The US Constitution

Three Years Since The January 6 Insurrection, And Most Republicans Remain Collaborators

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As the third anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection comes upon us, we have the growth of ever more collaboration by Republicans in defending and supporting Donald Trump, even among those who condemned his promotion of bloodshed and violence on that day, including against Vice President Mike Pence.

While there are Republicans and conservatives who continue to condemn the former President and are committed to his demise as a political force, most of the party officeholders remain unwilling to demonstrate guts, courage, and principle.

It is more important for these officeholders to keep their job in Congress than it is to promote the survival of democracy.

So effectively, most Republicans are no better than the Confederates who were banned from holding public office by the 14th Amendment Section 3 in 1868 after the Civil War.

Then, the Republican Party was the party of the Union, committed to basic principles of having promoted the end of slavery and promoting racial equality.

The whole point of forming the Republican Party, coming to power, and upholding the end of slavery and the promotion of survival of the Constitution, has now been destroyed by the modern Republican Party, which has lost all sense of ethics, morals, and principles!

161st Anniversary Of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation!

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Today, New Year’s Day 2024, marks the 161st Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, a bold move that his own Presidential Cabinet thought was inadvisable.

While it only ended slavery at the time in areas under Union Army occupation during the Civil War, it was a pledge that the eventual victory of the United States over the Confederate States of America, when and if it occurred, another 27.5 months into the future, would see the concept of the ownership of human beings by other human beings would come to an end.

It must be pointed out, however, that the Emancipation Proclamation alone could not end slavery, as it was written into the US Constitution by the Founding Fathers at the Philadelphia convention of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Only the battle to add the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 could end slavery long term, and set America up as a promoter of democracy.

Now, sadly, we see the party of Lincoln moving backward on the principle of promoting racial equality, and appealing to the ugliness of racism and nativism, as it enters an election year seemingly captive to the most dangerous man ever to hold the Presidency, Donald Trump!

2024 must see the end of the menace of Donald Trump by a total commitment to defeat his attempt at a comeback, and move away from the dangers of MAGA Republicans!

Top Five Political Heroes Of The Year 2023

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In a year with so many politically difficult moments, certain situations stand out as bright moments.

Liz Cheney, the former Republican Congresswoman from Wyoming, stayed strong and continued to fight against the cancer represented by Donald Trump, holding to the traditions and beliefs of a Republican Party that once believed in principle, but no longer exists, ready to sell its soul to a charlatan who is destroying its history and traditions.

Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican Congressman from Illinois, has also, like Cheney, been a Profile in Courage, who has refused to bend to the intolerance and authoritarian nature of a party which has left him, and Cheney, rather than the other way around.

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has proved to be an exceptional potential Speaker of the House in 2025, as he has kept the Democratic minority united and strong against the degradation of the small majority Republicans in the House of Representatives. His leadership contrasts with the disgraceful, extremist oriented leadership of Kevin McCarthy, but even more so, Mike Johnson, a true religious extremist and moral hypocrite, who is sadly only two heartbeats away from the Presidency in his role as Speaker of the House.

President Joe Biden has shown great principle, courage, and decisiveness in a multitude of domestic and foreign crises, too often underrated and unappreciated for his strong stand for basic principles, including promotion of democracy, common decency, empathy, compassion, and the rule of law. He is presiding over the greatest crisis to our Constitution since the Civil War, but something that will only be fully understood in the future.

And finally, above all else, the survival of American Democracy itself, with the support of Democrats, courageous Republicans, the courts, the responsible news media, and decent citizens who value our heritage of nearly 250 years of constitutional government, is the ultimate “HERO” in this nation!

Resistance to authoritarian Fascism in all its forms is a constant, long term battle, and the final defeat, conviction, and imprisonment of the evil Donald Trump is the battle ahead, and with the understanding, that MAGA Trumpism will continue to be a threat, that all decent people will need to continue to resist beyond the time of Donald Trump!

The 80th Congress (1947-1949) Vs. The 118th Congress (2023- )

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It has often been claimed that the 80th Congress (1947-1949) under President Harry Truman was unproductive, or as Truman claimed it in his 1948 Presidential campaign, a “Do Nothing” Congress.

While it is true that the Republican dominated 80th Congress worked against Democratic President Truman and his “Fair Deal” proposals, most notably passing the anti Labor Taft-Hartley Act over the President’s veto, in reality a lot was accomplished in that Congress.

