Tag Archives: Nancy Pelosi

national news

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.

national news

Love, not hate, drove House to impeach Trump

The rhetoric coming from Donald Trump’s allies that those who impeached him “hate” the president more than they love the country is maddening in the extreme.

I am going to continue to hold in my soul and heart that love of country drove those who voted to impeach the president, not any hate toward the man.

That might sound Pollyannish to some readers of this blog. They are welcome to challenge my view, but I will hold fast to it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed specifically her “love of country” when she asked the House to draft articles of impeachment. I have no reason to disbelieve her, nor do I disbelieve the stated motives that steered those who impeached the president. They are concerned, as many of us out here in the heartland are concerned, about the abuses brought by Trump to the office he holds and the damage it might do to that office over time long after he vacates it.

To be sure the nation is more divided perhaps than at any time since the Vietnam War. The nation healed those wounds. It healed after Watergate. It healed after the hotly contested 2000 presidential election.

I have abiding faith in our nation’s ability to heal after Trump’s tenure has expired. I also will retain my belief in the stated motives of those who made history with their decision to impeach the president.

I believe they love our country enough to want to save it.

Uncategorized

By golly, the state of our Union is strong

This will be one of the more intriguing State of the Union speeches Americans will have heard in a while.

Donald Trump has accepted U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s invitation to deliver a State of the Union speech on Feb. 2. The president well might be on trial in the U.S. Senate when he steps to the microphone before a joint congressional session. Or, the trial might be over.

Whatever the case, the president will have a chance to declare the condition of our Union. You know what? If he says it is “strong,” I will have to agree.

Yes, we are in the midst of a tremendous and terrible constitutional crisis. The president has been impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The nation is divided deeply over how this impeachment should conclude. Millions of Americans want Trump to be cleared. Millions of other Americans — including me — want him booted out of office in the wake of a Senate conviction.

Through all of this, though, it is good to reflect on the system of government that our founders created. A good part of the founders’ genius is that they built in protections to shore up our government in the event of crises such as this one.

The separation of powers is one such protection. The presidency isn’t nearly as powerful as Trump seems to suggest it is; the president cannot “whatever he wants.” The founders handed out equal doses of power to Congress and to the judiciary. So, whatever happens in the Senate trial, the nation will survive. Our Constitution will have done its job.

The president’s declaration, if he chooses to make it, that our “Union is strong” likely will draw catcalls and jeers from the Democratic side of the congressional chamber. Indeed, I await watching the body language that Pelosi will exhibit along with her Democratic colleagues gathered before her, the vice president and the president.

Such a reaction would ignore what I believe is quite clear.

Which is that despite the trouble we are in, despite the abuses that Donald Trump has heaped upon the presidency and the high crimes and misdemeanors I believe he has committed, our Union remains steady and strong.

national news

Trump’s latest ‘worst’ event finally hits bottom … I hope

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

There have been more “worst” moments of Donald Trump’s time as a politician and as president that I cannot keep track of them all.

He denigrated John McCain’s service to the nation; he mocked a New York Times reporter’s physical ailment; he chastised a Gold Star couple; he has issued insults left and right; his incessant lying; he most recently implied that a late congressman might be resting eternally in hell.

Well, the events that occurred in the House of Representatives I believe qualifies as the worst thing to happen to this individual’s presidency. The House voted to impeach Trump on two counts. It was a partisan vote, but it’s a vote nonetheless. Trump’s tenure as president is now marked indelibly with the label of “impeached.”

It could get worse. It likely won’t unless hell freezes over and the Senate actually convicts Trump either of abuse of power or obstruction of Congress.

Trump hit the campaign trail and at the moment the House was impeaching him, he was standing at a podium in Battle Creek, Mich., where he made the idiotic crack about the late John Dingell “looking up” at the world from, um, the depths of hell.

The day of Trump’s impeachment has been called historic, seminal, pivotal, monumental … all of the above and even some more superlative descriptions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Democrats are motivated purely by “partisan” hatred of Trump. Ironic, yes? This comes from the guy who has perfected partisanship to an art form.

So, what now? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is withholding the articles of impeachment until she learns the rules under which the Senate will conduct its trial. She wants it to be “fair.” Well, duh? My hope is that McConnell agrees to conduct a “fair” trial.

As for the president, he will have the indelible mark of being an “impeached” head of state. It’s a designation he has earned. Of that I have no doubt.

national news

Imagine another president doing this

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I want to let a six-page letter that Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stand more or less on its own.

Read it here.

It’s pretty angry. I am trying to imagine another president who was impeached by a House of Representatives controlled by the opposing party sending something this angry to the speaker.

I am referring, of course, to Democratic President Bill Clinton, who in 1998 was impeached by the House led by Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich. Did the president fire off a screed such as this? Did he impugn the motives, the integrity, the patriotism of his foes? I don’t recall that kind of rhetoric coming from the president himself; yes, he had many allies speak publicly on his behalf.

Oh, the president surely thought such things about the GOP speaker. He might even have told him so — privately.

The letter attached to this brief post is the ranting of an angry and seemingly desperate man who, interestingly, is likely to survive the Senate trial that will result from the House impeachment.

Weird. Simply weird.

national news

Speaker Pelosi: Don’t mess with me

Well, we have witnessed what happens when the speaker of the House of Representatives’ dander get riled up.

She tells a reporter who had the bad form to ask her a question that cut her to the quick to “not mess with me” when framing a question about whether she hates anyone, let alone a president of the United States whose impeachment she is about to engineer.

James Rosen, formerly of Fox News and now of Sinclair News, asked Pelosi on Friday whether she “hates” Donald Trump. Pelosi had stepped away from the podium after giving her press briefing. She wheeled around to answer Rosen, then she went back to the podium to make abundantly clear what was about to come from her mouth.

