and other member nations at war with Russia. The United States is simply not willing to go to war with Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. In addition to escalating and widening the war by involving all NATO countries, Putin is just crazy enough to use nuclear weapons if he felt backed into a corner.  Last week President Biden traveled to Helsinki to congratulate Finland’s president on becoming the newest member of NATO. During his time in Helsinki the president also met with the leaders of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. President Biden gave assurances of cooperation between our countries and conveyed the United States’ commitment to NATO. The contrast between President Biden’s recent Helsinki Summit and the one attended by President Trump in 2018 couldn’t be more different. At the summit in 2018 Trump met privately with Vladimir Putin. After the meeting Trump sided with Russia against his own U.S. intelligence agencies, disavowing the findings that Russia had indeed interfered in the 2016 elections. Trump stated during a press conference that he believed Putin, who had told him that Russia had not meddled in the U.S. elections. This left many of the United States’ allies in Europe shaken, questioning whether or not they could rely on security commitments from the United States going forward.  Despite Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite history, it has been extensively reported over the years that he was no friend of NATO. On several occasions Trump told his top national security advisors that he wanted to pull out of NATO. If not for his chief of staff John F. Kelley and his national security advisor John Bolton, he might have done just that. He called the alliance obsolete and berated member states for not paying their fair share. Even though these claims were not true, it undermined confidence in the alliance and created division between members. In short, President Trump left the future of NATO in doubt, and President Biden has unified and strengthen it.
The COVID pandemic taught us that the world is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Economic and strategic relations between nations are vital, and that is particularly true for the United States. Tackling worldwide threats such as disease, climate change, and microplastic contamination of the environment will require strong relationships and cooperation among nations. It would be foolish to think that the United States has the resources and will to go it alone against military and competitive threats from the likes of China, Russia, and Iran. The United States cannot go it alone. Without security alliances such as NATO, and partnerships in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, we will go the way of ancient Rome, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. International relationships and alliances are key to the long-term prosperity and survival of our country.  ChatGPT or any form of artificial intelligence were not used in the writing of this blog.
If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  After a four year investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe into ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, special counsel John Durham issued his report earlier this month. Donald Trump and his allies would have you believe that the report uncovered the “crime of the century”, the existence of a “deep state” out to get him, and an FBI weaponized against him. This is not what the report indicated. The Durham report revealed very little that hadn’t previously been reported in prior investigations and in the press. The Durham report should be the last word on the Trump-Russia probe, but it won’t be. Donald Trump will use the report as proof that he is the victim of a deep state conspiracy, and use it throughout his 2024 presidential campaign as a shield against all pending accusations against him. Therefore, the subject deserves just a little more of our time before we relegate it to the trash heap of yesterday’s news.  Time Line of Events in Trump-Russia Probe: A review of the time line of events may help to make some sense of the Durham report. July 31, 2016: The FBI began an investigation, code named “Crossfire Hurricane”, into possible links between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials, and to possible Russian meddling in the presidential election. This investigation would be taken over by the Mueller investigation in May of 2017.  May 9, 2017: President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. May 17, 2017-May 29, 2019: Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, and possible obstruction of justice arising from the firing of FBI Director Comey.  March 22, 2019: The Mueller report was issued. The main findings of the report are as follows:
 December 8, 2019: Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, issued a report on the findings of his investigation, started in early 2018, into how the FBI came to investigate the Trump campaign’s possible links to Russia. In his report, Horowitz concluded that the FBI had a legitimate purpose in opening its investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane, and that there was no evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open investigations into some of Trump’s campaign advisors. But the Horowitz report was critical of how the FBI handled the applications for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, targeting Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The report outlined “serious performance failures” requiring major changes. Horowitz also called for greater oversight before the FBI opens a politically sensitive investigation. Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham disagreed with Horowitz’s conclusion that the FBI was justified in opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Barr urged Durham to continue his investigation into possible FBI missteps during the Trump-Russia investigation. According to Barr’s memoir, as the 2020 election neared, Donald Trump was angry that no charges were leveled against the FBI.  October 19, 2020: Attorney General William Barr Attorney appointed John Durham as a special counsel to provide him and his team the assurance that their investigation could continue regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Durham Report: Issued on May 15, 2023, the 316-page Durham report was the conclusion of a 4 year investigation set in motion by Donald Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr. Pressured to do so by Donald Trump, Barr hoped to prove that the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia was nothing more than a political witch hunt. But the report failed to do so, and provided no new revelations that hadn’t been previously reported by Robert Mueller and Michael Horowitz.  The Durham report is highly critical of the FBI’s behavior, finding that the bureau acted too hastily and relied on raw and unconfirmed intelligence when it opened the Trump-Russia investigation. But the report does not recommend any new charges against any law enforcement officials or changes to FBI guidelines and policy. Durham claims no political bias on the part of the FBI. He rightly points out certain individuals within the FBI who showed personal bias against Trump, but he could find no institutional bias. It seems to me that the Durham investigation was politically motivated, and a tool to help Donald Trump’s reelection chances.  FBI’s Impact on 2016 Presidential Campaign: On July 10, 2015 the FBI opened a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information while she was Secretary of State. As you may remember, this centered around the use of a personal server to store her government emails. On July 5, 2016 FBI Director James Comey issued a public statement indicating that the investigation was being closed with no recommendations for charges against Hillary Clinton. Then in late September of 2016, the FBI discovered a trove of emails from Hillary Clinton on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. On October 28, 2016 Director Comey informed Congress (and the world) of the existence of the newly found emails and that the investigation into Clinton would be reopened. It was highly unusual and consequential for the FBI to make this information known less than ten days before a presidential election.  On November 6, 2016 Director Comey informed Congress that a review of the recently discovered Clinton emails provided no relevant information and the case would be closed. But with early voting underway in most states, the damage had already been done. The rest is history. Throughout most of the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary Clinton had the black cloud of “email-gate” hanging over her head. At the same time the American public had no idea that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign for possible ties to Russia. With all of Trump’s claims of a witch hunt, he fared much better at the hands of the FBI than did Hillary Clinton.  The 2024 presidential election is heating up, Donald Trump’s legal problems are mounting, and you have more important things to think about. So, you can be forgiven if you have forgotten all about the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation conducted by the FBI. The Durham report has brought the subject back front and center, and Donald Trump will use it to spin a narrative of “victimhood” throughout his campaign. Trump and his allies will continue to beat the drum of deep state conspiracies against him. But don’t buy it.
