Rudy Giuliani lost his law license Thursday because he’s a giant liar. A New York appellate court serving as a disciplinary panel wrote a 33-page decision explaining their ruling. They found that his actions on behalf of his client Donald J. Trump constituted “an immediate threat” to the public interest.
“We conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at re-election in 2020,” the decision read.
The state court issued an “interim suspension” which the former New York City mayor can appeal if he wants to waste some time. This followed a different proceeding on Wednesday in federal court where 49-year-old Anna Morgan-Lloyd of Indiana begged for leniency after pleading guilty to a “misdemeanor count of demonstrating inside the Capitol” on January 6, 2021.
“I went there to support . . . President Trump peacefully,” she said. “I’m ashamed that it became a savage display of violence that day. . . . It was never my intent to be a part of something that’s so disgraceful to our American people and so disgraceful to our country. I just want to apologize.”
Inside our courtrooms, reality is in control. In Ms. Morgan-Lloyd’s case, the Reagan-appointed judge was in no mood for nonsense. He sentenced her to three years of probation and made clear that others should not expect similar leniency.
Referring to the words of Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.), who last month suggested that many inside the Capitol following the pro-Trump mob’s attack on the building looked like they were on a “normal tourist visit,” the judge said that video introduced in court “will show the attempts of some congressmen to rewrite history . . . is utter nonsense.”
Referring to Morgan-Lloyd’s own statement, he noted, “You saw it for yourself and you were horrified.”
The judge also took time to dismiss “conspiracy theories” about FBI informants and address claims that the Capitol defendants are being treated more harshly than Black Lives Matter protesters. He said he couldn’t speak to what happens in state courts, but that Attorney General Merrick Garland has “promised the law will be applied equally . . . whatever the complexion of the demonstrator is.”He noted that Martin Luther King Jr., although he was never violent, prepared to go to jail when he protested against violence.
“Some of my defendants in some of these other cases think there’s no consequence to this, and there is a consequence,” Lamberth said. “I don’t want to create the impression that probation is the automatic outcome here, because it’s not going to be.”
Reality is also prevailing in the Democrat-run U.S. of Representatives. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that a Select Committee will investigate the January 6 coup attempt. In May, Senate Republicans blocked the creation of an independent commission but they have failed to sweep the assault on the Capitol under the rug.
The events of the day resulted in five deaths, and nearly 140 officers were assaulted during the attack, as they faced rioters armed with ax handles, bats, metal batons, wooden poles, hockey sticks and other weapons, authorities said.
Meanwhile, Washington Post reporters Rosalind Helderman, Emma Brown, Tom Hamburger and Josh Dawsey are detailing how “The Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump is propagating through right-wing media channels.
The baseless assertion, backed by millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, is reverberating across this alternative media ecosphere five months after Trump and many of his backers were pushed off Facebook and Twitter for spreading disinformation that inspired a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol. While largely unnoticed by Americans who have accepted the fact of President Biden’s victory, the deluge of content has captured the attention of many who think the election was rigged, a belief that is an animating force inside the Republican Party.
At the moment, the courts and Congress have formed a firewall that protects reality. But make no mistake. We are all under siege. Barbarians are at the gates.
We all want and deserve peace and quiet after four years of political chaos and a global pandemic. We will not receive peace and quiet. Reality doesn’t protect itself and the Democrats’ control of Congress is tenuous at best. We’re going to lose this fight if we don’t recognize the threat and man the walls.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but:
“We’re going to lose this fight if Joe Manchin and his undisclosed enablers
wedon’t recognize the threat and man the walls.”He and other Senate Democrats are a big problem but so is the left’s desire for rest.
I wish I knew which walls to man or how to fight this fight. How do we protect reality? What is reality beyond a common understanding of facts? The most fundamental problem in American politics is that that a common understanding of reality has been lost and democracy simply can’t work without it.
(While the problem is mostly on the right and among Republicans, the faux progressives are nearly as bad. Their reality – that Bernie Sanders came close to winning the 2016 primaries, for example, or that the process that chose Hillary Clinton was rigged by the DNC – is not my reality. The biggest difference between the groups is that the far right has large megaphones and the socialist fringe does not.)
Joe Manchin could (and should) help staunch the bleeding by using his power to protect democratic institutions and infrastructure like voting rights and election results. But that will not solve the problem and in some ways it will probably make things worse. His search for bipartisanship seems to be a search for unicorns, but unless the country finds at the very least a bipartisan view of reality, none of the rest matters. When I feel charitable towards Manchin I think he knows this. He is not really seeking bipartisan legislation, he is seeking a bipartisan view of reality.
Democracy can’t work without it and if democracy does not work, it won’t survive. Who will man the walls to protect a system that does not work? Protecting our institutions and defeating the Republicans right now is the immediate fight (and Manchin should be 100% on board), but winning those fights won’t save democracy.unless we save reality.
How do we protect reality?