I’m sick and tired of watching the republican President Donald Trump being an embarrassment on the world stage as he acts counter to most of our long term US held values. For instance, at the June 2019 G20 Summit being held in Osaka, Japan, President Trump made a joke out of warning Russia not to repeat its 2016 interference into US elections in the upcoming 2020 US elections, and both leaders shared stories regarding the president’s problems with the US free press; he kowtowed to the the likes of the brutal dictator President Kim Jong-Un of N Korea; and he then played nice with Saudia Arabia’s Crown Prince (MBS) Mohammed bin Salman who ordered the savage dismemberment murder of a US resident and Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. In the meantime President Trump dished on our allies and later, he refused to compromise on advocating for pro-climate change measures with our allies.
On the US home front, the news outlets have headlined numerous reports about how 1000s of children have been separated out from their Central American refugee families who have been legally seeking asylum at the US SW border as they flee the culture of extreme violence in their countries, to be abused and mistreated in detention centers that should be termed, torture chambers.
See: Activists allege widespread mistreatment of sick, hungry migrant childrenUSA TODAY
See: The Treatment of Migrants Likely ‘Meets the Definition of a Mass Atrocity’The New York Times
See: Conditions at migrant detention centers are ‘horrendous.’ …Washington Post–
What kind of message do we send to the world as they learn that we in the USA have the power granted by the US Constitution to hold this president accountable via the impeachment process, but we made the deliberate choice not to exercise this tool because of political expediency?
The commencement by the House of an impeachment inquiry which would be subject to world-wide media coverage, is one sure way for the US to announce to the world that the values / behaviors on full display by the republican President Donald J. Trump are considered unacceptable by the vast majority of Americans. It’s a way to showcase how our forefathers via the 1789 US Constitution, granted the US Congress, a process/ tool called “impeachment” to hold an authoritarian would be leader, accountable for his lawless behaviors. It would show the world that the US governing body stands up for the “rule of law” principle where no one, not even President Trump is above the law. This is how we can remind the world, that, as per Ronald Reagan’s own words, “the USA is still that shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.”
After reading and studying the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448 page FBI’ 3/22/2019 final report about his findings regarding President Trump’s criminal activities based on his 22 months long Trump-Russia probe, I have become a zealous advocate for the House using its constitutionally mandated power, to begin the formality of an impeachment inquiry against our president.
In the last blog, I shared how I wish that after the FBI’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller III delivers his testimony at a US Congressional hearing on the 17th of July about his 3/22/2019 final report based on the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, which provides ample details about the President Trump’s criminal enterprise being run out of the White House, that the House Judiciary Committee’s next move would be to convince the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to commence an impeachment inquiry against the president.
See: lawfareblog.com/ Full Text of the Mueller Report’s Executive Summaries…
Speaker Pelosi has been a staunch, unmovable opponent of the House initiating the formality of an impeachment inquiry against President Trump because she believes this a divisive move that would exacerbate an already divided country. Also, there’re about 26 House Democrats from Trump-leaning districts who could be vulnerable in the 2020 elections where the GOP members only need to flip 18 seats to have the House back under GOP majority rule. That’s partly why the Democratic Party speaker has been insistent on having the House’s 6 oversight committees conduct investigations into the alleged criminal activities of President Trump and his administration without the formality of initiating impeachment proceedings, and to have the 2020 elections be the final voters’ verdict. It would pay for Speaker Pelosi to take time to also consider “the political costs of not impeaching President Trump, as per 6/3 GQ report.”
As per the above 6/3/2019 GQ report, “Even more ominously, Trump’s weaponized Department of Justice under Barr, who has shown himself to be Trump’s eager and obedient partner in abusing the power of the state to advance the president’s political interests, will inevitably invent a pretext for investigating the Democratic nominee. Democrats should consider whether they’d rather engage that fight against a president who has been impeached for serious crimes, or against a president strengthened by the de facto exoneration bestowed when his opponents declined to pursue the evidence against him.”
As a reminder, the US Constitution was written in 1787 by our forefathers with the core purpose to prevent the very type of tyrannical rule that “We the People” have been subjected to, ever since President Trump moved into the White House in January 2017. The drafters of the US Constitution granted the sole-non-legislative power of impeachment to the US House of Representatives for this very time in our history, the tool to check and/ or oust a lawless authoritarian type leader, like President Trump.
Until January 2021, the US House of Representatives of the US Congress is the only governmental entity with the power granted it by the US Constitution to hold President Trump accountable for all of his felonious activities via the impeachment process. There’re many of us who consider this formal step to be a constitutionally mandated solemn duty and obligation which should be implemented without consideration as to possible political risks.
I’m thinking that the US House Judiciary Committee led by the Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler should conduct hearings after the commencement of an impeachment inquiry, about Mr. Mueller’s predictions regarding how Russia is planning to repeat its 2016 cyber warfare and propaganda campaign to interfere in US elections’ systems, again in 2020, and how President Trump and his cronies in the US Senate have been blocking the passage of any bipartisan legislation to prevent this from happening.
As per the 6/28/2019 OPB report, “A bill to mandate paper ballots in federal elections nationwide has passed the U.S. House. The Securing America’s Federal Elections Act (or the SAFE Act) now heads to the U.S. Senate. ” (The bill will be DOA in the US Senate.)
