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Author Archives: Larry Franz

This Is Not Normal. They Are Not Serious People.

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Wednesday night’s Republican “debate” should have convinced journalists to tell the truth about how dangerous and divorced from reality Republicans have become. They’re no longer “conservative” in any way and shouldn’t be treated like a normal political party.

Ben Rhodes, an author and former Obama official, captured the flavor of the event:

… A stage full of people acted like a bunch of kids trying to get admitted to some fascist costume party. Kill people at the border! Prohibit women from any agency over their bodies! Side with Putin! Etc. Etc.

Six of the eight prospective presidents (!!!) said they would support their party’s 2024 nominee even if he’s a convicted felon, even if one of his crimes was trying to overthrow the government.

But coverage of the 2024 presidential election is looking a lot like what we were fed in 2016 and 2020. The New York Times, for example, published this on Thursday: “Our Writers Pick the Winners, Losers and ‘the Star of the Evening’ From the First Republican Debate”. Ten of their well-paid opinion writers ranked the night’s performers on a scale of 0 to 10.

Politics as sports or entertainment.

Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor at the Times before the management decided they didn’t like the idea of a Times employee being allowed to criticize the paper in public, wrote about Wednesday night for The Guardian. Her principal focus was on a rising star in MAGA World:

He thinks the climate crisis is a hoax, supports Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and would gladly pardon D____ T____ on day 1 of his would-be presidency. A wealthy biotech entrepreneur, the 38-year-old has never before run for public office.

Despite all of this (or maybe because of it), this week’s Republican debate became a national coming-out party for Vivek Ramaswamy.

Suddenly, this inexperienced and dangerous showoff is almost a household name.

Many in the Republican base ate up his showmanship and blatant fanboying of their hero, [the individual now charged with 91 felonies]. In CNN’s post-debate focus group of Republican voters in Iowa, for example, Ramaswamy got the most favorable response.

… Many in the mainstream media declared him victorious. The Washington Post put him up high in its “winners” column, trailing only behind [the individual facing four criminal trials], who wasn’t even there. (Choosing not to enter this particular clown car showed some uncharacteristic good sense on the former president’s part.)

The New York Times analyzed the situation under a glowing headline “How Vivek Ramaswamy Broke Through: Big Swings With a Smile”, with emphasis on his style: “unchecked confidence and insults”.

For this millennial tech bro, his performance on the Fox News stage in Milwaukee couldn’t have gone much better.

As a glimpse of America’s future, it couldn’t have gone much worse….

Certainly, Ramaswamy has the essentials covered. No, not foreign policy chops or a background in public service, but a mocking aversion to social justice and equality….

His night in the spotlight, and its aftermath, shows that neither Republican voters nor many in the mainstream media have learned much since [the leader of the cult] came down the elevator in 2015 and proceeded to wreak havoc on the country.

In case there was any doubt, now we know: they will always fall for the attention-seeking, the policy-unencumbered, the candidate quickest with a demeaning insult. That’s a “winner”, apparently.

And it’s all too familiar.

“Ramaswamy is like T____ in the larva stage, molting toward the full MAGA wingspan but not quite there yet,” wrote Frank Bruni in his New York Times newsletter. “His narcissism, though, is fully evolved.”

Not everyone in the media, of course, was buying it. Charlie Sykes, editor in chief of the right-leaning Bulwark, was blunt, calling Ramaswamy “facile, clownish, shallow, shameless, pandering”, but, then again, “exactly what Republican voters crave these days”.

Given that the Republican party – still firmly in the grip of a twice-impeached con man – has lost its mind, this craving makes a certain amount of sense.

But it makes the endless media normalization even more cringe-inducing. Shouldn’t mainstream journalists be able to step back a tiny bit, providing critical distance rather than the same old tricks?

How can there be “winners” in yet another milestone on the way to fascism?

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment Should Matter

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No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. 