Let’s hope that no more public funds are spent on useless investigations that attempt to rewrite history and weave false narratives. Now go out and enjoy the summer months before things really get crazy. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  Donald Trump was the first person without government or military service to be elected president of the United States. He was the first president to be impeached twice, and the first president to refuse to publicly concede defeat when he lost his re-election bid in 2020. Donald Trump was the first president in over 150 years not to attend his successors inauguration, and now he is the first former president to be indicted, booked and arraigned on criminal charges. That’s quite a record, and things are just starting to look interesting for Mr. Trump.  Yesterday Donald Trump turned himself in at the criminal courthouse in lower Manhattan. He was then arrested, booked and arraigned on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. In the unsealed indictment we learned that each count involved the “intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise”. The charges stem from hush-money payments made by Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Statement of Facts, which accompanied the indictment, spells out the charges against Donald Trump in more detail. Here we learn why misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records are being bumped up to felony charges. The business records were falsified in order to conceal the following criminal conduct:
Response to Donald Trump’s Indictment and Arrest: The response to the news of Donald Trump’s criminal indictment and subsequent arraignment is not surprising. Everyone from Donald Trump’s lawyers to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called it “political persecution”, a “blatant abuse of power from a DA focused on political vengeance”, and “an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election”. The Republican establishment rallied behind Donald Trump even before they knew what crimes he was being charged with. For his part, Donald Trump had been preparing his supporters that an indictment was imminent. On his social media platform and at his rally in Waco Texas, the former president called on his supporters to “Protest, take our nation back!”, and warned of “death and destruction” if he faces criminal charges. In a questionable legal strategy, Donald Trump went so far as calling Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “degenerate psychopath”, among other things. If Donald Trump was trying to intimidate the District Attorney, it didn’t work. After his arraignment in New York, Donald Trump flew back to Mar-a-Lago and delivered a prime-time campaign speech. The first line of his speech was “The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it”.  Is Donald Trump’s Arrest Good for our Democracy? Many congressional Democrats think so. They are calling for justice to be blind, and standing by the notion that no one is above the law, not even former presidents. I agree with this position, as do most Americans. Without respect for the rule of law our democracy would crumble. Justice Department policy shielded Donald Trump from criminal prosecution while he was president. Now that he is out of office, Donald Trump should be provided the same protections and sanctions that the laws provide to all citizens of this country. Donald Trump may have jumped into the 2024 presidential race early in an effort to shield himself from the several pending criminal cases that are plaguing him. This was a miscalculation on his part. It’s true that it is unprecedented for a former president to be indicted on criminal charges. But it is not true that presidents have never been held accountable for their actions once out of office. Bill Clinton lost his law license and paid a fine rather than face perjury charges once he left office. Richard Nixon would have certainly been indicted on obstruction of justice charges in the Watergate investigation if he hadn’t been pardoned by Gerald Ford after leaving office.  Short Term Implications of Donald Trump’s Arrest: Donald Trump’s base of supporters has certainly been energized, and his fund-raising apparatus has shifted into overdrive. Trump’s team raised over $4 million within 24 hours of the indictment being made public. The indictment has thrown a wet blanket over Trump’s competition for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pence have all come out in support of Donald Trump against what they perceive as partisan attacks. Trump’s support among conservative Republicans has never been higher, and it has just gotten a lot tougher for anyone to wrestle the Republican nomination for president away from him.  Long Term Implications of Donald Trump’s Arrest: The criminal charges that Donald Trump faces in New York will take months, if not years to play out. The extent of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s evidence against Trump will not be fully known until the case goes to trial. The next scheduled hearing on the case is December 4, 2023. If the case goes forward, it will certainly cast a gray cloud over the 2024 presidential election, making it difficult to see a path to victory for Donald Trump in a general election. In any case, the stage has already been set for claims of “another rigged election” by Donald Trump if he fails to win back the presidency. At his recent rally in Waco, Trump claimed that the criminal charges leveled against him are the result of “prosecutorial misconduct”, a new tool being used against him. He went on to say, “We must stop them and we must not allow them to go through another election where they have yet another tool in their tool kit.”  Donald Trump’s Legal Jeopardy: I don’t think that Donald Trump faces any real legal jeopardy in the New York criminal case. He certainly won’t do any jail time if he is convicted of any of the charges. The importance of the Manhattan District Attorney’s case against Donald Trump is that it sets a precedent for future cases. It will make it more likely that other prosecutors will bring criminal indictments against him in the more serious and consequential cases currently under investigation. Federal prosecutors could bring charges of obstruction of an investigation related to Donald Trump’s handling and storage of classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago. Another federal investigation is underway to determine if Donald Trump unlawfully interfered with the certification of the 2020 election results, or attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He is also under investigation in Georgia for possible election code violations. If all that wasn’t enough, Donald Trump is facing two defamation lawsuits in New York filed by E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape. The first of these two cases will begin later this month. