It is anoth­er cel­e­bra­tion of the birth of Doctor Martin Luther King. As February approach­es we will also be cel­e­brat­ing Black Histor month.
Every year we go through this rou­tine of com­mem­o­rat­ing his birth, and cor­rect­ly so, and yes we cel­e­brate Black Histor Month.
Nevertheless, we run the risk of sim­ply pass­ing time, if we fail to rec­og­nize that each gen­er­a­tion must fight the fights that those who went before us fought.
Today, the sons and daugh­ters, grand­sons and grand­daugh­ters of those who fought like hell to keep our ances­tors in sub­juc­ta­tion, are fight­ing like hell to estab­lish that they are the right­ful heirs of this land that have been drenched with the blood of enslaved Africans who were forced to toild for hun­dreds of years with­out compensation.
On that basis, African-American women have stepped for­ward, not just to rep­re­sent, but to save this frag­ile democ­ra­cy from the rav­ages of those who claim to be patri­ots but are indeed trai­tors to America’s ideals.

Through vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, get­ting peo­ple to the polls, black women like Stacy Abrams have changed the tide of his­to­ry, and repo­si­tioned America away from destruc­tive abyss of autocracy.
It start­ed in South Carolina where African-American women stepped up and made sure that America would have a can­di­date that could defeat tyranny.
Black peo­ple vot­ed in droves to make sure that Donald Trump does not turn America into a banana repub­lic. he attacks against black vot­ing rights will be intense in the future. it is up to every black American to ensure that their efforts to turn back the clock will not happen.
It will hap­pen at the state lev­els in states in which Republicans have con­trol of state hous­es. They will pass laws that makes it even more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to vote. They will try to reduce and do away with ear­ly vot­ing, they will elim­i­nate drop=boxes on elec­tion dates, they will engage in purg­ing vot­ers names from vot­ers lists.
And they will do worse.
The Democrats will have the white House , the Senate, and the House, they must forth­with pass leg­is­la­tion to shore up the Voting Right Act that was unnec­es­sar­i­ly evis­cer­at­ed by the Republican Supreme court.

Doctor King did not die a cel­e­brat­ed man; his meth­ods put many peo­ple off. They thought his non-vio­lent meth­ods weren’t work­ing. However, even as Doctor King preached non-vio­lence, White mur­der­ers were mur­der­ing Black men and women across America; despite all this, the nation remained com­plete­ly disinterested.
They blew up four lit­tle girls at the 16^th street Baptist Church in Burningham, Alabama, on a Sunday morn­ing. Ask your­selves, “who kills babies”?
Do you con­sid­er those who devised the idea of blow­ing up peo­ple in a church human beings?
How do you appeal to the bet­ter Angels of demons who blew up lit­tle girls in Sunday school?
If we move past the killings of the peri­od in which white ter­ror­ists mur­dered Medger Evers, Dr. King, and all of the stal­warts not a great deal has changed.

Blacks con­tin­ue to believe in turn­ing the oth­er cheek to the most stri­dent racists. We wel­come them into our most sacred places of wor­ship, pray with them and com­fort them, only to have them turn right around and mur­der us.
On February 6^th, oper­at­ing on a lie, throngs of those same kinds of demons who mur­dered Dr. King and bombed lit­tle chil­dren, over­ran the nation’s cap­i­tal with their flags of hate. Their message?
Overturn the results of fair elec­tions, kill law­ful­ly elect­ed offi­cials, includ­ing the vice pres­i­dent, and install a fraud­u­lent and demon­ic socio­path­ic wannabe King.
We even believe that God sanc­tions the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery because of course, there are vers­es in the Bible extolling the virtues of slaves required def­er­ence to their enslavers. One right-wing for­mer mil­i­tary leader told racial arson­ist Glen Beck, that in the South [where he is], (Junior and Bubba) are get­ting tired of what’s hap­pen­ing in their coun­try, that what we saw in the Capitol on January 6^th, was Junior and Bubba stand­ing up. Yes this came from a for­mer General.
At a time when the nation is about to swear in a new pres­i­dent, at a time when the FBI is try­ing belat­ed­ly to vet mem­bers of the National Guard that are sup­posed to secure the inau­gu­ra­tion, that kind of arro­gant mind­set sums up where we are.
This coun­try con­tin­ues to be on edge because one group of peo­ple in the believe they have the right to deter­mine and dic­tate the rules of the game.

Let us stop pre­tend­ing that the peo­ple who invaved the halls of Congress are patri­ots.
Let us stop pre­tend­ing that Josh Hawley , Ted Cruz and the oth­ers who sup­port­ed this das­tard­ly act of insur­rec­tion against the United States Government are any­thing but trai­tors to America.
Any [per­son who par­tip­i­at­ed in any way, includ­ing to give aid and com­fort to those who engaged in the acts of ter­ror­ism on January 6^th, are no less cul­pa­ble than those who broke the doors down, beat and killed a police offi­cer , defe­cat­ed in the halls of our democ­ra­cy in an effort to over­turn the ver­i­fi­able clean and fair elec­tion of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Anyone can claim to be a patri­ot, it is hard­ly what one says, it is what they do.
How long are we going to pre­tend that those peo­ple who broke down doors , shat­tered win­dows , killed a cop, and beat oth­ers in a venge­ful quest to com­mit even more mur­ders are patriots?
When will these destruc­tive ele­ments be seen for what they tru­ly are?
Those who sup­port an insur­rec­tion against the legit­i­mate gov­ern­ment of their own coun­try are not patri­ots, they are trai­tors and terrorists.
White nean­derthal insur­rec­tion­ists against the gov­ern­ment deserves no def­er­ence , nei­ther by law or moral­i­ty. They are regres­sive ele­ments of a time gone by that should nev­er be allowed to return.

The Trump move­ment must be seen for what it is a clear and unequovi­cal attempt to turn back the clock through vot­er sup­pres­sion, vot­er intim­i­da­tion, and final­ly through insurrection.
Make no mis­take about it, none of this was about eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety. The cor­po­rate media fed the nation that non­sense dur­ing the racist t‑party upris­ing under the pres­i­den­cy of Barack Obama, we knew that it had noth­ing to do with any of that. Obama took cau­tious steps to bring the econ­o­my back from the brink. Republicans did every­thing in their pow­er to sobatage his efforts in a scorched earth approach that led to slow­er than nec­es­sary econ­o­my recovery.
As soon as the demogog­ic Trump was elect­ed they signed on to his tax give­aways to the very rich in fur­ther­ance of the failed the­o­ry of trick­le down economics.
The fail­ures that con­tin­ue to set this great nation back is not of immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties but of peo­ple who refuse to be trans­formed to a pluras­tic soci­ety in which all peo­ple have a fair shot.
That is the America that John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan spoke about. That America is with­in reach and all of us should ensure that she gets there.

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Mike writes for thinkers

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin was griev­ing on the morn­ing of Jan. 6, hav­ing just expe­ri­enced the most painful of tragedies: bury­ing his 25 year-old-son, Tommy, a gift­ed stu­dent at Harvard Law School, who had tak­en his own life on New Year’s Eve after a bout of deep depression.

But this was the day Congress was to offi­cial­ly cer­ti­fy Joe Biden’s Electoral College vic­to­ry — and with scores of Republican law­mak­ers vow­ing to object, Raskin, a con­sti­tu­tion­al law pro­fes­sor, had a job to do: He had been slat­ed to help lead the Democratic response in a cri­sis that threat­ened to upend American democracy.

“Daddy, don’t go. I want you to stay home,” his daugh­ter, Tabitha, plead­ed, fear­ing pos­si­ble vio­lence. Raskin was insis­tent. “I swore a con­sti­tu­tion­al oath,” he told his daugh­ter. “I’ve got to go.” He invit­ed Tabitha to come with him. “We want­ed to be togeth­er,” Raskin said in an inter­view on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” pod­cast. “I want­ed to be close to her, and she want­ed to be close to me.”

