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As the nation observes the 246th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we will often hear mention of patriots and patriotism. But, just what does it mean to be a patriot?

The dictionary defines the term as a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. That definition clearly fits many people who Americans hold dear in their hearts.

Some of Americas very first patriots were those who put their signatures to that revered Declaration. We swell with pride for this country when hearing these stirring words: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Those words were followed by a long list of grievances against King George, many of which would have condemned the signers to prison or death, as they well knew. They concluded the Declaration, saying, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. All of those precious things were truly at risk.

Those who fought in the Revolutionary War and all who have fought in our countrys wars since, save and except those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, are American patriots. Many who have labored tirelessly to support and safeguard American ideals fit the definition. Abraham Lincoln, who led the fight to preserve the Union and abolish the stain of slavery, was one of our greatest patriots.

There have been patriots worthy of mention in just the last few years people who have put their safety and security at risk to protect the American form of government. Although Ive had little regard for the man in the past, recent revelations put former Vice President Mike Pence in the patriot category. He literally risked his life resisting extreme pressure to overturn the results of a fair and honest election.

Two Trump appointees at the U.S. Department of Justice, acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, kept our government from careening into chaos in a heated White House meeting on Jan. 3, 2021. When the former president asked them what they would do if he replaced them with a sycophant whod agreed to cooperate in trying to overturn the presidential election, they were prepared. They informed Trump that the top leadership in the Justice Department would resign en masse, which stopped the plot in its tracks. Rosen and Donoghue are true American patriots for putting themselves at risk to protect the country.

U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are rare examples of federal elected officials willing to risk their positions and even their lives by standing up for America. They have certainly earned patriot status.

The interesting thing about patriots is that they rarely give themselves that title. Beware of those who do proclaim themselves to be patriots (apparently because nobody else will). Numerous of the unconscionable insurrectionists who defiled the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, falsely claimed to be patriots. Nothing could be further from the truth they were common criminals, at best.

Here in Idaho, we have seen a number of instances of people self-describing themselves as patriots. The Panhandle Patriots Riding Club threatened to disrupt a peaceful gathering in a Coeur dAlene park on June 11, hardly the conduct you would expect of real patriots. The day of the gathering, 31 misfits, who called themselves the Patriot Front, were caught in a U-Haul truck before they could wreak havoc at the park. Certainly not the stuff of patriots.

As we enjoy our Fourth of July weekend, lets give thanks for the real patriots who have labored, sacrificed and all-too-often died to establish and maintain this country and our marvelous form of government. We certainly have our problems, but if each one of us shoulders some of the patriotic burden, there is nothing we cant overcome in unison. After all, we are the United States of America.

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As we celebrate the Fourth of July, just what is an American patriot? - Idaho Capital Sun

Since June 9, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has built a case against former President Donald Trump, members of his administration and Trump allies. The Committee will hold additional hearings this month, keeping the spotlight on a very real, growing and dangerous fascist movement.

This movement did not appear from out of nowhere on Jan. 6, 2021; the election of an openly racist and xenophobic president in 2016 encouraged it. Events like the 2017 Unite the Right mobilization in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one anti-racist was murdered and many were injured, laid the foundation for the attack on the Capitol.

Discussions of the hearings are currently focused on the bombshell testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide and assistant to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during Trumps administration. She described in detail the former presidents eagerness to join the white-supremacist mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Hutchinson testified that both Meadows and Trump knew in advance that the armed fascists would attempt to enter the Capitol and that she was told by a Secret Service agent that Trump went so far as to assault that agent, while he was attempting to drive the president back to the White House.

But what will be done with all this damning information? (Besides providing material for comedians and late-night talk show hosts!)

For the Democratic Party, both the awful Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and the Select Committees evidence against Trump serve a similar purpose. That is to convince the masses that the way to bar further encroachments on basic democratic rights is to vote blue in Novembers midterm elections. The message pushed at more moderate mass demonstrations against the SCOTUS ruling was the need to elect pro-choice candidates.

But how many pregnant people will die because they fail to obtain a safe abortion between now and November? How many Jayland Walkers and Patrick Lyoyas will be gunned down by racist, trigger-happy cops between now and November? How many trans youth will be bullied to the point of suicide between now and November? How many more migrants will die trying to come to the U.S., due to inhumane immigration policies?

