THE IMPACT OF JUSTICE GINSBURG’S DEATH ON TRUMP AND GOP STRATEGY

A desperate Trump and Republican National Party, (RNP), who are staring down the barrel of an electoral blowout, have made it quite clear that they have abandoned the principles that formed the basis of America’s constitutional democracy and opted for Machiavellian and Nietzsche power theories of politics - might is right. Added to his unprecedented behavior Trump is making it quite clear, with no evidence, that the election is going to be “rigged” because of the large amount of coronavirus postal balloting expected. The POTUS has gone as far as to say that the "fraudulent" voting is the reason why there was an urgency to appoint another like minded Supreme Court Justice before even the body of the revered Justice Ginsburg had reached the morgue. He is straight out arguing that nine judges should be there to sanctify his actions to back up his rigged election mantra, an election which he rightly assesses he is going to lose. Most dramatically with this pending appointment, the Affordable Health Care Act, where oral arguments are to be heard after the election, is now in greater jeopardy. His Justice  Department under Barr want it declared unconstitutional.

For a liberal democracy to mean anything there has to be a rule of law and accountability. Both sides have to act in terms of convention and precedent and most important be credible. In America the Constitution was so designed that compromise and trust were essential. Those aspirations are a joke in this current toxic environment. In fact The Republican party are behaving as if they will cease to be competitive ever again if they don’t retain power one way or another.  

TRUMP, THE GOP AND THEIR FUTURE 

The latest desperate Trump move, in the wake of Justice Bader Ginsburg’s death, is to further populate the Supreme Court with ideologues representing an ever increasing minority of Americans. It appears that there is no sense of decency or democracy left in the Republican Senators as they publicly break promises to the electorate. In 2016 they literally defied convention by refusing to even give an Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, ten months before an election, a hearing let alone a vote. Now less than seven weeks before the electorate are going to the polls they are rushing through a Trump nominee.

The RNP has watched their numbers dwindle over the past thirty years and have remained competitive by gerrymandering and voter suppression. In seven of the last Presidential elections, their candidates garnered fewer voters than the Democrat nominee whether they won or lost. Although the Republicans have a small Senate majority because of the imbalance caused by rural states they represent fifteen million fewer voters than their opposition. The House differential is even greater.

 The Republicans have had two directions to go - ensure minority rule one way or another or seek to become more inclusive. Led by Trump and McConnell. they have chosen the former with a vengeance. By flouting convention they are determined to turn the third co equal branch, the Judiciary, into a rubber stamp in enshrining their minority and reversing the progress of the aspirational  Declaration of Independence that , “All men are created equal….”. Trump specifically reiterated that he wanted a new Judge appointed before the election in the event of there being electoral challenges as he believed there would be because of a flood of postal fraud.  

TRUMP’S REPUBLICAN PARTY SUPPORT HIS AUTHORITARIAN MINORITY RULE

Trump has made it quite clear that America would be better off with him as a dictator with no term limits and has harkened back to the old Confederacy days. Assisted by Barr, his head of the department of Justice, he has made a mockery of the rule of law. Barr’s behavior is as delusional as Trump’s comparing a public health measure of social distancing and quarantining to slavery. Trump has destroyed and smeared America’s revered institutions; denied accountability laughing off the Legislative Branch again and again. Finally he made it quite clear that the principle criterion by which he will nominate Federal Judges is whether or not they agree with his ideology. In the latter endeavor he has been aided and abetted by Mitch McConnell who has all but ignored the work of the Senate in prioritizing the appointment of Judges. 

The GOP legislators stood by as Trump opted for retaining power with the support of a minority of Americans. He has ripped every principle that the Republicans stood for, trashed its heroes and belittled America’s revered institutions. They looked the other way as the Presidency became part of Trump Inc.They neglected their constitutional duty to impeach him for the most egregious abuse of power when he attempted to extort a favor from a foreign country in order to serve his own personal political purposes. Now he and McConnell are forcing them to publicly go back on their words that it was “wrong” to nominate a Supreme Court Judge in a Presidential election year. McConnell’s words are being flung back it him by Biden “The people elect the President and the President appoints the Judges”.

 Lindsey Graham stated the following when almost a year from the 2016 Presidential contest in order to justify this decision, “If there is a Republican President in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of his first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, “Let’s let the next president whoever it might be, make the nomination”. He reassured further that he could “be called on that’.To hammer home his point he stated that at the time he would be head of the Senate Judiciary Committee and as such could decide whether even to go forward with the Presidential request”. His rationalization for his volte face is, too banal to repeat. 

Trump, Graham, who is in a surprising life or death struggle for his Senate seat, and McConnell rationalize that this skulduggery will help Trump and the Republicans electorally, but more on that later.

