Tag Archives: impeachment

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Hey, let’s nix this dismissal talk

Don’t go there, Mr. President and Mr. U.S. Senate Majority Leader.

I want to be crystal clear on this. The U.S. House of Representatives made a boatload of history by impeaching Donald Trump. The House is about to hand two articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate; yes, it’s been a bit late, but the articles will be en route from the House to the Senate very soon.

So, what are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell talking about? The president wants the Senate to dismiss the charges brought by the impeachment. Sen. McConnell is giving some serious thought to introducing that motion.

To which I say: no-o-o-o-o-o!

The articles of impeachment allege that Trump abused the power of his office by soliciting the president of Ukraine for a political favor, to in effect interfere in our 2020 presidential election by producing dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 opponent of Trump. What’s more, the House has alleged that Trump obstructed Congress by instructing key White House aides to ignore congressional subpoenas, interfering with Congress’s constitutionally mandated authority to investigate the executive branch of government.

Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It’s clear to me that Trump has committed at least two impeachable offenses.

This case needs to be settled in a Senate trial. My hope is that senators call witnesses, to hear more from them about what they know. Former national security adviser John Bolton says he’s ready to testify if he is summoned. Good! Bring him in. Make him take an oath to tell the truth under threat of perjury if he lies. Then hear the man’s story.

Trump keeps saying he did nothing wrong. Then make the case, Mr. President. My own admitted bias and my own political prism tells me the president has messed in an impeachable sort of way. He needs to be tossed out of office.

That can’t happen if the Senate doesn’t commence a trial. I am not saying that the Senate will vote to convict Trump, only that senators need to finish the job begun by their colleagues in the House of Representatives.

The House has impeached the president; as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, Trump is “impeached for life.” It’s now up to the Senate to conduct a trial and make a determination on whether the president stays in office.

We all know what the U.S. Senate will decide. I want all 100 senators to put their statements on the record, where they, too, will remain forever.

national news

C’mon, Mr. POTUS … let Bolton talk to Senate

Jumpin’ jiminy, Mr. President. Now we get word that you’re thinking about invoking “executive privilege” as a way to keep John Bolton from talking to the U.S. Senate during its impeachment trial.

How come? You keep yapping that the impeachment is a “sham,” a “hoax,” a “witch hunt,” a nothing burger. Then up steps your former national security adviser, who seemed to balk initially at talking to the Senate, now says he’ll answer a subpoena if the Senate issues it.

He wants to talk out loud. He wants tell us what he knows about that so-called “perfect phone” conservation you said you had with the Ukrainian president. Yeah, I know Bolton called it a “drug deal,” and reportedly didn’t like the request you made of the Ukrainians to deliver on a “political favor, though.”

However, Bolton was thought to be your guy, Mr. President. You brought him in to give you some national security cred. Then you fired him, or he quit … whatever. And for what purpose? Because you and he weren’t on the same page. Hey, I get that the national security adviser works at the pleasure of the president, that he or she is not a Senate-confirmed individual, that you can hire and fire whoever you want for whatever reason you deem appropriate.

Does any of that mean Bolton is going to knife you in the back? Maybe. Maybe not.

Back to my point, Mr. President. You continually tell us that you’re in the clear. You’ve done nothing wrong. You haven’t abused the power of your office or obstructed Congress. Democrats in the House and Senate are conducting a fishing expedition … you say.

If all that is true, then what gives with the “executive privilege” nonsense? That’s what I believe it is, Mr. President. Nonsense! It’s a diversionary tactic that looks to me like the action of a man with something to hide from the public.

That man, sir, is you.

national news

Get on with Senate trial and then move on to the next fight

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

My impeachment fatigue is worsening. It’s wearing me out. I am tiring of hearing the same news reports time and again about the upcoming trial of Donald John Trump.

Let’s get the trial done, shall we.

