The Republican Party classified as RICO [Racketeer.....]

[UniversalAlien]

First:

RICO Laws

Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) of 1970 in an attempt to combat organized crime. The application and use of the law has raised important First Amendment issues implicating the right to freedom of association.

RICO laws attempt to fight organized crime
RICO criminalizes three activities:

* using illegal income to acquire, establish, or operate an enterprise;
* acquiring an interest in such an enterprise; and
* using an enterprise to collect a debt.
In addition, the law makes it an offense to conspire to engage in any of the above activities. Actions defined as racketeering under RICO include extortion, violation of the Hobbs Act of 1948, and other crimes that may interfere with interstate commerce.

RICO’s breadth is significant, applying to any “pattern of racketeering activity,” which is defined as having within the preceding 10 years committed two or more predicate acts — that is, such acts as mail fraud, murder, or trafficking in obscene material on which a subsequent RICO prosecution is based, or predicated. RICO has several civil law provisions that allow for private parties to collect damages if a violation occurs.

Supreme Court considered using RICO law against organization trying to shut down abortion clinics
Although the main focus and use of RICO is directed toward organized crime, it has also been applied to various white-collar crimes, such as fraud prosecutions. But the most controversial application has involved activity traditionally thought to be covered or protected by the First Amendment.

For example, in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (1994), the Supreme Court ruled that RICO could be used to collect damages against anti-abortion groups seeking to shut down women’s clinics.........

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/ar ... ssociation.


Of course today's Supreme Court might rule otherwise - Might rule that a woman's right to abortion is not only not protected but is illegal and a crime

This is because the Republican Party used illegal techniques to fix elections {as they tried in the Presidential election of 2020, where they attempted to overturn the legitimate vote of the people through a systematic use of lies generated by the 'boss' of the Republican Party Donald Trump who stated before the election only he could win ]

Today we see the RICO statuses being used to prosecute Rap singers and groups {mostly black singers} claiming they are involved with gangs

So why not prosecute a much more serious enemy of the United States, the Republican Party of Donald Trump, who now represents
an attempt by his party to:
1. Restrict women's rights to own their own bodies.
2. Restrict voting rights so conservative mostly white people will find it easier to vote.
3. Undermine the integrity of free elections and ultimately 'fix' elections to win them.

Is the Republican Partly still controlled by Donald Trump {the boss} a legitimate political organization

Or is it organized crime, a 'Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization' [RICO]

[AverageBozo]

An interesting post, well-composed. It’s my impression that through your questions you are suggesting that RICO could be applied against the Republican Party. Your points are clear and form a cogent argument (again taking your several questions as rhetorical), but I think there’s a counter argument that must be challenged (see below).

So why not prosecute a much more serious enemy of the United States, the Republican Party of Donald Trump, who now represents
an attempt by his party to:
1. Restrict women's rights to own their own bodies.
2. Restrict voting rights so conservative mostly white people will find it easier to vote.
3. Undermine the integrity of free elections and ultimately 'fix' elections to win them.

Is the Republican Partly still controlled by Donald Trump {the boss} a legitimate political organization

Or is it organized crime, a 'Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization' [RICO]

The Republican party isn’t doing anything wrong, even as it attempts to realize the 3 points above.

First of all, the right to own one’s own body might be construed to be the foundation for the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As such the right to autonomy of the body is guaranteed whenever life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are guaranteed.

Unfortunately, these rights are not posited in the US Constitution and are not protected by the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence states that certain unalienable rights are self-evident truths, among which are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

However, the Declaration only establishes and explains the need to form a new government and it forecasts the writing of a document about the new government and its laws. The Declaration isn’t the law of the land.

The 9th & 10th Amendments to the Constitution provide
that rights not specified in the Constitution are reserved for the States and their people, either to be protected rights or not, or even to be illegal in that State.

So it can be argued that the right to one’s body can only be protected at the State level or made illegal by laws of the States or simply not protected and therefore subject to being illegal according to laws of the individual States.

The laws that are legislated and enacted in each State are voted on by elected representatives of the people in that State. Therefore it is completely legitimate for there to be State laws that criminalize abortion.

Secondly, although the 15th and 19 Amendments prohibit the denial of the right to vote based on race and sex respectively, this doesn’t cover any other method of restricting the vote, such as gerrymandering or making the registration process difficult. These and other practices are performed at the direction of elected representatives.

