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T he charges against Donald Trump in his impeachment trial boil down to this: he tried to cheat his way to a second term, got caught, and attempted a cover-up. The difficulty is that Trump, notwithstanding heaps of damning factual evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, is 99% certain to get off.

Yet the trial in the Senate cannot be dismissed simply because the result is known in advance. Its perverse outcome, if confirmed, may seriously undermine respect for American democracy and the constitutionally based rule of law. Thats bad news for the world at large.

Take the legal aspects first. American observers of Britains Brexit travails had great fun ridiculing the archaic rules and conventions that for months tied parliament up in knots. Yet the US situation is arguably worse.

The impeachment process, contingent on proof of high crimes and misdemeanors, is a game played under 18th-century English rules, though not English spelling, that even American legal scholars struggle to explain. Trump is charged, firstly, with abuse of power. The framers of the constitution were particularly concerned that a sitting president would abuse his office to get re-elected, said Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor, in a recent analysis.

According to the English tradition followed by the likes of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, Feldman said, impeachable offences occurred when a high office-holder took gifts of value to do his job.

In Trumps case, the alleged gift of value was Ukraines looked-for agreement to investigate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and his son, for evidence of corruption.

Yet the presidents lawyers reject the basic premise. They say Trump was fulfilling his duty to root out corruption in Ukraine, a recipient of US aid. There was no quid pro quo. What Trump did, they argue, cannot be defined as a high crime or misdemeanour whatever they may be.

Republican sycophancy means the Senate often more closely resembles Russias rubber-stamp Duma or Irans Majlis

Trumps defence goes much further. By denouncing the entire process as a hoax and refusing to cooperate which gave rise to a second charge of obstruction he has, de facto, denied Congresss right to impeach him at all. The very idea an accused person could take such a stand was never envisaged by delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia and is wholly unprecedented.

A president who cannot be criminally investigated [due to the immunity traditionally afforded an incumbent] and also cannot be investigated by Congress would be effectively above the law Denying Congresss power to conduct an impeachment inquiry subverts the foundation of democratic government, Feldman wrote.

This reliance on time-worn, disputed English legal precedents has exposed a dangerous US constitutional weakness, as Adam Schiff, the House of Representatives lead prosecutor, recognised last week. I dont think the impeachment power is a relic. If it is a relic, I wonder how much longer our republic can succeed, he said.

The president has shown he believes hes above the law and scornful of constraint If we dont stand up to this peril today, we will write the history of our decline with our own hand Our future is not assured.

Political aspects of the trial are no less threatening for US democracy. The Senate was conceived as a body of independent, high-minded individuals acting in the national interest. Today it is anything but, dominated by a rabidly partisan Republican majority determined to acquit Trump no matter what.

Quite why Chief Justice John Roberts, who presides at the trial, calls the Senate the worlds greatest deliberative body is puzzling. Republican sycophancy, fed by fear of Trump, means it often more closely resembles Russias rubber-stamp Duma or Irans Majlis.

Robertss supreme court provides more evidence of a fundamental breakdown in the fabled US constitutional system of checks and balances. Trump has successfully nominated two conservative justices to the court Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and more may follow. He is also shamelessly packing the federal bench. Public trust in the independence and open-mindedness of the judiciary is plainly at risk.

Its entirely possible the electoral college, another 18th-century remnant, will deliver the presidency to Trump in November, contradicting the popular vote (as happened in 2016 and 2000) and, for many, rendering the election meaningless.

Unchecked, underhand voter suppression, gerrymandering of electoral districts, and antiquated and insecure voting equipment all fuel doubts that the US is still capable of holding free and fair elections.

The chronic failure to curb a system of money politics that favours incumbents further exacerbates democracys credibility problem. So, too, does the politicisation of offices of state such as attorney-general where the present incumbent, William Barr, acts more like Trumps consigliere than chief government law officer.