Raskin’s courage was test­ed that day when a furi­ous mob of Trump sup­port­ers assault­ed the U.S. Capitol, break­ing through bar­ri­ers and smash­ing win­dows. A Capitol police offi­cer was killed, and mem­bers of Congress and staffers, hud­dled togeth­er for hours in win­dow­less rooms, were exposed to COVID-19 by Republican col­leagues who refused entreaties to wear masks; at least five House mem­bers have since test­ed positive.
Read the full sto­ry here: https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​m​a​r​y​l​a​n​d​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​-​j​a​m​i​e​-​r​a​s​k​i​n​-​t​u​r​n​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​h​i​s​-​s​o​n​s​-​f​u​n​e​r​a​l​-​t​o​-​m​a​n​a​g​i​n​g​-​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​i​m​p​e​a​c​h​m​e​n​t​-​2​2​2​9​0​7​7​8​5​.​h​tml

Where is Missouri’s über ambi­tious US Senator today? Where is Texas’ dumb junior US Senator Raphael Cruz?
Where are the oth­er ten Republican US sen­a­tors, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Oklahoma’s James Lankford, Montana’s Steve Daines, Louisiana’s John Kennedy, Tennesee’s Marsha Blackburn, Indiana’s Mike Braun, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Tennessee’s’ Bill Hagerty, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville?

How will the United States Government have any cred­i­bil­i­ty in the future, I ask, if these mer­chants of sedi­tion and insur­rec­tion are allowed to remain in the so-called world’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body?
Are we sup­posed to move along and for­get what they did in the spir­it of kum­baya? Are Americans, the major­i­ty of the nation, not the igno­rant sedi­tion­ists, sup­posed to go along with those lead­ers of the sedi­tion­ists cult still embed­ded in the US Government? Should they con­tin­ue to make and pass laws, know­ing that they are ene­mies of democracy?

That is a seri­ous indict­ment on the Republican party.
It now means that not only is it impos­si­ble for the nation to trust the Republican par­ty, but the par­ty is also a threat to nation­al security.
I con­tin­ue to say that there is no Federal Domestic Terrorism statute because it would ensnare white men.
It is now time for the incom­ing Democratic Administration, and the ful­ly Democratic Congress, to enact a Domestic Terrorism Statute.
After ⁹⁄₁₁ attacks on the nation, Republican President George W Bush pro­posed leg­is­la­tion now known as the Patriot Act.
Republican Officials did not waste time pass­ing the patri­ot act, and with good rea­son, they got almost all of the Democrats on record, they were told either you sup­port the leg­is­la­tion, or sup­port the terrorists.
Now is the time to draft a Domestic Terrorism bill and sell it to the American people.
Then get the Republican Seditionists in both cham­bers of the Congress to vote against it.

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Mike writes for thinkers

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Senator James Lankford (R‑OK) has issued an apol­o­gy to some of his Black con­stituents in Tulsa, Oklahoma for his inten­tion to object to some Electoral College results on January 6. Lankford had planned to object to President-elect Joe Biden’s win but changed his mind fol­low­ing the riot at the Capitol that left five peo­ple dead. He sent a let­ter to “My friends in North Tulsa” on Thursday.

The let­ter said the sen­a­tor’s actions “caused a firestorm of sus­pi­cion among many of my friends, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Black com­mu­ni­ties around the state. I was com­plete­ly blind­sided, but I also found a blind spot.”

“What I did not real­ize was all of the nation­al con­ver­sa­tions about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as cast­ing doubt on the valid­i­ty of votes com­ing out of pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black com­mu­ni­ties like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” Lankford’s let­ter went on.“After decades of fight­ing for vot­ing rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to mat­ter, and even a belief that their votes made an elec­tion in our coun­try illegitimate.”
“I can assure you my intent to give a voice to Oklahomans who had ques­tions was nev­er also an intent to dimin­ish the voice of any Black American,” he said.

“I should have rec­og­nized how what I said and what I did could be inter­pret­ed by many of you,” Lankford wrote. “I deeply regret my blind­ness to that per­cep­tion, and for that I am sorry.”

Lankford has faced calls to resign from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission because of his ini­tial inten­tion to oppose cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, accord­ing to Tulsa World.
On Wednesday, Lankford told Public Radio Tulsa that he bore no respon­si­bil­i­ty for the vio­lence at the Capitol but he had­n’t ruled out vot­ing in favor of impeach­ing President Donald Trump.

“And while I’m very aware that there were peo­ple there that were caught up and were say­ing that there were prob­lems [with the elec­tion], I’m also very aware that when I talk to peo­ple one-on-one and I say, ‘Hey, do you think that there are some peo­ple that vot­ed twice? That there are peo­ple that vot­ed who were dead? That there are peo­ple that vot­ed in two dif­fer­ent states?’ the typ­i­cal response I hear back is, ‘Yes, but that hap­pens in every elec­tion.’ The prob­lem is we’ve heard that for so long that we’ve become accus­tomed to [it],” Lankford said.

“We’ve got to actu­al­ly seek answers to ques­tions, and peo­ple can seek to accept truth or not accept truth, but you’ve got to be able to get answers to questions.”

Lankford accept­ed that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were the legit­i­mate win­ners of the election.

The United States Secret Service agents assigned to guard first daugh­ter Ivanka Trump and hus­band Jared Kushner were forced to use a $3,000-per-month rental toi­let after the cou­ple barred them from using any of the six bath­rooms in their house.
The Washington Post reports that Secret Service agents were strict­ly for­bid­den from using any of the toi­lets in Jared and Ivanka’s house locat­ed in the élite Kalorama neigh­bor­hood in Washington D.C
This forced agents to find cre­ative ways to prop­er­ly relieve them­selves, includ­ing trips to for­mer President Barack Obama’s house, which is locat­ed in the same neigh­bor­hood, as well as rent­ing a porta-potty.
The agents final­ly found a per­ma­nent restroom when the gov­ern­ment spent $3,000 a month to rent out a base­ment stu­dio from one of Jared and Ivanka’s neighbors.
So far, the gov­ern­ment has spent more than $100,000 just to rent out the bathroom“A White House spokesper­son denied that Trump and Kushner restrict­ed agents from their 5,000-square-foot home, with its six bed­rooms and 6.5 bath­rooms, and assert­ed that it was the Secret Service’s deci­sion not to allow the pro­tec­tive detail inside,” the Post writes. “That account is dis­put­ed by a law enforce­ment offi­cial famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, who said the agents were kept out at the fam­i­ly’s request.”

A PICTURE SAYS MUCH MORE THAN WORDS CAN, THEY SAY. NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS SLEEPING IN THE CAPITOL AFTER THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ENCOURAGED A COUP AGAINST THE NATION, IN ORDER TO REMAIN POWER.

NOT SINCE THE CIVIL WAR HAS THE NATION EXPERIENCED ANYTHING LIKE THIS. THIS IS HOW SEVERE AND SERIOUS THIS IS.

The Republican Party is hell-bent on drag­ging America down a path to destruc­tion that the coun­try will not be able to come back from.
After the coör­di­nat­ed attack on the Article One branch of the US Government on January 6^th, in which some mem­bers have been rumored to have played a part, they still refuse to step back from the edge of the cliff.
This kamikaze-style fanati­cism seems to wors­en instead of get­ting bet­ter, despite the bla­tant­ly obvi­ous cat­a­stroph­ic outcomes.
After the assault on the Congress, Speaker of the House Democrat Nancy Pelosi has report­ed­ly ordered that met­al detec­tors be installed in the build­ing. Republican mem­bers of the House are report­ed­ly find­ing ways around the new­ly installed detec­tors. Even as we won­der about the effec­tive­ness of met­al detec­tors if some­one can walk around them, it bears remem­ber­ing that Democrats coa­lesced around Republican pres­i­dent George Bush to secure the nation after the attacks of September 11^th, 2001.
Republican Congress mem­bers have refused to wear masks, which essen­tial­ly puts their Democratic col­leagues and their staff in jeop­ardy of con­tract­ing the COVID-19 virus.
Having been forced to shel­ter togeth­er on January 6^th, as a con­se­quence of the assault they ini­ti­at­ed through lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion, sev­er­al Democratic House mem­bers have now test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.
Speaker Pelosi appro­pri­ate­ly moved by ini­ti­at­ing a manda­to­ry mask pol­i­cy inside the build­ing; attached to the man­date is a $500 fine for fail­ure to comply.
Republican House mem­bers have come down against that as well. These peo­ple are not politi­cian rep­re­sen­ta­tives they are crim­i­nals. Almost all of them have to take air­line flights to get back to their states. they have no choice but to go through met­al detec­tors at air­ports, and they have no choice but to observe air­line pol­i­cy pro­to­cols to board those flights.
As one African-American Democratic mem­ber said,” if you work at McDonald’s, you have to wear their uni­form; if they do not want to wear a mask, they should find work else­where.”