WHERE TRUMP AND HIS GOP ARE NOW AND WHY ANYTHING GOES

With six weeks to go and the tightening in the Presidential race just not happening Biden is between seven and nine points nationally among likely voters. In the three key States that Trump won by seventy thousand votes in total, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, he is consistently behind between five and eight percentage points. In Florida which he also won by a few percentage points he is behind by a similar amount. To add insult to injury Michael Bloomberg has thrown a hundred million dollars into the Florida race. 

They are two other metrics that the forecasters believe are extremely valid predictors of victory - a candidate frequently hitting fifty percent in polling, which Biden does and Trump never comes near. The other parameter that the famed Cook Report focus on is the gap between the approval rating and the disapproval rating, especially in an incumbent President. Trump’s positives are at most forty three percent with a disapproval rating of above fifty percent. Biden’s approval rating is higher than Trump’s and negatives far lower. The two incumbents in the past fifty years, Carter and George HW Bush, both of whom who lost, had similar numbers to Trump. Trump won the Presidency with forty - six  percent of the vote. The Green Party, who are not on the 2020 ballot to any significant extent, getting between four and five percent. The Democrats are the favorites to win back the Senate and if Biden trounces the POTUS they can add two or three more Senators in Red States such as Georgia and even South Carolina. 

For practical purposes Trump’s base has hung tight and that is his ceiling. He shows no signs of regaining the white women suburban voters, youth, seniors and independents that he has lost.  In fact he has made no attempt. He has upped the ante on his divisive rhetoric as if just obtaining his ceiling at forty - three percent is enough. The response of those who believe he walks on water is - well Hillary was up in the polls so Trump will pull a rabbit out of the hat again. He won’t as Jay H. Ell will show and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and his response to that tragedy will add to his woes.

WHY NO REPEAT OF HILLARY

In 2016 Trump was running as a populist against the elitist establishment which Sanders had painted Hillary as a prime example of. Trump just followed on with a vengeance. “Crooked” Hillary was never up in the National or swing state polls by as much as Biden is. She never ever reached fifty percent approval.  Hillary had matching disapproval rates to then TV Reality Star. The smear campaign that Biden is an elitist Marxist isn’t sticking and in fact Trump is the one from Park Avenue New York and Biden is from Scranton.

Unbelievably Biden has collected far more money than Trump who has to cut back on advertising. In 2016 he had a massive war cheat. 

Trump has not only not delivered on his promises. He has proven to be an incompetent narcissistic liar who is escaping the law by the skin of his teeth. He now is a known quantity and although his name wasn’t on the ballot in 2018 he campaigned like crazy telling the world that the election was about him and the voters mustn’t let him down.

On top of it all there have been three major crises in the interim, racial injustice, the pandemic and economic austerity. In both the former his approval rating is around thirty percent. It is only in the latter which is currently not a priority is he ahead of Biden by a few points. What is about to become Biden’s central issue in the campaign, Health Care Trump is far behind and Biden is about to link that to his rush to get another Judge on the Supreme Court. Trump is litigating to dump Obamacare with nothing to replace it with. Oral arguments are scheduled to be held on November 10, seven days after the election.

WHO IS GINSBERG?

 Ruth Bader Ginsburg has literally single handedly, over a half century, pioneered gender equality - first as a litigator then as a Jurist. She is an unlikely icon believing that progress is incremental and until very recently this soft spoken five footer shunned the public arena. Her battle against prejudice begun even at Harvard Law School where she was one of nine women in a class of five hundred men. She subsequently transferred to Columbia where she came top in the class. Unable, as a woman, to obtain employment in a legal firm she subsequently formed the Women’s Rights Project. She chose her cases strategically even arguing for the rights of men who were discriminated against by Social Security as caregivers. Crucially she successfully litigated that women were entitled to “Equal Protection Under the Law” as outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment. As a corollary to that she gained the rights of women to receive the same benefits and subsidies in the workplace as men as they had previously been denied not being considered the household providers. 

As a Supreme Court Jurist she continued her scholarly interpretation of the law in favor of equity and as the more liberal judges were replaced one by one became she the main spokesperson for equality. A landmark case with regard to gender equality where she utilized all her skills, she successfully maintained that women were entitled to become recruits in the prestigious Virginia Military Academy. As well as authoring the majority opinion in the latter, she was likewise the main proponent in legislation that mental illness should be covered by the Medical Disabilities Act.

With the passage of time as the court became more and more conservative she became renowned for her carefully reasoned dissents which she hoped might become the basis of law in years to come. Her dissents included several on the topic of the women’s right to choose, as well as an infamous case where it was upheld that a company could withhold contraception from a health care plan. She wrote that it was largely because of the control of their reproduction preferences that women could assume an equal role in the work place. In a much quoted dissent where a five to four decision removed the supervision over states that had been found guilty of voter suppression, she maintained that the court was removing an umbrella in a rainstorm just because no one was wet yet. Her assessment has proved prophetic. One of her dissents resulted in legislation to ensure equal pay for women doing equal work, “The Lilly Leadbeater Fair Pay Act”.

