The Jan 6 Committee Oversteps on Trump Tax Returns
Sometimes, I think the Democratic party has its collective heads up its collective asses.
This is one of those occasions.
The case in point is the ridiculousness of the House Select Committee’s attempt to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns.
The Select Committee is charged with investigating the January 6 invasion of the Capitol to determine who was responsible for instigating that insurrection. The Committee has no authority to investigate Trump’s finances. There is already an ongoing investigation into Trump’s financial crimes being conducted in New York State. There was no reason for the January 6 Committee to waste its time going over the same allegations.
More importantly, Trump’s tax returns cannot possibly provide any evidence with respect to his role in agitating the January 6th riot. (While a tabulation of Trump’s personal expenditures might be interesting, tax returns do not include an accounts payable ledger.)
Trump’s actual tax returns are moot, anyway, because we already know from other sources what Trump’s tax returns would reveal: that he was never worth anywhere near the amount he claimed to be worth, that he doesn’t pay his fair share of taxes, that he is deeply indebted to foreign nationals, and that he isn’t a charitable person. None of this is news to us.
By attempting to subpoena Trump’s tax returns, the January 6 Committee gave Trump an automatic win since there were no appreciable grounds for the January 6 Committee to need those returns…and that automatic win makes it sound like the January 6 C0mmittee is engaging in a witch hunt.
The House of Representatives is not a court of law but, in attempting to secure Trump’s tax returns, the Select Committee was guilty of prosecutorial overreach. In this case, Thomas and Roberts were right: there is no reason that the Select Committee should be able to review Trump’s tax returns.
Time is running out for the January 6 Committee because, on January 6, when the Republicans take over the House, many of the key players on the Committee will no longer be members of Congress, and the new House will almost certainly disband the Committee.
American democracy -such as it ever was – is on trial here. The jury – the American people – have not yet rendered a verdict but, when it comes, I fear it will be fatal to democracy here, and around the world.
11/02/2022 @ 10:59 am
Far too many voting American citizens would rather live within the societal and political context of an autocratic, white supremacist, neonazi regime than a multiracial and multicultural democracy.
Democracy is not on trial here. The American citizenry s on trial re it’s willingness and capacity to defend and maintain Democratic government and the cornerstone Democratic principle of the rule of law.
11/02/2022 @ 2:09 pm
The question. Ron, is WHY so many would rather live under someone else’s thumb.
My answer is that we have raised several generations of Americans who have been born, breached, raised and educated to be cogs in the machine while being told that anyone can succeed in America, one of the biggest lies anyone ever told.
As long as you believe you are a member of the ruling class, you’re going to prefer living under an autocracy. Today, that membership is defined by religion, sex and race. In order to be part of the MAGA horde, you have to be White, Christian and Male (which doesn’t explain the number of people of color and women who have flocked to the MAGA horde. They both confuse and scare the shit out of me.)
But democracy is very much on trial here…and it isn’t getting a passing grade. Democracies only work in homogenous communities. The more divergence there is within the community, the less dependable democracies become. Historically, democracies fail at somewhere between 200 and 250 years and the reason they fail is that democracies only work when a clear majority of the electorate agrees on the goals but disagrees on the methods for achieving those goals. When the second largest segment of the electorate and the third largest segment are in violent disagreement about the goals, no reconciliation is possible and that’s we ere at right now.
11/03/2022 @ 2:10 pm
The answer to your question is older than civilization, Alan. People line up behind power because they are not sold on the experiment called civilization. They think it is all a fairy tale. They are selling short. A bird in the hand, as it were. The same goes for believers in messianic religions. It operates on the same principle. Everyone who is not the Messiah is taking a subordinate position because, in essence, they do not buy the principles of that religion beyond the power of the Messiah himself. To believe in the principles is to start civilizing. To line up behind power is to abandon it. MAGA Christians don’t mind selling out because only the H.M.F.I.C. matters. People like me see them as stupid because they seem to operate outside of all principles, and the learning and mastery of same is the definition of culture. But, really, they are onto/into the wide stream of humanity. We are wild animals with theme parks and cartoon animation.
11/03/2022 @ 2:32 pm
But let’s dig a little deeper. Aren’t they selling short because they want quick results? Monarchies provide order and stability – until the next usurper takes over. Messianic religions offer certainty with respect to one’s eventual destination. Ecclesiastical religions offer a guidebook for the perplexed (the title of a famous book by Moses Maimonides) that tells people how to live right, according to the ecclesiastical order.
We all fall short with respect to our expectations for ourselves but we give ourselves passes that we don’t extend to others who fall short.
BTW, what does H.M.F.I.C. mean?
11/03/2022 @ 3:06 pm
HMFIC…head motherfucker in charge.
