Since the LAW’N’ORDOR!!! people love that theory so much (however ineffective it has proven in the real world), let’s push this framework for the crimes of their Dear Leader…
Broken windows theory holds that ignoring small crimes & antisocial behavior leads to more serious crimes and worse behavior.
Impeachment Is the only Constitutional remedy for a lawless President*, and impunity is already leading him to escalate his assaults on the rule of law.
— Joshua Holland ?? (@JoshuaHol) April 18, 2019
American public isnt there yet. But enough will get there—through House hearings, press, the dozen or so separate investigations, & behavior of Trump & his crew—that Trump will become a huge net liability for the GOP. Not sure how it plays out, but it will be more confrontational
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 18, 2019
we elected a guy with open and visible contempt for the republic which is literally the exact scenario envisioned when the framers included an impeachment provision for the presidency.
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 18, 2019
BTW, Barr picked this day in part because Congress isn’t in session, it’s Easter & Passover, etc.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 18, 2019
(AOC is a quick learner… )
Many know I take no pleasure in discussions of impeachment. I didn’t campaign on it, & rarely discuss it unprompted.
We all prefer working on our priorities: pushing Medicare for All, tackling student loans, & a Green New Deal.
But the report squarely puts this on our doorstep.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 18, 2019
2. In 1826, John C. Calhoun demanded that House of Representatives—“in its high character of grand inquest of the nation”—open an impeachment inquiry against him
— Yoni Appelbaum (@YAppelbaum) April 18, 2019
4. A sitting president cannot be indicted, under OLC guidelines. But he is still subject to the law. The proper value for considering claims against him isn’t a special counsel. It’s the House of Representatives, as the Constitution details.
— Yoni Appelbaum (@YAppelbaum) April 18, 2019
Both can be true but I’m not sure it matters. The president’s intent was clear: to obstruct justice and interfere in the investigation https://t.co/K5PHMM9x9A
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) April 18, 2019
1. Upholding the rule of law may demand impeachment.
2. We've created a standard where impeachment must be bipartisan.
3. Only one party is committed to the rule of law.
4. Only one party is subject to impeachment.
5. The rule of law only applies to one party.— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) April 18, 2019
This report allegedly containing "TOTAL AND COMPLETE EXONERATION" of the president describes the law of impeachment 10 times, largely (but not exclusively) in footnotes. pic.twitter.com/FNpNAP5Gi9
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) April 18, 2019
Impeachment may be risky for Dems, but can we permanently retire the idea that's because it backfired on the GOP in 1998? That was the public correctly seeing it was about sex; this is about 10 instances of obstruction — and more. 1/2
— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) April 18, 2019
Sure, Republicans say "Don't do it, it backfired on us in 1998" — and it did. But do we really believe they'd be trying to give Democrats good advice? 2/2
— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) April 18, 2019
“We shouldn’t impeach because it will make Trump more popular/help him win reelection” is pure conjecture without any evidence other than the half-remembered outcome of the Clinton impeachment. Give it 2 minutes thought and it doesn’t hold together.
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 18, 2019
?? PROTECT ?? THE ?? GUILTY ?? AND ?? UNPOPULAR ?? PRESIDENT ?? SO ?? THE ?? REPUBLICANS ?? DON'T ?? HAVE ?? TO ?? BE ?? SEEN ?? BEING ?? RESPONSIBLE ?? FOR ?? PROTECTING ?? HIM ?? https://t.co/bRq6xeCags
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) April 18, 2019
Jerzy Russian
I definitely picked the wrong week to stop smoking, drinking, sniffing glue, taking amphetamines, etc. (did I miss anything?).
The Dangerman
Absofuckinglutely (sp?). Impeach Trump now or the shit he’ll pull in 2020 will be worse.
I’ve occasionally thought that Mueller might wound Trump enough that he won’t be the GOP candidate in 2020; while I think that is basically impossible these days, I still think there’s a chance. Very, very slim, but there’s a chance. About the same chance as that fucker on Jeopardy losing anytime soon, but, still, it isn’t zero (Trump and the Jeopardy Dude are a lot alike and it will be their arrogance that is their downfall).
