May 13, 2019: Real Patriots and Real Cowards

 

5/13/19: Scientists report that carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere are higher than at any point in the last three million years. Trump doesn’t notice because he’s busy tweet-crediting himself for a win streak by the Boston Red Sox: 

Has anyone noticed that all the Boston @RedSox have done is WIN since coming to the White House! Others also have done very well. The White House visit is becoming the opposite of being on the cover of Sports Illustrated! By the way, the Boston players were GREAT guys!

 

Also, he attacks Democratic presidential candidate, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, saying he’ll never be president because he looks like Alfred E. Neuman, the old Mad magazine character. 

So, let’s get real. 

If appearances determined electability – that weird, swept back shock of hair, that radioactive-looking orange skin, those sagging man-boobs and paunch – Trump would be lucky to carry two counties in West Virginia, the reddest of red states, in the election to come.

Sexy jowls and swept-back mane.

 

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BUTTIGIEG, who did a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, hits back, basically calling Trump a fake patriot and a coward. “If you’re a conscientious objector, I’d admire that,” he says in an interview. 

“But this is somebody who, I think it’s fairly obvious to most of us, took advantage of the fact that he was the child of a multimillionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place.” 

 

SPECIAL AWARD FOR COWARDICE: Proving once again that Republicans don’t really want to know if the president, or the president’s offspring, or the president’s minions obstructed justice in the Russia probe, Sen. Lindsey Graham has advice for Donald Trump Jr. 

Graham, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee at first suggested that Don Jr. should not bother to return to testify under a congressional subpoena. Sure, why should Congress bother trying to keep the executive branch honest? 

When that idea didn’t fly, Sen. Graham shifted his stance slightly and said, okay, Don Jr. should appear but then “plead the Fifth Amendment and it’s over with.” In other words, if young Mr. Trump lied during previous testimony, the Chairman Lindsey didn’t want to know.

November 25, 2019: Judge Rules that Don McGahn Must Testify Before Congress

 

11/25/19: U.S. District Court judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, rules against the Trump administration in a critical case. At issue is whether or not the White House can ignore a subpoena calling on Don McGahn, former Chief Counsel, to come before the House Judiciary Committee and give testimony. In her 120-page opinion, Judge Jackson rules that the answer is no. McGahn must appear.

 

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“Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings.” 

U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

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In a powerful opinion, Jackson writes: 

Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings. This means that they do not have subjects, bound by loyalty or blood, whose destiny they are entitled to control. Rather, in this land of liberty, it is indisputable that current and former employees of the White House work for the People of the United States, and that they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Moreover, as citizens of the United States, current and former senior-level presidential aides have constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, and they retain these rights even after they have transitioned back into private life.

 

The argument that had been put forth by President Trump’s lawyers, that Trump aides had “absolute immunity” from testifying, Jackson labeled a “fiction.” 

Blatant defiance of Congress’ power to compel witnesses to testify, she calls “an affront to the mechanism for curbing abuses of power that the Framers carefully crafted for our protection.”

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE 4/23/2022): The judge has since been elevated to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, with only three Republican senators voting for her confirmation. Because, the GOP has become the party that ignores real abuse of power.