A new motion in an international court dispute draws in a wide range of political luminaries, from Canada's new Prime Minister to the head of Donald Trump's new "Weaponization Working Group"
I think the biggest reason I appreciate Taibbi other than his investigative journalism, is he is capable of remembering inconvenient things. Turns out American political history did not start in 2016.
I think it's pretty obvious that the little people have been crushed by the state since......well, basically forever. What changed (IMO) was when Trump was elected in 2016 and the Swamp was actually worried about losing power. Crossfire Hurricane is the perfect example of lawfare against the powerful, and that obviously continued all throughout Trump's first term -- to the point where he ordered the Crossfire Hurricane files unredacted and the Swamp simply refused.
That election, along with Brexit around the same time, REALLY spurred the lawfare "#Resistance" warriors into action. Anything that threatened the WEF/Globalist order was deemed a threat and attacked with the full force of governments around the world. (This is why we see so many "hate speech" laws being drafted and implemented around the globe.) Now they've established those baseline rules and are ramping up into banning candidates or parties, or simply ignoring the results of elections they don't like.
I HOPE all of this is on the downswing because it SEEMS like people across the world are rejecting rule-by-elites. But the Swamp isn't going to give up without exhausting every legal (and not so legal) avenue at their disposal.
This is why they FREAKED OUT in 2016. They knew what they were up to (lying to spy on Trump campaign, lying to start rumors and investigations), and Trump was going to be able to see it all once he took control. They were talking about impeachment BEFORE HE EVEN TOOK OFFICE!!
I think what's really changed is that the state has become inept. Its' attempts to suppress and oppress are now haphazard and fail 50% of the time. They went too big to go home on Trump... then went home in failure anyway. It was a weird mixture of lacking the nerve to go all the way, and also going too far to not be noticed by the majority of the population as an egregious abuse of power and repudiation of the idea that we had "democracy" at all. Ditto for what's been going on in Europe with outright cancelling and annuling elections.
From a bird's eye perspective, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that an incestuously corrupt superstate that is just a feeding trough for lazy bureaucrats would, in its final hours, become so inefficient it forgets how to even properly oppress its subjects and hold onto power.
Complex legal structures make lawfare possible. The only genuine antidote to lawfare is simplification of the law and radical reduction in the scope of government.
Exactly. Lawfare lives in the space between law-as-written and law-as-enforced. If there's are any truly opposed factions in politics, discretion in enforcement *will* be political. The space is necessarily vast because the law-as-written is so extreme in scope and elaborate in detail as to be beyond intolerable, and actually unworkable.
What worries me is that a truly limited government must be based on neutral principles. Negative rights are the organizational solution that lets us live under the same tent without killing each other. I have trouble seeing any agreement on those principles in the near future.
As a thought JD: We the People aren't outnumbered. We're out moneyed. And our American national conversation is manipulated poisoned and distorted. The real call to action in this RACKET report (my view)is not shock at the antics of financial thuggery but accepting that We the People live in the true and powerful moral reality our forefathers created when they established our Republic. We the People are the real power. I believe this because of the great links the present criminal monarchy must go to to maintain deception. Trump is President (reprieve not salvation) because the lie represented by the
DNC/WEF/CCP Davosphere was made transparent by the indwelling human moral reason of average American free citizens. RACKET reports like this one confirm it.
“We the people” aren’t united. Half of us would vote for AOC for president, and many of what remains would vote for AOC with a little R after her name, if that existed. Genuine, consistent belief in the principles that lead to prosperity is still a small minority.
I understand the viewpoint. 20% of us are illiterate. 60% of us read at a 6th Grade level. Add poverty, addiction and an industrial strength psyop screaming over the top of, and intentionally destroying, a healthy truth/fact based American reality. The consequence is more pathological than political. It's crazy making. I've come to believe that the moral/spiritual forces grounding the "small minority" are far more powerful than we allow ourselves to believe. Those present (subscription journalism) are invested in truth/fact based moral reality. That is a unifier. And, it is far more powerful than the hollow immoral LIE attempting to subsume our
lives.
In most social/political organizations 5% of the people are responsible for
90% of the work done. Core American reality is bigger than the grift.
Were the 1,500 people imprisoned after January 6th terrorists, or political casualties? Political casualties, disgustingly treated
Was the movement to use the Insurrection Act to keep Trump off the ballot legitimate, or abusive? Abusive
How about jailing people like Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro on contempt of Congress charges for the first time since the McCarthy era? Terrible
Would the 100-plus criminal counts against Trump have been filed against anyone, or were they political (or are both partly true)? Only Trump, only political. And a warning to other Republicans. If, say De Santis had been the candidate he'd have been lawfared into bankruptcy and possibly death
Was there nothing untoward in the role major law firms played in Russiagate, or did such episodes show the dangers of keeping private corporate defense firms and intelligence/law enforcement so intertwined? They were tools and part of the ruling elite. Interested only in money and power.
Is that ODC case against Martin just good regulation, or is it itself lawfare and retaliation?
Retaliation for daring to be a Republican in a Trump Administration.
If you don’t think any of those pre-2025 actions were lawfare, you’ll clearly object to the current administration’s high-handed tactics. If like me you had hopes this presidency might somehow break the cycle, you’re likely also unnerved.
I think that you need to do tit for tat. Unfortunately. If there are adverse consequences for bad actions, you'll see less of them. Being a Boy Scout didn't help Romney. The Lawfare against Trump, his lawyers and J8 protestors was disgusting and the perpetrators should get retribution. Then, next time round, we'll see fewer bad actions.
