Posted on 07/10/2024 1:49:16 PM PDT by Twotone
As much as I admire Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s fighting spirit, two recent experiences have convinced me that his call for legal retribution is impractical, perhaps impossible.
My first experience was the March trial of Rebecca Lavrenz in Washington, D.C.’s federal district court. Lavrenz, one of the 10 women I profile in “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” is a great-grandmother. On January 4 and 5, 2021, she drove 25 hours by herself to D.C. to pray for the nation. On January 6, when a Capitol door opened from the inside, Lavrenz walked in, prayed for 10 minutes, and walked out. Two months later, FBI agents found their way to her home in rural Colorado and arrested her.
As a finalist in the Miss Iowa contest a half century ago, Lavrenz won the congeniality prize. If anything, she has grown more congenial over time, but the bored D.C. jurors could not have cared less. Unimpressed by her sincerity, they convicted her on all four counts. She awaits sentencing in August. To date, D.C. juries have acquitted not a single J6er.
In 2020, President Donald Trump received 5% of the D.C. vote. As I learned on the Memorial Day Ashli Babbitt Freedom March, many, perhaps most, of the remaining 95% do not merely dislike Trump; they despise him, loathe him, and fear him. As we marched southeast from the Capitol on the way to the D.C. jail, Trump flags and American flags aflutter, the neighbors, mostly white, freely showered us with abuse. The hatred in their taunts was undisguised. The young women, in particular, impressed me with the range and ardor of their profanity.
The citizens of Washington, D.C., the scene of so many political crimes, will never convict a John Brennan or a James Comey, let alone a Nancy Pelosi or a Joe Biden. In fact, a D.C. jury acquitted lawyer Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI despite his small potatoes status and the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. In his three-year investigation of the plot to frame Trump as a Russian stooge, special counsel John Durham convicted no one.
The acquittals allowed many Americans — and just about all Democrats — to ignore the unprecedented treachery of the Obama-Biden regime. If a Trump Justice Department attempts to try the other deserving miscreants, the media will reflexively muddy the waters to the point of murkiness, and the juries will acquit.
To attain some modicum of justice, Trump and his people would be wise to channel their urge for retribution into a more practical — and sellable — alternative. One that comes quickly to mind is a South Africa-style “truth and reconciliation commission.” Many on the left, Barack Obama most notably, cut their political teeth protesting apartheid. They, of course, do not see the Obama-Biden regime as morally comparable to the apartheid regime, but they need to. An American TRC would open the nation’s eyes to the enormity of their offenses.
What made the South African TRC work was the proffered grant of amnesty to those willing to tell the truth about crimes committed under the color of law. Democratic operatives will be reluctant to come clean in an American TRC, but once some mischief maker begins talking, pressure will rise on others to do the same. A Trump Justice Department may not be able to convict the uncooperative, but it has the power to make their life hell.
As in South Africa, the American TRC will allow those injured to come forward and petition for redress. The claimants will be many, including now prominent victims like Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and others.
Those without resources to fight the regime will benefit even more from the opportunity to make their case in public — the jailed pro-lifers, the persecuted school board protesters, the jobless unvaxxed, the unbanked, the blacklisted, the deplatformed, the hundreds of January 6 protesters knowingly over-charged and over-sentenced.
The televised proceedings would expose America to the many injuries and usurpations of the Obama-Biden era: the Russia collusion hoax, the “51 intelligence experts” scam, the Afghanistan debacle, the COVID lies, the House January 6 committee deceptions, the abetting of the illegal alien invasion, the social media suppression, the dementia cover-up, the 2020 election shenanigans, the relentless lawfare against Trump and his attorneys, and so much more.
Even educated liberals know little of this relentless abuse. Knowing little, they see no reason why a Steve Bannon would seek retribution. The word scares them. Trump scares them. The Supreme Court horrifies them. They unblushingly share their fears with the clueless on social media.
Tempting as it to dismiss the know-nothings among us, they vote. The goal pre-election should be to make converts, not enemies. It is in Trump’s best interest to talk them off the ledge. In this regard, “reconciliation” will work much better as a campaign strategy than “retribution.” As Trump himself said in his unforgettable debate with Biden, the best retribution is success.
As usual Beck screams for preemptive surrender.
