Tag Archives: Senate trial

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Does he really want to know what I think?

My congressman, Republican Van Taylor of Plano, wants to know what I think of the job Donald Trump is doing as president of the United States.

Hmm. Let me think about this one. My first reaction was to ignore the poll. I am having second thoughts.

I live in the Third Congressional District, which includes much of Collin County. It’s reliably Republican. Collin County voted for Trump in 2016, even though it borders Dallas County, which voted for Hillary Clinton.

Someone at Taylor’s office in Plano knows already how I feel about the president. It’s not good. He or she knows that. Yet the first-year congressman sent me this poll advisory via social media.

I’ll just have to stipulate once again up front: I want Trump defeated at the next election; moreover, I want him convicted in the Senate trial that will convene eventually to determine whether he committed impeachable offenses by abusing is presidential power and by obstructing Congress. I believe he did both things.

I am now thinking about answering the poll survey. I hope it gives me room to offer some commentary on whether I believe Donald Trump is unfit to serve as our head of state and commander in chief.

I believe he is. Unfit, that is.

national news

Looking ahead to third decade of 21st century

We’ve put our Christmas gifts away, finished our dinner, we’re relaxing around the house.

And, by golly, I’m already looking ahead to the next year. It commences the third decade of the 21st century.

Wow! That’s about all I’ve got to say about that specific item.

However, the year coming promises to be one for the books. A U.S. president will stand trial for high crimes and misdemeanors, only the third one in the nation’s history. I shudder to think how the trial will turn out, so I won’t mention it specifically.

Then we’ll have a presidential election. Candidates and assorted politicians always tell us that the next election is “the most important in history.” This one actually might be the most crucial.

Donald Trump’s bid for re-election is fraught with plenty of peril. I don’t want him re-elected; but you knew that already. Another four years of this individual in the White House is bound to produce a volume of drama and chaos that will make the past four years seem like a game of patty-cake. It won’t be fun.

I just want a “normal” politician to take office. I don’t know who that would be, or should be among those seeking to replace Trump.

In a curious sort of way I am looking forward to the campaign. I just hope my sense of anticipation isn’t overtaken by a sense of dread that turns to nausea.

Trump will keep telling the lies about presiding over the greatest economy in human history, how he took over a military that was “decimated” by his immediate predecessor, how he is “making America great again” by stiffing and scolding our international allies.

Why are they lies? Because the economy isn’t doing as well as it did right after World War II; because our military always has been the most powerful such apparatus in world history; and his quest for American greatness has turned us into an international laughingstock.

We need to take stock of what we have gotten from this individual so far and we must decide whether we want more of the same. I do not want an acceleration of what we have experienced.

The new year of 2020 will give us a chance to perform a serious course correction.

national news

Where is the ‘impartiality’?

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Oh, how I hate playing the “both sides are wrong” card. I feel I must do so in this instance.

Republican Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate’s majority leader, says he is not going to be an “impartial juror” when the Senate commences its trial over the articles impeachment filed against Donald J. Trump.

McConnell’s comments have drawn a rebuke from fellow Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said she is “disturbed” by his approach to putting the president on trial.

Now comes the view of a senior Democratic senator, Dick Durbin, who criticizes his fellow Democrats for refusing to maintain their own impartiality.

Both sides are guilty? I suppose so.

All 100 senators are going to raise their right hands and take an oath to be impartial jurors when Chief Justice John Roberts administers the pledge. They will say “so help me, God” at the end of the oath, which gives the pledge an air of sanctimony.

Will they be loyal to that sacred oath? Have they made up their minds to convict or acquit Trump? Is there a truly impartial mind among the 100 senators who will sit in judgment of Donald Trump? Or have every one of them pre-determined the president’s guilt or innocence, determining whether he has committed impeachable offenses?

Those of us on the outside have the liberty to make these determinations prior to hearing evidence. We’re not elected public officials. Those folks have the power to remove the president, or to keep him in office. They must maintain their impartiality for as long as they are hearing the case being presented.

I worry now that the trial that’s about to commence — hopefully sooner rather than too much later — will be akin to a sideshow with senators on both sides of the great divide guilty of the same sin.

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McConnell seeks to become ‘most hated Republican’

I saw a quotation attributed to Sen. Mitch  McConnell in which he declares himself the nation’s “second most-hated Republican.” I presume he means Republican politician.

It appears to me that the U.S. Senate majority leader is angling to replace the nation’s most “hated” Republican by refusing to do the right thing when the Senate convenes its trial on that most hated GOP politician, Donald Trump. He might not allow any witnesses to be interrogated or any evidence to be introduced when the impeached president stands trial.

What is so astounding to me is that McConnell is engaging in such bald-faced, overt and obvious duplicity.