I'm disappointed in Matt's comment - "If like me you had hopes this presidency might somehow break the cycle, you're likely also unnerved".
This turn-the-other-cheek attitude is naive. The only way lawfare stops is if the people who started it feel the exact same pain they inflicted. There has to be a reckoning for the past abuses. Then we can get to a sense of mutual assured destruction so that the "cycle" can be broken. Asking trump to ignore his abusers will only guarantee they continue their efforts. If there is no penalty, why would they stop, particularly when the mainstream press is on their side?
Not only that, but don't I have a right to expect certain levels of qualifications for the people sitting in The Big Chairs?!
Turns out Comey is even a bigger creep than we knew.
It isn't revenge porn for me to find out who was running the country the last four years, or for me to have investigated why the former FBI director is publishing weird posts about offing the Pres.
The lawfare battle is a march through the institutions that began in Nixon's time. Giving the Administrative State rule-making power.
We low income people can't fight. Only someone with assets can fight for us.
So as the federal government is not able to update our air traffic control system for decades, it is able to promote USAID goals throughout the world. And when funding for that is challenged, to deploy lawsuits to prevent its loss.
I agree. They'll only stop when it hurts. They lose Govt contracts. They get lawfared into bankruptcy. When they realise it can happen to them and there may be another 8 years of republicans in the WH after Trump, maybe they'll stop. Maybe they can come clean on who was wielding the autopen while Biden was clearly gaga.
I think that's very good point. I hope that the use of the autopen is under investigation, right now. And maybe many of the Biden EOs will turn out to be invalid. In which case, criminal and, possibly, fraud charges should follow. Gosh, maybe now we realise why the Ds wrre so desperate.
It stops by scorched earth warfare and the realization that using the tools of the state to pursue political foes results in the collapse of same and lawlessness.
See: Rome - special note for how the Gracchi were treated, how Marius and Sulla behaved, Cicero's experience with Caitline, after the Rubicon/Ides/the war that resulted in the onset of the Second Triumvirate.
It only stopped when nearly every optimate was killed in wars. Exhausted, the Romans finally gave up on that form of political warfare and accepted a veiled monarchy.
If you think this is anywhere near over, you're not paying attention.
I'll likely be checked out when it has a denouement. I wish you luck, I am not so optimistic. Nations that uncork this particular genie have a hard time getting it back in the bottle.
"It stops by scorched earth warfare and the realization that using the tools of the state to pursue political foes results in the collapse of same and lawlessness."
Maybe, but that sounds more like war to exhaustion from which ashes god knows what arises. See Game of Thrones ...
I understand lawfare to be an abuse of our system of justice. It matters not who the perpetrator is, the reason or the target.
Good parents teach their children about right and wrong. When a wrong has been committed it is named, reason provided why it was wrong and a consequence ensues. This also sets an example for siblings.
We are in year nine of lawfare against one target and many in that target’s sphere. This has also spilled over to general groups of people, like parents, Catholics, Christians, and people like Matt.
When our justice system is the lawfare mechanism, we are more than disadvantaged and others have boundless opportunities to continue.
The way to put a stop to the in-justice system is to show Americans that the system is a righteous one, and it will give perpetrators due process in court by naming the wrongs committed, the reasons why, and issuing consequences.
During Patel's hearing he was battered by certain Dems accusing him of using this position to unjustly go after those innocent people that just did not like Trump; trying to extract promises from him.
Ever since Bush 41 joined the UN’s Agenda 21/30 our leaders have been managing the slow decline of our country. We are five years away from the abyss and Trump's plan is the only plan to get us through the next five years. He must show citizens that justice will be done, the debt will be attended to, our needs will be met within our homeland, others must enter legally, and other countries can take care of themselves – God Willing.
What you say makes sense from a game theoretic perspective - considering repeated prisoner's dilemmas, unconditional cooperation invites repeated defection (ie being taken advantage of). Reciprocity, or mirroring the opponent's behavior, is superior for one's own welfare *and the likelihood of an opponent's cooperation*.
That said, an even better strategy is the same reciprocity plus occasional altruism - cooperation after an opponent's defection - with the hope that the opponent sees the value of reciprocity and takes the opportunity to shift into a cooperative equilibrium, meaning both players choosing cooperation repeatedly.
Do you agree that this applies to the present scenario? If so, when do you think is the right time (or place) to extend the hand of cooperation?
Trump DIDN'T prosecute Clinton. That hand of peace was spurned. What do you suggest? I think the Swamp needs to make a gesture. Until then, I and, no doubt, Trump, won't trust them.
That assumes everyone is a partisan hack and that the only people who will suffer under the increasingly totalitarian uniparty regime are the political enemies of the current ruler.
Politics has always been a ruleless rock fight. For decades, the only ones launching boulders were crony globalists like Carney and Weissman. Now they are panicking that rocks are actually being thrown back at them.
Peruvians are collateral damage in this cage match. The third world is caught between a rock and a hard place - Western corporation or CCP One Belt One Road exploitation. As "Empire of Dust" documented in the Congo, it's all so tiresome: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/its-all-so-tiresome-empire-of-dust
Trump is the first Republican to understand that the left has been waging a war since Reagan. Pusillanimous and naive Republicans like W, Romney, McCain, etc. thought they could play nice and it would all go away.
They didn't have the NEED to fight back- never mind the balls. They were all part of the stage production, playing their parts with melodrama, but all in the same cast...
Today's PC-Progs began their tactics of destruction of Normal America with the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and the Scottsboro Boys.
From there, they worked to defame, delegitimize and destroy Hoover, Coolidge, McCarthy, Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, and others, only then did they get to Reagan.
