Nobody is in session, and the senate aren’t even looking at impeachment proceedings from what I can see on their first day back. I don’t see war resolution either. I can obviously be 100% wrong. I’m not an anybody I just have the link. it’s below.
The dems still don’t have the votes 🤬 I’m pissed off too
The same reps that cannot agree on a budget and willing to go on vacation while the govt is shut it down, would never agree on a war powers act.
Can you imagine having to take a vote every time we launched an attack on Iran to see if they agree. It might help if DOD and the Treasury would tell them how much each missile fired cost the taxpayer.
I have been watching Iran War videos. The narrator aptly interjects there goes your universal healthcare as the missiles land.
Lawyers are not in the truth business. They get paid to defend whomever is willing to pay them regardless of guilt or innocence. Truth is irrelevant casualty in the courtroom, where only legal twists and turns confuse the judge and jury. Trials that take weeks should be outlawed as that just gives time to numb the jury.
When you consider the fact that a lot of our so-called federal government public servants are lawyers it doesn’t take a whole lot to connect the dots. They rigged the whole system and they have made it so that billionaires in the government servants who serve their donors are above the law.
As a whole Congress beats the S&P 500 by 55%. If you need a stock broker talk to a congressman to give you the illegal inside trading information.
There are some congressmen in Senators who beat the S&P 500 by 5000%. They get away with it. To expect the American government to be anything but corrupt is insanity.
Not defending them, but congress makes the laws so having lawyers makes sense. The problem with that we need reps that can think outside the box and change the laws that work against us. Point being the IRS tax code is so huge and complex it seldom gets simplified. There may be some virtue to reducing the bureaucracy. Put a bunch of lawyers to work on anything and you do not get clear thinking.
The problem with THAT, with changing rules and programs that work for us — is that everybody says the house have been doing nothing, no work. They’re in the house just sitting on their hands having a chat 🙄 when actually everything is just DOA at the republican majority senate. -until recently.
YES! Let’s start bills that work for EVERYBODY…like the house hasn’t been doing that?.. Then sends them to the senate… dead. They don’t give us all, the public, a list of the bills they’re putting forward.
Nobody thinks of this? Does anybody else try at projects in life and get shot down? The republicans don’t even read them. Mike Johnson won’t do voting - like today. Something important, nah, ignore run away. Even now with more blue seats in there we still don’t have the votes.
They’re doing their job. Behind closed doors. **If you go search rep.Stansbury on instagram- SHE will tell you what is going on.
I’m not from here but I know how this goes, it would be nice if anybody else would bother to think twice.
I do not mind British input. Love British candor. Your parliamentary debates cut right to the subject. We prefer beat around the bushes and procrastination.
A goodly percentage of Americans are of British ancestry. Most do not know it, could care less and it shows. Very little sense of history and our place in the world. Mom from Bristol courtesy of WWII and 11th gen on dads side, #1 from Keynsham.
What we fukup here has a direct relationship to the misery we put upon you and the rest of Europe. Please do not condemn all of us, we still have shared values, but there is lots of fog that will clear.
Most of USA does not understand Trump. Even his supporters do not understand him. His vacillation on everything is a horror show even Hollywood could not come up with a more dreadful plot. Many years ago there was a book "The Ugly American". Unfortunately Trump and company still project that image.
Back to the topic at hand, our legislative system is broken. Our 250 year experiment in democracy is still in the laboratory. I attribute much of it to the pre-dementia dinosaurs on both sides who have been in office too long. This is even worse in the courts where justice delayed is standard.
We have 330++ million with too many problems to solve. Unfortunately democracy moves too slow and that is why autocrats like Trump have support. So he rules by executive orders. Most illegal, but the slow courts cannot keep up.
I live in the US, I’m suffering here and with no voice.
Trump will be gone soon, I’m not looking forward to the minions running the show without their puppet.
We need rid of all the old white men. They’re the same as doctors. Because they’ve been doing the job so long, they think they know everything and don’t care to learn
The lawyers are hung up in the minutia of stupid laws. And since they are lawyers they make loss. If you’re a shoemaker you make shoes cause it’s all you know how to do.
