Democrats in Congress have urged Trump to resign and for the Cabinet to remove him using the 25th Amendment. Now they're preparing for impeachment.
Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Jake Johnson at Common Dreams writes—'Oldest Play in the Book': Critics Warn New Domestic Terror Laws Aimed at Pro-Trump Mob Would Be Used Against Legitimate Protest. "History shows that legislation going after 'domestic terrorism' will primarily be used to target Black organizers, Muslim communities, immigrant communities."
Hearing ominous echoes of the post-9/11 crackdown on civil liberties, progressives are warning of the serious dangers posed by the renewed push for fresh laws targeting "domestic terrorism" in the wake of the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol last week by a mob of President Donald Trump's fanatical supporters.
While acknowledging the threat posed by right-wing extremists across the nation and affirming the need for forceful action in response to last week's attack, observers noted that existing federal laws are more than sufficient to hold the insurrectionists to account for invading the halls of Congress with possible intent to hold lawmakers hostage, attempting to topple the U.S. government, and potentially committing murder.
"There are already plenty of tools at the government's disposal to crack down on far-right insurrection," The Week's Ryan Cooper wrote in a column on Sunday.
The problem, Cooper argued, is not a lack of laws but rather a deficiency of will from "police departments and security agencies [that] are composed largely of conservative Republicans, and not a few open fascists." Putting new laws in place would only hand law enforcement agencies additional weapons to wield against the left, Cooper wrote.
"If you just charge the existing agencies with breaking up domestic insurgent networks, at best they will shirk, delay, and drag their feet, and at worst they will completely ignore the fascists while turning any new tools against Black Lives Matter and other left-wing protesters," said Cooper. "Indeed, this is already happening—so far, the charges against the fascist mob have been trespassing or other minor crimes, rather than the felony riot charges the leftist J20 defendants faced for simply being near minor property destruction in downtown D.C. on the day of Trump's inauguration."
DOMESTIC TERRORIST LAW
As the Wall Street Journal reported last Thursday, President-elect Joe Biden "has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them."
Biden made a point of identifying members of the Trump mob as "domestic terrorists" in remarks following last week's attack, which he condemned as an "all-out assault on our institutions of democracy" led by the incumbent president.
Not long after the mob stormed Capitol Hill, some commentators began calling on Congress to begin work on a specific statute targeting "domestic terrorism"; as ProPublica explained last week, "while federal statutes provide a definition of domestic terrorism, there is not a specific law outlawing it."
The call drew swift pushback from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who tweeted Saturday that "as the vice chair of the Oversight subcommittee who ran investigations into domestic terror laws, I respectfully disagree.”
"Our problems on Wednesday weren't that there weren't enough laws, resources, or intelligence," said the New York Democrat. "We had them, and they were not used. It's time to find out why."
Diala Shamas, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, echoed that point, telling The Intercept Sunday that "anyone familiar with the scope of surveillance and targeting of Black political dissents, or Muslim communities, knows that law enforcement has all the tools it needs to aggressively disrupt and hold accountable those who planned and participated in the storming of the Capitol."
"Why they didn't raises serious questions, but it was not because their hands were tied," said Shamas. "We don't need new terrorism designations."
PATRIOT ACT
The notorious 2001 Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks with Biden's support, provides an expansive definition of "domestic terrorism" that—as the ACLU warned—was "broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations," including "Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island, and [World Trade Organization] protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front."
The fears of civil liberties advocates were realized when, as predicted, law enforcement agencies proceeded to surveil and pursue animal rights advocates and environmentalists as well as Muslim Americans.
Warning Biden against enacting additional draconian measures in response to last week's mob attack, New York magazine's Sarah Jones wrote that the "state does not lack teeth" but "has too many at its disposal already." What's really missing in the way law enforcement and prosecutors handle protest—or violent uprisings—is lack of "discretion, and all sense of proportion" when they respond, Jones argued.
"Whatever powers Biden creates today can be used by the enemies of democracy tomorrow," warned Jones. "Our civil liberties are simply too fragile, and the risk is much too great."
