And it’s damn well past time that the people who conceived and ordered and facilitated the execution of this crime against all the rest of us are held to account in a meaningful way
Hear, Hear! And, once again, the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room this time seems to be the Biden Administration and the DOJ; "Where for art thou, brother?" And you know what they say, 'When you dance with a Gorilla, you're not done dancing until the Gorilla is done dancing.' Why hasn't DOJ indicted? Who's telling them to hold off? We finally have a special counsel 2 YEARS LATER?
What is it going to take to light a fire under current administration and DOJ? Now the incredibly inadequate and inept new Congress want to start investigating the Jan. 6th committee and still no one is being held accountable? My stomach turns and churns. Is there a grass roots movement happening that I'm not aware of? What part can I personally do to help? Thanks again Thom for all the light you shine! Sandi
The failure of Biden and Garland to go after these traitors, the MAGA traitors and the others like Nixon, Reagan, Bush et.al., is just more proof that the entire government is owned by the global cabal of fascist oligarchs. All that Biden and the last Congress seem to have "accomplished" and for which they are roundly congratulating themselves is all window dressing, crumbs cast to the masses to make us think there is a difference, a choice. We need PROOF that Hakeem Jeffries fiery speech is for real and not just more hot air. Politicians are great at rousing speeches without follow-through. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Bobert, MT Greene, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy and the rest need to be led off the House floor in handcuffs. Trump and all his cronies need to be perp-walked out of Mar a Lago. And they should all be imprisoned for the remainder, or at least a substantial part of it, of their lives.
Many crimes and misdemeanors can be pardoned or forgiven, but not treason.
Of course, in my rage over the failure to indict and prosecute these wretches, I may have overstated the lack of choice. Obviously, for all its faults and being beholden to the corporatocracy, there is still a vast difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, and there are many in the former that are not owned by oligarchs, who won't even take money from them, and who are actively working to castrate them in every way possible.
Treason may not be new, but what is definitely new is the number of people that would take it seriously. I think the hearings helped make that happen and got us to this point. The DOJ wanted the mid-terms to happen first, and on Nov 18, 2022 Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel. He was in the middle of something he just wrapped-up and just returned 6 days ago from Europe. From war crimes and now onto these cases makes Counsel Smith special indeed.
This is a monumental task; it's got to be done correctly. Even if we are feeling like the "Patience My Ass" poster, let's try to have some.
The header from a recent Bloomberg article says:
"Trump Special Counsel Bolsters Team With Anti-Graft Specialists"
-New hires prosecuted senators, governors, others in the past
-Special Counsel Jack Smith is beefing up his prosecution team
Today I have been trying to get my head around the pros and cons of releasing the "Special" Grand Jury Report in Georgia, one outcome seems to be a "regular " grand jury, but Fani Willis could have prosecuted without the "Special" to start with, and could pull the trigger without another one, and maybe releasing the Report would be "political cover," but maybe it would be bad for the trial case....my head is spinning. Same around and around with Garland. He didn't need Smith. Is Smith mere "political cover?" Did release of the Jan. 6 Cmte. Report complicate a trial case? It seems to me that there is no reward, in the end, for all the double and triple CYA. Exactly the same howls of outrage are going to come from the usual sources as if any of these prosecutors had just let 'er rip two years ago. Seems to me.
You are not the only one, I am still trying to understand the fiasco that is active within these power brokers that offer what I think is a solution; then nothing.
Normally I'd be thinking there is more behind the scenes info we do not know, making it difficult for us to judge the conflict of interest or the politics involved. However, Trump did so much of his "crime-ing" in public view and then bragged about it that you may be right. Time will tell.
