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In A Democracy Where Un-indicted Co-conspirators Serve As Jurors.

After the Japanese attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliv­ered a speech to the nation,” this is a day that will live in infamy,” Rosevelt boomed.
On February 9th, 2021, the United States Senate answered a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Can a pres­i­dent be impeached and tried after leav­ing office?
The answer to that ques­tion has been resound­ing­ly answered by that body, “yes.”
In a [bipar­ti­san] vote, the Senate vot­ed 56 to 44 to, make it clear that a pres­i­dent may be tried by the sen­ate even after he leaves office.
This day will be ref­er­enced for hun­dreds of years to come, should this democ­ra­cy sur­vive this inces­sant Republican assault.
The nation is almost assured sur­vival. Democracy, not so much if what we are wit­ness­ing is allowed to take hold.

This is Josh Hawley, US Senator from Missouri, who was the first to object to Biden’s win.

There needs to be a clear under­stand­ing of the facts; there are no dif­fer­ences between House and Senate Republicans and the white mili­tias and neo-nazis run­ning around hurt­ing peo­ple. The Republican par­ty is the proud boys; it is QAnon, it is every­thing the nation wit­nessed on January 6th.
Some hold out hope that now that this non­sen­si­cal process con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion has been answered, maybe Republican sen­a­tors will be forced to look at the com­pelling evi­dence sup­port­ing a Trump conviction.
To the folks hold­ing out that hope, I ask, “why do you think we were forced to live through this fraud­u­lent ques­tion? Do you think for one moment that Republicans had any doubt that the sen­ate had the author­i­ty to try Donald Trump”?

Donald Trump arriv­ing in Florida greet­ed by one of his Cuban lap­dogs Marco Rubio.

Another Republican, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, joined five of his Republican col­leagues, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, & Ben Sasse, who vot­ed with all 50 Democratic Senators to over­ride the con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion of whether Trump may be tried by the sen­ate now that he is out of office.
Cassidy’s come to Jesus moment, as artic­u­lat­ed by him, seemed to have been cen­tered on the clar­i­ty of the case the house man­agers out­lined, instead of the non­sense idea that the sen­ate can­not try a pres­i­dent after he has demit­ted office.

The crim­i­nal Donald Trump and one of his lap­dogs Raphael Cruz

No one should be fooled by that moment of clar­i­ty that Cassidy expe­ri­enced; it should nev­er be con­strued as a moment of awak­en­ing for Republicans.
In January, Rand Paul forced a Senate vote to declare the tri­al of Donald Trump uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. That vote failed, and so the case was allowed to pro­ceed. However, the record num­ber of Republican Senate votes declar­ing the poten­tial tri­al uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, is prob­a­bly the best met­ric of mea­sur­ing where today’s Republican par­ty is.
Mitch McConnell spoke out aggres­sive­ly against Donald Trump’s par­tic­i­pa­tion on the sen­ate floor; McConnell said Trump was respon­si­ble for incit­ing the insurrection.
On February 9th Mitch McConnell vot­ed that the sen­ate tri­al of Donald Trump for incit­ing the insur­rec­tion was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. At least his vote said so.
House minor­i­ty leader Kevin McCarthy chas­tised Donald Trump for incit­ing the insur­rec­tion on the house floor; he lat­er jet­ted to Florida to lick Donald Trump’s boots and be pho­tographed with him.
Lyn Cheney, the #3 house Republican, was forced to endure a vote to retain her lead­er­ship role. Cheneys Crime was that she laid the blame for the insur­rec­tion square­ly at Trump’s feet.

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If ever there was a mem­ber of Congress for whom the word despi­ca­ble applies, it is Lindsay Graham

Republican Senators have demon­strat­ed that they do not care about the Constitution. It has long been argued that the founders cre­at­ed the Senate to counter the more rash, impul­sive house members.
House mem­bers are allowed two-year terms; Senators have six-year terms.
The think­ing is that the six-year-term, in a way, insu­lates Senators from some polit­i­cal back­lash, kind of like how Federal judges get life­time tenure. Republicans under Mitch McConnell’s lead­er­ship have destroyed every­thing the Senate is sup­posed to rep­re­sent. They packed courts with dis­qual­i­fied hacks, cor­rupt­ed the exec­u­tive, and reduced the Senate to a disgrace.

In the end, the tox­i­c­i­ty Mitch McConnell cre­at­ed and orches­trat­ed will do more harm to America than any sin­gle American offi­cial has ever man­aged to inflict in the his­to­ry of the repub­lic. Yes, more than Joe McCarthy.

Rand Paul
In recent times Republicans in the Senate abdi­cat­ed their oath by block­ing evi­dence that may have proven that Supreme Court nom­i­nee Brett Kavanaugh was not the choir boy they made him out to be. Senate Republicans’ con­tempt for the rule of law and process was on full dis­play in that fraud­u­lent hearing.
It was again on dis­play when they refused to con­vict Donald Trump in the first impeach­ment tri­al. Even with the great pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence against Donald Trump, they vot­ed to acquit.
The words of one Republican Senator were most telling. Senator Susan Collins told the media that quote, “the pres­i­dent has learned his les­son’. In Senator Collins’s world, impeach­ment was the rem­e­dy; there was no need for any oth­er treat­ment, even though the con­sti­tu­tion is very clear on the ques­tion of removal.
Senator Collins was wrong, as she has been on so many oth­er occa­sions on Donald Trump issues.
That fail­ure result­ed in the January 6th insur­rec­tion; it result­ed in the Confederate bat­tle flag fly­ing in the Capitol rotunda.
Ron Johnson
Had Senate Republicans done their duty to the con­sti­tu­tion, Donald Trump, the most crim­i­nal pres­i­dent in the Republic’s his­to­ry, would have been removed. If Donald Trump were removed, the events on January 6th, 2021, would not have occurred.
At the end of this his­toric and infa­mous sec­ond impeach­ment tri­al of Donald Trump, it is safe to say that Republicans will not con­vict nor bar him from ever hold­ing Federal office for the crimes he committed.
Please make no mis­take about it; a twice acquit­ted Donald Trump will unleash a move­ment that this gov­ern­ment sys­tem will not sur­vive. The self­ish and self-serv­ing nature of Republican Senators will be the unrav­el­ing and ulti­mate undo­ing of this great Republic.
Tommy Tuberville, this is what pass­es for a Republican Senator these days.


On that note, House man­agers mak­ing the case against Donald Trump in front of the Senate should basi­cal­ly make the case to the American vot­ers. After all, mem­bers of the Republica cau­cus sit­ting in that cham­ber judg­ing Trump’s guilt or inno­cence are them­selves co-conspirators. 

Josh Hawley of Missouri, Raphael Cruz of Texas, James Lankford of Okholoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennesse, Mike Braun of Indiana, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennesse, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and two-thirds of House Republicans are all respon­si­ble for spread­ing and main­tain­ing the lie that the elec­tions were stolen from Trump.
They are essen­tial­ly unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tors, yet they are asked to sit as jurors to deter­mine whether Trump is guilty of incit­ing a rag­ing insur­rec­tion­ist mob to attack the Capitol.
These men and women sit­ting as jurors can­not be expect­ed to vote to con­vict Donald Trump; they agreed with every­thing that happened.
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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.