And even after November, SCOTUS will still have a right-wing majority for some time.

Limits of electoral strategies

Voting is not enough. Why cant the Democrats and their backers in organized labor call for a mass mobilization against the ultraright, right now?

The Democrats do not want to see the fascists gain ground. Even moderate Republicans like House Rep. Liz Cheney are alarmed by Trumps extremism. An extremist mob chanted in unison: Hang Mike Pence yes, they were attacking Mike Pence, even though he is anti-reproductive justice and anti-LGBTQ+. The fascist mob would be unkind to all those opposing Trump.

But what the Democrats really favor is a kindler, gentler and by comparison more democratic brand of capitalist exploitation. Even democratic socialist Bernie Sanders is not for abolishing capitalism, much less so mainstream Democrats like President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On the international arena, both the Democratic and Republican parties have been loyal agents of U.S. imperialist interests, serving the bankers, arms manufacturers and billionaires of all types.

The risk for the Democrats in calling out the masses is that the masses might take the struggle against fascism too far; i.e., they might not settle for just defeating the Trump wing of the ruling class. The masses in motion can have a tendency to stay in motion, which could mean taking the struggle further to one against capitalism as a whole and not just its most oppressive, most repressive, chemically pure form manifested as fascism.

A fascist state is only one form of the capitalist state. A state, as Marxists understand it, is an instrument of class rule. This was true of enslaver states and feudal states in earlier epochs, and it is true of capitalist states, including imperialist so-called democracies in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Regardless of its form the capitalist state serves to keep the working class of the world exploited, so profits keep flowing into the pockets of the ruling class. The capitalists use a combination of the carrot (concessions to the workers and oppressed) and the stick (taking rights and benefits away, brute force). Traditionally Democrats have offered more carrots, and Republicans wielded a bigger stick.

But their aim is the same, and in this late stage of capitalism, the tendency is toward the stick. Fascism is that tendencys ultimate expression in fact the word fascism comes from the Italian word for the binding of a bundle of sticks used as a club. Its goal is to crush every organization and every expression of resistance of the workers and oppressed.

Working class must organize independently

Over 2,000 people protest Proud Boys, Nov. 17, 2018. WW Photo

The facts that Trump-endorsed candidates have won a number of Republican primaries and some could be elected in November do not, of course, signal the triumph of fascism but it is cause for alarm. Terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and individual white supremacists are committing murder and threatening activists. This includes the thwarted plot to attack Pride in Idaho and reports of armed Proud Boys near the Akron protests over the police killing of Jayland Walker.

The Democratic Party will use the hearings to expose the Trumpites, but it has a mushy spine. Only the workers and oppressed can defeat the far right and that is who has the most at stake. The fascist threat calls for an organized working class response.

Unfortunately most of the leadership in organized labor is tied to the Democratic Party. But our class is developing its organizing skills, evidenced by a string of union wins at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, REI and elsewhere. Millions of working-class youth of all nationalities were part of the Black Lives Matter upsurge following the police lynching of George Floyd.

The line from the old union standard Solidarity Forever still rings true. In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold or their mighty clubs. We produce everything in society, and we can bring everything to a halt. We can organize a mass movement in the name of the working class that fights on every front.

That, and that alone, can push back the danger posed by fascism.

Originally posted here:
January 6 hearings and the fascist threat - Workers World

Jack Colwell| Tribune Columnist

When Donald Trump threw his lunch at the wall in dining space off the Oval Office, the ketchup-smearing, plate-shattering came in anger over his attorney general publicly acknowledging that he lost the election.

Was Trumps anger because he didnt want Bill Barr to tell the truth or because he really thought his loyal attorney general was hiding the truth?

For decades to come, historians, political analysts and psychologists will debate whether Trump knew he lost or whether he actually was convinced that he won.

Could be both.

Some Trump critics call him stupid, dumb enough to believe all the crazy conspiracy theories about election rigging. Trump isnt stupid. He has problems, for sure, but stupidity isnt one of them.

He surely knew he lost. Not on election night. No network was yet proclaiming a winner.

Then key states one after another were proclaimed. Results were confirmed by recounts. His campaign team, his White House lawyers and his attorney general told him he lost. Even daughter Ivanka was persuaded by the attorney general. None of 60 court challenges to election results were successful. Some filings, after he turned to nutty outside attorneys, were laughed out of court.

