Category: Politics

Extra Extra Read All About It! – President Impeached!

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: It’s a “great day for the Constitution” but “a sad day for America.”

For just the third time in America’s history a president of the United States has been impeached. Even as a conservative Democrat I would have to voted for the impeachment of Donald Trump.

The two charges against the president are abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. I would have included a charge of obstruction of justice to the charges against him. Despite an invitation to participate in the House impeachment investigation the president refused to provide any pertinent documents and blocked all of his administration personnel from appearing before the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.

Just in case any Americans did not know his defense, Trump wrote in a letter to speaker Nancy Pelosi saying “This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.” That letter tells me the president has not read the constitution. Or perhaps he has but chooses to ignore the constitution.

This impeachment is a fact but now comes the politics of a trial in the senate. The Democrats will be doing every trick they can to have Trump removed from office. At the very least the impeachment will hang over Donald Trump forever.

Trump is just 67 votes away from being an ex-President

There were Republicans support for Richard Nixon almost to the day he resigned. That could be the same situation for Donald Trump.

Trump is being impeached on two charges of misbehavior during his dealings with Ukraine. The Judiciary Committee in the House has deliberately kept the charges within the narrow range of the Ukraine fiasco.

The real charge against Trump is that his entire presidency has been conducted on the belief that he stands above the law, is an elected monarch. At issue is nothing less than preservation of the republican framework of the Constitution.

Trump is just 67 votes away from being an ex-President. Yes, it’s a huge long shot but two of the three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon are the same in the impeachment charges against Donald Trump.

A powerful prosecutor, who is known for political impartiality, might present the Democratic Party arguments for removal of Trump’s from office in a manner that Republican senators will be unable to ignore. Jurys have been known to bring unexpected verdicts. Some of those GOP senators may be reviewing the arguments given Trump’s efforts to scuttle the constitution.

Perhaps an overwhelming indication that the senate will vote in favor of his removal he will follow Nixon’s example.

Is Judaism a religion or a nationality-or is it both?

 

This question is debated by both Jews and non-Jews.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion.  The last thing we need is the United States government defining any religion.  In fact the first words of the first amendment to the constitution are “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

President Donald Trump reportedly plans to sign an executive order that would classify Judaism as a race or nationality instead of just a religion.

His action will put a target on every Jews in America. Hitler would be delighted.

Three administration officials told The New York Times that the order would threaten to withhold federal funding for colleges and universities that fail to combat discrimination on their campuses.

The loudest critics of the measure are Jews themselves, many of whom said that referring to Judaism as a nationality would only further fuel anti-Semitism.

The move appears to be targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which encourages various forms of boycott against Israel for what it deems violations of international law. The group, which has become popular on college campuses, holds annual events like “Israeli Apartheid Week” to push for Palestinian rights.

Many American Jews are worried Trump’s reported decision to define Judaism as a nationality and not just a religion would do far more harm than good. I’m one of them.

I have known a few people who are converts to Judaism. One comes to mind who is proud of her Scottish heritage. Based upon her last name I suspect she converted when she married a Jew. I’m guessing she will resent this action.

Trump probably believes he will win more Jewish support in the November election by issuing this order. I doubt that will be the case. 

I hope the ACLU files a suit against this action.

Chaos President

Donald Trump has brought chaos to America and the world.

Since the Republican Party controls the United States senate it is unlikely that Donald Trump will be removed from office. Blind political party loyalty has been a reality of the two party system throughout America’s history.

Republicans supported Richard Nixon in the face of his obvious protection of law breakers until the evidence was overwhelming. Donald Trump’s actions are not overwhelming evidence of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in the eyes of the Republicans and many independents.

There is a long list of reasons a Democratic Party candidate can win the election next November if she or he is able to forcefully enunciate those reasons.


Democrats’ most powerful argument against Trump in their 300 page House intelligent committee report are he has abused presidential power for his own personal and political gain. He has hijacked foreign policy and obstructed justice. He has destroyed institutions and undermined alliances.

Supporting evidence is everywhere.

At the NATO conference in the UK he has argued with Canada’s prime minister and France’s president. He has threatened to abandon NATO.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed new rules limit access to food stamps for households with savings and other assets, a measure that officials said would cut benefits to about 3 million people.

Gun violence continues unabated even in states like California that has some of the toughest regulations.

Obama Care, the Affordable Care Act, has become unaffordable in many areas of the country.

The immigration system has denied DACA victims permanent legal status, asylum seekers are waiting in Mexico for entry, and legal immigration has been corrupted.

