I remember my college philosophy course of some 60 years ago, where on free speech the standard limit was given: “You don’t yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater”. All of us have heard this standard limit over the years.
Nobody ever thought that someone would invite and gather an angry audience who hated the theater by saying that they had cheated him and the audience, and then yell “Set the theater on fire”, and call it free speech.
As far as Impeachment and timing, the House had fulfilled its roll of impeaching, which is charging Trump with inciting insurrection, before the end of his term. It is the Senate which rejected allowing them to present the charges and the impeachment to the Senate before his term was up.
Think of an ordinary crime committed by a government employee. Think of the law charging him of that crime. Just because the employee quits before his trial comes up, does not absolve him of the crime, or of being tried or punished if found guilty.
Republicans had also enforced a “rule” during Trump’s term that Trump could not be sued or prosecuted while in office because it would interfere with the President’s valuable time in conducting the government, although Trump managed to take over 300 Golf Game day offs. That could be applied to say that you cannot Impeach a President while in office because the trial would interfere with his or her leadership time. Of course, Republicans managed to impeach President Clinton while in office, and Rep. Greene (R-GA) has already filed an impeachment against President Biden.
You can argue that impeachment is just a removal from office, with no penalty, so once out of office, you cannot impeach or try the impeachment. But after an impeachment finding of guilt, the Senate can ban the impeached from every holding a government position. For the ex-President involved here, the only thing he has indicated that he cares about is holding or regaining the Presidency, and the insane amount of power that he managed to yield without the opposition of his own political party.
FREE NAVALNY!
In that light of impeachment removing the future political candidate from ever running again, we have Putin arresting and sentencing his perennial opponent Alexei Navalny to 2.5 years of prison for violating his parole, while he was being treated in Germany, for being poisoned, allegedly by Putin.
People wondered whether there would be international encouragement for totalitarian moves by Trump challenging of an obviously lost election, topped off by his televised move to get a mob to storm the US Capitol. Plus Trump’s friendships with dictators Vladimirk Putin, Xi Jin Ping, and Kim Jong Un. Well, the Myanmar military took over the government, despite having only a small amount of the legislature. Putin confined Navalny and brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations, arresting thousands. Trump’s softness on Putin led to Putin’s hacking of a large part of our government and businesses. Iran is said to be just weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon, not bound by the nuclear prevention agreement which Trump backed out of. We wait for more dictatorships to catch up.
And of course, probably the lack of a real trial for Trump, will not bring forth how much his White House, family, and campaign people planned the rally and directed it, after spending two months spreading the falsity that he had won the election, by a landslide, no less. The trial will also not reveal why and how Trump was continually subservient and protective of Putin.
It’s forbidden and illegal to tamper with a jury. Yet for Senate Republicans, it could not be more obvious that Trump has threatened all of them not only lack of support if they vote to impeach him, but to actively file primary challengers against them and to see that they are defeated. The Godfather holds all of the cards. Rep. Gaetz going to Wyoming to punish Rep. Liz Cheney for voting for the article of impeachment in the House was timed just for that purpose. So not just one, but every Republican juror has been tampered with. Whereas with a normal jury you need 11 of 12 to convict, for impeachment, you need a 2/3 vote of the Senate, 67 votes, or 17 out of the 50 Republicans.
Another rule of juries, is that they must have no connection with the accused, or self-interest in getting the accused off.
Also, the jury cannot have any victims of the crime. All Senators who were present in the joint or separate session, to vote as to accept the electoral votes submitted by the states, were victimized by the six hours of terror of the invasion of the Capitol. Some of their offices were also raided, trashed, and files stolen. They may be too frightened to apply judgement to the President who stirred up the crowd and directed it to the Capitol, which is hypocritical for the party that calls itself the party of Law and Order. They will never forget what happened to them, or live down their cowardice.
The members of the House were also terrorized and victimized. All of the Capitol police and some of the D.C. police were also victimized. Several members of the House came down with the Coronavirus by Republican representatives who refused to wear masks.
Finally, you wouldn’t put anybody on a jury for a crime, who already had acquitted the same perpetrator for the same type of crime.
Besides Trump stirring up the crowd and directing it to the Capitol, they were also stirred up in brutal terms by Donald Trump, Jr., by Rudy Giuliani, and by Rep. Mo Brooks.
As long as we are on limits to free speech, lets take on Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Rep. Greene has threatened Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, and at that time the highest placed Democrat and the highest place woman in the American government. Doesn’t Georgia ban such unbalanced people from possessing guns? Actually, not. The so called red flag laws are not present in the South or Midwest or in Republican states, except for Florida.
If she is going to claim that her threats against leaders are protected by free speech, its not going to fly in a Democratically controlled House.
Democrats might be quite happy if she would hang around for the 2022 midterm election, especially when Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp will be up for re-election, and will be challenged in a primary by a candidate endorsed by Trump. Georgia Democrats need her as incentive to motivate voter turn out for the midterm and to elect a Democratic Governor, and to re-elect Democratic Senator Warnock, who’s term is only two years this time.
