[ And it’s damn well past time that the people who conceived and
ordered and facilitated the execution of this crime against all the
rest of us are held to account in a meaningful way]
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GOP TREASON IS STALKING DEMOCRACIES AROUND THE WORLD  
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Thom Hartmann
January 9, 2023
The Hartmann Report
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_ And it’s damn well past time that the people who conceived and
ordered and facilitated the execution of this crime against all the
rest of us are held to account in a meaningful way _

Protesters hold a banner that reads ‘military intervention’ as
they storm the the Brazilian National Congress., Photograph: Eraldo
Peres/AP

 

There’s a reason the Framers of our Constitution wrote the word
“treason” into that document 7 times and the word “rebellion”
5 times: they knew how deadly rebellions are to democracy when they
aren’t swiftly and severely punished.

Yesterday saw that hard lesson play out in Brazil, with coordinated
and simultaneous attacks — explicitly inspired by Trump’s assault
on the US Capitol and cheered on by American Republicans — on
Brazil’s presidential palace, capitol building, and supreme court
building.

As _The Guardian_ reports
[[link removed]]:

“Videos posted on social media showed fires burning inside the
congress building. Furniture was broken and tossed around, objects
were reportedly stolen in the presidential palace and the supreme
court, and in some places sprinklers appeared to be dousing
chambers.”

Trump’s buddy Steve Bannon, who reports suggest has been encouraging
Brazilians to believe the election was stolen on his podcast, told the
Washington Post for an article titled
[[link removed]]: _TRUMP
AIDES BANNON, MILLER ADVISING THE BOLSONAROS ON NEXT STEPS_:

“What’s happening in Brazil is a world event.” And, “The
people are saying they've been grossly disenfranchised. [The movement]
has moved beyond the Bolsonaro’s in the way that in the U.S. it has
moved beyond Trump.”

Brian Klass reports at his _Garden of Forking Paths
[[link removed]]_ Substack
newsletter that Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo was in Washington, DC for
January 6th, has hung out with Trump at Mar-a-Largo, and the entire
Brazilian event was egged on by American rightwingers:

“A guest on Bannon’s show, Matthew Tyrmand, suggested the use of
military force
[[link removed]] in
Brazil to put Bolsonaro back in power. Protesters in Brazil have held
signs that say ‘Brazilian Spring,’ a term that Bannon coined
[[link removed]] to
suggest that Bolsonaro’s authoritarian thugs were carrying the torch
of pro-democracy protesters in places like Tunisia during the Arab
Spring. Yesterday, Bannon referred to the mob seeking to overturn the
election in Brazil as ‘freedom fighters
[[link removed]].’”

Two years ago here in the United States a mob attacked our Capitol
building, smearing feces on the walls, defacing priceless 250-year-old
paintings, and ransacking the sometimes top-secret papers and offices
of members of the House and Senate as they tried to locate and murder
the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

NOT A SINGLE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OR CONGRESSIONAL RINGLEADER,
PLANNER, OR FACILITATOR OF THAT ATTACK HAS EVEN BEEN ARRESTED OR
INDICTED A FULL TWO YEARS LATER.

Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Ali Alexander, John Eastman,
Mo Brooks, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Scott Perry, Josh Hawley, Mark Meadows,
Ginni Thomas, Mike Flynn — the list of people who, by their own
admission or now-publicly known actions, appear to have been central
to or cheerleading for the plot, goes on for another dozen or so names
— all appear to have skated scot-free.

To compound the crime, many of the people who are today trying to
hamstring the House’s ability to function normally are, it appears
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themselves unindicted co-conspirators.

REBELLION AND TREASON ARE NOT NEW THINGS IN AMERICA: THERE WAS A TIME
WHEN WE HELD TRAITORS TO ACCOUNT.

Shay’s Rebellion (1786-1787) is credited by most historians as the
event that pushed American politicians to finally and fully abandon
the Articles of Confederation and call a Constitutional Convention to
create a federal government strong enough to deal with armed
uprisings. They were known then as the Federalists, a name that’s
been co-opted by people seeking to turn our nation into an oligarchy.

As Henry Knox, a close friend of George Washington’s who’d served
under him in the Revolutionary War and would later become our first
Secretary of War (today Defense), wrote
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the future president on October 23, 1786:

“We have arrived at that point of time in which we are forced to see
our national humiliation, and that a progression in this line, cannot
be productive of happiness either public or private — something is
wanting and something must be done or we shall be involved in all the
horror of faction and civil war without a prospect of its termination.

