Thursday, December 05, 2019

The Party Of Treason-- All Of Them

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A few hours ago, Pelosi asked the House to begin drafting impeachment articles against Señor Trumpanzee, pushing ahead with a rapid timetable that's going to set the stage for an uber-partisan vote before Christmas charging the pig with high crimes and misdemeanors. Pelosi: "The facts are uncontested: the President abused his power for his own personal, political benefit at the expense of our national security, by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival... Our Democracy is what is at stake. The President leaves us no choice but to act, because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The President has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections. His actions are in defiance of the vision of our Founders and the oath of office that he takes 'to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and our hearts full of love for America, today, I am asking our Chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment." Trump though had already issued a prebuttal-tweet in line with his own personal sense of dignity:



A few hours earlier, on Morning Joe former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (FL) indicated what a circus the GOP will attempt, having no real defense, to make the impeachment into. He referred to Trumpists like Nunes (CA), Gym Jordan (OH), Doug Collins (GA), Elise Stefanik (NY), John Ratcliffe (TX), Mike Turner (OH), Louie Gohmert (TX), Matt Gaetz (FL) as "clowns" who spent their time "quoting Vladimir Putin propaganda talking points. This is the most desperate defense. And it's literally just throw whatever you want at the wall."

Another former Republican-- I think former, who knows?-- Rick Wilson wrote an OpEd, The Traitors Among Us for Rolling Stone which gives us an idea of GOP intentions about how they intend to deal with Trump's impeachment. "Trump," he wrote, "likes to call his opponents traitors-- but if he’s looking for treasonous behavior, he should look within his own party." Wilson noted that "hearing an insult too many times drains it of its potency [and that] Trump has diluted the power of that approbation. He has labeled loyal, dedicated Americans who served this country in the military and law enforcement as traitors, so much so that we could almost give in to the temptation to excuse it as 'Trump being Trump' and let it slide like any of the other insults he vomits forth on the daily." Wilson isn't happy about that since he, like many of us, are certain that Trump and many of his cronies "richly and actually deserve the title of traitor."


Traitors from Benedict Arnold to Klaus Fuchs to Aldrich Ames to Robert Hanssen sold out this country for a host of reasons, all explicable and unforgivable. The intelligence community even has a handy acronym for the motivations of traitors, and one that applies readily to known cases. The acronym is MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. Pick a traitor and one of those reasons will underpin their betrayal.

Add a new one to the acronym. Call it, MICE-T, with the “T” naturally standing for Trump.

Their treason isn’t executed in the old ways of secret meetings, furtive brush passes, or encrypted messages. No, the traitors of today show us their cards on cable TV, laughing and giggling over their betrayal of the oath they swore, and the security of this country, all for the political service of Donald Trump.

As the impeachment hearings have worn on and as evidence of the complete moral collapse of the Republican Party has become more and more evident, it has become quite obvious there really are traitors among us. There are elected officials who have made the decision to protect a corrupt president by embracing conspiracy theories, refusing to acknowledge sworn testimony of career foreign-service officials, and piling on to Trump’s attack of democratic institutions.

The traitors deliberately ignore the reporting, counsel, and warnings of the intelligence community when it comes to Russia’s attacks and Vladimir Putin’s vast, continuing intelligence and propaganda warfare against the United States.

The traitors-- be they United States senators like John Kennedy and Lindsey Graham or columnists from the Federalist, Breitbart, and a slurry of other formally conservative media outlets-- repeat the Kremlin-approved propaganda messages and tropes of that warfare, word for word.

It’s not simply treason by making common cause with a murderous autocrat in Russia, or merrily wrecking the alliances around the world that kept America relatively secure for seven decades.

Their betrayal is also to our system of government, which as imperfect-- and often downright fucked up-- as it is, has been remarkably capable of surviving.

The traitors talk a good game, hands over their withered hearts, about supporting the Constitution, but they’re happy to ignore it when it suits their purposes.

The traitors believe the executive branch is superior to all others and unaccountable under the law. Traitors believe the “fuck you, pay me” ethos of this president and this White House isn’t an open door to a pay-to-play political culture in Washington where everyone and everything in our government is for sale.

They defend the White House’s indefensible position of stonewalling, silencing witnesses, and refusing to testify before Congress.

Traitors keep racial arsonists like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon in their orbit and employment. They pretend these men are selling populism and nationalism when in fact it’s just the same weaponized racism that worked so well for them in 2016.

The traitors will sit in Congressional hearings on impeachment knowing the truth about Trump’s extortion racket and of the grubby, sleazy plan Trump sent Gordon Sondland, Rudy Giuliani, et al to carry out, and tell lie after lie, the bigger the better.