Thirdly, the attempt to undermine the integrity of elections by election fraud was executed by participants of the January 6 Insurrection, however even if every participant had been a Republican and even if elements of the Insurrection were organized, the Trump portion of the Republican party cannot be held responsible under RICO, and likewise the entirety of the party cannot be subject to RICO either.

Finally, I personally subscribe to your argument and deeply hope that someone will discredit the counter points that I’ve laid out here. If these points are refuted, it is possible that RICO could be applied to the Republican party or Trump’s faction of it.

Although I wonder if any Republicans can be characterized as racketeers.

[UniversalAlien]

AverageBozo wrote:

Although I wonder if any Republicans can be characterized as racketeers.

How about a systematic and deliberate use of lies to commit fraud and overturn a legitimate election {Presidential Election 2020]

Some might not call this a RICO violation - Rather it might constitute Treason

And you can't blame this all on Trump who may so deranged so as to believe his own lies - And the evidence of his lies are numerous
and a matter of record. So he may get a pass - But the political party that not only leaves him in charge but in fact maintains his status
as boss - Is engaged in crime, interstate trafficking in fraudulent lies in an attempt to overturn a national election,
is more than the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' Trump was charged with twice - it is racketeering of the worst kind
- And as previously stated could be considered Treason

See also:

"The RNC has a RICO Problem"

While the media and Democrats salivate over the investigation into the Trump crime family, pundits are ignoring a much bigger fish — one involving hidden money behind Super Pacs. political non-profits and sitting members of Congress.

This is far more pressing than the potential charges against the administration. Legal challenges will likely take years before any sort of justice is paid Trump or his children and their organization.

RICO is More Likely Than Impeachment.........

https://primepolitical.com/2019/03/16/rico/

[AverageBozo]

AverageBozo wrote:

Although I wonder if any Republicans can be characterized as racketeers.

How about a systematic and deliberate use of lies to commit fraud and overturn a legitimate election {Presidential Election 2020]

Some might not call this a RICO violation - Rather it might constitute Treason

And you can't blame this all on Trump who may so deranged so as to believe his own lies - And the evidence of his lies are numerous
and a matter of record. So he may get a pass - But the political party that not only leaves him in charge but in fact maintains his status
as boss - Is engaged in crime, interstate trafficking in fraudulent lies in an attempt to overturn a national election,
is more than the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' Trump was charged with twice - it is racketeering of the worst kind
- And as previously stated could be considered Treason

See also:

"The RNC has a RICO Problem"

While the media and Democrats salivate over the investigation into the Trump crime family, pundits are ignoring a much bigger fish — one involving hidden money behind Super Pacs. political non-profits and sitting members of Congress.

This is far more pressing than the potential charges against the administration. Legal challenges will likely take years before any sort of justice is paid Trump or his children and their organization.

RICO is More Likely Than Impeachment.........

https://primepolitical.com/2019/03/16/rico/

Granted.

Now will you please refute the first, second and third arguments above on the Republican Party and abortion, voter suppression and election fraud respectively?

[UniversalAlien]

AverageBozo wrote:

Although I wonder if any Republicans can be characterized as racketeers.

How about a systematic and deliberate use of lies to commit fraud and overturn a legitimate election {Presidential Election 2020]

Some might not call this a RICO violation - Rather it might constitute Treason

And you can't blame this all on Trump who may so deranged so as to believe his own lies - And the evidence of his lies are numerous
and a matter of record. So he may get a pass - But the political party that not only leaves him in charge but in fact maintains his status
as boss - Is engaged in crime, interstate trafficking in fraudulent lies in an attempt to overturn a national election,
is more than the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' Trump was charged with twice - it is racketeering of the worst kind
- And as previously stated could be considered Treason

See also:

"The RNC has a RICO Problem"

While the media and Democrats salivate over the investigation into the Trump crime family, pundits are ignoring a much bigger fish — one involving hidden money behind Super Pacs. political non-profits and sitting members of Congress.

This is far more pressing than the potential charges against the administration. Legal challenges will likely take years before any sort of justice is paid Trump or his children and their organization.

RICO is More Likely Than Impeachment.........

https://primepolitical.com/2019/03/16/rico/

Granted.

Now will you please refute the first, second and third arguments above on the Republican Party and abortion, voter suppression and election fraud respectively?

