Tag: donald trump

The Very Definition of Tyranny: A Dictatorship Disguised as Democracy

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Unadulterated power in any branch of government is a menace to freedom, but concentrated power across all three branches is the very definition of tyranny: a dictatorship disguised as democracy.

When one party dominates all three branches of government—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial—there is even more reason to worry.

There’s no point debating which political party would be more dangerous with these powers.

This is true no matter which party is in power.

This is particularly true in the wake of the 2024 election.

Already, Donald Trump, who promised to be a dictator on “day one,” is advancing plans to further undermine the nation’s already vulnerable system of checks and balances.

To be fair, this is not a state of affairs that can be blamed exclusively on Trump.

America’s founders intended our system of checks and balances to serve as a bulwark against centralized power being abused.

As constitutional scholar Linda Monk explains, “Within the separation of powers, each of the three branches of government has ‘checks and balances’ over the other two. For instance, Congress makes the laws, but the President can veto them, and the Supreme Court can declare them unconstitutional. The President enforces the law, but Congress must approve executive appointments and the Supreme Court rules whether executive action is constitutional. The Supreme Court can strike down actions by both the legislative and executive branches, but the President nominates Supreme Court justices, and the Senate confirms or denies their nominations.”

Unfortunately, our system of checks and balances has been strained to the breaking point for years now, helped along by those across the political spectrum who, in marching in lockstep with the Deep State, have conspired to advance the government’s agenda at the expense of the citizenry’s constitutional rights.

By “government,” I’m not referring to the farce that is the highly partisan, two-party, bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

This is exactly the kind of concentrated, absolute power the founders attempted to guard against by establishing a system of checks of balances that separate and shares power between three co-equal branches.

Yet as law professor William P. Marshall concludes, “The system of checks and balances that the Framers envisioned now lacks effective checks and is no longer in balance. The implications of this are serious. The Framers designed a system of separation of powers to combat government excess and abuse and to curb incompetence. They also believed that, in the absence of an effective separation-of-powers structure, such ills would inevitably follow. Unfortunately, however, power once taken is not easily surrendered.”

The outcome of the 2024 elections is not a revolutionary bid to recalibrate a government run amok. Rather, this is a Deep State coup to stay in power, and Donald Trump is the vehicle by which it will do so.

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Panicked DOJ and FBI Officials Are Hiring Criminal Defense Lawyers Ahead of Trump’s Return

The hammer of justice is coming.

Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are hiring themselves criminal defense attorneys in anticipation of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

According to a report from NBC News, senior members of both government agencies are panicking about the prospect of Trump and his prospective attorney general, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

The report states:

“Everything we did was aboveboard,” said a former senior FBI official who has started contacting lawyers because he expects to be prosecuted himself. “But this is a different world.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of becoming even more of a target, doesn’t believe any attempt to prosecute him will be successful. Judges and juries have the power to throw out cases or find defendants innocent if they deem prosecutions to be baseless.

But like many other current and former Justice Department officials, he is bracing for a potentially long and costly legal battle, as well as the possibility of protracted congressional investigations, after Trump takes office in January.

Another satisfying aspect of the report are claims that that DOJ officials “wept” after the election, while Attorney General Merrick Garland was left “shocked” by the result:

Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, were shocked by Trump’s decisive election win.

For the last four years, Garland has argued that strictly following post-Watergate norms that require the Justice Department to work in a nonpartisan manner in criminal investigations would restore public trust in the Justice Department.

Instead, some career Justice Department officials wept after the election, dismayed by the fact that large numbers of Americans apparently continue to believe Trump’s claims that the department is a cesspool of corruption.

While Trump nor Gaetz have never specified exactly what charges could be brought against certain individuals, any prosecutions would likely relate to their efforts to imprison the former president and his most loyal supporters.

Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer and advisor to president, recently argued that special counsel Jack Smith, who led the efforts to prosecute and imprison Trump for challenging the fraudulent results of the 2020 presidential election, should “lawyer up.”

