Tag Archives: Trump impeachment

Far-left Dems need to take a chill pill

Let’s catch our breath for a moment or two, shall we?

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she does not favor impeaching Donald John Trump. She says the president “isn’t worth it,” which I interpret to mean that she thinks so little of him that he isn’t worth the emotional and political capital it would cost to impeach him.

So, she is putting impeachment on the back burner. For now.

I did not hear the speaker say that impeachment would never be an option for the House to consider.

Look, the speaker is no fool. She is a seasoned political hand. She knows the lay of the land in the House that now comprises a Democratic majority, which is how Pelosi got to become speaker again at the beginning of the year.

Pelosi is waiting — along with many of the rest of us — for Robert Mueller to finish his task. He is wrapping up an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign for president “colluded” with Russian government goons in 2016 to influence outcome of that year’s election.

She knows she likely has enough Democratic votes in the House to impeach Trump; it requires only a simple majority. The bar is much higher in the Senate, where the president would stand trial. Two-thirds of the Senate need to cast votes to convict the president. Pelosi knows that there aren’t enough Republican votes to finish what the House would start.

Might there be enough to GOP votes to convict Trump if Mueller produces compelling evidence? Might there be something coming from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York that would sway GOP senators?

The speaker is waiting for all that to play out.

Meanwhile, the far-left wing of her Democratic Party House caucus needs to chill out. Stop the impeachment yammering. Settle down and worry about legislating matters that come before them.

There might be time to get serious about impeaching this president.

Or, there might be nothing at all.

I am one American who is willing to wait for the special counsel to finish his job.

Impeachment fanatics need a serious gut check

Michael Cohen’s testimony this past week in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee has ignited talk of impeachment.

Many on the far left of the Democratic Party are ready to file articles of impeachment yesterday against Donald John Trump, the Republican president of the United States of America. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer/confidant/friend/fixer offered up a mountain of circumstantial evidence of criminality involving the president.

That’s enough for many on the far left.

Other Democrats, the more seasoned among them, are sounding a warning.

Not so fast. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those who argue that impeachment is too divisive an issue to hurtle head first into doing. She is counseling the impeachment fanatics within her caucus to wait a while longer. We’ve got this matter involving special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude.

Of course, Republicans are willing to talk about impeachment. They’re using it as a cudgel to batter their Democratic foes. Trump himself is showing a decided willingness to toss out the “I” word whenever he stands before his adoring loyalists. He recognizes the divisive nature of any action to remove him from office.

I am not yet totally convinced the president deserves impeachment. I want to wait for Mueller to finish his work. I want the results he has compiled to be made available to the public. I want a complete accounting of what he found, what he learned, what he has determined to be the truth.

I believe that’s what I am hearing from seasoned Democratic politicians. They have been down this impeachment road before. Many of them sat in the front row when Republicans yammered for the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998. They succeeded. The House impeached the president, who then stood trial in the Senate, which then acquitted the president of the charges brought against him by the House.

Speaker Pelosi wants no part of a repeat of that fiasco.

The Democratic young guns need to listen to their partisan elders. Hold on. Wait for Robert Mueller. Consume what he offers. Then decide.

Impeachment due? Maybe, but not just yet

The talk around D.C. is heating up, that Donald J. Trump’s impeachment is becoming more of a fait accompli with each revelation.

Allow me this plea just one more time: The U.S. House of Representatives must wait for Robert Mueller’s report to be finished, for it to be released, and for Congress and the public to have enough time to digest its contents.

The special counsel reportedly is in the final stages of his exhaustive investigation into whether the president’s campaign “colluded” with Russians who attacked our electoral system.

But now comes this, from Buzzfeed News. It is that Trump’s former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen has said that the president instructed him to lie to Congress about a meeting involving the development of a Trump Tower complex in Moscow. If the president issued such an order, critics suggest, that right there constitutes an obstruction of justice — which happened to be one of the charges leveled against President Clinton when the House impeached him in 1999.

Mueller’s office has issued a denial of part of what Buzzfeed reported, which is that Mueller had compiled corroborating evidence to back up what Buzzfeed reported.

The word now is that House Democrats might be feeling pressure to launch impeachment proceedings now instead of waiting for the special counsel to finish his work.

They would be mistaken . . . bigly!

Mueller’s report is going to tell Americans far more than they know about the probe and about what Donald Trump might or might not have done while being elected president of the United States in 2016.

I happen to be willing to wait for Mueller to let us know what he has before urging anyone to impeach the president.

Americans have invested a lot in this investigation already. It has cost many millions of dollars in public money. Accordingly, I want it released as fully as possible to the public. If it is released, we’ll get to know the truth.

