Impeachment

Demonization and Polarization Gone Amuck: The Attacks On Hillary Clinton

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The demonization and polarization that has developed around Hillary Clinton has gone amuck!

No public figure has been put through so much character assassination and disrespect as the dignified, courageous next President of the United States.

She has been accused of corruption, malfeasance, and every crime that any sick, demented person can conjure up.

She has faced the most dangerous and mentally unstable opponent in all of American history, but has refused to get down into the gutter with Donald Trump.

She faces the likelihood of possible investigation and impeachment by vengeful, despicable Republicans, but she will emerge with her grace and reputation unsullied, except by the lowest scum imaginable in the extremist right wing party that the Republicans have become.

She will fight tooth and nail for the American people, and will continue the great work of the 44th President, Barack Obama, who has campaigned for her like no previous President has done for his designated successor of his party.

A great moment is coming on Tuesday night, probably by 11 pm, and the decent people in America will rejoice in the election of the first woman President of the United States, and the 45th President!

Mike Huckabee, The Supreme Court, And The “Supreme Being”!

Ronald 1 Comment

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a candidate for the Presidency, and a former preacher as well, is going off the deep end in his vehement opposition to gay marriage.

Apparently, Mike Huckabee believes that the American people do not need to obey judges and the federal courts, and the Supreme Court, if they do not like or agree with their decisions.

If Barack Obama were to say this, he would be pushed toward impeachment, but Mike Huckabee is promoting disobedience of the judiciary, and shows total ignorance of our legal history!

What he is advocating, taken to its extreme, would mean that the Citizens United case would be ignored, and that billionaires would not be able to distort our election process, something any sensible person would advocate, but the only way to overcome this is by constitutional amendment!

So if gay marriage is made legal in all of America at the end of June, the only way to overcome it is to bring about a similar constitutional amendment.

The same goes for those who are upset about interracial marriage, civil rights laws, the lax enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, racial integration, and a whole host of other “objectionable” decisions made by the courts and the Supreme Court over 226 years of our history!

Mike Huckabee demonstrates his ignorance of our history, and of the significance of Chief Justice John Marshall, and of “judicial review” and the famous Supreme Court case, Marbury V. Madison in 1803.

Presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and really ALL Presidents; and many other government figures over the years; and citizens of America throughout its history, have denounced Supreme Court decisions!

BUT the only alternative is a constitutional amendment, ladies and gentlemen, and for any Presidential candidate or President to call for defiance of the Supreme Court is grounds for impeachment and removal from office.

In America, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter, good or bad, and really, it is both, depending on the issue and how people perceive it!

We are NOT a theocracy, and the “Supreme Being”, that Mike Huckabee advocates, is NOT the final arbiter of constitutional cases, and never has been! Thank goodness for that, as it would take away the democracy that America has evolved into over more than two centuries of American history!

Right Wing Hate For Barack Obama Far Surpasses Any Criticism Of Any Earlier President!

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The right wing hate, led by the Tea Party Movement, for President Barack Obama, has reached the point of no return, and has FAR surpassed any criticism of any earlier President!

Whether it is talk radio, with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and others of their ilk; or Fox News Channel spewing poison and lies consistently; or the right wing think tanks, headed by the Heritage Foundation and others who distort facts and have an agenda to promote an oligarchy; or the super wealthy, such as the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and others who are trying to destroy the middle class and promote their own profits at the expense of the entire nation; or the conservative journals of opinion, such as the Weekly Standard and the National Review, which promote their extremist agenda; or the lunatic House members, such as Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Steve King and others; or the right wing extremist Senators, including Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, newly elected Thom Tillis and Joni Ernst and others; as well as the leadership of many corporations and other special interests—there is a concerted campaign to destroy Barack Obama, with many wishing for his demise, meaning his death by whatever means possible.

Obama is more threatened now than any President since Abraham Lincoln, and in many respects, more than Lincoln, since the population is ten times what it was during the Civil War 150 years ago!

The venom, disrespect, racism, hatred, and accusations against Barack Obama have not had any limits. He has been accused of being a Muslim, a Kenyan, an Indonesian, anti Semitic, a racist against whites, a person who is bisexual, a gay man, an illegal drug abuser, having a mother who was a whore, having a different father who was a black nationalist, and much more.

Obama has been called an Emperor, a King, an abuser of Presidential power, but at the same time, he is weak and wimpy.