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Donald Trump Has A Mandate To Implement Nationwide Election Integrity Laws

Donald Trump’s resounding victory over Kamala Harris was historically consequential: it was the first time a Republican presidential candidate carried both the electoral college and popular vote in twenty years.

More than that, however, was the lasting, even generational, impact it will have on our politics for decades to come.

If Donald Trump, who had been target number one of weaponized lawfare like nothing seen in our history, had not won this race, America as we know it would have been destroyed for good.

Now there is at least a chance for restoration — if not a new golden age.

The restoration must begin with rigorous election integrity laws.  President Trump’s popular vote win affords him with a mandate that he did not have (at least officially) in his first term.

The feat is made even more impressive by the certainty that fraud and corruption still impacted the results of this race.

The idea that the President had to win over and above what should be the normal threshold to victory – hence, this year’s mantra, “too big to rig” – must be considered unacceptable moving forward.

It should be a top priority for any first world country, especially the United States, to have confidence in its election procedures.

It is inexcusable that in a democratic society, the people would even harbor the slightest doubt about the integrity of their election laws – and the legitimacy of the outcome.

Alas, the way America runs its elections has become a joke around the world.

The fact that we do not have a national standard to check for citizenship in the form of voter ID is a disgrace and embarrassment.

As many commentators, including Elon Musk, have noted on X and elsewhere, it’s striking that every state without voter ID laws voted for Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, this cycle.

Among other things, Democrats have long opposed voter ID laws for winning elections; in a few cases, they have even advocated for permitting illegal aliens and other undocumented persons to vote in local and state elections.

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What Happens To Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump’s Election Win?

After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term, multiple defendants charged for their roles in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, asked to delay their cases because they anticipate pardons from Trump.

According to data collected by NPR, more than 1,500 people have been charged in relation to Jan. 6, with nearly 1,000 pleading guilty.

At least a dozen cases have been dismissed, while plenty remain with changes following Trump’s election. At the beginning of November, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced multiple sentences and guilty verdicts.

Various factors could determine whether these individuals end up avoiding jail time, but perhaps the most important is Trump’s eventual control of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and who will lead that department.

On Nov. 13, Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz has been critical of the prosecutions and introduced a bill in July that was intended to prevent prosecutors from retaliating against Jan. 6 defendants for seeking resentencing. Gaetz has also questioned federal involvement, stating that Jan. 6 “wasn’t an insurrection” but that it “very well may have been a fedsurrection.”

Assuming the presidency also grants Trump substantial pardon power under the Constitution: Trump has indicated that he’s open to pardoning those charged but left open the possibility that some would face punishment.

“We will treat them fairly,” he said in January 2022. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

More recently, during an event in July, he was asked about individuals who assaulted officers. He said he would “absolutely” pardon the defendants “if they’re innocent” and added that “they were convicted by a very tough system.”

More than 70 defendants have received a mixed verdict, and so far, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced, with 64 percent receiving prison time, according to NPR data. Some defendants have also taken plea deals.

“I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions,” Robert Ray, a former Trump impeachment attorney, told The Epoch Times, while noting the large number of cases brought. He added that a second look wouldn’t “necessarily yield a favorable result with regard to each and every defendant, but I think there’s going to be a pretty strenuous exercise of the pardon and commutation power to deal with overreaching [by prosecutors].”

John Pierce, an attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, told The Epoch Times he expects a “blanket pardon,” while Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.”

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Report: Trump Team Putting Together List of Military Officers Involved in Afghanistan Withdrawal

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is putting together a list of United States military officers who were involved in the Biden Administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a recent report.

Two people familiar with the plan told NBC News that Trump’s transition team is reportedly in talks about whether to establish “a commission to investigate” the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left 13 American service members dead.

The commission would reportedly also gather “information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military,” and how the plan “was carried out,” among other things.

“They’re taking it very seriously,” one person with the plan explained to the outlet.

