To Impeach or Not To Impeach ... That Is the Question

Trump deserves to be impeached, that is not in question. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job, so the bar is pretty low. Trump reached that threshold very early in his tenure as President. Some say he should have been impeached the moment he took the oath of office under the Emoluments Clause since he never liquidated his assets or put them in a blind trust. That is irrelevant now. The Mueller report hit it home in regards to whether he should be impeached with its list of ten cases of obstruction of justice. This isn't even the question anymore. The question is whether to do it or not. To impeach or not to impeach ... that is the question!

America has a very strong Constitution, but the writers of the document assumed that the enforcers of our checks and balances would be acting in good faith. They are often not. Trump is a criminal and they are doing nothing about it.

We have impeached two presidents in our short history. Andrew Johnson was impeachment mostly because he was unpopular. After Lincoln's death, he became president and he was as a Southern. The Northerners disliked and distrusted him for that. He was loyal to the North during the war, so the Southerners despised him. He was a truly awful president. If Lincoln or Grant were in charge during the early Reconstruction, we'd be a very different country now. Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 for the sole purpose of preventing Edwin Stanton from becoming the Secretary of War.  Johnson appointed him anyway and they used this as an excuse for getting rid of him. He was impeached in the House of Representative, but the Senate voted to not remove him from office.  He beat it by one vote.He had no Vice President so the Presidency would have gone to the Speaker of the House.

Clinton is a lot more recent and I am assuming most people reading this, remember it. A lot of people don't realize that he was impeached because he wasn't removed from office. The House does the impeaching, the Senate does the removal. This was purely political. The era of hyper-partisanship in American politics was in its infancy and it has gotten much worse. Clinton was unpopular with Republicans, so impeaching him was popular with their base. Two thirds of American voters, throughout the ordeal and afterward, were against the impeachment. This didn't stop them. He was impeached in the House, and like Johnson, was not convicted in the Senate. He beat it by 17 votes. Clinton's popularity sky rocketed afterward. This is one of the reasons politicians like to steer clear of impeachment, but the voters disliked this impeachment because it was unjustified and purely political. They would respond differently to an impeachment that was justified like a Trump impeachment.

If  Richard Nixon didn't resign, he probably would have been removed from office which is why he resigned. John Dean recently testified before Congress and he highlighted six parallels between Watergate and what we are going through now:

• attempts to shut down the investigations
• the firing of FBI Director James Comey and "the Saturday Night Massacre" 
• Dean's and former White House counsel Don McGahn's refusals to carry out the president's orders 
• efforts to exert control over the investigations
• attempts to limit the disclosure of evidence
• dangling pardons to influence witness testimony.

Any one of these is impeachment worthy ... certainly more impeachable than a blow job.

Cons:
The arguments against impeaching him are fairly simple. The first one listed has been my opinion up until recently. I have changed my mind. All of these are valid concerns, even though I pro-impeachment now.

Why impeach if you can't remove him from office? We can probably muster enough votes in the House to impeach but the Senate is nowhere close to impeaching. The Republicans control the Senate and they have their guy's back regardless of what he does. The argument against this is that their minds may be changed by the impeachment process. When the Watergate scandal broke, it took months for public opinion to change. In the era of stratified media coverage of Fox News and MS-NBC, it is difficult to tell how much of the bubble will be burst by impeachment hearings. People are living in their own private media silos ... this is not the late 60's media landscape.

Impeaching and failing to remove him from office could be catastrophic politically. Some may see the Democrats as petty and will retaliate at the polls in November 2020 if impeachment fails. That could mean four more years of this monstrous presidency. The retaliation could go further. If we succeed in removing him from office, the Republicans will probably do their best to do the same the next time the Democrats have a president in office. They tried hard to find something impeachable against squeaky-clean Obama. The next Dem president may not be so clean. We already know they will impeach for stupid reasons. The argument against this is that the Republicans are going act this way anyway so we might as well do the right thing and impeach.