Perhaps they should have legal experts on their staffs. The people who are Congressional staffs are not getting paid a living wage to survive in Washington DC. This makes staff members susceptible to bribery.
Congress is a criminal enterprise. There is so much insider trading being done that they beat the S&P 500 by 55%. If you filter out the congressman and senators who don’t participate in illegal insider trading that percentage probably goes up to over 100%.
All truth, all of it. I had a thought and looked it up yesterday, how many lawmakers, members of Congress whatever you wanna call them, are retiring or not seeking re-election whenever their time comes… SIXTY EIGHT.
I use my Google/Gemini at home, which wasn’t extremely precise, it doesn’t like to be 👀 (it’s easier for me at times) but it was definitely Republican heavy. I don’t blame a single one of them.
I guess it could just be their time to retire? But that’s a very large number! 😳
Not large enough. Time to sink the boat and have them all go home. No budget and allowing the govt to shut down.. you do not get paid, no vacation .... you stay in session until govt is running. Term limits so they can make the hard choices and stop worrying about re-election. Need to install certain mandatory trip wires that never stop military, air controllers, security paychecks. Good time for China to take Taiwan.
Trump isn’t the only despicable scumbag in our government that looks at the money factor before he does anything. He’s trying to work a deal with the Ayatollah put a tollbooth at the straits of Hormuz.
We have some idea how corrupt congress is. Like Trump they put how they can enrich themselves before anything else. As long as the stock market is doing well they use their insider trading information to get rich. Some members of Congress are not criminals but most of them are.
The facts don’t lie but the American government does and so does corporate news.
Excellent summary David. Thank you. As for motivation to vote. I along with many friends and family voted, not for Trump. I was motivated for years. His first term in office was very bad. This second tine around is delusional and dangerous.
We need a trial against him for gross abuse of the Office of POTUS, and soon. If we are a proud nation we will show that we do not tolerate corruption. We got Nixin to quit and this time no pardons. Pardons defeat the purpose.
Actually, it was select Republicans who got Nixon to step down, to avoid impeachment and possible prosecution. If he is determined to be compus mentus, he won't stand trial. It will be determined he can't participate in his own defense.
There was one sure fired way to remove the orange menace. It would require a coup. The mechanism to remove this corrupt criminal mentally ill and dangerous president will not work. If that system worked Trump would be gone. If our laws were enforced, Trump would never have even been elected president or even allowed to run for president.
If our laws worked Trump would’ve been thrown in prison probably in the 1980s.
People will be dancing in the streets when Trump is gone and those people will be fools fools fools. A lot of corrupt people such as billionaires and heads of agencies within our government who take bribes need to be removed. Our laws will not remove them but our military will.
Impeachment would be better because if the president were convicted, he and the entire administration would be removed which is not the case using the 25th Amendment.
Not only will the REPUBLICANS in the senate not vote to impeach the *literally* demented president,
BUT they choose to avoid voting on the WAR powers resolution. They would rather run along home and hide - while people continue to get killed- and toddle off home, which they did on 9th April. And won’t return till the 13th at 2:30pm. No rush. Just hundreds more lives lost while you’re on a long weekend, which wasn’t in the calendar to begin with 😠
Here’s the link to the days planned in session for April - 3 days.
The senate currently do NOT have anything there about impeachment of the president from *what I can tell*. Don’t take that as fact though. I’m not a certain anybody. Or a bot. I’m folding laundry, my cat is sitting on it 😐
The PURPOSE of a proper effort at impeachment (See my other comment) is to force the Republicans to publicly declare their loyalty to Trump over their oaths of office. Pound on that issue daily. They have VIOLATED their oaths of office, as well as their oaths for the two trials.
Even just the effort, including a public listing of his crimes etc. and the evidence of those crimes, organized on a website, allows us to put his crimes front and center and the Republicans refusal to face the facts. Forces them to show themselves. Even just not signing onto the articles, is a declaration, so we USE it.