I hope Jack works fast and efficiently. He said: " “I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice. The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”
While I wonder if we even have a democracy with insurrectionists remaining in Congress and an echo chamber media that feeds Americans what they want to hear in lieu of what they need to hear (Thom Hartmann is in that category), because of our imperialist nature America has always had great influence on what happens globally. When we escalate our weapons caches and nuclear arsenals, so do other countries (purchasing weapons from us no less). Lest we forget our interference in Brazil from a coup in 1964 to Operation Car Wash from 2014 through 2018. Destabilization triggering rightward turns of foreign governments has long been a specialty of America's under Democrats and Republicans alike.
Agree, we the USA have had our hands in many areas of the world, when we should have known better. But preventing communism from entering our soil, was always the excuse. Nevertheless, the chickens have come home to roost and will continue until we as a united country act accordingly to benefit our neighbors who share the same land as a separate continent and clean up our backyard.
Somehow the fact that what goes around comes around seems to be lost on the Red Scare pundits and MSNBC liberals. We have wrought more random death and destruction around the world against black and brown people over the last century than any country, draining our moral and financial capital to the extent that there is nothing left to do but express outrage over Putin's incursion into a corrupt white European country and wonder how half the electorate, mostly working class, could support Trump.
We're understandably squeamish about any serious punishment that can be perceived as "political." Understandably because the state power to punish has often enough been abused to crush the already oppressed when they rise up, and so deter further opposition and even dissent.
If, however, we believe in our democracy, then we must believe it is an adequate, if imperfect, vehicle for expressing opposition, and confine such expression to our elections and peaceful advocacy processes. Refusal to accept election results is a direct and dire threat to any democracy, however sophisticated or well established. And the bar for electoral challenges is certainly higher than "I couldn't have lost because I couldn't have lost," which is really all the US or Brazilian Stop the Stealers had to say for themselves.
Our electoral processes do need reform and greater trust-earning transparency. But that is not the case Trump or his followers (domestic or foreign) were making. Their case was that government is illegitimate and has no right to function if they didn't win. That is truly and immediately dangerous, and could have been still more deadly than it was.
The fact that those apparently responsible for Jan. 6 have not been charged, given their day in court, and, like any other defendant, if found guilty, met with punishment commensurate with their most serious crime, is a clear enough signal that our democracy's self-esteem is too low to risk upsetting a minority that already has little or no respect for it. Lenience can be a sign of understanding, compassion, and indeed strength -- but that is not the feeling that emanates from governmental timidity in this particular case.
The lack of accountability for the instigators and ringleaders has the additional very unfortunate impact of disillusioning those in the majority about justice, and anything like the equal application of the law. The public loses interest along with faith. What's the point of paying attention when we know the script has been written and, as we suspected, has no accountability in it? A jaded, cynical public can erode and corrode a democracy just as surely as an insurrectionist mob can attack it.
Thom has written many times about the 80-year cycles in American history, the great crises that have arisen and led to significant changes, and, one might argue, evolution of our society, however imperfectly and incompletely. 80 years after the founding of the Republic came the Civil War, and the near destruction of the country, saved only through the loss of 600,000 lives. Then came the Republican Great Depression and WWII. In that time the entire social and economic structure was transformed to prevent those who saw themselves as an evolutionary advancement over the rest of us throwbacks from letting their arrogance, wealth and power turn us all into slaves of their slavish and greedy objectives. It also brought about the demise of the former colonial holdings of European Empires. To me, it seems the only solution to our current dilemma is a collapse of similar magnitude to the Civil War and the Republican Great Depression - hopefully NOT a World War III - that will force a new re-establishment of our democratic - nay, our HUMAN values, and this time, learning from the shortcomings of the previous Great Transformations, we will put the systems in place that will keep it from being so corrupted and manipulated by the evil forces of great wealth and power ever again.
