Speed Kills

A story recently by Rebecca Beitsch in The Hill quotes Attorney General Pam Bondi saying something about the García deportation case that has me particularly furious. I want to take a few moments here to detail the reasons for my ire.

«Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration failed to take “one extra step of paperwork” before it mistakenly deported a Maryland man…»

—article 2025-04-16 by Rebecca Beitsch in The Hill

The Very Critical Nature of Due Process

First, “Due Process” is not a paperwork step. It is process—specific actions”—that is due by the government to the people. That process is meaningful and substantive and necessary to ensure the freedom of everyone, including you and me.

It is a foundational principle of US government. Freedom cannot exist without it. It is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, in the Fifth Amendment, and it is guaranteed to “people,” a broader set than just “citizens.” Per US case law [e.g., Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001)] non-citizens, even including those unlawfully present, are entitled to due process.

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

—The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution

To say that no process is due would be to say that it's fine for this to happen to anyone. You. Me. Anyone. Because it blurs the distinction between “alleged” and “convicted.” They say they are only doing this to criminals, but, in the US, the way we decide who a criminal is—at least up to now—by due process.

What's good for the goose…

But would the President know this? I'm going to go out on a pretty sturdy limb here and guess “yes.” In spite of being actually convicted on 34 counts (which he disputes), in general, he relies heavily on the difference between accusation and conviction to claim a clean reputation in the face of a very large number of uncharged crimes.

What protects him is not “one extra step of paperwork” but due process, the fact that, under the Constitution, we have a process for determing whether someone accused of being a criminal is in fact an actual.

That important bit of process due to him—and to García—does not take place in the President's mind. It is not just a routine bit of unilateral business to be done by ICE. It happens in court.

Highest possible stakes

If we think we can skip that step, the part about going to court for a fair hearing with proper evidence and a chance to rebut charges, then anyone can be that mistake.

Again from the article in The Hill:

«“He is not coming back to our country. President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” she told reporters at a press conference Wednesday, referring to the Salvadorian leader. “If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none.”»

—article 2025-04-16 by Rebecca Beitsch in The Hill

And the notion we would just summarily re-deport him, again without due process, is saying that the US president does not care about this very critical step that has historically set the United States apart from barbarous countries.

Also, the President's oath of office is not itself a mere matter of paperwork (or lip service). It is something all presidents swear to, and it includes language about protecting the Constitution from enemies. He is not doing that. This is not a small administrative matter.

Legal angles?

Personally, I'd go so far as to argue that once he is not defending the Constitution, none of his acts are official acts, and every single one is subject to question before our court system. That is how I would re-approach SCOTUS and ask for clarification because if they really meant that official acts include the overthrowing or ignoring or otherwise trashing of the Constitution someone had sworn to protect, then they themselves need to be impeached on that basis, because saying that was not upholding their oath office to the Constitution and (in my opinion) makes that ruling invalid.

Also, in criminal law, when dealing with evidence, there is the notion of fruit of the poisonous tree when dealing with evidence improperly obtained. What would help a lot right now is the same for the Executive and SCOTUS itself. Once it has been demonstrated that there is a corrupt actor, not defending the Constitution, all further actions coming from that person really should be seen as invalid. To do otherwise is to say that allowing an enemy actor to have effect is more important than We The People. I see no reason at all that this should be so.

I know that people differ politically on a wide variety of issues, but I hope that we can at least admit that logical consistency and sanity are not partisan matters. Assuming that's so, I just don't see how we can have any kind of functional democracy, at least not one based on the Constitution, if major aspects of it are being eroded in real time. Somehow we have to find a means to stop this cancer in its tracks.

On speed

And while we're on the topic of things going too fast, I want to touch on one other matter as we close: speed itself. Speed is a theme that runs through all of this.

The rate at which things happen is a tangible quality of things that is easily overlooked when describing what's going on, but it really matters quite a lot if things are happening faster than people can keep up with or react to.

Project 2025

There is a shock and awe campaign ongoing as part of the Project 2025 rollout. Wikipedia says this about the deployment strategy it's using:

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight.

—Wikipedia “shock and awe” entry

Military, though? Yes, I think so. It's a good metaphor because it highlights the strategic and tactical nature of the actions taken and that the goal is a political conquest that changes government by means other than democratic votes. Not all military action uses guns. In Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the use of physical violence is seen almost as a last resort.

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

—Sun Tzu in The Art of War

Project 2025 is a very ambitious plan with a very detailed playbook for a quick (six month) rollout.

There is a lot in Project 2025 that people might object to. But part of the plan is to do a lot very quickly, each outrageous act a distraction for each other in a kind of fog of war kicked up by a Gish gallop of indignities and violations.

The site www.project2025.observer helps enumerate its aspects and track the progress of each.

DOGE

Speed is an underlying premise of the recent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Efficiency usually implies either lower cost or higher speed. But efficiency is an elusive term and invites the question, “efficiency of what?” My recent essay Government is not a Business discusses, among other things, how inefficiency is important to the correct function of government, making the point that speeding things up doesn't automatically make things better.

People also assume that efficiency means monetary efficiency or time efficiency, but there are other uses of the term that seem to fit better. I think of the efficiency that DOGE is seeking as more like what I've come to call a “permission efficiency”. This relates to the earlier discussion of the safeguards of democracy. They are essentially trying to create a thugocracy, a place where bullies and thugs rule. Rights are protections against state action, but these autocratic oligarch wannabes don't want to have to ask permission for anything. They find permission-asking unhelpful to their goal of pushing people around and hence “inefficient.” That's more like what DOGE is trying to streamline—any possibility of rights claimed by citizens.