We are told that some of the wide-eyed new Republican mem­bers now want to bring guns onto the house­’s floor. This is insan­i­ty of the opti­mum order. It is report­ed that many Republican House mem­bers car­ry weapons on Capitol grounds.
A 1967 reg­u­la­tion says no fed­er­al or District of Columbia laws restrict­ing firearms “shall pro­hib­it any Member of Congress from main­tain­ing firearms with­in the con­fines of his office” or “from trans­port­ing with­in Capitol grounds firearms unloaded and secure­ly wrapped.”
Lawmakers may not bring weapons into the House cham­ber and oth­er near­by areas, the reg­u­la­tions say, accord­ing to the let­ter Rep. Jared Huffman, D‑Calif., wrote in 2018. Aides can car­ry law­mak­ers’ weapons for them on the Capitol com­plex, he wrote.

For decades the main­stream media used its plat­form to char­ac­ter­izes the feel­ings of this part of the pop­u­la­tion, which is now a hard­ened Fascist horde. As if peo­ple are unable to think for them­selves, the media elites told us these peo­ple were, quote; “work­ing-class whites,” “dis­af­fect­ed work­ing peo­ple, “peo­ple in fly-over America who was not heard by the Government,” “peo­ple with eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety,” it goes on and on.
The fact is that we knew what they were for decades, “racist whites who did not like the chang­ing face of America.”
For these nean­derthals, it has noth­ing to do with the econ­o­my as they pur­port­ed when President Barack Obama occu­pied the white house. Back then, they were all eco­nom­ic hawks, ter­ri­fied of the debt they would leave their chil­dren and grandchildren.
Since Donald Trump took over, those pan­icked con­cerns have con­ve­nient­ly dis­ap­peared. For the record, Obama worked to rein in the deficit; Trump explod­ed the deficit and debt to give tax breaks to wealthy Americans like him­self. The idiots had no prob­lem with that.

Those peo­ple are none of what the media has been telling you they are; they are every­thing we have been telling you they are. They are the rem­nant of the old order, the nean­derthals who believe that they have a right to all they see, and no one else has those rights.
Their anx­i­eties have noth­ing to do with the econ­o­my. It is about los­ing white priv­i­lege. One Democratic Congresswoman, Mikie Sherrill, revealed Tuesday she wit­nessed law­mak­ers giv­ing tours she per­ceived to be ‘a recon­nais­sance for the next day’ to groups last Tuesday.
She said she intends to hold account­able those mem­bers, who she did not name, and have them removed from Congress.

If those alle­ga­tions are true, and if those actions do not war­rant removal from con­gress, what is? If dem­a­gogues like Josh Hawley, Raphael Cruz, and oth­ers, are allowed to con­tin­ue to serve in a body they placed at exis­ten­tial risk, what does it say about the rule of law.
Last week we asked about the idea that a pres­i­dent can­not be charged with a crime while he is in office. We must be remind­ed that nowhere in the United States Constitution is that idea writ­ten. It was not writ­ten into the Constitution for the sim­ple rea­son that the framers did not want to have a King.
If a sit­ting pres­i­dent com­mits felonies, what on earth could jus­ti­fy him not being charged like every­one else and removed?
The Justice Department’s pol­i­cy, is one that has no sup­port in the Constitution, one that has kept Donald J Trump in pow­er even after he has com­mit­ted crimes that should have result­ed in his removal from office.
Mike Pence nar­row­ly escaped being hanged by the mob; they went look­ing for him, chant­i­ng, “Hang Mike Pence,” they built the gal­lows. The Speaker of the House and her Democratic cau­cus, and the Senate Democratic cau­cus, may have all been mur­dered, had some Capitol pro­tec­tive detail mem­bers not act­ed with dis­patch and professionalism.
At the same time, we should nev­er for­get that some mem­bers of that detail were active­ly aid­ing insur­rec­tion­ists as they assault­ed the complex.
Despite the atro­cious events that occurred on January 6h, mem­bers of the sedi­tion­ist Republican cau­cus went right back to prop­a­gat­ing the lies of a rigged elec­tion on the US House floor. They did so even as bro­ken glass, feces, and blood remained on the capi­tol floor and walls.
Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and oth­ers con­tin­ued to pro­mul­gate the lies that almost result­ed in the American Government’s Legislative branch’s total decapitation.
Decapitation of the Legislative Branch would have giv­en Donald Trump a free hand to take over the Government and make him­self President for life.
He had already moved the pieces in place across the cab­i­net and oth­er key depart­ments like the Pentagon.
The aver­age American may nev­er ful­ly under­stand just how close the American Democracy came to being overthrown.

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Mike Beckles writes for thinkers.
Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Good to see civil society standing up to these Fascists

Jamaica record­ed four COVID-19 relat­ed deaths and 44 new cas­es on Friday, the Ministry of Health and Wellness has revealed.
The deceased include a 78-year-old male from St Ann, a 56-year-old female from Trelawny, and a 70-year-old female and a 78-year-old female, who both had St James addresses.
The death toll from the coro­n­avirus across the island now stands at 311

The 44 new­ly con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es increase the total num­ber of cas­es on record for the island to 13,455. Recoveries increased by 56, bring­ing total recov­er­ies to 11,379.

The new­ly con­firmed cas­es com­prise 30 females and 43 males, with ages rang­ing from one to 76 years.
The cas­es were record­ed in Kingston and St Andrew (24), St Catherine (10), St James (six), Westmoreland (two), Manchester (one), and St Ann (one).There are four mod­er­ate­ly ill patients and five crit­i­cal­ly ill patients among the 1,607 active cas­es under obser­va­tion in Jamaica.

By Contributor Conrod Tucker

Donald Trump’s poor con­duct and abuse of pow­er as pres­i­dent of the USA over the last four years, have been a sore point for many Americans, espe­cial­ly those who expect him to dis­tin­guish him­self with the pres­tige of hold­ing such high office. But, afford­ing an indi­vid­ual with auto­crat­ic ambi­tions such as Donald Trump so much pow­er is dan­ger­ous to the demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals of the American peo­ple. As such, the archa­ic laws gov­ern­ing the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy are long over­due for revision.

Since becom­ing the com­man­der and chief, Trump has tak­en full advan­tage of his unbri­dled pow­er and has ruled the coun­try like a dic­ta­tor. I know there will be detrac­tors with oppo­site views to my posi­tion on this top­ic, but the world has seen myr­i­ads of evi­dence in sup­port of my argu­ment. The most recent and clear­ly the most egre­gious exam­ple of abuse of pow­er was incit­ing his sup­port­ers to storm The Capitol to pre­vent con­gress from not cer­ti­fy­ing the 2020 elec­tions. This unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion occurred because of unfound­ed alle­ga­tions and lies of vot­er fraud, which would have dis­en­fran­chised over 80 mil­lion peo­ple who vot­ed against him.

But let us back­track to a year ago when he caught try­ing to influ­ence the pres­i­dent of Ukraine to dis­cred­it Joe Biden because he knew then that Biden would like­ly be his oppo­nent in the 2020 Presidential Elections. The House of Representatives impeached him, and he was tried and acquit­ted by a par­ti­san Senate, which heard over­whelm­ing evi­dence that should have con­vict­ed him. And since his elec­tion, many alle­ga­tions ranged from rape to cam­paign financ­ing, and he has not been charged. What is frus­trat­ing is that nowhere in the US con­sti­tu­tion states that a sit­ting pres­i­dent can­not be charged. This idea is a long-stand­ing pol­i­cy of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that no con­sti­tu­tion­al schol­ar wants to chal­lenge. This pol­i­cy should be test­ed in court because there is no legal prece­dence cit­ed by the DOJ to enforce this rule.