I believe my worsening case of impeachment fatigue is brought on the realization — which I have known for some time, truth be told — that the U.S. Senate will not toss Donald Trump out of the White House. It will not muster up the constitutionally mandated courage to do the right thing and convict him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Trump is likely to keep enough Senate Republicans in tow to avoid being booted out with a two-thirds majority needed at the end of the trial.

I would say “that’s fine,” except that it isn’t. It’s just the way this hand will play out.

It appears, too, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who presided over Trump’s impeachment in the House of Representatives, caved in her demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell guarantee a “fair” trial before she sent the articles of impeachment to the Senate. I guess every politician has limits on his or her patience and I reckon Pelosi reached her limit.

So, what now? We get a trial. Trump stays in office. Then he runs for re-election as the first president ever to do so with the cloud of impeachment hanging over him. How that plays out depends on (a) how adroit Trump is in parlaying himself as a “victim” and (b) how well the Democratic Party nominee is able to articulate the case that an impeachment is a major scar on the president’s legacy.

I will devote much of this blog, therefore, to making the case as well as I can that Donald Trump needs to serve just a single term as president, that the next president will have some major cleanup work to do to restore the dignity of the office.

The impeachment fatigue, I am hoping, will dissipate once we get a Senate verdict. Then I’ll be ready to move on to the next battle.

Let’s all get ready.

national news

Waiting for the next ‘trial of the century’ … to date

It now appears that Americans won’t have too much longer to wait for the next trial of the century.

Pass the popcorn and the Pepto.

Donald Trump is about to stand trial in the U.S. Senate on grounds that he abused the power of the presidency and obstructed Congress. The House of Representatives impeached him on those grounds. The vote was largely partisan. The vote at the end of the Senate trial figures to be equally partisan. Trump will not be tossed out of office.

Dang it, anyhow! That’s how the system works.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today she will send the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week. She has instructed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to prepare for the selection of House “managers” who will prosecute the case against Trump.

OK, it appears that Trump’s escape from conviction is a done deal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is going to violate the oath he and his colleagues will take to be “impartial” in their deliberation, has declared his intention work hand in glove with the White House. He’s taking his cue from Trump’s legal team.

There might be witnesses called. I say “might,” because it’s not assured. It damn sure should be required.

Trump sought a political favor from a foreign government, Ukraine. He wanted that government to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, a potential 2020 presidential campaign foe. If it did as he asked, Trump said he would send military hardware to Ukraine to assist in its fight against Russia-backed rebels.

Abuse of power, anyone?

Trump also has instructed his key aides to refuse to answer congressional subpoenas to testify before House committees during their “impeachment inquiry.” He has usurped Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

Obstruction of Congress? Anyone? Hmm?

I believe he has committed both acts. They are impeachable. They have earned him an early exit from the Oval Office. Except the nation’s founders set the bar quite high for that to occur: Two-thirds of the Republican-controlled Senate needs to agree with yours truly; the Senate will fall short of that high standard.

But … at least the trial will be over. Then our attention can turn to the election. It will be a barn-burner.

I am ready to rumble.

national news

Time for a vow on Trump posts

I have struggled a bit with this, but I am going to make a vow that I hope I’ll be able to keep as it regards future blog posts on Donald J. Trump.

It is that I need to stop making specific reference to my view of Trump’s complete, absolute and abject unfitness for the office he has occupied for nearly three years.

It is abundantly clear to me — it has been clear for some time, actually — that I ain’t changing the minds of those who disagree with me. Those who continue to support Trump are likely to keep doing so until hell freezes over. Even then, I am not entirely certain their minds will be swayed.

Trump once boasted he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and he wouldn’t lose any votes. Those of us who weren’t stunned speechless at such idiocy laughed out loud. “Yeah, you tell ’em, Donald!” they said between guffaws.

So … I have decided to throw in the towel on that particular score. This blog will continue to look critically at Trump’s performance as president and at his conduct on the re-election campaign trail — presuming, of course, that his presidency survives the upcoming trial in the Senate on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

It’s just that I have grown weary of stating what I consider to be the obvious about his suitability as president. I am preaching to the proverbial choir to those who agree with me. To others, well, they are ignoring my angry rants. That’s their call.