Factor in digital meddling by foreign powers, notably Russia, and Trumps fake news culture of lies and manipulation, and a sobering picture takes shape of a democratic system on its knees and close to possible collapse.

For a watching world where democracy is widely under attack from autocrats and populists and where the US claims to set an example, this is a chilling spectacle.

Of all the many wrong things Trump has done, his most terrible legacy may be the destruction of trust in the workings of democracy, the US constitution, and the rule of law. His weird, slightly unreal trial in absentia symbolises that dread prospect.

E pluribus unum out of many, one. And that one a tyrant, just as the founding fathers feared.

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Trumps most baleful legacy? The end of trust in democracy and the rule of law - The Guardian

Interaction between citizens and the officials they elect to represent them is crucial to a democracy.

Citizens must be able to tell the officials what they want and what they dont want. They must also be able to hold the officials responsible for their actions.

The elected officials must explain to the citizens why they take the actions they do.

In Fort Dodge there has been an event in place for at least 20 years that brings state, and sometimes federal, legislators, together with citizens. Its called Eggs and Issues.

Eggs and Issues is a forum that is held once a month while the Iowa legislature is in session. Its typically held on the fourth Saturday of January, Feburary, March and April. Its held on the campus of Iowa Central Community College.

During the forum, the legislators give opening statements about issues and bills they are working on. Then it is the audiences turn. Anyone in the room who has a question is free to ask it.

The give and take between the legislators and the citizens is democracy at work.

It is something that everyone should want to be part of.

Eggs and Issues is sponsored by the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance and Iowa Central Community College.

The 2020 series of Eggs and Issues forums will begin at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in the Bioscience and Health Sciences Building on the Fort Dodge campus.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, is expected to attend. Also expected to attend are state Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge; state Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge; and state Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City.

We encourage everyone to participate in their democracy by attending Eggs and Issues.

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Eggs and Issues is democracy in action | News, Sports, Jobs - Fort Dodge Messenger

It was a curious exchange. Frustrated by the attacks on his partythe Movement for Socialism (MAS)former president of Bolivia Evo Morales made an audio recording in which he called upon his supporters to form militias. Maximilian Heath of Reuters went to Argentina to speak with Morales about this leaked recording; Morales said, In Bolivia, if the armed forces are shooting the people, killing the people, the people have the right to organize their security.

Morales anxiousness is rooted in fact. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rightsa body of the pro-U.S. Organization of American Statesreported in December 2019 that there have been a series of massacres conducted by the armed forces of the current interim government in Bolivia. The use of the word massacre in this report is significant; these were not clashes or conflicts, but the targeted murder of civilians who supported MAS and Morales.

The interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine ez Chvez, has made inflammatory statements about the indigenous support base of MAS and Morales. She has frequently spoken of them with derision, even saying that she dreams of a Bolivia without satanic indigenous rites and that the city is not for the Indians. ez signed Supreme Decree no. 4078 that exempted the military from any criminal responsibility for its use of force; she wants to ban MAS, and her interior minister has filed a warrant for the arrest of Morales. This is a rapid and disturbing attack on the political fabric of Bolivia.

Apology

Morales statement about militias came merely as a way to say that he worried about the repression and violence occasioned by the interim government and the military, now immune from prosecution. U.S. President Donald Trumps main envoy to Latin AmericaMauricio Claver-Carone (who organized the bankrupting $57 billion loan to Argentina when he was the U.S. director at the International Monetary Fund)went to Bolivia and attacked Morales. Morales, Claver-Carone said, is fomenting insurrection from Argentina. This is a bizarre statement.

Morales was re-elected in 2014. There was not a whiff of impropriety in that election. He had a mandate to remain in office until January 2020. Even if there was a problem in the 2019 election, he should have remained in office until this month. But he was removed by a U.S.-backed military coup. That coup is not the insurrection that worries Claver-Carone. What worries him is that Morales is concerned about his supporters who are being intimidated and killed. It was not the coup, but Morales statement of anguish that became the scandal. Morales then apologized for his statement.