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for Donald Trump’s legal bills. Where the money comes from to pay for those bills will certainly be the subject of future investigations. It will be a tricky balance not to run afoul of campaign finance laws.  Donald Trump’s criminal indictment and subsequent arrest in New York is not a reason to celebrate. If the criminal charges he is accused of are credible, then he should be held accountable. No one is above the law, not even former presidents. Any charges leveled against Donald Trump will be viewed by his supporters as politically motivated. No surprise there. Donald Trump deserves his day in court and we need to allow the judicial process to play out. But I hope that long before that happens the Republican Party realizes that Donald Trump does not represent the values of its party or those of the United States. It is not good for our democracy when one of our major political parties is held hostage by the ego of one man.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  If Donald Trump needs a propaganda minister, he found one in the person of Tucker Carlson, an opinion host for Fox News. Since the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson has been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and his lies about the election being stolen. Carlson made news last week for reporting on his prime-time cable show that the United States government had lied about what actually happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He based his claims on video surveillance tapes that were provided to him and his producers by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Why did Carlson, of all people, have access to the tapes, are his claims valid, and what does this say about Kevin McCarthy’s leadership? Let’s dig into these issues which have people on both sides of the aisle riled up.  Kevin McCarthy’s Role in the Drama: Sometime in early February, Kevin McCarthy provided Tucker Carlson and his producers unfettered access to the January 6, 2021 security videos of the Capitol. At the time McCarthy told reporters that he thinks that “the American public should actually see all that happened, instead of a report that’s written on a political basis”. The Speaker was referring to the January 6th Committee Final Report which places the blame for the Capitol riot squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump. So, it appears as if McCarthy wanted to set the record straight by providing exclusive access to the security tapes to an unbiased organization like Fox News! If Speaker McCarthy really wants transparency surrounding the events of January 6, as he has claimed, then why not allow access to the nearly 44,000 hours of video footage to all news outlets, simultaneously? Since becoming Speaker, McCarthy has been under intense pressure by the right wing of his party to release the videos to a sympathetic news outlet. If you had any doubts about whether or not the newly elected Speaker was beholden to extremists in his party, you shouldn’t anymore. Providing Tucker Carlson exclusive right to access the surveillance videos was a failure of leadership by McCarthy, pure and simple.  Tucker Carlson Reports: After about three weeks of examining the video footage provided by Speaker McCarthy, Carlson reported his findings on March 6 during his “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show on Fox News. The House members who pushed Speaker McCarthy to release the tapes got exactly what they wanted from Tucker Carlson. Here are some of what he said about the January 6 Capitol riot: “The protestors were angry. They believed that the election that they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted, and they were right. In retrospect it is clear that the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy. Given the facts that have since emerged about that election, no honest person can deny it”. “To divert attention from the details of the Presidential election itself, Democrats in Congress impaneled the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack. The point of the committee was to prevent Donald Trump from running for president again. The committee did not explain what happened inside the Capitol on January 6th. Three weeks ago, the Speaker turned over 44,000 hours of tapes that the January 6th Committee had access to”. “Committee members lied about what they saw, and then hid evidence from the public and from January 6th defendants and their lawyers. Speaker McCarthy rectified that crime by handing over the surveillance tapes to Fox News. We are providing a public service to bring the videos to you since the government didn’t want you to see them”. “The videos prove beyond doubt the Democrats in Congress, assisted by Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, lied about what happened that day. They are liars. That is conclusive, and that fact should prevent them from ever being taken seriously again”. “The video does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress. Instead, it shows police escorting people through the building. The overwhelming majority of people in the Capitol were peaceful, they were orderly, and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers”. “The videos demolish the claim that what happened inside the Capitol was an insurrection. That’s why the Democratic Party and allies in the media withheld the videos from the public”. “Members of the January 6th Committee hurt people and the country. They are liars. They lied. Members of the committee are liars”. This is strong stuff, if true.  Donald Trump Responds: The following day Donald Trump claimed that the video “evidence” shown on Tucker Carlson’s show vindicated him from any wrong doing on January 6. He went on to state that Carlson’s assertions were irrefutable evidence that rioters have been wrongly accused of crimes. Trump thanked Carlson and Speaker McCarthy for their work in rectifying the official record. Trump then called for the release from custody of the people who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the Capitol riot.  What are we to Make of Tucker Carlson’s Assertions?