If the truth suggests an impeachment is inevitable, then fire up the machinery. Not before we know the truth.

Let’s await Mueller report — and accept whatever it reveals

I have spent a lot of time, energy and emotional capital expounding on the virtues of special counsel Robert Mueller.

He’s a man of impeccable integrity. He is a meticulous prosecutor. Mueller once led the FBI. He has served under Republican and Democratic administrations. He is a former Marine and Vietnam War combat veteran.

Those of you who read this blog understand my feelings about Mueller.

That all said, I want to gird us all for the possibility — even though it might seem remote — that when Mueller finishes his investigation into alleged “collusion” between the Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russian operatives — he might come up empty. Mueller’s report might prove to be a serious anti-climax.

I fully intend to accept whatever conclusion Mueller reaches.

Do I want him to come up empty? No. I do not. I believe he has pored through a mountain of evidence of wrong-doing. There might be an absence of criminal activity. There even might be a lack of evidence that the president has committed an impeachable offense.

The way I look at it, if we’re going to stand by the special counsel’s integrity and his character, then we should stand by him even if he doesn’t deliver what many of us think he might — let alone should — deliver to curious Americans.

To be sure, Donald Trump’s supporters already have slung epithets at Mueller. Led by the president himself, they contend he is on a “witch hunt.” That he has surrounded himself with “Hillary-loving Democrats.” That he has found “no evidence of collusion.” Therefore, it appears that if Mueller does produce a damning report that they will shout “rigged!” and “phony hoax!” from the highest rooftops they can find.

I am hoping that those of us on the other side will refrain from that kind of sour-grape bitching if Mueller produces nothing at the end of this investigation.

To that end, I hereby declare my intention to accept whatever Mueller concludes, even if it fails to satisfy what I had hoped would be a different ending. If we believe that Robert Mueller is a stand-up man, then we need to stand by that belief.

Who has ‘dishonored’ their family?

I already have stated my dismay at U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s f-bomb when talking about impeaching Donald Trump. It was uncalled for and unnecessary.

However . . .

For the president to castigate Tlaib for “dishonoring” her family, her office, herself is laughable on its face.

This comes from the guy who has cheated on all three of his wives, bragged about grabbing women by their private parts and had sex with an adult film actress (allegedly) after his third wife had just given birth to his fifth child.

Oh, and he’s also used some filthy language himself from campaign podiums and other public venues.

So, let’s quit the “dishonorable” rhetoric, Mr. President. You, sir, should not go there.

Here’s how you impeach a president

Donald Trump has posed what I presume is a rhetorical question. It appears in a Twitter message he sent out today.

I believe I have the answer. I’ll be brief.

You impeach a president when you receive the findings of a former FBI director who’s been named special counsel, someone who’s been poring over mountains of evidence to determine if there’s been wrongdoing involving the president’s campaign.

The counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, might reveal that there was conspiracy to obstruct justice, that the president has financial dealings with Russian government officials, that he has lied to Americans about a so-called absence of such involvement; he might determine there’s a violation of the constitutional clause that prohibits presidents from taking gifts from foreign governments.

All that other stuff, the supposed popularity, the “greatest election of all time,” “the most successful first two years of any president” won’t matter one bit.

That’s how you do it, Mr. President.

We’ll just have to wait for Robert Mueller to finish his work.

Yep, some of us do care that she swore

I had to look this guy up before offering a comment on what he had to say. Mikel Jollett, I learned, is a musician and author, who is best known as the front man for an indie rock group called Airborne Toxic Event.

Now with that out of the way, I want to declare that I happen to care that a freshman congresswoman swore when she called for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. I do not support the president of the United States; I didn’t vote for what he calls a “racist sexual predator.”

The basis for my caring about Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s foul mouth is two-fold.

First, she is a brand new member of Congress who sought to make a name for herself right out of the chute. Mission accomplished. All she had to say was that she believes Democrats are going to “impeach the motherfu***r.” Washington is all abuzz over what she said.

Second, she could have made precisely that point without using the gutter language. I get that Trump has said all of that. He trash talks with the best of ’em. I am acutely aware of his history, of the language he has used to describe how he treats women. I am aware of the misogynistic nature of his comments.

None of that — zero! — justifies the use of the language that a heretofore virtually unknown rookie member of Congress has used to highlight (or lowlight) what she hopes happens within the halls of Congress.

I do not want the newly empowered Democratic Party congressional caucus to slide into the gutter occupied by Donald Trump and so many members of his “base.”

As for Mikel Jollett — whoever he is — the young man should cease assuming that “nobody cares” that an “incoming congresswoman” swore. He is mistaken.