The Dangerman
@The Dangerman:
Remember, if he loses, he joins Cohen in the Big House as Individual 1. Unless he pardons himself, which I read someplace isn’t allowed (a fellow can hope that is the case, anyway).
plato
Origuy
Open thread, and music is always on topic, right? Here’s something different. When most people think of a hurdy-gurdy, they think of a guy with a monkey grinding a barrel organ. But a real hurdy-gurdy, known in French as vielle à roue, is a very different instrument. Now a French vielleur has been coming out with original compositions for the electric hurdy-gurdy. Guillhem Desq
Martin
@plato: I agree. Dems risk losing voter turnout if they don’t act. They have to start impeachment. They have no moral high ground if they don’t.
Steeplejack
@Jerzy Russian:
Opioids? Licking toads?
Elizabelle
The groundswell for impeachment begins. Congress/Pelosi will build its case. Whites of their eyes, peeps.
My fingers are crossed for the investigations ensnaring a bunch of dirty GOP. What’s becoming known about the NRA’s internal problems is fascinating.
piratedan
fuck the GOP, impeach the sonofabitch. Call to testify, every-fucking-body… let them either lie to Congress or tell the truth. I have faith that there will be receipts. The Dems have comtrol of the House, they’ll set the rules and if the GOP chooses to hang themselves with their partisan behavior, then we will let them do so and make campaign ads of them protecting a treasonous criminal on behalf of their party.
fuck those people.
DO THE RIGHT THING…. truth will out.
Mr. Kite
Hey, calm the fuck down people. This is going to take time. Nadler requested Mueller appearance no later than 23 MAY.
It’s going to be slog.
BlueDWarrior
@Martin: the wild card is the absolute cloud-cuckoo-land that Republican base voters exist in.
The morally and legally correct thing to do is to begin impeachment inquiries as soon as possible, but it doesn’t matter [in this regard] how right it is. The only thing that matters to some 40% of the active polity is that Republicans win, and they will only turn against Trump once he decisively loses in a way he can’t play off.
I truly think Nixon only ‘lost’ because he didn’t burn (or otherwise get rid of) the tapes. He ‘lost’ and the Republicans turned on him.
Once again, we should impeach on both moral and legal grounds, but we should also ready to fight the enraged hordes when they howl for blood of liberals.
I don’t pretend that a successful impeachment, nor even a conviction and removal will stop the conservative hordes, but that is separate from of Trump should be removed from office, and kept in mind once he’s gone, one way or another.
Duane
Wait till the full report leaks out, as many here have predicted. That should turn the impeachment burner to solar-flare temp. Let repub senators defend the traitor in public. Might be enough to give dems the Senate.
nwerner
@Origuy: pretty epic. thanks.
JoyceH
What absolutely drives me nuts is when people say that impeachment will backfire because – Bill Clinton. Clinton was a very popular president who was impeached over lying about a blow job, following a years-long witch hunt that started out looking into a failed land deal. Of COURSE that impeachment was unpopular! Does anyone really believe that Trump is a popular president or that the grounds for impeachment are trivial?
Not saying they should hold a vote right now – continue the investigations, dig up more slime and corruption.
But maybe as an interim measure, Congress should impeach Bill Barr for his egregious lies. And while they’re at it, they could arrest the IRS commissioner and Treasury Secretary, to make the point that when the president orders you to commit a crime and you obey the order, you’ve committed a crime. It might slow down Trump’s reign of terror if his henchmen realize that they at least will be held accountable for crimes they commit on his behalf.
Oh, and another thing that drives me nuts is when people try to wave away impeachment by saying how much WORSE it would be for Trump to ‘face the verdict of the voters’, and {gasp!} LOSE the election! Oh, wow! So for all the horrific things he’s done, the appropriate punishment is – to make him a one-term president? To mete out to him the same ‘punishment’ that Jimmy Carter and Bush 41 received? Please.