Pence will become President. Mike Pence may be better than Trump, but not a lot. Him being sworn into the presidency means that he can run as an incumbent in 2020 and he would probably be more difficult to beat than Trump

Pence can pardon Trump of any Federal charges. Since Ford pardoned Nixon, we know this is always a possibility.  Pence cannot pardon state charges. This is why the charges against Trump in New York State are so important. Once he is out of office, hopefully in 2021, the state can go after him without any fear that he will be pardoned.

Pros:
Lets stop the crime wave. This is the best reason to impeach this scum bag. He is committing a presidential crime wave. Lets leave the possible collusion with Russia out of this for simplicity sake. Here is a list of the crimes he has committed so far:

• the President’s debts and payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016 election 
• the President’s lack of compliance with financial disclosure requirements and lying to the FCC
• the President’s lack of compliance with campaign finance laws 
• the President’s lack of compliance with tax laws 
• rampant conflicts of interest in the President’s business practices
• the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. 
• potentially fraudulent or inappropriate practices by the Trump Foundation
• public efforts by the President and his attorney to intimidate Michael Cohen or others not to testify

With him gone, these would stop and he could face prosecution on state and federal levels.

More people will get exposed to his crime wave. As stated earlier, most people live in a bubble these days. They get their news from a few sources, often with an ideological bent with which they are comfortable. The people who watch Fox News exclusively are not being exposed to the Trump crime wave. If you watch Fox News exclusive, it is quite possible that you think the Mueller Report exonerated him as opposed to the opposite. If impeachment hearings started, they may tune into C-SPAN and get exposed to life outside the bubble. Public opinion could change. This is wishful thinking but it is what happened with Nixon, but that was long before C-SPAN, social media and the 24 hour news cycle.

Not impeaching sets a precedent for the future. Not impeaching him sends a message to future presidents. You can do what you want and you won't get impeached. As long as you keep a base of vocal minions happy, then the rest of the elected officials will be afraid to confront you and hold you accountable. This is very dangerous. We all should be very concerned about this.

In the mid-term election, the Democrats were elected as a check on Trump. We all know why there was a blue wave in 2018 mid-term elections. The Democrats campaigned on holding Trump accountable. Well? When are you going to do that?  Now would be nice. 

I have changed my mind and I not only support impeachment, I think it is imperative that we impeach. Even if we don't remove him from office, we need to acknowledge that his behavior is unacceptable and that there are consequences of his actions.

I am about to call my Congressman and my two Senators. I suggested you do the same. 

Hindsight 2020: June 2019

I keep seeing memes and posts on social media blaming men for the upsurge in anti-abortion laws popping up all over the country. Such post say more about the people sharing them than they do about the actual issue. When it comes to a woman's right to choose, men and women are fairly close on this issue. All the polling I see say that 65% of American women support abortion rights while 61% of men do. Yet, this doesn't stop people from posting some very nasty posts about men while a huge chunk of the anti-choice people are women. The issue isn't men. The issue is Republicans / Conservatives and we should be doing whatever we can to prevent every single one of them from getting elected.

All this shows me is that the left still hasn't learned their lesson. However much I despises the right wing of American politics, I have to admire their ability to plan, conquer and stay on message. They came up with a 30 year plan to get conservative judges on the courts. They have manipulated districts, prevented minorities and the poor from voting and elected stooges to do their bidding. One of the more effective thing they have done is they have divided their opponents. Divide and conquer, right?  They convinced people on the left that Al Gore is as bad as George W. Bush so you better vote for Nader. They convinced people that Hillary Clinton is as bad as Trump, so you might as well vote for Jill Stein. And you might as well blame men for the anti-abortion laws when it is Republicans you need to blame (both the men and the women Republicans). So when you share some bullshit on Facebook about men taking away your rights, you are only showing that you are easily manipulated, you don't think or research before you share and you are a man-hater (aka bigot). You are only aiding the opposition is dividing us. This is how we got here.

I am not a socialist, but I believe that the socialism can be a good part of the mix. I think the people on the left don't give markets enough credits and don't account for how unaccountable government can be. Socialized medicine sounds like a good idea, mostly because I work in the health care industry and I have seen government be a force for positive change. But my support for me socialization might stop there. This probably puts me in the moderate range of Democrat.