A (hopeful?) wild card in history may be giving FEMALES the vote. You are describing the perpetual status of women, surely, when you speak of those whose ...power turn us all into slaves.... That would be, men. And I'm not putting men down, per se. I'm talking about the legal and social utter subjugation of females, with men most definitely "seeing themselves as an evolutionary advancement..."(more advanced)... The upshot was, the grand old boys at the outset really, really meant it when they said all MEN are created equal. Black MEN got the vote by the 15th Amendment, 1870. FEMALES had to wait 'til 1920. Funny thing is, Constitution 1788 to 15th A. is 132 years. If you subtract the additional 50 years it took for FEMALES to be recognized as human enough to vote, you get the number: 82. But don't let my little fun with faux numerology distract you. 1920 may, indeed, have been the Great Transformation. PS Greatest history book ever, if your teenager hates history get this before They ban it: "Other Powers," Barbara Goldsmith. Just sayin'...
Once again, I hit a wrong key and the reply I was writing seems to have disappeared into cyber oblivion. You are dead right, of course. Among the greatest advancements in American history was to give women the vote. My Mom was born in the year prior to that right being granted. I am in full agreement with those who say Nancy Pelosi was among the most effective Speakers we've had in Congress, and I believe that is due, at least in part, to her being a woman. It's appalling that we have yet to fully ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and that there was even as much opposition to it as there has been, even today. Nevertheless, the progress women have made in just my lifetime is phenomenal, and while there's still a long way to go, I believe that if we who are doing what we can to hold the line against the extreme reactionary forces attempting to take over the world, the rest of the distance will be crossed very quickly. I am even more concerned for the movement for women's rights on the global scale, because there are many, many societies where the situation, if one can even conceive it, is far worse for women than at any time in America. All of that said, in making comments, it's sometimes not possible to touch on every specific malady, and one has to speak in broader terms.
John Thompson, I agree with your statement; but is it possible? We keep trying and for a little while, we are united and then some crazy like a fox type speaks and all goes to pot.
It often seems hopeless, but the vision of all 212 Democratic members of Congress voting through every ballot, unanimously, for Hakeem Jeffries, was a sign that if we maintain our own unity as lovers of Democracy, freedom and human rights and value for all equally, the fractured right will eventually be overcome. It is a huge battle, and the Democrats still have far to go to liberate themselves from the influence of corporate bribery (Manchin and Sinema, to name but two), but many a righteous battle has seemed hopeless and to have all the odds stacked against it, yet the determination, will and faith of those on the side of truth and justice have ultimately prevailed.
What next? The legitimate January 6 th investigation by a committee of upstanding lawmakers will be trashed by the perpetrators of this insurrection?
Is that how we do things in this once brilliant democracy?
Donald Trump and his core of miscreants and criminals are responsible , one more time for trashing our country and our freedoms.
In granting them a pass for their horrific actions we have entered the twilight zone of Democracy.
These perpetrators of crimes including murderers , have as yet gone unscathed to perpetuate these petty alliance’s toward destruction.
Do we have a bottom
line in this Country?
Is it politically insensitive to throw the book at these pitiful sniveling Republicans ?
Then lets be as politically insensitive as we need to be to hold these ingrates accountable. This is our country , our democracy that needs saving. The right thing needs to be done regardless of Republican whining backlash.
These people are criminals we have laws to deal with these arrogant reprobates.
Patricia Lane, the crimes committed cannot be understated nor forgiven! The GOP must be held accountable at all levels, from the bottom to the top of the heap.
George W. Bush committed both domestic and international crimes: lying to Congress and invading two sovereign nations without provocation. Today he is an honored elder statesman.
I was thinking earlier today about the War Powers Act, Bush's ticket to run amok. I see the House tried passed a repeal in 2021, but can't see it was ever actually repealed. In case the House Putin-booster traitors really do (starve funding?) try to impair military aid to Ukraine, to what extent can Biden just carry on, because the House can't actually repeal the special presidential powers now with the other-way Senate??? Different situation from Bush post-9-11. Now it's military assistance to a foreign nation being invaded, not directly the US. If the House treason caucus really tries to stiff Ukraine, maybe Thom can do a legal/political article....
