Andy Levin on Impeachment

When I was sworn into the 116th Congress, I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It's an oath I don't take lightly.

 

That's why I believe that the House must open an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Donald J. Trump. If you agree, add your name here.

 

Let me take a few moments to explain because it's important for you to understand how I arrived at this decision:

 

The evidence is clear that Mr. Trump has been violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution every day since he took office. The intermingling of his business dealings with governance and his profiting off his office is beyond improper. According to a recent analysis from  NBC News, representatives of 22 — 22! — different foreign governments have spent money at properties owned by the Trump Organization since 2017.

 

What's more — his refusal to share information about his taxes, which prevents the public from knowing the nature and extent of his conflicts of interest.  

 

As the Mueller Report makes clear, on more than ten occasions, the President obstructed justice or sought to obstruct justice — including by firing or attempting to fire people who were investigating him. And his brazen attitude towards foreign interference in our election process chills me to the bone — from his invitation to Vladimir Putin to meddle during 2016 to his comments this week about the 2020 election.

 

Until today, I have maintained the position that we should neither rush to impeach President Trump nor take impeachment off the table. However, I believe that even if our appeals to the courts continue to succeed, they will follow a timeline far too slow to meet the needs of the American people for truth and justice. 

 

After extensive discussion with colleagues on the committees of jurisdiction over various investigations, I have concluded that the only way to get to the bottom of Mr. Trump's activities and inform the public about what we learn is to consolidate and expedite the process through one select committee with the focus, power, and urgency that come with an impeachment inquiry.

 

This fight will be long and tough, but our democracy is at stake. If you agree that now is the time to begin a formal impeachment inquiry, add your name to let me know you're with me.

 

Thank you for taking action on this,

 

Andy Levin

Legacy of the Trump Presidency

What will be the legacy of the Trump Presidency?
There will likely be many, few of them good, but I think the worst (for Republicans in general and conservative evangelicals in particular, anyway) is that they have lost any moral high ground they were ever able to claim. Democrats, if their silly hearts ever led them to do so, could nominate a Harvey Weinstein candidate with a Bill Cosby running mate, and the Republicans would not be able to say a single word, not and be taken seriously, anyway. In his article, A Comprehensive List of Things Republicans Can No Longer Legitimately Criticize Thanks to Trump, here are a few of the things John Ziegler came up with:

Having no political experience.
Having no military experience.
Having actively dodged a war.
Having compared avoiding sexual diseases during a promiscuous period to going to war.
Having disparaged a war hero for having been captured.
Having claimed to have more military knowledge than our generals.
Having admitted to getting their military knowledge from watching TV.
Having been divorced, twice.
Having multiple affairs with porn stars and paying them, possibly with campaign cash, to keep them quiet.
Having a wife who posed nude in lesbian-themed photos and plagiarized her only major speech.
Bragging, on tape, about sexually assaulting women.
Running several failed businesses into the ground.
Trying to violate the Cuban embargo.
Using Chinese steel on their own buildings while decrying what China has done to our steel industry.
Pretending to be his own publicist in an effort to get media outlets to publish how much women want to have sex with them.
Settling a massive fraud lawsuit for $25 million.
Bragging about being “very pro-choice.”
Bragging about the size of their penis during a presidential debate.
Getting electoral help from an adversarial power and refusing to properly condemn or punish their meddling in our election.
Siding with a foreign adversary over our own intelligence agencies.
Claiming, without evidence, that the presidential election is “rigged.”
Obsessing and lying about, and forcing government employees to do the same, the size of the crowd at their swearing in.
Lying (or being abjectly ignorant about) the size of their election victory.
Falsely claiming, without a shred of evidence, that they lost the popular vote because of millions of illegally cast votes.
Claiming to be a Christian while having no knowledge of the Bible and claiming to never have asked for forgiveness, or hardly ever actually going to church services.
Engaging in blatant nepotism.
Threatening to take guns away from citizens without due process.
Being consistently pro-Russia and pro-Putin.
Making numerous statements indicating that they want to be a dictator and praising those foreign leaders who already are.
Referring to friendly nations as “shithole” countries.
Constantly attacking people, even political allies, based on their physical appearance.
Being abjectly ignorant of the basic functions of our government.
Not knowing basic facts about important issues.
Having a general and reckless disregard for the truth.
A Comprehensive List of Things Republicans Can No Longer Legitimately Criticize Thanks to Trump

