Tag Archives: Nancy Pelosi

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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.

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Beware of social media lie: Pelosi didn’t rob SSI fund

Social media can be fun if it isn’t abused. When abuse occurs, it becomes a deadly toxin.

A social media lie has been making the rounds about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and this idiotic notion that she grabbed $2.4 billion from a Social Security fund to pay for the impeachment inquiry under way in the House of Representatives.

It ain’t true. Yet it’s gone viral.

My gut reaction when I first heard of it was: Wait a second; the speaker doesn’t have that kind of authority. The speaker cannot move money around unilaterally.

Fact-checkers have debunked the notion. Pelosi is too smart a politician, too adroit and too shrewd to even consider doing something such as that.

This, therefore, presents a profound example of how social media can be weaponized. Let us take greater care when reading this nonsense.

Factcheck.org lays it out here.

How about we all just settle down and let this process play out?

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‘I mean no disrespect … ‘

I learned a long time ago that when someone says they “mean no disrespect,” they usually do mean disrespect.

So it was this week when U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., stood before a Donald Trump rally crowd and bellowed that “I mean no disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb.”

The object of his “mean no disrespect” setup? It wasn’t the guy standing next to him, which was the president of the United States.

Oh, no. It was U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who launched the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct as president. The inquiry, of course, is intended to determine if the House will impeach Trump.

You and I know it will do precisely that.

Sen. Kennedy, though, wants to declare his fealty to the president. He does so by disparaging the intelligence of arguably the nation’s most adroit politician, who in my mind happens to be Speaker Pelosi.

Kennedy’s “mean no disrespect” comment, shall we say, was quite disrespectful. I am looking forward to seeing who among the nation’s leading politicians comes out of this mess with the more serious battle scars.

My hunch is that it won’t be Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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GOP demands more transparency … then rejects it!

I must have missed something in the translation.

Congressional Republicans have spent the better part of the past month or so trashing their Democratic colleagues because, they say, Democrats are conducting “secret” impeachment inquiry hearings into the conduct of Donald J. Trump.

Democrats are not doing anything in secret. Republican members of Congress have been taking part right along with Democrats as witnesses are deposed in private sessions.

So then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed suddenly this past week to hold a vote of the full House of Representatives to formalize the impeachment inquiry. The result of the vote will launch the public portion of the inquiry.

Yes, committees will open their hearings up to the public. Americans of all stripes will get to witness the hearings on TV in real time.

However, the vote that the House approved Thursday didn’t collect a single Republican vote. Not a one of ’em decided to endorse the public inquiry. What gives with that?

I feel the need to remind y’all that the vote in the House was to formalize the inquiry. It was not an impeachment vote. That will come later. Then again — even though it is highly remote — an impeachment vote might not occur. Suppose most of the House decides that they lack the evidence they need to decide on articles of impeachment.

I know. That seems so distant these days, given the mountain of evidence that is piling up that Donald Trump sought personal political favors from a foreign government. That is against the law and it violates the oath the president took. It’s impeachable, man!

Back to my original thought: If congressional Republicans demand more transparency in these hearings, why didn’t they vote for the measure that the Democratic House speaker laid at their feet?

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Let the fecal matter hit the fan

Well now. That went about the way observers had predicted it would go.

Almost all House Democrats voted today in favor of a congressional resolution to proceed with an impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump; all House Republicans voted against it. One former Republican who’s now an independent cast his vote in favor of the measure.

What happens now?

The House of Representatives will proceed with its inquiry into whether the president committed impeachable offenses by soliciting a foreign government for personal political help and/or whether he has sought to cover up that allegation. Let’s toss in an abuse of power allegation and an obstruction of justice charge as well.

Republicans who voted “no” have said they don’t want the inquiry. Democrats favor it looking more deeply into these disturbing allegations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called today’s vote a sad day for the country. It is all of that … and much more.

