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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
March 8, 2023
Heather Cox Richardson
Andrew Restuccia, Richard Rubin, and Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal today published a preview of President Joe Biden’s budget, due to be released tomorrow. Their article’s beginning sent an important message. Biden’s budget plan, they wrote, will “save hundreds of billions of dollars by seeking to lower drug prices, raising some business taxes, cracking down on fraud and cutting spending he sees as wasteful, according to White House officials.” Those officials said that, over the next ten years, the plan would cut deficits by close to $3 trillion. Reflecting the needs of Ukraine to fight off the 2022 Russian invasion, as well as tensions with China, Biden will call for a larger defense budget. As he outlined yesterday, part of the budget plan will fund the Medicare trust fund for at least another 25 years, in part by increasing tax rates on people earning more than $400,000 a year. “That is not going to happen. Obviously he knows that,” Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) told the Wall Street Journal reporters. “Republicans are not going to sign up for raising taxes.” Without a budget plan of their own to offer, House Republicans appear to be trying to steal the president’s thunder. They told Tony Romm of the Washington Post that they are getting ready for the House Ways and Means Committee to begin consideration tomorrow of a bill to prioritize the national debt in preparation for a national default. House Republicans continue to insist they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling to pay for expenses already incurred—many of them under Trump—thus forcing the U.S. into default for the first time in our history. They are suggesting they could rank the debts in order of importance, but as Brian Riedl, an economist at the Manhattan Institute, told Romm, the computer systems were written with the assumption the country would, in fact, pay its debts, and they do not have programs that would let them prioritize payments to one group or another. In any case, the White House has refused to negotiate over paying the nation’s bills. It remains eager to discuss the budget with Republicans and to negotiate over it—which is how the process is supposed to proceed—but insists the Republicans cannot hold the nation hostage by threatening a default that would spark an international financial crisis and destroy the American economy. Indeed, the willingness of the Republican Party to default on the country’s debt shows how thoroughly radicalized it has become. Even the Republican leaders who do not embrace the racism, sexism, religiosity, nihilism, and authoritarianism of the hard-core MAGA Republicans appear to believe they cannot win an election without the votes of those people. And so the extremists now own the party. They continue to support former president Trump, who at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend promised “those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” The party is now one of grievance and revenge, feeding on their false conviction that Trump won the 2020 election. The Fox News Channel was key in feeding that Big Lie, of course, and filings from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the Fox News Network have revealed that Fox executives and hosts alike knew it was a lie. They continued to spread it because they didn’t want to lose their base. On Monday, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson, who has found himself badly exposed by the Dominion filings, threw himself back into the Trump camp. He showed a false version of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, suggesting it was a mostly peaceful tourist visit rather than the deadly riot it actually was. Carlson’s false narrative was possible because House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gave Carlson exclusive access to more than 40,000 hours of video taken in the Capitol on that fateful January 6, illustrating that there is no daylight between the lies of the Fox News Channel and the House Republican leadership. Outrage over that transaction has sparked a backlash. Former officer of the Metropolitan Police Michael Fanone, who was badly injured defending the Capitol on January 6, published an op-ed at CNN saying he knew for certain that Carlson’s version of that day was a lie. “I was there. I saw it. I lived it,” Fanone wrote. “I fought alongside my brother and sister officers to defend the Capitol. We have the scars and injuries to prove it.” Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) tweeted that if the House Republicans want new January 6th hearings, “bring it on. Let’s replay every witness & all the evidence from last year. But this time, those members who sought pardons and/or hid from subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence.” Senate Republicans also spoke out against Carlson’s lies. Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) aligned himself with Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, who called Carlson’s piece “offensive.” McConnell said: “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.” Democrats, along with the White House, also condemned Carlson’s video. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the White House supported the Capitol Police and lawmakers from both parties who condemned “this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law—which cost police officers their lives.” Bates went on: “We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: That Tucker Carlson is not credible.” But McCarthy says he does not regret giving Carlson access to the tapes, and Carlson indicated that anyone who objected to the false narrative he put forward on Monday had revealed themselves as being allied against the Republican base. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) are organizing a visit for members of Congress to visit the jail where defendants charged with crimes relating to the January 6th riot are behind held. In the past, Greene called those defendants “political prisoners of war.” Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It warned that transnational “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists” (RMVEs) continue to pose a threat more lethal to U.S. persons and interests than do Islamist terrorists. RMVEs are “largely a decentralized movement of adherents to an ideology that espouses the use of violence to advance white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and other exclusionary cultural-nationalist beliefs. These actors increasingly seek to sow social divisions, support fascist-style governments, and attack government institutions,” the report said. They “capitalize on societal and political hyperpolarization to…mainstream their narratives and conspiracy theories into the public discourse.” They are recruiting “military members” to “help them organize cells for attacks against minorities or institutions that oppose their ideology.” Finally, John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News reported that 81-year-old Senator Mitch McConnell fell at an event at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., tonight and has been hospitalized.