If the stuff Trump has done, just the stuff we know about, is not impeachable, then what the heck WOULD be?
Martin
@BlueDWarrior:
We can’t be afraid of that. You do what you think is right, and you take what you get.
Elizabelle
@Martin: one hundred percent w you here.
BlueDWarrior
@JoyceH: it is impeachable, we should be in week 1 or 2 of the initial inquiries. The problem is that 40% of the polity are on a holy crusade to establish a Christian Dominion and another 10% are being towed in thier wake.
The normal mechanisms can’t work like this. Effectively Republicans are immune from consequences because Republicans would have to approve punishments for other Republicans, and unless they’ve already been excommunicated, they simply refuse.
This madness has driven us into a schism where we can’t operate society on normal consensus building, and instead will drive us to open and seemingly endless conflict.
I’m honestly scared that we as a country, until we can find a decisive cure for this mutant right-wing-ism, will be damned to re-fight the same fights in a neverending loop until it all collapses.
plato
BlueDWarrior
@Martin: you’re right. But the Voting Rights Act and the Great Society indirectly led to Nixon.
A wonderful open question to contemplate though is if Johnson never escalates Vietnam, does he lose to Nixon?
I’m just saying to universe is not going to reward us for doing the right thing on its face, were going have to do it and then brace for and pass through the aftermath.
Martin
@BlueDWarrior: This nation is coming up on 250 years. The long arc needs to be what matters, not the next election.
Martin
Put another way, if the Dems move to impeach and the GOP blocks it, and Trump gets re-elected, then the GOP owns every bad act from an emboldened president for the next 4 years. That’s not going to help them in any way.
BlueDWarrior
@Martin: I just don’t know how many more Republican presidents we can take under this paradigm until something fundamentally snaps.
Part of my upset comes from the contemplation of no amount of immorality or illegality being enough to make Republicans back down and actually self-examine what the he’ll they’ve been doing to themselves and us since 1968. And now I get antsy and nervous as I think about how apparently unless the President calls for a pogrom against American citizens and residents, they can’t be bothered to let go of thier partisanship for a micro-second.
This President has all but said “I am God-Emperor, now worship me”, and the most were getting from people on that side is “meh, Democrats would demand the same of us, so why care?”
Like, this is all so crazy; I can’t get over how people are treating literal life and death the same as they’d treat the opposing student section at a college football game.
And I especially hate the fact it could put us in the very definition of a Catch-22.
Manxome Bromide
I do find it interesting that AOC says that the House must not shirk its duty of investigation. The emphasis is a lot different but at the end of the day she’s sending the same core message as Schiff.
Amir Khalid
@Martin:
On the other hand, if you come at the King you’d better not miss. Impeachment is a big step, and it needs to be thought through tactically. If the Democratic House impeaches Trump but the Republican-dominated Senate doesn’t muster the votes to remove him from office, his survival will embolden him even if it is by one vote. He’ll feel like he can get away with anything, and he’ll give it his best shot from there on out.
Emerald
Back when Ford pardoned Nixon, I agreed with him. So did the Kennedy Center, which gave Ford their Profile in Courage award for the pardon. I now know I was wrong, as was the Kennedy Center. If Nixon had gone to trial and perhaps to jail for his crimes, I strongly doubt that Iran-Contra would have happened, or the Iraq war lies, or Cheney outing a CIA agent, etc, etc, etc.
If presidents are not above the law then they should not be above the law. That means they go on trial and to jail if they’re convicted, during or after their terms in office.
Otherwise, expect worse when the Republicans steal their next election.
rikyrah
Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) Tweeted:
As I stated last night on MSNBC, the American people shouldn’t have expected Barr to do anything more than what he did: protect Trump. Barr has been acting as Trump’s defense atty, not AG. Barr’s performance was outrageously disrespectful of the Constitution & the American public https://twitter.com/RepMaxineWaters/status/1118892689934749697?s=17
pat
I’m all for impeachment hearings in the House. But remember who is next in line…..