A revi­sion of the pow­er giv­en to a sit­ting pres­i­dent would expose the fias­co that makes any­one hold­ing this office to feel like he is invin­ci­ble, and Trump has max­i­mized it with his auto­crat­ic ten­den­cies. It is clear that he believes he is above the law, acts like a king, and rules the US like a monar­chy. The oth­er thing that mys­ti­fies me is the belief that a sit­ting pres­i­dent can par­don him­self. And there are rumors that Trump is seri­ous­ly think­ing about par­don­ing not only him­self but his fam­i­ly too. If so, that sup­ports my argu­ment that the pres­i­dent of the United States has too much power.

In essence, the con­sti­tu­tion has gift­ed any­one hold­ing that office with so much pow­er that they can do any­thing and gets away with it. That is con­trary to the Constitution of the USA, which states no one is above the law. They should revise it to say no one is above the law, except a sit­ting pres­i­dent, it is true.

Recently, Trump par­doned Michael Flynn, Paul Manifort, Roger Stone, Charles Kushner et-al, all of whom are part of his inner cir­cle, and most of them hard­ly served any prison time for their con­duct, with Stone serv­ing no time in jail. There is no lim­it on how many peo­ple or the types of crimes that the pres­i­dent can­not issue a par­don. Unfortunately, there is no check and bal­ances on a sit­ting pres­i­dent, because he has full auton­o­my to do what­ev­er he pleas­es with hard­ly any repercussion.

Apart from the 25^th Amendment, impeach­ment or res­ig­na­tion, remov­ing the pres­i­dent is almost impos­si­ble. The US would like to see Trump do the right thing and resign, but there is no real pos­si­bil­i­ty of that due to his insa­tiable appetite for pow­er. Except for his acolytes, he is cog­nizant that most Americans want him gone, but he will cling to pow­er until he is force­ful­ly removed or until he reach­es the end of term on January 20. Now the Democrats are scram­bling to draft the Articles of Impeachment to him remove him, but good luck with that becom­ing a real­i­ty. With a par­ti­san Senate still head­ed by one of his syco­phants – Mitch McConnell, who already sound­ed the alarm that he would not have a hear­ing until January 19, one day before Trump’s term ends, so the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­vict­ing and remov­ing him his nil. And you can for­get the 25^th Amendment because Vice President has failed to act even with the prod­ding of the Democrats and even after Trump puts him in harm’s way dur­ing the insurrection.

American’s fas­ci­na­tion with the con­sti­tu­tion some­times has blind­ed them. The 2^nd Amendment is an excel­lent exam­ple of fail­ing to revise archa­ic laws. Having the right to bear arms does not mean it is right to kills scores of peo­ple. We have seen many mass shoot­ings played out repeat­ed­ly in schools, shop­ping malls, movie the­atres, etc., and there is still no revi­sion of this law. The same thing applies here with the pow­er giv­en to a sit­ting pres­i­dent. The framers of the American Constitution had the right inten­tions when they wrote these laws, but they are long over­due for revi­sion. The elec­tion of Donald Trump has exposed the flaws with giv­ing one man too much power.

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Our con­trib­u­tors’ views are their own; they do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect that of the own­ers and pub­lish­ers of this medium.

The Constitution cen­ter’s Paul T. Crane and Deborah Pearlstein on the ques­tion of “Treason.“The Constitution specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fies what con­sti­tutes trea­son against the United States and, impor­tant­ly, lim­its the offense of trea­son to only two types of con­duct: (1) “levy­ing war” against the United States; or (2) “adher­ing to [the] ene­mies [of the United States], giv­ing them aid and com­fort.” Although there have not been many trea­son pros­e­cu­tions in American his­to­ry — indeed, only one per­son has been indict­ed for trea­son since 1954 — the Supreme Court has had occa­sion to define fur­ther what each type of trea­son entails.
The offense of “levy­ing war” against the United States was inter­pret­ed nar­row­ly in Ex parte Bollman & Swarthout (1807), a case stem­ming from for­mer vice pres­i­dent Aaron’s infa­mous alleged plot Burr to over­throw the American gov­ern­ment in New Orleans. The Supreme Court dis­missed trea­son charges against two of Burr’s asso­ciates — Bollman and Swarthout — because their alleged con­duct did not con­sti­tute levy­ing war against the United States with­in the Treason Clause’s mean­ing. It was not enough, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opin­ion empha­sized, mere­ly to con­spire “to sub­vert by force the gov­ern­ment of our coun­try” by recruit­ing troops, procur­ing maps, and draw­ing up plans. Conspiring to levy war is dis­tinct from actu­al­ly levy­ing war. Rather, a per­son could be con­vict­ed of trea­son for levy­ing war only if there was an “actu­al assem­blage of men to exe­cute a trea­son­able design.” In so hold­ing, the Court sharply con­fined the scope of the offense of trea­son by levy­ing war against the United States.

THERE IS ENOUGH PRECEDENT FOR THE HOUSE & SENATE TO ACT AGAINST THE TRAITORS WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT.

July 11, 1861

February 5, 1862

He was a large man who walked with a swag­ger. Despite his lim­it­ed for­mal edu­ca­tion, he built a flour­ish­ing law prac­tice and rose rapid­ly in the world of Indiana Democratic pol­i­tics. Abrupt and hot-tem­pered, he was among the shrewdest of his state’s polit­i­cal figures.

By 1845, Jesse Bright had become pres­i­dent of the Indiana state sen­ate. Capitalizing on an oppor­tu­ni­ty to break a tied vote on select­ing a United States sen­a­tor, he engi­neered his own elec­tion to that office.

In the Senate, Bright’s knowl­edge of the cham­ber’s rules and prece­dents won him the post of pres­i­dent pro tem­pore on sev­er­al occa­sions. In the 1850s, how­ev­er, he lost many of his nat­ur­al polit­i­cal allies who were uncom­fort­able with his increas­ing sup­port of leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect slav­ery in the nation’s ter­ri­to­ries. By 1860, his own­er­ship of a Kentucky farm and 20 slaves led anti­slav­ery Indiana leg­is­la­tors to con­sid­er ask­ing the Senate to declare his seat vacant. As south­ern states began to leave the Union, Bright opposed the use of force against them because he believed they would soon return.

The July 1861 Battle of Bull Run proved a dis­as­ter for Union troops — and Jesse Bright. During the bat­tle, Union forces cap­tured an arms mer­chant as he attempt­ed to cross into Confederate ter­ri­to­ry. They dis­cov­ered that he car­ried a let­ter of intro­duc­tion to Confederate pres­i­dent Jefferson Davis. The let­ter, high­ly def­er­en­tial in tone, was signed by the United States Senator Jesse Bright.

When the Senate took up the mat­ter in January 1862, Bright explained that the cap­tured arms sup­pli­er was a for­mer client of his law prac­tice. Although he claimed not to remem­ber writ­ing the let­ter, he assert­ed that it was only nat­ur­al to intro­duce a friend to Davis, until recent­ly a Senate col­league. Finally, Bright not­ed that the let­ter was dat­ed March 1 — before any fight­ing began. Aware that the Senate’s Republican major­i­ty cau­cus had already deter­mined his fate, Bright took the Senate floor on February 5, 1862, to state his case, if only “for pos­ter­i­ty.” He then gath­ered his belong­ings and walked solemn­ly from the cham­ber. Moments lat­er, by a vote of 32 to 14, Bright became the 14^th and final sen­a­tor expelled by the Senate dur­ing the Civil War. No sen­a­tor has been expelled since his time.

After a doomed Senate reelec­tion bid, Bright served in the Kentucky leg­is­la­ture and went on to earn a for­tune from his invest­ments in West Virginia coal mines. (US Senate).

