Eugene Robinson, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote this persuasive commentary:
What would a president have to do, hypothetically, to get this Congress to impeach him?
Obstruct a Justice Department investigation, perhaps? No, apparently that’s not enough. What about playing footsie with a hostile foreign power? Abusing his office to settle personal grievances? Using instruments of the state, including the justice system, to attack his perceived political opponents? Aligning the nation with murderous foreign dictators while forsaking democracy and human rights? Violating campaign-finance laws with disguised hush-money payments to alleged paramours? Giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Defying requests and subpoenas from congressional committees charged with oversight? Refusing to protect our electoral system from malign foreign interference? Cruelly ripping young children away from their asylum-seeking parents? Lying constantly and shamelessly to the American people, to the point where not a single word he says or writes can be believed?
President Trump has done all of this and more. If he doesn’t warrant the opening of an impeachment inquiry, what president ever would?
Impeachment is a risky strategy, many say, because it will excite Trump’s mean-spirited base. But aren’t they already at fever pitch, waiting for the next word or tweet from him?
Impeachment will fail, they say, because the Senate will never vote too convict. That is true, or that may be true, but since Trump has stonewalled the House of Representatives and refused to turn over any documents or to allow anyone in his administration to testify, an impeachment may be the only way that the House can fulfill its Constitutional duty of oversight. Trump has shredded the Constitution by treating the House as a nuisance, not a co-equal part of the federal government.
Nancy Pelosi once said off-handedly that Trump was “self-impeaching.” I took that to mean that his utter contempt for the Constitution was forcing the House to impeach him. I hope they oblige him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I agree with Eugene Robinson!
Let’s judge the president by what is going on NOW while he is in office. He was elected to office in spite of his playboy attics, bankruptcy’s, wealth or business dealings As I read this article I could see Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and Obama in it. Presidential privilege is just now being used after constant harassment that other presidents did not experience like he has had to endure. Now, he has to fight for the office of the presidency! He promised the clear the swamp…but that leaves a huge number of alligators. Impeachment calls faced him the day after he was elected (The DOJ insurance policy) and he has been fighting every minute since. Donald Trump did not cause a division in this country. The rhetoric coming from the Trump haters and the media are causing division in this country.
We have learned that our DOJ was corrupted. We have learned that the prior administration knew what the Russians were up to. We learned that the Democratic party colluded with the Russians against Trump ( Steele dossier). Why not give the president a chance and see how it goes? He does not want war. He is businessman and a pragmatist. He has done things that would infuriate both conservatives and liberals. He is NOT a politician and has a style all his own. Let Trump be Trump! I believe that he carries himself in other countries admirably. His wife and family members are exceptional people. He is obviously not ashamed of America. He is a strong, independent leader and if he intimidates the rest of the world…so be it…their problem! Many like his style. Get over it! This is only an 8 year job.
He has been working hard to address problems that prior administrations have just made worse or punted down the road. Because of the inability of the Congress to address problems that he has exposed we are seeing a disgusting, humanitarian, and medical, situation on the border, in sanctuary cities and states. We cannot take in the world. We are failing miserably at taking care of our own citizens. Trump’s “manufactured crises” are REAL and Congress is focused on impeachment rather than careing for America. Fact Checker and Snoops are doing over time coming up with lies he has been credited with. Many of these are simply numbers that do not change the facts. I wish Fact checker was available from the time of Clinton on, so we could make a valid comparison. Did not the SCOTUS declare that we could not go after congress for lies they make?
Name calling will do nothing to win over the silent majority who are laying low for now. Even in Conservative areas, we speak among ourselves but are not that vocal (ok, we are cowardly, but we don’t want to be attacked or have our property destroyed or cause a fight). You can call us “satanic, cultists, all the phobes (lump them together, they mean nothing now), idiots, stupid, lacking principals, soulless etc. “. I expect my comments here to be royally vilified. Nearly 1/2 the country do not agree with you and it is quietly increasing. Don’t say “but the 3, million people Hillary won”…too much evidence speaks to illegal voting. The truth will always come out. Calm down and wait it out.
How about talking about education…instead of politics ?