Her gutsy commitment of truth to power resulted in Ginsburg becoming a cult figure with the youth given the moniker of “The Notorious RBG” arising out of the a rapper’s name “The Notorious BIG”. Besides Facebook pages, web sites, a ton of mugs, T shirts and even tatoos she has become a TV and movie celebrity. She was regularly portrayed on Saturday Night Live by Kate McKinnon. A two hour CNN documentary entitled RBG has been run again and again. There are movies where she is alluded to and one “On the Basis of Sex” where her activist role is portrayed.

On the announcement of her death there were outpourings of grief and silent gatherings for nights on end. Flowers and messages adorned courts throughout the country reminiscent of the response to Princess Diane's passing. A record one hundred and sixty one million dollars in small donations flowed into Democratic Party action committees within forty - eight hours of her passing. She will be the first woman ever to lie in state in the Capitol in Washington………

Lest there be any doubt as to the GOP priority when Ginsburg’s passing was announced McConnell dispelled it. One hour after it was broadcast he stated that he was going to replace her as soon as possible. It took Trump one day to share what he really thought. He claimed with his usual authority that it wasn’t Ginsburg who had stated that it was her “fervent wish” that her seat be filled by the next elected president, but either Pelosi, Schumer or “Shifty” Schiff”. 

Bizarrely it is her death and the obscenely rapid replacement on the Supreme Court which is the basis for Trump, McConnell and the Republican Party’s belief they are going to revitalize their electoral chances, particularly in the Senate Races. The replacement will be a woman who has expressed reservations of a woman’s right to chose, believes that Obamacare is illegal…..  

 HOW WILL GINSBURG’S DEATH AND HER RAPID REPLACEMENT HELP THE TRUMP AND GOP CAUSE?

An immediate poll following the former Justice’s death indicated that sixty - three percent stated that her replacement should be made by the new President as opposed to slightly more than twenty percent that didn’t. (That incidentally is similar to the polling around a women’s right to an abortion). 

The belief of the Republicans is that all this will consolidate the base especially around the Senate candidates. The base is already consolidated. Will this change the mind of Republican suburban women who switched in 2018 or the Republican youth that abandoned the party? Jay H. Ell doesn’t think so but Trump, McConnell and the RNC are desperate. 

When this obscene ghoulish behavior produces nothing they will try something else. Trump cannot afford to lose. The courts have ordered his son to answer questions in the NY State Attorney’s investigation into fraud. The Atlantic has just published an authoritative article claiming that Trump simply won’t leave office, reinforcing his claim that he is not necessarily going to accept the results…. 

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

In response to Trump's raves about a coup d' etat Mitch McConnell has reasured America that there will be a smooth transition of power. Why should anyone believe him?

WHAT HAS PUTIN GOT ON TRUMP? NOTHING SAYS BARR

This week all hell broke loose with the revelations of influential high profile insiders Bob Woodward, Michael Cohen and Peter Strzok all of whom provided credible detailed damning evidence of Trump’s commitment to Putin and Russia, (and of course a lot else including his callous incompetence relating to the pandemic). Trump’s former Head of National Intelligence Dan Coates had summed it all up, in the Woodward tome, “What has Putin Got on Him?”. While Trump spluttered on incoherently about his soulless management of the pandemic, regaling the world in his own words courtesy of Woodward’s tapes, a WhistleBlower filed a complaint that he had been instructed to withhold the intelligence that the Russians were once again intervening in the 2020 Presidential election because it made the POTUS “look bad”. 

None of this fuzzed Trump’s latest Consiglieri, the Attorney General of the United States William Barr who in the style of the infamous Roy Cohn doubled down and accused the accusers with the full power of the Justice Department behind him. He is Trump’s last hope to persuade the electorate that Russia was a “hoax” much like the coronavirus is now.

 BARR TRIES TO CREATE A COUNTER NARRATIVE THAT THE BAD GUYS WERE THE ONES THAT INVESTIGATED NOT THOSE THAT THEY INVESTIGATED

Ironically these devastating revelations in the three best selling books emerged at the same time Barr was working full time to negate the fact that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. Barr had instituted an investigation into the Russian investigation to back up Trump’s assertion that it was all a “hoax”. To this end he had already intervened in criminal cases where members of Trump’s campaign had been found guilty arising out of their complicity with America’s totalitarian adversary. Barr needed some proof, before November the third, that the "Deep State" was out to get the POTUS. Trump was relying on it.   

WHAT HAS PUTIN GOT ON TRUMP? NOTHING SAYS BARR.

