Episode 29 - Insurrection Infection

In this episode of Fate of the Union, Franklin covers the siege upon Capitol building, and the possible legal and political ramifications.  We also discuss the outcome and effect of the Georgia run off election for the remaining two Senate seats.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome everyone to the fate of the union podcast, a weekly review of the biggest issues in national politics. Given from a conservative perspective, the show also periodically address current true crime cases from across the country. If you like, what you hear, please hit subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's talk about the fate of the union. So first things first, we of course have to talk about the events of last Wednesday, the prolonged siege and attack on the Capitol in DC, you saw thousands of individuals storm, the Capitol, they were scaling walls. They were just barraging Capitol police and other law enforcement members there, and really ran rough shot over not only the building itself, but any sense of security you would have thought came with the U S Capitol building. They really stormed both the front end within the building with not as much resistance as you would have thought. If someone was to propose this kind of hypothetical to you, you would think that you'd be hard pressed to get in the building. Nevertheless, here, just hundreds, if not thousands of people actually successfully made it into the building, you saw people vandalizing. You saw people trying to steal things from within, uh, the building and from within certain elected officials offices, there was damage of property. We know at least one woman has unfortunately lost her life. As a result of these events, at least one capitalist police officer has lost his life as well. And it really was not only an ugly set of events, but again, a prolonged set of ugly events where it was essentially live streamed for a majority of the afternoon. I know that I went on YouTube at one point and I think the Fox news page popped up and it was just a live stream feed of it looks to be perhaps at the edge of the property in front of the state of the DC Capitol. It's not across the street or something and was no commentary. There was no personality or news anchor saying anything. It was just documenting what was happening. It was a really kind of bizarre way to view what was going on. There was really no commentary whatsoever. It was just viewing things unfolding in real time. And it was very ugly day. And I think that regardless of where you fall within the legal conclusion of whether president Trump is legally responsible for this, I think that those treating this as a slam dunk case really are misplacing their, their reliance on just connecting him to the movement without a real directive. Uh, I think have misplaced their steadfastness in thinking that this is going to result in a, any kind of criminal action against the president. I'm really not so sure about that, but even beyond criminally speaking, I think that there was certainly, and a contribution by the president to this feeling of desperation by a lot of these people and thinking that this was necessary. Um, the Trump legal team has lost essentially every case. Uh, literally every case that they've brought forth, they've made it past the initial pleading stage on a couple cases where there were ancillary issues of, of preliminary evidentiary findings. So there are different kinds of motion practices early on in the cases that I think made it seem like the cases were stronger than they actually were. It seemed like the cases were very eventful. There was motion practice. They were trying to, uh, get their hands on additional evidence. And that kind of activity in the case early on made it seem like there was something there when at the end of the day there wasn't, it was really the legal world version of much ado about nothing, the ultimate fight. There was not going to change the outcome of the case, whether or not you got your hands on certain activity logs or, uh, different kinds of documentation from the particular polling site, you're staring down the barrel of a losing case regardless. And I think president Trump holding out and very publicly holding out the hope that there was some way to overturn the election at least contributed in part to this feeling of desperation and that something needed to be done. And there was still this hail Mary that could have been thrown to save the day when that hasn't been the case for some time. Now it was a fleeting chance really in the days, following the election back in November and with every passing day has even decreased the likelihood of anything overturning the election. So yesterday there's not a lot to say beyond just the initial reaction of it being such an ugly display, such a hypocritical display from people who usually like to feign this kind of respect or Revere law enforcement officers to outright assault them. And in other ways, just barrage, uh, any sense of protection that the Capitol police could have had for, uh, the Capitol building. So where we stand is that we're going to see quite a few criminal prosecutions I'm sure. And to that effect, broadcasting, your criminality is really just next level of, of stupidity. And you saw certain people who both liked