Sensible people see Obama as a moderate Republican of twenty to thirty years ago, not at all extreme, as Bruce Bartlett who worked for Ronald Reagan has said, who also says in many ways Obama is a traditional conservative, who has not done what liberals and progressives have wanted him to do.

On issues of human rights, Obama has been more aggressive, such as labor rights, civil rights, and gay and lesbian rights. On issues of importance to the future beyond our own time, he has supported the need for an aggressive policy on environmental protection.

But Obama has pushed a health care plan that the Heritage Foundation and Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole backed twenty years ago, giving health care companies control over health care, not exactly radical in nature, although depicted as such.

Obama has been attacked and criticized for every sin and fault imaginable, including wearing a tan suit; going on vacation (actually less than any recent President); using a veto power that he has only used twice; using executive orders less than any recent President; being unwilling to engage us in more wars and interventions, etc.

Through all the personal and policy attacks, Obama has always acted with dignity and calm, annoying the hell out of his critics, who want him to be the “angry black man”, and the leaders of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, give him no respect at all.

And now, the idea is being suggested by the despicable editor Richard Lowry of the National Review, that John Boehner decide not to invite the President to give his State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress!

Go ahead, right wingers, do exactly that, and the President will speak instead from the Oval Office, and will win public opinion, and show once and for all what the right wing nuts represent! If he chooses to denounce, finally, his right wing critics, who have gone beyond the pale in so many ways, it will boost his public opinion rating, just as Bill Clinton’s ratings went up after the impeachment effort against him in 1998-1999!

Expect that Obama will face impeachment by this right wing crowd, but he will come out shining as a result, and will not be removed from office. All it will do is show the Republican Party and the right wing for what they are–despicable hate mongers who will stop at nothing to destroy the 44th President of the United States!

The greatest fear is not impeachment, or not being invited to speak before a joint session of Congress, but the dangers against his life that Barack Obama faces every day, encouraged on in spirit, if not in direct statements publicly, by the opposition, which, again, is more hateful and vehement than any time since at least the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln!

The Republican “Insane Asylum” Rears Its Ugly Head!

Ronald 1 Comment

The Republican Party is reveling in its midterm victories, but the victory will be short lived, as already, the GOP is self destructing in its reaction to the expected move of President Obama on immigration reform sometime soon.

Talk of impeachment of President Obama is rampant, along with threats to shut down the government once again, even though that was harmful to the Republicans, and hurt the American economy.

Obama is also infuriating right wingers with his plan to veto the Keystone XL Pipeline, if the Senate approves the construction of this environmentally damaging project, which will create few jobs, and contradict treaties with native American tribes, including the Rosebud Sioux of South Dakota.

And potential Presidential candidates are acting as if they are patients in the “insane asylum”!

One example is former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who advocates that we promote the kind of racial harmony that existed when Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms were alive! Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority and then the Christian Coalition, and Helms, Republican Senator from North Carolina, did just the opposite of what Santorum claims, and makes us realize that Santorum is from a parallel universe!

Another example is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who was perceived as moderate conservative in 2008, but then sold his soul by going to Fox News Channel, and has said reckless and dangerous things since. He is now on a speech tour stating that America is moving toward becoming Nazi Germany under Barack Obama!

Interesting and crazy statement, as it is precisely people like Santorum and Huckabee, and Fox News Channel, the Heritage Foundation, and the Tea Party Movement, who are moving us closer to Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, with their reckless attacks on Obama.

And yet we thought that Obama was a Communist, a Socialist, a Kenyan, an Indonesian, a black power racist–and now, suddenly, he is on the other side of the political spectrum with Nazism and Fascism, even though he is African American, and Nazis and Fascists would be out to kill people of so called “inferior” races!

This demonstrates how nuts and looney the GOP is becoming, and they will discover that their extremism, racism, nativism, misogyny, and homophobia will destroy their Senate majority and chances for the Presidency in 2016 and beyond!

Executive Orders On Immigration Common Since Eisenhower Under Every President!

Ronald 2 Comments

The major controversy over immigration reform is reaching a fever pitch, with President Obama ready to issue executive orders if Congress does not take action by the end of 2014.

The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill 68-32, but the House will not consider it due to Tea Party extremists, so Obama is ready to do what he feels is essential.

There is nothing illegal about the use of executive orders, whether for immigration or any other issue, as it is a common thread throughout American history.

Every President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has utilized executive orders on immigration without exception, and only now is there the threat of impeachment if Obama does the same!