April,
Donald Trump is the Master of the Swamp. He has ousted ethics from government. Now it is only about greed. What role models do we have for our children? A liar and braggart who despises our allies and adores our enemies.
I believe that he carries himself in other countries admirably. His wife and family members are exceptional people.
Where do you get your news? Must be from Fox since that is Trump’s official TV propaganda network.
I do not seeing cutting help for needy people as doing something exceptional. Cutting food from the poor is not a worthy goal. Allowing the CFPB to charge interest rates of 300% to poor people should not be happening. Recalculating the office poverty level just to keep people from getting assistance is nothing but mean. Denying housing assistance is mean. Not allowing trans people to use homeless shelters is mean. Requiring work for poor people to get Medicaid is mean since some people are dropped because of not understanding what is required.
Obviously having SNAP, Medicaid, energy assistance and school lunches — reduced or eliminated is just fine.
1.) The Department of Agriculture has called for stricter enforcement of a requirement that able-bodied adults work, volunteer or get job training for at least 20 hours a week to continue getting their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, after three months.
2.) The Department of Agriculture is weighing a rule to make it harder for people to qualify for both SNAP and other welfare assistance. Anti-poverty advocates argue that changing that would penalize hundreds of thousands of working poor families by taking away their food aid just as they start earning enough to pay for other living expenses, such as child care and housing.
3.)The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed rescinding an Obama-era regulation that would require payday lenders to determine whether a borrower has the ability to repay the loan. That regulation, which the Trump administration has delayed until next year, was intended to prevent low-income borrowers from becoming saddled with ballooning debt because payday loans can carry annual interest rates of 300% or more. Consumer advocates say low-income individuals often have to take out new payday loans to pay off earlier ones.
4.) The Office of Management and Budget is considering whether to recalculate the official poverty line using a different inflation measure. Critics say the change… would lead to millions of people seeing their government benefits — such as SNAP, Medicaid, energy assistance and school lunches — reduced or eliminated.
5.)The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a rule that would deny housing assistance to families with one or more members who are undocumented immigrants.
6.) The Agriculture Department is expected to propose a rule later this year similar to HUD’s proposal, to restrict the use of rural housing assistance for households that have one or more members who are undocumented immigrants.
7.) HUD has proposed that the operators of federally funded homeless shelters be allowed to determine which services transgender individuals can use. Operators could base their decisions on their religious beliefs, among other factors. Critics say that if the rule is adopted, transgender individuals could be kicked out of shelters or forced to use ones that serve a gender they do not identify with.
8.) The administration has approved waivers allowing eight states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. It will deny low-income families much-needed medical aid. About 18,000 Arkansas residents lost their Medicaid coverage when the work requirements went into effect in that state last year.
9.) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has proposed adding a question to the 2020 census asking whether an individual is a U.S. citizen. Civil rights groups argue that the question will discourage immigrant and noncitizen households from participating in the census.
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“I think he’s the weakest mentally,” Trump said of Biden. In Trump’s world he is also “Sleepy Joe”.
Trump is FULL of rotten names for almost everyone. All it takes is for anyone to be critical or to be in competition and, voila, just like magic, out comes a filthy name or some type of horrible connection.
Nobody honorable is exempt from the abuse. Royalty in England are now ‘nasty’. Politicians are fodder. Movie stars are ripe for filth. Immigrants are rapists and drug dealers. McCain was imprisoned and obviously had to be put down.
Of course, Neo-Nazi’s are ‘very fine people’. Putin can do no wrong. He received love letters from Kim Jong Un.
I wish for the days when we had a president who respected people and wasn’t a pathological liar. I’d even settle for one who could speak decent English and uses complete sentences without meandering all over the place changing subjects. Vilification of others is NOT being presidential.
“Let’s judge the president by what is going on NOW while he is in office. ”
Okay, here is a judgement about how Trump is performing NOW. I don’t often agree with Friedman but he is speaking for me on the issue of climate chaos.
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Connect the Dots to See Where Trump’s Taking Us
By Thomas L. Friedman
The direction and results are obvious.