It is going to produce public hearings. It will enable the president’s legal team to cross exam witnesses. It will drag into full public view all the things that have been said in private, behind closed doors as House members deposed witnesses.

It’s all been legal. It’s all being done according to the Constitution.

Today’s vote, moreover, should have stemmed phony GOP complaints about there being a star chamber aspect to this inquiry. It won’t stop Republicans from seeking to protect a president of their own party.

They will yap about politics driving the inquiry while invoking their own brand of politics to block it. Do you see the irony in that?

The public portion of this sober process does mean at a minimum that the fecal matter is about to hit the fan. The remaining question for me — and millions of other Americans — is whether any Republicans will be persuaded that Donald J. Trump has broken the law and should be removed from office.

I am not holding my breath.

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Yes, on House impeachment inquiry vote!

The U.S. House of Representatives is taking the correct course in its decision to call for a vote of its members on whether to proceed with its inquiry on impeaching Donald J. Trump.

The courts have ruled that the impeachment process is legal. They have said the House is on solid legal footing, despite what the president and his allies have alleged.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had dug in against staging a vote. However, with sufficient votes to support the inquiry and likely enough votes to impeach the president when that vote comes due, the speaker has decided to put the House’s officials imprimatur on the inquiry.

So it will be done Thursday.

Republicans have declared that an inquiry without an official vote somehow was less than legitimate. They are wrong. The House, though, plans to settle that issue once and for all as it proceeds toward all-but-certain impeachment possibly by the end of the year.

Let’s call the roll, shall we?

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Why not have a vote on impeachment?

I believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making a mistake by holding off on a preliminary vote among House members over proceeding on an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s conduct as president of the United States.

Pelosi said today she won’t hold that vote. She said there is no requirement to do such a thing. Although she is correct, that doesn’t make it any less important. The speaker did say that she is open to possibly reassessing that decision if circumstances warrant it.

Why is such a vote needed? It would put members of the House — on both sides of this debate — on the record: do they support the inquiry or not?

I see nothing wrong with establishing for the record who wants to proceed and who doesn’t.

I happen to support the impeachment of Donald Trump. He has committed impeachable offenses by seeking foreign government help in his re-election effort. He has endorsed the idea of foreign interference in our elections. That is a fundamental betrayal of the oath of office he took the moment he became president and he deserves only to be booted out of office.

I want to know who among our members of Congress — all of whom work for us — endorses the notion of impeaching Donald Trump or at the very least of proceeding toward that end through a comprehensive inquiry into all the offenses the president has committed.

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Impeachment story is giving me fits

I have to admit something that makes me highly uncomfortable: The impeachment saga involving Donald John Trump is giving me fits.

I do not know on which side of the fence to plant myself. To proceed full bore toward impeachment. Or to put impeachment on the back shelf and wait for the 2020 election to play itself out.

Trump deserves to be impeached. Of that I am certain. He asked a foreign head of state for help in his re-election effort; he sought that help while seeking to do damage to Joe Biden, a potential 2020 election opponent. Moreover, he seems to have withheld a military aid package in exchange for the help he sought from the Ukrainian president.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has switched gears. She once resisted impeachment. She now has called for an “inquiry” into whether Trump should face impeachment.

Oh, the dilemma.

Does the speaker now want to risk the consequences of impeaching Trump in the House only to have the Senate acquit him?

Impeachment is a highly political process. Its aim is to remove someone from office. If one doesn’t get the boot after being impeached, then the process is deemed a failure.

Then there is this complication of embarking on an impeachment trek in the middle of an election year. How in the world does this play out?

Two presidents have been impeached already. The first one, Andrew Johnson, had inherited the office upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. There was no provision for selecting a vice president in 1868. Johnson escaped conviction by a single vote after a Senate trial. The House impeached Bill Clinton in 1998. He already had won re-election to a second term, so there was no election awaiting him. He, too, was acquitted by the Senate.

Trump is running for re-election under this storm cloud of doubt and despair.

Thus, my stomach is turning. My head is spinning.