The Republicans you mention weren't concerned "it would all go away", unless, of course, you're referring to their cut of the deals. They were moss-backed, back scratching creatures of the swamp themselves.
If you think there is some semblance of fairness in the law, there’d be a lot of weisman types that would never see the light of day again. Straight up he’s been statist garbage for decades.
Three separate countries. There’s no way to ever bring the two views together again. None whatsoever.
It’s so far gone that an entire political party is openly trying to protect drug cartels.
Matt asks, "If a whole system is crooked, to what extremes may an institutionally outmanned player, like a South American city, resort to in fighting back?"
These are the questions of our time, and never better encapsulated than: when one admin deliberately admitted 10MM+ illegals in just 4 years - totally lawless - are we really going to fight tooth-and-nail for the "Rule of Law" on the way out? Here or in any other category? How do you enforce it on the way out and not on the way in? And since nothing has been done to prevent every DNC POTUS from here on out from allowing 10MM in per 4 years to break this country's back, what role do laws even play?
I have my own ideas but what we are navigating now is, when your enemies have built themselves a summer cottage over the Rubicon and begin stripmining your empire, do you still accept your role as Ward Cleaver, submitting to the letter of the law in Mayfield?
I have to say that in 1989, and all the years going forward, the Dems have always quoted that there were "only" about 20 million illegals in the USA. That claim has never been updated, and anyone paying attention would agree it's more like 50 million. Add in bidens untold millions and it is likely more like 60 to 70 million.
I'm not sure law is the problem. This morning, I listened to an amazing oral argument by the Solicitor General, in an emergency petition to the Supreme Court to stop 40 universal injunctions in birthright cases. [I am in awe of his mind, and his ability to cite innumerable cases from memory. What a performance!] The justices, especially the libs, gave him a thorough challenge, and he did well. His position works for me: Class actions are the proper way to enjoin the government, using an abbreviated class certification process.
I listened to him yesterday. How he kept his cool is beyond me. What is with the D females on the court. Must have been sotamayor - would make a statement, ask a question and the after his first three words interrupt him. This occurred over, and over and over again. Her hypotheticals were strange and even disjointed.
Persuasive arguments are great and can lead to good laws
But this doesn’t answer what we do when laws are ignored wholesale, or worse yet, selective enforcement: when one party deploys lawlessness to achieve structural political victory while demanding its enemies observe the laws it ignored to achieve that victory
The proper remedy is for the electorate to throw the law-abusing bums out. That's what happened: Trump won decisively.
But Trump also swore to uphold the law when he took office. Somehow, the Obama administration was able to deport far more immigrants than the Trump administration has while following the law. Trump can still fulfill his political mandate while upholding his oath of office.
Is that an inconvenient solution? Yep. But freedom ain't free.
So, the Trump Administration's legal actions have ". . . resulted in sharp condemnations not just from the press but politicians from both parties . . ." If CNN, MSNBC and the other mainstream media disapprove, then Trump is on the right track. And as for the Uniparty, they have no intention of supporting anything that Trump does. Republicans and Democrats in D.C. are making a mockery of what the majority of citizens voted for.
Regarding issues that determine one's view of lawfair, Matt asks "Were the 1,500 people imprisoned after January 6th terrorists, or political casualties?" Most of the people imprisoned walked calmly around the Capitol Building after the doors were opened by the police. Some were escorted by police through the building. Some were grandmothers who never went into the building and were arrested much later using cellphone records. The terrorist accusation is ridiculous.
It's not complicated. Lawfair is simply a political weapon. Nothing more.
I don't disagree with your points. However, I'll swear, I don't think I would even know that MSNBC, CNN, et al would even still exist, if it weren't for the near constant references to them in comment sections.
Matt, don't think of it as using the courts as weapons against opponents. Think of it as busting up a criminal enterprise disguised as financial institutions and government agencies.
Look, I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but you do see that what you're saying is a little circular, right? The law is supposed to be how we fairly adjudicate criminality in the first place.
Fairness isn't just a matter of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, it's a set of rules that are broadly tolerable. Proceeding as though the cases are decided and any means of punishment are justified just isn't a blueprint for neutral government.
I honestly don't have a solution here but I think we should appreciate the problem.
I'm sorry Cet, did I say condem them without a trial?
If it is true that government agencies are colluding with NGOs who turn out to be co-workers or acquaintances, or taking payoffs from a company that gets a sweetheart deal that sticks the bill with the peasants (here or in Peru) that is a crime.
My point is that those in power have gotten a pass for decades while they spend us into oblivion.
It is not "lawfare" to apply the law equally to the powerful.
"The toll deal was initially struck between Odebrecht and then-Mayor Susana Villarian (eventually sentenced to 29 years for her Odebrecht ties)..."
Can one assume Villiarian had a trial? Found guilty? Sentenced? She fucked round and found out. Seems to me that that is all that Vet nor is saying. Rightly and righteously convict some of these assholes, but them in prison and let them serve as examples of what will happen. In fact, parade them in the streets on their way to the cell.
It’s not surprising in the least to see Weissman‘s name associated with this type of lawfare grift. I’ve been paying attention to his actions and associations for decades at this point and he and his ilk are the bedrock of the bottom layer of slime in the swamp that our “betters” ooze throughout. To make matters even worse, he sounds like a valley girl when he speaks (predominantly) on MSNBC.