To Tucker Carlson these are meek sightseers at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Come to your own conclusions about what actually happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The programming on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” last week is a good reminder that not everything presented on cable news networks is actually hard news. Much of it is opinion, and the hosts are pushing a certain agenda. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy knew this when he provided Tucker Carlson access to nearly 44,000 hours of surveillance video from the Capitol. This was a purely political move and not in the best interest of the country. To provide the transparency that he claims to want, Speaker McCarthy should immediately release that same video footage to any and all news outlets that request it.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  As most of us settled in to enjoy the holiday season at home with family and friends, our representatives in Washington D.C. raced to finish some last-minute business. Major legislation was passed, the January 6th committee issued its final report, Donald Trump’s tax returns were released, and the 117th Congress faded into the history books, leaving some important business undone. Before turning the page on 2022, my final blog of the year is about some of my thoughts on these issues that emanated from D.C. while the rest of the country was busy with holiday preparations.  Donald Trump’s Income Taxes: Today (12/30/2022) House Democrats released six years of former President Donald Trump’s income tax returns. This is the type of thing that excites the politicians in Washington D.C., but for most of Americans it is a yawner. People just don’t care about Trump’s returns. We already know that Trump pays very little in personal income taxes because he uses massive real estate losses and write-offs from his various companies to offset any income. The House has the right to release Trump’s tax returns, but it didn’t have to. It was purely a political move to damage him. What is important was brought to light in a report issued by the House Ways and Means Committee ten days ago. The I.R.S. had failed to audit Trump’s tax returns during the first two years of his presidency, even though it is mandated by I.R.S. policy. It wasn’t until after the congressional committee’s inquiry into the matter as part of its oversight role, did the I.R.S. initiate the audit of President Trump’s tax returns. I don’t think that the Trump White House pressured the I.R.S. into turning a blind eye to Trump’s tax returns. I simply think that the I.R.S. was outgunned by Trump’s army of tax attorneys and accountants, and overwhelmed by Trump’s hundreds of tax entities and tangle of businesses. The I.R.S. just didn’t have the manpower and expertise to do a thorough audit of such a complex tax situation. This is why the Democrats included $80 billion for the I.R.S. in the Inflation Reduction Act , passed earlier this year. House Republicans have threatened to withhold this money from the I.R.S. when they take over the House majority in January. This would be a huge mistake and hypocritical on their part. If the Republicans claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility and low taxes, then they should give the I.R.S. the tools and resources required to collect the taxes that are legally owed.  January 6th Committee Report: Last week the House committee investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol released its final report after 18 months of investigations. The report was issued just weeks before the new Republican controlled House of Representatives will certainly shut down the committee and its investigation. Most people will never read the 800 plus page report, but it is important, if for no other reason than to create the historical record of the most significant act to overthrow the government of this country since the civil war. Congress will probably shelve the report and move on. Now it is up to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue some of the criminal charges that the report recommends be brought against former President Trump. These include inciting or assisting an insurrection; conspiring to defraud the United States; obstructing an official proceeding; and conspiring to make a false statement. Do I think that Donald Trump is guilty of some or all of these charges? Yes! Do I think that the DOJ will indict Trump of any of these charges? Probably not, because they will be difficult to prove in a court of law. According to the committee’s report “The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.” But the American people have decided long ago whether or not they think that Donald Trump is responsible for the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump will not be held responsible for the events of that day. But he is not out of the woods. He will face serious legal jeopardy for mishandling government documents related to the storage of those documents at Mar-a-Lago, and for his attempt to force election officials in Georgia to change the results of the 2020 election.  $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill: Yesterday President Biden signed into law a nearly $1.7 trillion, 4155-page spending bill which will fund the federal government through September 30, 2023. I am always leery of any piece of legislation that is pushed through Congress in the waning days of a term, when no one has completely read or fully understands it. Like most spending bills, there are a lot of goodies tucked into it by politicians at the last minute. But there are two significant parts of the legislation that I agree with. Funding for Ukraine and the overhaul of the Electoral Count Act.  Funding for Ukraine: Included in the bill is $45 billion for military, economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. Despite some Republican protests that the Biden Administration has given the Ukrainian’s a blank check, I think that this is money well spent. Consider the trillions of dollars spent on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars which produced no strategic value, and resulted in nothing but death and destruction. Russia is arguably one of the biggest military threats to the United States, and the largest threat to the peace and economic stability of Europe. The war in Ukraine has become the equivalent of a proxy war with Russia, without direct U.S. military involvement and U.S. casualties. The war also unites many of the world’s democracies behind a common cause, and puts a check on Russia’s aggressive expansionary goals. The money spent now in Ukraine is a bargain for the humanitarian and strategic benefits that it will bring.  Electoral Count Reform Act: A section of the spending legislation reforms the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that governs the counting of Electoral College votes in Congress. The update to the law ensures that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s public vote for President. The new legislation clearly defines the role of the vice president to be purely ceremonial during the electoral vote count. The vice president has no power to determine, accept, or reject a state’s electors. This change was in response to President Trump’s attempt to get Vice President Pence to reject certain slates of electors in favor of ones that would win Trump the presidency. The other important change to the law is the raising of the threshold to lodge an objection to electors. An objection will now take 20% of the members of each chamber of Congress. This change will reduce the likelihood of frivolous objections by ensuring that objections are broadly supported. Previously, only a single member of both chambers was needed to object to an elector or slate of electors.  Unfinished Business: Title 42 is a health measure put in place by the Trump Administration near the start of the pandemic to restrict migration at the border. In anticipation of the expiration of Title 42 near the end of December, migrants have flooded border crossings and overwhelmed the resources of border towns in the U.S. Last week the Supreme Court blocked the lifting of Title 42, keeping the border restrictions in place. Title 42 has been used more than 2 million times to expel migrants on public health grounds during both the Trump and Biden Administrations. Now the Biden Administration has a few more months to prepare for the eventual expiration of Title 42. Not passing any meaningful legislation to deal with the eventual end of Title 42 is a major failure of the Biden Administration and the 117th Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame. They prefer the issue to be used as a political football rather than to address the serious security and humanitarian crisis unfolding at our southern border. Good luck passing any legislation on border security or immigration reform during the next Congress.  