Twenty years ago the House impeached President Bill Clinton after Clinton lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a young White House intern. McConnell was then just another senator, but he was insisting on witnesses, insisting that the Senate hear evidence. Now it’s different. The president is of the same party as McConnell, so the majority leader wants to slam-bang the trial through without the benefit of hearing what witnesses might have to say.

Why, they might provide actual new information for senators to ponder. They might even testify in Trump’s favor. Or … they might testify against him.

That doesn’t matter to McConnell. He says he won’t be “impartial.” He is going to work to clear Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Indeed, that second charge is so remarkable in that the House has accused the president of usurping Congress’s legislative authority by shielding witnesses from testifying before House committees. You’d think that senators would be angry as the dickens at that notion, except that they aren’t.

Will the Senate majority leader overtake Trump as the nation’s most hated Republican? He might, even though Trump seems to have lapped the field … so far.

Hey, we still have a ways to go before this matter gets decided.

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C’mon, Mr. POTUS, you’ve been impeached

I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Mr. President, but let me be as crystal clear as I possibly can.

The House of Representatives has impeached you on two counts: one for abuse of power, the other for obstructing Congress.

I watched the vote happen this past week in real time. So did millions of other Americans. One former Republican voted to impeach you; two Democrats bolted on one count, three of them voted “no” on the other one.

Still, the impeachment stands for the record. It stands for history. You’re going to your grave eventually “impeached president,” or words to that effect, on your obituary.

I don’t get this strategy you and your legal team are employing, suggesting that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to send over the impeachment articles immediately to the Senate means you aren’t actually impeached. Of course you are!

It’s a silly game designed to confuse everyone. I trust your lawyers know better, but then again they work for you and are obligated to do your bidding while they represent you in this matter.

Your lawyers are citing the arguments of a Harvard law professor who says that until articles are submitted to the Senate, there is technically no impeachment. What the heck does that mean? The articles are going to the Senate, Mr. President. The speaker simply wants some clarity on the nature of the trial the Senate plans to conduct before she sends ’em over. The Senate will get them in due course. I want them sent over sooner rather than later, too.

How about ending this idiotic game-playing? Let’s get down to brass tacks: Your task is to persuade us — including me — that you really didn’t ask Ukraine for political dirt on Joe Biden and that your blanket order to deny cooperation with congressional subpoenas aren’t impeachable offenses. I believe they are.

You’ve been impeached, Mr. President.

So … with that I wish you a Merry Christmas.

We’ll see you on the other side.

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What is there to hide if the phone call was ‘perfect’?

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

There is so much about Donald Trump defense strategy and the approach taken by his Republican allies in Congress that I do not understand.

The House of Representatives has impeached the current president on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate is supposed to put Trump on trial. Democrats want to call witnesses. Republicans are fighting that push.

All the while, Trump calls the impeachment a sham, a joke, a hoax, that there’s nothing to see, that the operative phone call with Ukraine’s president was “perfect.”

If Trump and Ukrainian President Vlodyrmyr Zelenskiy engaged in that perfect conversation, then why in the world are POTUS and his GOP allies resisting the demands to hear from witnesses in the Senate trial?

If they clear the president of wrongdoing, wouldn’t it make sense to hear them do so? If there is nothing to hide, then why does Donald Trump act and sound like he’s, um, hiding something from public view?

The appearance of a handful of key witnesses, critical White House aides, wouldn’t necessarily drag the trial into the far distant future. They might work in Trump’s favor; or, they might have precisely the opposite effect.

What’s more, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who today is resisting any witnesses in the Trump trial, was all in for witnesses when President Clinton went on trial in 1999 after the House impeached him. Is he driven solely by partisan concerns?

Why, that just can’t be, given McConnell’s criticism of the House impeachment, which he said was fueled by partisan hatred of Donald Trump. Isn’t that what he said?

If the Senate is going to put the current president on trial, then let’s have witnesses. Let’s see the evidence. Let’s then ask senators/jurors to deliberate over what they see and hear and then let’s demand they make their decision based on what has been presented.

With no witnesses or evidence presented at trial, then there’s nothing to consider.

Where I come from, that sounds like a sham.

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McConnell sets no bipartisan example

Yeah, this Twitter message from a former U.S. senator — who once wrote jokes for a living — sums it up for me.

The Senate majority leader is lamenting the absence of a quality about which he seems to know next to nothing. Mitch McConnell is angry about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to withhold the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. He says House Democrats rushed to judgment against the president while impeaching him; then he says he won’t allow any witnesses to testify in the upcoming Senate trial that will determine whether Trump stays in office.

I don’t know whether to laugh or … laugh even more loudly.

McConnell is infamous for the partisan hit job he performed on President Barack Obama after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in February 2016. Obama wanted to nominate someone to the SCOTUS to succeed Scalia. McConnell slammed the door shut, saying that the president shouldn’t appoint a justice in an election year that would determine who the next president would be.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS. McConnell denied Garland a hearing. It was a major-league partisan power play. It worked for McConnell, given that Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

Of course, McConnell has kept up his partisan wrangling during the impeachment saga, declaring that he intends to take his cue from Trump’s legal team and that he is “not an impartial juror.”