Did you know that W. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and four more were tried in absentia by the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity? All convicted and the Hague will wait until they step one foot in Europe and apprehend whichever one dares! That happened in July of 2012 or thereabouts. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia | Covert Geopolitics
George W. Bush committed both domestic and international crimes: lying to Congress, and invading two sovereign nations without provocation. Today he is an honored elder statesman.
P.S. Bush's criminal "War on Terror" has slaughtered 929,000 men, women, and children, sent 38 miilion people to wander the globe as refugees, and squandered $8 trillion. See the Brown University study, here :https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
WTF, people. God knows we need more Thom Hartmanns.
And he and Michelle Obama are apparently great pals. It is imperative that we end this untouchable status for our leaders. George W Bush should be brought before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. No wonder the US isn't a signatory! Let's not forget that W's grandpa was Prescott Bush, who was involved heavily with Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist who helped finance Adolf Hitler, and with many other Wall Street interests that masked or openly supported the Third Reich. It' s said that the Bush fortune was largely built on these activities, and in 2004 two survivors of Nazi slave labor camps opened a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the Bushes for profiting from this activity. But, as you said, George Jr. is an honored elder statesman, so, bygones be bygones, right?
Thom, I suspected something when it was reported that Bolsonaro was visiting the former twice impeached, disgrace and corrupt white house tenant in his home in Florida. First, came the coup attempt in Germany, then the same attack in Brazil? What are we to think? Not to mention the suspect election of George Santos, of Brazilian ancestry? Who can forget the Manchurian Candidate.? Too much to gather it all in one place but it is not professionals like yourself. Thank you for your insight.
The question : how can we shake up this complacency ? Young black men are shot to death on one persons expectation that their up to no good. And yet adults completing treason especially adults who took an oath to up hold the Constitution ‘under God’ are free. And still spewing lies and justification of their crimes accepted by others who have also taken these oaths.
Hear, Hear! And, once again, the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room this time seems to be the Biden Administration and the DOJ; "Where for art thou, brother?" And you know what they say, 'When you dance with a Gorilla, you're not done dancing until the Gorilla is done dancing.' Why hasn't DOJ indicted? Who's telling them to hold off? We finally have a special counsel 2 YEARS LATER?
What is it going to take to light a fire under current administration and DOJ? Now the incredibly inadequate and inept new Congress want to start investigating the Jan. 6th committee and still no one is being held accountable? My stomach turns and churns. Is there a grass roots movement happening that I'm not aware of? What part can I personally do to help? Thanks again Thom for all the light you shine! Sandi
The failure of Biden and Garland to go after these traitors, the MAGA traitors and the others like Nixon, Reagan, Bush et.al., is just more proof that the entire government is owned by the global cabal of fascist oligarchs. All that Biden and the last Congress seem to have "accomplished" and for which they are roundly congratulating themselves is all window dressing, crumbs cast to the masses to make us think there is a difference, a choice. We need PROOF that Hakeem Jeffries fiery speech is for real and not just more hot air. Politicians are great at rousing speeches without follow-through. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Bobert, MT Greene, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy and the rest need to be led off the House floor in handcuffs. Trump and all his cronies need to be perp-walked out of Mar a Lago. And they should all be imprisoned for the remainder, or at least a substantial part of it, of their lives.
Many crimes and misdemeanors can be pardoned or forgiven, but not treason.
Of course, in my rage over the failure to indict and prosecute these wretches, I may have overstated the lack of choice. Obviously, for all its faults and being beholden to the corporatocracy, there is still a vast difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, and there are many in the former that are not owned by oligarchs, who won't even take money from them, and who are actively working to castrate them in every way possible.
Treason may not be new, but what is definitely new is the number of people that would take it seriously. I think the hearings helped make that happen and got us to this point. The DOJ wanted the mid-terms to happen first, and on Nov 18, 2022 Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel. He was in the middle of something he just wrapped-up and just returned 6 days ago from Europe. From war crimes and now onto these cases makes Counsel Smith special indeed.
This is a monumental task; it's got to be done correctly. Even if we are feeling like the "Patience My Ass" poster, let's try to have some.