“Every tried friend to the liberties of his country is bound to
reflect, and to step forward to prevent the dreadful consequences
which will result from a government of events.

“Unless this is done we shall be liable to be ruled by an Arbritary
and Capricious armed tyranny, whose word and will must be law.”
[_punctuation modernized_]

The crisis caused
[[link removed]] General
Washington to come out of retirement and ride to Philadelphia to
participate in the Constitutional Convention, where he helped
[[link removed]] Alexander
Hamilton and James Madison successfully argue a new constitution was
necessary.

IN PART BECAUSE OF SHAY’S REBELLION — AND OUT OF AN ABUNDANCE OF
COMMON SENSE INFORMED BY CENTURIES OF EUROPEAN HISTORY — THE MEN WHO
ASSEMBLED IN WHAT’S NOW CALLED INDEPENDENCE HALL IN PHILADELPHIA
DURING THE SUMMER AND EARLY FALL OF 1787 MADE SURE TO EMPHASIZE THEIR
HORROR ABOUT SUCH INSURGENCIES AND THE THREAT THEY REPRESENT TO
DEMOCRACY IN OUR REPUBLIC.

Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution gives immunity to
legislators, _unless_ they’re involved in an insurrection against
the United States:

“They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the
Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the
Session of their respective Houses…”

Article II, Section 4 says that the President and Vice President:

“[S]hall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction
of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Article II, Section 3 defines treason:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying
War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and
Comfort.”

Article IV, Section 2 says:

“A person charged in any State with Treason … who shall flee from
Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the
executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up,
to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”

The 14th Amendment’s Section 4 is explicit:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or
elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of
the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the
Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection
or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof.”

The Framers even wrote into the Constitution (Article I, Section 9)
that _habeas corpus_ — the most ancient of legal civil rights, one
that dates back to King John being forced to sign the Magna Carta on
the field at Runnymede on June 15, 1215 — could _only_ be
suspended in the United States “in Cases of Rebellion or
Invasion…”

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land: every other law, be
it federal, state, or local is subordinate to its explicit provisions.

AND YET, TODAY, NONE OF THE PLANNERS OR RINGLEADERS OF THE ARMED
ASSAULT ON OUR CAPITOL — A REBELLION AT THE LEAST AND TREASON BY ANY
REASONABLE DEFINITION — ARE STILL WALKING AROUND FREE TWO YEARS
LATER, CONTINUING TO AGITATE AGAINST DEMOCRACY AND ADVOCATE ITS
DESTRUCTION BOTH HERE AND AROUND THE WORLD.

Pundits wring their hands about holding the senior-most officials of
our government and their allies accountable for the treason of January
6th. “What about the backlash?” they wail, as if we should
enthusiastically imprison asylum seekers but G-d forbid we hold
traitors to account for fear it might piss them off.

REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HAVE ALREADY EXTRACTED A
PROMISE FROM SPEAKER MCCARTHY THAT HE’LL EMPANEL A HOUSE COMMITTEE
SPECIFICALLY TO INVESTIGATE THE FBI AND THE JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE IN A
NAKED ATTEMPT AT INTIMIDATION AND A WARNING TO THOSE WHO MAY SEEK TO
HOLD REPUBLICANS TO ACCOUNT IN THE FUTURE. AT LEAST A HALF-DOZEN OF
THESE JUDAS-LIKE LEGISLATORS HAD PREVIOUSLY ASKED TRUMP FOR PARDONS:
THEY KNOW WELL THE GRAVITY OF THEIR CRIMES.

These turncoats’ behavior — and, perhaps most important,
America’s failure to punish it — has now led to an open rebellion
in Brazil where Jair Bolsonaro modeled himself and his presidency
after Trump and his White House.

So closely, in fact, that Bolsonaro first fled to Mar-a-Lago and is
now reportedly
[[link removed]] staying
at the home of a mixed martial arts practitioner nearby. (Congressman
Joaquin Castro is calling
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his prompt extradition to Brazil to face the possibility of charges of
treason.)

It empowered Putin to attack Ukraine and, sure enough, a handful of
Republican quislings are already talking about stripping money for
that democracy out of the Pentagon’s budget.

AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENTS AND MOVEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD WERE
EMPOWERED BY TRUMP’S LAWLESS PRESIDENCY AND HIS ATTEMPT TO REPLACE
OUR FREE REPUBLIC WITH A STRONGMAN AUTHORITARIAN FASCIST STATE.
WANNABEE DICTATORS, AS WE SEE IN BRAZIL, ARE LEARNING FROM TRUMP’S
FAILED ATTEMPT AT TREASON.

THE FACT THAT WE HAVE NOT ARRESTED EVEN ONE OF THESE PEOPLE GIVES THEM
CERTAINTY ABOUT THE WEAKNESS OF DEMOCRACY. AND SURENESS THAT OUR TIME
ON THE WORLD STAGE AS A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IS LIMITED.

If the Founders and Framers were here today they’d recognize in an
instant what and who these back-stabbers are and what must be done.
The timidity of the Biden administration and Merrick Garland’s
Department of Justice would rightly horrify them.

In the middle of his second term as President, an aging George
Washington was confronted by the Whiskey Rebellion, itself in many
ways an echo of Shay’s Rebellion. Realizing the danger to our
republic that armed groups of citizens defying our laws and attacking
government officials represented, he gathered
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12,000 troops and led them on horseback, literally risking his own
life (fortunately, it didn’t turn out as bad as it could have) to
put down the insurrection.

When the Confederacy declared an insurrection against the United
States, President Abraham Lincoln summoned the nation’s army to
fight them, leading to over 600,000 casualties. When he was
assassinated, giving his life in defense of democracy, and
slaveholding southerner Andrew Johnson became president, Johnson began
the process of holding harmless the ringleaders of the Confederate
treason.

He pardoned their ringleader, Jefferson Davis, along with over 13,000
other men from the leadership of the insurrection. He issued
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amnesty for white men who’d taken arms against their country. He
even pardoned Samuel Arnold, one of the men convicted of conspiring to
assassinate President Lincoln.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON’S FAILURE TO ENFORCE OUR CONSTITUTION AND THE LAWS
OF THIS NATION ECHO TO THIS DAY. THEY INSPIRED THE “LOST CAUSE”
MYTHOLOGY WHICH INFORMS THE BENEDICT ARNOLDS IN TODAY’S POLITICAL
AND MEDIA WORLDS.

As Rachel Maddow documented so brilliantly in her _Ultra_ podcast,
when members of the House and Senate took money from Hitler in the
1930s and 1940s to do the Nazis’ bidding and were eventually found
out, the Truman administration’s DOJ basically let them get away
with it.

When Richard Nixon committed treason
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telling the South Vietnamese not to go along with a peace deal
President Johnson had negotiated, he did it so Vice President Hubert
Humphrey — Nixon’s 1968 presidential election opponent —
couldn’t take credit for ending the war. Johnson was informed by the
FBI but went to his grave with the secret.

When Ronald Reagan’s campaign cut a deal
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Iranian ayatollahs to hold their American hostages until after the
election so he could destroy President Carter as “weak,” nobody
made a serious effort to hold him or officials in his campaign
accountable. Even after Iran’s then-president, Abolhassan Banisadr,
came to America and published an account of Reagan’s 1980 treason,
no officials called for accountability.

When George W. Bush’s
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Florida Governor Jeb Bush, cancelled the voter registrations of around
80,000 African American voters in that state in the months leading up
to the election of 2000 and it was widely publicized on BBC and other
media, nobody demanded either of the Bush brothers pay a price for
their sedition.

The Republican Chief Justice of the Supreme Court even put his stamp
of approval on Jeb’s un-American action, writing
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decision in _Bush v Gore _that the statewide recount ordered by the
Florida Supreme Court must stop (so much for the 10th Amendment):

“The counting of votes … does in my view threaten irreparable harm
to petitioner [George W. Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud
upon what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election.”

Now it’s Donald Trump and his wealthy and powerful allies who put
American democracy in the crosshairs and, if history repeats itself,
will not be held to account or, at most, will receive a slap on the
hand.

This willingness to brook rebellion is not just hurting America.
It’s threatening democracies all around the world.

And it’s damn well past time that the people who conceived and
ordered and facilitated this crime against all the rest of us and the
world are held to account in a meaningful way.

_Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author 34 books in 17
languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist,
international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality,
psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the
natural world._

* Brazil protests
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* Jair Bolsonaro
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* Insurrection
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