Tag Archives: Merrick Garland

Weaponization? Or Justice?

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Republicans would have you believe that the Biden administration has unfairly weaponized the FBI and DOJ to pursue charges against its political opponents. As a result, the House “Freedom Caucus” created a Weaponization Committee to investigate the matter. They are furious that Trump has been indicted and that more than 1,000 insurrectionists have been arrested.

Never mind that, unlike his predecessor, President Biden has taken a hands-off approach to all matters before the Department of Justice. Or that Attorney General Garland appointed an independent special counsel to investigate credible allegations against Trump. Or that the indictments were recommended by grand juries comprised of ordinary citizens.

The GOP should know better than to claim weaponization. After all, Republicans have become experts at weaponizing the government over a period of many decades.

Do you not remember Trump’s campaign promise to “Lock her up?” Do you not remember Republican-appointed FBI director Comey announcing the reopening of the investigation into Hillary’s emails months before the 2016 election? Do you not remember the Trump investigation of the Clinton foundation? Benghazi? Hunter Biden?

Have you forgotten the 7-year investigation into the Clintons – Whitewater, Travelgate, Troopergate, Lewinskygate, etc., etc., etc.? Going back even farther, how about Nixon using members of his administration to break into the offices of the DNC in an attempt to rig the 1972 election?

More recently, the GOP House majority censured Congressman Adam Schiff for simply doing his job and leading the first impeachment of Trump for attempting to shake down Ukraine for dirt on his political opponent. Is that not weaponization of government?

Sure, when Democrats controlled the House, they did push the Trump DOJ into an investigation of the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia. But there were many excellent reasons for doing so. The resulting special counsel investigation led by Robert Muller who was appointed by the Trump DOJ found evidence that Russia hacked the DNC and DCCC websites and shared the information with eager Trump campaign officials. The investigation led to 37 indictments and 7 convictions or guilty pleas. Mueller also identified multiple incidents of obstruction by Trump that would have led to charges if Barr didn’t believe that a sitting president is above the law.

House Democrats also impeached Trump twice. But that wasn’t an attempt by Democrats to weaponize the justice system. That was an attempt to serve justice!

If you want to see what weaponization of the justice system really looks like, wait until the next time Trump or another Republican sits in the Oval Office.

The True Enemies Of Democracy.

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Many Republicans, led by Donald J. Trump, have labeled the press “enemies of the people.” In addition, they have called the Democratic Party an “angry mob.” But the facts are abundantly clear that Republicans are the true enemies of the people. Indeed, today’s Republican Party represents a greater threat to our democracy than any other enemy, foreign or domestic.

That is not a claim that I make lightly.

Take, for example, the 5-4 decision by the conservative majority of the US Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Immediately following the decision, 846 polling places closed or were moved, especially in areas with large minority populations. And, by 2016, more than 2,000 polling places had closed. Most of these were within states that previously had been under federal oversight.

The attack on the Voting Rights Act was quickly compounded by an onslaught of strict voter ID laws that have disenfranchised thousands of voters – mostly minorities and the elderly who are unable to travel to faraway Motor Vehicle offices to obtain proper IDs. Some are too poor to pay for copies of their birth certificates in order to obtain the new IDs. Some are unable to take time away from work. And some do not have access to transportation.

To more fully understand the impact of these laws, in North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer reported that, at the time the state’s new voter ID law was passed, as many as 800,000 registered voters lacked the necessary ID to allow them to vote! And with similar laws in at least 19 states, imagine how many American citizens can be denied their right to vote!

Another decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed states to purge their voter rolls of citizens who have not voted in two consecutive elections. Not surprisingly, the purges have mostly occurred in Republican-controlled states.

More recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that North Dakota (another Republican-controlled state) could deny citizens the right to vote if they did not have a voter ID with a current street address. Since Native Americans living on reservations do not have street addresses, the result is to disenfranchise most of the state’s Native American population. And, in Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State who is running for governor, has put on hold 53,000 voter registrations for inconsistencies with IDs such as differences in abbreviations (Ave vs. Av) and even differences in punctuation. 70 percent of those registrations are for minorities who are most likely to vote for the Republican’s opponent.

In many states, the Republican snakes who control legislatures have drawn serpentine congressional and legislative districts in their own image with the intent of marginalizing Democrats and minorities. In North Carolina, when a Democrat won the governor’s race, the GOP-controlled legislature even passed laws to minimize the governor’s power before he took office.

During the Obama administration, Republicans in the Senate blocked dozens of nominees for judgeships, including Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Most, including Garland, never even received a hearing. As a result, the then-Democratic-controlled Senate changed the rules to end filibusters of judicial nominees. And now that Republicans are in control, they have stacked the courts with two conservative Supreme Court nominees and 84 federal court nominees who will decide cases based on the Republican ideology.

In addition to these threats to civility and majority rule, we must consider the fact that 2 out of the past 5 presidential elections were won by Republicans despite losing the popular vote. The first was stolen with the help of George W. Bush’s brother and the last one with the help of Vladimir Putin.

As evidenced by Trump’s response to Leslie Stahl’s questions about cruelly mocking Dr. Christine Blasey Ford: “Who cares? We won,” it’s clear that Republicans will do anything to win. Even destroy our democracy.