The header from a recent Bloomberg article says:
"Trump Special Counsel Bolsters Team With Anti-Graft Specialists"
-New hires prosecuted senators, governors, others in the past
-Special Counsel Jack Smith is beefing up his prosecution team
That sounds good to me even if it is overdue!
Today I have been trying to get my head around the pros and cons of releasing the "Special" Grand Jury Report in Georgia, one outcome seems to be a "regular " grand jury, but Fani Willis could have prosecuted without the "Special" to start with, and could pull the trigger without another one, and maybe releasing the Report would be "political cover," but maybe it would be bad for the trial case....my head is spinning. Same around and around with Garland. He didn't need Smith. Is Smith mere "political cover?" Did release of the Jan. 6 Cmte. Report complicate a trial case? It seems to me that there is no reward, in the end, for all the double and triple CYA. Exactly the same howls of outrage are going to come from the usual sources as if any of these prosecutors had just let 'er rip two years ago. Seems to me.
You are not the only one, I am still trying to understand the fiasco that is active within these power brokers that offer what I think is a solution; then nothing.
Normally I'd be thinking there is more behind the scenes info we do not know, making it difficult for us to judge the conflict of interest or the politics involved. However, Trump did so much of his "crime-ing" in public view and then bragged about it that you may be right. Time will tell.
I hope Jack works fast and efficiently. He said: " “I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice. The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”
While I wonder if we even have a democracy with insurrectionists remaining in Congress and an echo chamber media that feeds Americans what they want to hear in lieu of what they need to hear (Thom Hartmann is in that category), because of our imperialist nature America has always had great influence on what happens globally. When we escalate our weapons caches and nuclear arsenals, so do other countries (purchasing weapons from us no less). Lest we forget our interference in Brazil from a coup in 1964 to Operation Car Wash from 2014 through 2018. Destabilization triggering rightward turns of foreign governments has long been a specialty of America's under Democrats and Republicans alike.
Agree, we the USA have had our hands in many areas of the world, when we should have known better. But preventing communism from entering our soil, was always the excuse. Nevertheless, the chickens have come home to roost and will continue until we as a united country act accordingly to benefit our neighbors who share the same land as a separate continent and clean up our backyard.
Somehow the fact that what goes around comes around seems to be lost on the Red Scare pundits and MSNBC liberals. We have wrought more random death and destruction around the world against black and brown people over the last century than any country, draining our moral and financial capital to the extent that there is nothing left to do but express outrage over Putin's incursion into a corrupt white European country and wonder how half the electorate, mostly working class, could support Trump.
We're understandably squeamish about any serious punishment that can be perceived as "political." Understandably because the state power to punish has often enough been abused to crush the already oppressed when they rise up, and so deter further opposition and even dissent.
If, however, we believe in our democracy, then we must believe it is an adequate, if imperfect, vehicle for expressing opposition, and confine such expression to our elections and peaceful advocacy processes. Refusal to accept election results is a direct and dire threat to any democracy, however sophisticated or well established. And the bar for electoral challenges is certainly higher than "I couldn't have lost because I couldn't have lost," which is really all the US or Brazilian Stop the Stealers had to say for themselves.
Our electoral processes do need reform and greater trust-earning transparency. But that is not the case Trump or his followers (domestic or foreign) were making. Their case was that government is illegitimate and has no right to function if they didn't win. That is truly and immediately dangerous, and could have been still more deadly than it was.
The fact that those apparently responsible for Jan. 6 have not been charged, given their day in court, and, like any other defendant, if found guilty, met with punishment commensurate with their most serious crime, is a clear enough signal that our democracy's self-esteem is too low to risk upsetting a minority that already has little or no respect for it. Lenience can be a sign of understanding, compassion, and indeed strength -- but that is not the feeling that emanates from governmental timidity in this particular case.
