crickets
crickets's Journal"fidelity to our Constitution"
means that the man who incited a crowd of his followers to insurrection does not just walk away from his crime untouched. The Capitol was ransacked, people died, and members of Congress had to hunker down where they could in fear for their very lives.
You want healing? Kick this man out, have him tried for his crimes against this country, and take your medicine for being part of the reason a mob was whipped into a frenzy that caused this. This is not politics as usual. Get real.
DO YOUR JOBS OR GET OUT.
Wow, what Jamie Raskin has been through in just the last week.
How horrifying to go through the riot, but to be led away while your daughter is in the gallery, and then later to have her stuck hiding under a desk in Steny Hoyer's office... It's just unreal. Yet he is still there, faithfully carrying out the duties of his office on behalf the people. After all of the stress and lack of sleep, he gives the most clear, calm and cogent explanation of what has been happening, what needs to be done, and how it can be accomplished. He is brutally honest about the reasons why trump must be removed from office:
We have a president who is egging on violent, armed insurrection against the Congress of the United States in order to block the peaceful transfer of power. This president is either unable or unwilling to faithfully execute the laws and to uphold the Constitution. Therefore he cannot successfully discharge the powers and duties of office for the next 12 days. The public has no confidence, but more importantly here, the Congress, which is charged with making sure we are secure, has no confidence that this president can do it. Those Trump die-hard sycophants still out there will say this is some kind of partisan thing, but there is broad bipartisan consensus now that Donald Trump is a lethal danger to our republic. The only person who gets new power out of this [25th Amendment] is Vice President Pence, with whom I disagree about pretty much everything. But I do think that he is a sane person and has that basic respect for the Constitution. [snip]
But if this president had committed no other transgressions against the Constitution—and of course there have been dozens—addressing a rally of violent insurrectionists and inviting people to come to Washington and to get wild, with people who broke windows and entered the Capitol complex without going through a metal detector, that in itself would be an impeachable offense. That is a high crime akin to bribery and treason. It is essentially soliciting and aiding and abetting a violent attack on the people’s representatives.
Lot more, and well worth the read - thanks for the article link elleng. I knew little to nothing about Jamie Raskin before today, but I know about him now. I will not forget him.
Thank you for connecting the dots on that point.
I had wondered about it, and now it makes perfect sense. They needed to get out of the way to allow for a clear shot. Ashli Babbitt know what she was doing, knew it was wrong, and could not have failed to see guns drawn. The outcome was inevitable. My sympathies go out to the officer who was forced to shoot her in order to stop her. That couldn't have been easy to do, or to deal with afterward.
👆 This.
Pelosi and Pence were at the top of the list of people being searched for. The would-be assassins had specific preferred targets but would have been happy to take out anyone they could get their hands on. How some Republicans seem unfazed and don't recognize that they were in dire peril is a mystery. Anyone they found would have been taken hostage, and political party was no guarantee against getting killed.
Agreed that Nancy Pelosi is well aware, and knows she cannot afford to let this go. For her safety, and the safety of every single Congressional member, shit has got to get real.
One can only hope.
It's a wonder that more Repubs haven't come out of their trump fog after being evacuated or hunkered in secure locations for hours. One of yesterday's most chilling images is the picture of a rioter vaulting a brass railing in the Capitol with a fistful of zip ties in his hand. At least one of those goons was looking for hostages.
Is there really any going back to 'business as usual' after what happened, and even worse, what could have happened?
There is no reason at all to think impeachment would take long.
Joint session to save time, play three media clips, do it live so the whole country can see and hear it:
1. The GA phone call
read the related charges
2. His speech just before sending the rabble to the Capitol
read the related charges
3. This party vid
You don't need charges for this; the court of public opinion just gets a necessary little jolt for free.
Don't even break to separate chambers: HR ready? VOTE. Senate ready? VOTE.
If the Senate balks, show them this picture:
https://twitter.com/Rebexem/status/1346924689101213696
Takes two, three hours tops. Done.
Boeing OC-135B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_OC-135B_Open_SkiesKeep American Skies Open to Russia: The Trump administration is poised to kill another useful treaty that contributes to trans-Atlantic peace (interesting op-ed about how the treaty came about and why we should keep it)
https://newrepublic.com/article/155583/keep-american-open-skies-trump-russia
The Open Skies Treaty is not without its warts or disputes. The Obama administration locked horns with Moscow over Russia’s compliance and bad-faith challenges to U.S. operations under the accord. But those disputes were largely resolved in open multilateral discussions, and the lingering challenges aren’t fixed by steamrolling an unprecedented military-transparency regime, Bolton-style. The fact is that the Open Skies concept, and its application in recent years, vindicates “the continued relevance of arms control for our national security,” as one State Department official put it in 2014.
The Importance of the Open Skies Treaty - Nov 2019
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110262/witnesses/HHRG-116-FA14-Wstate-WoolfA-20191119.pdf
Foreign Affairs hearing re the allowed planes/equipment; includes the usual Congressional bellyaching about costs.
There is no excuse for allowing this much wealth to be concentrated into so few hands
It means there are those who have not been TAXED properly and are not putting their fair share back into the society that gave them the opportunity to accumulate wealth in the first place. It's just wrong.
Boom. Thank you, Judge Timothy Batten!
from OP tweet image:
https://www.ajc.com/politics/breaking-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-bidens-win-in-georgia/UXSI5WUROJA4JHLTVTJ6UWNWOM/
“They want this court to substitute its judgment for the 2.5 million voters who voted for Biden,” Batten, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said in court in Atlanta. “This I’m unwilling to do.”
The decision leaves Georgia’s results intact, supporting state elections officials’ statements that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. [snip]
Attorneys for the state said there’s no justification to award Georgia’s electoral votes to Trump. State law requires the state’s 16 votes in the Electoral College to go to the candidate who won the popular vote, and Biden held a nearly 12,000-vote lead over Trump.
“Their claims would be extraordinary if true, but they are not,” according to a court brief by the state’s attorneys. “Much like the mythological ‘kraken’ monster after which plaintiffs have named this lawsuit, their claims of election fraud and malfeasance belong more to the kraken’s realm of mythos than they do to reality.”
Bingo!
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212642076[w/ links to several articles, including the one below]
Actual NSC Ukraine expert shut out of meetings to make room for Devin Nunes' fake expert
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/30/1896106/-Actual-NSC-Ukraine-expert-was-shut-out-of-meetings-to-make-room-for-fake-expert-via-Devin-Nunes
Patel had previously been best known for deliberately leaking intelligence documents to help Nunes undermine the Russia investigation. At the White House he became another of what turned out to be a series of “unofficial channels” Trump opened up with Ukraine. Trump had Rudy Giuliani running around Europe with a pair of indicted “associates” provided by a fugitive oligarch. He had the “three amigos” of Rick Perry, Gordon Sondland, and Kurt Volker badgering Ukrainian officials for investigations. And Trump had Patel ferrying raw intelligence data to the Oval Office and providing his own, completely uninformed spin on what was happening on the ground.
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