…Trump is trying to lower auto emission/mileage standards that were making our car companies more competitive against efficient Chinese and Japanese automakers — and making our air cleaner — while Trump is signing multibillion-dollar bailouts for farmers and Air Force bases ravaged by extreme weather that has been amplified by climate change that is amplified by carbon pollution, while Trump is having his bureaucrats hide evidence of climate change and while Trump is forcing Americans to pay billions in tariffs on Chinese imports to protect against, among other things, future competition from Chinese electric vehicles that have zero emissions and zero oil consumption.
This is not strategic. This is not winning. This is not patriotic. It’s just foolish, destructive and cynical.
Here is another GREAT move by Trump and the GOP. The US needed corporate tax reform but we got corporate tax cuts. What is the justification for this happening?
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Last year, big businesses paid $91 billion less in taxes than they had in 2017, prior to the new law’s passage.
TCJA cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent without fixing loopholes that corporations have long exploited.
Repeat after me: Trump is NOT going to be impeached by this House, no matter what columnists happen to hope for.
Even Satan himself would not be impeached under the current Democratic leadership
“I know he’s very bad, but impeachment is simply off the table for Satan. We need the Satanic vote in swing states, you know” — Nancy Pelosi
Sorry, you may be right, but it is also very possible that the House will impeach.
It’s funny because the people I hear who are shouting against impeachment seem to be the progressive ones who keep insisting it will distract from the campaign.
Do you want the House to impeach Trump? (I do).
I like Eugene Robinson. I don’t understand people who support Trump. They are a cult and their ‘great leader’ can do no wrong. Faux ‘news’ and Sinclair are a large part of the problem. Any lie repeated often enough becomes a ‘truth’ in Trumpland.
Seriously, if the FBI can’t catch the biggest crook in the country, operating in broad daylight, what good are they?
yup
Do we know that they haven’t? It’s their job to collect the evidence. I’m pretty sure they have done that. What Congress does with that evidence is not the FBI’s call.
If the Dems in the House won’t stand up against this list of horrors, what will they stand for? The longer they wait, the more they show themselves to be all about the political calculus and entirely lacking in principle, just like the Republicans participating in the Trump Limbo Party. How low, how low, how low will they go.
Would impeachment pass in the Senate? Obviously not. Is it important, nonetheless, for the House to do this? Obviously. It needs to go on record that the behaviors of this misadministration are not acceptable, are completely beyond the pale.
The Dems definitely lack principle. If they start Impeachment hearings, everything “they” have done will be exposed and they will look like kids with their hands caught in the cookie jar, too. Dems are just as bad as Republicans and have written some fine loopholes into law so that they can feed their need for greed. Dems don’t have the guts to come clean and do the right thing for the common good. I’m feelin’ the Bern!!! It’s time to clean house….both of them!!!
Eugene Robinson: In myriad ways — beyond those illuminated by Mueller — Trump has disgraced the office of president and sullied the nation’s honor. He’s not a disrupter; he’s a destroyer who tears institutions down and obliterates hallowed ideals with no interest in replacing them — no interest at all, really, except self-interest.
The Trump era will end someday, and we’ll all have to account for what we did, or failed to do, to fight for our nation’s soul.
Well said, Carol!
Agree!
In my humble opinion, the concept of a “nation’s soul” is as much a fiction as “American exceptionalism,” “manifest destiny,” and “baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie.” I’m rereading Douglas Blackmon’s “Slavery By Another Name”, currently watching Harlan County USA, and watching this country’s so-called constitutional principles die as significant numbers of Americans cheer the process on. The Washington Post, for which Robinson writes, has adopted the sub-masthead “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” For editorial accuracy, I would suggest it dies in front of our very eyes.
Agreed.
Polls don’t always mean much but here is a recent one. I am against Biden, even though I have a photo on my desk of Biden and me smiling at the camera.
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The latest poll of Iowa voters sparked reactions from several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, who said the large primary field means even candidates with relatively low numbers are viable contenders.
The benchmark Des Moines Register/CNN poll, released Saturday night, showed former Vice President Joe Biden’s lead narrowing, though he retained a significant advantage with 24 percent support. Second place was a three-way statistical tie, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 15 percent and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 14 percent.
