Tag Archives: impeachment

national news, political news

Sex takes center stage in Hastert drama

Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News — no fan of conservatives, to be sure — has identified, I think, the reason that sex has become the No. 1 media issue in the Dennis Hastert controversy/scandal.

Hastert, the former speaker of the U.S. House, has been indicted on a felony charge of making illegal hush money payments to someone.

It’s the reason for the hush money that’s become the focus here, not the charges spelled out in the indictment, according to Carlson.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-04/hastert-joins-crowded-ranks-of-fallen-moralists

Hastert allegedly sexually abused at least one young man when he was a teacher and coach in Yorkville, Ill. There could be more, the late victim’s sister alleges.

Why the keen interest?

It’s the context of how Hastert became speaker of the House.

He succeeded a serial adulterer, Newt Gingrich, who had to quit his position after admitting to an affair with a staffer — all while he was ranting, raving and railing against President Clinton’s indiscretions with a White House intern.

Then came Bob Livingston, another Republican from Louisiana. Livingston was supposed to succeed Gingrich as speaker. Oops! He, too, fooled around with women other than his wife. Multiple times. One of his paramours was a lobbyist. He was out.

The House then looked for a Boy Scout, a man whose reputation was beyond reproach. Poof! There was Hastert. Hey, he’s as clean as they get.

Except that he wasn’t.

Hastert didn’t make a big show of his reputedly upstanding past. He didn’t prance around proclaiming himself to be without sin. He allowed others to say it.

Carlson, though, does say that Hastert proved to be as duplicitous about morality as Gingrich and others in Congress: (H)e followed in the hypocritical footsteps of his predecessors, devoting much energy to shaming others about their sexual behavior. He advanced the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act through the House and proposed a constitutional amendment to annul same-sex unions in states that allowed them.”

Therein, throughout all of this, likely lies the reason for the fixation on the sex and not the money.

 

political news

Hastert scandal drips with irony

If you think for a moment about the scandal involving former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, you come away scratching your head at the incredible irony.

A grand jury has indicted Hastert on charges that he spent money illegally to keep someone quiet about an alleged sexual encounter between Hastert and the then-student at the high school where Hastert was a teacher and a coach.

That part of it is weird enough.

But consider the context of the time he was selected to become speaker of the House of Representatives.

* The House had impeached President Clinton for lying to a federal grand jury about an extramarital dalliance he was having with a White House intern.

* The then-speaker, Newt Gingrich, who railed incessantly against the president for his moral failings, resigned from public office after it was revealed that he, too, was fooling around with a woman who wasn’t his wife.

* Up stepped Rep. Bob Livingston, who was set to become speaker. But oops! He dropped the effort because he also was involved in an extramarital affair.

Man, sex was in the air.

Then came the Boy Scout, Denny Hastert. He was chosen to become speaker — and the first person, after the vice president, in line of succession to the presidency of the United States of America.

I guess they didn’t vet him at all, let alone thoroughly.

Thus, the irony.

national news, political news

Fibs = lies? Sometimes

Someone asked me the other day if I could explain the difference between a “fib” and a “lie.”

My quick answer to him was that I “like the word ‘fib’ better.”

“Fib” has a less-damaging ring to it than “lie.”

I’ve given some further thought to the question, which actually is a pretty good one.

Here’s my more thoughtful answer: A fib is meant to describe a false statement that doesn’t carry as much consequence as a lie.

I used the term “fib” to describe, in this latest instance, what NBC reporter/news anchor Brian Williams had said about being shot down in Iraq. He fibbed about it. He wasn’t shot down. He was riding in a helicopter that accompanied the ship that actually was shot down.

Why is that a “fib” and not a “lie”? Because all it means is that one man’s career is likely ruined. The rest of us will carry on.

What, then, constitutes a lie?

Let’s try this one: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” That came from President Bill Clinton as he wagged his finger at the American public and told a lie about what he did with the White House intern. All by itself, that shouldn’t constitute a lie. Except that the result of that untrue statement — which he also made to a federal grand jury — resulted in his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives.

I suppose I could go on with more actual lies, such as when the Bush administration kept telling us about Saddam Hussein’s alleged complicity in the 9/11 attacks. We all know where those lies led us.

It’s one thing to fib about a personal experience and another thing to lie when it involves the future of the country.

Awww, what the heck. I still like the sound of the word “fib” better.

 

national news, political news

Hit the road, Gov. Kitzhaber

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It’s looking like lights out for Oregon’s embattled governor.

John Kitzhaber is now getting the word from top state Democrats — his own partisans — that it’s time for him to go. A growing ethics scandal involving his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, is now threatening to overwhelm his ability to govern his state — my home state.

It’s not looking good for the governor. He can’t possibly hang on.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-governor-planned-quit-changed-mind-074856606.html

His fiancée has been implicated in a scheme in which she funneled state business to her lobbying firm, allegedly using her connections as the state’s de facto first lady to fatten her wallet/purse.

As for Kitzhaber’s role in this, well, he is the governor and his fiancée allegedly was acting as the state’s agent.

It’s bad, man. Real bad.