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Section 3 was designed to stop anyone who had rebelled against the United States from ever having a role in the government again. It’s not commonly applied (we don’t have that many insurrections or rebellions), but it’s still in the Constitution. The New York Times reports that legal experts are paying attention:

Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that [the Orange Menace] is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

“Originalism” is bullshit, but others have reached the same conclusion, including a University of Virginia professor and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). What’s interesting about these two professors is that they would ordinarily be expected to bend over backwards to support the Orange Menace, like so many other Federalist Society members have done.

The Times article suggests the likelihood of lawsuits:

The scope and depth of the article may encourage and undergird lawsuits from other candidates and ordinary voters arguing that the Constitution makes him ineligible for office.

“There are many ways that this could become a lawsuit presenting a vital constitutional issue that potentially the Supreme Court would want to hear and decide,” [one of the authors] said.

Of course, the Supreme Court deciding that the 14th Amendment applies to the former president would require two of the Court’s right-wing, so-called “originalist” Justices to accept the Constitution’s plain language, not something they’re used to doing.

Nevertheless, here’s the authors’ summary of the article:

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids holding office by former office holders who then participate in insurrection or rebellion. Because of a range of misperceptions and mistaken assumptions, Section Three’s full legal consequences have not been appreciated or enforced. This article corrects those mistakes by setting forth the full sweep and force of Section Three.

First, Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repealed by nineteenth century amnesty legislation.

Second, Section Three is self-executing, operating as an immediate disqualification from office, without the need for additional action by Congress. It can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications.

Third, to the extent of any conflict with prior constitutional rules, Section Three repeals, supersedes, or simply satisfies them. This includes the rules against bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the Due Process Clause, and even the free speech principles of the First Amendment.

Fourth, Section Three covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as “aid or comfort.”

[Section Three] covers a broad range of former offices, including the Presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies [the former president], and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.

“A Mystery for the Ages”

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In under 3 minutes, Tennessee comedian Trae Crowder explains the overriding reality confronting the Republican Party and the party’s response.

Please Ignore The Nonsense

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The usual suspects claim the Orange Menace (hereafter OM) shouldn’t be prosecuted for what he did to stay in office. They offer three main reasons, all of them bullshit:

  1. He’s being prosecuted for lying about the election.
  2. He actually believed he won the election.
  3. He relied on the advice of his lawyers

Unfortunately, these excuses are being treated with a degree of respect by people who should know better.

First, he’s not being prosecuted for telling lies.

As the indictment states, [OM] “had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been … fraud during the election and that he had won”. He is being prosecuted for the illegal actions he took to change the result.

There are legal ways to challenge an election, both of which OM took advantage of. He demanded recounts. They didn’t change the result. He went to court. All of his lawsuits were rejected, even by judges he nominated.

But OM went much further than that. From Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post:

“The heart of our jurisprudence with respect to the First Amendment is the difference between regulating speech and regulating conduct,” Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), once a constitutional law professor, [explained]. “Everything charged in the indictment involves criminal conduct by [OM] and not the mere expression of political views….

Thus, the indictment doesn’t accuse [OM] of breaking the law by claiming the election was stolen. It asserts, instead, that … [he] pushed state officials to ignore the popular vote; that he organized “fraudulent slates of electors,” including some who were “tricked into participating,” and that he and his co-conspirators [pressured] the vice president to refuse to certify the election results.

Those actions were illegal and have nothing to do with the First Amendment right to free speech.

But what if [OM] truly believed he won the election? From Judd Legum of Popular Information:

[The Washington Post, Axios, CNN and The New York Times] are all “reporting” that, to convict [OM], Jack Smith has to prove [he] knew he was lying about the 2020 election. [His] lawyer is saying the same thing. And so is Fox.

The problem with this analysis is it’s completely wrong.

A successful prosecution does not hinge on what [he] BELIEVED about the 2020 election. If [he] is convicted, it will be based on his ACTIONS….

Creating a fake set of electors and then pressuring your VP to declare them valid is not one of your legal options. [Attorney Marc Elias] explained it this way: “I walk into a bank, and I think they are wrongfully holding my money. I think my balance is $5,000, and they think my balance is zero… That doesn’t excuse me from robbing the bank. I can’t pull out a gun and take the money”.

