Tea at Trianon: Impeach Merrick Garland

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

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Impeach Merrick Garland

From The Federalist:

All the things that Americans are coping with thanks to Joe Biden’s complete horror of a presidency are important, but if House Republicans don’t drop all of it right now to aggressively target the attorney general, then none of it matters and they should all jump off a cliff. Seriously. Merrick Garland, Biden’s head of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, just chose to seek prison time for a former president, the man right now most likely to face off with the current president in 2024.

The magnitude of the situation isn’t dependent on a conviction or acquittal. It rests on whether the indictment is legitimized at all. And by doing nothing, House Republicans will have sent the message that there’s nothing to do but watch — watch as your democracy crumbles to ashes and blows away with their absolute indifference. In that scenario, nothing separates us from Cuba. Or in terms that Democrats can understand, nothing separates us from RUSSIA, YOU PUTIN SOCK SNIFFERS!

If House Republicans play this game of “let’s see what the facts say” and “there will be blowback if we overreach,” then it’s over. When Democrats were in power, they impeached a sitting president twice, sued to secure his personal tax returns, and brought in a slew of witnesses to embarrass him in televised hearings without batting an eye. The bare minimum Republicans can do now is impeach Merrick Garland for attempting to throw a leading presidential candidate in jail over a records-keeping issue.

Yeah, historical government records are important and if Trump had things in his possession that weren’t his, the government was in its right to retrieve them. There’s a legal and lawyerly process for that. But initial news reports indicate that the Justice Department is throwing the book at him over classified documents Trump retained, something his vice president, former President Obama, and Joe Biden himself have done.

There are apparently also charges related to obstruction and conspiracy. Those are charges that Hillary Clinton never faced, even though her set-up of a private email server to conduct government business, which she wiped clean after leaving office as secretary of state, was by definition obstruction and conspiracy. The sitting director of the FBI said at the time that Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling government secrets. No indictment.

By every measure, Merrick Garland has corrupted his office in the persecution of a prominent political opponent who is actively campaigning to unseat Garland’s boss. Garland’s entire tenure has reeked of retribution for having been denied a Supreme Court seat in 2016. He has claimed that white supremacy is the foremost domestic threat to America, by which he means “Trump supporters.” He has directed his department to harass concerned parents who show up at school board meetings. And while he chases down pro-life activists exercising their First Amendment rights, he does nothing to actual domestic terrorists waging a violent war against pro-life pregnancy clinics. (Read more.)