to associate themselves with the right and conservatives and certainly from the mainstream media who are very, very happy to characterize them as the right kind of online personalities. Um, we're part of the large swath of people storming the Capitol. I think that their connection to the writer conservative, uh, voices in America is a lot more tenuous than both. They would like to believe and the mainstream media make it out to be. Um, you've seen a lot of these people have very curious, um, changes of heart, so to speak for political affiliation. And it all seems to be a pretty clear grift in my opinion, whatever is bringing in the money at that particular time is where their so-called political ideology happens to match up conveniently enough, but you've seen people like that and people a fair number of younger people who either their awareness and knowledge of how the internet works and certainly online personalities who make their bones having a presence on the internet, seemingly not having the presence of mind that the digital footprint of video and picture of their own criminality is only going to solidify a slam dunk case against them in the future. And I believe that's going to be the case in quite a number of them, uh, in those cases and to the extent that anyone has an online presence or a public presence that, that identifies with the right after a couple of weeks when the new administration takes office. I think you're going to see that there could be, at least as the sentencing phase really be made examples of, um, there's not going to be any leniency whatsoever for these people. And I'm not one to, to accommodate these, these last ditch efforts for leniency for criminal trials when there really is no redeeming case to be made at the sentencing phase for why the hammer shouldn't be brought down on these people. So at least personally speaking, any kind of claim of, of regret or any claim for, uh, light handedness under the law, especially when it comes to sentencing is certainly gonna fall on deaf ears as far as I'm concerned. So we'll continue to update everybody on that. But I think at this point, everybody is fairly aware of what happened and nevertheless, that has brought out some truly terrible takes on, on the series of events. You've seen both mainstream media and the sports world and certainly social media, of course, um, even in the, especially in the wake of president, Trump being permanently banned from social media, which he currently stands at being banned as, as we speak here, that of course, and this should come to the surprise us, no one really in the country, either if you're, if you're in favor of this or not, that this was made into a racial issue. And because for all intents and purposes, this was a white congregation of people storming the capital, regardless of the fact that at least one person life is going to have been claimed in this whole ordeal on Wednesday. You've seen people like, uh, mainstream news anchors and, uh, president elect Biden is maybe the most high profile now person to try to draw a contrast between the treatment that Wednesdays insurrection, as it's been referred to two riots from black lives matter and Antifa over the summer. And one particular take. And I think this is something that's really gained traction and it encapsulates a lot of the takes that you've seen beyond just president elect Biden. He tweeted out on January 7th that evening, that quote, no one can tell me if it had been a group of black lives matter protesters yesterday that they wouldn't have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true and it's unacceptable and quote, now one particular response, which I thought was good credit, where credit's due. Um, uh, Dan Crenshaw Congressman from Texas, uh, personally, I think he's been hot and cold on certain issues of free speech and the second amendment with some of the red flag law legislation that he supported in the past, but credit where credit is due here, he responded saying, quote, not the time. This is disgusting and divisive, not to mention hypocritical and false. You said you wanted to heal the country actions, speak louder than words and quote. And I think that that's a worthy point to be made that aside from being very clearly divisive on the issue of race, which if, if these high profile people on Twitter and, and TV hadn't injected race into yet another controversy, it wouldn't have been present. This was really at the end of the day, a failure of, of preparedness on the law enforcement agencies, such as the capital Hill police on Wednesday to try to try any kind of line in the stand based on race, I think is totally misplaced. And not only that, you've also seen members of the left forgive, if not impliedly encourage illegal behavior over the summer, over the summer, you had elected officials such as now, vice-president Alexa, Kamala Harris, both tweeting out and encouraging those to donate and support different groups like the Minnesota freedom project, which stated goal was to bail writers out of jail, regardless of the facts of their case, regardless of the circumstances in which led to their arrest, they were in jail as a result of their writing. And as a result, they must be let out because their freedom is of course being infringed upon for some reason. And I think here it's easy