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Ukraine’s Zelensky Admits War More Likely To End Sooner With Trump In The White House

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told reporters that he firmly believes the war with Russia will “end sooner” with president Trump back in office than it would if the Democrats had won the election.

The BBC reports that the Ukrainian leader told Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House.”

“This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” Zelensky further noted, adding that Ukraine “must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means.”

Zelensky also stated during the interview that he had a “constructive exchange” with Trump during their phone conversation last week, noting that US law prohibits him from meeting with Trump until after his inauguration in January.

It was widely reported last week that Elon Musk was also present on Trump’s call with Zelensky, which lasted around 25 minutes, according to the sources who were briefed on its details.

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Like Biden, don’t expect Trump to pay much attention to Africa

As commentators assess the implications of Donald Trump’s election victory for the United States and the world, various publications have asked what Trump’s return will mean for their continent. In one well-informed analysis, the BBC’s Wedaeli Chibelushi highlights “trade, aid, and security” as key sectors. We can also ask what might change in terms of Washington’s political relationships with various African countries, and how such changes would affect the overall balance of U.S. primacy versus restraint.

An initial caveat is necessary – of all the world’s regions, Trump and his team will likely not be thinking much about Africa. When Professor Stephen Walt recently assessed “The 10 Foreign-Policy Implications of the 2024 U.S. Election,” for example, he did not mention Africa – and that’s because the Middle East, Ukraine, NATO, and China, among other issues, will likely consume much more of Trump’s attention than the African continent will.

If Trump ignores Africa, that would be in keeping with a bipartisan neglect of the continent from the time of Barack Obama through the present. Obama and Joe Biden each held a “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” (in 2014 and 2022, respectively), but across the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Africa was approached mostly as a theater for counterterrorism, trade, and global influence, rather than as having intrinsic importance to Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris would likely have replicated the largely performative, status quo-friendly approach of Biden. Although Harris had a deep bench of Africa hands on her campaign, that depth more reflects the long line of aspirants who line up for foreign policy jobs in Democratic administrations, more than a now-dashed promise of transformation. Biden and Harris will leave office with little to show for their Africa policy beyond the summit and a slate of high-profile but low-substance trips, including Biden’s upcoming visit to Angola.

As Trump takes office, there will be something of an opportunity for diplomatic outreach and “reset” with Africa. So far, Trump’s picks for top foreign policy postings do not include anyone with a pronounced interest in African affairs and his victory has elicited more mixed reactions in Africa than one might expect. Despite his infamous “shithole countries” comment and his numerous racist and Islamophobic remarks, many ordinary Africans admire Trump’s entrepreneurial career, socially conservative platform, and outspokenness. Various African leaders were quick to congratulate the comeback candidate. Trump is, however, likely unaware of and relatively indifferent to whatever opportunity exists for engagement, and so it will probably slip by.

If “personnel is policy,” Trump’s first term did not bring any shocking or unusual appointments for civilian posts related to Africa, and his second term may not either; the true ideologues and hawks are likely to gravitate towards Iran policy, for example. During his first term, Trump appointed veteran diplomat Tibor Nagy as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, think tanker J. Peter Pham as Special Envoy for the Sahel, and another veteran diplomat, Donald Booth, as Special Envoy for Sudan. The situation in the Sahel and Sudan was worse when Trump’s term ended than when it began: a massacre in Sudan in June 2019 brought no consequences for its perpetrators, and Mali witnessed a coup in 2020. Yet those outcomes cannot be laid solely at the feet of the Trump administration. Tellingly, the situation in the Sahel and Sudan in 2024 is also worse than it was when Biden took office, so neither administration earns high marks here.

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Trump’s Foreign Policy Agenda Must Start By Undoing Four Years Of Global Insolvency

As the second Trump administration prepares to take office, it faces a full slate of foreign policy crises and a limited capacity for dealing with them. For decades, U.S. foreign policy has been led by people who saw a world without tradeoffs. There was no need for prioritization, either among foreign policy goals or between domestic and foreign projects. America could have more guns and more butter, forever.