If I ain’t gonna persuade ’em to what I believe is true, then I am no longer gonna try.

I intend to keep using this forum to make the case that we need to elect someone other than the incumbent to the nation’s highest office.

national news

What has become of Sen. Graham?

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I am going to presume there will be a trial in the U.S. Senate over the impeachment of Donald John Trump.

So, assuming the start of such a trial, I am compelled to ask: What in the world has happened to Sen. Lindsey Graham? Who captured this man’s brain and his heart and what have they done with either part of the senator’s body?

You see, Sen. Graham once was a House of Representatives manager sent into the Senate to prosecute another president over obstruction of charges. The House impeached President Clinton in1998 for lying to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. Graham was a young House whippersnapper who insisted at the time that there be witnesses called and evidence heard in the Senate.

Then the South Carolina Republican got elected to the Senate. He’s now on the other side of the great partisan divide. A Republican president stands accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Graham’s position on witnesses? He doesn’t want to hear anything. He don’t need no stinkin’ witnesses. Nor does he need to hear any other evidence. He’s made up his mind. Done deal. The impeachment is a “sham,” he said, a partisan fishing expedition led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Holy smokes, man! He was right two decades ago in calling for witnesses for Bill Clinton’s trial. He is wrong now in saying witnesses aren’t necessary for Donald Trump’s pending trial.

In the annals of political flip-flops, this one might rank as No. 1 of all time.

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It’s the constant lying that gets in the way

Donald Trump has done what I once thought was the seemingly impossible. He has turned me into a hard-core cynic. How? It’s the lying, man! It is constant. It is gratuitous. It is never-ending.

I cannot believe a single pronouncement that comes from the mouth of the president of the United States of America. I am not proud of this revelation. You see, I’ve resisted the label of cynic. I have batted it away. Even as I worked in daily journalism for all those years I usually sought to believe the best in people, who generally had to do something that would destroy by faith in their basic goodness.

Then along came Donald Trump from the world of reality TV celebrityhood, real estate dealmaking and a glitzy lifestyle about which he was so very proud to boast.

Trump lied when he proclaimed himself to be a self-made zillionaire. It has been demonstrably proven now that he isn’t a self-made anything. He ran for president … and then won!

He has been lying to us daily ever since he took the oath of office.

Here is now faced with the most serious crisis of his tenure as president. I want to believe him when he said he ordered the air strike against the Iranian terrorist/general because of “imminent attack” threats against the United States.

However, I cannot believe him. I cannot accept anything he says about, well, anything.

I have lost count of the lies he has told. The Washington Post has been keeping a running tab on the lies; the paper’s count has exceeded 15,000 whoppers since his inauguration. His lying is accelerating. He is telling more lies daily now than at any time since he became president.

How in name of truth-telling can Americans of any stripe — even those who count themselves as Trump supporters — believe a word that comes from this guy? They can’t. Yet many of them still do. Are they liars, too? I won’t buy into that notion. I only am left to presume that they have been snookered by this guy, who spent his entire adult life searching only to enrich himself. There isn’t a single moment of public service in his pre-political background.

My cynicism is raging at this moment as I watch the president of the United States continue to lie his way through this crisis, through the impeachment file by the House of Representatives and as the Senate prepares to put this individual on trial.

I truly don’t like feeling this way. Donald Trump won’t allow my cynicism to go away.

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Listen to this rookie GOP U.S. senator; he’s making sense

Mitt Romney isn’t your average, run-of-the-mill freshman senator from a small state out west. He ran for president as the 2012 Republican nominee; he made a fortune in business; he rescued an Olympic Games effort in Utah; he is a player.

So, when the first-year senator says he wants to hear more from a former national security adviser in the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, I believe — it is my hope, at least — that other Republican senators will peel off their blinders and endorse the Romney view of evidentiary transparency.