He had to know. Of course, unless you believe he is really, really stupid. Too stupid ever to reach the White House?

Trump does have a problem with accepting any loss. His ego wont let him.

His niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist who has written of the family-ingrained disdain for ever admitting losing, has said its impossible for him to believe he lost. When losing before in his career, she says, he always found a way, by hook or by crook, to end up claiming a win.

Sois it possible that Trump, though knowing he lost, convinced himself that his claim of a stolen election is the truth? Or at least a way to make it true that he didnt lose the presidency?

We know more about his plot to retain the presidency because of the dramatic testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, the young woman who was top aide to the White House chief of staff. Her office was just steps from the Oval Office, where she often attended the highest-level meetings.

Clearly, Trump wanted his claims of election fraud to be believed by angry supporters he brought to Washington and riled to storm the Capitol and fight like hell to prevent certification of election results and enable him to remain in the White House.

Did Trump want harm to Mike Pence, his long-loyal vice president who wouldnt go along with illegally scuttling certification?

Hutchinson, who was there, testified that Trump was angry that many supporters were kept from swelling the crowd for his Ellipse speech because they had weapons knives, guns, bear spray, flagpoles turned into spears and couldnt pass through magnetometers.

She heard Trump, arguing to let everybody in, say, I dont f-ing care that they have weapons. Theyre not here to hurt me. Take the mags away.

Did he care if they were there to hurt others police, members of Congress, Pence?

They chanted, Hang Mike Pence! Hutchinson testified that her boss, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, said Trumps reaction was, He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesnt think theyre doing anything wrong.

As Pence hid and rioters roamed, Trump made his vice president more of a target, tweeting: Mike Pence didnt have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.

That was a final disillusionment for Hutchinson. It was unpatriotic, she said. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol Building get defaced over a lie.

She helped to clean the ketchup off the wall. She would not clean up details of the attempt to turn defeat into a blood-on-the-walls re-election win.

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by email atjcolwell@comcast.net.

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Hutchinson made it clear Trump knew he lost. - South Bend Tribune

A noose is seen on makeshift gallows as supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

When former President Donald Trump heard his supporters chanting "hang Mike Pence" during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, White House aides said he told them the vice president "deserves" it, according to a former White House aide who testified Tuesday to what she saw and heard during the weeks surrounding the attack.

The jaw-dropping remarks came during the sixth public hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, in sworn testimony recounted her experience witnessing Meadows and another top official, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, discussing Trump's reaction as the riot unfolded.

At the White House, Cipollone told Meadows, "The rioters have gotten to the capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the president now," Hutchinson testified.

Meadows replied, "He doesn't want to do anything, Pat," Hutchinson said.

Cipollone shot back, essentially saying that something must be done or "people are going to die and the blood's going to be on your effing hands," Hutchinson said.

Meadows and Cipollone both walked toward the Oval Office dining room. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, then called asking for Meadows, Hutchinson testified. She said she went to the dining room to give the phone to Meadows, who took the call with the door ajar. Hutchinson said that in the background, she could hear conversations about the chants of "hang Mike Pence" that had sprung up among some of the rioters.

Hutchinson said she returned to her desk and Meadows and Cipollone appeared minutes later.

"I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, 'Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung,'" Hutchinson testified.

"Mark had responded something to the effect of, 'You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong,'" Hutchinson said.

She told the committee, "I understood 'they're' to bethe rioters in the Capitol that were chantingfor the vice president to be hung."

Trump, who was responding to Hutchinson's testimony in real time on his social media platform Truth Social, angrily lashed out following her recollections from inside the White House.

"I NEVER SAID, 'MIKE PENCE DESERVES IT (to be hung)," Trump wrote. "Another made up statement by a third rate social climber!"

Hutchinson's counsel said in a statement to NBC News that while the former White House aide "did not seek out the attention accompanying her testimony today, she believes that it was her duty and responsibility to provide the Committee with her truthful and candid observations of the events surrounding January 6."

"Ms. Hutchinson believes that January 6 was a horrific day for the country, and it is vital to the future of our democracy that it not be repeated," read the statement from her counsel Jody HuntandWilliam Jordan of law firm Alston and Bird.