So the answer is NOT to back off, but move forward and do it, and know that impeachment is possible without any justification, as it was with Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, but progress on immigration reform is essential NOW!

The President must NOT allow himself to be intimidated by the bullying of Republican leadership, and if they are crass enough to move to impeach him on that basis, they will suffer the repudiation of the American people, and make Obama a hero, much like occurred with Bill Clinton after his impeachment at the end of 1998.

So bring it on, Right Wing and Republicans! Show just what you are, and condemn your reputation in history!

Disturbing Statistics On The Midterm Elections Of 2014: The Battle Cry For Progressives And Democrats!

Ronald 3 Comments

Despite the economic improvements under Barack Obama and the obstructionism of the Republican Party for four years, the GOP won control of both houses of Congress, and reelected many Tea Party Governors, who by all sane judgements, should have been defeated.

Beyond that, 30 state legislatures now are controlled by the Republican Party; two thirds of state legislators nationally are Republicans; 31 states have Republican Governors; and the Republicans have a greater number of seats in the House of Representatives than they have had since 1928, when Herbert Hoover was elected, soon to be followed by the Great Depression.

And the percentage of voters participating was the lowest in any midterm election since 1942, in the midst of World War II, only about a third of the voting electorate.

This midterm was dominated by people over 45, and particularly over 65, who were heavily white and registered Republican, while traditional Democratic voting groups–African Americans, Latinos, women, those under 45, and those supportive of labor rights and the environment—stayed home in large numbers, not realizing the importance of voting.

If left to their own desires, the Republican Party, the Tea Party Movement, and the conservative think tanks and talk show hosts, would now set about to impeach President Obama (even though there is no chance of his removal by a two thirds vote of the US Senate); repeal ObamaCare; repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; prevent any action on climate change; further destroy the labor unions that remain viable; continue to promote voter suppression which assisted the GOP victory; continue to allow the Koch Brothers and other reactionary billionaire and millionaire domination of campaign expenditures; fight to undermine feminism and civil rights enforcement; work against immigration reform; reverse the movement toward gay marriage and gay and lesbian equality under the law; and become engaged in multiple overseas wars that benefit powerful corporations and defense industries.

Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century, and we are more like the Gilded Age and the 1920s domestically, but with the addition of the war industries that have our young men and women, many of them from poor families, who are utilized as cannon fodder for war profits, and then mistreated as veterans in years after their war service!

Is this the kind of America that the majority of this nation want? If it is, they will get what they deserve. But there is a sneaking suspicion that this will, hopefully, motivate the vast two thirds of the population who did not vote, to rise up and participate in insuring, for the short run, resistance to the GOP agenda, and longer term, to insure a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President are elected in 2016!

Expansion Of Executive Orders Of FDR, Ike, LBJ On Prevention Of Job Discrimination Under Federal Contracts Now Expanded To LGBT Community By President Obama!

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President Barack Obama has signed an executive order to do what Congress has failed to do, but needed doing!

In the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Obama is expanding the concept of Presidential action to prevent job discrimination under federal contracts with corporations, which originally covered race and ethnicity, then became one of gender, and now will cover workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender!

This is the moral and ethical thing to do, as no one should be fired because of his or her sexual orientation, any more than for race, ethnicity, or gender!

It cannot apply to all workers under the executive order, as only Congress could do that, and that seems unlikely, but it can cover workers employed under federal contracts.

So this is another in the long line of contributions that Barack Obama has made to ending of discrimination by government against its own population.

Assuredly, it will infuriate the Right, and there will be further discussion of possible impeachment, but that will all go for naught, as impeachment, even if it occurs, and it might, will NOT lead to Obama being forced out of office.

And again, a reminder! If it were to happen, we get Joe Biden, and that would be a great alternative, and insure a Biden victory in 2016!

The Schizoid Supreme Court: All Based On Moods Of John Roberts And Anthony Kennedy!

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It is clear that the Roberts Supreme Court is a schizoid body, sometimes doing what is right, and sometimes going totally wrong!

So the Roberts Court upheld the Affordable Care Act; gay marriage; and environmental regulations now–all attacks on states rights in these areas.

But at the same time, they have opened up the political system to corruption by billionaires with recent decisions; have weakened the Voting Rights Act; and have damaged affirmative action, believing that civil rights no longer is a major problem, just as we realize the extent of racism that still exists in America, despite having an African American President!

