Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appeared on the 05/22/24 edition of MSNBC’s All In w/Chris Hayes show, where she dropped a bombshell by calling for a U.S. Senate probe into the affairs of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Rep AOC’s call for an investigation is of course related to recent news reports that say a flag known to be sympathetic to the January 6th insurrection, was spotted flying at Justice Alito’s residence.
Asked by host Chris Hayes what she thought about the Alito news reports, Rep AOC replied(2:22): “I don’t even think that we have to wait until we have a Democratic House majority, because we have a Democratic Senate majority. This is an alarm that I have been sounding for quite some time now. I think that what we’re seeing here, is an extraordinary breach of not just the trust and the stature of the Supreme Court, but we’re seeing a fundamental challenge to our democracy. [Justice] Samuel Alito has identified himself with the same people who raided the Capitol on January 6th, and is now going to be presiding over court cases that have deep implications over the participants of that rally.”
Rep AOC went on to add that Democrats cannot just keep on sitting on power after getting elected. They actually have to use the power that voters bestow upon them, to start addressing this runaway Supreme Court, and other burning voter concerns.
Rep AOC specifically told host Chris Hayes(3:13): “Democrats have a responsibility for defending our democracy, and in the Senate, we have gavels. There should be subpoenas going out, there should be active investigations that are happening, and I believe that when House Democrats take the majority, we are preparing and ensuring to support the broader effort to stand up our democracy…When Democrats have power, we have to use it. We cannot be in perpetual campaign mode. We need to be in governance mode, we need to be in accountability mode, with every lever that we have…”
As you know, Yours Truly has for a long time lamented weakness by congressional Dems. It was therefore quite refreshing to see Rep AOC calling it out too.
#BREAKING: NBC's Sahil Kapur: "#Feinstein has been out for about TWO MONTHS, that means ALL of President Biden's judicial nominees that lack Republican support CANNOT move, CANNOT get out of committee…" 🤦‍♀️
The U.S. Senate voted Saturday February 13th, to acquit former President Donald J. Trump of inciting the January 6th 2021 insurrection in Washington DC, which led to five deaths, including two Capitol police officers, and an interruption of a live joint session of Congress. The incident, which mostly played out on live TV, will forever remain one of the lowest points of American democracy because it shattered one of the globally revered cornerstones of American democracy–that regardless of who wins the election, one could always bet on a peaceful transfer of power.
While generally acknowledging that former President Trump did indeed incite the violent mob that descended upon the Capitol building as alleged in his House impeachment, 43 Republican Senators still voted to acquit him, hiding behind the jurisdictional argument that because Trump was no longer in office, the U.S. Senate had no jurisdiction over his trial. In other words, they acquitted Trump because they argued that because he had already left office, his entire Senate trial was unconstitutional–a very shaky legal argument.
It bears pointing out that Trump’s impeachment by the House for inciting DC insurrection happened on January 13 2021, while he was still in office. The House sent the impeachment papers a few days later to the U.S. Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. There was enough time for the Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to commence a Senate trial while Trump was still in office. Instead, McConnell made sure there would be no Senate trial until after Trump’s term expired on Jan 20, 2021. So it’s quite disingenuous and insulting for Senator McConnell and his fellow Republicans who voted to acquit Trump, to now turn around and hide behind a jurisdictional loophole that they manufactured. The fact of the matter remains that Senate Republicans knew full well that Trump’s incitement of the DC riots was an impeachable offense, so they created the jurisdictional loophole they could hide behind, as they carried out their goal from the beginning–acquit Trump at all costs.
After the Senate vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement which correctly summed up the decision by Republican Senators to acquit Trump:“Today an overwhelming bipartisan vote to convict Donald Trump speaks to the courage of the United States Senate. I salute the Republican Senators who voted their conscience and for our Country. Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history.”
Because we totally agree with Speaker Pelosi that the decision by these 43 GOP Senators to acquit Trump of inciting DC insurrection “will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history“, we have to do our traditional name and shame for the sake of future generations. When our children and grandchildren read in History textbooks, that a group of U.S. Senators decided to acquit a U.S. President, even after he incited an insurrection which led to a mob storming the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead, it is only fair that they also see the names and faces of the shameful U.S. Senators behind such a horrendous decision. Here’s a handy list of the 43 shameful GOP Senators.