The lack of accountability for the instigators and ringleaders has the additional very unfortunate impact of disillusioning those in the majority about justice, and anything like the equal application of the law. The public loses interest along with faith. What's the point of paying attention when we know the script has been written and, as we suspected, has no accountability in it? A jaded, cynical public can erode and corrode a democracy just as surely as an insurrectionist mob can attack it.
Our two systems of justice are the culprit. More evident in the cause, such power, money v. poverty could not be clearer.
Thom has written many times about the 80-year cycles in American history, the great crises that have arisen and led to significant changes, and, one might argue, evolution of our society, however imperfectly and incompletely. 80 years after the founding of the Republic came the Civil War, and the near destruction of the country, saved only through the loss of 600,000 lives. Then came the Republican Great Depression and WWII. In that time the entire social and economic structure was transformed to prevent those who saw themselves as an evolutionary advancement over the rest of us throwbacks from letting their arrogance, wealth and power turn us all into slaves of their slavish and greedy objectives. It also brought about the demise of the former colonial holdings of European Empires. To me, it seems the only solution to our current dilemma is a collapse of similar magnitude to the Civil War and the Republican Great Depression - hopefully NOT a World War III - that will force a new re-establishment of our democratic - nay, our HUMAN values, and this time, learning from the shortcomings of the previous Great Transformations, we will put the systems in place that will keep it from being so corrupted and manipulated by the evil forces of great wealth and power ever again.
A (hopeful?) wild card in history may be giving FEMALES the vote. You are describing the perpetual status of women, surely, when you speak of those whose ...power turn us all into slaves.... That would be, men. And I'm not putting men down, per se. I'm talking about the legal and social utter subjugation of females, with men most definitely "seeing themselves as an evolutionary advancement..."(more advanced)... The upshot was, the grand old boys at the outset really, really meant it when they said all MEN are created equal. Black MEN got the vote by the 15th Amendment, 1870. FEMALES had to wait 'til 1920. Funny thing is, Constitution 1788 to 15th A. is 132 years. If you subtract the additional 50 years it took for FEMALES to be recognized as human enough to vote, you get the number: 82. But don't let my little fun with faux numerology distract you. 1920 may, indeed, have been the Great Transformation. PS Greatest history book ever, if your teenager hates history get this before They ban it: "Other Powers," Barbara Goldsmith. Just sayin'...
Once again, I hit a wrong key and the reply I was writing seems to have disappeared into cyber oblivion. You are dead right, of course. Among the greatest advancements in American history was to give women the vote. My Mom was born in the year prior to that right being granted. I am in full agreement with those who say Nancy Pelosi was among the most effective Speakers we've had in Congress, and I believe that is due, at least in part, to her being a woman. It's appalling that we have yet to fully ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and that there was even as much opposition to it as there has been, even today. Nevertheless, the progress women have made in just my lifetime is phenomenal, and while there's still a long way to go, I believe that if we who are doing what we can to hold the line against the extreme reactionary forces attempting to take over the world, the rest of the distance will be crossed very quickly. I am even more concerned for the movement for women's rights on the global scale, because there are many, many societies where the situation, if one can even conceive it, is far worse for women than at any time in America. All of that said, in making comments, it's sometimes not possible to touch on every specific malady, and one has to speak in broader terms.
John Thompson, I agree with your statement; but is it possible? We keep trying and for a little while, we are united and then some crazy like a fox type speaks and all goes to pot.
It often seems hopeless, but the vision of all 212 Democratic members of Congress voting through every ballot, unanimously, for Hakeem Jeffries, was a sign that if we maintain our own unity as lovers of Democracy, freedom and human rights and value for all equally, the fractured right will eventually be overcome. It is a huge battle, and the Democrats still have far to go to liberate themselves from the influence of corporate bribery (Manchin and Sinema, to name but two), but many a righteous battle has seemed hopeless and to have all the odds stacked against it, yet the determination, will and faith of those on the side of truth and justice have ultimately prevailed.