2022 will be remembered for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, high inflation, and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates seven times in an attempt to curb inflation. Financial markets were turbulent all over the world, and the bloom came off of crypto currencies. Even with our best efforts to ignore it, COVID would just not go away, so the world endured a third year of the pandemic. Despite all that, Americans remain an optimistic lot, me included. I look forward to 2023 with renewed optimism and hope that the new year will be better than the last.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Votes in several House races are still being counted, but one thing is already clear. The 2022 midterm elections were a victory for the democratic process and election integrity in this country. The Democrats have retained the majority in the Senate, and the Republicans will take the leadership role in the House of Representatives by a narrow margin. Politics aside, all fair-minded Americans should be breathing a sigh of relief. There were few, if any, incidences of violence in and around polling places, and with the exception of some armed “poll watchers” in Arizona, voter intimidation was not a problem. The vast majority of candidates who lost their races graciously conceded to their opponents. A move toward normalcy? Let’s hope so. This blog is about some of my takeaways fr0m the midterm elections.  The Democrat Party Defies the Odds: Midterm elections are usually a referendum on the sitting president, but this one was a referendum on former President Donald Trump. Most of the polls and pundits got it wrong by predicting a “red wave” which would have given the Republicans a large majority in the House and possibly the Senate. With 40-year high inflation and President Biden’s approval rating hovering around 40%, Republicans stumbled badly in not performing better than they did. So how did the President manage to have the best midterms of any president in 20 years? Let’s take a look.  Abortion and Reproductive Rights: When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion, it was celebrated as a major victory by many conservative Republicans. But to many Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans, this was seen as an attack on personal freedoms and reproductive rights. This issue motivated many to vote in the midterms, including many young voters under the age of 45 who lean heavily Democrat. In all five states where abortion related issues were on the ballot, voters chose to protect abortion rights. But abortion wasn’t the only thing on voters’ minds. As summer turned to fall, the issue of abortion rights began to fade as inflation and economic issues took center stage.  Threats to Democracy: In a September speech, President Biden delivered a blistering attack on Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, who he characterized as extremists and a threat to democracy. The speech was considered provocative and divisive by most Republicans, and not helpful by some within the President’s own party. But the message resonated with many Democrats and Independents, and became a major messaging point for Democrats on the campaign trail. The recent violent attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband was a brutal reminder of the dangers of extremism and toxic rhetoric.  The Trump Factor: In recent days many in the Republican Party have attributed their underperformance in the midterms to poor candidates and bad messaging. Although Donald Trump will never admit it, much of this lies squarely on his shoulders.  Poor Candidates: Several of the candidates backed by Donald Trump failed in key races across the country. The main attributes of a Trump backed candidate are, total loyalty to him, and a belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump’s support was critical in getting these candidates across the finish line in primary races when the base of the party vote in large numbers. But many of the Trump backed candidates lacked political experience, qualifications, and competence, which are crucial to winning a general election.  Trump handed the Senate to the Democrats by backing the following wholly unqualified candidates in races that could have been won by more qualified Republican candidates: Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, and Herschel Walker in Georgia. Herschel Walker will face the Democrat Raphael Warnock in a run-off election on December 6, 2022. The Democrats will maintain the leadership in the Senate regardless of the outcome of this race, which I think will go to the much more qualified and competent, Raphael Warnock.  Trump’s backing of fellow election denier Adam Laxalt in the Nevada Senate race failed to secure a win against the vulnerable Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. Even Kari Lake, the MAGA Superstar and vocal election denier, couldn’t win the open governor’s seat in Arizona with the adoring support of Donald Trump.  Bad Messaging: Donald Trump is extremely popular among the base of the Republican Party where his stale message of a rigged 2020 election plays well. The Republican base votes in large numbers in primary elections, helping candidates who embrace Trump and his stolen election lie. As the midterms have shown, election denial is not a winning message during a general election. What the midterm elections have made crystal clear is that attacking the integrity of American elections is not a winning strategy. General elections are about policies, not personalities or past grievances. The winning messages for the Republicans included high inflation, crime, and problems at the border. But these were overshadowed by talk of stolen elections, conspiracy theories, and investigations to come. Fortunately for democracy, every 2020 election denier who sought to become the top election official in a critical background state lost their election. This proved once again that MAGA extremism doesn’t play well to a general audience. The Road Ahead for the Republican Party  Congress: With thirteen House races yet to be decided, it appears that sometime tomorrow the Republicans will secure the 218 seats required to win the majority in the House of Representatives. What is less clear is who will be the next Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy is the leading candidate to become the Republican leader in the House. But with such a slim majority he will have to fight for the speakership, which will be voted on by the full House on January 3, 2023. McCarthy will need at least 218 votes to become speaker. A tall order with such a small majority of Republican held seats. Many in the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus, which includes Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, have already indicated that they will withhold support for McCarthy unless he concedes to their requests. Other factions within the House Republican Caucus will no doubt seize the opportunity to push forward their agendas. With at least 150 election deniers elected to fill House seats during this election cycle, whoever the next speaker is will have a difficult time keeping this crowd in check.  Donald Trump is Not Going Away: As far as Donald Trump is concerned, he is the leader of the Republican Party, and any shortfalls in the midterms were not his fault. In order to punctuate this point, in defiance of many Republican stalwarts, Donald Trump announced today his candidacy for President of the United States in 2024.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: If there was any type of red wave during the midterms it was in Florida. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis easily beat his Democrat challenger by nearly 20 points. The Republicans won supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, and Florida picked up four additional Republican seats in the House of Representatives. DeSantis is seen as the main challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination. Although DeSantis has not made his intentions known about running for president, he has certainly gotten under the skin of Donald Trump. Trump’s early announcement about his 2024 candidacy was clearly designed to blunt DeSantis’ rising star. Even before Trump announced his candidacy, he began taking swipes at DeSantis, and true to Trump’s adolescent ways, he coined a derogatory nickname for him, “Ron De-Sanctimonious”. I think that it will turn out to be a battle royal for the soul of the Republican Party, and for the sake of the party, I hope that DeSantis runs.  Team Normal or MAGA Republicans: After the disappointing midterms, the Republican Party is very much at a crossroads. Do the Republicans continue to embrace Donald Trump, or do they see the midterm defeats as a wakeup call and go in a different direction? If recent history is any guide, Trump will continue to enjoy enormous influence within his party, and he will not go away until he is rejected by Republican voters.