.Religious nut-case Dense.
Oh who cares. We have to try to get rid of the sociopathic, narcissistic, stupid, evil, corrupt, vindictive lying bully. This can not be allowed to pass into history without some major efforts in the House.. And make the repubs in the Senate own their cowardly decision if they refuse to vote.
BTW, I am in Austria and it seems German does not have a good translation of EVIL.
Keith P.
@Jerzy Russian: Watching gladiator films?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Licking toads is jl’s thing.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Someone should ask AOC about her buddy
TS (the original)
@Martin:
If they win the senate it’s going to give them a lefetime control of the SCOTUS.
Mart
@Origuy: Usually not a fan of the gypsy shit, but that has promise.
Xenos
I am not in the states , so is one of these applying:
-The first rule of Impeachment Club is “don’t talk about Impeachment Club”.
– “Don’t throw me in that nasty Impeachment patch, B’rer Turtle”
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Also too, if Ttump is impeached and removed from office only for Pence to become POTUS, there is no net gain.
Ruckus
I’m one who thinks it’s not impeachment time. YET. The report isn’t fully out even to congress. Mueller probably will testify before congress. A lot of information needs to be seen, IOW roadwork towards impeachment. A proper case should be made before lighting the burners and turning the heat up to full. You want to present an ironclad, case here, so that even if the senate fucks this up, as I suspect the republicans will at least the public will mostly agree. I believe that this is what convinced Nixon, everything came together and congress and a large segment of the public was against him. Because Trump will not quit like Nixon. He will go the entire distance because of who he is. He will have to be escorted out of the building.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Yes.
I didn’t put this in my comment but it should be a consideration. Although I’m not sure he’s as bad as Trump. He’s not in any way good, but as you say no net gain. And how much is he involved, I mean why was he chosen in the first place? Wasn’t it Manafort who pressed DT to pick him?
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian:
Smack. Angel dust. Acid.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Dangerman: It’s never been adjudicated, so he’ll try.
hervevillechaizelounge
@plato:
No offense, but Amber Tamblyn is an idiot.
I can’t even express how angry this tweet makes me; I’m not 100% against impeachment but it is fucking imperative to understand that it will not ever, under any circumstances, eject Trump from the White House.
I think it’s the framing: if Democrats would only impeach then Trump would be gone. Jeez, Democrats, get off your lazy asses!
Like the senate has no say in the matter—like Mitch Mcconnell would even bring it to the floor if he couldn’t find a way to fuck us over in the process.
We are in the predicament we’re in because the Republicans are evil and willing to do literally anything to stay in power. Unless everyone acknowledges the depth of their depravity we’re not going to vanquish them.
If we’re going to move on impeachment we need a serious strategy that takes into account the Fox propaganda and the Russian subversion of democracy that will follow.
I feel bad that I now despise this empty-headed harridan—her dad was electric in West Side Story:(
OzarkHillbilly
@hervevillechaizelounge:
It won’t just follow, it will be part and parcel of the process.
Gvg
@hervevillechaizelounge: a real investigation is going to net some GOP congressmen. They have been acting guilty too and the money trails we know about have been pointing too a LOT of them. That’s going to change the balance of power before we get to voting to impeach.
My impression is Mueller didn’t follow all the money to all the GOP. He stayed within his authorization. House democrats starting investigations, need to be asking about all corruption, not just Trumps. Enforce the laws that exist, and possibly pass some new ones. I think McConnel is a key.
Another Scott
@Emerald: I thought and think that Ford was correct to pardon Nixon, for the reasons Ford said at the time.
In this era of hyper-partisanship (maybe in every era of politics in American life), we can’t make progress if one party decides to put opposing politicians on trial whenever control switches. And there would always be pressure to do that (there’s been that pressure since Nixon). Policy differences suck, but they shouldn’t be criminalized – and they would be.