“They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a little bit of it, it ony makes for trouble. Me and the United States is dissociating our alliance as of right now, until the United States can find time to read its own textbooks a little.” ~~James Jones, From Here to Eternity (1951)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Science Friday: There is No Controversy:
Ever since the terms "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" first made the news, the right has been engaged in an effort to ridicule the whole notion. Man could have an effect on the atmosphere? Pshaw! Okay, so Rush Limbaugh and the Fox airheads don't actually say pshaw. Instead, they've said that the idea of a human-caused climate change is "ridiculous," and "malarkey" and a "farce." (I'd give you links for those, but adding a link to Limbaugh and friends would give me a rash).
Most of all, they've pushed the idea that our increasing thirst for flammable hydrocarbons might just cause an eensy change in the environment is controversial. Sure, sure, we might be having a hot year -- or two, or ten -- but that doesn't mean people had anything to do with it. After all, we're so small and the atmosphere is just so big. How could a little old us possibly have more effect than volcanoes, or cyclical changes, or the bad old carbon fairy, or whatever cause the right wants to put forward this week? We changed the air? Huh, that's just controversial.
They've depended on paid shills to generate pop-science FUD, and like the mercenaries of ignorance who constantly try to make it seem as if there's some scientific debate around evolution, they've created smoke in the hopes of making people believe there's a fire. They've created fake organizations dedicated to spreading misinformation (current headline "Earth's plants tell us they're loving the CO2 increase!") They've even made a hero out of Michael Crichton (the one man whose ego might be larger than Bush and Rush combined) and his account of a Global Warming "conspiracy," frequently citing his poorly-researched fictional tome as proof of the evil left wing environmentalist attempt to strip away your Hummer.
The trouble with this notion is that the folks who stole the "it's only a theory" page from the whacko creationists are lying. There is no controversy. There's been none in scientific journals, and no, scientists did not think we were going to freeze just a decade ago, no matter how many times the shills say they did. With every passing day, the evidence becomes more compelling.
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Less than one week after a group of pro-Trump insurgents rioted and stormed the U.S. Capitol, former U.S. secretary of state and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton published a smart, somber analysis in The Washington Post. Surprising few, Clinton calls for Donald Trump to be impeached. She discusses the grief, horror, and trauma that comes with an insurgency at the Capitol. But she also discusses the white supremacy that enabled Trump—who wasn’t surprised by the violent riot in Washington, D.C. last week—and, perhaps most importantly, what President-elect Joe Biden must prioritize as president.
Let’s discuss her op-ed below.
Clinton (accurately) points out that Trump ran for office “on a vision of America where whiteness is valued at the expense of everything else.” During his time in the White House, he emboldened white supremacists and conspiracy theorists and sowed a deep mistrust in some of the nation’s fundamental values, like a free and fair election, for example. Most recently, Clinton argues, when it came to the riotous attack on the Capitol, “Trump left no doubt about his wishes, in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and with his incendiary words before his mob descended.”
The obvious answer most Democrats, progressives, moderates, and even some Republicans agree on? We need to prosecute the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol. But as Clinton points out, it’s not actually enough to merely “scrutinize — and prosecute“ them. According to Clinton, “We all need to do some soul-searching of our own.”
Clinton points out that many, many people in this nation were not in the least bit surprised by what happened last Wednesday. Who? Many people of color. Why? Because, as Clinton puts it, “a violent mob waving Confederate flags and hanging nooses is a familiar sight in American history.” In bringing us through recent horrors, Clinton references police violence during Black Lives Matter protests and stresses the fact that if we want unity and some degree of healing, that process “starts with recognizing that this is indeed part of who we are.”
In practical terms, Clinton outlines a few key starting points. She wants to see social media platforms held accountable in efforts to stop the spread of violent speech, new state and federal laws to hold white supremacists accountable, and tracking the insurgents who stormed the Capitol.
In the biggest, most immediate picture, Clinton wants to see Trump impeached and believes the Congress members who enabled him should resign immediately. Unsurprisingly, she also argues that “those who conspired with the domestic terrorists should be expelled immediately.”
There are currently 159 House members and 24 senators who are on record supporting impeachment and removal. Regardless of where your members of Congress stand, please send them a letter.
GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy told House Republicans Monday that President Donald Trump bears some blame for last week’s deadly Capitol riots and has accepted some responsibility, according to four Republican sources on a private call.
