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Paul Krugman: Conscience of a Liberal
The Confluence
Suburban Guerrilla Ian WelshYes, let’s ask this question all the time. Why is election security not important to Mitch?
Is he expecting the malefactors to lean on the levers for Republicans only? And what happens if you decide you’ve had enough Trump Republicanism?
Are you even allowed to vote them out?
Why don’t we ask Mitch?
Filed under: General |
Corrente (Lambert) Avedon’s Sideshow
The Confluence 
I wouldn’t argue that this is worth repeating, however, I think there is another thing that Mueller said that bears repeating especially to the Democratic Leadership: CONGRESS, DO YOUR JOB.
They’re not going to do their jobs until they think they have something to lose if they don’t. So, will they do nothing because they assume they can NEVER lose their jobs?
This is what we need an immediate answer to.
Well, “Congress” is never going to do its job, because one of the two houses, the Senate, will never, ever convict Trump. Mueller is not political, but he must have understood that Trump would never be forced out of office via impeachment or conviction. So effectively he just punted the ball off the field of play.
A poll I saw today has 35% of the public favoring impeachment, and 52% or so disfavoring. Hopefully, some of the latter group are Democrats who think it would be damaging to the elections, not because they are against the principle of it. Now, doing the right thing should not be based on polls. But it is pretty clear that Pelosi and Democratic leadership think that actual impeachment would cost them the presidential election and the House. I’m not even sure that she has enough votes in her own caucus. She hates Trump as much as anyone. She is making a pragmatic calculation that to save the country, the best way is not to have impeachment hearings at this time. Who knows if she is right on that?
I certainly do think that non-impeachment hearings are worthwhile. We know that Nixon was never impeached, those hearings were informational at that stage. I am a bit irritated at the candidates for president, mostly senators, who are declaiming about impeachment. Some of it has to be political, to not be on the “wrong” side of it in the primaries. Pelosi does not tell the senators what to do, and they have done precious little. How would we feel if we hold impeachment hearings and we don’t have the votes? Or if we squeeze it through, then McConnell quickly quashes it, and Trump and Republicans claim “total vindication”, and then polls show that the public which didn’t want impeachment is now taking it out on the Democrats? I realize that reasonable minds can surely differ on all of this, but surely it is not an easy call. Pelosi is certainly not a political coward, she is doing what she thinks is the best way to get rid of Trump and maybe some more of the Republicans.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what would happen, but at some point I the the Democrats need to start playing the way the republicans have since newt declared politics a ‘blood sport’. It’s time to change the conventional wisdom which says Democrats must always be bipartisan or risk losing elections.
McConnell is a fascist. He has not the slightest interest in democracy. Of course he wants Republicans to be able to suppress votes, and that the election systems be hacked by Russia, since obviously Russia supports Trump and him. There are many who think that McConnell has ties to Russia through various business interests. McConnell is pure evil. He is the legislative arm of fascism. His goals are packing the courts with far right stooges, many with pathetic legal backgrounds; blocking every bit of legislation coming from a now Democratic House; creating an insurmountable one-party rule. I’m surprised more Democrats do not go after him, but maybe they still believe in the historic comity of the Senate. I’d just as soon make him the ugly face of Republicanism, and have people vote against him. Just making it impossible to have hearings for a year on a legitimately nominated Supreme Court appointee, went beyond anything in American legislative history. And since then he’s made it clear that he wants Democrats to have no voice whatsoever in governance. I find this so dreadful, that I almost want the House not to raise the debt ceiling, and let the whole economy collapse. McConnell couldn’t do a thing about it.
And, McCon-man is cashing in from Russia Oligarchs.
He’s not only
;
He’s an ugly “THING”, just like the orange “THING”.
Same kind of REP-TILIANS.
There are some interesting comments by Walter Shaub on his Twitter page, about something we were discussing yesterday; where these OLC “rules” are coming from. Apparently half of the rules they make up are not even known, they are done secretly. They decide that something (usually something which might limit the power of the President) is unconstitutional. They have no inherent constitutional right to do this, but if everyone in DOJ follows their “rules,” then it is even more binding than law. No one elected OLC, and the president can actually completely replace every member of DOJ, so that he can obtain all sorts of rules and opinions in his favor. This is completely contrary to the system of democracy.”No sitting president can be indicted” is not in the Constitution, where it should have been had the Founders wanted it There has never been a Supreme Court ruling on it, and yet it is considered law? I imagine that if a Democrat got elected president, the OLC could quickly change the rule, so that he/she could be indicted by Republicans. Frankly, this is exactly what the Founders did not at all want for this country, a monarchy in all but name, where the legal arm of the monarchy could protect its power. Further, this non-constitutional, non-court decided “rule” could actually cause dreadful harm, as Kathleen Wynne pointed out yesterday, because if a president has a haven from indictment only as long as he stays in office, he may well break every law imaginable to remain in office. This whole thing is really not so far from “the divine right of kings” during the feudal era.
William,
Clearly, the House is in a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation regarding impeachment. McConnell will never indict trump, so, it opens the door to a total misrepresentation on the part of the republicans as to why they did not indict him and propagated ad nausum on fox news every day. Add to the mix that McConnell will not consider a bi-partisan bill protecting our election process (including voting systems which I find interesting in how they can prevent hacking), I can’t help but believe that Russia has agreed to ensure a republican win in the senate, as well as the presidency in 2020 for these guys to totally piss on the rule of law and behave as total hypocrites.
The only weapon the people have are our sheer numbers and the willingness to organize and make this election the largest turnout in our history to override russian interference. The margin of defeat for trump and the rest of these treasonous bastards has to be so large that any “unusual” potential win in the electoral vote will set off alarms which would be investigated. We are at war with our present government and we must be vigilent in not leaving any stone unturned in the upcoming election.
BTW, you’ve offered some excellent andthought-provokng analyses on Mueller and the impeachment issue.
McConnell and his ilk think they can make rule by their kind eternal.
Nope. To borrow JFK’s phrase (IIRC), if they make peaceful revolution impossible, they will merely make violent revolution inevitable.
If the reactionaries know that, they don’t care, because they think they’ll win any contest of violence.
Like the Original Gangsta Fascists, our reactionaries simply think they have the Biggest Genitals Ever To Swing From A Primate’s Crotch, and the sheer power of their testosterone will make them invincible.
The OG Fascists thought that same thing.
How did that work out for the OG Fascists?