Elections

Bolivia will face an election on May 3. The Movement for Socialism Party nominated Luis Arce Catacora, Bolivias former minister for the economy, as its presidential candidate, and David Choquehuanca, Bolivias former foreign minister, as its vice-presidential candidate. MAS has been deeply bruised. More than 100 government officials from the MAS party are either in detention or face criminal charges, while a handful are in the Mexican embassy in La Paz (they have been denied safe passage to the airport).

The anti-coup uprising in Chapare province led the interior minister Arturo Murillo to make a statement that he would perhaps disenfranchise the entire province if the rebellion continues (the rebels burned down a hotel that he owns). Supporters of MAS and its party workers are afraid to leave their homes, let alone campaign in the election. Morales statement came as a mirror of their own anxiousness.

No one imagines that there is going to be a fair election. The Trump administration has said it will send a USAID team to Bolivia to monitor the situation, and then to resume U.S. aid to the country; the U.S. will also monitor the elections. Between the U.S. monitors and Supreme Decree no. 4078, the conditions for a fair election simply do not apply.

And not many outside the region seem to have any problem with this attack against democracy.

Staggering Number

On January 14, the UNs human rights body released a brief statement on the killings of human rights activists in Colombia. The UN said that a staggering number of human rights defenders were killed last year in Colombia; by the UNs count, between 107 and 120 activists were murdered. In 2018, 115 human rights defenders were killed, and in the first two weeks of January of this year, 10 human rights defenders have already been murdered. Most of them are from left-wing peoples organizations.

The UN numbers are conservative. For 2018, the Center for Research and Popular Education Peace Program, based in Colombia, documented 1,151 death threats, 648 assassinations, and 304 cases of physical injuries. But the UNs trendline is correct. Of the murders last year, 98 percent took place in very poor rural areas. The killers, the UN suggests, are criminal groups and armed groups linked to illicit economies in areas vacated by the FARC-EP. In other words, right-wing paramilitary groups and their affiliated drug gangs have taken advantage of the peace treaty signed by the Left to terrorize the countryside.

In the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research dossier on Colombia (December 2019), the argument is made that the Colombian oligarchy does not want to move toward peace because this would shift the needle of Colombian politics toward the peoples movements and the Left. The continuation of the warnow as assassination and intimidationfavors the oligarchy. They prefer this violence to democratic politics.

These targeted murders and this targeted intimidation is only one part of the problem in Latin America. The other is that this regionwith its outrageous social inequalityexperiences violence at extreme levels. While Latin America is home to only 8 percent of the worlds population, 33 percent of all homicides occur in the region. This includes high violence against young men, and it includes the highest rates of femicide in the world. None of the right-wing governments are interested in addressing this fundamental problem for the hemisphere.

What the government of Ivn Duque is doing in Colombia is what the interim government of Jeanine ez is doing in Boliviaboth are using extreme state violence against trade unionists and peasant organizers, against socialist leaders and indigenous leaders. This extreme violence undermines the possibility of democracy and allows the oligarchy to be re-elected in polling booths where the Left not dare enter.

Hroes del ancahuaz

In 2016, Evo Morales inaugurated the General Juan Jos Torres Anti-Imperialist Command School in the town of Warnes. General Juan Jos Torres was the socialist president of Bolivia in 1970-71. He was overthrown in a coup by the Bolivian general favored by the CIA, Hugo Bnzer. Bnzer had closely worked with the Nazi leader Klaus Barbie to set up the CIA-run Operation Condor to search out and kill any and every communist in the hemisphere. They killed Torres in 1976. The combination of the CIA, Nazis, and the oligarchies of the region is not something from the past: Brazils culture secretaryRoberto Alvimrecently plagiarized a speech from the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.

The interim governments interim Defense Minister Luis Fernando Lpez said that his government has renamed the Anti-Imperialist school. We are not anti-anything, he said, as if his government is not anti-Morales, anti-MAS, and anti-communist. The school has been renamed Hroes del ancahuaz.