The traitors cheer when Trump rides roughshod over the military chain of command and the Universal Code of Military Justice, freeing men who killed civilians, abused and violated the warrior ethos, and broke the very laws of war they swore to uphold. They’ve gone from respecting hard men carrying out tough missions to fetishizing the outliers, edge cases, and the war criminals.

You can spot the traitors simply by watching their television shows, as they look you in the eye and tell you to your face they side with Russia. Tucker Carlson wasn’t winking and nodding to the camera; it was where he’s landed politically-- a pro-Putin schill on a network that looks away from their pet president’s grotesque subservience to the Russian leader who helped elect him.

The traitors are ass-deep in oligarchs, eagerly selling access to the president, the secretary of state, the attorney general, and of course, the president’s venal pack of lucky-sperm-club spawn.

And if you can’t spot the treason yet, you will soon enough. That’s the thing about spies, traitors, and those who betray their country-- they rarely stay hidden forever.

The traitors are the ones who, when this is all done and dusted, will sit in the dock at some new Nuremberg trial and claim their innocence of the worst charges and penalties not by claiming their actions were “just following orders” but that they were “just following Trump.”

Omaha progressive congressional candidate Kara Eastman's statement, just released a few moments ago, is typical of how serious Democratic candidates are dealing with this. She wrote that she supports Pelosi's address this morning but warns that "This is a solemn day. There should be no celebration for the need to impeach the President. I have always said that I respect the office of the President. The problem America faces now is that Donald Trump does not respect the office. His actions involving Ukraine were bribery and extortion, pure and simple. As the evidence demonstrates, and as several legal scholars stated in public hearings yesterday, if this is not impeachable conduct, what is? As a candidate who intends to serve in Congress, my oath will be to uphold the Constitution. It is not to allow my oath to be clouded by partisan politics. That’s why I call upon my opponent, Representative Don Bacon, to rise above his partisan games and support Impeachment as well. He should recognize that now is the time to put country above party and defend the U.S. Constitution, as he is sworn to do."

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10 Comments:

At 9:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, however, just as a crime is only a crime if those tasked with enforcing laws bother to prosecute those who commit them, treason is only treason if those obligated to enforce the constitution bother to do so.

Just as bankers were free to commit $21 trillion in fraud, PNAC principles were elevated and committed the war "crimes" of aggressive wars and torture with impunity (thanks to obamanation and democraps), trump has committed crimes his entire life with impunity and now shall be acquitted, by those tasked with enforcing the constitution, for his latest crime of treason.

It's only illegal if someone bothers to enforce the law.

ONE definition of a shithole is a place where the rich/powerful are above the law.

By that definition, this has been a shithole for over a half-century. At no time in that entire time have voters bothered to remedy this. And most notably they refused between 2008 and now to insist that laws and the constitution be enforced by either party.

A half century of decay is all it took. And we are all responsible. Some moreso than others -- lesser evilist democrap voters.

 
At 10:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ask yourself what the world will think after trump is acquitted by his party in the senate (the world knows he's guilty) and voters return very nearly all of those back to the senate next year.

ask yourself what the world will think when trump wins again next year.

 
At 10:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@9:56 am

So what exactly would have happened if folks hadn't voted for Bill Clinton and Obama? Would the Democratic Party have disappeared and been immediately replaced by something new and wonderful? Who would have been responsible for the creation of this amazing new people's party? Certainly not YOU. Howie invited a guest author to promote a book and to explain why Cheri Bustos is so awful - you won't even go over there and explain to this guy (clearly a deluded sap who thinks the Democrats are a salvageable institution) why voting for ANY "democrap" is a waste of time, you fucking coward. You're utterly disgusting. A lot of bullshit talk and no solutions. A miserable old bastard who knows he's going to die soon (can't be soon enough in my book) and who wants to spread his depression around and smear all over everything he comes in contact with in the meantime. You pathetic fucking fool.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/12/cheri-bustos-truth-guest-post-by.html