And they want to do it fast. Faster than people can react. Because if they took the time to debate it, the debate would not go in their favor.

Forced Pregnancy

Pregnancy, which many of us think should be a completely private matter, has become a public issue. It is a way for certain men to assert an ugly dominance over women through forced pregnancy. From the moment of a pregnancy's conception, a clock starts ticking counting down to when abortion is no longer politically allowed. Where it is allowed, there has been a focus on tactics to introduce procedural obstacles many, of which have no other purpose than to slow down a woman's ability to respond in time to exercise her rights.

Nature imposes some time limits of its own, but then men impose additional ones. None of it serves personal choice, personal health, or personal justice. In a nation whose Constitution promises to leave religion as a private matter, this debate is everything about the assertion of oppressive government control of very private matters, and wending its way in and out of everything that goes on is a race against time.

Weaponizing speed itself

That's really the problem with all of this. By acting swiftly, they can bypass anyone's chance to fight back. Even acts that have protections, if those protections cannot be practically put into play in the time alloted, are effectively neutralized.

In effect, speed itself is the weapon that is and will continue to kill people, perhaps even you and me.

I'll close with a quote from a case years ago, in the aftermath of World War II, Shaughnessy v. U.S. ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953). It's striking how relevant this passage seems, even 70+ years later. The circumstances are not far off. What's changed are some of the tools of such aspiring tyranny, speed itself now central among the repertoire of weapons they wield because modern technology accommodates greater speeds. We must stop this. Let's just hope we can do it in time.

«No society is free where government makes one person's liberty depend upon the arbitrary will of another. Dictatorships have done this since time immemorial. They do now. Russian laws of 1934 authorized the People's Commissariat to imprison, banish, and exile Russian citizens as well as "foreign subjects who are socially dangerous." * Hitler's secret police were given like powers. German courts were forbidden to make any inquiry whatever as to the information on which the police acted. Our Bill of Rights was written to prevent such oppressive practices. Under it, this Nation has fostered and protected individual freedom. The Founders abhorred arbitrary one-an imprisonments. Their belief was -- our constitutional principles are -- that no person of any faith, rich or poor, high or low, native or foreigner, white or colored, can have his life, liberty or property taken "without due process of law." This means to me that neither the federal police nor federal prosecutors nor any other governmental official, whatever his title, can put or keep people in prison without accountability to courts of justice. It means that individual liberty is too highly prized in this country to allow executive officials to imprison and hold people on the basis of information kept secret from courts. It means that Mezei should not be deprived of his liberty indefinitely except as the result of a fair open court hearing in which evidence is appraised by the court, not by the prosecutor.»

—Shaughnessy v. U.S. ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953)

Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

This post originated as a rant by me on Mastodon. Substantive content has been aded, re-focusing on the issue of speed.

The graphic was produced using abacus.ai using Claude Sonnet 3.7 and FLUX 1.1 [pro] Ultra, then post-processing in Gimp.

Congressional Cowardice

I am unforgiving of GOP Congressional cowardice. They pledged an oath to support and defend the Constitution. They have historically sent millions into war, the sometimes-tenuous justification being a need to defend our way of life. There is now a coup afoot and it falls to Congress itself to defend us.

Any in Congress sustaining the coup because they fear for their job, their safety or the safety of their family are committing treason.

Protecting and defending the US is not optional, something to do if it's convenient. It is a sworn duty.

Their paid job is to represent the citizens who elected them—not party, not billionaires, not the President.

Why may Congress be more selfish than soldiers they send to battle?

Why are their families entitled to protection at the expense of our nation?

We know they speak privately of being afraid, but we citizens are afraid, too, and we have no recourse.

These people swore to act on our behalf.

These treasonous cowards of the GOP Congress, by their corrupt, selfish, and dishonorable action and inaction are, at every opportunity, unilaterally surrendering the Constitution they swore to protect, willfully ignoring that it leads us inevitably to authoritarian rule.

The cowardly GOP Congress plainly hope that passively turning a blind eye to a coup, ignoring their oath and instead pledging fealty to a would-be dictator, will leave them spared his wrath.

Yet dictators need neither Congress nor Courts. They make their own laws and brook no checks on their power.

We are all afraid. I do not forgive the GOP Congress their fear. I expect them to rise above it. Selfish action now is beyond shameful, beyond corrupt. Traitorous. No better than a deserter, AWOL from a post at a time when necessity and duty requires defending the Constitution and the nation.

If the GOP Congress won't do their job, they should step down and go cower in their basement as private citizens.

Even an empty seat could change the balance of power, allowing others to do THEIR job, tipping things enough to save us from autocracy.

Please, do at least that for the Constitution.

 

---

Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

This post originated as a thread on BlueSky. I've done very light editing of content and formatting, but the essential content is mostly unchanged.

The image of the Constitution is in the public domain, and was obtained from Wikipedia. The flames overlaid on it were added by me using Gimp. The flames were created from Abacus.ai using Claude Sonnet 3.5 and Flux 1.1 Ultra Pro, though I had such great difficulty getting it to give me a real-looking Constitution, without confabulating other text, that I had to just ask for the flames and merge things myself.