Some Senate Republicans sold their souls to Donald Trump, not just by repeat­ing his lies, but by tak­ing steps to over­turn the American peo­ple’s will. They are no less trai­tor­ous than Jesse Bright. An even larg­er num­ber in the US House, more than half of the cau­cus, did the same thing.
What they are, is of worse char­ac­ter. Not a sin­gle one of them will vol­un­tar­i­ly walk away as Jesse Bright did 159 years ago.
It is for those rea­sons that the Senate [must] act to expel them from the Senate. The House [must] also act to expel the entire list of trai­tor­ous House mem­bers, includ­ing Kevin McCarthy, their leader, who clear­ly knew that what Trump was prop­a­gat­ing was lies, but he expect­ed to be a major play­er in an auto­crat­ic Trump régime, so he sup­port­ed the lies.\

The events that came to a head, on January 6^th, 2021, did not start when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the win­ner of the 202 0 Presidential elec­tions. It start­ed when Barack Obama was elect­ed President of the United States in 2008.
On the day that the first African-American President was being inau­gu­rat­ed, many Republicans met sur­rep­ti­tious­ly in a DC restau­rant to chart a course to ensure the fail­ure of the new pres­i­dent. Ask your­selves whether that was a polit­i­cal move or whether it was a bla­tant­ly un-American conspiracy?
Mitch McConnell declared then that [his] only goal, was to ensure that the new President is a one-term pres­i­dent. Pretty amaz­ing, but not out of the ordi­nary; that was politics.
However, the sad real­i­ty is that a sew­er pipe of nas­ti­ness was opened into the aque­duct of polit­i­cal dis­course, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the nar­ra­tive in ways none of us have seen in our lifetimes.
That sew­er pipe was Sarah Palin. Palin was anoth­er insuf­fer­able igno­ra­mus that was wel­comed into the sew­er swamp of Republican pol­i­tics. She is the same une­d­u­cat­ed dunce that Donald Trump is; through bro­ken English and folks embar­rass­ing flubs, she was glo­ri­fied as a real American, stu­pid­i­ty, and igno­rance were cel­e­brat­ed as American, while intel­lec­tu­al­ism and the belief in sci­ence were ridiculed on right-wing media, fur­ther prop­a­gat­ing igno­rance and broad­en­ing the swamp.
None of it occurred in a vac­u­um. A dumb igno­ra­mus, Sarah Palin, became a right-wing star because she was unabashed in the insid­i­ous racist invec­tives she unleashed into the polit­i­cal bloodstream.
Palin became the most caus­tic and insid­i­ous against Brack Obama; Sarah Palin helped with embold­en­ing anoth­er igno­rant Moron, the one who now sits in the White House.

On November 3^rd, 2020, African-American wom­en’s pow­er became clear in its man­i­fes­ta­tion across the vast plains of America. It was not the begin­ning of their cohe­sive­ness as a polit­i­cal force; it was only one iter­a­tion of their polit­i­cal effectiveness.
From their deci­sion to bring Joe Biden back from polit­i­cal obliv­ion in South Carolina, Stacy Abrams’ her­culean effort to reg­is­ter more vot­ers after being the vic­tim of Republican vot­er fraud in Georgia, black women showed who the boss was.
Some black men were on social media demon­strat­ing their lack of depth, shame­less­ly sup­port­ing Donald Trump because he dan­gled giv­ing tax-pay­ers mon­ey to them.
How utter­ly dis­gust­ing are these men who would sell their souls, much less for a one-time pit­tance from a racist sociopath?
At the same time, African-American women were orga­niz­ing, reg­is­ter­ing, encour­ag­ing, and get­ting oth­ers to the polls.
These women did not only save America from the hordes who turned out to vote for Trump in larg­er num­bers than they did in 2016, but they also did it in elect­ing an African-American preach­er and a Jew to the US Senate in the state of Georgia for the very first time in history.
You have seen the Confederate flag in the Capitol build­ing, that is what it was about.
Trump and his Republican allies want­ed the votes thrown out because they knew that African-Americans had stood up and repu­di­at­ed them.
Donald Trump ful­ly expect­ed that the Government would be over­thrown, his plan also includ­ed poten­tial­ly throw­ing the coun­try into anoth­er civ­il war, one from which he would emerge pres­i­dent for life.
That is what it has always been about. It hap­pened before and we will be bring­ing those facts to you in our next article.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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Many peo­ple on social media knew what was afoot. They kept say­ing Trump will be inau­gu­rat­ed for a sec­ond term.
We kept say­ing they were crazy.
Mike Pompeo kept say­ing Donald Trump will be inau­gu­rat­ed for a sec­ond term.
They all knew that a coup d’de­tat was being planned. How could the intel­li­gence Agencies and law enforce­ment not know?
This is far deep­er and more seri­ous than we know.
As the fall­out from Donald Trump’s Coup d’é­tat unfolds, the nation must ask per­ti­nent ques­tions, not just about why there was not an appro­pri­ate police/​military force in Washington DC to ensure the safe­ty of every­one, but more impor­tant­ly, why the nation’s intel­li­gence agen­cies could have missed what was being planned.
As more and more Americans begin to ask ques­tions, they must also begin to put the pieces togeth­er to come to their own con­clu­sions about what was unleashed on America by the very per­son they trust­ed to look out for the nation’s wellbeing.
Questions must also be asked about the role of sit­ting mem­bers of the United States Senate and House Of Representatives, and decide what role they [know­ing­ly] played in con­tribut­ing to January 6^th? Not just inso­far as oppos­ing the vote to val­i­date Joe Biden’s win, but also strate­gi­cal­ly, to act in tan­dem with the insur­rec­tion­ists to over­throw the US government?

No one should be under any illu­sions that this was a breach for the sake of breach­ing the most sacred edi­fice of our Democratic process.
It was a well-orches­trat­ed plan that had play­ers at all US Government lev­els com­plic­it, and who would have been cel­e­brat­ing today. Were they able to over­throw the Government, to install Donald Trump as Monarch of the United States of America?
On that basis, it is crit­i­cal, that every sin­gle plan­ner and the phys­i­cal par­tic­i­pant must be arrest­ed and brought to justice.
Beyond that, the truth about the con­spir­a­cy’s depth must be inves­ti­gat­ed and exposed to the American peo­ple, so that the full extent of Donald Trump’s treach­ery, aid­ed by some Senate and House Republicans, and oth­er actors against the United States, can ful­ly be appreciated.
No per­son should be under any illu­sion that this was any­thing but a well-planned, well-coör­di­nat­ed assault on the seat of leg­isla­tive pow­er, with the sole intent of stop­ping the process of authen­ti­cat­ing the legit­i­mate­ly elect­ed Democratic tick­et of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The treach­ery of Trump in unleash­ing the ter­ror­ists on the Capitol, after his own hereto­fore loy­al vice-pres­i­dent Mike Pence did not try to over­turn the vote in his favor is stunning.
The mind­less hordes of nean­derthal cave-dwelling morons who swarmed in yelling, “hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence,” had one inten­tion, to find and hang Trump’s vice pres­i­dent Mike Pence.

The intel­li­gence agen­cies can­not claim that this took them by sur­prise. The nean­derthal hordes that swarmed through the Capitol build­ing brought with them the noos­es, and they dis­played zip-ties, instru­ments of their mur­der­ous intent; more telling, they brought guns, they brought explosives.
Separate and apart from what tran­spired on January 6^th, 2021, these same anti-American trai­tors planned to car­ry out attacks on the Democratically elect­ed Governor of Michigan. According to Federal law-enforce­ment offi­cials, they planned to kid­nap, and there­after exe­cute Governor Gretchen Whitmer, her only crime in their eyes, the steps she under­took to secure her state from the rav­ages of a rag­ing COVID-19 pandemic.
As a free­lance writer, I must admit, I have nev­er vis­it­ed the so-called dark web. Insofar as the now infa­mous events of January 6^th, 2021 are con­cerned, no one, includ­ing myself, need­ed to under­stand that some­thing was being planned, t was all out in the open.
In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure, I saw the Facebook posts telling us that regard­less of what is hap­pen­ing relat­ed to states cer­ti­fy­ing the elec­toral vote, none of it would matter.
They insist­ed, Donald Trump [would]be sworn in as pres­i­dent of the United States for a sec­ond term. I laughed at their stupidity.
They were not stu­pid; they all knew what was being planned; they all knew what was about to be unleashed on America on January 6^th. They kept say­ing watch to see what will happen.
I was the stu­pid one.
Never in my wildest dreams could I envis­age a sce­nario in which a sit­ting pres­i­dent of the United States orches­trat­ing a coup against his own country.
Sure, politi­cians are devi­ous and despi­ca­ble, they do all kinds of things to remain in pow­er, but coups do not hap­pen in America.
Until it did.…..