Is there a ‘woodshed’ in Rep. Tlaib’s future?

Wouldn’t you know it? A rookie member of the U.S. House of Representatives blurts out a profane declaration, about how House Democrats are going to “impeach the mother***er” and fellow Democrats start expressing their anger at this upstart.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has made her mark immediately. It’s not a pretty mark. She was seeking to fire up a crowd of progressive activists when she offered the foul-mouthed pledge to impeach Donald J. Trump.

Democrats getting angry

Other Democrats are upset that Tlaib has overturned their efforts to orchestrate an orderly transition to power in the House, now that they are in the majority. They don’t want to rush into what might turn out to be a foolish act if they seek impeachment before knowing all the facts related to the myriad issues at hand.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to file his report soon on his probe into “The Russia Thing.” Loudmouths like Tlaib are getting way ahead of themselves.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who calls impeachment a “last resort” — might need to escort the young freshman lawmaker to the proverbial “woodshed” for a woman-to-woman chat about how things get done in the People’s House. She ought to rethink her hands-off approach to Democratic caucus members’ fiery rhetoric.

It reminds of a time many years ago when a whipper-snapper U.S. senator named Rick Santorum sought to challenge one of the Senate’s elders about legislating.

The late Sen. Mark Hatfield, an Oregon Republican, chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee. He decided to vote against a defense bill to pay for a new nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Corpus Christi. Why the objection? Hatfield was a deeply religious man and he didn’t like the idea of a weapon of war carrying a name that translated from the Latin means “Body of Christ.” Santorum, a newly elected Republican from Pennsylvania, raised a stink about it and sought to have Hatfield removed from his key committee chairmanship.

One of the GOP Senate elders, Bob Dole of Kansas, took Santorum aside and said, in effect, “Young man, don’t even think about challenging Mark Hatfield.”

Santorum backed off.

There ought to be a similar scolding in Rep. Tlaib’s future as well.

That’s not how you make a name for yourself, young lady

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib wasted no time in calling serious attention to herself as she took office in the House of Representatives.

She said it’s time to “impeach the motherfu***er,” meaning the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump Sr.

Tlaib isn’t apologizing. She isn’t backing down. Indeed, she seems to be doubling, maybe tripling, down on that ridiculous profanity she shouted to a crowd of supporters.

She issued a Twitter statement declaring her intention to “speak truth to power.”

Good . . . grief! You can do all of that without resorting to the language the rookie Michigan Democratic congresswoman used.

I get that this kind of language is nothing new. Vice President Dick Cheney famously told Sen. Patrick Leahy to “go f*** yourself” on the floor of the Senate. Presidents Johnson and Nixon were known to pepper their language with what my dad used to call “the functional four-letter word.” I’m still reading Bob Woodward’s book “Fear,” and it contains quotes from Trump and his chief aides that are littered with more f-bombs than one can imagine.

Hey, I’m not a prude about this kind of thing. I have been known to utter a profanity on occasion myself.

However, a freshman member of Congress speaking like that on her very first day in office goes a bit beyond what I consider to be acceptable, particularly when she’s referring to what might occur down the road with regard to impeaching the nation’s head of state.

I am left to offer you this statement from a reader of High Plains Blogger, who wrote to me: We’re quickly approaching a Taiwan-style Congress with fistfights on the House floor. Good! Maybe they’ll regain some civility if they know they’ll get a couple teeth knocked out.

That’s no way to talk, Rep. Potty Mouth

Consider this blog post an addendum to the previous post I wrote on High Plains Blogger. I had counseled the freshman Democratic House class about rushing to impeach Donald J. Trump, imploring them to wait for special counsel Robert Mueller to release the findings of his investigation into “The Russia Thing.”

Then this item emerged overnight.

Newly sworn in U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, exhorted her followers by declaring the House Democratic caucus intends to “impeach the motherfu**er!”

The epithet is aimed at the president of the United States of America.

Do I really need to inform this young, newly minted U.S. lawmaker about “decorum” and “dignity”? I don’t . . . but I will!

The tone and tenor of our political discourse has gotten pretty ugly in recent years. The nation does not need to hear filthy epithets spewed from members of Congress, especially newbies who don’t know their way around the halls of the Capitol Building, let alone around the halls of power within that grand and noble structure.

Tlaib already has made history by becoming one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress and by being the first Palestinian-American to win a seat there.

However, my advice to the young lawmaker is this: Knock off the tough talk, settle down, set up your office and get to work on  your constituents’ needs, wants and demands. They sent you there to do their work, not to make an a** of yourself.