The following actions were accomplished:

The Truman Doctrine
The Taft-Hartley Act
The Presidential Succession Act
The National Security Act–including the Defense Department at the Pentagon in Virginia, the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, separate Department of the Air Force, and the Central Intelligence Agency
The Marshall Plan
22nd Amendment to the US Constitution

At the same time, NOTHING significant has been passed into law in the present first session of the 118th Congress, making it the least productive in modern times since the Great Depression 1931-1933 72nd Congress, split between a Democratic House of Representatives and Republican Senate under President Herbert Hoover!

Concern Grows Over Low Biden Ratings, As Trump Rants And Raves!

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Public Opinion Polls continue to give President Joe Biden low ratings, and it is starting to alarm Democrats who are stunned by these polls.

One remembers that public opinion polls have been wrong so often in the past, but the thought that a Fascist authoritarian, Donald Trump, who has called for the end of the Constitution, and calls the criminals who attacked the US Capitol “hostages”, and embraces dictators around the world, might defeat Biden is horrifying!

One wonders if there is any possibility of Joe Biden withdrawing from the race, as Lyndon B. Johnson did in March 1968 after announcing for another term in the Presidency.

If that were to happen, Vice President Kamala Harris, sadly not well regarded in public opinion polls, mostly due to her race and gender, would be the likely heir apparent, but the odds of her being able to carry the mantle of the Biden Presidency and win the election, seems highly unlikely.

There are Democrats who would run in the future, but it is almost too late for their entrance into the race at this point.

So American democracy hangs in the balance as the nation comes into an eventful, transformative election year around the corner!

The End Of A Possible President Mike Pence!

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Ever since Mike Pence became Vice President on January 20, 2017, the possibility of his accession to the Presidency remained a looming possibility.

The unstable and negative behavior of Donald Trump made this blogger and author think Pence might succeed to the Presidency rapidly in the early months of the term.

The constant crises and two Trump impeachments also put Pence in line for the Presidency, under the 25th Amendment, or the forced removal or resignation of Donald Trump.

Mike Pence stood for the rule of law in his refusal to help Trump steal the Presidential Election of 2020 on January 6, 2021, and could have lost his life that day if the circumstances and threats of that dark day had turned out differently.

Pence stood for the Constitution, and that will be his historic significance.

But he also was too much willing to bend to Donald Trump otherwise, even though Trump was as different in a moral and ethical sense as anyone could be from the highly religious Mike Pence.

Pence had no chance to become President for the next election, and has decided to leave the race, and he will have little impact on the future of a party which has, in so many ways, abandoned its principles. The Republicans have gravitated toward a total political disaster by following in the lead of the disgraced, twice impeached, four times indicted, and totally immoral and unethical former President Donald Trump.

So Pence will be seen as part of a Republican Party that is now in the distant past, as the so called Reagan wing of the party’s history goes into the distance as a lost memory!

Military Generals Mattis, McMaster, Milley, Kelly Warn About Donald Trump!

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The danger that Donald Trump presents if by some madness he came back to the Presidency in 2025 is best represented by the military leadership that worked with him, and did their best to control his dangerous tendencies toward Fascist authoritarianism.

The military is not to be loyal to any President, but instead to the Constitution of the United States, and the following four generals have expressed dismay and concern about both what happened during the Trump Presidency, and the continuing threat Trump represents.

They all make clear that a return to the Oval Office by Trump would be a national disaster.

These generals have been attacked and vilified by Trump, and the most recent case is General Mark Milley, who Trump has said should be executed for treason, a totally crazy assertion, but causing the now retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to need security to protect him and his family from deranged Trump supporters, who might take him up on his assertion and possibly threaten Milley in his retirement.

But former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was a Four Star General and worked under Trump as Secretary of Defense from 2017-2019; H R McMaster, Lieutenant General who served as National Security Adviser to Trump from 2017-2018; and John Kelly, a General who served under Trump as Secretary of Homeland Security and then White House Chief of Staff from 2017-2019, all have sounded the alarm bell, with Kelly doing so most recently in the past couple of days.

The Shocking Behavior Of Republicans Is Beyond The Pale! :(

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The Republican Party is fast disintegrating!