Election 2024 FAQ

Q. Who should I vote for?

A. Kamala Harris.

Q. But what about Trump?

A. The guy with 34 felony convictions and several court cases pending?

The guy who says he'll be a dictator on day one? He says only day one. Give some thought to how much you trust his impulse control.

I could go on, but just read some of these other questions and answers. They should make it plain why Harris is the only safe, sane, and moral choice.

Q. OK, so he's pretty evil. But I'm willing to put on my blinders because he's quite a business man, am I right? He'll make our economy successful, right?

A. Rachel Maddow spent a segment calling his bluff on all of this. This shouldn't be a great surprise. Trump was convicted in of fraud in New York civil court, and ordered to pay $355 million dollars. It is not a stretch to think he might commit fraud in other situations. Trump's niece, Mary Trump, has a lot to say about his lying.

Q. But hasn't Biden just weaponized the Justice Department? Those aren't real charges are they? Surely they're partisan fictions.

A. No. Biden hasn't done any such thing. In fact, it's the other way around. We're finding more and more evidence that weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) is something Trump sought to do as President. He was held back by others in the government who told him he couldn't. Such restraint is unlikely to happen again because he'll pick yes men to advise him this time around.

Also, Trump is promising to prosecute his political rivals. That isn't how we've traditionally done politics in the US. The whole point of “free speech” is the free exchange of ideas. He wants to end that. He doesn't like dissent. It could get very ugly.

Q. Trump says he'll protect American business by adding big tariffs other countries have to pay. Isn't that good?

A. In a word? No. Trump can't make other countries pay anything. He can make you pay to receive things from other countries. Economists estimate this will cost the average household an extra $4000 a year. Harris is calling it a Trump “sales tax,” which is what it will feel like.

Also, it's been widely reported that businesses are readying to raise prices in anticipation of Trump's tariffs.

Q. But isn't Trump a business guy? He says he'll hire “only the best people”.

A. Many of those same people warn strongly against electing him.

Q. This is upsetting. If that's true, what about his January 6 “lovefest”? Surely you're not saying that was a fiction.

A. Several people lost their lives at Trump's so-called “lovefest” that day. Pence barely made it to safety as crowds chanted “Hang Mike Pence”. The House investigated and confirmed the seriousness of these actions, calling Republican witnesses, many of them Trump staffers, to build their case.

Q. Trump says he'll be a protector of women—

A. Oh, just stop. I know you didn't even get all the way through your question, but, please, just stop. No. He will not. Neither will Vance.

The Washington Post counted his false and misleading statements over a four-year period. They tallied 30,573. You can't trust his promises. He knows they are not legally binding.

But he also appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and bragged about it. During the 2016 campaign period, MSNBC's Chris Matthews got Trump to say “there has to be some form of punishment” for a woman getting an abortion.

And if you haven't read Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, might I suggest you do? It just might turn out to be a useful reference.

Q. My husband tells me I should vote like he does. Is that true?

A. No. We vote privately in the US. At least we do now, under democracy. Who knows what will happen if Trump gains control. He'll probably appoint still more Supreme Court justices. The ones he already appointed have suggested they may want to roll back women's right to vote.

Q. I hate all of this. What if I just “send a message” by staying home?

A. Sitting it out does not send the message “I want another choice.” It sends the message “I'm equally happy with either of these choices.” Read the rest of this FAQ and then get yourself to the polls. You'll be glad you did.

Q. I'm mad about Harris's Climate policies. Can I “send a message” by voting for Jill Stein?

A. Only Trump or Harris will be elected. Stein doesn't have any hope at all of being elected. So the message you send will be at a steep price because Harris has by far a more Climate-friendly record and platform than Trump. Trump does not think that “science knows” if Climate Change is real. (Spoiler Warning: Science knows.)

Voting for Stein does not send the message “I want another choice,” but instead sends the message “I'm equally happy with either of these choices.” There are better times and ways to protest Climate policy.

The world will be very different under these two candidates.
If you care about those differences, you need to vote.

There is good reason to think that protest votes for Jill Stein may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump. If you care about Climate and would be otherwise voting for Harris, there are other ways to protest than to throw the election to Trump.

Q. But what about the Gaza genocide? Biden and Harris are still sending munitions.

A. This is a real concern, but boycotting the election is the wrong way to solve it. Whatever you think of Biden and Harris on Gaza policy, Trump is much worse. He wants to be best friends with Netanyahu, in part because both of them see it important to stay in power to avoid prison.

My advice? Find another way to protest. But believe me, you want to be protesting under Harris, who thinks that's a normal thing to do. Trump wanted to shoot at protesters. He does not like dissent, and especially when it's by or about people of color.

Q. But, but—the border. And all those migrants.

A. The border issue is a real issue, but very complicated. In collaboration with the Biden/Harris administration, Republican conservatives drafted a somewhat harsh policy that nevertheless had bipartisan support and by all accounts would have passed. But Trump asked Republicans to kill it because it doesn't matter to him to have that problem solved. He just wanted something to whine about, and to blame on Biden. Republicans did kill it, and Trump's the one that deserves the blame, not Biden.

Q. But shouldn't I worry that Trump often says Harris is “low IQ”?

A. I'm going to bite my tongue and not ask if you seriously think Trump is “high IQ.” Let's instead just jump straight to the heart of the matter: Calling someone “low IQ” is just a pattern behavior he has for how to talk about people who are black or female. He obviously hopes that, through force of repetition, you'll eventually associate certain attributes with certain people or certain demographics. Of course, he offers no evidence. And anyway, polls suggest she unambiguously beat him at the debate.