Los dimocrapos no tienen cojones.
Duane E Swacker: Yep. Even my rotten Spanish agrees with you.
Perhaps it’s the constitution that is flawed.
Food for thought…
There is NO end to the damage this administration is willing to undertake. Why not sell national security and munitions to the Saudi’s? Why not endanger all of our health by continuing to destroy the environment? It NEVER ends.
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The Trump administration is continuing its potentially volatile courtship of dictators around the world this week. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress that the Trump team would be moving ahead with $8 billion in controversial arms sales to interests including Saudi Arabia without an otherwise legally mandated Congressional review process because, according to him, there is a national emergency situation mandating they act.
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EPA’s 3 dirty tricks to undermine regulation (and why they probably won’t work)
By Richard L. Revesz on Jun 9, 2019
…But the Environmental Protection Agency has recently decided it will undertake a new approach in its effort to launch a wholesale attack on environmental regulation: It will change the way it collects and processes data, to provide better justification to dismantle the analytical foundation of its rules. These moves fly in the face of established economics and health sciences, and are inconsistent with the practices of administrations of both parties over four decades. The consequences for the environment and public health could be disastrous. But even as this approach might be more deliberate, these actions are unlikely to survive court challenges as well.
In the coming weeks, EPA plans to finalize vastly weakened versions of two important climate rules: a regulation controlling greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and standards to limit emissions from vehicles. The draft proposals for the Trump administration’s revisions to each of these rules were rife with analytical problems. In the power plant rule revision, the agency exercised its discretion in a manner that imposed billions of dollars’ worth of net harm on the American public. And the vehicle rule analysis is justified by claims about improved safety that rest on a wholly implausible and discredited economic analysis: It assumes that people will buy more — as opposed to fewer — vehicles as they become more expensive…
Perhaps sensing urgency as these losses mount and the president’s term slips away, EPA appears to be pivoting from a retail to a wholesale attack on environmental standards. The agency has taken steps to begin an assault on the core foundations of environmental rule-making, signaling that it plans to alter the building blocks of the economic analysis that underlies its rules…
Read more on Grist:
https://grist.org/article/the-floor-of-the-gulf-of-mexico-could-be-future-home-to-a-lot-of-carbon/?utm_campaign=btns&utm_source=share&utm_medium=email
Very good commentary in The Atlantic by former sports commentator Jemele Hill that asks a question Democrats must confront: is the timidity of Biden (and Pelosi and other “centrist” Democrats) in the face of the fascism of Individual-1 and his cult just as dangerous, if not more so, than everything you describe in your comments here?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/biden-shows-trump-has-shaken-democrats-faith/591337/?utm_medium=offsite&utm_source=yahoo&utm_campaign=yahoo-non-hosted&yptr=yahoo
GregB: I think a lot of voters are ‘choosing’ Biden because he is a familiar name. How many people take the time to know what each candidate stands for politically? We have a lazy electorate. Why else would a con man like Trump be elected?
“More than likely, the Democratic nominee for president won’t be the person with the best and most progressive ideas, or the person most capable of galvanizing a fractured country.”
This is just voter laziness combined with a big dose of ignorance brought on by a media that DOESN’T want progressive ideas. Someone bland like Biden might get elected. Just wait until the media drags Bernie and Warren down. I’m sure something will be dug up or invented.
…the pro-impeachment crowd has continued to swell, with 58 House Democrats supporting opening an impeachment inquiry. One group that is largely missing from the group, however, are swing-state freshmen who helped the party retake the House last fall.
According to Cristina Marcos, only one Democrat who flipped a GOP-held seat last November — Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) — supports impeaching the president. Some members, including Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), believe some Democrats are further along that they’ve let on about impeachment but don’t want to get ahead of Pelosi and the leadership team.
Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) recently told CNN that while she is still not on board with impeachment, it’s on her mind more than it was previously.
“To tell you the truth, I have been thinking more and more about when it would be appropriate to start the inquiry,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “I’ve read [special counsel Robert Mueller’s] report. There is clear evidence that this president has obstructed justice, and I think that there have to be serious consequences.