Since the issues are so flagrant, all it takes is a capable campaigner to return America to its leadership role.

Voters don’t like Joe Biden’s nostalgia? That’s pure malarkey

This is fun to read but it is full of baloney.

By Jonah Goldberg  Los Angeles Times Columnist

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden has embarked on a “no malarkey” campaign tour.

I like the word malarkey, consarn it. It’s the bee’s knees. Sure, the youngsters might say, “OK, Boomer” on hearing Joe Biden utter the word, but if you think he’s all wet for using it, you can take your phonus bolonus and tell it to Sweeney.

Joe Biden has never really been my cup of tea. There’s always seemed like a bit of flimflam behind that gigglemug of his. And for a guy who uses the word malarkey more than any politician since the 19th century — and has now emblazoned the slogan “no malarkey” on his campaign bus — he’s peddled a lot of it over the years. But he remains popular among a lot of Democrats for the same reason people like the word malarkey: nostalgia, which can be a powerful force in an election.

While I’m prone to nostalgia myself, I’m fairly immune to Biden nostalgia. And so are the hep cats of Twitter and Instagram who have an outsized role in the Democratic primary process. Most of the Twitterati weren’t even twinkles in their father’s eye when Biden first ran for the Senate, and it’s no surprise they don’t get his appeal.

But if Donald Trump taught us anything, it should be that the opinions of smarty pants don’t amount to a hill of beans compared with the opinions of voters. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign was soaked with balderdash. He promised to balance the budget, cut taxes, spend wildly and save money in the process. He promised to fix the economy by putting China in its place and bringing back manufacturing. For nostalgic Republican voters, though, Trump’s vision evoked just the sort of mythical past they aspired to inhabit one day. And it was a plus that Trump caused the self-righteous press to huff and puff their outrage as they declared him incapable of victory.

Biden benefits from a similar dynamic. The handicappers keep fitting him for a pine overcoat, but the voters haven’t gotten the memo.

As Bloomberg columnist Ramesh Ponnuru writes, “The only thing Joe Biden has had going for him in this race is Democratic primary voters.” He’s flubbed debates and failed to convince wealthy members of his party to open their wallets. But despite a barrage of negative press, he remains popular with a lot of voters, particularly older ones.

Nostalgia is Biden’s trump card. For some voters, it’s not nostalgia for the good old days of the 1950s or the 1920s, but for the Obama years — which is why Biden mentions him like a verbal punctuation mark. But he also appeals to a deeper nostalgia.

For moderate voters who nonetheless think things have gone haywire under Trump, Biden represents a kind of return to normalcy, to a time when partisan politics weren’t quite as lethal. He may be as prone to malapropisms and misstatements as Trump, but his folksy fumbling is a known quantity, a relic from a more predictable time.

But he’s also reassuring to Democratic voters who still think they’re good liberals in the tradition of FDR, Johnson and Clinton, and who honestly think their party is veering off the rails. They’re the voters who aren’t interested in who’s tweeting what or what’s trending in search engines, and there are a lot of them. A recent pre-obituary of the Kamala Harris campaign in the New York Times noted that many of the younger members of her team thought Twitter was the best place to figure out what voters really care about.

This doesn’t mean everything is copacetic for Biden. But he’s doing better than the wiseacres seem to think. He’s up 10 points over the field nationally, nine in Nevada and 19 in South Carolina. In New Hampshire and Iowa he’s slipped considerably and is now running in fourth place. But it’s still easy to imagine he could win or pull off a close second. Bill Clinton came in second in New Hampshire and, thanks to his gift for tooting his own horn, was dubbed “the comeback kid.”

If Hoosier moppet Pete Buttigieg wins in Iowa and Sen. Elizabeth Warren wins in New Hampshire as a “favorite daughter” from neighboring Massachusetts, that wouldn’t be ideal for Biden. But if he were to come in second in both places, which doesn’t seem unlikely, he could still be rolling in clover, and that’s no malarkey.

@JonahDispatch

Trump in a landslide? This historically accurate model predicts exactly that

Why is the president all smiles?

According to Moody’s Analytics, Trump is headed toward another four years in the White House. And, if the numbers are right, it won’t even be close. Since 1980, Moody’s has managed to nail the outcome every time but once — like many, it didn’t see Trump coming. They have three different models and Trump wins in all three. The stock-market model gives him the slightest edge of 289-249, as investors continue to navigate a volatile investing landscape. Then there’s the unemployment model, which leans heavily in his favor at 332-206.

