The Mueller Hearing? Your Response….

Sorry, sometimes I forget to put a Smily Face when just being facetious. Of cause there are really good and serious folk in Congress. But overall, they do get distracted especially when everyone else is distracted. And even if they are not, the Media will generally make it look that way.

Sorry you missed that I was saying what the bulk of the voters want is Drama Queen Trump OUT so they can take a rest and be complacent for a while with a Prez Biden.

As an aside, the Impeachment process does not force issues to go through court any faster. And if you’re really anxious put your energy into political organizing of one type or another. And plan to go to a swing state next year to work on GOTV for whomever our candidate is. My wife and I went to Florida from safe California to try to help Hillary win there.

The House Judiciary Committee is moving in the way I think we both agree with. Putting the legal screws on Trump & Company through the Courts and hearings while looking into whether they can put enough together on Trump to fully justify bring Articles of Impeachment. Since they are taking a 6 week summer break, I doubt there will be Impeachment. Also, since after the Mueller testimony only a few new Dem Congress Members came out for Impeachment, they really don’t believe there is any more desire for Impeachment that doesn’t result in Trump’s removal to make it worth doing. All that is left is 2020 or God. Now maybe you could put some energy into praying a lot…hey, being illegal never stopped the Russian-type Europeans from campaigning here!

That is exactly the thought I had about the mass protests in Puerto Rico. For that to happen here against Trump something way way more shocking and outrageous would have to be found on Trump. It he would have to take some new totally over the top action.

Clinton’s Impeachment didn’t remove him. It increased his popularity and cost the Republicans politically. Our overriding obligation is to get Trump out so we can have a Constitution to uphold. Impeachment without removal will gain us no votes and might energize the Trumpites besides being a gigantic diversion and thus a hindrance to our programs and candidates.

Life is too short to do anything that will not get Trump out. Since if we don’t get him out, life will likely be much shorter. Impeachment does not get him out and is likely to help him. Mass demonstrations have to be keyed. Trump has done so much he has made people numb. He must go to an entirely new outrageous level before there will be mass demonstrations. They do have an effect here. Back in my day was in plenty of them. They helped get Ronnie Reagan elected governor of California and Nixon elected Prez in reaction but also helped end the Vietnam War. Was also in the massive Women’s March protest in DC. Was great. Did nothing to deter Trump from anything.

As you will almost undoubtedly have learned before you may read this, written on Aug. 2, now 118 Democrats, a majority of the Democratic members
of the House of Representatives, have announced
they favor the impeachment of Trump and want an impeachment inquiry against him to begin.

It’s good to see you again, too, Kalima. I’m close
to being nauseated over Nancy Pelosi’s and the
almost reactionary Democratic establishment’s
reluctance to do the right thing in regard to
removing Trump from office as soon as possible.

I used to admire Nancy Pelosi for her many
outstanding accomplishment but have now lost
almost all respect for her.

Choosing party over politics can advance careers
and win elections. But in the end it’s always
wrong — not to mention immoral — and it speaks
very poorly of the of the Democratic Party, which
is in grave danger of losing its heart and soul.

Americans who gave the Democrats their greatest
triumph in history in the House of Representatives
in an off-presidential year election did want them
to take on trump and his corrupt administration.

That said, the primary issue that most Democratic
candidates campaigned on was trump’s attempt
to destroy Obama’s Affordable Care Act and
replace it with nothing.

This principled and forceful move reminded me of
the power Democrats once wielded when they were
known for putting country over politics.

So “Where is the leadership that voters expected?”
It’s not leading from the front, and Chuck Schumer
has joined Nancy Pelosi in her overabundance of
caution and helpless and hopeless dithering.

Far from leading from the front, Pelosi and Schumer
are not even leading from the rear — they’re all but
leading a retreat from the rear.

If they don’t wake up soon from their torpor of timidity,
it may be too late for them to wake up at all. And if
the House Democrats take lying down Pelosi’s refusal to perform her constitutional duties and don’t then challenge her leadership, they will have essentially abandoned the political field to trump and his Nazi rabble.