It also declares the intent to impeach Trump when we have the majority, in 2027.
This makes it a campaign promise. It is obvious to me that there are a LOT of voters who will be demanding the removal of Trump. We will not lose ANY voters on this promise, and being prepared, says we can start on day one. If we have a landslide (I am betting we will) it will be a clear mandate to remove Trump, and most voters will be very upset if we do not make our best effort.
If the articles of impeachment are limited to what you said:
"The articles accuse Trump of militarizing domestic law enforcement, engaging in unlawful detentions and deportations, retaliating against critics, targeting political opponents using government power, abusing the presidential pardon system, and engaging in financial conflicts of interest and misuse of funds."
Then it is nowhere near complete. It is like he is TRYING to make it seem unimportant and partisan.
First, recognize Trump, this cabinet and SCOTUS accepts Trump as a "Unitary Executive" Which means he has full control over everything that happens. As a fundamental law of logic, if you have the authority, the power, you have the responsibility.
All the crimes DOGE committed, were Trump's crimes. Yes, Laws passed by congress were violated, ignored, broken. LOTS of them. Including mass firings, mass refusal to send funds where congress directed they be spent, Imporper access and use of the public's confidential information.
Trump pardoning ALL the J6 convicts violates the 14th amendment, section 3 (Giving aid and comfort).
Accepting Bribes: Yes, one of them he may be able to weasel out of, but the sheer number and ways that he arranged the bribes, extortion, corruption and the obvious consequences of the bribes makes it clear what they are. Yes, Bribes are specifically listed as an impeachable offense, when we KNOW Republicans like to weasel around the interpretation of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".
He did not merely 'militarize law enforcement, he deliberately weaponized it to brutalize 'Blue' communities. He only backed off a bit AFTER he lost a LOT of support. That is like a criminal only slowing their crime spree after the police arrest them.
His bombing of boats from Venezuela is obviously a crime no matter how you look at it, potentially just plain murder, which is definitely a High Crime.
Violating Court Orders: MANY times, not just in immigration cases.
Obstruction of Justice / working to disobey a law he himself signed (Epstein file release).
Yes, we CAN 'rehash' the Jan 6 crimes, considering the Republican Senators SAID they voted against it because he was no longer president.
Blatantly ignoring congress's war powers by not even notifying congress in advance. Not ANY of them.
Violating multiple treaties, including the ones he 'negotiated' and signed in his first term with Mexico and Canada. Should look at NATO because of his threats to take Greenland. We signed a treaty that identifies and outlaws war crimes, Trump by threatening the genocidal destruction of Iran committed one.
Violating Tarrif laws. When SCOTUS finally got around to telling him no, he threw a tantrum and simply started violating another law, so he could continue doing what he wanted to do. Just because he stopped one crime AFTER doing massive damage with it, and extorting massive bribes with it, does not mean he did not commit a crime, it simply means it is already proven it WAS a crime.
We have to get past this absurd idea that if Trump commits crimes in the open, he can't be guilty, or if he eventually stops committing a given crime, when the courts declare it was a crime, then it was never really a crime.
Of COURSE Trump will deny everything, blame everyone else... Any one else is expendable to save his hide...
Impeachment can raise his cognitive impairment, so that any declaration of his 'state of mind' as an excuse could trigger the assumption of impairment.
DO NOT surrender in advance. Republicans have consistently refused to play by the rules in impeachments and SCOTUS judges approvals etc... So go 'Large', Flood the Zone. Play to the crowd, bring the evidence but don't bore the audience (the public) with it. Simply show the highlights then put the rest on a website where the comments are categorized as: Trolls, Spam, Heavily partisan, and thoughful debate. That way even the spam gets to be verified it was properly categorized, and we can go straight to actual debate and discussion of the evidence.
-
Seriously people, this is off the top of my head. Ask around and I am certain you can find more.
I would say the proposed articles of impeachment are 'restrained', or even 'hesitant'.