That guy is a ruthless bully. Few years ago, I read the book Licensed to Lie by Sidney Powell. It goes into the backstory of the Enron/Athur Andersen/MerrillLynch debacle, which was long before Trump came on the scene. Not to exonerate the players, but to expose just how badly the DOJ acted. This was Weissmann's rise and he was rewarded for it. I have a theory that because so many of the underlings in the DOJ saw how his behavior was rewarded, others followed suit. In a town where you have a lot of insecure and narcissistic people who will do anything to get ahead, that became the ticket.
Anyway, even though a lot of the case decisions were eventually overturned, it didn't matter and they really didn't care; the process was the punishment and the attitude is one of "yeah, we cheated, but we got our pound of flesh and promotions - what are you going to do about it?" is frankly disgusting and it pisses me off we pay for it.
As of January 1, 2024, there were approximately 1,322,649 active lawyers in the United States, according to the American Bar Association’s National Lawyer Population Survey.
As I said, the ruling elite is only interested in money and power. Screw the little people. The reason they went after Trump was not principle, it was their fear he'd cut them off from all they hold dear - money. Gosh, the likes of Brookfield et al are disgusting.
Thank you sincerely for the perspective. I now have more evidence to shove down the throats of communists who complain about any supposed lawfare that Trump might engage in.
And who could blame him? The level and scope of egregiousness against DJT since 2015 - ramped up to nearly killing him last year - would piss off any normal person to the point of extreme.
At this point in our history, If Trump doesn't go after these dictatorial freaks and crush some of them in the process (especially federal judges attempting to exert executive branch-level power via "nationwide injunctions"), they will simply become more emboldened.
The Brits were using lawfare to control their colonial subjects a hundred years ago and more. This is from the Cambridge military history of the Mandate period in Palestine. Basically the military government just made up laws on a daily basis to keep people terrified and cowed. It was so bad that some judges made a habit of being extremely lenient with accused people, but that didn't help the ones who were shot on the spot or had their houses blown up to entertain the troops.
“Law was the bedrock of Britain’s pacification of Palestine….Lawfare pacified the country through quotidian application of a crafted, all-encompassing legal system that restrained, detained, and impoverished Palestinians, hanged and killed them, and demolished their homes. It banned newspapers, interned people, fined and exiled them, censored their mail and telephone calls, took away livestock and crops, whipped them, imposed curfews and police posts, exacted corvee, and restricted travel. It made singing, shouting and waving flags illegal, alongside processing the wrong way down a street, buying a toy children’s gun, or meeting in a cafe. People paid financial bonds to ensure their good behaviour. If they had a nice house, the authorities marked it for destruction if a stranger in the neighborhood broke the law. Photographs in regimental archives show soldiers painting big numbers on buildings for future destruction. Whole village populations walked miles and back every day to report their presence at a police station.”
Matthew Hughes, Britain’s Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt 1936-1939 (Cambridge Military Histories), Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Terrible story that could be considered the lynching to all the violence we face today. I'd be curious to see a history of how they transfered the anger from Britian to U.S.
Also, it seems sadly familiar to what they did to the Irish and conservatives in UK today with their speech laws
The author of the book above makes frequent reference to the similar tactics in other British colonial projects in India, Africa and Northern Ireland. (He also points out the other colonial powers in Europe did the same or worse.) The Arab nations in the 1930s and 1940s had a good relationship with the US because of mutual interests, and the US was at that time in favor of Palestine being an independent democracy with equal rights for everyone. But Britain had promised three different groups three different things on that subject, and once the US supported the founding of the Israeli state after the Nakba (Truman was afraid of losing the Jewish vote in the US during an election year), then Arab countries have ever since treated the US with enmity and suspicion as Zionism has taken a firmer and firmer hold over American politics. It's important to point out that the Jewish population of Palestine hated the British military government just as much as the Arab Palestinians did, even though they were treated much better. Zionists actually formed three different terrorist organizations during the 1930s and 1940s to blow up and destroy infrastructure and assassinate British officials and Palestinian rebels. In the late 1930s the British and Jewish militias disarmed the whole Palestinian population after the Arab uprising in 1936. Zionists not only kept their weapons, but had a weapons pipeline coming into Palestine through Czechoslovakia. That's one of the reasons they were so easily able to kill and drive Palestinians out of the country during the Nakba.
I think the biggest reason I appreciate Taibbi other than his investigative journalism, is he is capable of remembering inconvenient things. Turns out American political history did not start in 2016.
Right, don’t ever forget Foster Dulles and his brother Allen!
Those bastards still have their red headed step kids running things in Washington.
Huh? That was too long ago. That wouldn't happen again. Things are different now! [Tells self the blue pill may not be that bad after all.]
"Old news"/sarc
"Whataboutism" /sarc
Whataboutism is a good thing as it tends to reveal both truth and hypocrisy ( people living in glass houses and stone throwing)
I think it's pretty obvious that the little people have been crushed by the state since......well, basically forever. What changed (IMO) was when Trump was elected in 2016 and the Swamp was actually worried about losing power. Crossfire Hurricane is the perfect example of lawfare against the powerful, and that obviously continued all throughout Trump's first term -- to the point where he ordered the Crossfire Hurricane files unredacted and the Swamp simply refused.
That election, along with Brexit around the same time, REALLY spurred the lawfare "#Resistance" warriors into action. Anything that threatened the WEF/Globalist order was deemed a threat and attacked with the full force of governments around the world. (This is why we see so many "hate speech" laws being drafted and implemented around the globe.) Now they've established those baseline rules and are ramping up into banning candidates or parties, or simply ignoring the results of elections they don't like.
I HOPE all of this is on the downswing because it SEEMS like people across the world are rejecting rule-by-elites. But the Swamp isn't going to give up without exhausting every legal (and not so legal) avenue at their disposal.
A good way to determine the good guys is by noticing who they piss off.