McCarthy’s remarks came during a House GOP-wide conference call — their first meeting since a mob of pro-Trump rioters assaulted the Capitol building and left five people dead in an attempt to halt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. McCarthy also told members that he urged Trump to call up Biden and congratulate him for his win, sources said.
The California Republican’s description of his conversation with Trump runs counter to the public stance held by the president, who hasn’t accepted any blame for encouraging his supporters to go to the Capitol and pressure lawmakers into overturning his 2020 loss.
The GOP meeting, which lasted over two hours, offered Republicans an opportunity to air their safety concerns, ask questions about the attack, and discuss ways other than impeachment to hold Trump accountable for his role in inciting the violent mob. Democrats are aiming to bring impeachment articles to the floor this week and are expecting to get some bipartisan support.
McCarthy — who is one of Trump’s closest allies and is opposed to impeachment — acknowledged that they have some serious work to do in uniting the GOP conference, which is now bitterly divided.
“Now is a far greater and more urgent task,” McCarthy told members on the call, according to one source familiar with the remarks.
To the outrage of many Republicans, it took Trump nearly 24 hours to release a video condemning the violence and lawlessness that overtook Capitol Hill. Trump acknowledged emotions were running “high” and said he was turning his focus to “ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.” But the president avoided taking any personal blame for urging his followers to go to the Capitol on Wednesday to protest the election being taken from them.
“To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country,” Trump said. “And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”
Before the conference call, McCarthy — who has been hearing out members in one-on-one conversations in the days since the riots — sent a letter to his Republican colleagues saying he is opposed to impeachment, though he didn’t mention Trump by name.
Instead, McCarthy outlined a number of other options that some members have expressed interest in pursuing, including censuring Trump and forming a commission to investigate the Capitol attack. Some of those options were discussed on the conference call.
But even with those choices up for debate, there are still as many as 10 House Republicans who are seriously considering backing impeachment, including GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming and frequent Trump critic Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
During the call, Cheney did not tip her hand on her impeachment stance, but framed it as a "vote of conscience" and "not a political vote," according to a source.
The meeting came after multiple House Republicans privately expressed anger and frustration with McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) for failing to show leadership during the crisis and not publicly pushing back on Trump. Members were also incensed that the pair carried on with the election challenges after the riots temporarily derailed floor action and forced members, staffers and reporters to hunker down in safe rooms.
Some freshman lawmakers were more vocal about how much work the GOP needs to do to win back the American people’s confidence.
“It didn’t have to end like this, with five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer,” Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) wrote in Sunday Op-Ed published in the Detroit News.
“If the Republican party ever hopes to regain the public’s trust and lead the country forward after this heinous assault, it must first be honest with itself,” Meijer concluded.
After freshman GOP Rep. Nancy Mace announced she would be opposing President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the election, the single mother of two feared so much for her life that she applied for a concealed carry permit and sent her kids hundreds of miles from D.C.
Democratic Rep. Al Green received police assistance at two airports on his trip home last week, after pro-Trump travelers harassed him at his gates in Nashville and Houston.
Another GOP House member flew home expecting to be greeted by concerned constituents after he endured the attack last week. Instead, what he and GOP colleagues heard chilled them to the core: “Do you think that Congress got the message?”
Lawmakers of both parties have fielded a barrage of personal threats that only seem to be intensifying in the days since a Trump-incited siege in Washington left five people dead and dozens injured. Some of those incidents have taken place away from the now-heavily fortified Capitol grounds, forcing members to take cover in impromptu locations like airport bathrooms.
And rank-and-file members of both parties privately worry that the security concerns that plagued the Capitol last week could pose additional threats to lawmakers targeted by aggrieved Trump supporters. Members of House and Senate leadership have a security detail.
Capitol security officials are ramping up protections for members in key ways, such as stationing officers at a trio of regional airports as members come and go from Washington. The building itself has been tightly secured, with enormous fences around the perimeter and police officers from a half-dozen different units on patrol as Washington remains on high alert for more violence ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Officials are also taking other security measures to protect members that are not being disclosed.
But privately, lawmakers are questioning the safety of their families, their staff and themselves, after witnessing so many critical lapses in campus-wide security last Wednesday. And they worry impeachment and inauguration could become new flashpoints for violence.
