The Importance of the Senate - A Great Column
Blog followers know that I
have frequently pointed out the importance of the United States Senate. It approves Supreme Court nominees and other
important appointments and It votes on legislation which the House of Representatives
has already passed. While the House is
“the people’s house,” generally representative of all Americans, the Senate is
where the States are specifically represented. For that reason, it isn’t particularly
democratic (small “d”). That’s why tiny Rhode
Island and empty Wyoming each have the same number of Senators, two, as do far
more populous States like California, New York or Texas.
As you know, the Senate is
controlled by the Republicans and their leader, Mitch McConnell, doesn’t give a
damn about anything that doesn’t benefit the G.O.P., consistently putting party
over country. McConnell would never do
anything that would diminish the electability of members of his Senate
majority. That’s why sorely needed gun-violence legislation or legislation to
protect our election process from proven interference by the Russians, both
approved by the House, never reaches the floor of the Senate. Doing so might create problems for Senators
who depend on NRA funding and those who are afraid of running afoul of the
President’s base of support. In fact,
Mitch’s admitted willingness to move legislation, but only if the President
first okays it, proves his chicken-hearted abdication from his role as Senate
leader. This will not change until the
Democrats take over control of the Senate.
 |
| O'Rourke |
In a recent Washington Post
column, Dana Milbank addressed the need for people like Beto O’Rourke (Texas),
Steve Bullock (Montana) and Stacey Abrams (Georgia) to forget about other
aspirations and run for the Senate seats up for grabs in their States. He says it far better than
I could. Read his column by CLICKING HERE.
Why We Must Impeach the Law-Breaker-in-Chief NOW
No matter how many
laws the President breaks, no matter how often journalists and even
Congressional committees go to court to get documents from the President or try
to subpoena witnesses to testify, the President will always come out on
top. Why? The courts, if they haven’t already been
contaminated by his appointees, will come up with decisions which the
Trumpublicans will appeal … all the way to the Supreme Court, which they
control … and where they will therefore prevail. Attorney-General Barr manages
these delaying shenanigans, serving the President and not the country.
Donald Trump, really
and truly, can shoot someone down in the middle of Fifth Avenue, as he has jocularly
claimed and beside that act not bothering his supporters in the least, he will
legally get away with it if he even gets arrested for it.! Watch how fast he would be “sprung.” He can get away with murder! He would walk away smiling without even
spending a night in jail. Just leave it
to his lawyers and “his” courts.
The man thinks he is
above the law. In his little corner of the business world where he
operated for years, he has always thought of the law as an enemy and employed
lawyers to get around it. He is no
different in the Presidency. No American is above
the law.
So it’s time to impeach
him. Now. Today.
There’s enough in the Mueller Report,
his obstruction of justice, in his personally profiting from his office, his
making money from foreign delegations which stay at his hotels, his violation
of election laws by paying off his whores (for which his personal lawyer has
gone to jail), and even more, to get a bill of impeachment passed in the
House. Now. Today.
And impeachment
proceedings would be free from the legal roadblocks the Trumpublicans are able
to throw in the way of the normal operation of the court system. Congress would be in charge, as it should be,
and not his devious lawyers led by Attorney General Barr.
 |
| Trump and Barr - the Impeachables |
And don’t be so sure
that the Senate would not convict him, as we all assume. If the evidence is so damning in the House’s
impeachment hearings so that even the cowering Republican Senators in the
Senate will be reminded that they are Americans first and Republicans second,
they might vote to send him packing. It
would only take 20 of them courageous enough to put country before party.
But if the Senate
closes its eyes and does not convict him, the American people will indeed convict
him and send him into oblivion in 2020.
Then, even Fox News might not touch him with a ten-foot pole.
But standing still
accomplishes nothing. It is time to impeach him. Now.
Today.
Even worse, any delay,
and that’s what going through the courts involve, only benefits the President. It plays into his hands. It’s his game. Forget about it. There is only one answer. Impeachment. Now. Today.
Weather Report from the White House
And speaking of the President,
let me comment on his recent meteorological remarks. Many Americans have gotten their information
on Hurricane Dorian by accessing the government’s weather web site, www.noaa.gov. Its coverage of Dorian was, and continues to
be, updated every few hours. There are a
multitude of charts and maps available and varied options available within each
of them.