I support impeachment at one level because Donald Trump has violated his oath of office. Then again, my more cautious side compels me to believe it might be wiser to defeat this con artist/flim-flammer/fraud at the ballot box in November 2020. If he loses, then pursue criminal charges against him after he leaves office. If he wins, dust off the impeachment portfolio of evidence and go full bore yet again.

I hate this story and the agony it is causing. I only can imagine what it must be doing to the principals.

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Speaker putting her political skills to supreme test

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Nancy Pelosi is one of the shrewdest, most adroit politicians of this era. And I mean that in a positive sense.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives had held out on whether to impeach Donald Trump, wanting instead to let the 2020 election play out.

Then something really big happened. The nation learned that Donald Trump talked with Ukrainian President Zellenskiy and asked him for a “favor”: Would he be able to provide some dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in exchange for military aid to help the Ukrainians fight their aggressor-neighbors, Russia?

Pelosi then said, in effect: That did it!

She launched an “impeachment inquiry.” The ranks of congressional Democrats favoring impeachment exploded. As I write this blog, more than half of the entire House favors impeaching the president.

Now, what does this portend for Pelosi’s legendary political skill? It puts that skill to the most arduous task imaginable. She will need to manage this impeachment train, preventing it from running away and becoming something unrecognizable to the form it should take.

Donald Trump clearly — in my view — is unfit for the office of president. His statement to his Ukrainian colleague merely ratifies that view. He has enlisted the Ukrainian government to help him fight a domestic political foe. That is illegal and it is unconstitutional.

Pelosi, who grew up in a political household as the daughter of a former Baltimore, Md., mayor, knows the stakes. She is a veteran member of Congress. She is serving her second tenure as House speaker. She understands her Democratic caucus. She is tough and disciplined.

I don’t yet know if Pelosi is banking on that skill to help her shepherd this impeachment inquiry through the House. However, I am unwilling to bet against her and the skill she continues to demonstrate.

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Do not worry about U.S. government’s strength

Donald Trump can boast all he wants about how impeachment is “good” for his re-election chances and for the Republican Party. The truth has to be that in his private moments he is worried to the max.

To be candid, so am I. So should the rest of the country be worried about the course on which this man’s presidency is about to take.

It’s about impeachment, man!

The House of Representatives has taken on this task three times in the nation’s history: Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton all have traveled down this perilous path.

Johnson and Clinton both were impeached and acquitted in Senate trials; President Johnson survived by a single Senate vote, by the way. Nixon quit the presidency as the House Judiciary Committee submitted articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives.

Now it well might be Donald Trump’s turn.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed sadness at what she has announced, that the House will launch a full “impeachment inquiry.” Yes, she should be sad. So should the rest of us, even those of us who out here who detest the man who occupies the office we hold so dear.

He has denigrated, defaced and disgraced the office. He has insulted our allies, stood shoulder to shoulder with some of our international opponents, some of whom are dictators/killers/tyrants. His behavior has been reprehensible.

Now we hear reports that he allegedly sought a foreign government’s help in bringing down one of his political foes at home.

Is this the kind of thing that gives anyone joy? Are we supposed to cheer the prospect of the House traipsing down the impeachment path? Hah! No. We aren’t.

We should be sad. We should be worried.

I don’t worry about our system of government. Our nation’s founders crafted a system built to withstand this kind of tumult and turbulence. Indeed, as President Ford told us during his inaugural address moments after being sworn in after President Nixon left the White House for the final time, “Our Constitution works.”

If the House proceeds with impeachment, the burden then falls on the Senate to conduct a trial.

Therein rests what I consider to be where this matter could derail. Republican senators who comprise a Senate majority do not appear at this moment ready to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting the president of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

This will play out over time. It will get ugly. It will soil and sully our system of government and our politics.

It will sadden all of us as we await an outcome. However, I will argue that we shouldn’t worry about the strength of the government system under which this drama will unfold.