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, after being impeached overwhelmingly by the Texas dominated Republican House of Representatives, is found not guilty on all counts by the Texas dominated Republican Senate.

Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert acted inappropriately in public with her date at a concert.

The Republican Presidential contenders move further to the extreme right in appeals to evangelical voters in Iowa, and try to outdo each other in their craziness and authoritarian tendencies.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy allowed himself to be manipulated by his Freedom Caucus extremist members to start an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, knowing there is no evidence to do so, and just using the personal problems of Hunter Biden to attack the entire Biden family.

Donald Trump gave an interview to Kristen Welker of NBC Meet the Press, demonstrating ever further his mental deterioration and constant lying and deceptions.

Mitt Romney, when announcing his retirement at the end of 2024, told us that Mitch McConnell did not respond when Romney warned him of danger on January 6, 2021, four days ahead of that fateful date. Romney also condemned most Republicans who he said ridicule Donald Trump in private, but support him in public, and particularly mentioned Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and J D Vance. Their desire to have power overcomes the concept of commitment to basic principles.

In the past, we saw political parties in America, including the Federalist Party after 1816; the Democratic Republican Party in the 1820s; and the Whig Party in 1854, all dissolve!

It is time for the Republican Party name to be replaced by a new party name, and a rejection of much of what the present day right wing Fascist oriented party represents, in order to have a safe future of a nation committed to the Constitution and rule of law!

Donald Trump Condemned To Last Place In Presidential Rankings For All Time!

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It is now official: Donald Trump is condemned to last place in Presidential rankings for all time!

With two impeachments and four indictments, and with a total of 91 counts against the 45th President, he falls into the basement, so to speak, as for all time the worst, most corrupt President, and it is hard to imagine any future President being as horrendous as he has now been judged by facts and reality!

His mugshot will reverberate in history for the long run, a symbol of a would be tyrant who would never leave office, if it had not been for courageous and principled people around him who stood in the way of the establishment of an autocracy that would have destroyed the American Republic!

A lot of this tragedy was caused by Donald Trump himself, and his desire to destroy American democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law, and puts him in an exclusive spot as a wannabe Fascist authoritarian who almost succeeded in his quest to be President for life!

And Trump is delusional, trying to raise money on his mugshot from gullible Americans, when to believe that he will evade ALL 91 counts in four cases against him, is truly a warped mind who lives in an alternative universe! Why would any sane American wish to buy a T shirt with the Trump mugshot on it is beyond all sanity!

Realize that almost all of the witnesses in the various cases against Donald Trump are REPUBLICANS, who thankfully refused to participate in the attack on democracy, at the same time that so many others, including present Republican contenders for the Presidency either stayed on the sidelines or participated in trying to overthrow the accurate results of the Presidential Election of 2020!

Yes, other Presidents have been judged in the past as the worst, including James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, and Warren G. Harding, but none of them, with their faults and shortcomings, come anywhere near the venality of Donald Trump!

Even the other most corrupt President, Richard Nixon, would be stunned at the level of evil that Donald Trump represents, and Nixon had some real accomplishments which have prevented him from ending up in the bottom few Presidents!

One might say Donald Trump accomplished some noteworthy achievements, but his level of evil is so massive that it cannot save him from the basement of history long term!

Ironically, Donald Trump will have a full scale Presidential funeral, and likely will have, at some point, a Presidential Library and Museum, as even Richard Nixon had, but the stain of what he did and tried to do to subvert American democracy will never be overcome in the annals of history!

49th Anniversary Of Richard Nixon Resignation: Time To Hold Donald Trump Accountable!

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It is 49 years since the nightmare of Richard Nixon came to an end, with his announced resignation from the Presidency.

It is now time, a half century later, for Donald Trump, who makes Richard Nixon look like a choirboy, to be held accountable for his crimes and abuses in his Presidency!

Attempts are being made to delay any trial until after the Presidential Election of 2024, but that cannot be allowed to happen.

And if only Congress would impose the 14th Amendment, Section 3, against Donald Trump, then he would be ineligible to run for President, and to undermine American democracy.

Sadly, with a small margin Republican controlled House of Representatives, such a reality will not be happening, and the nation and the world is in danger from an authoritarian Fascist oriented, mentally unstable man, whose followers are a cult that have no concern about the US Constitution and the rule of law!