GUILTY! You're Free To Go!

Guilty! You're Free To Go!

Retiring Republican Senator Lamar Alexander released a statement stating the Democrat House Managers proved the Donald Trump froze aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, but he would vote no on hearing from witnesses because Trump's actions were improper and did not merit removal from office. In effect Alexander said to Trump, you're guilty and free to go. 

 

How a President getting caught withholding Congressionally approved defense assistance funds to a foreign ally to strong-arm them into announcing a false investigation into a political rival who was beating him in election polls is not impeachable is beyond me. What would Trump have to do to get impeached and removed from office by a Republican controlled Senate, give Alaska to Russia? The real problem with what Republicans are doing with Trump is that he is getting treatment the average citizen, including rabid Trump supporters, would never get in court, which is no consequence after being deemed guilty. Let that sink in, Trump won't get probation community service or have to pay restitution after being deemed guilty. Tell that to those rotting in prison for minor drug possession and other offenses far less than coercing a foreign power to interfere in United States elections.

 

 Living In The Age Of White Reparations

The complete statement from Senator Lamar Alexander is below:

 

Alexander Statement on Impeachment Witness Vote

Posted on January 30, 2020

“I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense. …The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate. 

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. …Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” – Senator Lamar Alexander

  

Washington, D.C., January 30, 2020 -- United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on his vote regarding additional evidence in the impeachment proceedings:

“I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.
“There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; he said this on television on October 3, 2019, and during his July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine. There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence.’ There is no need to consider further the frivolous second article of impeachment that would remove the president for asserting his constitutional prerogative to protect confidential conversations with his close advisers.

“It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.

“The Senate has spent nine long days considering this ‘mountain’ of evidence, the arguments of the House managers and the president’s lawyers, their answers to senators’ questions and the House record. Even if the House charges were true, they do not meet the Constitution’s ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors’ standard for an impeachable offense.

“The framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment. That is why the Constitution requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate for conviction. Yet not one House Republican voted for these articles. If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already exist. It would create the weapon of perpetual impeachment to be used against future presidents whenever the House of Representatives is of a different political party.

“Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” 

We would all hope to be so privileged to have a deciding juror like Senator Lamar Alexander if we are proved guilty but odds are that we will not get Trump justice.

Republicans Are Trump's Three Wise Monkeys

Three Wise Moneys - Republicans On Trump Impeachment

As Trump's impeachment trial, or lack there of, looms in the Senate, Republican Senators who will take an oath to be impartial jurors play their roles as one of Donald Trump's Three Wise Monkeys. The Three Wise Monkeys saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil because they had their hands covering their ears, mouth and eyes. The principles behind the Three Wise Monkeys may date back to hundreds of years BC before taking its final form in Japan. The framers of the U.S Constitution never thought a co-equal branch of government created to be a check on an out of control Executive Branch would be controlled by Three Wise Monkeys and become subservient to the Executive Branch to the point of being jointly complicit in covering up and enabling constitutional breaches including inviting foreign interference in our elections to advantage a sitting President. 

 

 

Living in The Age of White Reparations 

As the fourth estate of the press revealed that Trump rolled over his top advisors after they advised him not to withhold congressionally approved aid to Ukraine the truth is sitting in front of their faces to see, read and hear. Trump asked the President of Ukraine to, "do him a favor though" in order to get aid and that favor was to announce an investigation into his rival Joe Biden and his son. If this impeachment trial is like the Brett Kavanaugh FBI investigation for his confirmation to the Supreme Court when people called and went to the FBI with information that was ignored because it was outside the very narrow scope defined by the White House, then we no longer have three co-equal branches of government. If the Senate conducts a rigged sham impeachment trial and clears Donald Trump summarily then we no longer have a President, but an unchecked and untouchable head of state who could wreak havoc for the rest of his current term and do untold damage if reelected with no risk of constitutional restraint or reelection.

 

 

Photo of Three Wise Monkeys 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rayinmanila/42687150801

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

     

Impeachment: If Soldiers Face Death, Senators Can Face Witnesses To Preserve America

Work of  U.S federal government, in the public domain in the United States

In the Constitution Congress has the sole power to declare war. In recent years, Presidents have entered the United States in multiple wars without Congressional declarations of war. When the United States enters a war the expectation is for those in military service to fight in those conflicts and if required, to give their lives in combat. Military members, members of Congress and the President take an oath that all contain these words, "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  

Trump: Nixon on Steroids

 

Congress and Presidents have sent Americans to face deaths in wars foreign and domestic to maintain our republic! The least they can do is face the truth, witnesses and voters to make sure we protect our republic from foreign powers being invited to interfere in our elections going forward! Impeachment is not a political party exercise, but an emergency button to be pushed if a President, of any political party, is violating his oath of office and placing our republic in peril. We expect military men and women to sacrifice their lives in order to protect our freedoms, among those, to have free and fair elections free from foreign influence. The United States was born because it broke away from foreign rule through a bloody war and it should be obvious why an invitation by a sitting U.S. President, elected under a cloud of election interference by Russia, to the President of another country to assist him in an upcoming election by smearing his political opponent.

 

If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to hear key fact witnesses before acquitting President Donald Trump of the articles of impeachment drawn against him, then the Senate has lost its moral authority to send brave Americans to their deaths in defense of their right to display such moral cowardice in a free country.   