Q. It's only for four years, though, right?

A. That's how it used to be. But staying in office keeps him out of prison.. Liz Cheney has credibly suggested that if Trump is given power again, he will not yield it voluntarily.

Q. Maybe Vance will take over. That will fix things, right? He seems more sane.

A. Vance seems comfortable with the US following Rome's pattern, turning from a Republic to an Empire (in effect, giving up our democracy for a dictatorship). He appears to see Project 2025 as the implementation mechanism.

Q. Is there a place I can learn more about Project 2025? Are you sure it's associated with Trump?

A. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 because he knows it's a source of concern. However, many connections between Trump, Vance and Project 2025 have been documented.

There are several places you might want to consider to find out about Project 2025:

• Democracy Forward has created a user-friendly way to browse its serious dangers: The People's Guide to Project 2025.

• A band of graphic artists—some named, some anonymous—has brilliantly put the issue into graphic novel (comic book) form. This is a “must see.”

• The Center for American Progress (CAP) offers a useful explainer piece, The Dangers of Project 2025: Global Lessons in Authoritarianism, that puts Project 2025 into perpective by showing how it will “threaten American democracy by mirroring authoritarian tactics seen in Hungary, Turkey, and beyond.”
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has an article, Project 2025, Explained, that summarizes what they see as key dangers in Project 2025, and what Trump's connection is to it.

• Project 2025 has its own web page. It's very detailed. 900+ pages. It's highly specific about the speed and scope of what it plans. The goals it sets are scary enough, but the highly undemocratic ways in which it proposes achieving those goals is scary in its own right.

Q. This FAQ by Kent Pitman was kind of fun. Is there more stuff by Kent that I can read?

A. So glad you enjoyed it. Yes, here are some election-related writings by Kent:

• Common Ground on Reproductive Health (on Liz Cheney's fresh outlook)
• Emperor's Wardrobe Day (about those who've been silent)
• The Fraud Who Stole Freedom (an epic poem, with audio)
• Vance Notice (about the danger Vance poses)
• Political Terraforming (why they're limiting rights)
• A to-do list for repairing US democracy (some helpful suggestions)
• American Dictatorship (thoughts on a possible loss of democracy)
• The Pace of Political Evil (what we come to see is normal)
• Conspiring to Contest Key Elections (it won't just be about votes)
• Stayers and Steppers (my advice to Biden to step back, let Harris run)
• Supreme Challenge (urging Biden to use power SCOTUS gave him)

Don't forget to check for other posts that may follow the post you're reading.

The Fraud Who Stole Freedom

Version 2 by Kent M Pitman

Once player loads, click “Play” to hear
this poem read by the author.
It's about 10.5 minutes long.

Most voters in Freedom liked voting a lot,
  but the Fraud_{(dumb, dumb, dumb)}—who was fearful of voters—did not.

The Fraud hated Freedom, the whole Freedom spirit.
  Though if there’s a reason, we’re waiting to hear it.

It could be, perhaps, that his life was too soft.
  It could be his woodpecker wasn’t aloft.

Still, I think that the most likely cause, on the whole,
  may have been that his ego was out of control.

Whatever the reason--no frays or no lays,
  he logged on FraudSocial just needing some praise.

Staring down at his keys, the Fraud muttered aloud,
  at an enemy rally that had drawn quite a crowd.

“They’re making it up,” came his frustrated wail
  “They’re using A.I., but I’ll see they all fail.”

Soon the Fraud’s tiny fingers were whipping a potion.
  “I must find a way to set chaos in motion.”

“Not long ’til the time when the voters will go
  to the polls to elect me as king of the show.”

“But what if they don’t?” he thought with a scowl
  “I’ll have to derail them by calling a foul.”

“They’ll only be honest, if voting for me.
  All else is injustice, I’ll make them all see.”

“I’ll make women like me, as stars get to do.
  If they try to reject me, I’ll hasten to sue.”

“All men will revere me. I’ve bragged of much wealth,
  They’ll want to be near me, a stud in such health.”

And yet as he sat there, it stuck in his craw,
  Past vote counters failed him, they’d followed the law!

The more the Fraud sat there, the more he went bullshit.
  To make sure he won, he’d be needing to pull shit.

“I’ll mount a campaign, I’ll rally the masses.
  I’ll help them to see only I’ll save their asses”

“They’ll think it’s well-meant, say my threats are just kidding.
  But I’ll not relent ’til the world does my bidding.”

“At first I’ll just fraud about doubts that I’ve had.
  If that doesn’t work, I’ll allege ‘migrant chad.’ ”

“Whatever I say, my base will refraud me.
  At the end of the day, they’re just waiting to laud me.”

“I’ll fuss about taxes, I’ll make it sound bad.
  That it’s just about me they won’t see if they’re mad.”

“I’ll make some pronouncements that seem quite attractive
  But each of them will be, of course, quite extractive.”

“I’ll wheel and I’ll deal, they’ll be totally smitten,
  They’ll feel it for real by the time they get bitten.

He had a quick thought, which was all he could muster.
  He wasn't coherent, so padded with bluster.

But with bitterness honed on a long ago day,
  ’twasn’t long ’til he moaned, “I must make them all pay!”

So the Fraud thought his thought, and approved his own trick.
  A quick, slick, sick pick that was sure to off-tick.

He’d post infinite frauds, for his base, so expecting.
  They’d be riddled with lies, far too dense for rejecting.