If Barr’s agenda to exonerate criminals wasn’t outrageous enough, the lead attorney, Nora Dannehy, in the Attorney General attempt to rewrite history on the investigations into the Russian interference in 2016, resigned. Apparently she was under political pressure from Barr to deliver the goods to do the impossible, produce indictments to exonerate Trump, in time of the election.

Barr’s intervention in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s long time alter ego, caused three prosecutors to resign and the incident is now being investigated by the Inspector General of the Justice Department. Trump’s response to this type of potentially damaging enquiry is to fire the Inspector General which he has done a number of occasions before. 

Also the full bench of the DA Federal Appeals Court ruled by eleven votes to two that Barr had no right to withdraw the criminal case against Flynn, Trump’s former Chief National Advisor after he had pled guilty before two separate judges. The amicus Counsel, in Flynn’s case argued that Judge Sullivan should proceed to sentence Flynn regardless of Barr’s actions, He maintained inter alia, in his detailed thirty page brief: 

 

“Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI are so clear. and their effect on the FBI’s Russia probe so obvious that the Justice Department’s  decision to drop the case can only be a pretext to help an ally - President Trump. There is clear evidence that this motion reflects a corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system…”

Yet another attempt to intervene in favor of Trump’s interests by the Justice Department was pummeled by the courts when Barr attempted to return Michael Cohen to prison because he refused to agree not to publish or discuss his tell all book on Trump. Justice Hellerstein in a scathing ruling against Barr’s Justice Department stated:

“….I find ….the purpose retaliatory. Retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment Rights to publish a book….. In twenty one years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at the terms and conditions of supervised release I have never seen such a clause……”. 

 Barr and his other enablers have prevented the production of Trump’s financial documents prior to the November elections. The financial history it is believed will answer in detail the question, “What has Putin got on him?”.

But Barr has even recently argued to the courts that a case involving an accusation of rape against the POTUS should be against the state and not Trump.

 

The need for Trump to win in 2020 becomes a matter of life or death to him as he could not survive as a private citizen and no one knows it better than Barr. 

One wonders what Trump has on Barr for him to behave in this fashion. 

THE REVELATIONS FOCUSSING ATTENTION ON TRUMP THE SECURITY RISK

In Bob Woodward’s blockbuster, Rage, the former highly respected Republican Head of National Intelligence Dan Coates, is quoted as saying that Vladimir Putin “had something” on Donald Trump. As far as Coates was concerned there could be “no other explanation” for the President’s behavior. Incidentally Coates, sounding like Randy Rainbow,  mused that, “He can’t tell a truth from a lie”. The highly regarded Indianian former Senator served as the National Security Advisor for two and a half years and was Trump’s choice to replace Obama’s retiring James Clapper.

 What will turn out to be the definitive explanation of Trump’s threat to national security is  Peter Strzok’s, “Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump”. On the “Daily Beast” podcast, “The New Abnormal” with former Republican strategist Rick Wilson, Strzok even entertained the possibility that Trump had a Russian handler.

 Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer detailed Trump’s involvement in negotiations with Russia to build the Moscow Trump Tower in his book “Disloyal”, at a time when Trump was denying again and again any business relationship with Russia. 

THE LOVE BETWEEN TRUMP AND PUTIN JUST GREW AND GREW BUT NO INVESTIGATION INTO THAT RELATIONSHIP HAS SURFACED. 

Matters have gotten far worse since Coates resigned with Trump failing to challenge the Russian oligarch for placing a bounty on American troops, which he has reportedly paid to Taliban mercenaries, refusing to condemn the attempted murder of the former KGB operative’s leader of opposition and the confrontation by Putin’s armed forces on American personnel and operations in the Middle East to quote just a few of the very latest mystifying behaviors of the POTUS. In contrast he has been no help to America’s traditional allies NATO while allowing Russia to annex Crimea without as much as sending a few more troops to Europe. Rather he is withdrawing them. 

 Strzok maintained that there was no Intelligence investigation into the relationship between Trump and Putin. It was initially believed that this would be probed but he explained that “Mueller, on the instructions of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, referred that component to the FBI and no one knows to this date where that investigation is at now. Woodward in "Rage" makes it quite clear that Rosenstein was a Trump supporter and he had total control of the Mueller probe. In fact Woodward calls it the Rosenstein Investigation. So much for the investigation of Trump's personal relationship with Putin.

 Strzok was fired for alleged bias, which had been reflected in his e mails in his preference for Clinton as President in 2016 so his involvement in the Russia investigation ended very early on. The termination was reviewed by the Inspector General of the Justice Department who exonerated the former Chief of the Counterespionage Department and found that there was no basis to the claim that bias interfered with Strzok’s professionalism and work. 