As for state Democrats telling the governor it’s time for him to quit, this has a Watergate-ish ring to it.

Flash back to 1974. President Richard Nixon was in deep doo-doo over the Watergate scandal. It was revealed that he had told the FBI to back off its investigation of whether the president’s re-election committee was complicit in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee then approved articles of impeachment against the president.

It was then that none other than Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater led a GOP delegation to the White House to inform the Republican president that he was toast, that he couldn’t be acquitted in a Senate trial. “You have to quit, Mr. President,” Goldwater said.

Nixon did resign a few days later.

History is sounding as if it’s repeating itself in the Oregon State Capitol Building.

You have to quit, Gov. Kitzhaber.

 

national news, political news

Thanks, Sen. Sessions, for taking impeachment away

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., says the Senate won’t impeach President Obama over his use of executive authority.

That’s awfully big of the senator.

Except for one thing: Impeachment doesn’t originate in the Senate.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/gop-senator-doesnt-plan-to-impeach-obama/ar-BBf7jQk

Impeachment begins in the House of Representatives. If the loons in the House have their way, the Senate gets to put the president on trial for whatever charges the House decides to bring against the president.

The Huffington Post reported Sessions’s remarks this way: “No, we’re not going to impeach President Obama. Or have a move to impeach,’ Sessions said at a Heritage Foundation event and then added, ‘The president has certain powers and we truly believe — and I think it’s accurate to say that he abused those powers.'”

Clear as mud, yes?

Actually, the president didn’t “abuse” his power as chief executive of the federal government. He acted within his constitutional authority. He merely riled his Republican “friends” to the point of apoplexy — which isn’t all that surprising, given the political climate that hovers over the nation’s capital.

I hope the idiotic fringe element of the House of Reps — along with their allies in the conservative mainstream media — takes Sessions’s declaration seriously and ends this nonsensical talk about impeachment. The new majority in both houses of Congress needs to demonstrate an ability to govern.

Remember?

 

national news, political news

GOP adults start to tamp down 'I-word' talk

Yes, the Republican Party has some actual grownups in its midst.

Some of them are beginning to speak up against the rough talk of the kids within the party about impeaching President Obama if — and when — he issues that executive order on immigration.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/republicans-immigration-impeachment-113027.html?hp=c1_3

Frankly, I don’t quite know how to respond to that tamping down of a possible rebellion.

The president is expected Thursday to issue an order that delays deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants. Congressional GOP leaders have threatened all kinds of mayhem if/when he goes through with it. Some of those threats include impeachment — which is about as stupid an idea as anything I’ve heard in years.

One of the grownups, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said this: “Impeachment and shutting the entire government down takes the focus away from him to us, There are some people in the conferences that will have their 15 minutes of fame over this. But the rest of us want a Republican Party that can compete across the board in 2016.”

Another of them, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said this: “Nobody’s talking about the ‘I’ word like the White House and others. They would love for us to take the bait. We’re not going to take the bait.”

Actually, I should point out that some of the young Turks within the GOP caucus have said it, too, along with their friends in the conservative mainstream media, such as columnist/Fox News talking head Dr. Charles Krauthammer.

This is nonsense, but it does give Democrats and other friends of President Obama some ammo to shoot back at the GOP chuckleheads.

Therein lies the source of my mixed feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

International news, national news, political news

Columnist gets it right on immigration battle

Ruben Navarrette is far from being a flaming leftist Barack Obama sympathizer.

He’s a mainstream conservative journalist and commentator who in an essay posted on CNN.com has posited the notion that any talk of impeaching the president over an expected executive order would be a foolish overreach.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/16/opinion/navarrette-immigration-not-impeachable-offense/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

He is so correct. I wish I could shake his hand right now.

At issue is an expected order the president will issue that could do a number of things to improve the immigration system. He’s sought to do it legislatively, but his congressional foes won’t let it happen. They’ve bottled immigration reform up. Obama has warned them repeatedly that he’d take action and now he appears ready to do it.

I’ve noted already that I don’t want him to act just yet.

When he does, though, it’s likely to ignite a fiery response from the tea party wing of the Republicans who control the House and are about to take control in January of the Senate.

An executive order reportedly is going to do a number of things. It would boost border security. It would delay deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants. It’s the deportation delay that has Republicans’ underwear all knotted up.

Navarrette’s main point is that none of this constitutes an “impeachable offense.”

The president would be acting solely within his authority granted by the U.S. Constitution, according to Navarrette.

The essayist notes: “Republicans have no trouble deflecting criticism by reminding Latino voters that Obama is in charge of deportations. So, instead of threatening the suicidal tantrums of a government shutdown or impeachment, conservatives should pipe down and let him be in charge of deportations. That doesn’t just mean deciding who goes but also who stays.”

Let’s can the impeachment rhetoric and get down to the business of governing, shall we?

 

International news, legal news, national news, political news

Reagan and Bush did it; why not Obama?

Republicans in Congress are getting loaded for bear if that Democratic rascal in the White House follows through with a threat to execute an order that delays deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants.

