I don’t have an argument with any of this. My argument takes two parts:
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Can you explain why Dems do shit like this agreement from Cummings to suspend a court order to comply while waiting on appeal? The judge denied Trump’s stay request, but Cummings gave it to him anyway. Why?
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If you can’t explain it, can you not see it as a good example of why people think Dem leadership are just going through the damned motions here?
Whatever happened to Andrew Jackson?
Seems to me all this angst is related to the Mueller report. People waited and waited for the report, expecting it to be the end of the process rather than the start of a new one. Now they are impatient (reasonably so, perhaps) because they don’t know understand the process is going forward.
Does anyone know / understand the process going forward? I think not.
KevinC
3013
To be honest, I just don’t know enough about the particulars of the situation you’re referring to, so my answer is an “I don’t know” out of ignorance. I’ll see if I can rectify that today.
As for your second question, the above applies as well but thank you for specifying something concrete. In my dozen or so “What’s your solution? What would you do instead?” questions, that’s the kind of thing I’ve been looking for. Thanks.
The other thing wrong with the argument that you can’t impeach him and lose because then he’ll be seen as innocent, is that he’ll also be seen as innocent if you do nothing at all. Isn’t that in fact what he’s claiming?
No problem. I don’t think the Dems have to label their hearings ‘impeachment hearings’, but I do think they have to be serious, tough, aggressive, and pressing. Issue the subpoena, go right to the contempt citation, and then try to enforce it. Do not go slowly. Do not try to accommodate the good faith of the other side because there isn’t any and everyone knows that.
KevinC
3016
I don’t know about that. I think being impeached by the House and then “found innocent” by the Senate will be very effective propaganda for Trump. Right now, all these subpoenas and everything else is to build towards impeachment. Yes, Trump is already desperately trying the “No do-overs! No collusion!” narrative, but everything I’ve seen from polls says that it isn’t working. After being found “innocent” during his impeachment hearings? I think that narrative would be far more powerful. Put another way, right now I think Trump is under a very dark cloud of suspicion. I think after a failed impeachment attempt, he’d have a lot more sunlight to work with.
And while I know you can’t govern by polls and I’m not suggesting any such thing, the only way impeachment happens with the GOP control of the Senate is to sway the public and bring enough pressure on 18 senators.
Banzai
3017
This is pretty much what I said earlier, and appears to be what the dems are doing, if slower than people would like.
I think hearings are as effective or more than impeachment procedings at this point, and that hearings now do not mean impeachment later is off the table.
However, if the dems did want to procede with impeachment procedings now, if his wrongdoing is put on display for months during those procedings, the public is bombarded with his wrongdoing for months, opinion swings to favorable for impeachment, and he is then found ‘innocent’ by senate gop, the dems can rightfully say ‘the gop doesnt care about the rule of law’ and maybe get the 60% of popular vote needed to break thier backs in 2020 landslides. Mitch can’t stop coverage of the house hearings. Even fox viewers will hear some of the facts, and the independents will, loud and clear.
So, hearings are best, but impeachment, even a ‘failed’ one, could be just fine for the dems, based on how they play it out.
magnet
3018
Contempt of court is much more serious than contempt of Congress. Maybe not in theory, but in practice. Unlike House reps, judges are accustomed to issuing orders and expect them to be carried out.
If (say) Mnuchin continually ignored a judge’s orders, I think pretty soon he would be facing thousands of dollars in fines, then millions, then tens of millions. And Trump would have no power to reverse them.
Spending federal money without a legal appropriation is a crime. Suppose you were a federal employee, and your supervisor handed you a briefcase with $10000 and asked you to score him some cocaine during your lunch break. Would you do it? Of course not, it’s an illegal order and you would go to jail. Same is true of any federal employee that helps Trump spend money without authorization.
Two terms, twenty dollar bill
Sorry, I referencing the fact that he opposed the supreme court. I don’t believe he suffered any consequences for that, but I wasn’t sure.
Not as far as I know, but I haven’t read up on it.
If the Mueller report is the ‘final word’, Lindsey, maybe you should fucking read it.
When does Putin drop the komp on Graham? During the impeachment hearings? October 2020?
“Can Trump’s balls get so pustulent Lindsey won’t wash them and beg for more?” is the dumbest version of unstoppable force / immovable object ever.
“Reagan, pee in my mouth” indeed.
He means, of course, that the Barr “summary” of the Mueller Report is the final word. Because that’s what Trump wants to be the final word.
Pelosi asked Trump’s family, his administration, and his staff to hold an “intervention” with Trump.
“Again, I pray for the president of the United States. I wish that his family, or his administration, or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country,” Pelosi told reporters.
I don’t think the administration or staff or most of his family is up to the task, so I guess it’s up to Tiffany and Barron. Though maybe Pelosi is using a kind of rhetorical flourish to obscure what she means. She doesn’t mean an intervention in the usual sense of the word, where a suffering family member agrees to head off to rehab, not with Trump being quasi-famous for being a teetotaler. Does she mean they should talk Trump into dropping his wacky reactions to discussions of his cover-ups? Does she mean they should talk him into total cooperation with the Congressional investigative teams? Does she mean they should talk him into an early retirement and move to an old folks’ home?
Good luck with any of those.
Tman
3027
They need to be vocal. Upthread, I said I called my congresswoman Susan Bonamici, because after nearly 30 days, she had released no statements on any of the Mueller report.
I am pleased to report that she has now made it vocal and it’s made it into the local newspaper.
“I am gravely concerned about the actions of President Trump and the growing evidence of possible impeachable offenses, including obstruction of justice, committing human rights violations by separating children from their families, and profiting from the presidency. I’ve said before that impeachment should be an option, but we must approach it deliberately. The time has come.
“Congressional oversight is a critical part of the checks and balances that are designed under our Constitution to maintain the foundational principles of our system of separation of powers. Over the past several weeks, Congress has attempted to ask questions about President Trump and his activities and policies; questions that are rightly part of Congressional oversight and that the American people deserve to have answered. President Trump and his administration have refused to cooperate. No one is above the law, and that includes the President and everyone who works for him. We must not stand by and send a message that this president’s conduct is acceptable or appropriate. It is not.
“An impeachment inquiry is necessary to shed light on the truth. As this administration stretches executive privilege to the breaking point, flouts subpoenas, and disregards contempt proceedings, an impeachment inquiry is the appropriate tool available to allow Congress to fulfill our constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch as a co-equal branch of our government.”
EVERY congressperson should be vocal and keep being vocal and get on news stations, news radio, do town halls and don’t fucking stop until that shit show is brought to justice.
My daughter sometimes has temper tantrums when she wants something right now. I understand her anger but when that emotion comes pouring out, she ends up further away from getting what she wants, not closer to having it. Patience and maturity is hard work. It’s a lot easier to give in to raw emotion (cue ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen) especially when the president is pushing all those buttons on purpose with every tweet and policy decision. This Harriet Tubman $20 news? My lord.
Righteous fury at Trump and his administration and the amoral GOP senators who ‘sanction this buffoonery’* is completely justified. Frustration at the slow gears of justice? Hell, yes. But when that crosses over into fury at the folks working daily to fight the good fight? When we turn on each other with a viciousness? Well, aren’t we just playing right into Trump’s hands?
I mean, there’s plenty of anger to go around. I just think there’s something to be said for proportionality and staying on target.
*Tommy Lee Jones re: Jim Carrey circa Batman Forever.