Now Strzok is the real deal and his twenty two year work on busting Russia’s spies is legend. In his book he lays down the sophisticated and comprehensive infrastructure he presented to Mueller as to how to probe the connections between Trump and Russia. But more about him and his book later.

PERSONAL ATTORNEY COHEN DETAILS TRUMP’S RUSSIAN FINANCIAL PURSUITS

Then there is Michael Cohen, Trump’s former consiglieri and personal attorney who went to jail according to the prosecutors for following Trump’s instructions to pay off Stormy Daniels to shut up about their affair. In his expose - the third in one week - “Disloyal”, Cohen spills the beans about Trump’s campaign lies that he had no financial dealings with Russia. At the time Cohen was negotiating what would have been Trump’s biggest deal of his life - the Moscow Trump Tower. The disgraced attorney had a theory about the vast sums of moneys and profits that Trump made from selling properties to Russians - particularly the fifty million dollars he pocketed for a turnkey deal in Florida. He postulated that the money was Putin’s and Trump was in effect laundering it for him. 

TRUMP AND ENABLERS DEFY THE CONSTITUTION AS PRESSURE GROWS FOR FINANCIAL RECORDS THAT WOULD SHOW “WHAT PUTIN HAS GOT ON HIM”

Now Trump has refused to cooperate with Congress to provide his financial records and taxes which he has promised to produce about as often he has reassured his cult that Mexico would pay for the wall he still hasn’t built. The Supreme Court failed to intervene telling the two branches of Government to sort it out. Trump is almost at the end of his rope as it gets closer and closer to the New York State Attorney laying his hands on his financial records which even the Supreme Court agreed that they were entitled to have. However they allowed Trump to go back to the courts again to argue his case. At stake are eight years of records that have been subpoenaed from Trump’s accountants. What is not at stake is the fact that the records will not be in the NY State Attorney’s hands before November the third the date of the elections.

So the situation now is much where it was when Christopher Steele produced his dossier nearly five years ago. Trump and his campaign willingly welcomed, called for and cooperated with the Russians in their effort to support him and to vilify Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. This finding was corroborated by the Mueller report, (four hundred pages) and a bipartisan Senate Intelligence investigation, (a thousand pages). The Senate report suggested that Barr’s Justice Department investigate Trump son Don Jnr. and son in law Jared Kushner for perjury -  Don’t hold your breath!.

The body politic is none the wiser as to what Putin has on Trump because he has defied the Constitution, with his enablers help, to allow for the investigation into his malfeasance. However, Peter Strzok, the master Russian Counter Intelligence agent, in his epistle “Compromised”, outlined in detail the investigation he presented to Mueller to ascertain how to find out.  Rosenstein apparently was not interested. Supposedly the FBI were given the mandate to follow Strzok’s guidelines but nobody has a heard a word. 

STRZOK’S BOOK “COMPROMISED - COUNTER INTELLIGENCE AND THE THREAT OF DONALD J. TRYMP

In a compelling narrative Strzok’s best selling book lays out the case for Trump being at best “A useful idiot” and at worst cooperating directly with the Russians. He outlined the way the Russians conduct their counter intelligence operations. His book is a must read for anyone remotely interested in the future of America. Bear in mind that Donald Trump has had “business relations” with Russia since the 1980’s. In 2013 Trump held his international pageant in Moscow where he allegedly mooted his Moscow Trump Towers project. Putin was offered the penthouse as a gift according to Cohen. 

Besides all the gory details Strzok puts it very simply as to what would made a counter intelligence agent freeze with fright when he makes the following observation of a Presidential candidate:

“The moment Trump said publicly, “I have no business dealings with Russia”, he knew he was lying. Putin knew he was lying and the FBI had reason to believe he was lying but Americans citizens didn’t know that…..(it) signaled to Putin that Trump was more interested in maintaining his personal interests than telling the truth to America and that he needed Putin’s complicity to maintain the lie…. in this moment Trump became compromised”

Then with regard to the Trump campaign involvement in the Russian campaign Strzok notes…. 

“For starters, we knew that one of Trump’s foreign policy advisors, Papadopoulus, had boasted about his knowledge that Russia had information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Moscow had offered to assist the Trump campaign by releasing the material…. Papadopoulos lied to us… he, (subsequently), deactivated a Facebook account that he had used to communicate directly with the Russians”

Should there be any doubt as to the Trump/Putin axis what followed should obliterate any uncertainty. Trump’s campaign managers, deputy campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, lawyer, national security advisor, life long advisor, (Roger Stone), were all indicted for their involvement in the Russian efforts to elect Trump. In addition his incoming Attorney General had to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation because he had lied about his contacts with the Russians. Finally, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on the campaign the body recommended prosecutions for perjury of Trump’s son Donald Junior and his son in law Jared Kushner.

