The Witness Chronicles, 2/15/25

Cracks in the loyalty…

Photo by Omar Gattis on Unsplash

We Now Know What ‘Above the Law’ Means

There’s a flaw in the system and Trump knows it

We’ve got a real problem here. What if a sitting President gets a court order and simply refuses to obey it? And what if that President has a Justice Department purged of anyone not loyal to him, led by an ultra loyalist Attorney General?

That’s where we are at folks, and we are screwed royally. But, maybe not. Trump’s willingness to ignore court orders is actually starting to bother some Republican Congress members. I guess they may possibly be starting to realize how bad this could get for all of us if they give Trump a free pass.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court already gave him a free pass with their unlimited immunity for any crime committed as part of an official act while in office. That effectively shut down one of the two checks and balances on the Executive branch in the Constitution.

But a handful of GOP senators came out, expressing fears about the only remaining check, the United States Congress, if Trump is allowed to ignore the rule of law. I don’t know why they suddenly realized what he is up to because he has ignored the law for most of his life, using lawyers and lawsuits to stall and fight off the courts.

So, why now? First, Trump’s freezes and layoffs and department closings are causing chaos in just as many red states as blue states, and Congress is getting barraged with calls from constituents.

Voters, in other words, and midterms get closer every day. At the rate we are going, a lot of people are going to be getting angrier as the effects of Trump and Musk’s actions kick in.

As we are already seeing, there are widening circles of negative impact as those effects ripple out into the economy. That may explain why these senators, including Senate leader John Thune, are speaking out, finally. Hopefully as they test the waters of critiquing their fearless leader, others join in.

Hope springs eternal.

Meanwhile, another legal kerfuffle is getting attention, the dropping of legitimate corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams in a political deal by the DOJ. This is beyond blatant as the documents dropping the charges actually state that it is so Adams can help Trump with his deportations of illegals. At least seven federal prosecutors resigned rather than carry out these orders, including Republicans.

There can be no resistance without the Republican Party participating. Until these recent changes, they have been in lockstep in their unwavering support of Trump, confirming Cabinet nominees who are collectively the least qualified in our modern history.

Another reason we may see some pushback is Defense Secretary Hegseth’s attempt to push Ukraine out of the negotiations over the future of their country. Hegseth went directly to supporting Putin over our ally Ukraine. But the plight of the Ukrainians is an issue that some Republicans are concerned about.

Apparently a few still think a sovereign country should not be allowed to expand by attacking a neighboring country, something our President does not seem to understand. I don’t need to blather on in alarm about how we are becoming a dictatorship. Trump told us all along that’s what his ultimate goal has been from the start. I just don’t understand why apparently this was not obvious to Republicans until now.

A Republican Senator called Hegseth’s recent comments to the European Union about Ukraine negotiations, ‘a rookie mistake’. Hegseth, without any actual negotiating even started yet, did two things. First he basically conceded two big points to Russia, the land they occupied in 2015 and NATO membership for Ukraine, giving Russian two of its biggest demands without even getting anything in return.

Then he basically threatened the US failing to support NATO if a sovereign member nation is threatened by Russia or its satellites. That would be a violation of the pact that has held together for almost 75 years and maintained peace in Europe during that entire period.

These guys are going to find out that tearing things apart is a lot easier than putting them back together again. We had another example Thursday when they abruptly fired hundreds of nuclear workers only to realize that left our nuclear arms dangerously exposed. When they tried frantically to recall them, they couldn’t even reach many.

There are a lot of things about Republicans I don’t understand. For one, why destroy a democracy that has been very good to those elected officials just to satisfy a cadre of billionaires? And why go to DC if you are simply going to lie down and let one man walk over you?

It’s important to note that we are less than one month into this and there is nothing but chaos, a flood of lawsuits, and little real organized progress is downsizing the government. Instead we get random firings with little to no thought about how important those roles might be.

Utter incompetence, in other words. Dangerous incompetence.

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Martin Edic