to kind of poopoo away any points made on this kind of forgiveness and outright encouragement of unlawfulness over the summer and before from left-wing groups, because here it was just so in your face, it was livestream. You could literally watch a long in real time as it was happening. And, um, it was a lot more people just in view, even if, you know, you saw some people whose criminal activity was, was quite high, was breaking things and breaking and entering and damaging property stealing property. And even the people who, whose activity was, was certainly a step down from that. Just kind of being on the property when they shouldn't have, or, or going into the building when they shouldn't have, there were multiple levels of offenses here. But the overall view of that many people being involved was obviously a bad luck and they will be dealt with, and especially given the overturning of, of the administration and, uh, segue into our next topic here that Democrats now will control all three branches of government. These people will be dealt with swiftly and, and, and severely, which, um, I, for one can't really disagree to strongly with, I think that this was a terrible display of incivility, both based on I not really political hatred. I think it was just based on lies. There, there was no way to overturn this election vice-president Pence who received numerous threats in his, in his, for his, for his own right, had no ability to affect this outcome whatsoever claims to the contrary, um, were, were simply untrue. Uh, you would think that these people who made these claims would figure that somewhere along the line, somebody would be able to check them on their, on their total works of fiction for how, how the election would be certified and, and the next administration would take office. But yet here we, and that does segue into the next point here, uh, of conversations since we last spoke on the program is that both, uh, Senate races in Georgia, both runoffs have resulted in a loss for the Republicans. John also ended up beating David Purdue and similarly Raphael Warnock ended up beating Kelly Loffler. So now as it currently stands in the Senate and we spoke, uh, and warned about, uh, the potential outcome this could have is that it is a 50 50 tie in the Senate, 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. The relevancy of that is that in a tie, uh, for proposed legislation, for example, that ends up in a 50 50 tie. Well, then the tide per-acre is a single vote, uh, on the issue present cast by the vice president at the time, which we now know will be Kamala Harris. So effectively the Democrats in the Senate have a 51 to 50 at advantage. That's basically where we stand right now. And I think that this was another real, uh, fumble by geo certain, uh, public and public officials, uh, GOP members, because you did hear, uh, from numerous people that there was a, a swell of support, a swallow of a ground game in Georgia to really both acknowledged this, the severity and the seriousness of these two elections here. But, um, so that was, uh, a bright point, but you also heard from numerous people on the internet, both on social media and broadcast more, more widely on the internet that Republicans should abstain from voting conservatives should abstain from voting as some kind of a lesson teaching some kind of lesson to GOP leadership across the countries that their failure to fight, uh, for what is perceived to be a fight hard enough for Donald Trump has its consequences and us, uh, not doing so here. The punishment for that is that now you have lost the Senate, you have lost control of one house of government, and now has zero out of three. Um, and I think this was totally misguided from the beginning and in the first sense that, and a lot of these tend to be younger people on the right who I think don't really understand or don't care the consequences of what they're saying, if it was carried out, um, I'm not sure who they think they're teaching a lesson by this. This really essentially puts all pressure off of some of the members of the Republican party that they probably dislike the most. The, uh, Lisa Murkowski is the Susan Collins, the Mitt Romney's who have always found themselves in the middle of being a crucial vote in, in matters of the Senate because now the best they could do is lose by one. So what pressure is there for any of these people to, to legislate and, and operate true to the conservative move land? They could essentially be a trader on and be a rhino on every conceivable issue because simply speaking, nothing they do will make a difference. They only get one vote. The best they could do is lose by one. So you're essentially letting them off the hook. It's ironic that this was supposed to be some kind of lesson for GOP leadership when the rhinos and the GOP leadership in the federal government, essentially get a jail out of, uh, get, uh, uh, get out of jail free card here because you can't expect them to, to defeat what is just simply mathematically speaking, a losing fight, the better case, even from the perspective of some of these younger zoomers would have been to keep up the fight, especially since at the time of the geo of the Georgia write-off president Trump is still lodging these[inaudible] complaints. Um, so I guess from their perspective, hope