You just raised a very important point, and it was discussed at some length by Mark Shields of the Boston Globe and David Brooks of the New York Times on the PBS NewsHour just a few hours ago (I don’t know if you’re familiar with either of them or the program).

I agree the Democratic candidates should be taking trump on in their debates, and it’s very unproductive to attack Obama’s legacy — especially as trump is a national emergency who will leave only a legacy of hatred, corruption, and division.

If the candidates concentrated on saying how they’d take Trump on instead of trying to show why each of them thinks she or he would be the best candidate — mainly by attacking each others’ records — could we expect their approaches in beating trump would be so different that would help us decide who would make the best nominee?

It would be great if it had that result, but I couldn’t predict it would.

What I’m sure of, however, is the so-called “debates” aren’t really debates at all. They’re mostly exchanges of charges and counter-charges and represent to me the worst way possible to winnow down the the field.

The problem is that no one has suggested a better format, desperately needed as it is.

Do you have any thoughts about a better way to handle the programs so that they would be worthy of being called “debates?”

Very well said.

I wasn’t home to see the debate, but I saw some of it
the next day on my computer. I saw very little of it,
however, because the rude and disrespectful way CNN conducted the program made it more of a debacle than
a debate, and I stopped watching it in utter disgust.

Later I read about the disaster and saw a few clips on
news programs that only reinforced my initial reaction
and made me hope the Democrats don’t let CNN
broadcast any more debates.

I just thought of this: since it’s apparent the so-called
debates so far haven’t been very helpful, it could be
better to just cancel all of the remaining ones for the
rest of the year and not schedule new ones until
sometime during the primaries next year when the
results can dictate that the eight leading primary
winners, say, will participate in new debates.

Then before the national convention a final debate
would include the top two or four candidates. And I
don’t think it would be disastrous if there were no
more debates held at all.

In the past the Democratic Party has given us good
candidates without “benefit” of debates, and a number
of them have been elected president. It could happen
again, if only the Party had the guts and sense to try it.

Are you still living in Japan? I ask this because it’s after midnight where I live in the midwestern U.S. and time
for me to go to sleep. If you’re in Japan, it’s already the
afternoon. It’s been very interesting talking with you
again; and if you respond to this comment, I’ll answer
later.

Very good history, Professor, of the origin and evolution
of the presidential candidates debates.

From the Kennedy-Nixon debates until their recent and
sickening devolution into chaotic and utterly dispiriting
free-for-alls full of sound and fury but signifying nothing
— if I may coin a phrase ;^) — the debates served a
useful purpose and gave the candidates a good forum to
either make positive impressions on potential voters or,
conversely, torpedo their campaigns by revealing their
own unsuitability for office.

But as the televised so-called “debates” have been
turned by the yahoos of the television networks into
brain-dead, tasteless and trashy political theater. they
have lost any redeeming value.

And as I wrote to Kalima, as they’re very unlikely to be reformed into anything worthwhile, it would make sense
to stop them until the primaries begin. Better still, stop
them until after each party nominates its presidential candidate.

I actually read your excellent piece on who will be on
the stage in September before you cited it today.

Your suggestions are spot on. And along with citizens
who are so disillusioned they won’t vote at all, those
who will vote but won’t do the homework to look for
the best candidates deserve whatever — however bad
it is — they get.

Unfortunately this also means that those who are well informed and have done their homework often have to
suffer the consequences of those who don’t care at all
or don’t care enough.

You’re welcome. I’m really enjoying these conversations,
too. I was on the Planet for some time but was away
for a few years until I came back two days ago.

We did run into each other before and had a good numberof very interesting and productive conversations. But as I could tell from your first in this series of posts to me, you didn’t recall me; and I decided not to mention this unless and until you wrote something — as you just did — that would let me bring it up gracefully.

I remember your writing at some length about protecting your identity as you lived in a very red and rural area in the same state I do, and it wouldn’t do if it somehow became public knowledge how much you differed in your outlook and political inclinations from your neighbors.

This seems to have changed; for as you wrote yesterday, you’ve been trying open the eyes of some of your farmer neighbors to political realities and are suggesting they talk to their elected Republican officials, who are complicit with the duplicitous trump mis-administration in duping and using them, to ask for their help instead of being subjected to their hindrance.