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
A power-crazed president. A coup plot centered around an armed group taking over the meeting place of the country’s law makers.
No, I’m not talking about Trump and the terrorists who invaded the US Capitol in January of 2021.
Events in two other countries reminded us on Wednesday that we constantly need to stand on guard for democracy.
First to Peru. 🇵🇪
Peru president removed from office and charged with 'rebellion' after alleged coup attempt
Peru’s president, Pedro Castillo, has been removed from office and detained on charges of “rebellion” after he announced he would shutter congress and install a “government of exception” – just hours before he was due to face an impeachment vote.
[ ... ]
In a televised speech, Castillo said he would temporarily shut down congress, launch a “government of exception” to rule by decree and called for new legislative elections.
The move immediately prompted mass resignations from the cabinet, and accusations that Castillo had attempted to seize power illegally.
“I strongly condemn this coup d’état and call on the international community to assist in the democratic re-establishment of democracy in Peru,” tweeted the foreign minister, César Landa, as he announced his resignation. “Castillo took this decision without my knowledge or support.”
Castillo’s bid to avoid an impeachment vote swiftly turned into an own goal as the armed forces and the police withdrew their support, saying, in a joint statement, that Castillo’s move was “contrary to the established constitutional order”.
Meanwhile, Peru’s constitutional court called Castillo’s decision to dissolve congress “a coup” and said the leader was no longer in charge of the country.
[ ... ]
Castillo became president winning by the narrowest of margins in June 2021, shaking up the country’s entrenched class system.
[ ... ]
But the novice president made numerous blunders, appointing barely qualified ministers and accumulating allegations of corruption and influence trafficking linked to his family and allies, which were investigated by the public prosecutor’s office.
[ ... ]
The public prosecutor’s office confirmed late on Wednesday that Castillo had been arrested and charged with allegedly “breaching constitutional order”, after he was accused of an attempted coup and seen fleeing the presidential palace.
Earlier in the day, the country’s national police tweeted that “former president” Pedro Castillo had been detained, shortly after congress voted to remove him.
And meanwhile in Germany. 🇩🇪
'Glimpse Into the Abyss': Germany Takes Out Far-Right Coup Plotters
German police carried out massive raids on Wednesday on a suspected far-right terrorist network which was allegedly plotting to violently overthrow the government.
The network was headed by a minor aristocrat and contained special forces soldiers and a former MP.
Germany’s public service-run Tagesschau reported that with 3,000 police officers targeting 130 locations, the raids were probably the biggest anti-terror operation in modern German history.
The network belonged to the radical Reichsbürger (“Reich citizens”) scene – followers of a distinctly German strand of sovereign citizen ideology, who believe the modern German state is illegitimate, and controlled by a shadowy “deep state.”
Prosecutors said the group believed in a mix of conspiracy ideologies including QAnon, and had even tried to establish contacts with representatives of Russia, who they delusionally believed would help them achieve their goals.
[ ... ]
The morning raids targeted 130 locations across 11 German states. Twenty-five suspects were arrested, including one in Austria and another in Italy, with 22 accused of being members of the alleged terror network, and three others of having acted as supporters. All but one of the arrested suspects were German nationals, bar one Russian national, referred by prosecutors only as Vitalia B, in line with German privacy laws, who is alleged to have helped the network’s attempts to establish contacts with Russia.
[ ... ]
“This isn’t just one of the biggest raids against the far right in Germany in years, it’s actually the largest anti-terror raid ever here,” said Nicholas Potter, an expert on right-wing extremism at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a Berlin-based anti-racism organisation..
[ ... ]
“Their plans were very concrete: they wanted to attack the energy grid, storm the Bundestag, establish a ‘new state order’ with their own ‘shadow cabinet’ in waiting, and try state prosecutors and judges at a trial they call Nuremberg 2.0. They wanted civil war. And they allegedly wanted it before Christmas. This is terrorism.”
So in Peru, Pedro Castillo was removed from office and arrested on the same day he tried to shut down Peru’s Congress. That’s what should have happened here on January 6th. Just as Castillo had desired to “rule by decree” Trump has since talked about terminating the US Constitution.
In Germany, an armed far right group with connections to QAnon (and perhaps Russia) was plotting to storm the Bundestag and seize control of the government. That plot is an echo of what happened at the US Capitol. There are still armed extremist groups in the US who are prepared to use force to forward their agenda.
Regardless of country, the real conflict in the world these days is between democracy and tyranny. Those of us who prefer democracy cannot afford to become distracted by minor internal divisions.
Speaker Marjorie Taylor Greene :: March 9, 2023
Robert B. Hubbell
On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene served as the Speaker pro tempore of the US House of Representatives. She sat in the Speaker’s chair as the Clerk of the House read the following proclamation:
“The Speaker’s Rooms, Washington, DC, March 8th, 2023. I hereby appoint the Honorable Marjorie Taylor Greene to act as Speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives.”