In an article for The American Conservative, Rod Dreher (no bleeding heart liberal he) has some pretty pointed things to say about Christian Trump supporters: Quoting Michael Gerson, he writes, “Evangelicals have become loyal to a leader of shockingly low character. They have associated their faith with exclusion and bias. They have become another Washington interest group, striving for advantage rather than seeking the common good. And a movement that should be known for grace is now known for its seething resentments.” Christians Tempted By Trump Idolatry He goes on to quote himself from his book “The Benedict Opinion”: “…fair or not, conservative Christianity will be associated with Trump for the next few years, and no doubt beyond. If conservative church leaders aren’t extraordinarily careful in how they manage their public relationship to the Trump phenomenon, anti-Trump blowback will do severe damage to the church’s reputation. Trump’s election solves some problems for the church, but given the man’s character, it creates others. Political power is not a moral disinfectant.
“And this brings us to the more subtle but potentially more devastating effects of this unexpected GOP election victory. There is first the temptation to worship power, and to compromise one’s soul to maintain access to it. There are many ways to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and some prominent pro-Trump Christians arguably crossed that line during the campaign season. Again, political victory does not vitiate the vice of hypocrisy.” (ibid)

Conservatives have made a bed of thorns that they will be forced to sleep in for years to come.

MORE (may be a lot of repeats initially but there is new stuff also)

After Tuesday’s special election upset loss in Pennsylvania, many in the Republican Party are now resigned to the likely reality that the 2018 elections, which once set up extremely well for the GOP, are going to be a disaster for them. There are many reasons this is the case, but the most prominent, of course, is that the party has allowed itself to be completely defined by President Donald Trump.

Perhaps the most underrated aspect of having sold out so thoroughly to Trump is that the GOP is now almost completely disarmed in their ability to legitimately attack Democratic candidates and office holders on numerous issues, especially in the realm of character. After all, once you have defended and accepted certain behavior from a president, it is awfully difficult, even in a world where hypocrisy is now longer seen as politically lethal, to claim that similar acts are unacceptable for any other elected office.

With this in mind, I recently attempted to put together a comprehensive — and ever growing — list of the things that had they been been true of a Democrat, Republicans and the conservative media would have been on the warpath to destroy them. I came up with almost 100 of them. I am sure the list is incomplete, and will probably grow by the end of the day, but here it is:

Being best known as a reality TV host.
Having no political experience.
Having no military experience.
Having actively dodged a war.
Having compared avoiding sexual diseases during a promiscuous period to going to war.
Having disparaged a war hero for having been captured.
Having claimed to have more military knowledge than our generals.
Having admitted to getting their military knowledge from watching TV.
Having been divorced, twice.
Having multiple affairs with porn stars and paying them, possibly with campaign cash, to keep them quiet.
Having a wife who posed nude in lesbian-themed photos and seemingly plagiarized her only major speech.
Bragging, on tape, about sexually assaulting women.
Running several failed businesses into the ground.
Running casinos and overtly sexual beauty pageants.
Declaring bankruptcy multiple times.
Trying to violate the Cuban embargo.
Using Chinese steel on their own buildings while decrying what China has done to our steel industry.
Having greatly misled about their academic record, while also questioning the academic record of a current president.
Falsely accusing a sitting president, with racist undertones, of not being eligible for the office.
Lavishly praising and giving lots of money to prominent Democrats.
Pretending to be his own publicist in an effort to get media outlets to publish how much women want to have sex with them.
Settling a massive fraud lawsuit for $25 million.
Dramatically flip-flopping on major issues, often within hours.
Bragging about being “very pro-choice.”
Bragging about the size of their penis during a presidential debate.
Bragging about massive wealth which doesn’t seem to actually exist.
Bragging about not paying taxes during a presidential debate.
Refusing to release their taxes, promising to do so if elected, and still not doing so.
Publicly asking for, and getting help from an international hacking/terrorist group to get elected.
Getting electoral help from an adversarial power and refusing to properly condemn or punish their meddling in our election.
Siding with a foreign adversary over our own intelligence agencies.
Claiming, without evidence, that the presidential election is “rigged.”
Obsessing and lying about, and forcing government employees to do the same, the size of the crowd at their swearing in.
Lying (or being abjectly ignorant about) the size of their election victory.
Falsely claiming, without a shred of evidence, that they lost the popular vote because of millions of illegally cast votes.
Claiming to be a Christian while having no knowledge of the Bible and claiming to never have asked for forgiveness, or hardly ever actually going to church services.
Making constant and dramatic campaign promises which never come close to being fulfilled.
Being unable to get hardly anything passed through a Congress controlled by their own party.
Causing run-away spending and massive deficits.
Taking credit for stock market advances they had almost nothing to do with.
Tanking the stock market with reckless statements.
Pardoning a political supporter for purely political reasons in their first year in office.
Having close senior aides quit and be fired at an alarming rate, even after having bragged that they would hire only the very best people.
Having multiple close aides plead guilty to serious crimes possibly related to their own election.
Hiring and then firing a National Security Adviser after they were correctly warned by the prior administration they were compromised by a foreign adversarial power.
Hiring a reality TV villain to work in the White House who ended up doing nothing and didn’t even last a year before being fired, provoking a bizarre security incident.
Having much of their close staff not be able to get top secret security clearances.
Having their chief economic advisor quit over a highly unpopular plan to impose huge tariffs.
Engaging in blatant nepotism.
Having a member of their own family caught up in a serious investigation of foreign meddling in our election and of allegedly using their influence to punish and reward countries based on personal business dealings.
Being in constant and clear violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution by personally benefiting financially from foreign states because of their position.
Threatening to take guns away from citizens without due process.
Being consistently pro-Russia and pro-Putin.
Aligning themselves with blatant conspiracy theorists and supporting obvious nut jobs.
Blatantly promoting, sometimes via government resources, highly partisan and non-credible media outlets.
Actively attacking legitimate media outlets (even those they give interviews to) as “fake” simply because they don’t like what is being reported.
Actively avoiding press conferences and extensive interviews with non-friendly news media.
Making numerous statements indicating that they want to be a dictator and praising those foreign leaders who already are.
Forcing the military to hold a parade in the streets of Washington for their own personal ego gratification.
Being consistently against the First Amendment, specifically with regard to libel laws and flag burning.
Taking credit for the release of college basketball players from China when the players had already been secured before they even got involved.
Endorsing a credibly accused child molester (and general nut job) for senator in a state they won big, and then having that person lose.
Publicly backing multiple friends accused of sexual misconduct who then turned out to be at least partly guilty.
Threatening to “lock up” their political opponents.
Having sub-40% approval ratings, and seeing that as a sign of failure.
Trying to fire a Special Counsel who is investigating their own campaign.
Firing an FBI Director because they don’t like the way they are handling an investigation that directly involves themselves.
Falsely and publicly claiming they might have tapes of private conversations with their FBI Director and then bragging that it was a good strategic move to lie.
Constantly publicly criticizing, and inappropriately directing, their own Attorney General.
Releasing a partisan memo over the objections of their own Justice Department.
Publicly describing a group of NFL players as, “that son of a bitch.”
Referring to friendly nations as “shithole” countries.
Constantly attacking people, even political allies, based on their physical appearance.
Publicly mocking a disabled reporter.
Routinely tweeting badly misspelled words and inaccurate statements.
Tweeting about frivolous subjects in the middle of the night.
Threatening a foreign country led by a madman with nuclear war.
Agreeing to meet with a madman without real preconditions and without consulting any diplomatic experts.
Threatening a damaging trade war, without aides knowing about it, because they are in a bad mood.
Using the House Intelligence Committee as a piece of partisan political machinery.
Firing their Secretary of State via Twitter.
Having their personal assistant escorted off the White House grounds due to a criminal probe and then immediately hiring the assistant to work on their campaign.
Campaigning for heavily favored candidates who end up losing.
Being abjectly ignorant of the basic functions of our government.
Not knowing basic facts about important issues.
Having a general and reckless disregard for the truth.


Jon Hill, Graphic designer: autodidact: Hist., PolySci., Religion

Two Legal Systems

“Read the AJC’s 36-page “Guide for the Perplexed” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and you wouldn’t know that in the West Bank Israel maintains two legal systems, one for Jews—which guarantees due process, free movement, citizenship in the country in which they live and the right to vote for the government that controls their lives—and a second, which denies all these rights to Palestinians.
The AJC constructs a cocoon that allows its supporters to believe that Israel is a thriving democracy even as it denies millions of Palestinians basic rights, and to believe that Israel yearns for a two state solution even as Benjamin Netanyahu boasts about opposing one.
And with the exception of Sanders, the major Democratic candidates didn’t challenge that intellectual and moral bubble. They inhabited it.

“I don’t know if Sanders would make a better president than his Democratic rivals. But this much is clear: When it comes to the conflict between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, he’s the only candidate who is boldly defending the moral principles — human dignity, anti-racism and equality under the law -— that all the Democratic candidates claim to prize. And he’s doing it in front of the audiences that want to hear that message least, and need to hear it most.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that he’s also the only Jewish candidate in the race. But one day, when the occupation is a distant memory and American Jews have long since acknowledged its profound injustice, our people will look back at speeches like the one he gave this week to the AJC with pride.”
Tanya