What they’ll do precisely in response to a now-expected executive order remains unclear.

Maybe they should follow the congressional led set when two earlier presidents did precisely the same thing, using exactly the same constitutional device.

That would be: nothing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/15/reagan-bush-immigration-deportation_n_6164068.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

At issue is whether President Obama will use his executive authority to delay those deportations and, by the way, strengthen security along our southern border. Congress wants him to wait. So do I, for that matter. Congressional Republicans are threatening to hamstring confirmation hearings on the president’s pick to be attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Heck, they might even sue the president.

The most troublesome — and ridiculous — notion being field tested in the court of public opinion is impeachment.

Let’s look briefly at history.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did the same thing. One heard nary a peep out of Congress, let alone the Democrats who controlled the place at the time.

Congress enacted an immigration law in 1986, but in the following year, President Reagan gave immigration officials the power to cover the children of illegal immigrants who were granted amnesty under the law. As the Huffington Post reported: “Spouses and children of couples in which one parent qualified for amnesty but the other did not remained subject to deportation, leading to efforts to amend the 1986 law.”

Along came President Bush in 1989. The Huffington Post reports: “In a parallel to today, the Senate acted in 1989 to broaden legal status to families but the House never took up the bill. Through the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Bush advanced a new ‘family fairness’ policy that put in place the Senate measure. Congress passed the policy into law by the end of the year as part of broader immigration legislation. ‘It’s a striking parallel,’ said Mark Noferi of the pro-immigration American Immigration Council. ‘Bush Sr. went big at the time. He protected about 40 percent of the unauthorized population. Back then that was up to 1.5 million. Today that would be about 5 million.'”

What gives with the current crop of yahoos calling the shots on Capitol Hill?

Oh, I forgot. The tea party/nimrod wing of the GOP vows to shake things up and no longer do things the way they’ve been done in the past.

That must include allowing the president of the United States to actually lead.

 

national news, political news

Impeachment for show only?

A thought occurs to me now that impeachment of the president has returned to the arena.

Just suppose the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives is actually is so blindly stupid that it actually impeaches President Obama for exercising his constitutional right of executive authority and tinkers with immigration reform.

Now, let us now suppose that the Republican-run U.S. Senate gets articles of impeachment and puts the president on bleeping trial for it.

The next Senate is going to have a maximum of 54 GOP members, depending on the outcome of the runoff race in Louisiana set for December. It takes 67 votes to convict a president of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and remove him from office.

Does anyone in their right mind think Republicans are going to persuade 13 Democratic senators to engage in this ridiculous charade?

The thought then boils down to this: The impeachment talk, should it ever come to pass, is meant to put an asterisk next to Barack Obama’s name. The members of Congress who detest him and the policies that got him elected twice to the presidency simply want the word “impeached” next to his name. They want his obituary, when it is finally written, to contain the “I-word.” They want his presidency scarred for life with the notion that the House of Representatives trumped up a phony “crime” upon which to impeach the 44th president of the United States.

Well, the last time the GOP tried that — in 1998 against Bill Clinton — it fell flat on its face. President Clinton walked out of the White House in January 2001 with his standing intact and he has emerged as arguably the nation’s premier political leader.

That won’t matter to the current crop of congressional “leaders” who are insisting that Barack Obama keep his mitts off any executive orders regarding immigration.

House Speaker John Boehner declared not long ago that impeachment won’t happen while he’s the Man of the House. Yet his GOP caucus has been strengthened and made even more strident in the wake of the 2014 mid-term election.

We’ll get to see how much clout he can wield if the nimrod wing of his party starts getting a bit too feisty.

 

 

national news, political news

'I' word returns to Capitol Hill

So many pejorative terms to lay on this, so little time or space to count them all.

Let’s start with disgusting, revolting, sickening, reprehensible and colossally stupid.

That’s where I come down on this notion of impeaching President Obama for exercising his constitutional executive authority.

http://news.yahoo.com/could-obama-impeached-over-immigration-order-173840884.html

The impeachment babble has begun boiling again on Capitol Hill. Some Democratic lawmakers say it’s possible, which is no surprise. What is a surprise is that now a Republican or three is talking openly about impeaching the president if he goes ahead with plans to issue an executive order that delays deportation of some 5 million undocumented immigrants.

On what basis would they impeach Barack Obama? They think he’s overreaching.

I’ve looked up the impeachment provision in the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 4 says the president or vice president can be removed from office if they are convicted of “Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

I’ve yet to know what “high crime or misdemeanor” the president would commit if he is acting in accordance with his legal and constitutional authority.

And, gosh, do you think the president’s legal team is going to turn him loose without first understanding what he can or cannot do? I doubt it.

Yet the “I” word has returned to the debate if the president acts.

For the record, I hope he doesn’t execute those orders during the duck session of Congress. I want him to wait for the new Congress to take its seat. I want him to push forward the legislation he favors, demand quick action on it after thorough debate and then let Congress vote it up or down.

If it goes down, or if he gets a bill he cannot sign, then the president can take the action he deems necessary.

This impeachment talk — in the simplest term possible — is pure crap.