Tag Archives: impeachment

International news, national security

Don’t trust the Democrats … but trust Russians and Turks?

I am not sure I get how this goes.

Donald Trump did not notify congressional Democratic leaders in advance of the raid that killed the leader of the Islamic State over the weekend on grounds that he feared “leaks” that could jeopardize the critical element of surprise.

The president, though, did inform congressional Republicans of the raid as well as — and this is really rich — the Russians and the Turks! Yep, Russia and Turkey got a heads-up in advance of the raid, apparently because the president trusted those two hostile powers, one of which attacked our electoral system in 2016 and is doing so again in 2020.

But not the Democratic leadership. Not the individuals who are chairing key House committees charged with monitoring events related to our national security. Not the folks who need to be kept in the loop when our armed forces are deployed on these critical missions.

Did he really believe the Democratic House chairs and the Senate Democratic leadership would blab to the world about what was about to happen? Or is he miffed because House Democrats want to hold him accountable for the deeds that are likely to lead to his impeachment?

I believe the embattled commander in chief is suffering from a case of acute and destructive petulance.

national news

Issues debate being smothered by impeachment mess

Impeachment talk in Washington has inflicted a number of casualties as the House Democratic caucus proceeds with its inquiry into whether to impeach Donald Trump.

The presidency has been damaged; Americans’ faith in politics and politicians, too, is wounded.

I am most concerned, though, about the disappearance of serious discussion of the issues that ought to drive the 2020 presidential election.

I admit to being consumed by the impeachment matter. I resisted the idea that the House should impeach the president. I have changed my mind, which I guess I am entitled to do. However, the impeachment wave has swept away much serious talk about and attention to the details of the issues that should concern all Americans.

Climate change, the federal deficit and burgeoning national debt, immigration reform, energy policy, the war on terrorism, our international alliances, infrastructure, farm policy, water conservation … my goodness, they all need our attention.

When are we going to hear the candidates talk about these matters? The 18 men and women running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination have been beating each other up when they aren’t telling us what many of us know already, that Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency.

I know it’s a reach to think that Trump is going to discuss these matters with any degree of intelligence. The Stable Genius has been acting more like an Unstable Imbecile as he thrashes and flails at those who want him impeached and then removed from office.

If the House impeaches the president by Thanksgiving and then the Senate concludes its trial sometime in early 2020, then perhaps we can get to the myriad other issues ought to be front and center.

I make that plea understanding that there’s a decent chance that Donald Trump is going to survive a Senate trial, given the partisan composition of the Republican-controlled body and the GOP’s stubborn resistance to acting on the evidence that is piling up.

If that’s the case, then my hope as an American patriot is that we can devote our attention to the multiple issues that require our politicians to speak to us about how they intend to solve them.

I await with no virtually no hope of it ever happening for the president to engage whoever the Democrats nominate in a serious discussion and debate on those issues.

national news, national security

Waiting on former national security adviser’s testimony

It was reported when John Bolton left the national security adviser’s post that the fiery foreign policy guru is no shrinking violet, that he wouldn’t sit quietly by while Donald Trump trashed him.

Trump said he fired Bolton, who then said he resigned. Trump said his decision to let Bolton go was over differences in how to handle Middle East policy.

OK, but now Bolton has become a key player in this impeachment inquiry. You see, we don’t know what Bolton might have heard when Trump was dealing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy and whether he sought foreign government help for personal political purposes.

It is now assured that Bolton will speak to congressional committees about what he knows and what he saw and heard while serving in the White House. I am one American — who, by the way, doesn’t think much of Bolton’s world view — who is awaiting what he has to say.

My hunch is that he won’t shy away one bit from providing whatever information he has about the president. House committee members already have gotten an earful from other former Trump administration officials, notably from one-time Ukraine envoy William Taylor, who reportedly has said that Trump did withhold military assistance to Ukraine in exchange for a political favor.

Will the former national security adviser’s deposition support that assertion? Will he add more grist for the impeachment mill? John Bolton doesn’t strike me as a shrinking violet. He is a tough guy clothed in a business suit.

If I were a betting man, I would wager that those close to Donald Trump are seriously worried about what John Bolton is going to say about how the president has violated his oath of office.

national news

Secrecy? What secrecy in impeachment probe?

Donald Trump and his Republican allies are yapping about “secrecy” in the impeachment inquiry underway in the House of Representatives.

They are all wet. They are dead wrong. They are blathering out of both sides of their mouths.

House committees are meeting behind closed doors. There is nothing “secret” about what’s going as they take depositions from witnesses with information to share regarding whether the president has committed potentially impeachable offenses.

All the committees are staffed fully by Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress. Their staffs are present, too. GOP lawmakers are able to ask questions of the witnesses, just as their Democratic colleagues are doing so.