Great article! I know Al Green brought articles of impeachment earlier this year and not many Democrats stood with him and it fizzled out -- disappointing. I like pursuing any and every action against Trump, the Republicans, and everyone committing crimes to enrich themselves.
Committing multiple crimes, rather than only one, should not excuse someone from accountability, and neither should the fact the congressional numbers are not in the Democrats' favor stop them from pursuing impeachment.
Perhaps now is the right time for Democrats should run on a platform of healthcare, education and the environment (and no foreign wars), which would give additional motivation to voters to show up at the polls, especially younger voters. Unfortunately the DNC will probably let corporate donors and consultants influence their planning and decisions, rather than motivating working and middle class voters with a progressive platform including Trump's impeachment.
There is no doubt that impeachment and removal are warranted, but the math is simply not there for it to prevail. Ditto the 25th Amendment option. Documenting Trump's offenses for the historical record has value of its own, but it needs to be weighed against who is motivated more by such an action. Trump very effectively used the impeachments in his first term to "prove" his unfair persecution at the hands of his deranged haters. This was fertilizer for his Jan 6 (and ongoing) election denials. Given the criticality of this fall's elections, I am hesitant to hand the GOP any ammunition that may benefit them in races that currently look very hopeful for Democrats. No matter how unjust it may be, I think this is not the right action at this time. We need to focus on winning first, which gets us to a position of some strength as an opposition. It doesn't mean giving up, just pragmatically prioritizing.
I have a concern. Can articles listed in an impeachment only be used once? When the Democrats regain power, will they be able to list those articles again in an impeachment that might actually proceed to a conviction by the Senate? Or would those articles be considered to have been already dealt with?
My perspective: our government is seeking a political solution. The people are seeking a humanistic solution and an expression of democratic values in practice. They are not the same. The political solution will not satisfy the people. It does not allow for justice, accountability or result in change. It just shifts the balance of power and maintains the process. There needs to be a different lane, a people's lane where people can choose the path that best meets their needs.
Can states sue their elected federal officials for failing to go to work or freeze their pay? Can citizens sue their government for taxation without representation? Would a letter writing campaign be helpful? Would daily protests move the needle? Would it help to require a national vote on additional budgetary requests, and or a forensic accountant to provide oversight on how our money is being spent; can states initiate a congressional report card speaking to how well their elected officials are doing in the eyes of their constituents, to be posted nationally. (They aren't holding town meetings, let's bring the meeting to them)
Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts with you.
Let’s say by some miracle Trump is removed. Nothing’s gonna change for the better. Even if he’s convicted of all of his crimes he won’t serve prison time.
Most members of Congress are millionaires and continue to enrich themselves while pretending to serve the American people
The problem is simple complex at the same time. We need to acknowledge that the entire government is corrupt and it cannot be salvaged by the criminals who run the government. The glaring truth is that when it comes to our so-called public servant most of them are crooked that’s not an opinion the link below prove it.
We have some idea about the financial criminality of Congress. But we don’t know how much insider stock trading is being done by other higher ranking criminals within the US government.
David, I think that if the impeachment process passes the house, it may have a very good chance of getting through the Senate. I get the sense that, quietly, there is enough votes or there will be. All those that live in fear of Trump would possibly get ready to bring down the hammer, quietly, swiftly, before the threats and attacks come at them. Like the Senate approval of the Epstein transparency bill.
I am new here and usually do not leave comments, but this post definitely warranted one.
Thank you David for your thorough explanation of the different processes. Impeachment is the most feasible resolution to control this out of touch madman.
Isn't there anyone in Congress with a brain?
They're supposed to be lawyers. They didn't figure his attorneys would jump on this?
Nobody is in session, and the senate aren’t even looking at impeachment proceedings from what I can see on their first day back. I don’t see war resolution either. I can obviously be 100% wrong. I’m not an anybody I just have the link. it’s below.
The dems still don’t have the votes 🤬 I’m pissed off too
The same reps that cannot agree on a budget and willing to go on vacation while the govt is shut it down, would never agree on a war powers act.
