The former President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, has the notion that he was King or at least Authoritarian Fuhrer while in office, which would also, according to his altered thinking, allow such imagined powers to exist indefinitely as a civilian former President.
No surprise that others have different views – signing on to amicus briefs warning the Supreme Court that Donald Trump’s claims of absolute “presidential immunity” from criminal prosecution tied to Jan. 6 is an “assault” on the “foundational commitments” underpinning democracy and if his argument is allowed to succeed before them later this month, it threatens “to subvert the careful balance between the executive and legislative branches struck in the Constitution.”
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Petitioner’s theory that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution, if accepted, has the potential to severely undermine the Commander-in-Chief’s legal and moral authority to lead the military forces, as it would signal that they but not he must obey the rule of law.
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Adopting Mr. Trump’s arguments would encourage Presidents to violate federal criminal statutes by employing the military and other armed federal personnel to overturn presidential election results.
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Top Former Military Personnel urge Supreme Court to reject Trump Immunity Question
MSNBC
‘Profoundly ahistorical’: 4-star generals side with Jack Smith, tell Supreme Court Trump’s immunity claims are ‘assault’ on democracy
Law and Crime
Trump immunity bid opposed by 19 top former defense officials in brief filed with Supreme Court
Stars and Stripes
Ex-lawmakers warn Supreme Court over Trump immunity claims
Roll Call
US historians file brief with supreme court rejecting Trump’s immunity claim
The Guardian
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But, alas, these very same alarm bells rang before…
WBW
United States And Weimar: Two Republics, One Failed One Failing
Posted here 2021-07-16
One week after Election Day 2020, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley took a call from “an old friend” warning him that Trump and his cadre of sycophants were trying to “overturn the [newly elected] government”. The old friend was deadly serious.
Milley called Trump’s radicalised supporters “Brownshirts in the streets” and warned that the United States was having its own “Reichstag moment” – he was referring to the Nazi- supporting Brownshirts’ arson attack on Germany’s Parliament that Hitler used as a pretext to destroy the Weimar Republic’s attempt at democracy and assume absolute power.
Already on alert over Trump’s firing of the Secretary of Defense a day earlier, Milley responded to his friend’s threat assessment with what might be called his own DEFCON-1 warning: “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
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Lies, Stupidity, Cowardice. Oh, The Irony.
Posted here 2021-07-18
On 18 July 1925, part one of “Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice” was published in Germany. The book did not see rewarding sales numbers.
The author was in prison when he composed this ‘autobiography’; it was the original title of the work published as Mein Kampf.
The author, failed artist Adolph Hitler, had been convicted of treason and sentenced to five years for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.
The ‘Putsch’ was an attempted coup by Hitler and his assortment of allies to take control of the government in the southern state of Bavaria, a growing centre of the Nazi Party.
The coup did not go well. In fact, it was a disaster. Some of Hitler’s allies deserted, some were grabbed up by authorities – and some of those ‘allies’ sought to make deals.
The five-year sentence for the coup leader was nothing but symbolic; Hitler served only nine months of that. And it was not hard time; leaving him the freedom to dictate his political manifesto.
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Does History Repeat Itself? Well, Kinda
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