On the eve of hearings

On the eve of the public impeachment hearings for Donald Trump’s activities it gives me pause for reflection.

Now I admit that I despise Donald Trump.  I think he is mentally ill.  I believe his beliefs are regressive and his “Make America Great Again” is code for the reintroduction of racism, social, and sexual discrimination.  Quite frankly, I think he is evil. 

I feel that it was only a matter of time before he and his minions were going to color outside the lines and do something high-handed to insure that they got what they wanted regardless of the law.  I think they had already done so but this what they got caught on.

At the same time, I do not know if it will be sufficient to remove him from office especially given the majority of Senators being Republican and support for and against impeachment being addressed along party lines.  It is also highly likely that Donald Trump will be impeached and be tried by the Senate as the majority of House Members are Democrats and the party lines are being voted there as well.

Although the Republicans are making an outcry about methods and rules of the impeachment hearings, they have a much shorter than I do.  I remember what happened almost exactly 21 years ago when the House of Representatives voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.  Only then, they were in a mad rush to do so before their lame duck session was about to expire; essentially going for zero to impeachment between the general election on the first Tuesday of November to voting for his impeachment on December 19^th.  I know they had to hurry before the new House members took office on January 3^rd, but my goodness you would think that due process was kind of rushed a little but then again that is just my take.

In any case, I am not trying to retry the Clinton impeachment, just to revisit it.  Why?  Because of all of the angst that is being expressed by the Republican legislators regarding the Trump impeachment process.  Once again, why?  They claim that the rules of engagement for Trump are unfair even though they are essentially the same as they were during the Clinton impeachment.  There was no Republican outcry then.  Quite the contrary.  They claim that it is a witch-hunt – in fact, they have used those words.  Now, I am not going to prejudge Trump but if the claims are true, I personally think that blackmailing a foreign head of state for political gain is every bit as impeachable as lying about a blowjob.  But then again, maybe that is just me.  In short, I think that there is enough credible evidence to proceed and if the claims are true, Trump should be impeached and removed from office.  At the very least, these accusations are serious enough that they should be investigated.  The misdirection of trying to identify the whistleblower or call out Hunter Biden only compounds the issue.  After all, it does not matter who the whistleblower is nor whether Hunter Biden has done anything wrong.  The only thing that should matter is what Trump did or did not do.

The scary part is that there is not even one single Republican Congressperson who thinks the same.  Not on Republican Member of Congress thinks that these accusations are serious enough to warrant investigation.  Yet, in the past, Republicans were willing to rush to impeach a President for lying about a sexual encounter.  To me this is rather an obvious example of hypocrisy.

Of special note to me are the Dirty Thirteen.  Those of those Republican Members of the House of Representatives that were there 21 years ago and voted for Impeachment of Clinton and will not even vote to for hearing on the impeachment of Trump.  For those of you who care, I have listed them below in order of seniority:

• Don Young – Alaska
• Jim Sensenbrenner – Wisconsin
• Hal Rogers – Kentucky
• Chris Smith – New Jersey
• Fred Upton – Michigan
• Ken Calvert – California
• Peter T. King – New York
• Fred Lucas – Oklahoma
• Mac Thornberry – Texas
• Robert Alderholt – Alabama
• Jim Shimkus – Illinois
• Kevin Brady – Texas
• Kay Granger – Texas

Oh, let us not forget Lindsey Graham.  Although a Senator now, he was a Congressman in 1998.  He voted for the impeachment of Clinton then and is the point man expressing the outrage against the bad, bad Democrats for deigning to impugn the good name and reputation of Trump in such a heinous way.  I guess there is a new way to spell hypocrite – L-I-N-D-S-E-Y-G-R-A-H-A-M.

I know that I am biased but the accusations against Trump are bad and if they are real he should be removed from office and it should not be political.  The fact that it seems to fall that way is a travesty.  \