There are many Republican legislators and governors who would clearly like to move beyond Trump and his extremist rhetoric. Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney called the midterm results “a clear victory for Team Normal”, and a step in the right direction. Republican Senator Mitt Romney, perhaps the captain of Team Normal, urged Republicans to work with Democrats on issues critical to the American people. Romney acknowledged that it would be counterproductive to “pursue pointless investigations, messaging bills, threats and government shutdowns”. Let’s hope that Republican legislators and voters take Romney’s message to heart. The results of the 2022 midterm elections should bolster Americans’ faith in the integrity of elections and in democracy itself. It has been a good month for democracy and a bad one for political divisiveness and extremist rhetoric. Let’s hope that Team Normal can expand its ranks within the Republican Party, and that the new Congress will work for the benefit of the people, and not their party. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  It is a mystery why former President Donald Trump kept hundreds of classified documents and other government records at his Mar-a-Lago club. It is no mystery why the government wanted those documents returned. It has become clear in recent weeks from the release of previously sealed court documents, that the FBI was fully justified in retrieving those documents. Most Americans were unaware of government efforts to retrieve documents from Trump until August 8, 2022, when the FBI executed a search at Mar-a-Lago. During the search the FBI retrieved more than 100 classified records, some of which are so sensitive that few people in government have the security clearance to view them.  The FBI’s search was not a partisan attack on the former president. It was not an attempt to discredit him and his allies ahead of the mid-term elections. Trump has called the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago an unprovoked “raid”, and totally unnecessary because he and his attorneys had been cooperative with the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) every step of the way. Don’t believe this nonsense. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the DOJ had been attempting to retrieve Presidential records and classified government documents, unlawfully held by Trump, for well over a year. Trump’s refusal to hand over the documents prompted the DOJ to secure a subpoena to search Mar-a-Lago and retrieve the documents. A lot of what the public knows about the ongoing investigation into Trump’s mishandling of government documents comes from the publication on August 26, 2022 of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. Nearly half of this 38- page affidavit was redacted to protect sensitive information and witnesses involved in the ongoing investigation. But there is still a lot that is known that should give any fair-minded American reason for concern.  Why This Matters:
 Time-Line of On-Going Investigation: May 6, 2021: After determining that it was missing about two dozen boxes of documents from Trump’s presidency, the NARA requested their return from Trump. The effort was stonewalled by the Trump team for months. December 2021: A Trump representative informed the NARA that 12 boxes of records had been found at Mar-a-Lago and could now be retrieved. January 18, 2022: Agents from the NARA picked up 15 boxes of Presidential records from Mar-a-Lago. It would later be revealed that 14 of the boxes contained classified documents. Over 700 pages of classified documents were found, including 25 documents marked “TOP SECRET”. February 9, 2022: Based upon the fact that classified materials had been potentially mishandled and improperly stored at Mar-a-Lago, the NARA’s Office of the Inspector General referred the matter to the DOJ. Soon after, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the matter. April 12, 2022: The NARA informed Trump of its intention to provide the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago to the FBI. To appease Trump’s attorneys, the documents were not provided to the FBI until May 12, 2022. May 11, 2022: The DOJ issued a subpoena for additional records. June 3, 2022: In response to the subpoena, a Trump attorney handed over more documents to three FBI agents and a DOJ attorney at Mar-a-Lago. Of the 38 documents handed over, 16 were marked “SECRET”, and 17 were marked “TOP SECRET”. No explanation was given for why these documents had not been previously turned over to the NARA. The FBI agents were told that all the White House records had been stored in a single room. Trump’s attorney gave the agents a signed letter certifying that a “diligent search” had been completed and that no government documents remained. June 8, 2022: The DOJ sent a letter to Trump’s attorney requesting that “all the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.” August 5, 2022: The DOJ filed an application for a search and seizure warrant for Mar-a-Lago, citing “probable cause” that additional Presidential records and records containing classified information remained in various locations at the club. Federal Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the application that day.   August 8, 2022: The FBI executed the search at Mar-a-Lago and seized 36 items of evidence, including more than 100 classified records. The evidence was found in the storage room as well as in Trump’s office. It would latter be learned that some of the documents were so sensitive that even FBI counterintelligence agents and DOJ attorneys required additional security clearances before they could review them. Trump and his allies called the search a “weaponization” of the justice system, and soon after the FBI reported a surge in threats against its agents. August 26, 2022: Upon the order of Judge Reinhart, a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was released. The affidavit revealed the DOJ’s reasoning for requesting the search warrant. According to the affidavit there was “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found” at Mar-a-Lago, suggesting that there were efforts underway to impede the recovery of government documents. The affidavit listed three criminal laws that may have been violated as the basis for the investigation. The federal laws citied were the Espionage Act, obstruction under section 1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the willful retention of national security and other records that rightfully belonged to the NARA. The affidavit also revealed that the government had interviewed a significant number of civilian witnesses who had information pertaining to the movement of documents to and within Mar-a-Lago, and knowledge of Trump’s post-presidency actions.  September 5, 2022: District Judge Aileen M. Cannon announced that she will grant Trump’s request to appoint a “special master” to examine the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. The role of the special master will be to identify any material that might be protected by attorney-client or executive privilege. This move prevents the DOJ from further review of the materials in question and using them in the ongoing investigation, until the review by the special master is complete. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence may still continue to review the material to make an assessment of the potential damage that may have resulted from the manner in which the documents were transported and stored. September 6, 2022: The Washington Post reported that some documents seized at Mar-a-Lago detailed top-secret U.S. operations and nuclear capabilities of some foreign nations. This level of intelligence is usually restricted to the President, some cabinet secretaries, and near-cabinet level positions with the highest security clearance. September 8, 2022: The DOJ threatens to file an appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals if Judge Cannon doesn’t restore their access to the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and Trump’s culpability is an ongoing story and will be played out over the months ahead. Even if a special master is not appointed, I think that the DOJ will take a cautious approach to the investigation. Trump is an incendiary character and the mid-term elections are less than 60 days away. The last thing the DOJ wants, and the country needs, is for any of its actions to influence the upcoming elections in any way. It appears as if the most sensitive documents in Trumps possession have been recovered, and there will be ample time to build a case and issue indictments if the evidence justifies it.  The FBI was fully justified in searching Mar-a-Lago and retrieving Presidential documents and classified materials stored there. Donald Trump had several months to turn these records over to the NARA, but he didn’t. This was not a partisan attack, but a legal process precipitated by his own actions. The search at Mar-a-Lago would never have taken place if he had simply followed the law and returned all of the documents that belonged to the NARA.