In 1967, Che Guevara and his National Liberation Army of Bolivia operated near the ancahuaz River in Bolivias southeast. The government of General Ren Barrientos Ortuo, the CIA agent Flix Rodrguez, and the Nazi Klaus Barbie ran the operation to destroy Guevaras campaign. They named their operation the ancahuaz Campaign. The Anti-Imperialist School in Bolivia now honors the menled by a CIA agent and a Naziwho killed Che Guevara. It sends a message to the Che Guevaras of today: We will get you. This is the democracy of the oligarchy in Latin America today.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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What the Right Wing in Latin America Means by Democracy Is Violence - CounterPunch

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"We are already at the point where you can't tell the difference between deepfakes and the real thing," Professor Hao Li of the University of Southern California tells the BBC.

"It's scary."

We are at the computer scientist's deepfake installation at the World Economic Forum in Davos which gives a hint of what he means.

Like other deepfake tools, his software creates computer-manipulated videos of people - often politicians or celebrities - that are designed to look real.

Most often this involves "face swapping", whereby the face of a celebrity is overlaid onto the likeness of someone else.

As I sit, a camera films my face and projects it onto a screen in front of me; my features are then digitally mapped.

One after the other the faces of actor Leonardo DiCaprio, former UK Prime Minister Theresa May and footballer Lionel Messi are superimposed onto the image of my own face in real time - their features and expressions merging seamlessly with mine.

The effects, while impressive, are more comical than sinister but feasibly could confuse some viewers. However, when the professor shows me another deepfake video he has been working on which is yet to be unveiled to the public, I totally understand what he means.

It shows a famous world leader giving a speech and is impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

"Just think of the potential for misuse and disinformation we could see with this type of thing," says Prof Li.

Deepfakes only hit the headlines in 2017 after crudely produced videos began to surface on the internet, typically involving celebrity face swapping or manipulation.

Some were send-ups of well-known figures, voiced by impressionists or comedians. But in the vast majority of cases, famous people's faces were superimposed onto those of porn stars, much to the alarm of those targeted.

Since then the technology - which relies on complex machine learning algorithms - has evolved rapidly and deepfakes have become more common. Some have been used as "fake news". Others have been cited in cases of online fraud. Facebook has even banned them from its platform for fear they could be used to manipulate people.

Prof Li's own software was never designed to trick people and will be sold exclusively to businesses, he says. But he thinks a dangerous genie could be about to escape its bottle as deepfake technology falls into the wrong hands - and democracy is at threat.

"The first risk is that people are already using the fact deepfakes exist to discredit genuine video evidence. Even though there's footage of you doing or saying something you can say it was a deepfake and it's very hard to prove otherwise."

Politicians around the world have already been accused of using this ploy, one being Joao Doria, the governor of Sao Paulo in Brazil. In 2018 the married politician claimed a video allegedly showing him at an orgy was a deepfake - and no one has been able to prove conclusively that it wasn't.

However, the greater threat is the potential for deepfakes to be used in political disinformation campaigns, says Prof Li. "Elections are already being manipulated with fake news, so imagine what would happen if you added sophisticated deepfakes to the mix?"

So far clips such as the one of Ms Pelosi are not hard to spot as fakes. But done subtly, he says, people could put start to words into the mouths of politicians and no one would know - or at least by the time it was corrected it would be too late.

"It could be even more dangerous in developing countries where digital literacy is more limited. There you could really impact how society would react. You could even spread stuff that got people killed."

But some, like the Dutch cyber security firm Deeptrace, which tracks the technology, feel the panic over deepfakes has been overblown.

Director Giorgio Patrini says it is relatively easy to pull off a convincing deepfake when the person being mimicked is someone you don't know. But if they are a politician or celebrity familiar to millions it's much harder. "People are just too familiar with their voices and facial expressions," he tells the BBC.