"How the Christian right embraced voter suppression"

This story was produced by the nonprofit newsroom Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting

For decades, the Christian-right foot soldiers who form the backbone of the Republican Party have regularly and enthusiastically showed up for legislative battles over religious freedom and reproductive and LGBTQ rights. On September 1, they scored one of their biggest victories yet: the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and deputizes private citizens to report anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion.

Six days later, religious conservatives celebrated another critical legislative victory, one that signaled a new frontier in their movement. In the east Texas city of Tyler, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021, passed in late August after Democrats fled the state in a futile effort to stop it. The new law severely restricts voting access in Texas, with the biggest impact on voters of color; Abbott hailed it as a “good paradigm for other states to follow.”

Also in attendance were his lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, key architects of both the voter and abortion bills and heroes to evangelical Christians. Patrick is well known to religious-right voters for his opposition to reproductive and LGBTQ rights and promotion of “Christian values.” The mood was jubilant.

The Christian right’s ability to mobilize its own voters has long made it one of the most potent forces in American politics. But this year, evangelical leaders have embraced a new strategy, one with direct roots in the outcome of the 2020 election: Religious activists have taken up the cause of “election integrity,” pushing bills to crack down on voter fraud, even though no evidence of widespread fraud in US elections exists. In the process, they’ve helped restrict ballot access for millions of Americans — the most regressive wave of voting measures since the Jim Crow era — and drawn a direct connection between their new cause and their core religious beliefs.

The goal is to protect the gains made by the Christian right during Donald Trump’s presidency, especially in the federal courts, and to restore the White House and Congress to Republican control. The biggest prize, of course, is the US Supreme Court, where — not coincidentally — all three of Trump’s appointees declined to block the Texas abortion bill from taking effect, signaling their willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade.

White evangelicals were Trump’s most loyal supporters in 2020, giving him 84 percent of their vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Many saw Trump as anointed by God to save America at a critical juncture in its history, and they viewed his loss in cataclysmic terms. A January survey by the American Enterprise Institute found that evangelical conservatives were far more inclined than other Republicans to believe Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud, as well as wild conspiracy theories about QAnon, antifa, and the “deep state.” The fervent evangelical support for Trump during his presidency has now morphed into support for his “big lie” — and for voter suppression bills that are a direct outgrowth of Trump’s continued insistence that the election was stolen from him.

Across the country, Christian-right groups that saw their influence bloom during Trump’s presidency have taken up the cause not just in statehouses and fundraising appeals but also in churches and prayer calls with followers. The Christian voter mobilization group My Faith Votes, for example, has launched an initiative called Election Integrity Now, complete with a prayer guide with seven ways to ask God “to protect America’s elections and deliver trustworthy results.”

“The 2020 elections revealed genuine concerns in the election process that could threaten election integrity and the very foundation of our Constitutional Republic. Yet, even more dangerous than election fraud is that many Christians have lost confidence in the election system,” the group’s CEO, Jason Yates, said in announcing the initiative.

Trump’s defeat proves that even massive conservative Christian turnout is no longer enough to win. The strategy white evangelical supporters have coalesced around to supplement it: election laws built on the lie that the other side’s ability to turn out voters must be “fraudulent.”

The new battlefront opened in Georgia immediately after the 2020 election.

As Trump tried to strong-arm state election officials to throw out the ballots of 11,780 Georgians and declare him the winner of the state’s 16 Electoral College votes.......

Quotes source:
https://www.vox.com/22696286/evangelica ... -law-trump

[AverageBozo]

Yes, the evangelical/Christian right did what they did. Weren’t their actions legitimate?

[UniversalAlien]

Yes, the evangelical/Christian right did what they did. Weren’t their actions legitimate?

As legitimate and justified as the Spanish Inquisition that burned, tortured, and mutilated many thousands of Witches, Muslims, Jews, or anyone who they could pin the heretic title on - Good old fashioned Christian justice at work - The same justice the Republican Right is using on women in America today - though maybe somewhat less extreme - But with religious fanatics no one knows how far they
might go

Others might protest:


"Devil's advocate: are Satanists now the good guys in the fight against the evangelical right?"

Over the past century of popular culture, Satan has acquired the souls of delta blues musicians, incited youth rebellions, possessed small children and goats, impregnated unsuspecting women and transmitted evil through backwards lyrics on heavy metal records. But recently, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, the nature of his game has been puzzling us.

