Bob,
I used to rail about the advantage held by the Ruling Class, through
their lobbiests, advocating that they only visit in the home offices
of the congresspersons. But of course the power of the Dollar would
still trump(no pun intended)the common folk.
The fact is, our Constitution is showing signs of Aging. Still riding
about in a horse drawn carriage, toting a Musket and whistling when a
lady exposes her ankle. The old Constitution served the American
Oligarchy well for generations. It still serves it, but it requires
more and more control, even to the point of allowing violations to
occur.
We, that is the Ruling Class, treat the constitution like it were the
Word of God. But it's not. Some very bright folks haggled and
bartered it into existence. Today there is the need of a new
document. The problem is, just who is going to draw it up? Those in
power and who have the most at stake are not the people I trust to put
down conditions that will protect me and mine.
So should we wait until the System collapses completely, and then
build a new constitution? That doesn't seem to work well, either.
Dictators are the general result.
I have no answer, but I'm working on one. Too bad that I'm 84, and
probably will never see the outcome of our present struggle. But if I
were many years younger I might be one of those aspiring dictators.
I think I could have pulled it off, since I've studied Donald Trump
very closely.
Carl Jarvis: just kidding about studying Donald Trump.
On 10/9/19, Bob Hachey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Carl,
I strongly agree with you here.
The House will impeach, the senate will acquit and trump then will get to
play victim which will be a big help in winning re-election.
The way I see it, we ought to break up both corrupt and powerful parties and
vanquish all lobbyists from Washington DC.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2019 12:28 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: What Does "Impeachment" Mean to Democrats?
They Don't Say.
William M. Boardman has it right.
Impeachment, as it is being handled by our House of Representatives is a
three ring circus...if there were still a three ring circus to compare it
to. All that will come from the effort will be a show down between Congress
and Donald Trump. Given what I've seen so far, Donald Trump will come out
on top.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/8/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Here's an article that states what I think and what I've been hearing
on the podcasts to which I listen. I'm pleasantly surprised to see it
in RSN.
Miriam
What Does "Impeachment" Mean to Democrats? They Don't Say.
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
08 October 19
"Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is
moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I am directing
our six Committees to proceed with their investigations under that
umbrella of impeachment inquiry. The President must be held
accountable. No one is above the law."
- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, September 24, 2019
This is not encouraging.
The country has been in a deepening constitutional crisis for more
than two stormy decades and now, belatedly, the speaker is proposing an
umbrella?
Even less encouraging, when the speaker announces an umbrella of an
impeachment inquiry, the political and media classes respond as if
they're going to a New Year's Eve party rather than undertaking a
serious constitutional duty.
An umbrella? Made up of six committees? How is that supposed to work?
It's been raining for a long, long time.
Since the moment the current president was sworn in, he has been
committing more and more impeachable offenses. After more than two and
a half years of open corruption, the most thoughtful response we can
get from the US House of Representatives is an umbrella of six
committees with no formal framework?
The speaker is playing political word games, and she's surrounded by
enablers equally uncommitted to being frank and honest. What is "an
official impeachment inquiry" exactly? It's nothing. It's three
meaning-free but impressive-sounding words that reinforce the status
quo. The status quo is whatever those six committees are up to. We
don't really know what that is because they aren't eager to explain
and reporters aren't eager to inquire.
"An official impeachment inquiry" is actually nothing but empty words
that give some sort of cover to those carrying it out, whatever it
turns out to be. We shall see, but I am not encouraged.
As I said on the radio (yes, quoting myself!) two days after the
announcement of the official impeachment inquiry:
When impeachment becomes a sudden fad with no clear grounding in
principle and a narrow focus on pretty much circumstantial evidence
grounded in a bed of bipartisan corruption resting on tectonic plates
of the new cold war, I remain detached and skeptical - except the show
might be spectacular, especially if viewed from another planet (or maybe
just China).
In other words, right from the start the official impeachment inquiry
looked like an out-of-control six-ring circus with all the sideshows
clamoring for center stage and absolutely no clear way to the egress.
After two weeks, the mindless public tumult has only gotten worse. No
one has offered a cogent answer to the core question of why swamp
creatures behaving like swamp creatures in a longstanding swamp had
any real significance when they turned their swamp creature tactics on
fellow swamp creatures.
