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Of Impeachment and Accountability
Never Trump Republicans and their Democratic co-conspirators have another trick up their sleeves. Knowing that they probably do not have the votes to convict and remove the President in the Senate, they are desperately searching for a way to pull it off and they think they’ve found it: A secret vote and/or a generous reading of the two-thirds rule.
Pushed by people like lobbyist Juleanna Glover (formerly of the Bush 43 Administration and Bill Kristol acolyte), Laurence Tribe and former Sen. Jeff Flake, the operating theory is that if Senators were freed from accountability to their voters there would be 30 to 35 Republicans in the Senate ready to vote “yes” on conviction.
The other pipe dream is that the Constitution only demands a two-thirds majority of the Senators present. For every Senator that refuses to attend it brings that two-thirds number lower. But staying away is the same as a yes vote.
Jim Geraghty points out at National Review, “If Trump really is an unconstitutional menace who is abusing the power of the presidency for his personal interests, stopping him ought to be worth losing a Senate seat. And if this action isn’t worth losing a Senate seat over, then it’s hard to see how it is worth removing a president.”
A secret ballot after secret proceedings in the House sounds like a recipe for disaster. How do you think the public would react?
Published in Politics
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had an infamously hot/cold relationship, but the early Jefferson administration was not kind to Adams.
Nearly every opposing-party president immediately after Andrew Jackson despised him.
Teddy Roosevelt explained how he would repeal and/or improve on all of McKinley’s policies before McKinley’s corpse was even in the ground.
FDR never returned a single Herbert Hoover phone call and viewed him as an incompetent joke.
Eisenhower was referred to as “That Old [redacted]-Hole” by JFK.
The idea that all former presidents belong to a mutual admiration society is false.
Fascinating . . .
Yeah, except for the Bush’s and the Clintons. Notably.
Boy, wouldn’t politicians ( Republicans especially?) love not to be accountable to their voters! What a great plan!
Seriously, what would then transpire is constituents would demand to know how their Senator voted and they would have to either tell the truth, lie or refuse to answer.
Not a good look and every Senator would get a strong primary opponent and/or lose in the general election anyway. Really stupid.
Anyway, it’s just not gonna happen.
You can rationalize your vote however you may want, but please don’t tell us for whom you’re voting and continue to use the pat-myself-on-the-back moniker “country-first Republican.” A vote for any of those mentioned is neither “country-first” nor “Republican.” And I’m rather sure Ronaldus Maximus would agree.
I was asked a direct question and I answered it.
Wow. Some of us have a rather outsized opinion on the message our vote sends.
By not asking Scarlet Johansson out on a date, I would hope she learns not to appear in any more crappy movies about marriage. I was appalled!
How did you know?
EJ
I am not sure what would happen. The issue is that the Elites keep pushing and pushing. They want their power forever and ever amen.
I believe, at some point they will push too far and it will all come apart. Maybe this will be it. Maybe not, but if they keep getting wins, the bridge too far will happen.
As my response indicated, my issue is not so much with your answer but with its inconsistency.
Fact check: False.
When does that stop him?
I understand there are some that look at Gary as the nerd kid, and think us “cool kids” just pick on him. I find that funny.
Except if it is 60million voters who officially were for Trump, I suspect that the number is even bigger than that. The more I realize about how much control the Dems have in Illinois, NY, and Calif with regards to flipping the election results, the more I am convinced that on Election Night, Nov 2016, Trump might well have had exactly as much of the popular vote as Ms Clinton had.
The crucial thing about the Nov 2020 election is the electronic voting machinery. If that method of voting is not carefully watched over, the Dems will have no incentive to not add lots of votes from the R side of the cast ballots over to the D side.
Meanwhile, Trump is not at all hated in the manner that people like Pelosi and the more radical Dems believe.
Here is a facebook entry featuring a video of people on the hippy dippy beaches of So California, who are annoyed that Trump is perhaps about to be impeached. http://www.facebook.com/turningpointusa/videos/944954565883943/
And another ricochet writer expresses a similar finding:
http://ricochet.com/705696/focus-group-signals-bad-news-for-2020-democrats/
So could you be the one to suggest to my spouse that his “not dating Scarlet” in his fantasies is not affecting her? He’s been making dinner for me a lot lately, so I don’t wanna be the one to rock the boat.
So what Presidents called for the prosecution of their rivals?
Obama? Nope.
W? Nope.
Clinton? Nope.
H.W. or Reagan? Nope.
Carter? Nope.
Ford or Nixon? Nope.
LBJ or JFK? Nope.
Ike? Nope.
Truman or FDR? Nope.
Hoover, Coolidge, or Harding? Nope.
Wilson? Nope.
Taft, TR or McKinley? Nope?
Anybody in the 1800’s? Nope.
Anybody in the 1700’s? Nope.
But I recall Trump urging chants of “Lock Her Up!” And during a debate I remember Trump threatening Hillary with jail.
Yes, people said nasty stuff about their rivals. But only Trump talked about prosecuting his rival.
Fact check. True.
See comment #137. Fact check: True. Trump is unique in calling for the prosecution of his rival.
Hillary Clinton is not a former president.
Proof? Evidence? Why haven’t there been exposes?
The fact that she deserved to be prosecuted and locked up is somewhat relevant to this discussion. It’s not like every single President on your list had a rival who was as guilty of malfeasance as HRC.
i agree with you. No electronic ballots. There must always be a paper trail.
Correct. She was Trump’s rival.
And Trump has loudly brayed that Obama spied upon him.
Will you grant me that the prior 44 Presidents didn’t threaten to prosecute their rivals. Will you grant me that Trump reveled in the “Lock Her Up” chants at his rallies and threatened to prosecute her in a debate?
And the fact that the Obama administration did in fact spy on him is apparently immaterial in your world.
Evidence. Proof. Not just wild words.
Horowitz, Barr, Durham.
I believe that Horowitz is directly to the contrary, that he found sloppiness, but not predication.
Batt? Barr lied about Mueller’s findings. I happen to remember John Mitchell going to jail.
Durham? No results yet. Let me know when we have some proof.
Lie?
Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings were wholly misleading. Yes lied.