Yes, they are seeking quick results. Just like a squirrel seeks quick results when they take a shortcut to a tree trunk. Given the choice, they always take the shortcut because efficiency promotes survival. People sell short of civilization for the same reason. They believe a bird in the hand increases their chances better than rules, cooperation, and diplomacy.
I am of the opposite opinion. I am not making their case. I just think I finally understand it. Why do ‘conservative’ middle class, or lower middle class workers vote for taxes that benefit the wealthy? They think that which benefits the wealthy will benefit them. They buy into the trickle down hoodwink. They wont invest in themselves, or those in their economic condition to create leverage. They get behind those who have already created it. “Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you King”-(Bob Dylan). It’s the same idea, over and over.
11/03/2022 @ 8:54 pm
The grievances aren’t even based in reality. They’re based on myths. They’re terrified that immigrants will change us when it has always been us who changed them and still is. They are afraid that when minorities are no longer collectively in the minority that positions will invert when minorities are really looking to join them, not replace them, and they aren’t close to losing dominance anyway, a phenomenon that will not happen when they lose absolute majority. They think that homosexuality will infect them and that their kids can be indoctrinated into becoming gay. They think that faith is the only path to morality. They think that pointing out discrimination they don’t see is nothing but a fictitious money grab. They believe that climate change is phony. They believe that COVID was in part phony. They believe that Jesus was a White supremacist American patriot who would disapprove of helping the poor. They believe that anything that tells them different is fake news. And they believe that a country that was very unusually founded on representation rather than on ethnicity, which is why the Constitution is so sacred here, should act like an ethnostate with some weird ill-defined dominant ethnicity that they think they’re part of.
How does one approach mass psychosis?
11/04/2022 @ 11:17 am
This is a great question: “How does one approach mass psychosis?”
Because I do not have the answer, withdrawing has more and more been my response to the dilemma.
It’s exhausting to ponder.
11/04/2022 @ 11:30 am
This is a problem in public relations. It is much easier to sell a negative than a positive. Republicans are self-defined by what they are against, and they have a high degree of uniformity in those antipathies. Democrats are defined by what they are for…but there’s a very low degree of uniformity in those approbations, with different cliques being in favor of different and sometimes mutually exclusive objectives.
As a result, Republicans appear to be highly organized because their messaging is much more uniform than the Democratic messaging has been, which leaves Democrats appearing very disorganized and weak.
Donald Trump energized the Republican party by offering very loud, persuasive, and simplistic messages. Democrats ask voters to think. Republicans demand that they feel. Feelings will always trump thinking because feelings are easy to hold while thoughts are hard.
The solution is to fight fire with fire. The only way to defeat a popular demagogue is with a more popular demagogue….but the Democrats can’t field a credible demagogue because their messaging is all over the place and deeply embedded in the weeds.
11/04/2022 @ 1:20 pm
Alan, that is a great observation, but I would tinker with some edges and come up with a different result.
1. Yes, Democrats are defined by what they are for, mostly without agreement. But, that’s fine. If we can cooperate, we can still disagree on some aspects. We can compromise. Hello, Democracy!
2. Republicans appear more organized because the tsunami of spending makes hyperbolic rhetoric practical. If we could truly achieve publicly financed campaigns, we could eliminate the infinite, impractical story lines, and make it necessary to require practical problem solving. Currently in Ohio there are ads running against Tim Ryan claiming that Ryan wants to flood the US with undocumented aliens so that the Democrats can make it easier to allow kids to get gender re-assignment. That doesn’t even make any sense. A bottomless pit of dark money makes that sort of scary nonsense possible. Eliminate that money, and candidates would have to talk sense…relatively.
So, I do not feel that we should fight fire with fire. I think we need to structure a rational approach. Imagination wins when there are no limits. Real life has limits. We need competence.
11/04/2022 @ 1:24 pm
This is about messaging, not platforms. The “mainstream” media keeps reporting about the irrational claims of the irrational right. The talkmeisters report on them while making fun of them. The net result is that their lies gain credibility even as we try to debunk them. The media is so saturated with the right-wing messages that we can’t get a word in edgewise. I fear that we have already crossed a bridge that we cannot uncross again.
11/07/2022 @ 12:17 am
Messaging aimed at whom?
11/23/2022 @ 9:27 am
nihilism (n.)
1817, “the doctrine of negation” (in reference to religion or morals), from German Nihilismus, from Latin nihil “nothing at all” (see nil), coined by German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819). In philosophy, an extreme form of skepticism (1836). The political sense, “rejection of fundamental social and political structures,” was first used c. 1824 by German journalist Joseph von Görres (1776-1848). Turgenev used the Russian form of the word (nigilizm) in “Fathers and Children” (1862) and claimed to have invented it. With a capital N-, it refers to the Russian revolutionary anarchism of the period 1860-1917, supposedly so called because “nothing” that then existed found favor in their eyes.*
*Online etymology.com
Sure: acronyms are not happenstance … I knew that if I had my chance …hope it’s a good one …!