Even at the height of the unipolar moment, tradeoffs still existed, but now they are back with a vengeance. The Trump administration will have to deal with insolvency in its foreign policy, both in terms of material resources, as well as its attention. Strategy is about prioritization among various objectives and applying resources commensurately. The D.C. foreign policy establishment is bad at strategy.

In his 1943 book, US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippmann famously worried about the alignment of American ends and means. Solvency, Lippmann wrote, was achieved when “our power [was] adequate to our commitments.” Still, it was not merely balance that policy should seek, but “a comfortable surplus of power in reserve.”

Can anyone with a straight face argue that U.S. foreign policy is, at present, solvent? Much less that we have a comfortable surplus of power in reserve?

The questions answer themselves.

Since President Trump left office in 2021, the People’s Republic of China has eroded the U.S. military advantage each year. In Europe, U.S. policymakers deploy tumid prose to argue that unless Ukraine is capable of defeating Russia (it is not), Americans cannot be safe. For its part, Israel has consumed roughly $18 billion in U.S. military aid for its wars in Gaza and Lebanon. All this while Washington spends more than a trillion dollars per year on defense programs.

There is no slack capacity to draw from. The national debt is $35 trillion and growing. The Congress is racking up budget deficits in excess of $1.5 trillion each year. Unsurprisingly, forward-looking budget projections are absolutely dismal. With Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt largely off the table to close the gap, defense hawks have no stash of money into which they can tap.

Unfortunately, the insolvency of America’s allies and partners is, if anything, even larger. Taiwan, which faces arguably the worst threat environment on earth, spends a piddling 2.5 percent of its own GDP on defense, piling its insolvency on top of ours. U.S. policymakers have made matters worse by not prioritizing the provision of weapons to the island. Taipei is still waiting for roughly $20 billion of U.S. weapons it has purchased but not yet received, but the Biden administration made clear in June that its priority for weapons transfers was Ukraine, not Taiwan. As Biden put it, other recipients are “going to have to wait. Everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met.”

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Trump Proved Rigged Elections Are Winnable. Now It’s Time To Un-Rig Them

In the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his voters faced media interference, suspicious ballot dumps, politicized censorship of information, low-security election laws, polling place issues, and legally dubious Democrat get-out-the-vote operations.

In the 2024 election, Donald Trump and his voters faced media interference, suspicious ballot dumps, politicized censorship of information, low-security election laws, polling place issues, and legally dubious Democrat get-out-the-vote operations. On top of those, he faced two assassination attempts and a political lawfare campaign designed to bankrupt and jail him. The fact that Trump succeeded in making this election “too big to rig” doesn’t make those problems any less threatening to self-governance.

After 2020, concerned Americans started paying more attention to the security of our elections. Often on their own time, they perused voter rolls, filed public records requests, and researched election law. After 2020, they uncovered shady schemes like “Zuckbucks” — an effort to dump billions in “grants” into left-leaning jurisdictions in swing states to juice Democrat turnout — that had influenced that election.

By 2024, they had accumulated a body of research on proven or potential flaws in our elections. States that automatically register residents to vote, but don’t require proof of citizenship to do so, created opportunities for noncitizens to end up on voter rolls, sometimes unknowingly so. Overly broad laws governing overseas voters allowed people to vote in certain swing states despite never setting foot there. States with mass mail voting regimes ended up sending ballots to the wrong places, with no way to make sure they didn’t wind up in the hands of bad actors. Laws allowing undated ballots to be turned in after Election Day welcomed illegitimate behavior. States that don’t require ID to vote — or that treat noncitizen licenses as qualifying IDs — invited fraud and decreased confidence in elections. Election officials’ decision to keep dead, moved, or otherwise unqualified “voters” on the voter rolls practically invited abuse.

Despite the attention drawn to them, all of those problems still exist.