Smith spends time on evidence establishing [OM] knew he was lying to show [his] motivation. He is not required to prove motive under the law, but juries generally are looking for a motive. In this case, Smith is showing [OM] was trying to remain in power. But the media coverage is confusing a trial tactic with a legal requirement. Proving [OM] knew he was lying will be helpful to Smith, but it’s not central to his legal case. The coverage suggesting otherwise is wrong.

Finally, was the defendant simply relying on the advice of his lawyers?

One of the ways OM has successfully avoided prosecution in the past is that he’s insulated himself behind teams of lawyers and accountants. There is always somebody else to blame for whatever he did. Returning to that earlier example, your lawyer telling you it’s okay to rob a bank doesn’t make it so. You need to use your common sense. What happened in this case is that OM was desperate to overturn the election, so he looked for lawyers who’d help him, ignoring all the ones who wouldn’t. From Greg Sargent of The Washington Post:

The indictment contains lots of ammunition against this defense. For instance, it shows Pence repeatedly told [OM] he had no such authority. On one occasion, [OM] blithely suggested he would “prefer” to believe otherwise. On another, [OM] rebuked Pence for refusing to abuse his authority: “You’re too honest.”

It wasn’t just the Vice President who told OM the truth. His Attorney General and others in his administration told him the same thing. On top of that, judges, lawyers and law professors all over the country were saying there was no way to stop or pause the counting of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. For example, from NBC News at the time:

A federal district court in Washington recently ruled against a last-ditch effort suit by [OM] supporters against Pence, Congress and the Electoral College that sought to stop the certification of Biden’s win.

The plaintiffs’ theory “lies somewhere between a willful misreading of the Constitution and fantasy,” a judge ruled Monday, denying the motion.

From Salon in December 2020:

“Pence’s constitutional role is to ‘open’ the certificates. That’s it,” said Harry Litman, a former Justice Department official and constitutional law expert at UCLA. “Not to certify. Not even technically to count. He has no way even to purport to change the count. It’d be like saying the Oscar presenters get to decide who wins best picture.”

“The idea that Pence is going to overturn the election in January is pure fantasy-land nonsense,” Justin Levitt, an election law expert at Loyola Marymount University, told Vice News.

From the right-wing National Review on January 5, 2021:

I’m starting to wonder if this is a gag: Like, in order to amuse himself, President [OM] is trying to see how far erstwhile “constitutional conservative” Republicans are willing to beclown themselves … Whatever it may be, it’s time to stop. It was actually time to stop a few weeks ago, but this has gotten so irrational it no longer rises even to the level of farce.

The president now says Vice President Pence has the unilateral authority to invalidate state electoral votes that he decides are fraudulent. That is a ridiculous claim. 

OM preferred to ignore a national chorus of legal experts and people with common sense who said he lost and there was nothing he could do about it. He preferred to work with a tiny minority willing to tell him what he wanted to hear. It’s no surprise that the leading members of that tiny minority are now known as his co-conspirators, numbers 1 through 6.

Let Justice Be Done

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Our former president has finally been charged with committing four felonies in order to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. The government has identified six co-conspirators who will presumably be charged at a later date. Charging the former president alone will allow the proceedings against him to go more quickly. He wasn’t charged with a crime like seditious conspiracy, no doubt because the other charges are easier to prove (and he didn’t personally break into the Capitol building). The case has been  assigned to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was nominated by President Obama. The defendant is schedule to appear in court on August 3.

Special Counsel Jack Smith recommended that we read the 45-page indictment, which is available here.

What follows is the indictment’s introduction. It describes the three counts involving conspiracy (the other count is non-conspiratorial Obstruction of, and Attempt to Obstruct, an Official Proceeding—18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2, which is based on the same evidence).

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.

2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.

3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the
election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

4. Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant
perpetrated three criminal conspiracies:

a. A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;

b. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified (“the certification proceeding”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k); and

c. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241. Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election (“the federal government function’).