WHERE WE ARE NOW - OVER TO BARR

The Trump administration aided and abetted by Barr in the teeth of a Whistleblower complaint are attempting to deny Russia’s involvement in 2020. Barr in fact hopes to provide Trump with “proof” prior to the election that the Mueller investigation and presumably the Senate report are “hoaxes”. Barr is not investigating Jared and Don Jnr in spite of being presented with a water tight case of perjury against them. Nor is he investigating the new Postmaster General for 2016 campaign fraud. He is undeterred that his chief investigator of the investigators has resigned because of political pressure he has placed on her to produce the goods for Trump.

Barr when asked how he believed history will judge him responded history is written by the winners. He should read the history written by the “loser” German historians on the collusion of the Judiciary and the Justice Department in the Third Reich to realize that history, “is what it is”. He might also take note of the fact that John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General went to jail.

Perhaps Barr is also compromised by the Russians.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

No - one is taking too much notice of this major scandal because Trump’s behavior has been normalized. In addition they are focussed on his climate denial on both sides of the continent, his science denial of the pandemic coupled with his heartless disregard for human life illustrated by his restarting of his Nuremberg style rallies. In fairness to him his historic peace deal in the Middle East between Israel and two of the Sunni Gulf States is garnering some deserved attention.

Disgust never ends and the nearly forgotten plight of the separation, in some cases forever, of parents and children at the border has been revived by a WhistleBlower complaint that women were having their uteruses removed without their permission! 

If the Pennsylvania Town Hall was a dress rehearsal for the debates in two weeks then Trump needs to stop prepping with Fox.  

In spite of all of this Trump is in there with a chance and has signaled he ain’t going to give in without a fight literally and figuratively .  

With Barr's belief that lockdowns for the virus are akin to slavery the

time for him take medical leave is now.

TRUMP 2020: CAN THE 1787 CONSTITUTION PREVENT A COUP D’ETAT?

As the 2020 election approaches there is a fear that Donald Trump will carry through with his threat not to recognize the “rigged” election results. The question is will the intent of the Founders of the American Constitution which envisaged a smooth transition of power be realized. Having created a Constitution which sought to avoid a Donald Trump, then how to contain and eliminate one if somehow a Donald Trump was elected, the Founders’ efforts have thus far been thwarted. It remains to be seen whether those interpreting the document will carry though on its imperative that America’s President should not become an absolute monarch.

IN THE BEGINNING

America was founded on aspirational hope as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, (July 4, 1776), which was written and signed during the American Revolutionary decade’s long war. The Founders had a number of assumptions which they hammered into the Constitution, signed into Law on September 17, 1787.  The latter was formulated with the Declaration of Independence as their guide. Jefferson’s defiant document had announced to the world that, “All men were created equal” and that would be the basis of the new democratic Republic. 

However central to the creation of the American Federation was the fear that had been the central cause of the War of Independence. The latter had been fought against the absolute power of the British Monarch to tax without representation and his failure to allow the citizens of the colonies any say in government. The objective was thus to create a government “representative” and accountable to its citizenry. Central to the endless deliberations was who should be the President and how could it be ensured that the country’s leader would not be in the mould of King George III.

The Federalist papers written by Founders James Madison, James Hamilton and John Jay were produced mainly for the purpose of gaining overall support for the new Constitution. However they provided much insight as to the thinking of the Founding Fathers. The ultimate product the American Constitution, with the obsessive separation of powers with checks and balances gave little doubt as to the overall intent of the Founding Fathers. Besides being an instrument of “We the People” they desired a leader of the highest integrity. Ultimately the Constitution was designed in an attempt to ensure that “ambition” could be kept in check by another’s “ambition” and that unscrupulous individuals would not be able to subvert the intent of the American democracy. To this end there would be three co equal branches of government  the bicameral Legislature, the Presidency and the Judiciary

 In their deliberations Jay H. Ell had to believe that in going to the lengths they did that had to have had in their minds the arrival of Donald J. Trump who believes that the Constitution is the legal document that enshrines his unchecked power. It remains to be seen whether or not that the Constitution ultimately achieves its objective, namely to prevent a monarchy from being installed.

One of the Federalist papers is currently being misinterpreted to support Trump’s arguments that,“He alone can fix it” and that he is entitled to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue New York. However the end product, the Constitution makes it quite clear that the President cannot have absolute power and hence the concept of impeachment was introduced. In addition the whole system of checks and balances with three co equal branches of Government with the President answerable to the Legislative branch is clear evidence that he is not above the law. 