Can you imagine having to take a vote every time we launched an attack on Iran to see if they agree. It might help if DOD and the Treasury would tell them how much each missile fired cost the taxpayer.
I have been watching Iran War videos. The narrator aptly interjects there goes your universal healthcare as the missiles land.
Lawyers are not in the truth business. They get paid to defend whomever is willing to pay them regardless of guilt or innocence. Truth is irrelevant casualty in the courtroom, where only legal twists and turns confuse the judge and jury. Trials that take weeks should be outlawed as that just gives time to numb the jury.
When you consider the fact that a lot of our so-called federal government public servants are lawyers it doesn’t take a whole lot to connect the dots. They rigged the whole system and they have made it so that billionaires in the government servants who serve their donors are above the law.
https://www.wealthincongress.com/
As a whole Congress beats the S&P 500 by 55%. If you need a stock broker talk to a congressman to give you the illegal inside trading information.
There are some congressmen in Senators who beat the S&P 500 by 5000%. They get away with it. To expect the American government to be anything but corrupt is insanity.
Not defending them, but congress makes the laws so having lawyers makes sense. The problem with that we need reps that can think outside the box and change the laws that work against us. Point being the IRS tax code is so huge and complex it seldom gets simplified. There may be some virtue to reducing the bureaucracy. Put a bunch of lawyers to work on anything and you do not get clear thinking.
The problem with THAT, with changing rules and programs that work for us — is that everybody says the house have been doing nothing, no work. They’re in the house just sitting on their hands having a chat 🙄 when actually everything is just DOA at the republican majority senate. -until recently.
YES! Let’s start bills that work for EVERYBODY…like the house hasn’t been doing that?.. Then sends them to the senate… dead. They don’t give us all, the public, a list of the bills they’re putting forward.
Nobody thinks of this? Does anybody else try at projects in life and get shot down? The republicans don’t even read them. Mike Johnson won’t do voting - like today. Something important, nah, ignore run away. Even now with more blue seats in there we still don’t have the votes.
They’re doing their job. Behind closed doors. **If you go search rep.Stansbury on instagram- SHE will tell you what is going on.
I’m not from here but I know how this goes, it would be nice if anybody else would bother to think twice.
I do not mind British input. Love British candor. Your parliamentary debates cut right to the subject. We prefer beat around the bushes and procrastination.
A goodly percentage of Americans are of British ancestry. Most do not know it, could care less and it shows. Very little sense of history and our place in the world. Mom from Bristol courtesy of WWII and 11th gen on dads side, #1 from Keynsham.
What we fukup here has a direct relationship to the misery we put upon you and the rest of Europe. Please do not condemn all of us, we still have shared values, but there is lots of fog that will clear.
Most of USA does not understand Trump. Even his supporters do not understand him. His vacillation on everything is a horror show even Hollywood could not come up with a more dreadful plot. Many years ago there was a book "The Ugly American". Unfortunately Trump and company still project that image.
Back to the topic at hand, our legislative system is broken. Our 250 year experiment in democracy is still in the laboratory. I attribute much of it to the pre-dementia dinosaurs on both sides who have been in office too long. This is even worse in the courts where justice delayed is standard.
We have 330++ million with too many problems to solve. Unfortunately democracy moves too slow and that is why autocrats like Trump have support. So he rules by executive orders. Most illegal, but the slow courts cannot keep up.
I live in the US, I’m suffering here and with no voice.
Trump will be gone soon, I’m not looking forward to the minions running the show without their puppet.
We need rid of all the old white men. They’re the same as doctors. Because they’ve been doing the job so long, they think they know everything and don’t care to learn
The lawyers are hung up in the minutia of stupid laws. And since they are lawyers they make loss. If you’re a shoemaker you make shoes cause it’s all you know how to do.
Perhaps they should have legal experts on their staffs. The people who are Congressional staffs are not getting paid a living wage to survive in Washington DC. This makes staff members susceptible to bribery.