And yet, like a train, in his Fraudulent brain
  came a painful refrain he could hardly restrain.

“What if my posts get some judge’s attention?
  They’re nudgy with me, I might get detention.”

The voice rambled on and he started to curse.
  Like most of his thoughts, it was more than one verse.

This thought made the Fraudster both itchy and twitchy.
  He needed some safety if things got too glitchy.

So again the Fraud brain did what only it could
  It began thinking fraudulence only it would.

Soon the Fraud made another plan, quick as could be.
  “I’ll sue any district not promised to me!”

“I’ll question their methods and forms of ID
  I’ll cry if they fix it, ‘It’s unfair to me!’”

Pennsylvania and Georgia, said the Fraud analytical...
  And if they sue back, I’ll say it’s political.

“To seal the deal fully, it’s time they all learn
  I can call on some bullies, and tables will turn.”

“But still it could fail,” thought the Fraud with no thrill,
  “Even that,” he then brightened, “is grist for my mill.”

“To cover a failure I must have a fallback.
  I’ll file more lawsuits and ask for a callback.”

“‘Elections can’t have a replay,’ they’ll say.
  They’ll throw it to Congress, where my guys hold sway.”

With his plan seeming ripe, the Fraud started to type
  And he typed and he typed ... and he typed hype-type type.

But then as he typed, he stopped with a hissing.
  “Even though perfect, some detail was missing.”

“I’m in need of a scandal.”
    The Fraud looked around.
  Though their scandals were scarce, …
    maybe … some … could be ‘found.’

He reached out to helpers, phoned ‘fellas’ he knew.
  “Saying just a few ... thousand ... will easily do,”

“We can’t conjure votes,” they said with a shock.
  They never imagined they’d have such a talk.

The fraud seemed impatient, and primped his thin ‘hair.’
  “Not votes, I need scandals, then all will be fair!”

Real billionaires joined, and they funded each fake,
  they knew at the end there were jackpots at stake.

In search of more dirt, the Fraud urgently browsed.
  Just kidding. His mob did. As he mostly drowsed.

Soon tidbits were offered that he could enfraud,
  And they sent him their bills, which he’d hastily wad.

He frauded out why, and he frauded out wherefore.
  He pressed REFRAUD for all, shrugging, “that’s what it’s there for.”

He posted it all. He posted it twice.
  Then he posted some more. And he posted that thrice.

“I’ll show the whole world there’s conspiracy brewing,
  They’ll stick to their stories but I’ll see their doing.”

The Fraud posted and pasted, he pasted and posted,
  Whatever they answered, he always out-mosted.

He pasted and wasted and always lambasted,
  The Fraud was dead set to see victory tasted.

He made some big lies, from whole cloth. They spread.
  And deep-faked some horns on his enemy’s head.

He frauded as Guests, sometimes Red, sometimes Blue,
  and told all who’d listen the rumors were true.

A batallion of bots was unleashed ’round the world,
  They amplified stories and insults were hurled.

He spammed, and he slammed, and he made people stammer.
  “Put the Fraud in a slammer,” a few dared to yammer.

Charges were leveled with harrowing proof,
  But the Fraud called on lawyers who kept him aloof.

Some laws were invoked that had long lacked a use,
  But he argued that singling him out was abuse.

And the public agreed with a sort of a groan
  “A law isn’t fair once a need has been shown.”

A piece at a time, all shame was erased.
  Morality fell and was crudely replaced.

Then pretense was made for the High Court to enter.
  They’d bided their time ’til they came front and center.

They made up some lies about founders’ intent,
  They’d never admit just how much they’d been bent.

Not trusting the Congress, they called it themselves
  An outcome so gifty, ’twas worthy of elves.

They said they avoided a violent coup.
  Too bad they relinquished democracy, too.

Day One saw the Fraud in his dictator best,
  But soon Twenty-Five was put to the test.

They tossed him from office that very same day,
  And courts set to work at lifting each stay.

Back at the White House there'd be quite a scramble,
  The public was shocked they'd received no preamble.

The Snake who stepped up, no one’d looked at too seriously
  It was quite a surprise when he acted imperiously.

Most thought at this point, things would go back to norm.
  But really this only began the real storm.

He’d planned a big Project and started with zeal
  What only his patrons had thought would be real.

This wasn’t a Seuss tale, so ended up ugly.
  It’s hard to imagine a world quite so thugly.

For the rest of the tale, read Atwood’s banned book
  It shows the dark path society took.

The Fraud and the Snake hadn’t stopped crime at all.
  They’d only made Freedom first tumble, then fall.

It turned out the things that the Fraud had foretold,
  Were lies propagated so merchandise sold.

People learned a hard lesson, and cried boo hoo hoo.
  But nothing they tried could build Freedom anew.

And still to this day, those poor souls, so impacted,
  wonder what would be different if only they’d acted.

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Copyright © 2024 Kent M Pitman. All Rights Reserved.

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Vance Notice

It's in the news that Trump is “exhausted,” and that's supposedly why he's been canceling appearances.

Maybe.

There's a lot of attention paid to him seeming to nod off. But, you know, he's been doing that all along. and it's never been portrayed by him or his team as exhaustion. What is happening more often are incoherent rambles, which some of the media has tried to paper over. And that has led to accusations of “sanewashing.”

Numerous stories have suggested that his aids are hiding him. Such a story in The Wrap quotes political commentator Tara Setmayer from an appearance on MSNBC's The ReidOut as saying, “The more he’s out there, the more people are repelled by him, and his advisers are smart enough to know that.”