What next? The legitimate January 6 th investigation by a committee of upstanding lawmakers will be trashed by the perpetrators of this insurrection?
Is that how we do things in this once brilliant democracy?
Donald Trump and his core of miscreants and criminals are responsible , one more time for trashing our country and our freedoms.
In granting them a pass for their horrific actions we have entered the twilight zone of Democracy.
These perpetrators of crimes including murderers , have as yet gone unscathed to perpetuate these petty alliance’s toward destruction.
Do we have a bottom
line in this Country?
Is it politically insensitive to throw the book at these pitiful sniveling Republicans ?
Then lets be as politically insensitive as we need to be to hold these ingrates accountable. This is our country , our democracy that needs saving. The right thing needs to be done regardless of Republican whining backlash.
These people are criminals we have laws to deal with these arrogant reprobates.
We must use them .
Patricia Lane, the crimes committed cannot be understated nor forgiven! The GOP must be held accountable at all levels, from the bottom to the top of the heap.
We agree.
George W. Bush committed both domestic and international crimes: lying to Congress and invading two sovereign nations without provocation. Today he is an honored elder statesman.
End of message.
I was thinking earlier today about the War Powers Act, Bush's ticket to run amok. I see the House tried passed a repeal in 2021, but can't see it was ever actually repealed. In case the House Putin-booster traitors really do (starve funding?) try to impair military aid to Ukraine, to what extent can Biden just carry on, because the House can't actually repeal the special presidential powers now with the other-way Senate??? Different situation from Bush post-9-11. Now it's military assistance to a foreign nation being invaded, not directly the US. If the House treason caucus really tries to stiff Ukraine, maybe Thom can do a legal/political article....
They can't because the money has already been spent, and the full faith and credit of the USA is in jeopardy. Meaning the credit card bill is due.
Did you know that W. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and four more were tried in absentia by the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity? All convicted and the Hague will wait until they step one foot in Europe and apprehend whichever one dares! That happened in July of 2012 or thereabouts. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia | Covert Geopolitics
https://geopolitics.co/2012/05/16/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia
"The timidity of the Biden administration and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice would rightly horrify them."
And many of us too...
George W. Bush committed both domestic and international crimes: lying to Congress, and invading two sovereign nations without provocation. Today he is an honored elder statesman.
End of comment.
P.S. Bush's criminal "War on Terror" has slaughtered 929,000 men, women, and children, sent 38 miilion people to wander the globe as refugees, and squandered $8 trillion. See the Brown University study, here :https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
WTF, people. God knows we need more Thom Hartmanns.
And he and Michelle Obama are apparently great pals. It is imperative that we end this untouchable status for our leaders. George W Bush should be brought before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. No wonder the US isn't a signatory! Let's not forget that W's grandpa was Prescott Bush, who was involved heavily with Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist who helped finance Adolf Hitler, and with many other Wall Street interests that masked or openly supported the Third Reich. It' s said that the Bush fortune was largely built on these activities, and in 2004 two survivors of Nazi slave labor camps opened a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the Bushes for profiting from this activity. But, as you said, George Jr. is an honored elder statesman, so, bygones be bygones, right?
Thom, I suspected something when it was reported that Bolsonaro was visiting the former twice impeached, disgrace and corrupt white house tenant in his home in Florida. First, came the coup attempt in Germany, then the same attack in Brazil? What are we to think? Not to mention the suspect election of George Santos, of Brazilian ancestry? Who can forget the Manchurian Candidate.? Too much to gather it all in one place but it is not professionals like yourself. Thank you for your insight.
The question : how can we shake up this complacency ? Young black men are shot to death on one persons expectation that their up to no good. And yet adults completing treason especially adults who took an oath to up hold the Constitution ‘under God’ are free. And still spewing lies and justification of their crimes accepted by others who have also taken these oaths.
.
Agreed , these crimes are not to be trifled with . Though it seems in recent years many of these treasonous acts are in fact trifled with .