Congress is a criminal enterprise. There is so much insider trading being done that they beat the S&P 500 by 55%. If you filter out the congressman and senators who don’t participate in illegal insider trading that percentage probably goes up to over 100%.
All truth, all of it. I had a thought and looked it up yesterday, how many lawmakers, members of Congress whatever you wanna call them, are retiring or not seeking re-election whenever their time comes… SIXTY EIGHT.
I use my Google/Gemini at home, which wasn’t extremely precise, it doesn’t like to be 👀 (it’s easier for me at times) but it was definitely Republican heavy. I don’t blame a single one of them.
I guess it could just be their time to retire? But that’s a very large number! 😳
Not large enough. Time to sink the boat and have them all go home. No budget and allowing the govt to shut down.. you do not get paid, no vacation .... you stay in session until govt is running. Term limits so they can make the hard choices and stop worrying about re-election. Need to install certain mandatory trip wires that never stop military, air controllers, security paychecks. Good time for China to take Taiwan.
Trump isn’t the only despicable scumbag in our government that looks at the money factor before he does anything. He’s trying to work a deal with the Ayatollah put a tollbooth at the straits of Hormuz.
https://www.wealthincongress.com/
We have some idea how corrupt congress is. Like Trump they put how they can enrich themselves before anything else. As long as the stock market is doing well they use their insider trading information to get rich. Some members of Congress are not criminals but most of them are.
The facts don’t lie but the American government does and so does corporate news.
I know 😣 but realistically that’s not going to happen. Hopefully they’ll get a few and work on others
Excellent summary David. Thank you. As for motivation to vote. I along with many friends and family voted, not for Trump. I was motivated for years. His first term in office was very bad. This second tine around is delusional and dangerous.
Mary Kay…AMEN! 🙏🏼
Remember a vote for Harris would result in higher inflation .. gas prices, war in the middle east. Shame on you for causing this.
We need a trial against him for gross abuse of the Office of POTUS, and soon. If we are a proud nation we will show that we do not tolerate corruption. We got Nixin to quit and this time no pardons. Pardons defeat the purpose.
Actually, it was select Republicans who got Nixon to step down, to avoid impeachment and possible prosecution. If he is determined to be compus mentus, he won't stand trial. It will be determined he can't participate in his own defense.
There was one sure fired way to remove the orange menace. It would require a coup. The mechanism to remove this corrupt criminal mentally ill and dangerous president will not work. If that system worked Trump would be gone. If our laws were enforced, Trump would never have even been elected president or even allowed to run for president.
If our laws worked Trump would’ve been thrown in prison probably in the 1980s.
People will be dancing in the streets when Trump is gone and those people will be fools fools fools. A lot of corrupt people such as billionaires and heads of agencies within our government who take bribes need to be removed. Our laws will not remove them but our military will.
This is why Hegseth is busily culling the military of anyone he see as disloyal.
I was hoping our Veterans would. Our military is compromised. Centcom could eventually step up.
To hell with the impeachment then, go for removal....
Impeachment would be better because if the president were convicted, he and the entire administration would be removed which is not the case using the 25th Amendment.
Why can't you do both at once?
Not only will the REPUBLICANS in the senate not vote to impeach the *literally* demented president,
BUT they choose to avoid voting on the WAR powers resolution. They would rather run along home and hide - while people continue to get killed- and toddle off home, which they did on 9th April. And won’t return till the 13th at 2:30pm. No rush. Just hundreds more lives lost while you’re on a long weekend, which wasn’t in the calendar to begin with 😠
https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session/119th-congress
Here’s the link to the days planned in session for April - 3 days.
The senate currently do NOT have anything there about impeachment of the president from *what I can tell*. Don’t take that as fact though. I’m not a certain anybody. Or a bot. I’m folding laundry, my cat is sitting on it 😐
Jessica Denson wants him [DJT] removed.
The PURPOSE of a proper effort at impeachment (See my other comment) is to force the Republicans to publicly declare their loyalty to Trump over their oaths of office. Pound on that issue daily. They have VIOLATED their oaths of office, as well as their oaths for the two trials.