The reversal of fortunes for Rep. Greene is stunning. Just two years ago, Democrats refused to seat Greene on House committees because of her career-long peddling of antisemitic memes and bizarre conspiracy theories. Remember the theory that “Jewish space lasers” were responsible for the outbreak of wildfires in California in 2021?
That was only one of Greene’s outrageous comments. She questions the reality of mass shootings in schools, suggested that planes did not crash into the World Trade Center on 9/11, and promotes QANON beliefs based on the fictitious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that claims a cabal of Jews secretly runs the world. There is much more. See Forward, Every antisemitic thing Marjorie Taylor Greene has said.
It would be one thing to bestow a high honor on Greene if she had confessed error and issued a contrite apology for her multitude of offensive statements. Not so here. Just two weeks ago, she was promoting a “national divorce” between “red” states and “blue” states—something that sounds awfully like a “civil war.”
But no statement is too traitorous or offensive for Kevin McCarthy to say, “I haven’t seen / heard / read about that yet.” For example, when asked if he regretted giving Tucker Carlson access to the January 6th Capitol Hill surveillance tapes, McCarthy responded, 'I didn't see what was aired.' An understandable omission given that McCarthy must have taken refuge in a ferret burrow to avoid seeing the devastation wrought by the fire-sale auction of his scruples, dignity, and conscience to secure the Speaker’s chair.
But I digress. While Americans have every reason to be offended by the sight of an antisemitic proponent of a second civil war sitting in the Speaker’s chair, McCarthy’s soul-grinding debasement will come back to hurt the GOP in the next election cycle. McCarthy’s critics said (correctly) that Democrats would use the unedited video of Greene in the Speaker’s chair as a political attack ad. See The Independent,‘Beyond parody’: Outrage after Marjorie Taylor Greene briefly handed Speaker’s gavel by Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy’s humiliation and the GOP’s descent into Bizarro World are not limited to appointing a secessionist to preside over a legislative chamber that is a hallmark of our national unity. House Republicans began a series of hearings on Wednesday that are the anti-matter equivalent of investigations designed to learn the truth.
For example, a subcommittee investigating the events of January 6th is being led by the GOP Rep. Brian Loudermilk, who famously gave tours of the Capitol to “constituents” on January 5th who photographed stairwells and tunnels in the Capitol, locations not coveted as Instagram-selfie backdrops. Loudermilk says his committee will focus on “security failures” on January 6th.
Hmm. If there was a security failure on January 6th, it might be because domestic terrorists were armed with photos of stairwells and tunnels taken on January 5th during the tour given by Rep. Loudermilk—photos that allowed insurrectionists to quickly navigate to their intended locations in the Capitol.
What are the chances that Loudermilk will explore possible connections between the illegal reconnaissance performed by members of his tour group and the attack on the Capitol? Not good. See PBS Newshour, Jan. 6 panel releases video of Rep. Loudermilk leading a Capitol tour day before attack.
After Marjorie Taylor Greene gaveled the House to order on Wednesday, she made a beeline to attend a GOP committee investigating the federal government’s Covid response. Greene previously compared Covid vaccination requirements to “Nazi’s forc[ing] Jewish people to wear a gold star,” demonstrating that she is ignorant about both the Holocaust and the science of vaccination.
“Up is down, and down is up” in Kevin McCarthy’s kompromat House. I find it difficult to hear these reports and not surrender to anger. But we should recognize that House Republicans are committing a strategic blunder of epic proportions.
They are focusing their investigations on topics that highlight their weak spots and failures—January 6th, Trump's Covid response, and media / tech bias. Those topics are lose-lose-lose for Republicans. The only thing worse they can do is to suggest cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits. Oh, wait, they are doing that, too!
So, let’s not give in to anger or despair. The GOP investigations are self-limiting and self-defeating. And Democrats have demonstrated they have the will and ability to turn the investigations against McCarthy’s blackmailers. We should feel confident and hopeful that Republicans will embarrass themselves and accomplish nothing while Democrats distinguish themselves in the hearings. Given the GOP majority in the House, we can’t ask for much more than that.
Coup plotters will face full wrath of law, says Air Chief
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sunday Aneke, on Wednesday declared that any personnel of the Armed Forces of Nigeria found guilty of attempting to overthrow Nigeria’s democratic government would face the full wrath of the law. Aneke made the remarks while addressing Air Officers Commanding and Unit Commanders at a strategic meeting at the NAF Headquarters in Abuja, marking his…
“Some of the most active coup plotters, people who labored intensely on behalf of the plot to end American constitutional governance—those p
The Fate of Coup Plotters Hangs in the Balance
The Fate of Coup Plotters Hangs in the Balance
The 10 defendants are on trial for allegedly plotting to topple the government in a coup, and the Accra High Court has set July 25, 2022, as the date to decide if the Office of the Attorney General has presented enough evidence against them to justify their opening their defense. This came after the prosecution, which was headed by Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa,…
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