Tea at Trianon: Jackals Circle Trump

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Jackals Circle Trump

But then what else is new. From Julie Kelly at American Greatness:

Now, none of these so-called “foot soldiers” possessed nuclear material or starved millions of their countrymen or harbored foreign terror cells bent on the annihilation of the United States. To the contrary, several defendants associated with both groups fought in the very same wars orchestrated by Frum and his former boss. For example, Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boy convicted last week of seditious conspiracy and other offenses, is a Purple Heart recipient who was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s. But in Frum’s tiny, vindictive mind, men like Biggs—who brought no weapons to the Capitol and did not assault police on January 6—are comparable to, perhaps worse than, al-Qaeda and ISIS.

After all, Osama bin Laden never expressed loyalty to the Bad Orange Man! Trump’s most dependable political foes inveighed shortly after the verdicts were announced. Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the now defunct January 6 select committee, burnished Frum’s “axis of evil” by describing the triumvirate of Trump, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers as an “overlapping concentric ring” of traitorous conspirators. “Are we going to become a country where the foot soldiers and the lower-down ring leaders go to jail but the masterminds and the real ringleaders at the top skate away free or go golfing in Scotland or Ireland,” Raskin, referring to Trump’s recent overseas golf excursion, asked MSNBCs Stephanie Ruhl.

His committee cohort Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), still driven by a psychotic desire to see Trump in handcuffs after multiple failed attempts, demanded that the “Department of Justice must also hold those who fomented the insurrection accountable, not just those who stormed the gates.”

Claiming, without evidence, there is a “huge domestic terrorism problem” in America, former federal prosecutor and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “pit bull” Andrew Weissmann told MCNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that “the question of should there be charges against the former president becomes one that I think answers itself when you see lower level people who were just convicted being brought to justice but you don’t see the leader yet being brought to justice.”

Weissmann said the convictions “amps the pressure up” on Special Counsel Jack Smith, now investigating Trump’s criminal culpability for January 6. Unfortunately, for once, this cabal is probably right. As I explained here last month, the trial’s outcome could determine Trump’s legal fate, now in the grasping clutches of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s hand-picked special prosecutor.

Garland, in fact, took a victory lap the day after the verdicts were announced. Flanked by the Justice Department’s most powerful apparatchiks—including Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, National Security Division chief Matthew Olsen, and FBI Director Christopher Wray—Garland publicly praised the prosecutors and investigators involved in the case. “Our work will continue,” Garland pledged on May 5. “During my Senate confirmation hearing, I promised that the Justice Department will do everything in its power to hold accountable those responsible for the heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government.”

The top prosecutor in the country doesn’t assemble that show of force merely to boast that a jury picked from a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden scored another easy victory. He was sending a warning shot to Team Trump. Garland also was joined by Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is handling more than 1,000 and counting cases involving January 6 defendants. That same day, Graves’ office filed a 183-sentencing memo related to the convictions of nine members of the Oath Keepers in two separate trials. (Read more.)