Rule by gangsters seems to be the current fashion.
We're making way too much money to fuck this up now!
What else can they do? They’ve bet the farm.
This is why they FREAKED OUT in 2016. They knew what they were up to (lying to spy on Trump campaign, lying to start rumors and investigations), and Trump was going to be able to see it all once he took control. They were talking about impeachment BEFORE HE EVEN TOOK OFFICE!!
I think what's really changed is that the state has become inept. Its' attempts to suppress and oppress are now haphazard and fail 50% of the time. They went too big to go home on Trump... then went home in failure anyway. It was a weird mixture of lacking the nerve to go all the way, and also going too far to not be noticed by the majority of the population as an egregious abuse of power and repudiation of the idea that we had "democracy" at all. Ditto for what's been going on in Europe with outright cancelling and annuling elections.
From a bird's eye perspective, I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that an incestuously corrupt superstate that is just a feeding trough for lazy bureaucrats would, in its final hours, become so inefficient it forgets how to even properly oppress its subjects and hold onto power.
Complex legal structures make lawfare possible. The only genuine antidote to lawfare is simplification of the law and radical reduction in the scope of government.
Exactly. Lawfare lives in the space between law-as-written and law-as-enforced. If there's are any truly opposed factions in politics, discretion in enforcement *will* be political. The space is necessarily vast because the law-as-written is so extreme in scope and elaborate in detail as to be beyond intolerable, and actually unworkable.
What about, law as shared.
Anybody think we Americans all share the same values anymore? Ha. "By any means necessary." We all know which side embraces that value.
Yep. Pointing out to thugs the criminal chasm between law-as-written vs. law-as-enforced was what got Jesus crucified.
Odd comment.
What worries me is that a truly limited government must be based on neutral principles. Negative rights are the organizational solution that lets us live under the same tent without killing each other. I have trouble seeing any agreement on those principles in the near future.
There are people who would agree to that, but we are far outnumbered.
As a thought JD: We the People aren't outnumbered. We're out moneyed. And our American national conversation is manipulated poisoned and distorted. The real call to action in this RACKET report (my view)is not shock at the antics of financial thuggery but accepting that We the People live in the true and powerful moral reality our forefathers created when they established our Republic. We the People are the real power. I believe this because of the great links the present criminal monarchy must go to to maintain deception. Trump is President (reprieve not salvation) because the lie represented by the
DNC/WEF/CCP Davosphere was made transparent by the indwelling human moral reason of average American free citizens. RACKET reports like this one confirm it.
(Stay strong. Stay clear.
We're winning.)
“We the people” aren’t united. Half of us would vote for AOC for president, and many of what remains would vote for AOC with a little R after her name, if that existed. Genuine, consistent belief in the principles that lead to prosperity is still a small minority.
I understand the viewpoint. 20% of us are illiterate. 60% of us read at a 6th Grade level. Add poverty, addiction and an industrial strength psyop screaming over the top of, and intentionally destroying, a healthy truth/fact based American reality. The consequence is more pathological than political. It's crazy making. I've come to believe that the moral/spiritual forces grounding the "small minority" are far more powerful than we allow ourselves to believe. Those present (subscription journalism) are invested in truth/fact based moral reality. That is a unifier. And, it is far more powerful than the hollow immoral LIE attempting to subsume our
lives.
In most social/political organizations 5% of the people are responsible for
90% of the work done. Core American reality is bigger than the grift.
It seems to me the last period of agreement was purchased with the blood and carnage of the reformation. I just hope that toll can be avoided.
I'm developing a transubstantiation app that will solve many problems.
Were the 1,500 people imprisoned after January 6th terrorists, or political casualties? Political casualties, disgustingly treated
Was the movement to use the Insurrection Act to keep Trump off the ballot legitimate, or abusive? Abusive
How about jailing people like Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro on contempt of Congress charges for the first time since the McCarthy era? Terrible
Would the 100-plus criminal counts against Trump have been filed against anyone, or were they political (or are both partly true)? Only Trump, only political. And a warning to other Republicans. If, say De Santis had been the candidate he'd have been lawfared into bankruptcy and possibly death
Was there nothing untoward in the role major law firms played in Russiagate, or did such episodes show the dangers of keeping private corporate defense firms and intelligence/law enforcement so intertwined? They were tools and part of the ruling elite. Interested only in money and power.
Is that ODC case against Martin just good regulation, or is it itself lawfare and retaliation?
Retaliation for daring to be a Republican in a Trump Administration.
If you don’t think any of those pre-2025 actions were lawfare, you’ll clearly object to the current administration’s high-handed tactics. If like me you had hopes this presidency might somehow break the cycle, you’re likely also unnerved.
I think that you need to do tit for tat. Unfortunately. If there are adverse consequences for bad actions, you'll see less of them. Being a Boy Scout didn't help Romney. The Lawfare against Trump, his lawyers and J8 protestors was disgusting and the perpetrators should get retribution. Then, next time round, we'll see fewer bad actions.
I'm disappointed in Matt's comment - "If like me you had hopes this presidency might somehow break the cycle, you're likely also unnerved".
This turn-the-other-cheek attitude is naive. The only way lawfare stops is if the people who started it feel the exact same pain they inflicted. There has to be a reckoning for the past abuses. Then we can get to a sense of mutual assured destruction so that the "cycle" can be broken. Asking trump to ignore his abusers will only guarantee they continue their efforts. If there is no penalty, why would they stop, particularly when the mainstream press is on their side?
Not only that, but don't I have a right to expect certain levels of qualifications for the people sitting in The Big Chairs?!