“Leading up to this, I was monitoring the language, things being said, and Sunday night, I said, ‘I don’t feel good about this.’ ... I was worried about violence,” Mace (R-S.C.) recalled in an interview. “And unfortunately, my biggest fears came true.”
House Democrats, dozens of whom were locked inside the chamber as mobs descended, held a security call Monday evening with the acting chief of Capitol Police and the acting House Sergeant-at-Arms to discuss ways to further improve safety measures. The call, which detailed more potential threats, further raised alarms in the caucus, according to people listening.
Green (D-Texas) said one of the passengers believed to be a Trump supporter on his Southwest flight from D.C. to Nashville immediately recognized him and identified him to the cabin, labeling him “Mr. Impeachment.” (Green has been a longtime supporter of Trump’s impeachment and removal.)
He said for the rest of the flight he could overhear muttering from some of the other pro-Trump travelers — at one point they called him a “traitor” — and was concerned they were planning a confrontation for his arrival in Nashville. At the gate, a Southwest employee helped ward off that confrontation until a police officer arrived to help him board his connecting flight.
Upon his arrival in Houston, Green said other travelers appeared prepared to confront him and were getting “rowdy” before police — who had been summoned to the gate by his staff — helped guide him to safety.
“These were some very angry people,” Green said. “I'm a son of the segregated South. I can remember the expressions of hate when people were saying ugly things, calling me ugly words that I don't repeat. I remember the look. And I saw that on the faces of some of these people. I saw that also here at the Capitol when these people were marching. If you've ever been accosted by a person who has hate in their heart and wants to hurt, you never forget that look.”
“I tried to appear to be as calm as I could because I didn't want it to escalate into something more,” Green said.
Green said he has proposed measures that would provide additional penalties for people who cause security concerns at airports and on flights, and he’s pushing for lawmakers to have additional funds to support their personal security.
One GOP lawmaker who bucked Trump on the floor last week, Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan, even suggested that fears for their personal safety had influenced some of his colleagues to support Trump’s challenges to the results of the election.
“They knew in their heart of hearts that they should've voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger,” Meijer said recently, noting the death threats that some Republicans have received after standing behind the Electoral College results.
There is particular fear among Republicans in Trump-heavy districts who voted against the GOP’s doomed bid to overturn the election results. Many came home last week to find constituents — preachers, school superintendents, churchgoing men and women — cheering on the effort rather than condemning it, according to multiple GOP lawmakers.
“Both parties have extremists,” said the GOP lawmaker. “There's a difference in our crazy people and their crazy people. Our crazy people have an excessive amount of arms. They have gun safes. They have grenades. They believe in the Second Amendment. They come here and Trump's made them think this is the Alamo.”
Several lawmakers said there are heightened fears as the House returns Tuesday for one of the most high-profile votes of their careers — impeaching Trump for a second time.
Compounding their concern: The leadership of the Capitol’s security offices are in upheaval, facing a full overhaul, while federal and city agencies are still squabbling about who’s to blame for Wednesday’s failure to protect the Capitol.
“We have to begin to re-establish trust with the United States Capitol Police because of what happened. So many members of Congress and society writ large here feel very betrayed — let down — by what happened,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who oversees the funding for Capitol operations, including the police force, told reporters Monday.
“I was personally given assurances the day before, as was [House Administration Committee Chair Zoe] Lofgren — about being adequately prepared, no problems, we have enough backup and all the rest,” Ryan said.
The trust may be difficult to regain. In the wake of the attacks, two Capitol Police officer were suspended — including one who took a selfie with a rioter and another who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat while “directing“ members of the mob, Ryan said.
The security concerns are also raising big-picture questions for a Capitol building that welcomes millions of visitors each year, but will be barricaded by a reinforced fence for the near future. Tours were already closed because of coronavirus threats. But it’s unclear how the general public will be able to walk through some of the same hallways as members.
"I’ve never had any danger at all. Everybody has my cell phone, and in Northern Virginia, many, many people know where I live. It’s never really crossed my mind that that would be a danger,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said in an interview.
“If we look down the road, four weeks, six months, two years, what do we do to protect members of Congress and the staff and the police from this insurgency?”
Caitlin Emma and Heather Caygle contributed.