FEDERALIST PAPER  70 USED TO SUPPORT TRUMP’S CLAIM TO ABSOLUTE POWER

The nearly ninety Federalist papers contain the central arguments for creating a representative and accountable democracy. However to support different political and constitutional positions one or other paper is alluded to as if it rather than the ultimate Constitutional product represents the consensus of the Convention. Of late the main focus of attention is on the power that the President should have. It is Federalist Paper 70, authored by Hamilton, that those who believe the President’s power is absolute rely on. Trump if he had heard of the Federalist Papers, let alone Alexander Hamilton, let alone Paper 70  would have maintained as some have, that, that is the basis of his unfettered right to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue New York. While Hamilton is misinterpreted as being supportive of this position, he wished like Plato one assumes, to be able to appoint an incorruptible philosopher king. His fear was that if the incumbent was chosen from the body politic a riff raff like Trump could be elected President. He believed that such an outcome would be a disaster. Hamilton even looked to existing nobility - someone who had an inherent sense of values.

FEDERALIST PAPER 51 MORE REFLECTIVE OF THE INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Federalist Paper 51 provides a key explanation around the concept of checks and balances in limiting the President’s power and was authored by future President James Madison. Here the famous term “Ambition must be made to counteract Ambition” is found. It is also in this explanatory document that Madison outlines the rationale for the elaborate convoluted set up of checks and balances that wouldn’t be necessary “If men were angels”. Madison argued that the biggest burden to the country would be if one branch grew too powerful. However there had to be some branches more important than others. There he designated the Legislative branch which was directly answerable to the people besides having the power to remove a President from office.  

INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND EXPLANATORY FEDERALIST PAPERS RE TRUMP

The fact, that in this day and age there are constitutionalists including Attorney General Barr, of course the President who is a "very stable genius", and even a few Judges of the Supreme Court that believe that Article 11 of the Constitution which broadly lays down the job definition of the President, gives him unfettered license to do as he wishes, is incomprehensible. Barr has taken this lunacy one step further arguing that litigation involving an alleged rape by Trump should be against the State and not Trump personally. As mind-blowing is the fact that the Republican National Committee are supporters as well. This year’s Republican Convention Platform Policy document laid down no policies other than to support President Trump. Hail to the King!

While there were differing models on how to reach the goal of what type of character the President should be, the overwhelming consensus was that the President be a man of integrity and character as was George Washington. Needless to say the Hamiltonian method of selection was not adopted although what was ultimately decided upon had his motivation in mind. A mechanism was created whereby if somehow or another a Trump slipped through the cracks he could be contained and even removed as the power of impeachment allows. An elaborate system of checks and balances were put in place so as not to allow the Executive President Absolute Power by the creation of three co - equal braces of Government. The Executive Head which would be elected by the States, (now directly by the voters in the States), a Legislature which would have two chambers so as to afford some veto power for the smaller states and the Judiciary who would interpret the Constitution and the Amendments.

The fact that the President constitutionally needs to report to the Legislature and that he could be impeached by that body contradicts the argument that his power is absolute. The most amazing sadness of the whole attempt at a coup d’etat is that those empowered constitutionally and morally to put a halt on the pretender Trump, have shirked their duty

As history has shown you cannot create a Constitution to prevent the behavior of the “bad angels”. So if the President commits High Crimes and Misdemeanors and is supported and not impeached by the body appointed to maintain the Executive’s integrity, then there is nothing even Hamilton could have done to prevent it. If the checks and balance institutions collude with the Executive Head, who for example backs a foreign adversary against his own institutions, what further could the Founding Fathers have done? Presumably they relied on the Judiciary.

THE JUDICIARY

There was one further brake to authoritarianism - the Judiciary, ultimately the Supreme Court which was given the authority to adjudicate every dispute or transgression that might arise in the Republic.  One might have thought the third branch of Government, the Judiciary, when asked to adjudicate when the Executive Branch had refused point blank to cooperate with the Legislative Branch would have acted decisively. In falling to do so it has allowed four years to pass without the Legislature being able to investigate what motives, financial or otherwise, the Executive head may have had in cooperating with a foreign adversarial power. Further the Legislature were unable to get to the bottom as to why he allowed the foreign power to place a bounty on this country’s militia. To add to the gravitas of the Supreme Court's failure is that it has emboldened the Executive Head who according to a WhistleBlower account is that he has instructed Intelligence not to provide reports on Russian interference in the 2020 election and on the white supremacists groups that support him. This state of affairs was bad enough for the former Head of Intelligence Dan Coates to comment, "....that Putin had to have had something on Trump".

While the Judiciary have agreed that the Constitution did not allow the President to be above the Law they have acted so sluggishly that again the legal institutions investigating him will be unable to do so before the 2020 election. This could have the practical effect of the President never being subject to the law of the land. 