 
At 11:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@10:37 If people hadn't voted for Bill Clinton (The most successful Republican president ever), the people of the US would have rejected the seeds of fascism. "The era of big government is over" never would have been uttered at a state of the union speech and amplified by the media as political brilliance. The repeal of Glass-Steagle wouldn't have passed and the bank meltdown that occurred in 2008 (and is about to happen again) would have not happened. The prison-industrial complex would have been stunted. The subordination of our national environmental and labor laws to the supremacy of the corporately controlled WTO, GATT and NAFTA would not have been enacted. The continued vilification of the Reagan welfare queen and the cuts in social services programs that gave the desperate a safety-net & a chance to stay off the streets wouldn't have been stripped with dog whistle cuts with his "welfare to work" programs that served as a template for Trump and Ryan to fund corporate tax cuts in 2018 wouldn't have happened.
The occupation of the US treasury and criminal bailouts via Goldman Sachs, Cit etc via Clinton Treasury sec Rubin wouldn't have been the norm i.e. see Gethner & Obama. In closing the democratic party wouldn't have been successfully corrupted and turned into the republican lite right and people would be willing to back the traditional FDR dem party that represented common people and not corporate (people???). I know you are a one-trick pony and can only shadow Mr. Democraps and struggle with political concepts, but don't leave yourself so wide open or go back to being the one-trick harpie that only you can do.

 
At 1:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL, Mr. Democraps is pretending to be 2 different people posting.

@10:37, well said. The guy is a cancer.

 
At 1:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

He's not, you party hack. I post here as well. There are more of us than there are of you - but we actually have something to say.

You're late for the two-minute hate ceremony at the Kos Shack.

 
At 3:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

10:37 and 1:14 may or may not be the same one. What does it matter? They're both wrong, have nothing to offer but hate, and, ironically maybe, illustrate what's wrong with both their party and the country. When you understand nothing more complex than "I hate" and are still allowed to vote, this is the shit party and shithole you get.

DWT has this tendency to be schizophrenic about all of this. They clearly recognize all that is wrong with the Nazi party and its southern/white racist base -- everything.

Yet DWT and these two (?) defectives suffer from simplistic thinking that cannot seem to be remedied with any form of reason or proof. They think that since the Nazis are purely evil, and the democraps are always vying against the Nazis, that the democraps must then be good.
Here is where the schizophrenia comes in -- DWT also, in waves, posts proof that the democraps are, individually and collectively, irretrievably corrupt, feckless cowards.
But DWT always falls back into the old promotion of "elect more democraps and all will be well" meme that has NEVER proven to be valid.

Yeah bustos is shit. but does bustos exist because the democrap party is shit and needs her? Or does her shitty existence make the democraps shitty? chicken/egg?

the answer is the former. The democrap party is shit and has been for 40 years. bustos is shit and probably has been her entire life. but if she had been born better, the shit party would have found another who is just as bad and given him/her the job of gooning the DNC and the convention to give the nom to someone that their big donors approve. the party does not need bustos in particular. but they would find an equivalent, because that's how they roll.

But DWT still thinks the party is salvageable? They've proved innumerable times that it is not.

But that fact conflicts with DWT's desire to be relevant? do good things? who knows.

That is the task of myself, 1:56 et al -- To point out the schizo DWT fallacies about the democraps ever being fixed by making more of them.
DWT keeps posting this nonsense... we have to keep pointing out that it *IS* nonsense.

Not many will understand, obviously.

 
At 5:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howie Klein, please ban the nihilist scumbag from this website.

 
At 3:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If he did, he'd be as bad as bustos and schumer keeping their caucuses pure.

 
At 5:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@WHOEVER

That is the task of myself, 1:56 et al -- To point out the schizo DWT fallacies about the democraps ever being fixed by making more of them. DWT keeps posting this nonsense... we have to keep pointing out that it *IS* nonsense.

Not many will understand, obviously.


You have got to be fucking kidding me. Your TASK? Then why aren't you arguing with Howie's guest posters? People who are actually DOING THINGS to try and salvage the Dem Party, an activity you see as wholly worthless? Jesus, you are a compete fucking freak. I have never seen such a pompous, pretentious IDIOT anywhere else on the internet. "Your task"! You GIGANTIC clown.

As for your list of Clinton/Obama atrocities, I got a late-breaking newsflash for ya, ya fucking retard: those same things AND PROBABLY WORSE would have happened if Republicans had been elected. Maybe you subscribe to the notion that if Republicans could run things with no interference for 20-30 years there'll naturally be a nationwide progressive backlash against them. You'll have to pardon the rest of us for not wanting to participate in that experiment.

Lastly, you being banned from this site would mean nothing other than the blog's proprietors finally wearying of your repetitive, childish nonsense. Do you have a separate social security number for your ego? That thing must be HUGE. Last month you were comparing yourself to AOC. Jesus H. Christ. You are astonishing. There's something both sad and funny about your humorless dementia. Good luck with "your task", you colossal shithead. And thanks for the unintentionally funny explanation. I'm copying it to my clipboard and will be re-posting it (every chance I get) to let anyone else who comes across your comments know what a delusional numbskull you are.

 

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