The forces aligned against Satan have become so objectionable that he no longer looks like the bad guy. They include such groups as the Westboro Baptist church, notorious for its hate speech against LGBTQ people, Jews, Muslims and other groups, all of which it condemns as “satanic frauds”. There’s the Trump administration, in league with the US religious right, which has been aggressively pushing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ legislation, not to mention engaging in overt Islamophobia. Those forces would also include the 20,000 people who recently signed an online petition condemning the Amazon TV adaptation of the cult novel Good Omens – about a demon and an angel – as “another step to make satanism appear normal”.

Now, a documentary threatens to rehabilitate Satan. Directed by Penny Lane, Hail Satan? follows the early adventures of the Satanic Temple, an institution that has hit upon the perfect counter-strategy to the evangelicals’ efforts to recouple church and state. Based in Salem, Massachusetts (where else?), the Satanic Temple is officially recognised as a tax-exempt religious organisation. As such, it has been claiming the same rights and privileges as those obtained by evangelical Christian groups – albeit with a prankster sensibility.

Where the city council of Phoenix, Arizona, began its meetings with a Christian prayer, for example, the Satanic Temple demanded that satanic prayers should also be said. The council chose to drop the prayers altogether. When the Child Evangelism Fellowship set up the pro-Christian Good News clubs in US public schools, the Satanic Temple introduced its own After School Satan clubs – promoting scientific rationalism. And when the Oklahoma state capitol permitted the installation of a Ten Commandments sculpture in its grounds, the Satanic Temple campaigned to erect its own 8ft-high statue of Baphomet, the goat-headed, cloven-hoofed deity.

“It became very apparent that there was a real need for what we were doing,” says Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple’s spokesman and de-facto leader. “More and more, they try to whittle away the rights of others and define us as a Christian nation, to the extent that religious liberty applies to them alone. That’s just a scary circumstance for us to be in.”

See whole article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/a ... ical-right

[AverageBozo]

Points taken.

[UniversalAlien]

Tonight, June 9, 2022, "The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol" will broadcast live,
hearings on the insurrection, and attempt to overthrow the legitimate Presidential election of 2020 based upon the instigation of
Donald Trump. Trump's allegations disputing the election of 2020 was based upon a fabricated lie, a lie to which there was little
if any evidence - Perpetrating this lie is fraud and when perpetrated by an elected official constitutes malfeasance.
Further the political party, the Republican Party, continuing to support the criminal, former President, Donald Trump, is engaged in
a criminal conspiracy. The Republican Party defines itself as an ongoing criminal enterprise by continuing to support Donald Trump's
fraudulent lie.
- A clear violation of the RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act}


The Jan. 6 hearings are starting. Here’s how to watch them
Politics Updated on Jun 9, 2022

Starting Thursday, lawmakers will begin to lay out findings from their nearly yearlong investigation into the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has no acronym. (Understandably, “HSCIJ6A” was never attempted.) Instead, it is commonly known as the “January 6th Committee.”

Working largely behind closed doors, the group has pursued interviews and documents, while proving divisive with some conservatives, who accuse it of playing politics with the attack.

The vast majority of its work has not been revealed – until now. Here’s a rough guide on what we know, what we expect from these hearings and how to watch.

How to watch the Jan. 6 hearings

The June 9 hearing is the first of several planned public hearings that will occur throughout the month. At this time, the committee has only confirmed times and dates for the first three hearings.

Thursday, June 9 at 8 p.m. EDT – Day 1 of the Jan. 6 hearings.
Monday, June 13 at 10 a.m. EDT – One of the hearings not scheduled for prime time.
Wednesday, June 15, at 10 a.m. EDT – Committee aides confirmed this hearing in advance of the first hearing.

The PBS NewsHour will carry the hearings live with reporting and analysis. The NewsHour’s special coverage of the first Jan. 6 hearing will begin at 7 p.m. EDT. Check your local listings to find the PBS station near you, or watch online here or in the player below.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/h ... 6-hearings

[UniversalAlien]

AZCentral
Montini: Who said it, Trump or Nixon?


George Washington Warned Against Political Infighting in His Farewell Address

2. The 'Worst Enemy' of Government: Loyalty to Party Over Nation
According to Washington, one of the chief dangers of letting regional loyalties dominate loyalty to the nation as a whole was that it would lead to factionalism, or the development of competing political parties. When Americans voted according to party loyalty, rather than the common interest of the nation, Washington feared it would foster a “spirit of revenge,” and enable the rise of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” who would “usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”........

https://www.history.com/news/george-was ... s-warnings