In short the Founders, who had fought a war for almost a decade to create the Constitution that claimed that “All men were created equal”, then deliberated for eons to formulate a government which was answerable to “We the People”, could not have envisioned that if their worst fear materialized - an Executive head turning out to be a mendacious self serving traitorous narcissist, that he would be allowed to continue unchecked. How shocked they would have been to see that those who were in charge of  their elaborate checks and balances, who swore the same oath to uphold the selfsame Constitution, would not halt the Executive Head’s unconstitutional actions. The Judiciary in the form of the Supreme Court have more than their share of the blame.

THE PRESIDENT HIS ENABLERS AND THE 2020 ELECTION.

The last line of defense in this sorry mess is the electorate. The good news is that the Executive Head is consistently behind in the polls. The bad news is that the Executive Head has made it quite clear that he is going to “win” one way or another. 

The Party that the President is a member of has long recognized that the demographics of the population would ensure that their nominee would not be elected in the third millennium unless they were more inclusive of all America’s demographics. The answer has been to suppress the vote of those who would vote against them. There had been limits placed on that behavior but the current Supreme Court neutered them by three bizarre interpretations of the Constitution. In one instance they removed the protections that were put in place to prevent the blatant voter suppression tactics of certain states;  in another they ruled that corporations could spend as much money as they liked in elections - the rationale being was that money was akin to free speech and corporations were people; and more recently they maintained that there were no limits to the gerrymandering a State Government could resort to to distort  electoral constituencies to favor their Party. 

The reports are that once again the Executive Head is being assisted by a foreign adversarial government in his campaign. This after it has been conclusively accepted that he participated and welcomed that country’s efforts in getting him elected in 2016. 

The Executive Head rales against the States’ efforts to ensure fair voting in the 2020 election. He has weakened the postal process whereby this could be effected. He has gone to the extent of appointing a donor as head of the Post Office who is crippling its capacity to handle the massive amount of voting that will take place by mail this election. The President states that the election will be “rigged”. He exhorts voters to break the law setting up a scenario that election results could be challenged. He warns that there is going to be monitoring to avoid the non existent problem of electoral fraud in the hope to diminish the turnout of the voters that would vote against him. He claims that the result may not be known for weeks or months…

THE LAST CHANCE TO PREVENT AN UNDEMOCRATIC RESULT IN 2020

It seems apparent that one way or another that President Trump will not step down politely if beaten in the November Presidential elections. He will challenge, smear and claim that the election was rigged. He could even appeal to his “second amendment people” to support him. The belief is that he could create such a stalemate that would allow him to declare an Emergency and remain the de facto President. This not so unimaginable scenario is bolstered by the fact that much of the voting will be post and that the outcome may be delayed. Trump will challenge every turn of events. 

However does the Constitution and the Law allow this to go on forever? It doesn’t. Federal Statute says a halt must be called to all these disputes and bickering by December 8. This was the reason that the Supreme Court called a halt, even before that date, in Bush v Gore. In so doing they over rode the authority of the Florida Supreme Court to hold a recount when Bush had ostensibly won the State by five hundred and nine votes and indications were that the Gore would triumph on a recount. That decision gave Bush the Presidency.

If the Supreme Court won’t decide this issue by December 8 and leaves it to the politicians then the chaos which the Rehnquist Court claimed they were preventing will ensue. There are an elaborate set of procedures and votes that will be taken by Congress to decide who will be President. However there could be fights as to who the electors are and so forth and so on. Ultimately the House is supposed to elect the President and the Senate the Vice President. As the newly elected legislators decide this should ensure Biden the Presidency and Harris the Vice Presidency. But the problem is that even though the House has an overwhelming Democratic majority each State has one vote and even in the biggest landslide ever the Republicans they will be in the majority as in many rural states there are only a few House Members.

Now if Jay H. Ell knows all this so does Chief Justice Roberts. He also has to be aware that as matters stand at the moment Trump will lose the popular vote by at least eight to ten million votes and the legislative Republicans re electing him under these circumstances would destabilize the country. The Bush vote was five to four and that is what the vote is going to be in the Biden vote. Roberts who has shown he is an adherent to precedent will follow the Rehnquist 2000 decision. Whoever is ahead before December 8 he will use his casting vote to declare the winner. He might reflect at the time of his and his Court's role in allowing America to get to this disastrous state of affairs, in the first place. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Whichever way this is looked at it is going to be ugly.

Jay H. Ell could be totally wrong and Biden’s victory so apparent that even Fox News will call the result for him on the morning of November 4.

Who says Capitalism doesn’t work? The Trump campaign is running out of money.

If the Michael Cohen book shattered the rafters stick around for Bob Woodward’s next week. 

Peter Stzrok's book Compromised makes a water tight case that Trump is a risk to National Security making the enablers of King Donald I even more culpable.

WOODWARD'S BOOK RAGE WILL ENRAGE AS IT OUTLINES TRUMP'S PERFIDY IN THE COVID CRISIS WHERE NEARLY 200,000 AMERICANS ARE ALREADY DEAD.