Even if Trump had declassified the documents, as he has claimed, they were still not legally his. This is no simple dispute over the storage of documents, as the Trump camp would like you to believe. It is criminality. If Donald Trump is a victim, he is a victim of his own ignorance and arrogance. His callous disregard for the rule of law has once again landed him in hot water, and I think this time he is going to get burned. Updated 9-16-22: On September 15, 2022 Judge Cannon appointed a former chief federal judge in New York, Raymond J. Dearie, to be the special master to review the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. Cannon ruled that the special master should examine the documents with classified materials and give priority to them over the non-classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago. The Judge has given the special master until November 30th of this year to complete the review, and has denied the use of the records by prosecutors until after the review. This is a good thing in my opinion. It will cool things down a bit and get us past the mid-term elections. I think that indictments will eventually result from this case, so it is important to get it right and not be perceived as in any way political. Updated 9/24/2022: On September 21, 2022 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta sided with the DOJ to prevent the special master from evaluating the roughly 100 classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. This will allow the FBI to use the documents in its ongoing criminal investigation. Trump continues to claim that he declassified the documents before they left the White House. According to Trump, he can declassify material “even by thinking about it.” That would be a frightening prospect if true. What else can a president do simply by thinking about it, issue pardons or getting into a military confrontation? The Appeals Court was not moved by the Trump team’s argument that the documents had been declassified. They couldn’t produce any evidence to back up the claim. In any case, the issue of declassifying the documents is irrelevant. As the court stated, “the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.” Now the special master can get on with the work of reviewing all of the non-classified material taken from Mar-a-Lago to determine if any may be covered by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. The special master has until the end of November to complete his work. Updated 6/8/2023: Today the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents that he brought to Mar-a-Lago has handed down seven indictments against the former president. Trump has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday at 3 PM to answer to these charges. We will not know the full extent of the charges until then. But they will be related to violations of the Espionage Act, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Those opposed to Donald Trump will gloat in triumph, and those who support him will call this an outrageous witch-hunt and an illegal use of the Department of Justice to bring him down. There is nothing to celebrate here. This is not good for the country, and we need to remember that Donald Trump has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. He deserves his day in court. Donald Trump and his allies will assert that Mike Pence and Joe Biden did the same thing by keeping classified documents in their personal possession after they left office. But the differences couldn’t be starker. When it was discovered that classified documents had been discovered in the possession of former Vice President Mike Pence and President Joe Biden, the FBI was notified and given full access to locations where any and all documents could be stored. There was no attempt to prevent the FBI from retrieving the documents. Donald Trump misled the FBI and prevented it from obtaining government documents that he had in his possession for well over a year. This forced the FBI’s hand and led to the raid on Mar-a-Lago last year. This is the first federal indictment ever brought against a former president. Stay tuned. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  Donald Trump’s rein of terror on the Republican Party continues unabated. Of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his involvement in the January 6th Capitol riot, only two have survived to go on to the general election in November. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming is his latest victim. The fact that Liz Cheney lost her seat in the House of Representatives to a Trump-backed candidate is no surprise to anyone. Cheney is one of Trump’s most outspoken critics in the Republican Party, and is the vice-chair of the Congressional subcommittee investigating January 6th. Denying the results of the 2020 presidential election and downplaying the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are the only political ideologies that matter in the Trump Party. I want to thank Liz Cheney, for being an American first and a Republican second. She sacrificed her House seat by standing up for truth, democracy, and the Constitution. That took courage, a rare commodity in politics today. She has shown that a “principled politician” is not an oxymoron. Liz Cheney demonstrated that patriotism does not mean blind obedience to a political party or a political leader. Rather, it is taking a firm stand against a political onslaught in defense of the rule of law and the principles that this country was founded on. I hope that she continues to stand proud while others in her party call her disloyal, unpatriotic, or un-American. What is un-American is being punished for speaking truth to power, questioning authority, and standing on your principles.  Liz Cheney is down, but not out. This week she announced the creation of a new political action committee, “The Great Task”. According to a Cheney spokesperson, the committee will “educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for President”. Cheney has said that she is considering a run for president in 2024, and this would be the platform to launch her presidential run. Whatever she chooses to do, I am confident that she will continue to lead with integrity and courage.