What’s more, they are operating under rules established in 2015 by a GOP-led congressional majority.

These hearings are taking place the way the Watergate hearings commenced in 1973 and the way the “Benghazi hearings” occurred in 2012. House members took testimony in private then flung the doors open for the public to see and hear for itself much of what had been discussed in private.

Yet the Republicans are bitching about what they contend is an “illegal” impeachment inquiry. Give it a break, ladies and gentlemen of the right wing.

There will be a public moment or two of reckoning to take place. The House is going to open its doors in due course, possibly quite soon, for the public to see for itself what it is learning.

I am one American who is willing and quite anxious to see and hear what is occurring. I know the House will do what it has done before and what it is doing now under the rules it has established.

Republican attacks on the process seek to divert attention away from congressmen and women are examining. The process doesn’t worry me. What gives me pause and deep concern is what the process is going to produce.

national news

What if Senate provides a majority to convict Trump?

Let’s ponder for a moment the raw politics of impeaching the president of the United States.

It appears to be a near certainty that the House of Representatives is going to impeach Donald J. Trump on grounds that he violated his oath of office by seeking foreign government assistance for personal political gain.

I stood with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s initial reluctance to impeach Trump. Then came that phone call with the Ukrainian president that revealed a clear violation of the presidential oath. It has gotten even worse for Trump since then. Pelosi changed her mind, launching an impeachment inquiry.

I now endorse the inquiry. I also believe Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

But what will happen when Trump gets impeached, where Democrats hold a significant majority in the House? It goes to trial in the Senate, where Republicans command a narrow 53-47 majority. The House needs a simple majority to impeach; the Senate needs a two-thirds super majority to convict the president.

Do I believe the Senate will kick the president out of office? No.

However, consider this: Three GOP senators are bowing out after 2020. They won’t seek re-election. They are Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mike Enzi of Utah and Pat Roberts of Kansas. What happens to these men’s conscience when they are freed from the pressure of seeking re-election in states that voted for Trump in 2016? Is it possible they could decide that Trump has committed an impeachable offense? These men flip and we have a 50-50 split in the Senate. But wait a second!

There are other senators who are expressing grave concern about Trump’s conduct. Enzi’s junior partner in Utah, Mitt Romney, is one. How about Susan Collins of Maine, who has spoken critically of the president from time to time? Might there be one or maybe two GOP senators willing to vote to convict, knowing that their votes won’t result in Trump’s removal?

Yes, there is a chance — although it’s still small, but it could be growing — that a majority of senators vote to convict the president of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but he remains in office by virtue of the high bar the founders set when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.

Furthermore, what about the House vote? A significant number of Republican House members have decided to step aside after 2020. They, too, might be motivated to vote their conscience rather than worry about retribution from a president who is known to retaliate against those who cross him.

The number of Republicans set to leave both congressional chambers very well might provide Democrats some measure of cover as they prepare to impeach Donald Trump.

If he is impeached, he will go down in history as an impeached president. If he clears the Senate trial, there might be a qualifier if more senators vote to convict him than acquit him. And how in the world is Donald Trump going to spin such an event?

Hey, strange things can — and do — happen atop Capitol Hill.

national news

Now it’s a newbie GOP blowhard who gets all this attention

I have spent a bit of blog time and effort criticizing Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s instant fame in the House of Representatives. I have suggested she hasn’t earned all the attention she craves … and receives!

In fairness, I now shall blast a GOP blowhard who for the life of me I don’t understand how he gets all this publicity.

Step up, Matt Gaetz, a GOP congressman from Florida. He’s been in the House all of one term already; he is serving his second term.

But this is the clown who led that Republican assault on Capitol Hill this week that disrupted House committee hearings on the impeachment inquiry under way against Donald J. Trump.

Gaetz is a fanatic Trump supporter. He has attacked the “process” rather than defending Trump on the issues that are likely to result in his impeachment. Those issues deal with whether he violated his oath by seeking foreign government help for political purposes. Gaetz won’t say that Trump “would never do such a thing.” Oh, no. He’s attacking the alleged “secrecy” surrounding the closed-door hearings in the House.

The hearings will be made public. Probably soon at that. They are being held under rules established in 2015 by a Republican-run House, and signed by then-Speaker John Boehner; yep, he’s a Republican, too.

Now we have Gaetz showboating, prancing, preening and bellowing in public about so-called “sham” hearings.

This guy hasn’t earned his time in the spotlight any more than AOC has earned her time.

Settle down, young man. Rep. Gaetz, how about letting the process run its course as prescribed by the rules? 

Donald Trump

‘Human scum’? Is that right, Mr. POTUS?

Donald “Stable Genius” Trump wrote this message via Twitter earlier today …

The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!