Turns out Comey is even a bigger creep than we knew.
It isn't revenge porn for me to find out who was running the country the last four years, or for me to have investigated why the former FBI director is publishing weird posts about offing the Pres.
The lawfare battle is a march through the institutions that began in Nixon's time. Giving the Administrative State rule-making power.
We low income people can't fight. Only someone with assets can fight for us.
So as the federal government is not able to update our air traffic control system for decades, it is able to promote USAID goals throughout the world. And when funding for that is challenged, to deploy lawsuits to prevent its loss.
I agree. They'll only stop when it hurts. They lose Govt contracts. They get lawfared into bankruptcy. When they realise it can happen to them and there may be another 8 years of republicans in the WH after Trump, maybe they'll stop. Maybe they can come clean on who was wielding the autopen while Biden was clearly gaga.
I have a very hard time believing that there is not a log associated with that autopen.
I think that's very good point. I hope that the use of the autopen is under investigation, right now. And maybe many of the Biden EOs will turn out to be invalid. In which case, criminal and, possibly, fraud charges should follow. Gosh, maybe now we realise why the Ds wrre so desperate.
That is NOT how it stops.
It stops by scorched earth warfare and the realization that using the tools of the state to pursue political foes results in the collapse of same and lawlessness.
See: Rome - special note for how the Gracchi were treated, how Marius and Sulla behaved, Cicero's experience with Caitline, after the Rubicon/Ides/the war that resulted in the onset of the Second Triumvirate.
It only stopped when nearly every optimate was killed in wars. Exhausted, the Romans finally gave up on that form of political warfare and accepted a veiled monarchy.
If you think this is anywhere near over, you're not paying attention.
You do seem to describe the logical conclusion to lawfare. However, I am still optimistic we can back away from the brink.
Corrupt Judges never stop on their own.
I'll likely be checked out when it has a denouement. I wish you luck, I am not so optimistic. Nations that uncork this particular genie have a hard time getting it back in the bottle.
"It stops by scorched earth warfare and the realization that using the tools of the state to pursue political foes results in the collapse of same and lawlessness."
Maybe, but that sounds more like war to exhaustion from which ashes god knows what arises. See Game of Thrones ...
The Romans got lucky it was Augustus. Who knows what the future holds.
Terrible as that sounds, I am afraid you are correct.
Evil will never “just stop”.
Only until Jesus comes back will evil finally be dealt with.
If they aren’t punished they will become even more brazen.
Retribution may slow them down for a little while.
I understand lawfare to be an abuse of our system of justice. It matters not who the perpetrator is, the reason or the target.
Good parents teach their children about right and wrong. When a wrong has been committed it is named, reason provided why it was wrong and a consequence ensues. This also sets an example for siblings.
We are in year nine of lawfare against one target and many in that target’s sphere. This has also spilled over to general groups of people, like parents, Catholics, Christians, and people like Matt.
When our justice system is the lawfare mechanism, we are more than disadvantaged and others have boundless opportunities to continue.
The way to put a stop to the in-justice system is to show Americans that the system is a righteous one, and it will give perpetrators due process in court by naming the wrongs committed, the reasons why, and issuing consequences.
During Patel's hearing he was battered by certain Dems accusing him of using this position to unjustly go after those innocent people that just did not like Trump; trying to extract promises from him.
Ever since Bush 41 joined the UN’s Agenda 21/30 our leaders have been managing the slow decline of our country. We are five years away from the abyss and Trump's plan is the only plan to get us through the next five years. He must show citizens that justice will be done, the debt will be attended to, our needs will be met within our homeland, others must enter legally, and other countries can take care of themselves – God Willing.
‘Gee whiz, Trump didn’t turn the other cheek. Who woulda thunk it!
What you say makes sense from a game theoretic perspective - considering repeated prisoner's dilemmas, unconditional cooperation invites repeated defection (ie being taken advantage of). Reciprocity, or mirroring the opponent's behavior, is superior for one's own welfare *and the likelihood of an opponent's cooperation*.
That said, an even better strategy is the same reciprocity plus occasional altruism - cooperation after an opponent's defection - with the hope that the opponent sees the value of reciprocity and takes the opportunity to shift into a cooperative equilibrium, meaning both players choosing cooperation repeatedly.
Do you agree that this applies to the present scenario? If so, when do you think is the right time (or place) to extend the hand of cooperation?
Trump DIDN'T prosecute Clinton. That hand of peace was spurned. What do you suggest? I think the Swamp needs to make a gesture. Until then, I and, no doubt, Trump, won't trust them.
No and No.
There has been very little reciprocity and no defection. After Weissman faces 3-4 trials of his own then maybe.
That assumes everyone is a partisan hack and that the only people who will suffer under the increasingly totalitarian uniparty regime are the political enemies of the current ruler.
"The only way lawfare stops is to escalate it." That will TOTALLY work.
Not escalate. Meet it. It's not hard to understand.
I'm in the eye for an eye camp
Anyone who thinks Trump is anything more than a game show host or a bullshit huckster is deluding themselves. He makes it up as he goes.
Sorry about the typos. In last para 'unfortunately' is not needed. Should have been J6.
Click on the three dots and select edit to fix
I just edited this
Only at the website, not on the App.
Its the only way.
Politics has always been a ruleless rock fight. For decades, the only ones launching boulders were crony globalists like Carney and Weissman. Now they are panicking that rocks are actually being thrown back at them.
Peruvians are collateral damage in this cage match. The third world is caught between a rock and a hard place - Western corporation or CCP One Belt One Road exploitation. As "Empire of Dust" documented in the Congo, it's all so tiresome: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/its-all-so-tiresome-empire-of-dust
Heart of Darkness.
