THE GOP'S WAR ON GOVERNMENT

With their failure in the debt limit negotiations, and Trump’s continuing legal problems, the Party of Trump is taking out their frustrations with a full-on trashing and undermining of the government, which is creating a civic and physical hazard to America. And they’re doing all of it just to defend Trump from even mild criticism.

Trump's toadies in Congress began last week furiously pulling every stunt available to ensure all Trump’s enemies - federal prosecutors, President Biden himself - pay a political price for the historic indictment.

Since the Republicans have little to no power to save Trump from the federal justice system, they are now engaged in a political revenge campaign, hoping to prove their loyalty to Trump and in the process muddy the waters in the court of public opinion with the production of as much misinformation as possible..

So, as we listen to the continuous GOP uproar over the unfair, disparate, and unequal treatment Trump is receiving, remember that it’s true - but in exactly the opposite direction to what is being said.

Trump says if he gets into office he will appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after “the most corrupt president and administration - Biden and the corrupt Biden crime family.” Remember, with Trump, it is ALWAYS PROJECTION. The most corrupt president and administration in the history of the United States happened between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021. The Trump administration.

Let’s also recall that the current indictments are the result of Trump’s failure to take the offer of a free pass from the Department of Justice if he would merely follow the actual law regarding the documents he stole from the White House in January 2021. But he was too fucking stupid to take it.

In response to a subpoena issued in January 2022, Trump returned 197 classified documents to the federal government. Regardless of the fact he willfully retained the documents for over a year, the Special Prosecutor’s federal indictment released last week does not charge him in connection with any of them. The DOJ gave Trump a free pass on 197 possible counts of willful retention of national defense information. He was only charged with 31 counts of willful retention, which corresponds to the number of highly classified documents Trump knowingly withheld from the government in January 2022, that were later obtained by the FBI following the search of Mar A Lago last summer. Had he turned those over without forcing the government to execute a search warrant, it is likely he would not be under indictment now.

If Trump wants to see who it was who put him in the barrel where he is, all he has to do is look in the bathroom mirror tomorrow morning.

The DOJ recommended unprecedented lenient conditions for his pre-trial release from custody: no bail; no travel restrictions, including no surrender of his passport and no restriction on his use of his personal airliner; no restriction on interacting and communicating with witnesses in the case, which was so extraordinary that the judge ordered that he may not discuss the case itself with them.

I don’t point all that out to knock DOJ. Trump is under Secret Service protection, and thus highly unlikely to be able to flee the country. I disagree with them, but they are arguably appropriate measures of deference to his unusual status as a former president.

But the fact the DOJ is treating him as they are puts the lie to the Deep State nonsense Trump World is regurgitating.

As Trump’s indictments pile up with more to come: E. Jean Carroll was given permission to increase her claim against him in the next defamation case to $10 million; the New York Attorney General’s case against The Trump Organization is set to start in November; he will be appearing in court in Florida on the current federal indictment in January; the trial in New York for the hush money payment is set to start ibn March 2024 in the middle of the Republican primary campaign - it is more important than ever to stay aware of the fact that the current crop of conservative clowns in the House Republican Caucus and other elected Republican flotsam and jetsam are in the fame for for far more than that.

They are playing for it all. It doesn't matter if El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lardo finally eats the fatal hamberder or picks up the bucket of KFC with his name on it and Makes America Great Again with his permanent departure.

The GOP war on America will go on regardless, because now the Republican Party is a mindless, merciless, mindless machine, whose purpose is destruction and revenge.

Looserana’s farthest-right looney tune, Clay Higgins, whose cryptic tweet after Trump's indictment referring to militia “milspeak” set off speculation that he had made a call to arms, today warned his supporters that, "They want MAGA conservatives to react to this perimeter probe and in doing so, set yourselves up for targeted persecution and further entrapment." When questioned, he specifically said he was speaking through the media to “those patriots who feel most oppressed by this far left regime.”

Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a detailed plan to break up and bring the Justice Department and FBI under the direct control of the “unitary executive” (i.e., the president), declaring they were not “independent agencies.” His plan is the result of consulting a "brain trust" of government experts, members of Congress and former administration officials.

There is Russell Vougfht’s America First Foundation, which is reported to be vetting true believers who can be placed in position in agencies throughout the government during the first week of a new Republican administration in 2025, which would effectively kill the independent Federal Civil Service.

Republicans have made the alleged "weaponization" of government a central point of their grievance agenda, but it is the Republicans who intend to “weaponize” government to carry out their revenge on America if they return to power.

DeSantis’s plan to destroy the DOJ and FBI includes six specific elements to return the DOJ and FBI to a more limited "pre-9/11" mission:

1. Physically relocate the FBI headquarters from D.C. and break up other "problematic components of the DOJ."

2. Fire political and career appointees in droves and dismantle civil service protections.

3. End the DOJ and FBI's role in policing misinformation.

4. Reorganize DOJ's Civil Rights Division, effectively ending the unit as a force for the protection and promotion of civil rights.