In the real world, Ukraine got its military aid (late) and the
Ukrainian president did not get any White House visit. That would be a
quid pro nunc.
Whether anyone's investigating the Bidens remains unclear, no matter
how deserved. When you're the VP of the United States and your son is
getting
$50,000 a month from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch and you don't make a
peep
- well, whatever Joe Biden thinks his behavior was, it was not an
example of integrity. And Biden still hasn't owned up to it any more
than he's owned up to his more egregious gifts to his country: the
Iraq War, Justice Clarence Thomas, and predatory credit card
companies. To the extent that the official impeachment inquiry is
designed to protect Joe Biden, it's yet another corrupt Democratic
Party scheme designed to interfere with an election and defraud the
American public.
Right now, both parties are betting there's a sucker born every minute
and that won't change. Come see the official impeachment committees
swallow their umbrellas whole without a trace. Is there any reason to
think America's elected freakshow won't keep the two-party con
spinning indefinitely? The chair of the House Intelligence Committee
can't even admit the harmless truth about his early knowledge of the
first whistleblower.
How
much of this incompetence is deliberate?
So what would an honest impeachment process look like?
The meaning of impeachment is clear - it means indicting the president
for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" in the
words of the Constitution. There are no constitutional rules for
carrying out an impeachment, so calling it an umbrella or a banana or
a roadside bomb are all allowed, even if they don't mean much.
Any serious indictment should rest on reliable evidence (as
illustrated by the Nixon impeachment and all but ignored in the
Clinton impeachment). This time around, we have Congressional leaders
who have spent years denying the evidentiary elephant in the room. Now
they suddenly leap into the morass of Ukrainian corruption, cold war
politics, and bipartisan sleaze, spouting the high hilarity of moral
dudgeon over things they studiously ignored for years.
The country doesn't need this kind of fake political theatre of such
mindless thrashing about, not if the country has any collective
determination to redeem its most important values. Of course, there's
doubt about that. But this moment, this presidency, these decades of
decline cry out for principled, clear-headed leadership that is
willing to trust the politics of truth and integrity. The umbrella
politics of the six House committees have delivered enough denial and
evasion. To call for an intellectually honest impeachment process
assumes that there are enough principled, clear-headed people in the
House prepared to take on a long, intricate, uncertain process for the
sake of the American future. Such people are not yet apparent, but perhaps
they exist.
For a serious impeachment process to succeed it needs to be
comprehensive, open-ended, and truthful. For better or worse, it is up
to the House to manage this. There is no one else. The Senate has
already rendered itself irrelevant, making removal of the president is
all but impossible, regardless of the evidence. And just as well,
since the consequence of removal is clearly undesirable, whether it
produces a President Pence or a President Pelosi.
The most meaningful timeframe now is fixed by the November 2020 election.
Between now and then the House could - if it can muster the collective
integrity - create what amounts to a year-long national teach-in on
constitutional values. There is no shortage of important issues that
have nothing to do with Biden or Ukraine. There is a host of important
issues that are not secret. Many are explored in "The Constitution
Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump" (Melville
House, 2018). This book offers more than enough arguments and evidence
to impeach this president multiple times. The authors - Ron Fein, John
Bonifaz, and Ben Clements - are all distinguished lawyers and
constitutional scholars who would provide the kind of calm,
thoughtful, articulate voices that should characterize an ideal
teach-in panel. Without that kind of integrity and honesty, we're not
likely to get helpful answers to questions like these:
Do we want to allow presidents to use their office to enrich themselves?
Do we want to allow presidents to re-write laws without Congressional
participation?
Do we want to allow presidents to attack the environment for the sake
of private interests, at the cost of the public good?
Do we want to allow presidents to deny climate science at the cost of
the public good globally?
Do we want presidents to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, rather than arbitrarily caging children against the law?
Do we want presidents to respect the rule of law and due process of law?
Do we want presidents to be accountable for their words and actions,
especially when they incite bigotry and violence?
This is not an exhaustive list. What matters most is that the
president be held accountable for the worst of his behavior, not just
some partisan character assassination of an already politically dead
challenger. Who knows? If enough Democrats can find the courage and
strength to act in the highest national interest, maybe enough
Republicans will follow suit to make it a real thing. It might even
poll well. And newly-educated voters might remove the president.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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