Joe Biden has a double digit lead in all the polls. Bernie is usually in second and Harris in third with Mayor Pete and Warren flip flopping on fourth and fifth. I am leaning toward Warren and Pete these days.


Qualifying for the debates this month:
All 20 spots have been filled for the first debates at the end of June. Williamson, de Blasio and Swalwell  received the last three spots.

Announcing:
Montana Governor Steve Bullock: He is originally from Montana and both his parents were educators. He is a two term Democratic governor in a a mostly Republican state. Some see this as a strength and that he may have an ability to cross the aisle more effectively than others, but Montanans don't have strong party affiliation. It is difficult to see that this would translate well in DC. He is considered a moderate but most of his stances are on the left with the exception of his support for the coal industry which is big in Montana. Here is a list of bills he vetoed while he is was Governor.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: He was born in Manhattan but at the age of five, his family relocated to Cambridge MA. When Bill was 18 years of age, his father committed suicide. Bill succeeded Bloomberg as mayor of NYC on a theme of inequality. His signature achievement as mayor has been the implementation of universal pre-K in the city giving a boost to the children of poor neighborhoods. So far he only seems interested in bringing Biden down.

Still considering:

Stacy Abrams is probably not running for President but is in strong consideration for VP by many candidates which she says she is not interested in. She said she still might run.

Mark Cuban is considering an independent run. Please ignore him.

Our Field:
Jay Inslee just signed into law the country's first universal health care bill. Washington State with have a public option by 2021. Green Peace released their grades of the candidate climate change records and Jay scored the highest with Biden getting the lowest with a D-. He was on Bill Maher's Real Time.  It is a good video to show what he is all about.



Bernie Sanders spoke at a Green New Deal rally earlier this month. Matt Taibbi wrote a profile of his campaign in Rolling Stone that is worth reading. He is doing something that none of these other candidates dare ... he is courting Trump voters. The New York Times also profiled his time as mayor of Burlington, VT.

Cory Booker released a plan to decrease gun suicides.

Julian Castro released his education plan that include universal pre-K and free tuition to state colleges and technical schools.

Tim Ryan introduced the Clean Up Our Neighborhoods Act of 2019 that would give HUD the power to give grants to states to tackle urban blight. He was on Bill Maher's Real Time. He also wants to create a Chief Manufacturing Office for the federal government which just sounds like more bureaucracy.

Amy Klobuchar did a Conversation with the Candidate forum on WMUR. She also likes to talk about being a mom a lot which is nice but since she is running for President and not for the PTA board, she should really stop. She was quite good on Pod Save America.

John Hickenlooper release his gun safety plan.

Tulsi Gabbard was interviewed by Glen Greenwald at The Intercept.

Eric Swalwell appeared on Pod Save America. The more I hear him talk, the more I like him.

Seth Moulton rolled a national service corp program that would engage young people in fighting climate change.

Michael Bennet release a climate change policy that focuses on farming and conservation. He also introduced the Opioid Crisis Accountability Act that would hold the executives of opioid manufacturers accountable.

Joe Biden suggests that Congress should codify access to abortion in law. Politico wrote a scathing review of his career on drug enforcement. He released his first policy since announcing his candidacy focusing on education.

Kamala Harris reintroduced the CARE act which attempts to tackle our national crisis involving maternal care.

Pete Buttigieg is interviewed by the NY Times' podcast The Argument.

John Delaney released an infrastructure plan which invest $2 trillion in public schools and renewable energy.

Beto O'Rourke released his plan for immigration reform.

Elizabeth Warren appeared on The View.

Power Rankings:
We have 24 candidates. If I had to rank the Democrats in order of my personal preference, I would do so in the following manner:
Warren
Buttigieg
Booker
Sanders
Biden
Inslee
Swalwell
Harris
Klobuchar
O'Rourke
Hickenlooper
Delaney
Castro
de Blasio
Gabbard
Moulton
Messam
Ryan
Bennet
Bullock
Yang
(I probably won't vote if the people below get the nomination)
Gravel
Gillibrand
Williamson

This is expected to change.