Truth can be such a fleeting concept.
I couldn’t disagree more. We don’t have political opponents, we have sworn enemies who want us dead and consider any “reconciliation” a fatal weakness to be ruthlessly exploited. If you don’t believe that, just ask them.
The author isn’t Glenn Beck. It’s Jack Cashill. And he has a point. There is not likely to be any prison time for the thugs that have destroyed this nation. But this would be one way to air our grievances.
They certainly are our enemies. And the more I read of our history, the more I see Democrats as utterly evil. But aside from CWII, we’re probably not going to get very far against them in the courts.
Although I believe Mr. Cashill is well-meaning, I also think he is terribly naive. We are not dealing with people who share the same values and viewpoints as us. They hate use because they are diametrically opposed to our values and viewpoints. The reason is that they are COMMUNISTS. Deep died-in-the-wool communists. They are modern day followers of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and, yes, Hitler. We can’t reason with them in any way, and until we get this through our heads, we will never find a way to permanently defeat them.
... the neighbors, mostly white, freely showered us with abuse. The hatred in their taunts was undisguised. The young women, in particular, impressed me with the range and ardor of their profanity.
These are not people who are willing to reconcile with anyone. Hold out an olive branch, pull it back on fire.
The process is the punishment. Just get a grand jury to indict and let them fight for their freedom and go broke for the privilege.
Justice will not be served until those Jurors take her place in prison. Judge and Prosecutors also need to go to prison. Every agent involved in arresting her needs to go to prison.
DC is a corrupt, disgusting sh*t hole, and it should be barred from having any courts at all.
No trials in DC. DC is a corrupt sh*t hole, and it's courts are government agents.
The nation would be better off if everyone in DC went to prison.
This is correct, but not enough. People need to go to prison. We just have to figure out a way to make that happen.
Perhaps a better solution would be Jorge Videla helicopter rides. When Jorge Videla seized power in Argentina in a coup in 1976, thousands of anarchists, Communists and other assorted leftists were loaded onto helicopters which then took off and flew over the Atlantic Ocean. They must have really liked where they were going because none of them ever returned.
Our Grievances And gain some Believers when Trump turns the Country around.
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But I’m a dreamer.
Couldn't the thugs be sued to oblivion? I think of that as way easier to pull off than criminal conviction in the DC insane asylum. For starters, you don't need a unanimous verdict, and for the spoiled perps, publicly being forced to pay a few hundred K to their political enemies would be a fate worse than the death penalty.
This guy buys white flags in bulk
There is not likely to be any prison time for the thugs that have destroyed this nation. But this would be one way to air our grievances.
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Then be prepared to start losing badly once Trump’s term is over. If the conservative voting-base of this country is handed right back over to the same sort of vampires that they have struggled so hard to remove from government, then you can rest assured that (in the long-term) the country is every bit as irredeemable as people are predicting it will be.
Excusing the dark evil of attempting to jail people for thinking wrong or just for opposing your views only allows thew evil to get worse.
Yes seeking Justice can be hard but not seeking it is even worse. By not seeking you you become no better than those who watched Jews hauled away in boxcars, and even worse you are actually promoting that end result with such inaction.
This article is not about peacemaking and moving forward. it is cowardice disguised as practicality.
I have never met a Collectivist that had any regret for the destruction they have caused. The End justifies the Means.
“Revolution is about the exercise of power; if the revolution ends, the revolutionaries cease to exercise power. Revolution is about change; if the revolution ends, the change stops. Revolution is about possessing and exercising the moral high ground, finally, and most importantly, revolution legitimizes all crimes; if the revolution ends, the law must supplant the ability to act without consequence.”
I understand the viewpoint & would be thrilled to see some of these people in front of a firing squad myself. Or I’d like to see these thugs lose every penny they have or will have to pay for the damage they’ve done. But with the judges we have today (politicized), not to mention the juries, is it possible? I doubt it. And it just makes me madder when I see judges like those in NY do what they did to Trump. I’d hate to sit through a trial of Biden or AG Garland only to see them walk away with a smile. That would not be justice either, even though it went thru the courts.
Reconciliation should’ve happened after the Civil War, but didn’t, with very bad consequences for this country. We’re at the cusp of a second CW, unless we figure some way to defuse the situation.
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