The Mental Decline Scenario

Let's consider, just for a moment, the mental decline hypothesis. We have two reasons to take this seriously. One is that he accused Biden of it, and he's long been accused of projection. But the other is that there's a lot of evidence that his campaign rallies are getting weirder and weirder, to the point where Harris is straight out suggesting that people watch or attend her opponent's rallies, just to see it for themselves.

Consider, for example, the recent town hall that he turned into a “musical fest” playing his Spotify favorites list after declaring “Let's not do any more questions, let's just listen to music. … Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?“ Yeah, at a town hall. Why would anyone expect questions there? Surely they just came to hear Pavarotti sing Ave Maria.

It probably won't surprise anyone that some artists have threatened legal action over the unauthorized use of their music. No, I didn't think so.

People, including medical experts, have credibly accused him of mental decline, not just because of this event, but for other reasons as well.

Around the same time as this musical incident, a story ran on CBS News saying that “More than 230 doctors, nurses and health care professionals, most of whom are backing Vice President Kamala Harris, are calling on former President Donald Trump to release his medical records, arguing that he should be transparent about his health ’given his advancing age.’” Of course, some will point to these being Harris supporters. But if you were a doctor alarmed about the mental health of one of the candidates, would you be still voting for him? So it's not clear that this statistic disqualifies those people. And it's not helpful that there isn't transparency of his medical records, which we've asked of other candidates and Presidents.

Prison Looms

But Trump is pending sentencing on the hush money case. And there are several other trials pending as well. It doesn't reliably work his favor to drop out of his candicacy. And it really doesn't help Vance either, because the GOP made the argument that if Biden dropped out, that invalidated the ticket. They suggested Kamala had never won a Presidential primary. Vance has never won a Presidential primary either. Both have been Senators. But Kamala has been on a winning ticket in the general election, and Vance has not. Would that sway GOP voters? Maybe not. OK, almost certainly not. But it's a bad look. It might influence some independents.

It's pretty clear that Trump's path to steering clear of jail is to get elected, turn the US into a dicatorship, and cancel anything that looks like a prosecution. And it's pretty clear that anyone else claiming to be a GOP leader is really just a sycophant. They want the power of a Republican presidency at all costs, and this is as close to “all costs” as one could really imagine. It may cost us the survival of democracy, and perhaps the survival of the human species on planet earth. But they want power that badly, so they're on board with what they hope is the Trump juggernaut.

After Election

If elected, he might serve 4 years and then gracefully step down. The Constitution would not permit him to run again. What are the chances he wouldn't try to overcome that?

He might live that long, but he's old enough that he could die of poor health during that time. I wouldn't bet money on it, but I also wouldn't bet money against it. Who ever knows?

But is he mentally agile enough to lead for four years? Again, we don't have the advice of a doctor who's examined him to really say. Though we do have reason to think we might never get the full story .

Reporters often mention that, behind the scenes, Republicans don't like or respect Trump. It seeems they just won't go on the record about it. Mitt Romney comments on this in his book. In a recent biography of Mitch McConnell, the book's author says the same of McConnell. The common theme seems to be that they recognize Trump as their ticket to power.

A Second Trump Presidency

It's no secret I'm hoping sanity prevails and that Harris is elected. But let's consider the case that Trump is.

Do the Republicans still need him? My guess is that even they would see strong grounds to remove him, sooner or later. Probably sooner, given that he toys with the idea of dispensing with the Constitution. After all, both the Impeachment Power and the 25th Amendment need the Constitution to still be in play.

I'm guessing you worry I'm exaggerating, but Newsweek fact-checked one such claim in 2023 and found Trump had indeed called to suspend the Constitution. Moreover, there is his claim that he wouldn't be a dicator “except for day one.”

Here's the thing, though. There is no procedure for becoming a temporary dictator. If he can pronounce himself a dictator on Day One, and get away with it, he can do it any day. At that point we'd just be relying on him to use self-control on all other days. Is that really something we can expect of him?

So let's take a moment to assess where we are, shall we? It's day one. The President wants to be a dicator. The same guy whose staff didn't think they could show him in public during the end of the election for fear people would see he was, perhaps, faltering mentally. At this point, the Constitution has a 25th Amendment. But he's planning strong-arm tactics to make the Constitution less effective. Republicans want to have power, but is that even meaningful in what's to come in this scenario? A few may imagine they'll have posts in a coming dictatorship, but I think most haven't thought that far ahead. The power most of them seek still relies on the Constitution.

After Trump's Presidency

But whether on Day One or some day soon after, I think its sufficiently possible that the 25th will get used that we dare not overlook that fact in considering the political consequences of this election.

In plain terms, the ordinarily-rare issue that a Vice President might take over seem unusually possible.

In even plainer terms, we had better be seriously contemplating the significance of a President Vance.

For example, if Vance becomes Acting or Actual President, would the world return to normal? I think not. I think it will just trade one source of dangers for another.