“Rule of Law” isn’t going to save us when bad people get into power. We have to elect people who respect their oaths, respect the rules, and respect the law. But it’s the people who matter, not the words on the page. We knew what Donnie was going to try to do if he won. Nixon spending time in Leavenworth wouldn’t have changed anything that Donnie was going to try to do…
Yes, investigate, yes make Donnie and his minions answer to the House. But, as I said too many times yesterday, we have to let the politics and politicians work. If they make the calculation that calling for Impeachment is a distraction, then I can live with that.
With all of that said, there’s a section in the Mueller report that talks about ways that the laws could be changed so that the President would no longer have (effective) immunity. I think that the House should look very carefully at that as well. (There has to be a middle road between only-Impeachment and the-president-did-something-I-didn’t-like-so-I’m-going-to-indict-him especially in cases when the President brazenly flouts the law and demands that others break it as well.)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bobby Thomson
The Clinton impeachment backfiring is also a zombie lie.
In 1998 Republicans lost only 5 House seats and one Governorship.
After the 2000 election they controlled all three branches of government until Junior Bush touched the third rail and people found out Mark Foley was buggering kids.
Bobby Thomson
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: the commentary about her and Bernie reminds me a lot of the racist suggestions that Clarence Thomas always looked to Scalia for direction on how to vote.
Bobby Thomson
@Another Scott:
We are so fucking far from slippery slope territory I don’t know why you’re even bringing it up.
Almost everybody is misreading that section. It’s not a suggestion that Congress should pass laws in the future. It’s an acknowledgement that the laws Congress already passed should be interpreted as applying to the President because Congress has the Congressional authority to curb the exercise of his Article I power. We need more reporters who have studied the law to report on it.
Another Scott
@Bobby Thomson: Yes and
knowno [not enough caffeine yet]. Wikipedia says that Gingrich was convinced they were going to pick up 30 seats in the House, but lost 5 instead. Running on Impeachment “lawnordr” didn’t work and that’s why he quit after the election. And that’s why they rammed the Starr report through as articles of impeachment (without hearings) in the lame duck session – to do it quickly while they could.Cheers,
Scott.
Skepticat
I’m so old that I remember when the law was the law and impeachment was a serious issue, not simply a standard partisan political tool. Now it’s the proper and only remedy, as this is the kind of situation for which it was developed. I don’t see the Rethuglicans being willing to convict, but I’ve overcome my initial resistance to starting the process, if only because we shirk our duty as citizens if we shrug and say political survival is more important than hewing to the rule of law. American has become a banana republic. I wish _____ were man enough to resign, but that’s ludicrous.
chopper
@plato:
my job as a citizen is making sure that trump is in the WH, and cocaine mitch is in the corner office, for the shortest time fucking possible. you bet your fucking ass that i’m not supporting impeachment without considering its impact on the goddamn election.
Gelfling 545
@Amir Khalid: There is the gain of not being complicit in Trump’s lawlessness. And Pence might be bright enough to avoid obviously illegal actions. Also, I doubt Pence has the umph to win his own term.
Citizen Alan
@BlueDWarrior:
Hell, I personally think that Johnson could have done everything the same and still beaten Nixon, given the advantages of incumbency. If nothing else, I bet Johnson would have been more open to exposing Nixon’s ratfuckery of the Vietnam peace accords if it had been in support of his own campaign rather than Humphreys.
JGabriel
@The Dangerman:
Exactly. If Trump is allowed to get away with defrauding the American electoral system, and conspiring with Putin’s government and intelligence services, to win the 2016 election, there’s no telling what he’ll do to ensure a second term. Does anyone seriously think that neither Russia nor the GOP will attempt to target and hack enough swing precincts and districts to turn the electoral college to his favor again?
Trump must be held to account and forced to face the consequences of his actions, otherwise he’ll steal another presidential election (with Putin’s help) and bring the US down with him.
J R in WV
@pat:
They’re embarrassed by it, but it’s spelled NAZI in German.