“Oregon U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, said the SAFE Act would get the nation closer to Oregon’s voting model. ”
“If everybody had the Oregon voting system, there’d be no real question about the integrity of the ballot,” Blumenauer said. “There’d be a paper trail.”
“Blumenauer said requiring paper ballots for federal elections could encourage states to use the system for all elections, and potentially move to Oregon’s vote-by-mail system. ”
“When we have heightened awareness of the potential for people to tamper with the integrity of the election process, (we have) an opportunity to be able to bake in the Oregon paper ballot protections,” he said.”
“The bill would also give financial assistance to states in order to secure and maintain their election infrastructure.”
Link: US House Passes SAFE Act, Mandate For Paper Ballots In Federal ..
See Think Progress report: 184 House Republicans just voted against securing elections
See Salon article: Despite Mueller’s warning, McConnell blocks bipartisan election security bills – McConnell and GOP senators are complicit in dismantling democracy.
See MSNBC report: msnbc.com/ McConnell blocks bills to combat election interference
Gronda Morin 
Hello Gronda. I think this is about more than outside interference. As you may know here in Florida we have voting machines so old that the companies have gone out of business and they can not get parts to fix them. We had massive troubles with the recounts because the machines can not handle the amount of work the need to do in such a short time frame, which helps Republicans greatly. I think another problem with up dating the system for voting is the tendency of some people to think what ever they do, what ever they have, is what they demand must be the best and they insist others are wrong. Such as users of one type of smart phone claiming that their brand is the best and everyone should use it. Car owners insisting the brand they drive is superior to all others. So it is with ideas of the people in office, mostly the Republican ones. They can not understand that there might be a better way than they have championed for years after years after years. Not saying that M.O. is limited to Republicans, just they tend to do it more. Hugs
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Dear Scottie,
Since we know that Russia had hacked into the voting computer systems of at least 2 Florida counties during the 2016 elections’ cycle, your info is of little comfort. But if Democrats keep losing in races where the polls favor the Democratic candidates before hand, there comes a time when folks in Florida are just going to have to insist that our elections are more secure.
We can’t afford to dawdle on this one.
Hugs, Gronda
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I can’t help but wonder if trump and Kim had this all planned in advance to make him look good in exchange for some benefit for Kim or even Putin…some nefarious reason for sure and not in the US interest for sure.
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Hello Mary. According to a political podcast I listen to, there had been some back and forth between tRump’s people and Kim’s people. However nothing was firmed up until just before tRump made his pitch. tRump wouldn’t have said it if he had not known he would be getting in the limelight by doing it. The thing missed in the news was the North Korean guards got into a shoving match with the new white house spokeswoman. At the Freedom house meeting the White House wanted the reporters in there to get pictures of tRump’s photo op. The North Koreans did not want reporters in the room, she got into a fight with the guards while yelling at the reports to get in the room. tRump doesn’t get anything for this stunt if there are not pictures. Hugs
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Dear Mary,
President Trump had something up his sleeve and it looks like Scottie has figured it out. President Trump wanted his photo-op. It’s a shame that our own US president can’t do anything with a tyrannical leader like N Korea’s Kim Jong -Un without us assuming the worst, because that’s usually the case. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, is that he’ll never be accused of acting solely in US best national security interests without the need for others to go through the verification. process.
Hugs, Gronda
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Gronda, both sides have gerrymandered and have bad apples who cheat. Using a line from
a federal judge about NC’s unconstitutional voting ID law, the GOP used “surgical precision” to suppress votes in a discriminatory manner.
With ALEC facilitating cookie cutter language to pass Jim Crow like voter ID laws and to promote gerry mandering at the state and federal levels, the GOP cheats with precision and prevalence so says this former Republican.
What happened in Georgia’s governor’s race last fall was criminal. I noe know Brian Kemp’s name and I associate cheating and unethical behavior with it. Keith
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Dear Keith,
Let’s face it. The numbers do not favor the GOP, the policies that the GOP champion aren’t popular, it’s likely the US economy will go south by November 2020. This means that the GOP elected officials to win any races, will have to cheat.
The turnout for voters rendering their votes for non-GOP candidates will have to be overwhelming in states like NC where the maps have been so gerrymandered to where if the votes are evenly split, 7 seats will go to GOP members and 3 to Democratic Party candidates.The US Supreme Court really let the American public down by stating this is for the US Congress to fix. The justices had to know that this is not about to be remedied with the current gridlock status within the US Congress.
It’s more important than ever that there’s record turnout in 2020.
Hugs, Gronda
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Gronda, as you know, I live in NC where the voter ID law and previous state/ federal district gerrymandering was ruled unconstitutional due to race. The most recent federal district gerrymandering is the one SCOTUS said was inappropiate but passed on judgment. Elene Kagen’s scathing dissent is dead-on accurate.
But, what should be noted, while the GOP was orchestrating such cheating, the GOP Congressional candidate had to resign after winning due to absentee ballot fraud and the state GOP party chair had to resign over a bribery issue of the state insurance commissioner.
Note the Maryland gerrymandeting was a Democrat case, while Wisconsin and Texas were GOP. I don’t care who is in charge, cheating to win is not right. The ends do not justify the means, as we now have too many extreme legislators unwilling to collaborate. Keith
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