How long do we have to suffer from a pathological liar?
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Analysis | President Trump has made 10,796 false or misleading claims over 869 days
June 10
President Trump’s pitter-patter of exaggerated numbers, unwarranted boasting and outright falsehoods has continued at a remarkable pace. As of June 7, his 869th day in office, the president has made 10,796 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement the president has uttered.
The president crossed the 10,000 threshold on April 26 and he has been averaging about 16 fishy claims a day since then. From the start of his presidency, he has averaged about 12 such claims a day.
About one-fifth of these claims are about immigration, his signature issue — a percentage that has grown since the government shut down over funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, his most repeated claim — 172 times — is that his border wall is being built. Congress balked at funding the concrete barrier he envisioned, so he has tried to pitch bollard fencing and repairs of existing barriers as “a wall.”
False or misleading claims about trade and the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign each account more about 10 percent of the total.
Trump’s penchant for repeating false claims is demonstrated by the fact that The Fact Checker database has recorded more than 300 instances in which he has repeated a variation of the same claim at least three times. He also now has earned 21 “Bottomless Pinocchios,” claims that have earned Three or Four Pinocchios and which have been repeated at least 20 times.
The president’s interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Channel during the D-Day commemorations on June 6 is emblematic of his approach to the facts. Here’s a sampling of some of his claims, drawn from the database:
“They [Mexico] send in $500 billion worth of drugs, they kill 100,000 people, they ruin a million families every year if you look at that, that’s really an invasion without the guns.”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/10/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.542522849f7a
What a waste of money on the orange fool. It costs $3.4 million in security every time he goes golfing at one of his resorts. Hope he ends up in prison so we don’t have to pay this amount for his upkeep. Big deal that he isn’t keeping his salary. He’s making all sorts of money that should be declared illegal.
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What is the salary for the President of the United States?
Being the president of the United States pays well at $400,000 a year, according to Title 3 of the U.S. Code. In addition, presidents also receive a $100,000 travel stipend; $50,000 annual expense account; and a whopping $19,000 to cover entertainment. There are plenty of other perks that come with the job, like free transportation and housing in some sweet digs. But the benefits don’t stop when the president finishes up their term either, as they receive a $200,000 annual pension and free official travel. Since the code’s creation, the role has seen five pay raises from its original salary of $25,000 yearly. That wasn’t chump change at the time, however, as it was roughly $600,000 in today’s terms.
Trump: “I was really being tough and so was he,” he said. “And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love. No really. He wrote me beautiful letters.”
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Hundreds of North Korea Public Execution Sites Identified in Report Exposing Brutal Methods
A shocking new report claims families of the condemned are forced to watch the killings, including young children.
More than 300 sites used by the North Korean government to publicly execute its citizens have been identified in a new report. A South Korean nonprofit called Transitional Justice Working Group says it interviewed around 600 North Korean defectors over four years to reach its shocking findings. Like all reports coming out of North Korea, it is difficult to verify these claims. Overall, 318 execution sites were identified—some near markets, others near schools, and also some near sports grounds—and crowds of more than 1,000 people frequently attend the killings. Sometimes, the families of those being executed are forced to watch, including one 7-year-old boy. One defector held in a labor camp in the early 2000s claimed 80 inmates were made to watch the killing of three women charged with trying to escape to China, during which a security officer allegedly shouted to the crowd: “This could happen to you.” The crimes that led to people being put to death also included stealing a cow and watching South Korean TV.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-korea-hundreds-of-public-execution-sites-identified-in-report-exposing-brutal-methods?source=email&via=desktop
Today’s Acronym — LAGTAC — Let’s All Give Trump A Chance
❝ We have to help ourselves to rebuild Germany. I appeal to you to give Chancellor Hitler a chance. We have lost the war and many of you want to live in peace now, to have a job and to rebuild your homes. Please give the Chancellor a chance. You might not be in agreement with all he says. However, if he can accomplish what he says he can do, I for one am willing to give him a try.❞
☞ Gad Meiry • The Journey from Essen