Bottom line folks, as horrible as Trump’s acquittal verdict was to people who love democracy worldwide, there may be a silver lining where Democrats are concerned. Yours Truly has repeatedly stated that the increasing radicalization of the Republican party could provide an opening for Democrats to go after corporations that traditionally sponsor the GOP. A healthy two-party system is good for American democracy, but given everything we’ve witnessed so far with the GOP under Trump, it is debatable whether the GOP is even a political party anymore. This was true even before DC insurrection, but now it is totally impossible to ignore the issue. The radicalization within the GOP under Trump has gotten so bad, that some establishment Republicans are already mulling branching away to form a reasonable “center-right” party. As we approach the 2022 elections, Democrats should seriously pressure corporations that traditionally donate to Republicans, by asking them to justify their continued funding of a party that has basically devolved into a Trump cult. Maybe, just maybe, guilt tripping major corporations into starving Trump’s GOP of major $$$, especially after DC insurrection, is the best way of slapping the Party of Lincoln back to normalcy.
For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.
You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com
Ever since Trump was elected U.S. President in November 2016, many Americans have wrestled with the question as to whether he is being unduly influenced by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The question of Russia’s influence over Trump grew into a crescendo prompting the launching of a formal investigation (Mueller probe) to look into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016.
Even though the official finding of the Mueller probe was that there was not enough evidence to prove that TeamTrump colluded with Russia, questions about Trump’s ties to Russia have persisted, partly because Mueller never completely shut that door. Remember, Mueller never concluded that TeamTrump never colluded with Russia. What he said was that he never collected enough evidence to prove it. One of the key witnesses he had relied on to prove his case, Paul Manafort, totally stonewalled his investigation.
Beyond Trump’s strange ties to Russia, a lot of Americans have also been confounded by the extreme measures congressional Republicans have taken and continue to take, all in an effort to shield President Trump from any congressional oversight. This has led a lot of people to validly speculate that congressional Republicans are privy to some wrongdoings (potentially criminal) by Trump, and have made a conscious decision to hide this from the public–which has given rise to this notion that Trump’s GOP is a criminal enterprise.
Yours Truly raised this very question way back in August 2018 in a blog post titled Proof That Congressional Republicans Have Become A Criminal Enterprise, a post which you probably summarily dismissed as “yet another conspiracy theory” pushed by “radical liberal @Emolclause.” The blog post was based on an August 27, 2018 piece by Jonathan Chait of the Intelligencer, which made the bombshell revelation that congressional Republicans had essentially sworn to shield from any oversight, a list of things they figured would be harmful to Trump’s presidency. Some of the items in GOP’s shield-at-all-costs list included surprise surprise, Trump’s tax returns, Trump’s family business, White house clearances, and shockingly, issues dealing with election security/Russians hacking our elections.
Any reasonable person reading this bombshell Intelligencer piece would have concluded as Yours Truly did, that congressional Republicans had not only become a criminal enterprise, but that they were certainly not working in the interests of the American people.
A lot has transpired since August 2018 and what many of you summarily dismissed as “wild conspiracy theories by radical @Emolclause” is now playing out right in front of our very eyes. It has become impossible to continue assuming that congressional Republicans are just naively defending Trump. Many are now starting to to state publicly that Trump’s GOP has indeed become a criminal enterprise.
There are many reasons as to why people have become more comfortable in publicly calling Trump’s GOP a criminal enterprise but the best reason by far is the shocking conduct we witnessed during the recent impeachment hearings, when Republican members of congress, in an effort to defend Trump, kept repeating a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by Russian intelligence officials, that it was Ukraine who interfered with our 2016 elections. This shocking behavior by congressional Republicans drew sharp rebuke from Trump’s former adviser on Russia, Dr Fiona Hill, who castigated them to their faces, telling them they were doing Putin’s work.
Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris(CA) is no longer biting her tongue either regarding this topic and recently called Republicans a “criminal enterprise” on CBS’ Steven Colbert show, an assertion she gladly repeated on her Twitter account.
We are witnessing a criminal enterprise involving all the President’s men. I encourage my Republican colleagues to put country over party. Our democracy deserves justice. pic.twitter.com/2W8WyR4zPV
For the record, neither the Intelligencer nor Yours Truly were the first to start labelling Trump’s GOP a criminal enterprise. Shining lights like Author Sarah Kendzior were already warning about this right after Trump won the election–an assertion many in the mainstream media dismissed. Just today the aforementioned Sarah Kendzior stopped by MSNBC’s AMJoy show where she dropped this bombshell totally in keeping with her previous warnings.
Bottom line folks, we cannot keep kicking the can down the road over the very serious queston as to whether sitting Republican members of congress are engaged in some kind of criminal conspiracy with a hostile foreign power(Russia). There’s enough smoke at this juncture for Democrats and indeed the mainstream media to start publicly asking the question Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently posed to President Trump and that is, why all Trump’s/GOP’s roads seem to lead to Russia, and more importantly, what is so rotten with their Russia dealings that they are terrified of the public finding out?
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