"You would also need to be able to impersonate their voice and make them say things they would credibly say, which limits what you can do."

In addition, while he accepts the most sophisticated - and dangerous - deepfake tools are freely available in open source on the internet, he says they still require expertise to use. "That's not to say they won't become more widely commodified and accessible, but I don't think it'll happen so quickly. I think it will take years."

Nevertheless, Mr Patrini thinks indistinguishable deepfakes will become commonplace eventually and could be used as a serious political weapon.

Offering a taste of what this might look like, Facebook in December removed a network of more than 900 fake accounts from its platforms that allegedly used deceptive practices to push right wing ideology online.

Notably, the accounts had used fake profile photos of fake faces generated using artificial intelligence.

Both Prof Li and Deeptrace have created deepfake detection tools, although they admit cyber criminals will work tirelessly try to get around them.

However, Mr Patrini is optimistic: "Even when deepfakes are so sophisticated humans cannot tell the difference, I believe we will be able to build more sophisticated tools to spot them. It's like anti-virus software - it will keep being updated and improved."

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Deepfakes: A threat to democracy or just a bit of fun? - BBC News

His speech will go down in history as proof that we stood up to the assault on what is right and true.

| 2:15 PM

If you havent already, I encourage you to put aside nine minutes to watch Representative Adam Schiffs closing remarks from Thursdays Senate trial.

Schiff began by stating the obvious: the facts prove that Donald Trump is guilty as charged. We all know it. But the question remains as to whether he should be removed from office. Schiff makes the case that Trump should be removed because he has demonstrated that he will choose his own personal interests over protecting our national interestswhich makes him dangerous.

At that point, I was reminded of the warning Michael Cohen gave to Congress last year.

The Republican Senators sitting in that chamber are determined to be loyal to a president who always puts his own interests over those of others. They should listen to Michael Cohens warning that, the more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that Im suffering.

After pointing out the threat Trump poses, Schiff ended with this.

If right doesnt matter, it doesnt matter how good the Constitution is

If right doesnt matter, were lost.

If truth doesnt matter, were lost.

The framers couldnt protect us from ourselves if right and truth dont matter.

You cant trust this president to do whats right for this country.

This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. And truth matters. Otherwise we are lost.

Those incredibly eloquent words speak to what many of us are experiencing as we watch the crisis in our country unfold. Wedont hold out much hope that either right or truth matter to the Republicans sitting in that chamber, which is why we recognize that it is not simply Donald Trump that poses a threat to our country. Jennifer Rubin pointed to the strand of hope we hang on to.

We can hold out hope that Schiffs magnificent words will resonate with Americans, if not with a majority of the Senate. Perhaps Schiffs call to our better angels will provide the emotional lift and inspiration to banish Trump from the Oval Office in the November election. Whether they do or not, Schiffs words will serve as a message in the bottle a love letter to democracy and truth for future generations.

As the House managers made their case in the Senate trial, even the most hardened cynics that I follow on Twitter have noted the way that Representative Adam Schiff has risen to this occasion. It is a testament to the fact that great leaders dont emerge based simply on their own individual merits, but are called upon when what they have to offer is exactly what is needed during a crisis.

Given the intransigence of Senate Republicans, there are no facts or evidence that will change their minds. Similarly, there are no words that are so eloquent as to dissuade them from their current course.

However, led by Schiff, the House managers have articulated the evidence in a way that leaves no doubt about Trumps guilt. Schiff ended on Thursday night by composing a love letter to democracy and truth that will go down in history as proof that we refused to become collaborators in the assault against what is right and true.

If you enjoyed this article, consider making a donation to help us produce more like it. The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 to tell the stories of how government really worksand how to make it work better. Fifty years later, the need for incisive analysis and new, progressive policy ideas is clearer than ever. As a nonprofit, we rely on support from readers like you.

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Schiff Closes With a Love Letter to Truth and Democracy - Washington Monthly