If you're thinking otherwise, perhaps you have missed a recent episode of The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) on MSNBC. Lately she's only doing it Monday nights, but it's really essential viewing. Set your DVR. In this case, I'm referring to an episode where she said this of JD Vance (and offered video to back up her claims):

«JD Vance says not only do conservatives need to, in his words, “wake up” but what they need to wake up to is the fact that most of American life and culture should be, in his words, “ripped out like a tumor.”»
  —Rachel Maddow on The Rachel Maddow Show (Sep 30, 2024)

Maddow goes on to say:

«When JD Vance says stuff like “we're in a late Republican period,” which is something he says all the time, he doesn't mean anything about the Republican Party, he means we're at the time right before the Roman Republic collapsed. And what happened after the Roman Republic collapsed? Well—whoo!—a dictator, Caesar, came in—and wasn't that better?»
  —Rachel Maddow on The Rachel Maddow Show (Sep 30, 2024)

The piece makes a decent case that he's not only comfortable with, but excited about, the idea of America having a dictator. Watch it in its entirety. Outtakes here cannot do it justice. It's well-researched and compellingly told. Typical Maddow.

There's so much more to be said from here, but I'll only sketch it. Project 2025, for example. It's a product of the Heritage Foundation, and Vance has in some forums tried to distance itself from it, as has Trump, but as Simon J. Levien, a political report for The New York Times, writes in an article titled What to Know About JD Vance and Project 2025:

«Mr. Vance … has connections to Project 2025 and its authors. Vance wrote the foreword for a book by Kevin Roberts, who oversaw Project 2025. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon,” Mr. Vance wrote in the foreword for “Dawn’s Early Light,” a forthcoming book by Kevin D. Roberts, the leader of the Heritage Foundation and the man who oversaw Project 2025. The book was set for publication in September, but after Project 2025 drew national scrutiny, that was postponed until after Election Day.»

The ACLU also offers a summary of Project 2025's dangers. And the Center for American Progress (CAP) offers a useful comparison with how other dictatorships have taken hold.

It may also be worth a look at Timothy Snyder's book On Tyranny.

This long nightmare has seemed to be about Trump. With him lately ailing, maybe you thought it was over. But if Vance takes over, and that seems likely if the election goes “Trump's way,” this could just be the start of something even worse.

My point here is that you can't say you didn't know.
You've been given Vance notice.

 

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Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

If you'd like to read or listen to this warning in Seuss-style poetry form, check out my recent epic poem The Fraud Who Stole Freedom.

You might also like these recent posts by me:

• Political Terraforming
• A to-do list for repairing US democracy
• American Dictatorship
• The Pace of Political Evil

Also, although I count myself a political independent, not a Democrat, while democracy is hanging in the balance, I'm voting all-blue. If you're a US Citizen able to vote, I'm recommending the same for you. Please not sit it out. Please do not vote for a third party. Such actions leave the outcome to chance, which could have dire consequences this time around. This is not a normal election.

For the sake of Democracy,
please vote Democrat in 2024.

The graphic of Vance with the 25th Amendment in the background was created by me using a screenshot of text of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution that I typeset in LibreOffice with a mix of Papyrus and Goudy Old Style fonts, then overlaid with the public domain photo of Vance from Wikipedia, and blended with layer effects using Gimp.

American Dictatorship

In a “commentary” piece in Salon titled A candidate, not a president: Jack Smith crafts a simple solution to Supreme Court Jan. 6 roadblock, Norman Eisen and Joyce Vance wrote:

«The Supreme Court’s late-term decision recognizing a dangerously expansive immunity from criminal prosecution for former presidents effectively cut off any chance of the original indictment in the January 6 case against former President Donald J. Trump going forward.»

The article goes on to talk about what Jack Smith has done to salvage the case. Good for him. It shouldn't be necessary to work under the preposterous constraints recently imposed by the Supreme Court, but I'm glad he's up to the challenge. And that's the immediate concern, so it makes sense that Eisen and Vance would focus commentary on something so topical.

But I want to draw back and reshape this same set of observations to highlight a few other things that have been bugging me as the rest of this immediate drama runs its course.

Biden Explains the problem

After the immunity ruling, Biden made a bold statement:

“This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each — each of us is equal before the law. No one — no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.

With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all — for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.

This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”

Wrapping our heads around the problem

Sometimes when there are big statements made (like that a President has “no limits” or is “above the law”), it's hard to see the practical reality that is lost inside. I notice this when trying to excite people about the urgency of Climate Change, as well. Sometimes, instead of saying the world might end, one needs to say that there will be no more Christmas vacations, orchids, poetry, or reruns of Groundhog Day. Something more personal. Because the vast scope of “anything” or “everything” is just too hard for the brain to wrap itself around.

I'll tie this all together in a moment, but first one more quote.

The aforementioned commentary by Norm Eisen and Joyce Vance also mentioned this:

«As a result, Trump’s attempts to weaponize the Department of Justice to his own private ends are no longer part of the case. Gone is the allegation that he pressured the Department to release a letter falsely claiming that the election was marred by outcome-determinative fraud. Gone is the allegation that he sought to use the Department to press state officials to certify his electors, rather than those of President Joe Biden. And gone is the allegation that he attempted to install his now-excised co-conspirator, Jeffery Clark, as the Acting Attorney General to implement his scheme when other officials resisted.»