So, for the majority leader to gripe about Democrats’ alleged partisanship now is as Al Franken has described it.

Pathetic.

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Yearning for a return to civility

I am a fan of civil political discourse, and of compromise when it can produce a common good, and of political adversaries remaining friends when the battle of the day has concluded.

Thus, I am yearning for a return — please pardon my borrowing a phrase coined by a former U.S. president — to a “kinder, gentler time” in American political life.

The late George H.W. Bush sought such a return when he took office in 1989. It was there, then it was gone.

It’s gotten much worse since Donald Trump entered political life in the summer of 2015. Indeed, he helped foment some of the intense anger even before then, feeding the Big Lie about President Barack Obama’s citizenship status, becoming the de facto godfather of the “birther” movement.

OK, he’s now the current president. The House of Representatives has impeached him. Trump is now getting ready to stand trial in the  Senate.

I won’t venture off the conventional wisdom trail here. I believe he will survive the trial. He will stay in office. Trump then will run for re-election and he will feed the intense anger that will continue to simmer and boil until Election Day 2020.

It’s my desire for a return to political civility, collegiality and comity that makes me yearn for his defeat next year. Trump has shown an unwillingness to bridge the divide among disparate Americans. Indeed, he seeks to widen it.

Thus, as he campaigns for re-election I fully expect the president to keep reminding us of the impeachment drama that is playing out at this moment. He will continue to hurl epithets at his foes. Trump will attach sophomoric nicknames to them. The president will seek to fuel the rage at the system that got him elected in the first place.

What if he wins? Oh, my! We’ll get four more years of practically everything I have just described. There likely will be a new wrinkle or three thrown in for good measure.

I’ll try to do my part to dial it back by refraining from some of the harsh rhetoric I have spouted in this forum since Trump crashed onto the political scene. Trump is a lead-pipe cinch, though, to test that pledge with what he is likely to say out loud over the course of the next year.

Take note: I haven’t hurled a single epithet at him in this post.

Hey, it’s a start. My hope springs eternal that we’ll be able to return sooner rather than later to a kinder, gentler political era.

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McConnell accuses House of rushing … so he wants to do the same?

Where do we stand with this Senate trial of Donald Trump, the third president in U.S. history to be impeached?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused the House of Representatives of rushing through an impeachment process to achieve the outcome it received. Then, well, what do you know? Now he wants to do the same thing with a hurry-up Senate trial with no witnesses called, no evidence introduced.

The House impeached the current president on two counts: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Congress then split from Washington for a two-week Christmas break.

What is most maddening, though, is the notion that McConnell doesn’t intend to be an “impartial” juror, which is part of an oath he will take when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts takes the gavel and presides over the Senate trial. McConnell’s mind is made up. Let’s get this deal done, he said, acquit the president and then get on with legislating and, oh yes, that election.

At one level, I want this trial to be over sooner rather than much later. However, I do believe it is only correct for there to be witnesses from whom the Senate will hear testimony. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer wants to hear from White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton. What is so damn wrong with that? McConnell is having none of it.

I realize we aren’t talking about a trial that follows all the rules of a strict judicial proceeding. However, the judge in this case — Chief Justice Roberts — will issue an oath for the jurors to take; that oath will include a pledge to be impartial. How can McConnell take that oath with a straight face when he promises to work with the White House and to take his cue from the president’s legal team?

I am shaking my head.

By all means, let’s get this trial done. Let us get it done the right way and in a way that mandates a fair trial that allows witnesses to testify in public and for the Senate to examine all the evidence that House members assembled in reaching their decision to impeach Donald Trump.

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Bring on the witnesses, and then have that trial in the Senate

(Photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not making an unreasonable demand on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The House has impeached the current president of the United States, Donald Trump. The Senate is now slated eventually to hold a trial to determine whether he should be convicted of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Pelosi wants witnesses called and documentation offered. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer agrees with the speaker. He wants a trial with witnesses, just as what occurred during the Senate trials of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

Without them, the nation will get a show trial.

Let’s understand, too, that Democrats want to hear from former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former White House counsel Don McGahn. What do they have in common? They’re all Trump allies.

Might they provide testimony that works in Trump’s favor? Sure. Might they have something damaging to offer? You bet. Trials need to include witnesses and documentary evidence.

McConnell mustn’t be allowed to stonewall this process the way Trump has done throughout the House impeachment inquiry.

Senators are going home for Christmas. They well might hear from their constituents who could demand they adhere to demands to call witnesses. If they listen to and heed those demands, then we might actually get a serious trial conducted under the rules of evidence.

If McConnell wants to shield these witnesses from public scrutiny, then I believe we’re entitled to presume that he has something to hide from the country.