Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

The Party of Law and Order

In addition to being the Party of Fiscal Responsibility™, the Republicans are the Party of Law and Order™. That was of course a favorite slogan of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush the First, who gave us the Willie Horton ad among other cultural gifts. Campaigning against Democrats as Soft on Crime™ is routine.

Funny thing. Now Republican senators are saying stuff like this:

You know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to, you can blow it way out of proportion, you can do a lot of things.
 "The Democrats will do anything to hurt this President." Informed it was alleged by federal prosecutors in New York, Hatch said: "OK, but I don't care, all I can say is he's doing a good job as President."
Look I'm not minimizing it, this campaign finance act is important. But No. 1, it's a long way from collusion with a foreign agent to influence the election in 2016, which is what I thought this was about. No. 2, Campaign Finance Act violations are, generally, civil matters.
And this:

It's just like a lot of other things that we've done in Washington. We've over criminalized campaign finance. . . . 

Next up: The Party of Free Trade™.

Their problem, as I have said before, is that they are proactively working to own the consequences of their folly. True, we don't know everything that's going to come out of the special counsel investigation and the SDNY, but we know enough already to be pretty sure it's not going to be flattering to the patriotism, honesty or legitimacy of the delusional idiot they have chosen to be their hill to die on. This does not seem smart to me. Am I missing something.

12 comments:

Robert Owen said...


Couple of points:

First, Cohen is a less than credible witness to hang your hopes on. He's said a lot of things that weren't true and he has a powerful motive to say things that are not true now.
Secondly, like most laws, it boils down to motive. It's really difficult to reach into the mind and determine motive.

I might also add that this could be viewed by public opinion as "just about sex" and may be dismissed or marginalized as the Clinton machine was able to do with the Lewinski scandal.

Let's say you're correct that the House decides all of this is impeachable. Will they do it and risk the next election if the public is not on board? And if they do, who here thinks the Republican Senate will remove him?

Cervantes said...

Well as usual you miss the point, which is about hypocrisy. Orrin Hatch voted to impeach Clinton, remember. And while it is certainly true that Michael Cohen is not a credible person in general, it is clear that the prosecutors have corroboration. For one thing, you may recall that he routinely recorded his conversations with Individual 1; and for another, it is inconceivable that he would have done this without a specific request. After all, he was reimbursed.

In any case, I doubt the House would vote to impeach over this, and I personally don't think they should. But again, that's not the point. They know perfectly well that the next shoe to drop will be a size 16. They're being very foolish.

Robert Owen said...


I think if Trump was caught lying under oath, he would be impeached. That's pretty much what happened to Clinton.

And I would be all for impeaching Trump under those circumstances. You can't have the Chief Law Enforcement Officer lying under oath. You just can't. It guts the whole system.

Mark P said...

I think for Republicans, words are just weapons without any real meaning. That's why it's perfectly OK to lie; the lies have the same meaning as a rock thrown at someone.

Anonymous said...


Ye, it's as if only one party lies!!

Don Quixote said...

I agree that Donald J. Shitler is a delusional idiot.

Anonymous said...


"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you're not allowed to criticize."

--Voltaire

Cervantes said...

Sometimes Democratic politicians lie, but it's a matter of degree. As far as Individual 1 lying under oath, he tells 47 lies every day. To get him to lie under oath, all you have to do is put him under oath and he's guaranteed to lie. Which is why his lawyers will do everything they can to prevent him from being sworn. However, he already lied to the prosecutors in his written answers because he was coordinating his lies with Paul Manafort, not knowing that Mueller already knew that Manafort was lying. So he's already caught.

Anonymous said...


If what you say is true and he's already caught lying under oath, then the Democrats should have no problem impeaching him.

If they don't, then your assessment may not be correct.



Cervantes said...

He's done far worse than lie under oath. He's a career criminal whose racket for the past 15 years has been laundering money for Russian mobsters.

Anonymous said...


You stated that right after the election, Mueller would unload on Trump...that he had the goods and was just waiting.

So, what's the holdup?

Cervantes said...

I don't recall saying that specifically but it's true, many people expected the Mueller investigation to proceed more quickly than it has. Still, I would say he's been unloading systematically and that it just appears the investigation has found more roads to go down so some information still needs to be withheld from the public. It will keep coming out I'm sure.