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

There was a time when Republicans wrapped them­selves in the American flag and pre­tend­ed that they were the guardians of American Democracy.
For decades dur­ing my life­time, Republican Presidents who nev­er was s**t, except wag­ing war on small­er nations unable to defend them­selves, fed the American peo­ple a bunch of hog­wash that they and they alone are American patriots.
Their vot­ers gob­bled up the balder­dash and the peo­ple who sup­port­ed the oth­er par­ty by default, became Un-American com­mu­nists, social­ists, lib­er­als, pro­gres­sives. The labels degrad­ed from Communists dur­ing the old days to where we are today, in a place where Democrats can actu­al­ly refer to them­selves as progressives.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont ran for the pres­i­den­cy twice, as a Democratic Socialist. As late as the six­ties„ Senator Sanders would have been jailed for dar­ing to refer to him­self as a socialist.
Today the Republican Party is a right-wing, Fascist, par­ty that endors­es sedi­tion against the United States to main­tain power.
What the Republican Party lined up and allowed Donald Trump to do on January 6^th, was a clear and unequiv­o­cal attempt to over­throw the American Government’s legit­i­mate process, to ille­git­i­mate­ly install Donald Trump as a Dictator in con­tra­ven­tion of every­thing America stands for.
How there be no legal con­se­quence for these trai­tors all from the Republican Party?

From the US Senate Raphael Cruz R‑Texas. Ron Johnson R‑Wisconsin. James Lankford R‑Oklahoma. Steve Daines R‑Montana. John Kennedy, R‑Louisiana. Marsha Blackburn R‑Tennesee. Mike Bruan R‑Indiana. Cynthia Lummis R‑Wyoming. Roger Marshall R‑Kansas. Bill Hagerty R‑Tennessee. Tommy Tuberville R‑Alabama. Josh Hawley R‑Missouri.

These are the

DONALD TRUMP, THE TRAITOR PRESIDENT, INCITED HIS WHITE FASCIST ARMY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT AND INSTALL HIM AS PRESIDENT FOR LIFE IN DRAMATIC COUP ATTEMPT.

He incit­ed his sup­port­ers to go to Capitol Hill and be strong in pre­vent­ing the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the legit­i­mate Joe Biden/​Kamala Harris wins. He repeat­ed­ly lied that the elec­tion was stripped away from him and that it can­not be allowed to stand.
He incit­ed them to march to the capi­tol, but he stopped short of telling them to do any­thing in particular.
He ver­bal­ly walked them right up to the vio­lence; he knew they had the weapons to car­ry out acts of vio­lence against the American State. He knew they intend­ed to harm the process, but he did not walk with them; per­son­al­ly, he knew that there would be no con­se­quence, regard­less of the crimes he commits.
If you ever won­dered what an unre­strained President could do when (a) the Justice Department decrees that he can­not be pros­e­cut­ed while in office, (b) when a pres­i­dent believes that he is above the laws, and that regard­less of the crimes he com­mits, he can par­don him­self, this is the result.

He knew that his fas­cist white-male army was going to turn up in Washington, DC, to begin the insurrection.
He knew.
That is the rea­son he left the fes­tiv­i­ties at his Florida estate to go back to the White House before Christmas.…. He went back to the White House to pre­pare the coup d’é­tat. An act of trea­son against the coun­try. The same coun­try that hon­ored him with its high­est office. That Coup includes threat­en­ing the Georgia Secretary of State to find him 11’780 votes to over­turn the elec­tions in the state of Georgia.
He knew they were going to turn up with weapons, and he fun­da­men­tal­ly believed that those trai­tors car­ry­ing the con­fed­er­ate flags would be able to take over the gov­ern­ment of the United States and make him pres­i­dent for life.
He told them to show up in DC, he tells them to go to the Capitol and to be strong, and he told them to stop the process of con­firm­ing the elec­tion win of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
In an address to the mob on January 6^th before they attacked the Nation’s seat of Legislative pow­er, Donald J Trump said this: You will nev­er take our coun­try back with weak­ness, you have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
If Donald J Trump is not pros­e­cut­ed for incit­ing an insur­rec­tion against the United States, then-Defense Lawyers will for­ev­er have his state­ment, made at this moment in time, as a ref­er­ence point in defense of their clients charged with any act of incite­ment against the United States of America.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​s​-​f​a​r​-​a​s​-​t​h​e​-​l​o​s​s​-​o​f​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​c​y​-​g​o​e​s​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​a​l​r​e​a​d​y​-​c​r​o​s​s​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​r​u​b​i​c​on/

This was January 6^th, 2021; this was sup­posed to be the final cer­e­mo­ni­al con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly ordered act of rou­tine­ly for­mal­iz­ing the President-Elect and the Vice-President for the next four years. The last offi­cial process before the January 20^th inau­gu­ra­tion of the new pres­i­dent and vice president.
Trump knew that there was no oth­er chance to over­turn the results of the 2020 elec­tions. So he know­ing­ly incit­ed his red-capped fas­cist army to storm the Capitol build­ing and install him as their pres­i­dent for life.
This was his plan all along.
Before a sin­gle vote was cast in the 2020 elec­tion cycle, he waged an assault against the US Electoral process. Not because there is any truth, or cred­i­bil­i­ty to his claims; in fact, the only evi­dence of fraud has been peo­ple fraud­u­lent­ly vot­ing for him.
He insist­ed from as far back as 2016, that if he lost, it was because the sys­tem was rigged. At the time, many in the ana­lyst busi­ness chalked it up to Trump, main­tain­ing a per­sona as a win­ner regard­less of out­comes. But Donald Trump was always a deep­er, dark­er clear, and present dan­ger than they gave him cred­it for.
The same thing would have hap­pened if Trump had lost the vote in the elec­toral col­lege in 2016. It is impor­tant to note that he lost the pop­u­lar vote then, but won the same elec­toral vic­to­ry that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris just achieved. Hillary Clinton won the pop­u­lar vote by three (3) mil­lion votes but lost in the elec­toral college.
Biden won the pop­u­lar vote by over sev­en (7) mil­lion votes; how­ev­er, despite the large plu­ral­i­ty of his pop­u­lar vote win, he could only achieve the same elec­toral col­lege win that Trump did in 2016. (Biden 306, Trump, 232).
Another case to be made for the end to the elec­toral col­lege is a sys­tem that has con­tin­ued to dis­en­fran­chise most Americans.
If Trump had lost in 2016, the out­come would have been dif­fer­ent then. His lies and inces­sant dis­in­for­ma­tion would have been just as insid­i­ous; how­ev­er, he would not have been able to mar­shall the army of griev­ance bear­ers he did on January 6^th, and he cer­tain­ly would not have the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy allow­ing him to cre­ate the harm he is inflict­ing on the country.
Trump’s inces­sant attack on [truth], his con­stant drum­beat against the media, label­ing the media, ene­mies of the state was part of his play­book of rad­i­cal­iz­ing his sup­port­ers against the truth, and against those who report it.
It is the clas­sic tac­tic of dic­ta­tors and strong­men through­out his­to­ry, to demo­nize the truth, so that when those who respect and report the truth do their jobs, they will no be believed.
We have all seen his dai­ly cam­paign against the truth; we have seen his mind­blow­ing acts of cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal­i­ty. The con­stant bar­rage of out­ra­geous actions should have been more than enough for the Article (1) Branch of the Government to remove him from office.
The Democrats tried to hon­or their oaths by impeach­ing him. Except for Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who vot­ed for one of the two impeach­ment arti­cles, Republican Senators all failed to hon­or their oaths to remove a clear men­ace to the repub­lic from office.
Even on the impeach­ment arti­cle that charged Trump with obstruct­ing Congress as it inves­ti­gat­ed him, Republicans refused to find Trump guilty.
The evi­dence was clear; nev­er­the­less, they vot­ed straight par­ty line to keep in pow­er, a deranged socio­path­ic criminal.
How iron­ic is it then, that the very same men­ace they ignored, and cod­dled, brought his dan­ger­ous intent to their house on January 6^th, a new day that will for­ev­er live in infamy?