Unemployment is at a 50 year low and the Dow Jones industrial average just passed 28,000 on November 15.  All Donald J. Trump has to do is talk about the state of the economy and nothing else for the next twelve months.  His own big mouth is his worst enemy.

Yes, I watched the November Democratic Party debate.  They all agreed that defeating the president is their primary goal.  Not one of the candidates offered a plan on how to defeat Donald Trump.

Extortion

Donald Trump is guilty of extortion. He should be removed from office.

The proof is his pressure on Ukraine on that government to investigate Joe Biden and is son Hunter Biden in exchange for $400 million in aid. Once his attempt became public knowledge he released the aid.

The definition of extortion is Obtaining money or property by threat to a victim’s property or loved ones, intimidation, or false claim of a right (such as pretending to be an IRS agent). It is a felony in all states, except that a direct threat to harm the victim is usually treated as the crime of robbery. Blackmail is a form of extortion in which the threat is to expose embarrassing, damaging information to family, friends or the public.

Nixon’s ’68 and ‘72 running mate, Spiro Agnew, resigned in disgrace in 1973 after being accused of bribery, extortion, and tax evasion during his tenure as Maryland governor.

Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J. “Imagine your house is on fire and you call 911, and the dispatcher says to you, ‘Oh, my gosh. Your house is on fire. That’s terrible. We’d love to help. We need a favor, though,’” he said. “At every stage of our interaction with the government, there’s a quid pro quo, there’s a favor demanded in exchange for a service that’s supposed to be in the public interest.”

As to Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch the president’s words left her “shocked” and “devastated,” told lawmakers Friday that when she read how President Trump had talked about her to his Ukrainian counterpart in a July phone call — saying ominously that “she’s going to go through some things” — the color drained from her face. “It sounded like a threat,” she said.  Trump’s response to criticism of his attack on her, ‘I have freedom of speech.’

Sorry, Mr. President, the House is giving you far more due process than the Constitution requires

By Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a contributing writer to Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times

President Trump and his supporters continue to complain that the House of Representatives is denying him due process. But in fact, every part of the inquiry to date has been in line with constitutional mandates, and the impeachment procedures adopted by the House of Representatives on Thursday go well beyond what the Constitution requires.

The Constitution says very little about how impeachment proceedings are to be conducted. The document specifies that the president, as well as federal judges and other officers of the United States, can be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” and gives the House of Representatives sole power to impeach. If a majority of the House votes for impeachment, there is then a trial in the Senate, which is presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States. It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to remove the president from office.

That’s it; that’s all the Constitution tells us about the procedures that must be followed. So long as these few rules are followed, it cannot be said that Congress is violating the Constitution. Trump and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone have said that the Constitution required a House resolution to authorize an impeachment inquiry, but they’re wrong.

Even now that Congress has passed such a resolution, Trump still insists he is being denied due process. But there is no basis for that claim either. Due process applies only if a person is being deprived of life, liberty or property. House impeachment hearings certainly don’t deprive the president of any of those interests.

Even though there was no requirement that the House do so, the resolution it passed sets out procedures that meet the requirements for due process. The proceedings will be in public. Both Democrats and Republicans will ask questions of every witness. Both sides can call witnesses. The procedures to be followed are much like those used in the Clinton and Nixon impeachment proceedings, though there was less fact-finding in the Clinton impeachment because of the detailed report of Whitewater Special Counsel Kenneth Starr.

In many ways, the House of Representatives functions likes a grand jury in a criminal case, and an impeachment often has been likened to an indictment. As with the grand jury, the House decides whether there should be a trial. But the usual requirements of due process never have been found to apply at the grand jury stage precisely because there is no deprivation at that point. In fact, grand jury proceedings in many ways are the antithesis of due process: only the prosecution is present; the defendant is not allowed to call witnesses or present evidence; everything is done in secret.

In the Trump investigation, unlike the Nixon impeachment, there is much less uncertainty about what happened. The constant question in that inquiry was what did the president know and when did he know it. There was a clear answer only once the Supreme Court ordered the release of the White House tapes, which occurred after the House Judiciary Committee had voted articles of impeachment against Nixon.

With regard to President Trump there is little dispute over what occurred in at least one key instance. In a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the United States giving Ukraine $400 million in military aid, Trump said, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Although he later tried to back away from his statement, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney publicly acknowledged that this was a quid pro quo, linking assistance for Ukraine to its willingness to investigate Joe Biden and his son.

Ultimately, this impeachment inquiry is not really about what happened, but rather whether such presidential conduct is a sufficient abuse of power to constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors.” With so little dispute about the underlying facts, the president and his supporters have taken to attacking the process.