5. Direct the DOJ to go after progressive local prosecutors in big cities who “are not prosecuting cases against violent criminals."

6. Revoke the security clearances of certain former intelligence officials

The America First Foundation is working on plans to remove layers at the Justice Department, including the FBI, and to remove and reorganize the Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the Pentagon, so that their leadership is under the direct control of the White House.

Right now, according to the GOP, President Biden is simultaneously a doddering old man who is barely able to stay upright on his own two feet kee, but is also running the most corrupt crime family in the history of the country; an evil genius who is running a vast conspiracy with the Deep State to take down his chief political rival; an inept and bungler who somehow managed to defeat the incumbent MAGA president, now hauling the United States into Marxism, and has seized dictatorial powers.

When you think about it, this Biden guy is pretty amazing

There has already been a lot of noise from House Republicans about hitting back at Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the Trump prosecution. Marjorie Traitor Goon has put forward budget legislation to “defund” the Special Prosecutor’s office.

But as reality will make abundantly clear over the next month, the Republicans in Congress can’t really touch Smith.

Merrick Garland demonstrated at his press conference that the Department of Justice will maintain its traditional position of not making public statments regarding current cases, which means that the letter House Judiciary Committee Chair Jungle Jim Jordan sent asking for information on the indictment and other information about the FBI agents assigned to the investigation, as well as the scope of the probe will go unanswered. This will continue so long as the Florida case continues as well as anything that comes from the January 6 investigation with the Washington grand jury.

As a Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer said, “This is like everything Jordan has done this Congress - a lot of motion but no movement.”

Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, explained the situation: “Congress has no authority to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation. I would be horrified if they did that. But obviously it’s within the realm of possibility given how things have gone with them.”

Regardless of what the Fwee-dumb Caucus Crazies attempt, the Democratic-controlled Senate will stop anything they try to do legislatively to Smith, including using the annual spending bills as a pressure point. Marjorie Traitor Goon can try all she wants to defund Smith’s office, but Senate Democrats will never let that happen, and most Republican senators agree.

So far, the Senate is telegraphing a hands-off approach to Smith’s investigation and the Trump indictment. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there shouldn’t be any “political or ideological interference” in the case. And Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he has no interest in bringing Smith before his panel.

The very fact that the alleged mishandling of national security secrets by Trump that was laid out in the 49 page indictment is so clearly within the Justice Department’s jurisdiction and the charges are so severe has already taken the wind out of many Republican sails in the House since the indictment was released last Friday.

Everyone has seen Trump’s playbook before. Trump being Trump, he’s going after Smith and his wife as “Trump haters” “deranged ‘psychos’” and “deranged lunatics” saying that Smith shouldn’t be handling the case. This is the same game Trump ran against the Mueller Russia probe.

But now, Trump is out of office and has no power, and the fallout from the January 6 insurrection investigation last year has forever damaged his reputation. This time, he’s not a victim here. Republican assertions that he shouldn’t be prosecuted for classified documents violations when Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton haven’t are being debunked to their faces by reporters questioning them.

The move by McCarthy and House GOP leadership to backed a resolution introduced by Anna Paulina Lunatic that would have censured Adam Schiff and fined him $16 million for his investigations into Trump's ties to Russia as former chair of the Intelligence Committee failed today when 20 Republicans joined all Democrats other than the five members of the House Ethics Committee who felt they had to vote “present” in case it carried voted to table the resolution. Paulina Lunatic may have threatened to introduce another resolution next week, but it will go the same way.

She probably did Schiff a favor, since he is running for Senate in an overwhelmingly liberal state.

Professional “hillbilly” J.D. Vance couldn’t resist the opportunity to engage in performative irresponsibility, responding to Trump’s indictment by vowing to put a hold on all Justice Department nominees. The Senate does much of its business, including votes on nominees, by “unanimous consent.” The current rules allow any single senator to put a “hold” on a nominee by withholding such consent, preventing the chamber from acting on the nomination since a cloture vote would have to be held.

This is not the Senate’s “advice and consent”; this is the howling of the Yahoo Caucus. As Jill Lawrence noted in The Bulwark, Republicans are engaging in a “full-on trashing and undermining of the government,” creating “a civic and physical hazard to America.”

Looney “libertarian” Thomas Massie tweeted on Thursday that “no member of Congress can be prosecuted for reading aloud on the floor any of the documents Trump allegedly has copies of.” Apparently, Massie thinks it would help Trump to read top-secret documents live on national television.

These “legislators” not only show contempt for their constitutional duty but treat their constituents like credulous rubes in order to harvest their anger and their votes.

As long as the Trump-controlled GOP engages in spurious investigations backed by threats and stalking, they are a danger to the national security of the nation.

Judging by their reaction to Trump’s indictment, they are not going to abandon this approach to politics any time soon.

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