“We didn’t make these rules, they did."
Trump is the first Republican to understand that the left has been waging a war since Reagan. Pusillanimous and naive Republicans like W, Romney, McCain, etc. thought they could play nice and it would all go away.
I think you’re naive to believe W, Romney and McCain weren’t aware and possibly involved in some of the dirty shenanigans. Keating Five ring a bell?
That is why I added pusillanimous. They might have been aware, but they didn't have the balls to fight back.
They didn't have the NEED to fight back- never mind the balls. They were all part of the stage production, playing their parts with melodrama, but all in the same cast...
Absolutely..
"...the left has been waging a war since Reagan."
Depends on what your definition of "left" is.
Today's PC-Progs began their tactics of destruction of Normal America with the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and the Scottsboro Boys.
From there, they worked to defame, delegitimize and destroy Hoover, Coolidge, McCarthy, Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, and others, only then did they get to Reagan.
Been going on a for more than a century now.
The Republicans you mention weren't concerned "it would all go away", unless, of course, you're referring to their cut of the deals. They were moss-backed, back scratching creatures of the swamp themselves.
And the globalist Bushes were helping.
Left has been Waging War since Nixon
Romney & McShame were part of the dirty deeds.
If you think there is some semblance of fairness in the law, there’d be a lot of weisman types that would never see the light of day again. Straight up he’s been statist garbage for decades.
Three separate countries. There’s no way to ever bring the two views together again. None whatsoever.
It’s so far gone that an entire political party is openly trying to protect drug cartels.
If all the state and corporate lawyers in the world were lined up, end-to-end, it would be a good thing.
Matt asks, "If a whole system is crooked, to what extremes may an institutionally outmanned player, like a South American city, resort to in fighting back?"
These are the questions of our time, and never better encapsulated than: when one admin deliberately admitted 10MM+ illegals in just 4 years - totally lawless - are we really going to fight tooth-and-nail for the "Rule of Law" on the way out? Here or in any other category? How do you enforce it on the way out and not on the way in? And since nothing has been done to prevent every DNC POTUS from here on out from allowing 10MM in per 4 years to break this country's back, what role do laws even play?
I have my own ideas but what we are navigating now is, when your enemies have built themselves a summer cottage over the Rubicon and begin stripmining your empire, do you still accept your role as Ward Cleaver, submitting to the letter of the law in Mayfield?
41 million.
Not 10.
41.
I have to say that in 1989, and all the years going forward, the Dems have always quoted that there were "only" about 20 million illegals in the USA. That claim has never been updated, and anyone paying attention would agree it's more like 50 million. Add in bidens untold millions and it is likely more like 60 to 70 million.
I'm not sure law is the problem. This morning, I listened to an amazing oral argument by the Solicitor General, in an emergency petition to the Supreme Court to stop 40 universal injunctions in birthright cases. [I am in awe of his mind, and his ability to cite innumerable cases from memory. What a performance!] The justices, especially the libs, gave him a thorough challenge, and he did well. His position works for me: Class actions are the proper way to enjoin the government, using an abbreviated class certification process.
I listened to him yesterday. How he kept his cool is beyond me. What is with the D females on the court. Must have been sotamayor - would make a statement, ask a question and the after his first three words interrupt him. This occurred over, and over and over again. Her hypotheticals were strange and even disjointed.
Trump's SG knew his stuff for sure.
Persuasive arguments are great and can lead to good laws
But this doesn’t answer what we do when laws are ignored wholesale, or worse yet, selective enforcement: when one party deploys lawlessness to achieve structural political victory while demanding its enemies observe the laws it ignored to achieve that victory
The proper remedy is for the electorate to throw the law-abusing bums out. That's what happened: Trump won decisively.
But Trump also swore to uphold the law when he took office. Somehow, the Obama administration was able to deport far more immigrants than the Trump administration has while following the law. Trump can still fulfill his political mandate while upholding his oath of office.
Is that an inconvenient solution? Yep. But freedom ain't free.
So, the Trump Administration's legal actions have ". . . resulted in sharp condemnations not just from the press but politicians from both parties . . ." If CNN, MSNBC and the other mainstream media disapprove, then Trump is on the right track. And as for the Uniparty, they have no intention of supporting anything that Trump does. Republicans and Democrats in D.C. are making a mockery of what the majority of citizens voted for.
Regarding issues that determine one's view of lawfair, Matt asks "Were the 1,500 people imprisoned after January 6th terrorists, or political casualties?" Most of the people imprisoned walked calmly around the Capitol Building after the doors were opened by the police. Some were escorted by police through the building. Some were grandmothers who never went into the building and were arrested much later using cellphone records. The terrorist accusation is ridiculous.
It's not complicated. Lawfair is simply a political weapon. Nothing more.
I don't disagree with your points. However, I'll swear, I don't think I would even know that MSNBC, CNN, et al would even still exist, if it weren't for the near constant references to them in comment sections.
Matt, don't think of it as using the courts as weapons against opponents. Think of it as busting up a criminal enterprise disguised as financial institutions and government agencies.
Look, I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but you do see that what you're saying is a little circular, right? The law is supposed to be how we fairly adjudicate criminality in the first place.
Fairness isn't just a matter of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, it's a set of rules that are broadly tolerable. Proceeding as though the cases are decided and any means of punishment are justified just isn't a blueprint for neutral government.
I honestly don't have a solution here but I think we should appreciate the problem.
I'm sorry Cet, did I say condem them without a trial?