Read more:
Trump chief of staff said the president thought Pence 'deserves' chants of 'hang Mike Pence' on Jan. 6, ex-aide testifies - CNBC

At this point in time, Pence is in a GOP purgatory as he begins to build his campaign.

INDIANAPOLIS June 24, 2022, should have been the political holy grail for Mike Pence. It was the day he had long strived for, the day Roe v. Wade was consigned to the ash heap of history.

Today, life won. By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court of the United States has given the American people a new beginning for life and I commend the Justices in the majority for having the courage of their convictions, Pence said shortly after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the Dobbs case. By returning the question of abortion to the states and to the people, this Supreme Court has righted an historic wrong and reaffirmed the right of the American people to govern themselves at the state level in a manner consistent with their values and aspirations. Now that Roe v. Wade has been consigned to the ash heap of history, a new arena in the cause of life has emerged and it is incumbent on all who cherish the sanctity of life to resolve that we take the defense of the unborn and the support for women in crisis pregnancy centers to every state in America.

Pences campaign PAC Advancing American Freedom quickly released a video saying that for pro-life Americans today is one many thought they would never see while adding, His cause is our cause. It pointed out he was the first Republican in Congress to propose defunding Planned Parenthood, he cast a pivotal tie-breaking vote in the Senate as vice president, and as governor of Indiana, signed every pro-life bill he was presented.

And in the White House, Mike Pence provided the guidance and advice to the president to select Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, three of the five votes making this incredible moment possible, it continues. Lives will be saved.

For Mike Pence, and all of us, the mission is still the same: Foster the sanctity of life, the video said.

Donald Trumps reaction was more muted, saying, that God made the decision, then later Friday calling the Dobbs decision the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation and only made possible because I delivered everything as promised.

But the former Indiana governor and American vice president finds himself in a political no-mans land at the precise time of his most profound political achievement. A recent 2024 presidential poll in New Hampshire had Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading Donald Trump by 2%, while Pence stood far back at a mere 9%. A CAPS/Harvard Poll had Trump leading with 57% while 11% backed Pence. A Reuters/Ipsos Poll had Trump leading Pence 54-8%. These polls were taken before the bombshell testimony heard on the U.S. House Jan. 6 Select Committee that has implicated Trump in inspiring the U.S. Capitol insurrection, with Trump supporters chanting Hang Mike Pence.

While some Republicans seeking the 2024 presidential nomination are treading lightly on the issue, opting for what one consultant told the Washington Post the safest place for Republicans is to say, Send it to the states, Pence is advocating for a national abortion ban. We must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land, Pence tweeted last week. He tweeted out, Apply to host Vice President Mike Pence on your campus this fall.

I was startled when I asked a leading Hoosier pro-life advocate several weeks ago about whether Pence would reap political credit in a 2024 presidential race if Roe were overturned. The reaction was one of ambivalence. This person observed what many in Indiana have said about Pence, which is that he appears to have forgotten his roots and has moved on to the national stage. Indiana Right to Lifeand affiliates in Northeast Indiana also issued statements of joy at the ruling, but none mentioned the role Mike Pence had played.

Ive asked a number of members of Congress and key Indiana GOP political operatives this question: Could Mike Pence beat Donald Trump in a 2024 Indiana presidential primary? Not one said yes.

Pence swoops in for fundraisers and an occasional endorsement, the most conspicuous was for Indiana Senate District 14 candidate Ron Turpin, who was subsequently blown out 52-38% by Tyler Johnson in that Fort Wayne area seat in last Mays primary. Pence is scheduled to keynote a coming prominent NE Indiana political event this fall.

At this point in time, Pence is in a GOP purgatory as he begins to build his campaign. He has been praised by congressional Democrats for standing up to Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, but is seen as a deserter by the Trump base, and as a toady bootlicker by anti-Trump Republicans, independents and Democrats. As the New York Times Maggie Habermann and Reid Epstein observed, The whipsaw of images creates an uncertain foundation for a potential presidential campaign, for which Mr. Pence has been laying the groundwork.

Memo to Mike Pence: Youve forgotten the peeps who propelled your Washington career.

The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana atwww.howeypolitics.com. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.

Continued here:
HOWEY: The Dobbs decision and Mike Pence - WTHR