A commonly viewed map is the
“Warning Cone Static Images” chart, with the potential storm track option shown. This is the one to which the President
referred and suggested by the addition of a scrawled-in extension of the
storm’s potential “cone” that it might, if it kept going in the same direction,
reach Alabama. Earlier, for no
conceivable reason, he had mentioned that State as one of those threatened by Dorian
and obviously, he was attempting to justify his misstatement. He probably flunked geography in elementary
school. Using that logic, and his phony
chart, it also might reach Kansas, Oregon and Korea!
 |
| Graphics Embellish the Liar-in-Chief |
In making his point, the
President used a map version several days old in his phony “extended” projected
cone illustration. Later versions showed
the projected cone turning northward and could not be similarly mis-edited, so
he used one a few days older to be able to extend his scrawled cone to Alabama.
Furthermore, every update on this site is
accompanied by an extremely detailed “discussion” of what it means by a
professional meteorologist. Mention of
Alabama was totally absent from such “discussions.” It might take a few minutes to read such
“discussions” but that would be a task far beyond the President’s limited mental capabilities, something his former Secretary of Defense and his former Secretary of State eventually
became aware of. This is just another
example of the President not doing his homework which was probably the case at
the colleges he reportedly attended as well. (Does anyone in the Wharton School’s Class of
’68 remember his actually being there?)
Americans must understand that
the President is never wrong, so long as he has the ability to lie and make up
the truth. Black can be white, hot can
be cold. Fortunately for him, many
Americans are equally stupid. (H.L.
Mencken once had something to say about that.)
Note that I did not say “ignorant.”
That can be remedied. Stupidity
cannot. That is a problem.
Don't Forget Gun Violence
And back to gun violence, it
should be noted that Walmart has curtailed its sale of certain types of
ammunition. This has bothered some Americans. It was reported in the Palm Beach Post
(Sept.
5) that one, a local resident who incidentally owns a company
providing training for concealed-weapon permit applicants, visited his local
Walmart “to get ammo in case of looters” following Hurricane Dorian. He claimed Walmart’s action punishes
law-abiding citizens looking to protect themselves and their families. He pointed out that “people, not the guns,
are the problem.”
I both disagree and yet,
somewhat agree with him. I maintain (see
prior blog postings) that guns, not people, are the problem. But I also agree that people are part of the problem, but not all people, primarily
people like him.
Think about this for a
moment: With all the concerns that an
impending hurricane brings to people, what kind of
nut-jobs put “getting ammo in case of looters” on their list of
priorities? We have plenty of
them in this country. And you and I and
Mitch McConnell know the way they vote.
That is a problem.
JL
Brexit in Trouble
A word about Brexit. Because of some of the same pressures that
resulted in the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of this country
(job loss due to cheaper labor costs elsewhere and advancing technology,
globalization, appeal to nationalism and dislike if not fear of immigrants)
many of those in the United Kingdom felt a need “to Make England (actually the
UK) Great Again. I haven’t seen many
Brits wearing “M.E.G.A.” hats but that’s the general idea.
These misguided folks yearned
for the old days when Britannia ruled the waves and when every other nation in
the world looked to them for leadership.
They yearn for as the Beatles put it, “Yesterday.” The logical step, they believed was to get
out of the European Union and go it alone, as they had for centuries. This got on the ballot and just like the
Americans voted to put Donald Trump in office, Great Britain voted to exit from
the European Union (Brexit) no later than this October.
The Europeans are willing to
let them go, but some of the Brits with brains want to exit in a sane manner,
one that would not destroy their economy and maintain some kind of economic
connection with Europe, if Europe will let them do so on some limited
basis.
Theresa May couldn’t solve the
problem and the current PM, Boris Johnson, is willing to go ahead with a clean
break if need be rather than continue to look for some kind of a deal with
Europe.
 |
| Boris Johnson |
That’s what is going on across
the pond. My guess: Come 2020, both Donald Trump and Brexit will
be history. It will, unfortunately, take
at least a decade to heal the wounds these two adventures in nostalgia caused.
JL
No comments:
Post a Comment