She said she doesn’t “hate anyone.” She invoked her Catholic upbringing and her being taught to “pray” for those with whom she disagrees. Pelosi said she prays for Donald Trump “all the time.” She said the issues leading to his certain impeachment have to do with the law, the Constitution and his high office.

“Don’t mess me with” when you ask me a question that implies hatred, she scolded Rosen.

Then she walked away a second time.

I have read accounts of the mood in the room in that moment and those who were there reported that they’d never witnessed a room full of reporters stunned into total silence. That is what occurred when Pelosi fired her barrage at a reporter.

It well might have been the speaker’s finest moment in her long public service career. Moreover, it likely revealed the kind of foe that Donald Trump is facing.

national news

Pelosi: It’s time to impeach Donald Trump

Well, there you have it. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared that the time has come to impeach the president of the United States.

She said this morning that she makes that assertion with sadness in her heart. Pelosi said Donald Trump has brought this moment onto himself.

Pelosi resisted the idea of impeaching the president for a good bit of time. Then came that infamous phone call and the request he made of a foreign government for personal political help. That did it.

The speaker has directed the Judiciary Committee to begin drafting articles of impeachment. So, the committee will proceed I presume with all deliberate speed.

I am going to take her at her word that she doesn’t “hate” Donald Trump. She fielded a reporter’s question today about whether she and here fellow Democrats hate the president and that their visceral feelings toward him are driving their push for impeachment. Pelosi fired back, telling the reporter to “don’t mess with me” by accusing her hating anyone. She said her Catholic upbringing taught her to “pray” for the president, which she said she does every day.

The impeachment process is now moving ahead. There will be no more delay. That suits me just fine.

The Intelligence and Judiciary committees have compiled enough evidence to lay out those articles of impeachment.

I am one patriotic American taxpayer who is ready to see this drama play out toward its conclusion.

International news

Trump makes a hash of another NATO gathering

Well now, that didn’t go too well.

Donald Trump was one of several heads of state and government attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then he decided he had enough of the treatment he was getting from his fellow world leaders gathered in London. So he left early, canceling an anticipated press conference.

Oh, my.

He started out by having a testy press availability with French President Emanuel Macron, who snapped back at Trump’s assertion that many Islamic State fighters come from France.

He called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced.”

Trump said France needs NATO more than the United States and chided the French for not paying more for their defense against potential enemies in Europe.

Other world leaders were heard on a “hot microphone” poking fun at the U.S. president … which I guess was too much for Trump to handle.

He left the meeting early and headed for home.

Goodness, gracious.

Is this how the president of the United States represents us on the world stage? Must we tolerate this kind of petulance? Must this nation be held up as an international laughingstock only because its president doesn’t know how to behave and act like the head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation?

He talks about impeachment constantly during his press sessions. He blasts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi openly while he’s overseas. Trump ridicules the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, hurling a variety of epithets at the man who is performing his constitutionally prescribed duties.

So, another foreign visit has gone badly.

Get to work, Mr. President, on whatever it is you do.

national news

House offers POTUS an ‘invitation’ he won’t accept

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer have offered Donald J. Trump an “invitation” that should be called by another name.

It is a political stunt that at one level seems like a reasonable offer, but in reality is something that will never occur.

Trump has complained incessantly that the House impeachment inquiry is unfair to him. The House is seeking to determine whether to file impeachment articles against the president in connection with his asking a foreign government for a personal political favor, an action that House Democrats deem to be an impeachable offense.

Trump keeps insisting it’s all a hoax, a witch hunt, a sham, a political hatchet job. So, what did Pelosi do? She invited him to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, to tell his side of the story, to put to rest any allegation that he jeopardized our national security by holding up weapons to an ally until it produced dirt on a potential political rival.

Schumer echoed Pelosi’s invitation.

Well, let’s get real. POTUS isn’t going to accept it. He will assert some rationale that he is somehow above and beyond being questioned in person by members of the House of Representatives.

Then again, Schumer did go a step further. He said that if Trump doesn’t like what’s being said, “he shouldn’t tweet” his disagreements. He should subject himself to questioning by House members. Moreover, Schumer said, he should allow those closest to him to testify before the House panel.

That, of course, assumes he has nothing to hide, according to Schumer.

I’m going to presume that he has plenty to hide, which is why Pelosi’s invitation is nothing more than a stunt.

national news

Speaker ups the ante; now it’s ‘bribery’

Oh, brother. Here we go. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now is tossing out the “b” word in connection with the impeachment inquiry under way in the House of Representatives.

She believes Donald Trump has committed an act of “bribery,” one of two crimes mentioned specifically in the U.S. Constitutions as grounds for removing the president from office; the other crime is “treason.”

So, where do we stand? Pelosi has stated out loud that Trump’s attempt to obtain a political favor from Ukraine in exchange for sending weapons to Ukrainians who are fighting Russia-backed aggressors is a bribe.

I am left to say, um, wow!

The Constitution states that the president “shall be removed from office on impeachment for conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

OK. You got that? What does the handy-dandy American Heritage Dictionary say about what constitutes a bribe? “Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to induce or influence a person to act dishonestly.” 

As I try to connect these dots, I conclude the following: Donald Trump’s asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksiy for a “favor, though” falls directly into the definition of a bribe. He wanted dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; in return for the dirt, the president would release weapons slated to go to Ukraine.

Hmm. Is that a bribe? I believe it is.

The more troublesome question rests with how congressional Republicans are going to act on this conclusion. I fear they won’t consider it a bribe. They likely will insist that it’s done “all the time.”

But … is it?

I often have written about how “elections have consequences.” Well, consider this little observation: We are now reaping the consequence of electing someone with zero understanding of what the United States Constitution allows and prohibits.