Even just the effort, including a public listing of his crimes etc. and the evidence of those crimes, organized on a website, allows us to put his crimes front and center and the Republicans refusal to face the facts. Forces them to show themselves. Even just not signing onto the articles, is a declaration, so we USE it.
It also declares the intent to impeach Trump when we have the majority, in 2027.
This makes it a campaign promise. It is obvious to me that there are a LOT of voters who will be demanding the removal of Trump. We will not lose ANY voters on this promise, and being prepared, says we can start on day one. If we have a landslide (I am betting we will) it will be a clear mandate to remove Trump, and most voters will be very upset if we do not make our best effort.
If the articles of impeachment are limited to what you said:
"The articles accuse Trump of militarizing domestic law enforcement, engaging in unlawful detentions and deportations, retaliating against critics, targeting political opponents using government power, abusing the presidential pardon system, and engaging in financial conflicts of interest and misuse of funds."
Then it is nowhere near complete. It is like he is TRYING to make it seem unimportant and partisan.
First, recognize Trump, this cabinet and SCOTUS accepts Trump as a "Unitary Executive" Which means he has full control over everything that happens. As a fundamental law of logic, if you have the authority, the power, you have the responsibility.
All the crimes DOGE committed, were Trump's crimes. Yes, Laws passed by congress were violated, ignored, broken. LOTS of them. Including mass firings, mass refusal to send funds where congress directed they be spent, Imporper access and use of the public's confidential information.
Trump pardoning ALL the J6 convicts violates the 14th amendment, section 3 (Giving aid and comfort).
Accepting Bribes: Yes, one of them he may be able to weasel out of, but the sheer number and ways that he arranged the bribes, extortion, corruption and the obvious consequences of the bribes makes it clear what they are. Yes, Bribes are specifically listed as an impeachable offense, when we KNOW Republicans like to weasel around the interpretation of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".
He did not merely 'militarize law enforcement, he deliberately weaponized it to brutalize 'Blue' communities. He only backed off a bit AFTER he lost a LOT of support. That is like a criminal only slowing their crime spree after the police arrest them.
His bombing of boats from Venezuela is obviously a crime no matter how you look at it, potentially just plain murder, which is definitely a High Crime.
Violating Court Orders: MANY times, not just in immigration cases.
Obstruction of Justice / working to disobey a law he himself signed (Epstein file release).
Yes, we CAN 'rehash' the Jan 6 crimes, considering the Republican Senators SAID they voted against it because he was no longer president.
Blatantly ignoring congress's war powers by not even notifying congress in advance. Not ANY of them.
Violating multiple treaties, including the ones he 'negotiated' and signed in his first term with Mexico and Canada. Should look at NATO because of his threats to take Greenland. We signed a treaty that identifies and outlaws war crimes, Trump by threatening the genocidal destruction of Iran committed one.
Violating Tarrif laws. When SCOTUS finally got around to telling him no, he threw a tantrum and simply started violating another law, so he could continue doing what he wanted to do. Just because he stopped one crime AFTER doing massive damage with it, and extorting massive bribes with it, does not mean he did not commit a crime, it simply means it is already proven it WAS a crime.
We have to get past this absurd idea that if Trump commits crimes in the open, he can't be guilty, or if he eventually stops committing a given crime, when the courts declare it was a crime, then it was never really a crime.
Of COURSE Trump will deny everything, blame everyone else... Any one else is expendable to save his hide...
Impeachment can raise his cognitive impairment, so that any declaration of his 'state of mind' as an excuse could trigger the assumption of impairment.
DO NOT surrender in advance. Republicans have consistently refused to play by the rules in impeachments and SCOTUS judges approvals etc... So go 'Large', Flood the Zone. Play to the crowd, bring the evidence but don't bore the audience (the public) with it. Simply show the highlights then put the rest on a website where the comments are categorized as: Trolls, Spam, Heavily partisan, and thoughful debate. That way even the spam gets to be verified it was properly categorized, and we can go straight to actual debate and discussion of the evidence.