is still alive, but, um, if they had one, at least one, and certainly both of these, well, then Republicans are in a legitimate position to, to put up a fight and create gridlock for the next four years and kind of stave off some of the radical agenda that will be coming out of this administration. And it would be expected of them in that situation, because it would really be a dire consequences if they hadn't carried out that function, you guys are kind of the last line of defense here. You simply cannot fold here. It's at least for the next two years there's. And from their perspective, I understand it, these certain GOP senators, there's nothing for them to do. So why not just fold, uh, time and time again? So I think that was a really downright foolish strategy. And I think it did have some impact on the outcome and to Georgia Senate, Senate runoff elections, because while the ground game seemed to be going well by all accounts, and that campaigning seemed to be strong. There were numerous, uh, demographics, uh, several of which you would have hoped that Republicans did well, that where the voter turnout was, was disappointing. Uh, the voter turnout from, from the suburbs, from, uh, middle-aged to senior citizens, uh, especially in a state like Georgia, you would have thought all of these demographics should have leaned very strongly in favor of Republicans. And that's really what, uh, how they would've made their hay for getting a strong showing here. But nevertheless, that simply did not turn out that way. And you saw both, uh, races were razor thin, and at one point relatively late in a tab violating of votes, each Republican had a very small lead, maybe within two percentage points. Um, but you knew that, uh, the greater Atlanta area, the Atlanta urban and metropolitan area, which, um, I'm sure a lot of, you know, is very, very strongly leading lint, uh, leaning blue had yet to come in and had yet to report. Thus those votes still had to have been counted. And of course those votes would have, would have any. And in fact, did, uh, favor very heavily that you Democrat candidates. So I think the Republicans really had to go back to the, to the drawing board here and think to themselves and, and reflect that their own doing here. And ironically enough, some of president Trump's supporters have contributed to the losses in Georgia. And again, it's dark darkly ironic, but it is ironic that that will lead to the nationalization of many policies that these individuals would have never liked to see in the first place, uh, increased taxes, unfavorable treatment of conservative organizations, either in, in tax law or in treatment under the first amendment. Um, certainly the second amendment will be diced up, uh, like nobody's business. And for the time being, we hopefully have a respite, uh, uh, savior and a majority of the Supreme court, but when legislation gets passed, even if unconstitutional, it stands on the books until it's litigated up to the Supreme court and then invalidated as unconstitutional. So those measures will remain in effect until they're taken to court and, and are battled out, which could take a year or several years. So, um, the fact that they're ultimately unconstitutional, doesn't, doesn't remove the possibility of them being in effect for, uh, several years at a time before that's sided. Um, so this really could have, will have very dire consequences. Um, you can bet your bottom dollar, that the second amendment will be attempted to essentially be rendered toothless and meaningless. The first amendment will be, uh, very unevenly applied, um, in favor of hate speech type restrictions on the one hand, and really the condoning, if not, um, outright encouragement of unlawful speech, uh, on the left, whether it be, uh, doxing by media organizations or, or open threats, or, um, certainly, and in E an unequal application of racially motivated speech from each side, you can, you can hang your hat on that. That will definitely be coming down the pipe. Um, so right now I know that there has already been calls for, uh, justice, Stephen prior to retire. If they believe he's either 80 or 82, somewhere around there, uh, for him to retire from the Supreme court. But I don't think that there's anything serious in that regard yet. That's just kind of people pontificating and hoping, but, um, that's really the Republicans and conservatives one saving grace, and all of the governing of this country is, uh, a majority in the Supreme court. So we have to hope that those justices stay true to, uh, their previous rulings and why there was such a strong support for them to be on the bench in the first place, um, and, and hold the line and hopefully stand their ground. And in two years, if we can get, um, some seats back in the Senate, or certainly four years when it comes back to presidential election time that we see something that resembles our first and second amendment still in effect at that point. So that does it for this week's episode of fate of the union. You can reach me Franklin, the host of the program on Twitter or medium.com by searching fate of the union, and please visit our new YouTube page over at fate of the union as well. You can also reach us by email@franklinfothueatgmail.com. This has been the fate of the union. Thanks for listening to everybody. Bye bye.