Baseless by James Howard Kunstler

 “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

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Debuting this week: America’s first genuine show trial, the second impeachment of Donald Trump, an exercise in pure malice designed by a party in power to teach a lesson to the party out of power. The lesson: we’re gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, as in the old song by Blondie. That’s it, and that’s all.

The exercise is so transparently idiotic and unconstitutional that Chief Justice John Roberts declined to preside over it, as the constitution specifies. Say, what…? Do you mean that in a proceeding this grave, he can just… demur? Because… why? Because he doesn’t feel like it? (Or something like that?) His Supreme Honor declined also to furnish a reason — though, if the Chief Justice views the trial as extraconstitutional, perhaps he should say so, for the record. Anyway, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senate President Pro Tempore (the oldest member of the majority party), will now act as judge. He must take a pledge to act impartially.

Running the prosecution: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who opined last week in a public statement that the jury (his fellow senators) could “infer” Mr. Trump’s guilt if he declined to testify. Apparently, Mr. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor (American University) never read the Fifth Amendment, which states: …nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. But this is how we roll in these fog-bound days of Woke democracy.

The charge is “inciting violence against the government of the United States” in the January 6 incident at the US Capitol in which a mob breached the doors and invaded the building, one of them wearing buffalo horns and war paint. The prosecuting majority made some noises about calling witnesses, until the defense said, fine, we’ll call witnesses, too, perhaps all the livelong day, day after day, until the cows come home. That prompted the majority to remember that it had a legislative agenda, which it could not pursue if that branch was busy conducting a show trial, so Mr. Raskin nixed the idea. They’ll rely on video to make their case, he said. The FBI and its big brother, the DOJ, have been investigating the riot. The outstanding question: who, exactly, led the breach and induced others to follow. Do we know for sure? If I were one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, I’d seek to know.

But the defense is more likely to seek an immediate dismissal based on the folly of holding a proceeding designed to remove someone from office who is no longer in office. That ought to be enough. Or else they’ll show some choice video of their own, like of Capitol Police opening the barricades on the outdoor terrace and inviting the mob in, or another of persons inside the building before it was breached handing tools for breaking in through a window to the mob outside.

There’s a humdinger video of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) haranguing a mob outside the Supreme Court’s headquarters when the justices were inside hearing an abortion case. “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price!” Schumer yelled to the mob, who went on to bang menacingly on the Court’s front door. And what price would that be? The justices don’t have to run for reelection. As it happened, Chief Justice Roberts promptly admonished Mr. Schumer’s remarks as “inappropriate” and “dangerous.” Even Woke Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe called Mr. Schumer’s language “inexcusable.”

Of course, behind this smokescreen of partisan bullshit is the question of election fraud, which the Democratic Party is seeking desperately to suppress. Their news media henchpersons have settled on the adjective “baseless” whenever the subject comes up in their reporting. They repeat it incessantly, Goebbels-style, to substantiate its truthiness, though it is not true. The truth is indeed the Deep State’s mortal enemy, and eventually it will make itself known.