If it is true that government agencies are colluding with NGOs who turn out to be co-workers or acquaintances, or taking payoffs from a company that gets a sweetheart deal that sticks the bill with the peasants (here or in Peru) that is a crime.
My point is that those in power have gotten a pass for decades while they spend us into oblivion.
It is not "lawfare" to apply the law equally to the powerful.
"The toll deal was initially struck between Odebrecht and then-Mayor Susana Villarian (eventually sentenced to 29 years for her Odebrecht ties)..."
Can one assume Villiarian had a trial? Found guilty? Sentenced? She fucked round and found out. Seems to me that that is all that Vet nor is saying. Rightly and righteously convict some of these assholes, but them in prison and let them serve as examples of what will happen. In fact, parade them in the streets on their way to the cell.
It’s not surprising in the least to see Weissman‘s name associated with this type of lawfare grift. I’ve been paying attention to his actions and associations for decades at this point and he and his ilk are the bedrock of the bottom layer of slime in the swamp that our “betters” ooze throughout. To make matters even worse, he sounds like a valley girl when he speaks (predominantly) on MSNBC.
That guy is a ruthless bully. Few years ago, I read the book Licensed to Lie by Sidney Powell. It goes into the backstory of the Enron/Athur Andersen/MerrillLynch debacle, which was long before Trump came on the scene. Not to exonerate the players, but to expose just how badly the DOJ acted. This was Weissmann's rise and he was rewarded for it. I have a theory that because so many of the underlings in the DOJ saw how his behavior was rewarded, others followed suit. In a town where you have a lot of insecure and narcissistic people who will do anything to get ahead, that became the ticket.
Anyway, even though a lot of the case decisions were eventually overturned, it didn't matter and they really didn't care; the process was the punishment and the attitude is one of "yeah, we cheated, but we got our pound of flesh and promotions - what are you going to do about it?" is frankly disgusting and it pisses me off we pay for it.
As of January 1, 2024, there were approximately 1,322,649 active lawyers in the United States, according to the American Bar Association’s National Lawyer Population Survey.
Precisely 1,322,000 too many, IMO...
It doesn't matter who started it. What matters is who wins.
That is an absolute fact.
But if you mean who wins in a partisan sense, then I don't think that much matters. Either way, it will be bad for regular people.
Nobody cares about them.
As I said, the ruling elite is only interested in money and power. Screw the little people. The reason they went after Trump was not principle, it was their fear he'd cut them off from all they hold dear - money. Gosh, the likes of Brookfield et al are disgusting.
Thank you sincerely for the perspective. I now have more evidence to shove down the throats of communists who complain about any supposed lawfare that Trump might engage in.
And who could blame him? The level and scope of egregiousness against DJT since 2015 - ramped up to nearly killing him last year - would piss off any normal person to the point of extreme.
At this point in our history, If Trump doesn't go after these dictatorial freaks and crush some of them in the process (especially federal judges attempting to exert executive branch-level power via "nationwide injunctions"), they will simply become more emboldened.
The Brits were using lawfare to control their colonial subjects a hundred years ago and more. This is from the Cambridge military history of the Mandate period in Palestine. Basically the military government just made up laws on a daily basis to keep people terrified and cowed. It was so bad that some judges made a habit of being extremely lenient with accused people, but that didn't help the ones who were shot on the spot or had their houses blown up to entertain the troops.
“Law was the bedrock of Britain’s pacification of Palestine….Lawfare pacified the country through quotidian application of a crafted, all-encompassing legal system that restrained, detained, and impoverished Palestinians, hanged and killed them, and demolished their homes. It banned newspapers, interned people, fined and exiled them, censored their mail and telephone calls, took away livestock and crops, whipped them, imposed curfews and police posts, exacted corvee, and restricted travel. It made singing, shouting and waving flags illegal, alongside processing the wrong way down a street, buying a toy children’s gun, or meeting in a cafe. People paid financial bonds to ensure their good behaviour. If they had a nice house, the authorities marked it for destruction if a stranger in the neighborhood broke the law. Photographs in regimental archives show soldiers painting big numbers on buildings for future destruction. Whole village populations walked miles and back every day to report their presence at a police station.”
Matthew Hughes, Britain’s Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt 1936-1939 (Cambridge Military Histories), Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Terrible story that could be considered the lynching to all the violence we face today. I'd be curious to see a history of how they transfered the anger from Britian to U.S.
Also, it seems sadly familiar to what they did to the Irish and conservatives in UK today with their speech laws
The author of the book above makes frequent reference to the similar tactics in other British colonial projects in India, Africa and Northern Ireland. (He also points out the other colonial powers in Europe did the same or worse.) The Arab nations in the 1930s and 1940s had a good relationship with the US because of mutual interests, and the US was at that time in favor of Palestine being an independent democracy with equal rights for everyone. But Britain had promised three different groups three different things on that subject, and once the US supported the founding of the Israeli state after the Nakba (Truman was afraid of losing the Jewish vote in the US during an election year), then Arab countries have ever since treated the US with enmity and suspicion as Zionism has taken a firmer and firmer hold over American politics. It's important to point out that the Jewish population of Palestine hated the British military government just as much as the Arab Palestinians did, even though they were treated much better. Zionists actually formed three different terrorist organizations during the 1930s and 1940s to blow up and destroy infrastructure and assassinate British officials and Palestinian rebels. In the late 1930s the British and Jewish militias disarmed the whole Palestinian population after the Arab uprising in 1936. Zionists not only kept their weapons, but had a weapons pipeline coming into Palestine through Czechoslovakia. That's one of the reasons they were so easily able to kill and drive Palestinians out of the country during the Nakba.