So, yes, as Biden noted, Presidents will be above the law. But as the reduced indictment implies, included in the President's broad immunity, which SCOTUS has made up out of nowhere, are the following truths:

• It isn't a crime, just a routine day at work, when the President perpetrates a fraud on citizens of the US, or solicits those who work for him (including DOJ) to do so.
• It isn't a crime, just a routine day at work, when the President meddles in state or national elections.
• It isn't a crime, just a routine day at work, for the President to solicit state officials to do his bidding in ways that would be illegal for others.
• It isn't a crime, just a routine day at work, when the President organizes conspiracies against the United States government, in violation of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Smith is doing what he must do in order to get this past a corrupt Supreme Court. But what they are asking him to accept as a premise is just utterly preposterous. The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

Forget the fact that we're talking about crimes that probably happened. Forget that it's Trump. Just ask yourself: If you were designing a nation, would these be intended consequences of your design? Can you even imagine our founders intended this? Keep in mind that these are the people that brought us the Declaration of Independence, which said, among other things:

“… The history of the present King … is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. …
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. …
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone …
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation…”

Independent of the prosecution of Donald Trump, independent of the sweeping nature of presidential immunity, these specific truths that we already know from the mere fact that Jack Smith felt it necessary to remove them from the indictment, and which are only the tip of a very ugly iceberg, are not suggesting a positive direction for our nation's future. I would like to live in a country where Jack Smith did not have to fear prosecuting such things would be cruelly laughed out of Court.

We must drive stakes in the ground to keep the Overton window from moving.

Dictatorship vs democracy

Democracies have a lot of problems. The back and forth of democratic decision-making can be messy, processes run slowly, and outcomes are not always pretty. Democracies are said to offer the best of worst case outcomes, not the best of the best. For example, they are supposed to resist capture by a single individual. They are supposed to have checks against becoming dictatorships.

And, let's be honest, a benevolent dictatorship might sound better. Someone who knows good things need to be done and can do them efficiently. But the problem is that there is no such realizable system as a reliably benevolent dictatorship. Even if it started out that way, it would risk in every moment becoming malevolent. And if that happened, and it would, there would be no protection.

So, as Churchill is often quoted as saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

But at the same time, Jefferson wasn't wrong in saying, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

We've been too trusting in the US for too long and have allowed, little by little, for various changes that have weakened our democracy's safeguards. We have seen them burrowing in at democracy's weakest points, and instead of responding aggressively by filling observed gaps, we have let them drive a wedge.

So, at this point we find ourselves preparing for an election that many have described as having placed democracy itself on the ballot, because Donald Trump has promised that if elected, he will be a dictator. Just for a day, he says, but not everyone is Joe Biden. The history of power is that people do not step back from it easily. If Trump achieves any approximation of dictatorship, expect him to decide he likes it and wants to keep it that way. And the Supreme Court seems poised to back that.

After all, he seems to think he can be a dictator on day one if he wants. But the Supreme Court has not said anything that distinguishes any day from any other. If he has the power to be a dictator by his own choice on day 1, he has the power to be dictator by his own choice on any day. The Supreme Court seems to have made that pretty clear. That he's hinting only about a single day has no predictive value. His promises are worth nothing. He changes like the wind. The only consistency he has is his narcissism.

Meta-dictatorship

But, wait a minute, why does the Supreme Court get to decide these things?

Well, that's just their role and always has been. They are charged with making decisions that are true to the Constitution, but who polices that? They do. Or they don't. But, either way, no one else can tell them they're wrong.

Pardon the use of technically precise language here, but they just say shit, and it becomes true, stink and all.

They don't exactly make law, but they tell lawmakers what laws are OK to make. They don't exactly enforce law, but they tell enforcers which laws may be enforced. That's a lot of power. Too much.

They are, effectively, a team of meta-dictators. That's kind of always been there, just waiting to rear its ugly head.

A President is suddenly a king. How? That wasn't previously true. The Supreme Court says so. So we believe it. They claim the power to say that someone is a dictator, above the law and immune to question. How do you do that if you're not already a dictator yourself?

So why are we talking about a future world that only might have a dictator after the election. The problem is real, and here, and now. We have a team of dictators already—a weirdly constituted team that has a minority voice that's like an ignored conscience, unable to have an effect but still able to speak out, alerting us to danger. In spite of that, collectively, they are dictators.

Nothing has recently changed about the power of the Supreme Court other than its composition. It has been a potential dictatorial mob for a while, just awaiting two things to align:

• the right composition, to take advantage of the power that was there.
• the death of shame, so they won't be embarrassed doing it.

Now that those conditions are met, the Supreme Court's danger, a danger that has been there all along, is starkly visible.

In a sense, the story of the US Supreme Court is the story of a dictatorship that started out benevolent and decayed before our eyes, just as I was saying one should expect from any such attempt. As soon as we get the chance, we need to correct its structure so that it has much stronger protections. In the past, our various Congresses and Presidents have seen the Supreme Court's design as something sacred, that works well, not realizing they were simply relying on luck. Democracy must be built upon firmer stuff. It needs solid checks against corruption. Nothing less will suffice.

Leave it to the United States of Capitalism to bring on dictatorship fashioned in its own image, as a board of directors, not quite dictating directly, but freely controlling who is allowed to be the country's CEO and under what parameters they are permitted to operate. It's a bad look. But it's what money has bought.

 

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Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

For the flag logo, I tried to generate an image at Abacus.ai using various models and Dall-E or Flux.1, but all of them made a complete mess of simple instructions, so finally I asked just "make a simple black and white logo in the style of a clenched fist. make sure the fist has 4 fingers and a thumb" (because many times it gives too few fingers), and I had to edit it onto the flag myself, using a public domain image of a flag downloaded from publicdomainpictures.net.

Edit: The penultimate paragraph in the main article above, beginning “In a sense, the story of the US Supreme Court…” had been intended originally but ended up lost due to editing. It was added back the day after initial publication when its absence was noted.