John Bolton says he is ready to testify if the Senate subpoenas him. The former national security adviser has first-hand knowledge of the “perfect” phone call that Trump said he had with Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zelenskiy, the one in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for a “favor, though” before he released military aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed rebels.

Trump doesn’t want his former national security guru to talk, even though he keeps saying the phone call is “perfect.” It makes many of us wonder: Why does a man with nothing to hide seek to prevent someone who could clear him from talking to the Senate?

Romney wants to hear more from Bolton. There might be another GOP moderate senator or three, or maybe more, who could join Romney in the quest for the truth. If they sign on, then the Senate will hear from at least this witness. Maybe more will be summoned.

Then we can have a “fair” trial in the Senate to determine whether Trump committed an abuse of power and obstructed Congress.

national news

Now it’s John Bolton who might hold the key to Trump’s future

(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

How about that John Bolton?

The former national security adviser to Donald J. Trump once balked at testifying before Congress over whether the president committed impeachable offenses. Now he says he’s all in — if the U.S. Senate subpoenas him for an upcoming trial on whether Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

This is a big deal, ladies and gentlemen.

At issue is whether Trump abused his power by soliciting a foreign government for a political favor and whether he obstructed Congress by blocking key aides from testifying. I believe he has done both things.

Now it’s Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who has said Trump’s supposedly “perfect phone call” to Ukraine’s president was fraught with peril. He now wants to testify to senators what he heard in real time, in the moment, with his own ears.

Trump doesn’t want him to testify. Why is that? Do you suppose that Bolton might offer testimony that damages the president’s case. Were he to offer exculpatory evidence — which would possibly clear Trump of wrongdoing — the president would be all in favor of Bolton speaking out. Isn’t that right? Um, yep. I believe it is!

Now comes the Big Question: If the Senate agrees to allow Bolton’s testimony, might he offer testimony that persuades moderate Senate Republicans to swing from clearing Trump to convicting him? Some observers think it’s possible. I am not so sure of that. The GOP fealty to Trump is so ingrained in its talking points that there might be no way for them to turn away from the president.

Oh, man, I hope I am wrong on that one.

However, it is beyond vital that we get the former national security adviser — the man with first-hand knowledge of what Trump said to Ukrainian officials — to tell the Senate what he knows.

Is this the game changer? Let John Bolton speak for the record and then we’ll know.

International news

Some way to change the subject

I don’t know for certain why Donald Trump chose this particular moment to kill an Iranian terrorist leader, but it certainly has yanked the nation’s attention away from the other big story on a lot of Americans’ minds.

That would be the pending impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. Yeah, we still have that matter to settle, too, but back to the crisis of the moment.

The president ordered the air strike that killed Qassem Sulemaini, head of the Revolutionary Guard. The Iranian government is angry. As in fiercely angry, you know? Who can blame ’em? Imagine some hostile power launching an air strike that killed, say, our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sulemaini was, I suppose, the equivalent in Iran. Except that he was a hostile enemy combatant. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. service personnel and thousands of others. Therefore, his death is nothing approaching an “assassination.”

However, it has steered our attention away from impeachment. I suppose that’s — politically speaking — good for Trump. He is now dealing with the potential after effects of this surprise hit.

I’ll be candid on this point: Given the stakes involved with a potential Iranian response to Sulemaini’s killing, public discussion about impeachment juxtaposed with the dire peril that might be lurking will seem even more like a partisan exercise than it is already.

I guess my sincere hope at this moment is that the Donald Trump administration is pulling out all the diplomatic stops in an effort to prevent war with Iran. Trump says such an event would be over quickly, and that Iran wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of firepower from the world’s pre-eminent military power. Remember, though, the Bush administration said as much about going to war with Iraq; it didn’t work out that way.

The president did say the other evening that he prefers peace over war. Uh, so do the rest of us, Mr. President. The sooner we can resolve this Iran crisis the sooner we turn our attention to pondering that impeachment trial.