Donald Trump dis­patched an army of lawyers across the coun­try, with the march­ing orders to lit­i­gate, litigate.
If Donald Trump believed that he was win­ning the elec­tions of November 3^rd, 2020, there would be no need for the pha­lanx of lawyers, no attempts at chang­ing the rules, of urg­ing the Pennsylvania Legislature to throw out its slate of elec­tors if Joe Biden won the elec­tions, even before a sin­gle vote was cast.
If Donald Trump thought he won Georgia, he would not have been caught on tape beg­ging the Secretary of state of Georgia to find him 11’780 votes.
That was a felony. Asking a pub­lic offi­cial to break the law is a crime. Michael Cohen, Trump’s for­mer lawyer, and fix­er, went to jail for break­ing the law on Donald Trump’s orders. Donald Trump paid no penal­ty. Where is promised equal treat­ment under the law?

Trump object­ed to, then vetoed the Defense autho­riza­tion Act. Both hous­es of Congress over­rode his Veto. The media nev­er truth­ful­ly report­ed that Donald Trump vetoed the leg­is­la­tion because there is lan­guage in the bill that autho­rizes the removal of Confederate Generals’ names from America’s mil­i­tary bases.
One ana­lyst called the events of January 6^th the book-end to the Chroletsville White Supremacist march, in which a young woman, Heather Heyer, lost her life at the hands of a law­less white fas­cist mob.
Donald Trump was nev­er about Governing America; Donald Trump can­not gov­ern his own house. He is an insuf­fer­able idiot.
However, he was smart enough to under­stand the deep-seat­ed igno­rant racism that lies deep in the recess­es of the hearts of a third of the American peo­ple. He under­stood how to har­ness that griev­ance and use it for his benefit.

Donald Trump under­stood that many white men and women believe in the pow­er of white suprema­cy. He knew they would grav­i­tate to him as long as he made him­self the tit­u­lar head of white supremacy.
That explains the, “I can shoot some­one on 5^th avenue, and I would not lose a sin­gle sup­port­er”, com­ment. For Donald Trump, it was not about any of the sew­er rats who wear his sil­ly red hats and car­ry the flags with his name on them; all they are to him are walk­ing billboards.
Donald Trump only cares about them, to the extent that they are will­ing to com­mit felonies to keep him in office.
January 6^th, 2021, is now the new day that will for­ev­er live in infamy. However, this time, the ene­my is not Japanese dive bombers shriek­ing down from the bril­liant sun­lit Hawaiian skies; it is from inside. It is from a nar­cis­sis­tic, sociopath who is will­ing to destroy a nation to save himself.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

THIS IS A COUP PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

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To maintain a smokescreen of wealth, business savvy, intelligence, and know-how, Donald J Trump designed a devious strategy. If you can’t make it, fake it.
That strategy has been a strategy, not novel to Trump. It is a strategy that has been used by every cheap hustler, pimp, and drug-dealer.

Donald Trump report­ed­ly paid some­one to take his SATs. There are reports he did not actu­al­ly earn the degree he brags about from the Wharton School of Business. His ardent fight to keep his tran­scripts pri­vate feeds the nar­ra­tive that the man we know to be an actu­al dunce, is in fact a ver­i­fi­ably a dunce.
He antic­i­pates well, the ques­tions that will be asked about him, and so he assigns the things he is guilty of to whomev­er he deems as his ene­my at any giv­en time.
He demand­ed to see the col­lege tran­scripts of the immi­nent­ly qual­i­fied Barack Obama, even as he moved heav­en and earth to hide his. But there was nev­er any doubt about Trump’s ignorance.
Trump loves to talk about his Generals, until, of course, he real­izes that [his gen­er­als] can­not, and will not, sup­port a coup to keep him in pow­er against the Constitution’s dictates.
When it came time to serve in the mil­i­tary, Donald Trump, like so many of the priv­i­leged young men of his era, opt­ed to lie about his health to avoid mil­i­tary ser­vice. He claimed that he had bone-spurs. He was giv­en defer­ment after defer­ment, while prin­ci­pled patri­ots like Mohammed Ali went to prison.
As a sup­posed busi­ness­man, Trump has been an abject fail­ure, declar­ing a report­ed six (6) busi­ness bankruptcies.
In the decades that pre­ced­ed his ascen­den­cy to the US Presidency, Donald Trump posi­tioned him­self as a suc­cess­ful busi­ness tycoon in the cen­ter of New York’s Manhattan. The media played along with Trump’s gold­en ‑boy per­sona, even as peo­ple he did busi­ness with were left hold­ing the bag of their own bank­rupt­cies as he avoid­ed pay­ing them for work done on his behalf.

In the high soci­ety of Manhattan’s busi­ness and social cir­cles, Donald Trump’s fraud­u­lent gold­en-boy, mis­ter won­der­ful, car­ni­val-show was not lost on the real blue blood.
USA Today once said this of Trump, “Though he is the scion of a wealthy real estate fam­i­ly, the city’s old aris­toc­ra­cy nev­er quite accept­ed Trump. In a trib­al city, Donald Trump has no real tribe”.
The American Prospect writes, “Trump knows only too well that New York’s aris­to­crats have always looked down on him as crass and vul­gar, and he respond­ed to their con­tempt by becom­ing more crass and vul­gar than any­one could have imagined.
The blue blood nev­er accept­ed Donald J Trump, chalk it up to snob­bery, chalk it up to the idea that they know a fake gold coin when they see one.
Even then, the gullible main­stream media fawned over the wannabe emper­or who con­vinced him­self that the fake fin­ery he spun for him­self was enough to cov­er up his nakedness.
It did not!
“In the end, at least 73% of New Yorkers city­wide vot­ed against their home­town can­di­date in elec­tion 2020.
In Manhattan, where Trump lived before becom­ing pres­i­dent, every sin­gle vot­ing dis­trict went for Joe Biden.
Real New Yorkers have no prob­lem see­ing through a fake pimp or a fake gang­land wannabe.
One thing about real New Yorkers, they know the real deal.
Fuhgeddaboudit.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

Butch Stewart per­son­i­fied what it means to hus­tle and achieve the full­ness of where one’s tal­ent can take any­one will­ing to try.
Today, as Jamaicans, we all mourn the pass­ing of this titan who demon­strat­ed what hard work and deter­mi­na­tion could accom­plish, even when we come from hum­ble beginnings.
Mr. Stewart’s fam­i­ly did not reveal the cause of the death of this great patriarch.

The Jamaica Observer, one of Gordon Butch Stewart’s cre­ations, explained; [Stewart, who is also chair­man of the Jamaica Observer, will be most remem­bered for his mul­ti­ple award-win­ning Sandals and Beaches Resorts, which helped to estab­lish the Caribbean, espe­cial­ly Jamaica, as a world-class tourist des­ti­na­tion. As a sales­man with an irre­sistible pitch, he built Appliance Traders Limited on some of the top brand names in the world; dreamed that he could con­quer the world of tourism, and built Sandals that today rates among the most lux­u­ri­ous hotel chains in the world; launched a news­pa­per that changed Jamaican jour­nal­ism; and bought an air­line that car­ried the hope and pride of a nation – the lit­tle piece of Jamaica that flies – but which defied his con­sid­er­able genius in the face of polit­i­cal shenanigans.]

Jamaica is worse off for the pass­ing of Gordon Butch Stewart.….

From the moment that he descend­ed the esca­la­tor at his gaudy 5^th avenue tow­er in Manhattan, Trump’s enablers have made them­selves explain­ers for his big­otry, xeno­pho­bia, racism, sex­ism, and oth­er vile traits.
Born in Queens to a mul­ti-mil­lion­aire father, Donald Trump was always used to hav­ing things his way.
He was nev­er forced to find his own way, and through a life of priv­i­lege, he basi­cal­ly had every­thing hand­ed to him.
His con­sis­tent assault on the American demo­c­ra­t­ic process, though aid­ed by a now fas­cist right-wing Republican par­ty, is mere­ly par for a spoiled fail­ure who nev­er accom­plished any­thing worth­while on his own.
Lies, dis­in­for­ma­tion, dis­hon­esty, dem­a­goguery, or erect­ing huge build­ings with mon­ey bor­rowed under pre­tens­es are not virtues.