It all comes down to the mood of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. as the votes of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, are extremely predictable, based on their own lack of ethics in their business dealings, and their close association with the Koch Brothers, creating a conflict of interest.

If things were legitimate, Justices Scalia and Thomas, in particular, would be facing impeachment and removal from the Court, as they have demonstrated that they are the most obstructive Justices of the past century, only matched by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, but with an argument that they are more right wing than Rehnquist ever was!

The Likelihood Of An Obama Impeachment Grows, But It Will Not Lead To Removal From The Presidency!

Ronald 11 Comments

With the growing possibility that the Republicans MIGHT win control of the US Senate, and keep control of the House of Representatives by a tight margin, the likelihood of President Obama facing impeachment, as Bill Clinton did in 1998, grows.

But there is no case for impeachment, as Barack Obama has NOT committed high crimes and misdemeanors in office!

He has not even had an illicit love affair as Bill Clinton did, and he has not lied under oath, as Bill Clinton sadly did when asked about his love life by a prosecutor under oath, once the Paula Jones accusations came to light.

Obama has been accused of abusing power, but nothing he has done is any different than what George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or other Presidents did, without the invective that the 44th President has had to deal with.

Obama has faced a constant assault like no one since Richard Nixon, who deserved it, due to his illegal actions. So much of what is said is outrageous, and disrespectful of the office he holds.

But remember that all that is needed for impeachment is a majority of the House of Representatives to vote on one or more articles of impeachment, and the charges need not be substantial or legitimate, as impeachment is a political action, not based on the law, as it was not based on law with Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

The likelihood of an impeachment, therefore, is very high, but as stated at other times by this blogger, it will never lead to the removal of the President, since even if the GOP gains the Senate majority, there will never be a situation where enough Democrats, or in fact, any Democrats, would vote to remove him from office!

The effect of an impeachment will be, simply, to besmirch the record of Barack Obama, making him the fourth President to face impeachment charges, but it will only matter as part of his obituary, since it will certainly be one of the key points always remembered if it ends up happening.

The impeachment battle would also cause a dramatic rise in Obama’s popularity, much like Bill Clinton experienced.

It would also help to undermine, ever further, any legitimacy that the Republican Party has with the American people at large, and it would further insure that a Democratic President will be elected in 2016.

Impeachment would be seen as petty, vindictive, and unfortunately, racist, and it would reflect badly on Republicans who wish to run for President.

No good could come out of such an action, but it would be a high moment for those who wish to divide America ever further, but with no satisfaction of their desire for blood.

And the true beneficiary of all this, if by some miracle, Obama was forced out, would be Vice President Joe Biden, who by becoming President with less than half the term left, would have a step up for the Presidency in 2016 and 2020, thus destroying the last opportunity for Hillary Clinton or any Republican to become President before 2025!

And anyone who thinks Joe Biden is a “joke”, who is not to be taken seriously, will have their comeuppance when they discover they might have created the monster of a President Biden for the next decade!

What If The US Senate Goes Republican In 2014? What Would Be The Effects?

Ronald 7 Comments

The battle for the majority control of the US Senate is in full swing, with the Republicans needing to pick up six seats in order to gain control in the MIdterm Elections of 2014.

The odds are seen as good, IF the establishment Republicans coming up for reelection are able to hold off the Tea Party challengers they face in primaries.

The Democrats are on the defensive, since about two thirds of the seats up in 2014 are Democratic, and particularly in the South, the small number of Senate Democrats from that section are under assault.

This blogger will examine the Senate races over time, but right now, the key issue is the effect IF the Senate goes Republican.

The likely scenario would be the following:

The Senate would work against any immigration reform.

The Senate would block any attempt at any gun regulation

The Senate would be likely to attempt a block of any Supreme Court nominees of President Obama, and probably battle more than ever over any judicial appointments at the lower levels of the courts, along with clear opposition to Presidential appointments to the cabinet or other key positions.

The Senate would probably help to encourage a Republican House of Representatives to draw up charges of impeachment against President Obama, but would be unable to gain a two thirds vote in the chamber, to convict and remove him from office.

Senate attempts to override Presidential vetoes would become more common, but the President would continue to have the advantage in that regard, as gaining a two thirds override is highly unlikely.

Overall, more gridlock and stalemate would occur, and more disillusionment with our national government would grow, and cause a likely return to Democratic control of the Senate in 2016, when Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic nominee wins the White House!