This country needs more politicians like Liz Cheney. For the sake of the Republican Party, and indeed the country, I hope that she continues to be politically engaged, if for no other reason, to help dispel the falsehoods emanating from the Republican Party. Someday the Republican Party will wake up from its self-induced dystopian nightmare and find Donald Trump nowhere to be seen. But Liz Cheney will still be standing. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  Approximately one-third of Americans, including 70% of Republicans, believe that Joe Biden won the presidency due to voter fraud. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, so I have little credibility telling someone who did what to think. But a group of Republican staffers and officials with staunch conservative credentials has just published the report “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election”, https://lostnotstolen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Lost-Not-Stolen-The-Conservative-Case-that-Trump-Lost-and-Biden-Won-the-2020-Presidential-Election-July-2022.pdf.  The authors of the report examined every claim of fraud and misconduct claimed by former President Donald Trump and his advocates. They examined the 64 legal challenges alleging 187 counts of voter fraud, irregularities and procedural deficiencies in the battle ground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. According to the report, the Trump team failed to provide substantive evidence to win any of the legal challenges. The report also concluded that the post-election audits and reviews in each state failed to show any irregularities or fraud that would overturn the election results. There was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result of the election in any state, let alone the entire nation. The report concluded that “there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.”  Why is this report important? For the same reason that the January 6 committee investigations are important. To get at the truth. If the American people don’t believe that our elections are free and fair, we will lose our democracy. I am under no illusions that the “Lost, Not Stolen” report or the January 6 committee investigations will change the minds of many Trump loyalists. This would take an unequivocal repudiation of Trump by the Republican Party, and perhaps abandonment by the right-wing media which propped him up. I don’t think that the Republican Party has the moral courage to take on Donald Trump, but some of his right-wing media friends are beginning to turn on him.  In recent days, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post wrote an editorial calling Donald Trump “unworthy to be the country’s chief executive again.” The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has also turned harshly critical of Donald Trump, calling his actions on January 6, 2021 an utter failure, and a violation of his oath of office. Now if Fox News, another Rupert Murdoch property, were to sour on Trump, I think that his political future would be over. For the Republican Party to remain viable, it needs to move beyond Donald Trump. It discredits the party when a majority of its members lack faith in the 2020 election results based on unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election. It also undermines democracy and the Constitution, which the Republicans claim to be defenders of. To restore its credibility, the Republican Party needs more Liz Cheneys and fewer Jim Jordans.  As Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was claimed to have said, “If you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Donald Trump is the only president in the history of the United States to have been impeached twice. The House of Representatives, with bipartisan support, impeached President Trump on January 13, 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The impeachment was precipitated by the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump. This stain on Donald Trump’s presidential record is now part of U.S. history. Democratic House leadership decided to press the case against Donald Trump even further by forwarding the article of impeachment to the Senate for trial. The move to try Donald Trump in the Senate is not required by the Constitution. The impeachment stands whether or not the case moves to the Senate. Will the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump be a good thing for the country or will it backfire on the Democrats? Let’s take a look.  President Trump is Impeached for a Second Time: On January 13, 2021 the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on the single article of “Incitement of Insurrection”. The vote was 232 to 197, with 10 Republicans joining all House Democrats in voting for impeachment. The text of the impeachment document (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/24/text) contains the following reasons for impeachment: “…. the House of Representatives, and the Senate met at the United States Capitol for a Joint Session of Congress to count the votes of the Electoral College. In the months preceding the Joint Session, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal officials. Shortly before the Joint Session commenced, President Trump addressed a crowd at the Ellipse in Washington, DC. There, he reiterated the false claims 'we won this election, and we won it by a landslide'. He also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged-and foreseeably resulted in-lawless action at the Capitol, such as: 'if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore'. Thus incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives, interfere with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election, unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts”. The impeachment document further states that “President Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021, followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Those prior efforts included a phone call on January 2, 2021, during which President Trump urged the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to 'find' enough votes to overturn the Georgia Presidential election results and threatened Secretary Raffensperger if he failed to do so.”  Most of us have viewed the television coverage and read the news reports, and pretty much concur with the reasoning behind the impeachment of Donald Trump. There is evidence that several militia groups had been planning to storm the Capitol even before Donald Trump’s speech of January 6, 2021. But no one can dispute that Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the “stolen election” was the impetus behind the Capitol riot. Even his political allies believe that he committed impeachable offenses. According to the New York Times, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell believes that President Trump committed impeachable offenses. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy stated to House colleagues that President Trump was at least partially responsible for the Capitol riot.  On to the Senate Trial: On January 25, 2021 House managers delivered the article of impeachment to the Senate, officially starting the trial process. Senate leadership agreed to delay the trial for a few weeks in order to give the former president time to prepare for the trial and to give the Senate time to continue the process of confirming President Biden’s cabinet nominees. On January 26, 2021 all Senators were sworn in as jurors for the upcoming trial. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will be the presiding officer. The impeachment trial will begin on February 9, 2021 with oral arguments. It will take 2/3 of the Senators (67) to vote to convict Donald Trump. Assuming all 50 Democratic Senators vote to convict, it will take 17 Republican Senators to vote for conviction.  Objections to the Senate Trial: New Senate leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) claimed that “…healing and unity will only come if there is truth and accountability. And that is what this trial will provide”. But not all republicans are buying this argument. Many are saying that it will further divide the country, and the point is moot now that Donald Trump is no longer in office. Others, like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, consider it unconstitutional to impeach a president who is already out of office. Even before the Senators were sworn in as jurors, Senator Paul put forth a motion to declare the impeachment trial unconstitutional. In the resulting vote, 45 Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, agreed with Senator Paul. But Senator Paul’s attempt to rule the impeachment trial unconstitutional failed, and it will proceed as scheduled. My Views on the Senate Impeachment Trial:
 Politics as Usual: In recent days the Republican leadership in the House and Senate have concluded that, for better or worse, they need Donald Trump. In order to regain the House and Senate in the mid-term elections they will need those Republicans who are still loyal to Donald Trump, and there are millions. Senator Lindsey Graham stated bluntly this week, “We cannot take the Senate back without his help (Donald Trump’s). That’s just a fact”. It’s a sorry day in our democracy when the quest for power trump’s (no pun intended) justice, integrity, and democratic values. The Republican party would do the country a huge favor by convicting Donald Trump and then preventing him from ever running for high office again. But instead they have chosen to make a deal with the devil and they will have to live with the consequences. Sadly the country will have a difficult time unifying with Donald Trump’s polarizing presence.
There is no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump threatened the integrity of our democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government. In short, he committed impeachable offenses and the House of Representatives was correct in impeaching him. This second impeachment will forever be a stain on his legacy. However, I fear that delivering the article of impeachment to the Senate to initiate an impeachment trial will prove to be a mistake. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American |
AuthorThe Armchair American. 
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