Before he was elect­ed pres­i­dent, Donald Trump was asked whether he would hon­or the results if he lost the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions; he nev­er answered that fun­da­men­tal ques­tion so per­ti­nent for a democracy.
The big­ots vot­ed for him anyway.
Let me say this to the apol­o­gists who would have you believe that not all of the peo­ple who vot­ed for the racist dem­a­gogue are racists. If you know some­one is racist and you cast a vote for him, you are sup­port­ing racism. If you are sup­port­ing racism, you are, by def­i­n­i­tion, a racist.
Let’s put those lies and white­s­plain­ing to rest.
He was again asked the same ques­tion repeat­ed­ly before the 2020 elec­tions, “would you hon­or the results of the elec­tions should you lose”? One would have thought that hav­ing occu­pied the pres­i­den­cy, the quack would rec­og­nize the office’s impor­tance, both on the world stage, and to the Republic.…..The least he would say was, “we’ll see.”
Despite refus­ing to adhere to one of the most fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the demo­c­ra­t­ic process, Trump was elect­ed to the pres­i­den­cy to move on grace­ful­ly after defeat.
More than enough big­ot­ed whites in the United States put a dan­ger­ous igno­ra­mus, a known racial arson­ist, into the presidency.
The lies that they want­ed some­one who would shake things up, were just that, a smoke­screen for want­i­ng to empow­er a white suprema­cist to push back at the coun­try’s chang­ing racial demographics.
Those of you who con­tin­ue to won­der at the rabid and sup­port this dem­a­gogue receives, not fac­ing the facts of the fore­gone is to your detriment.
Donald Trump and his father’s big­otry was a mat­ter of record that was not hid­den from those who vot­ed for him in 2016; it was not hid­den from the larg­er num­ber of them who turned out to vote to keep Donald Trump in pow­er in 2020.
Many of them were so ashamed of the votes they were about to cast, or that they had cast, they lied to poll­sters, they lied to their own friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers out of shame. Just not enough shame to not empow­er an igno­rant fas­cist tyrant.
Polling is not a dying art. Pollsters were not over­sam­pling Democratic vot­ers. Trump sup­port­ers had [con­vert­ed] to an oth­er­world Orwellian dystopia of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion. Anything to main­tain white suprema­cy and enti­tle­ment in America, even to the detri­ment of the Republic.

The elec­tions have been over for almost two months now. If Trump’s behav­ior in the Presidency teach­es us any­thing, any despot can over­throw any sys­tem with sup­port in the right places.
If the Republicans that swore an oath to the Constitution were hon­or­ing their oath, if they were not jock­ey­ing to demon­strate feal­ty to an une­d­u­cat­ed cir­cus clown, Donald Trump would have been seen as the true igno­rant moran that he real­ly is.
Whether the cir­cus planned for January 6^th man­ages to over­turn the free and fair elec­tions of November 3^rd, 2020, poten­tial­ly cat­a­pult­ing the nation into a sec­ond civ­il war is yet to be seen.
Regardless of the out­come, it is clear that the Republican par­ty can no longer be trust­ed to guard the world’s old­est democracy.
Over 30% of the 330 mil­lion peo­ple in the coun­try are Trump loy­al­ists who do not believe in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process if it does not mean they have total gov­ern­ment control.
This is how coun­tries slip fur­ther and fur­ther into despo­tism. When duly elect­ed lead­ers like Josh Hawley of Missouri, Raphael Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and the oth­er morons in the Senate added to the duti­ful serfs in the house Republican cau­cus are will­ing to do the bid­ding of a tyrant; it pulls the nation ever clos­er to going over the brink into despotism.
The next tyrant who comes along will have a tem­plate to fol­low, and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what to tweak to achieve his or her ends.
A more edu­cat­ed and savvy wannabe tyrant like Josh Hawley will have an eas­i­er time orches­trat­ing the demise of the American exper­i­ment as we know it.
Way to go, Missouri, vote out the rea­soned and sane Claire McCaskill and replace her with an anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic, self-pro­mot­ing Seditionist.

If you believe that this is just Trump being Trump on his way out the door, you are just as delu­sion­al as those who say all we can do is pray.
Donald Trump and his Republican cohorts’ attempt to over­turn the elec­tions has prece­dent; it hap­pened before; that is what they want to pull off on Wednesday, December 6^th.
What ought to catch the atten­tion of every sin­gle one of the 330 mil­lion Americans regard­less of their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion or none at all is the fact that all liv­ing Defense Secretaries, Democrat & Republican, signed a let­ter cau­tion­ing the Military not to allow Trump to use the Military to fur­ther his goals through mar­tial law.
According to [Slate]; In an unprece­dent­ed cri­tique of a sit­ting pres­i­dent, all of the 10 liv­ing for­mer sec­re­taries of defense — from five admin­is­tra­tions, Democratic and Republican — have warned that the time for chal­leng­ing the 2020 elec­tion results has passed, that order­ing the U.S. armed forces to resolve dis­putes would be “dan­ger­ous, unlaw­ful and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” and that those who issue or exe­cute such orders “would be account­able” and pos­si­bly face “crim­i­nal penal­ties” for “the grave con­se­quences of their actions on our republic.”The state­ment, released Sunday night as a Washington Post op-ed, indi­cates that not only left-lean­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists but sev­er­al top denizens of the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment are con­cerned President Donald Trump might try to take dras­tic action — even mil­i­tary action — to reverse his clear loss to Joe Biden and extend his grip on power.
According to two for­mer offi­cials involved in the state­ment, none of the 10 sig­na­to­ries believe Trump could suc­cess­ful­ly pull off a coup. They’re con­vinced the Joint Chiefs of Staff would dis­obey any such effort as an “unlaw­ful order.” However, senior offi­cers inside the Pentagon, who are said to be alarmed by Trump’s recent behav­ior, have told some of the for­mer sec­re­taries that they great­ly appre­ci­ate the statement’s message.

The ques­tion that must be asked is, “what do these for­mer high­ly ‑placed for­mer sec­re­taries know that we don’t, that would cause them to issue such a warning?
Those of you who haven’t yet absorbed the mind-alter­ing drug of Trumpism will recall how the Republicans dis­par­aged President Barck Obama for alleged­ly bow­ing to the Saudi King.….….….….… That was a pres­i­den­tial sin that would destroy the Republic. Not the clear and present dan­ger today, of a sociopath who des­per­ate­ly wants to save him­self from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, that he is will­ing to burn the coun­try down to save himself.
As a large por­tion of the House Republican cau­cus elect­ed mem­bers and some in the Senate embark on a mis­sion to over­turn the free and fair elec­tions that made Joe Biden President-Elect, it must be not­ed that every sin­gle one of them is high­ly con­ver­sant that Biden won fair and square.
On that basis, it must be acknowl­edged that every one of them has signed on to and will par­tic­i­pate in that exer­cise instead of the exist­ing sys­tem of gov­ern­ment they took an oath to protect.
As I argued ear­li­er, if noth­ing else, this era has laid bare the fault lines and the sys­tem’s weak­ness­es that have guid­ed America and the rest of the free world since the end­ing of the sec­ond world war.

Speaking of the sec­ond world war, the past always offers us an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn and grow and not repeat those mis­takes, even as it improves the good.
The Nazi Party’s mete­oric rise to pow­er began in 1930, when it attained 107 seats in Germany’s par­lia­ment, the Reichstag. In July 1932, the Nazi Party became the largest polit­i­cal par­ty in the Reichstag with 230 representatives.
In the final years of the Weimar Republic (1930 to 1933), the gov­ern­ment ruled by emer­gency decree because it could not attain a par­lia­men­tary major­i­ty. Political and eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty, cou­pled with vot­er dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the sta­tus quo, ben­e­fit­ted the Nazi Party.
As a result of the Nazis’ mass sup­port, German pres­i­dent Paul von Hindenburg appoint­ed Hitler chan­cel­lor on January 30, 1933. His appoint­ment paved the way for the Nazi dic­ta­tor­ship after Hindenburg’s death in August 1934.
Before the Great Depression in Germany in 1929 – 1930, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (or Nazi Party for short) was a small par­ty on the rad­i­cal right of the German polit­i­cal spec­trum. (ency​lo​pe​dia​.ush​mm​.org).
The destruc­tion the Nazi par­ty wrought on Jewish prac­ti­tion­ers, the Germany Nation, and the rest of the world is one for the ages.
All great empires of the past found ways to self-destruct. What we see today may be the pre­cur­sor to anoth­er world­wide conflragation.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.