Other problems were reincarnated as new ones. As quickly as sunlight dried up the Zuckbucks pipeline, the federal government replaced it with something worse: a taxpayer-funded scheme to target likely Democrat votes. While Elon Musk transformed Twitter from the chief censorship engine to a free speech platform, actors like Facebook, YouTube, and Google doubled down. While alternative media outlets drew attention to election red flags, the legacy press labeled anyone who questioned the process “election deniers.”

Donald Trump’s win proved the Democrat election rigging machine isn’t impregnable. But it also showed just how much “rigging” you have to overcome to win. And in several Senate races around the country, other Republicans didn’t.

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The Impact of the US Election For Ukraine- Can Trump do a Deal With Putin on Ukraine?

Trump’s plans and approach towards Russia’s war on Ukraine is already evident in his campaign speeches and psoturing. Trump has often boasted about his capacity to negotiate deals, positioning himself as a peacemaker who will bring an end to the war.

His approach would center on swift negotiations and most certainly involving controversial proposals for territorial compromises. However, it is war and unpredictability is a constant. So the specifics would depend heavily on the ongoing state of the conflict and geopolitical dynamics in early 2025.

1. Focus on Negotiation and Ceasefire

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia within a short timeframe (sometimes stating 24 hours). His approach would center on bringing both parties to the negotiating table for immediate ceasefire talks. He’s already had phone calls with Zelensky and Putin who is currently pushing the strategic edge with Trump by calling for a Trump-led negotiation kick-off. In a way, Putin and Trump are already on same page but on same negotiation terms? That will have to be seen but it’s unlikely Trump will want to entirely go Putin’s way and be seen as bending over for Putin.

Trump’s main pitch would likely involve pressuring both sides into halting hostilities temporarily, setting the stage for further discussions on territorial disputes. Trump will argue that continued conflict is a lose-lose situation especially for Ukraine- a claim he already repeated, insisting that Ukraine is losing and Russia is winning and has hinted ending US aid, and he isn’t known to back down from his position even when proven wrong. Leveraging economic interests with Russia as an appeal to ending the war is also key for him.

2. Compromise in the name of “Peace”

Trump has shown a willingness to consider compromises that will involve territorial concessions, at least implicitly. This position is contentious for many reasons and would be met with strong resistance both in Ukraine and among Western allies.

Trump might propose a referendum-based approach, especially so as key members of his team support this.

Elon has repeatedly pushed similar ideas, suggesting that disputed areas such as Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk hold internationally supervised referendums to determine their status. Like it or not, Trump will take it as great if Elon says it’s good. This idea could be framed as a democratic solution, though it would be heavily criticized given Russia’s strong political/military control and occupation over those areas, especially so as millions of Ukrainians has fled those areas leaving their homes and livelihood behind.

Another possible angle could involve Trump advocating for a federated model in Ukraine, where regions could have greater autonomy- hasn’t worked in the past due Russia’s persistent interference. This might include proposals to give the Russian-occupied areas special status or increased autonomy while remaining under nominal Ukrainian sovereignty. It would be an attempt to satisfy both parties without a full land concession. But with Russian interference, it will be Moldova all over again. Some will argue that’s better if it stops the war now. Ukraine however much prefers a solution that contains Russia now and in the future.

3. Pressure on Ukraine to Compromise

Trump has often criticized the extensive military aid provided to Ukraine, arguing it prolongs the conflict. Trump’s Republican Party blocked aid to Ukraine for more than nine months from October 2023 to April 2024, forcing Kyiv to deplete its wartime budget, while the EU scrambled indecisively, mostly due to limited wartime capacity, leading to the loss of some of Ukraine’s most capable fighters and territorial gains for Russia. In a second term, Trump will leverage US support to push Ukraine towards a compromise, by conditioning future aid on entering negotiations with Russia and possibly demanding territorial concessions.

This stance would clearly be met with strong opposition from Ukrainian leadership, who have maintained a firm line on not ceding any territory.

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