Wow, man! That message comes from an angry politician. I mean, he is irrationally angry. He is, shall I say it, actually, um, mad! What needs to be determined by people with expertise on it is whether he is clinically “mad.” As in pathological.

The Never Trump Republicans in actuality are the real Republicans, the individuals who understand what their party historically stands for and those who have sought to preserve those principles relating to strong national security, distrust of dictators, free trade, strong alliances around the world.

Donald Trump is a classic Republican In Name Only, a RINO with no party background prior to running for the only public office he ever has sought.

So, for this president to say that Never Trump Republicans are “human scum” is to reveal someone who sounds increasingly desperate in the face of probable impeachment by the House of Representatives.

Millions of Americans, indeed, think the “scum” comment well could be a matter of someone projecting that label on others who think the very same thing of him.

national news

GOP should hold off on ‘secrecy’ mantra

Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress need a dose of reticence as they complain about so-called “secrecy” by their Democratic colleagues who are pushing ahead with the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct as president.

They are complaining that Democratic-led House committees are conducting a clandestine hearing by listening to witnesses in private, behind closed doors, out of public view. They contend the secrecy removes legitimacy from the impeachment probe.

It does nothing of the kind.

The so-called secrecy is standard operating procedure in the House. Republicans did the very same thing when they launched their hearings into the Benghazi tragedy in 2012. You recall that, yes? A House select committee examining the circumstances regarding the fire fight that killed four U.S. embassy officials in Libya did so in private. It looked for complicity by Hillary Clinton, who then was secretary of state. Then, after collecting evidence, they went public. They put Clinton at the witness table for 11 hours. Oh, by the way: They came up empty!

Now the shoe is on the other foot, metaphorically speaking.

Democrats are going by the book. Eventually, and I hope it is soon, they will throw open the doors and the entire world will hear much of what they have heard already in private.

For the GOP alliance lining behind the president to suggest a “coup” and an attempt to “overturn the results of the 2016 election” is just so much demagoguery.

Then again, that is torn straight out of Donald J. Trump’s playbook.

legal news

Former acting AG: ‘Abuse of power is not a crime’

I am not a lawyer; nor do I portray one on TV.

However, I have read the U.S. Constitution. I have been following the Donald Trump impeachment saga with considerable interest. So, when a former U.S. attorney general says “Abuse of power is not a crime,” I am left to scratch my noggin and wonder: How did this guy become — if only briefly — the nation’s top law enforcement official?

Matthew Whitaker, a staunch defender of Donald J. Trump, said in public that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t specify that abuse of power is a crime. Therefore, according to Whitaker, the grounds for impeaching Trump are, um, without basis.

According to Salon: Invoking the Constitution, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker claimed that “abuse of power is not a crime” as he rushed to President Donald Trump’s defense after the nation’s top envoy to Ukraine testified to Congress that Trump had withheld military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigating his political opponents.

“I’m a former prosecutor and what I know is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearings where you would say show us your evidence,” he told (talk show host Laura) Ingraham. “What evidence of a crime do you have? So the Constitution — abuse of power is not a crime.”

Oh, my. Yes, it’s a crime.

Salon points out the obvious fact of history, which is that President Nixon would have been impeached on an abuse of power count; except that he resigned before the House could impeach him. Moreover, one of the House’s counts against President Clinton, who it did impeach, included, um, abuse of power.

So, how does this “former prosecutor” assert that abuse of power is not a crime and, therefore, is not an impeachable offense?

Donald Trump has abused the power of his office by seeking foreign government help in his re-election bid. He has abused the power of his office by firing an FBI director because he was conducting an investigation into the “Russia thing.”

I don’t have a legal background. However, I know a crime when I see one. I believe Donald Trump’s abuse of power is a crime for which he can be impeached and, by all means, removed from office.

national news

Trump or Taylor: Who do we believe?

Well now. The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump’s presidency has taken yet another decisive turn and it doesn’t look good for the president.

William Taylor, a career diplomat, a West Point grad, an infantry officer with combat experience in Vietnam, someone with 50 years of public service under his belt has testified that Donald Trump did seek a political favor from a foreign government.

On the other side is Trump, a president, a man with zero public service experience, no national security experience, a serial liar, a novice who doesn’t the first or second thing about diplomacy denying the existence of a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine.

Who should we believe? I am going to go with the first fellow, Ambassador Taylor.

Taylor is a top U.S. envoy to Ukraine. He has been at or near the center of what has gotten Trump into so much political trouble. He reportedly told a congressional committee that Trump did indeed seek a political favor from Ukraine. He said Trump did seek to withhold military assistance until Ukraine provided dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; oh yeah, Biden might run against Trump for president in 2020.

My head is spinning.

If there can be a more decisive moment in this impeachment inquiry to date, I am hard-pressed to identify it.

William Taylor is credible. Donald Trump is not.