Trump's War Against The America Dream

Fear and loathing of a fully realized version of the United States where the words of both Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. come into full fruition drove frightened voters to seek refuge in a retrograde vision of America from a morally bankrupt racist and elevate him to be President of the United States.

 

Thomas Jefferson wrote as part of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Martin Luther King Jr. said he dreamed of a day when people would not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. The 45th President of the United States, Donald John Trump, is fighting against the realization of Jefferson's and King's words and used the fear of the day that is coming where more minorities will be counted as Americans than Whites. Using words and tactics that stoked fear of a darker America among the insecure, Trump drew out the darkness to gain enough votes in areas left behind by a changing economy to secure a victory in the electoral college while being rejected by three million more voters nationally than voted for him.

 Trump - Nixon on Steroids

Since taking the oath of office Trump has constantly sought to divide and pit Americans against each other on the basis of race, religion, ideology, sexual orientation and political party. Trump has called some immigrants vermin and infestations. Trump has described some countries certain immigrants came from as shitholes. Trump characterized predominantly Black athletes who knelt to protest police brutality against Blacks as sons of bitches while saying White Supremacists involved in violence in Charlottesville, NC were fine people. Trump tweeted about four minority first year Democrat Congresswomen and said, "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken crime infested places from which they came."

Trump continually seeks new lows and a twitter attack against Black Congressman Elijah Cummings took him there. Trump tweeted, "Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place." Later Trump stated ""no human being would want to live there."

Over two and one half years since becoming President Trump has never presented he was even pretending to represent the entire country, but he is stoking more racial, cultural and economic division than ever while throwing toxic red meat to his base.

In truth Trump wants the American dream to the reserved for those he deems deserve it, and it's not his lower income White supporters that shout and chant at his rallies and survive on a steady diet of FOX News. Trump abhors Dr. King's vision of America and rejects Thomas Jefferson's view of equality, but he wants Jefferson's America when wealthy White men ruled unchallenged. Voting with a foreboding of an inevitably different America pushing them aside caused a corrupt man to be entrusted with unchecked power and shielded from criminal repercussions due to the office he held. Trump is now attempting to destroy the United States as it exists to serve the needs of his greed, ego and powerful enablers, both foreign and domestic.

If Trump and his enablers get what they want and the United States is left in tatters in their wake, in their view, it is a small price to pay.

Trump Budget Punches Poor, Sick, Children & Trump Supporters In The Throat

President Donald J. Trump

While President Donald Trump was traveling abroad his 2018 Federal budget was released. Straight from the White House website it is titled:

"President Trump's Taxpayer First Budget

President Trump's first proposed budget shows respect for the people who pay the bills. The administration's proposal reverses the damaging trends from previous administrations by putting our nation's budget back into balance and reducing our debt through fiscally conservative principles, all the while delivering on President Trump's campaign promise not to cut Social Security retirement or Medicare. The budget's combination of regulatory, tax, and welfare reforms will provide opportunities for economic growth and creation." source : https://www.whitehouse.gov/taxpayers-first

The above is not a joke, it is directly from the White House website. A simple translation of that title and subtext is that rich people are paying the bills and deserve the spoils. Some budget bullet points:

• $3.6 trillion in cuts over 10 years
• Repeal and replace Obamacare - $250 Billion saving (Medicaid cut)
• Reform Medicaid by giving States the choice between a per capita cap and a block grant - save $610 billion over 10 years (Medicaid cut)
• The Budget proposes a series of reforms to SNAP (food stamps)  that  close  eligibility  loopholes,  target benefits  to  the  neediest  households,  and  require able-bodied adults to work. Increase state benefit match to 23% by 2023.
• The Budget proposes a series of reforms to SNAP (food stamps)  that  close  eligibility  loopholes,  target benefits  to  the  neediest  households,  and  require able-bodied adults to work. Increase state benefit match to 23% by 2023. (translation - Kick people off food stamps)
•  Reform Disability Programs. The Budget proposes to reform disability insurance programs to promote greater LFP(Labor Force Participation). (translation - Kick people off Social Security Disability Insurance) 
• Reform Federal Employees Retirement Benefits - increasing employee payments to the defined benefit Federal Employee Retirement System pension and reducing  or eliminating cost-of-living adjustments for existing and  future retirees
• Extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) - extended through 2019 with higher state matching in future.
• Reform Student Loan Programs - Budget eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, establishes reforms to  guarantee that all borrowers in IDR pay an equitable share of their income, and eliminates subsidized loans

These are the losers in Trump's 2018 budget, the poor(including children), sick and elderly through Medicaid and social program cuts. Rural areas where a lot of Trump voters that depend on Medicaid and Obamacare live, lose big league.

Who wins in Trump's 2018 budget. Defense spending increase of $52 billion to $639 billion. Immigration and Border security get $71.8 billion. The wealthy get an elimination of the estate tax penalty and a reduction of the business tax rate.  

Source: Trump Budget

   

Mick Mulvaney, White House Director of management and Budget wrote said in an article published in the Miami Herald, that many social program users were stealing from taxpayers footing the bills because they didn't intent to pay it back. Mulvaney's attitude is a throwback to the era of the welfare queen talk of years gone by, except the reality is that the person being hurt is an elderly White woman in rural America instead of the stereotypical Black woman of urban legends.

Trump - Nixon on Steroids - Amazon.com