I would hate to be in line at McDonald’s behind a Congressional Democrat.
“I’ll have the Big Mac … no, wait. There’s a lot of fat in that. Then again, you only live once, right, ha ha! But really I shouldn’t. Maybe I should get some Chicken McNuggets instead. I wonder if the chickens are free-range? I’ll bet they’re not. Maybe I shouldn’t get that either. Hey, I know! A salad! Fresh. Healthy. Low-cal. Perfect! Then again, 
there are a lot of lettuce recalls these days …”
I have seldom seen souls as tortured as the Democrats on Capitol Hill trying to decide whether to impeach President Cat Snatcher.
One side says, “He clearly obstructed justice, he deserves to be impeached!”
The Nancy Pelosi crowd says, “But, gosh, even if we impeach him (remember, that’s what impeach means), the Senate won’t convict him, so why bother?”
Then there’s the huge wishy-washy swath in the middle that wants to hold impeachment hearings so they can pretend to be bold decisive before ultimately deciding not to vote on impeachment at all.
I wish I could get the entire party in a room and scream, “Enough already. This is why you lost the White House in the first place. For once in your politically correct lives, show some backbone and do what’s right instead of what’s expedient.”
That’s the thing here: This isn’t a hard choice. Robert Mueller’s report was a giant neon arrow pointing to 10 reasons that Trump should be impeached, including:
- Trump asking James Comey to “let Michael Flynn go.”
- Trump asking intelligence chiefs to publicly declare that he wasn’t the target of an investigation.
- Trump firing Comey.
- Trump’s efforts to oust Mueller.
- Trump’s efforts to curtail the Russia investigation.
- Trump’s efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence.
- Trump’s ongoing efforts to have the Attorney General control the investigation.
- Trump telling Don McGahn to deny that Trump wanted Mueller removed.
- Trump asking for a heads up on what Flynn was telling investigators and publicly commending Manafort for not “flipping.”
- Trump’s lawyer coaching Michael Cohen to “stay on message” when he testified to Congress.
Alone, anything on that list would be reason enough to impeach a president. Taken together, they constitute an open and shut case of obstruction. And yet Democrats continue to dither because dithering is what they do best.
“Well, gosh,” some of them say, “we don’t want to energize his base. If we do that, gee willikers, they might vote for him again.”
Good lord, people. They’re going to vote for him no matter what. The truest thing Trump ever said was that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not turn off his voters.
But that doesn’t mean he’ll win. His base is a small one. And 2020 isn’t likely to be like 2016. This time, Democrats and independents have seen first-hand what happens when you protest vote or don’t show up at all.
Yes, Democrats got a bounce at the ballot box after Clinton was impeached by the GOP-controlled House. But that doesn’t mean Trump will. Democrats got that bounce because voters apparently felt lying to Congress about an affair wasn’t exactly bring-down-the-Republic stuff.
That’s not the case here. A president obstructing justice is serious, precedent-setting stuff. Democrats have an obligation under the Constitution to act.
But will they? Or will they continue to waffle or, worse, make a decision based on what benefits them politically vs. what’s right for the country?
My guess is they’ll talk big before ultimately picking the salad, meaning they’ll do nothing.
And, of course, they’ll take a long, long time to do it.
That darn Trump is a creep. Anyone other than Trump in 2020. But, impeachment is just an accusation. The Republican senate will not convict him. Can the the House vote to censure him, instead? Can they have a vote of No Confidence? That might be a better approach right now.
Eventually, evidence will surface that Trump worked with the Russians, and that he took Russian money. About a dozen Trump associates, pals, family members, and appointees already have lied about their meetings with Russians, but we need more before impeachment.
That’s why the Democrats are doing further investigation into tRump’s financial history and business dealings. Need a rock solid case that even the Senate GOP can’t ignore
Is it possible that Pelosi is actually giving POTUS enough rope so that the public will back impeachment? Apparently in-favor poll numbers are rising–and the Amash town hall on Tuesday night actually was encouraging.
Glad that you are back, Mr. Heller.
I’m glad you noticed I was away!