-
Seriously people, this is off the top of my head. Ask around and I am certain you can find more.
I would say the proposed articles of impeachment are 'restrained', or even 'hesitant'.
Thank you, David. Very insightful.
Great article! I know Al Green brought articles of impeachment earlier this year and not many Democrats stood with him and it fizzled out -- disappointing. I like pursuing any and every action against Trump, the Republicans, and everyone committing crimes to enrich themselves.
Committing multiple crimes, rather than only one, should not excuse someone from accountability, and neither should the fact the congressional numbers are not in the Democrats' favor stop them from pursuing impeachment.
Perhaps now is the right time for Democrats should run on a platform of healthcare, education and the environment (and no foreign wars), which would give additional motivation to voters to show up at the polls, especially younger voters. Unfortunately the DNC will probably let corporate donors and consultants influence their planning and decisions, rather than motivating working and middle class voters with a progressive platform including Trump's impeachment.
Exactly. Who gave Harris the billion dollars for the election? Corporate money on both sides has ruined democracy.
There is no doubt that impeachment and removal are warranted, but the math is simply not there for it to prevail. Ditto the 25th Amendment option. Documenting Trump's offenses for the historical record has value of its own, but it needs to be weighed against who is motivated more by such an action. Trump very effectively used the impeachments in his first term to "prove" his unfair persecution at the hands of his deranged haters. This was fertilizer for his Jan 6 (and ongoing) election denials. Given the criticality of this fall's elections, I am hesitant to hand the GOP any ammunition that may benefit them in races that currently look very hopeful for Democrats. No matter how unjust it may be, I think this is not the right action at this time. We need to focus on winning first, which gets us to a position of some strength as an opposition. It doesn't mean giving up, just pragmatically prioritizing.
I have a concern. Can articles listed in an impeachment only be used once? When the Democrats regain power, will they be able to list those articles again in an impeachment that might actually proceed to a conviction by the Senate? Or would those articles be considered to have been already dealt with?
My perspective: our government is seeking a political solution. The people are seeking a humanistic solution and an expression of democratic values in practice. They are not the same. The political solution will not satisfy the people. It does not allow for justice, accountability or result in change. It just shifts the balance of power and maintains the process. There needs to be a different lane, a people's lane where people can choose the path that best meets their needs.
Can states sue their elected federal officials for failing to go to work or freeze their pay? Can citizens sue their government for taxation without representation? Would a letter writing campaign be helpful? Would daily protests move the needle? Would it help to require a national vote on additional budgetary requests, and or a forensic accountant to provide oversight on how our money is being spent; can states initiate a congressional report card speaking to how well their elected officials are doing in the eyes of their constituents, to be posted nationally. (They aren't holding town meetings, let's bring the meeting to them)
Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts with you.
Excellent explanation.
Let’s say by some miracle Trump is removed. Nothing’s gonna change for the better. Even if he’s convicted of all of his crimes he won’t serve prison time.
Most members of Congress are millionaires and continue to enrich themselves while pretending to serve the American people
The problem is simple complex at the same time. We need to acknowledge that the entire government is corrupt and it cannot be salvaged by the criminals who run the government. The glaring truth is that when it comes to our so-called public servant most of them are crooked that’s not an opinion the link below prove it.
https://www.wealthincongress.com/
We have some idea about the financial criminality of Congress. But we don’t know how much insider stock trading is being done by other higher ranking criminals within the US government.
David, I think that if the impeachment process passes the house, it may have a very good chance of getting through the Senate. I get the sense that, quietly, there is enough votes or there will be. All those that live in fear of Trump would possibly get ready to bring down the hammer, quietly, swiftly, before the threats and attacks come at them. Like the Senate approval of the Epstein transparency bill.
I am new here and usually do not leave comments, but this post definitely warranted one.
Thank you David for your thorough explanation of the different processes. Impeachment is the most feasible resolution to control this out of touch madman.