You can’t obstruct justice when no underlying crime was committed. The Mueller report shows no collusion. All of you desperate Democrats are just bitter that Hillary lost. You are all hate filled psychopaths.
Actually not true. Obstruction is obstructing an investigation. An investigation is to find the facts to see if a crime was committed. To investigate they have to have persuasive evidence that a crime may have occurred. And collusion is a Trump talking point, not a crime. Mueller wasn’t investigating collusion. He was investigating conspiracy. You should try reading. It’s fun.
The Steele Dossier was all bullshit as well, funded by Democrats to attack then candidate Trump.
You won’t read this and if you do you won’t agree, but here’s a Washington Post analysis. Although I’m sure your detailed analysis is much better. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/24/what-steele-dossier-said-vs-what-mueller-report-said/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2559f303409c
Informative elucidation:
Obstruction of justice is defined by federal statute as any “interference with the orderly administration of law and justice”.
For example,
obstruction of criminal investigations
or
tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant.
The key words are “administration of law and justice”. If you interfere in an investigation, even before a crime has been determined, that can be considered obstruction.
Today, Mueller said he did not consider indicting Trump because the US Justice Department’s policy does not allow indicting a sitting President. That damns Trump, to a certain point.
However, Mueller did not include that in his report. In the report, he did NOT say that Trump committed a crime, but Trump was getting off just because Trump is President.
This is a subtle distinction, perhaps. I wish Mueller had said, TRUMP OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE, BUT I CANNOT CHARGE HIM. But, no. Mueller left us in the deep legal weeds.
I was just making that point to Marcia. If Mueller ( a Republican btw, hmmm) had simply used clear, simple language instead of the double negative stuff, we may be at a different point. I suspect this was intentional (again: Republican) because I don’t buy the Saint Bob stuff. He knew what he was doing. And I think he felt a little guilty about it so he came out today and reiterated the same point in the same language, the difference being that it kind of put an exclamation point on it. It was essentially saying, “Hey, Congress, in case you’re dumb to figure this out, the guy obstructed justice but I didn’t feel like I could say so directly.” That’s Mueller’s legacy. A shameful one at that.
Brilliant N
He said that they knew going into the investigation that a sitting president could not be charged with a crime, so that was not something that they could even consider. It was not fair to the president to say they determined that he committed a crime when it could not be acted on in our criminal justice system. Double-talk. Then, he listed the president’s actions that could be determined to be obstruction of justice, and said there were remedies available….
I am hearing that Trump’s people tried to protect him from seeing the USS McCain while in Japan because he is an oversensitive snowflake.
I read and don’t know if it was true but they covered the name on the ship. Of course he said he had nothing to do with it.
The original story ran in the Wall Street Journal by “reporters” Rebecca Ballhaus and Gordon Lubold. It was ran and posted online before the truth came out.
The picture of the tarp on the stern of the USS McCain on Friday and of a paint barge moored
next to the USS McCain.
On Saturday the tarp was removed and the paint barge was moved to a different mooring point.
Someone in the President Trump administration made the suggestion that the USS McCain be moved/hidden from President Trump’s view.
The Navy quite rightly decided not to follow the ignorant request.
Let us go back a few years that the liberals in the media said was a non-issue.
On 26 April 2009 obama was asked to speak at Georgetown University about something.
According to the press reports at the time the White House staff asked Georgetown to cover
the Christian symbols that would be behind obama during his speech.
Georgetown complied and covered the christian symbols.
Catholic Christians along with some other christian denominations were upset by the request
the lame stream liberal media said it was a non-issue in their opinion.
The USS McCain was not named just for John McCain, it was named for his father and grand-father. John’s name was attached after his death a couple of years ago.
The USS McCain was commissioned sometime in the 1990’s.
Who ever asked the navy to hide the USS McCain was very wrong in doing so and should be
chastised for even making such a request.
Mueller: Our investigation is complete and we found no proof of Bigfoot however we can’t categorically say we found proof there is no Bigfoot.
Democrats: So THERE IS A BIGFOOT!
There appears to be a FOOT in MOUTH, aka TrumpSpeak.