From what you wrote years ago, it seemed to me you lived roughly within about 125-175 miles northwest of my house, which is about 11 miles from the city line of what was once the largest city in population in the state but is now the second largest one.

I wonder how long you’ve lived where you are now. I ask this because when you wrote “…in my life time this area was Democratic…of course, it was Dixie Democrat,” it made me think that unless you’ve moved, while you must still be west of me, perhaps it may be more southwest, rather than northwest of me.

I hope you don’t feel bad about not thinking we’d run into each other before. You’re a very prolific and adept blogger and poster who is in contact with many more people than I am; and as we’ve been out of touch for some time, I would have been a little surprised had you remembered me.

You’re very welcome, and the feeling is mutual. I’m very pleased to be in contact with you again.

It’s interesting to learn what you’ve been up to — I assume after you left (retired from?) teaching history.

Are you still involved with the co-op and with the ACA as a navigator?

The co-op is very lucky to have you with it, and leave it
to the trumpistas to “improve” the ACA by hampering it.

Somehow this reminds me of the infamous quotation that was said during an infantry battalion briefing during the Vietnam War.

While it’s come to be known as “We had to destroy the
village in order to save it,” the actual words were “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it,” and it came from the mouth of a very flustered Major Booris as he tried to explain why the town was very heavily damaged in the ultimately successful effort to recapture it from a very determined Viet Cong force which was reluctant to leave it!

No other quotation underscored the utter insanity of the
Vietnam War more than this one.

Thank you for providing the link to former Army
Capt. Michael Miller’s Saving Ben Tre.

I did read his article many years ago when I saw it
after trying for some time to find out who uttered
the instantly infamous words.

Maj. Booris, who you know from Miller’s fascinating
account, mistook Capt. Miller and his men returning
from a mission across a rice paddy for V.C. and
ordered them shot, which luckily didn’t happen.

So it’s possible Maj. Booris thought himself to be the
very model of a modern U.S. Army major, not unlike
Gen. Stanley, in “The Pirates of Penzance,” who
deluded himself into believing “I am the very model
of a modern major general!”

So knowing this about Maj. Booris’ military ineptitude
— no, I don’t think he had a clue about the irony
within his words “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order
to save it.”

Your analysis of the great Democratic victory in the
House in the 2018 midterms is very cogent.

And I salute you for your efforts to awaken your
deluded red neighbors to the fact if they want relief
from the “homegrown” problems that are largely
— but of course not entirely — caused by their own representatives and senators in Congress and the
right-wing reactionary party they represent, they
should look to their political reps to address them.

I’m glad to learn that “bit by bit” your diligent
awareness raising is having a positive effect; and
if there were more people like you opening eyes in
the country’s rural areas, eventually some red states
might be turned purple, at least.

Lastly, the seemingly purposeful demolition of the
public educational system in leaving history and civics
out of the core curriculum has certainly wreaked havoc.
And corrupt, self-serving and self-dealing politicians
have done far more than their share to make the
situation worse.

O tempora o mores…!

Thank you! And these days, anyone who even knows who
Cicero was is Aces in My Book!

So my six years of Latin from seventh through twelfth
grade weren’t completely lost! And with that grounding in the mother of romance languages, I was able to read my classmates’ French textbooks pretty well without ever having studied French. But I digress….

I not only empathize with you, I also feel your pain. In my lifetime, the area I live in was heavily Democratic and is less so now, but the state has changed from a bellwether to a right-wing reactionary red state.

The metropolitan area I live in — a city and its surrounding county — were once very heavily Democratic and are still
Democratic though not as strongly so as in the past.

The state, however, was famous for generations as a
bellwether state as it usually voted for the winner of
presidential elections, be he a Democrat or Republican.

Despite this fact, at the same time the state legislature
remained under strong Democratic control. But now, as
I’m sure you know — as I believe it’s your state, too,
right-wing reactionary Republicans have the governorship
and control both houses of the state legislature. As a sad result, the state is red as it can be.

I hope my meaning is clear now — I can see why it wasn’t
before.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kalima. I can’t give a definitive answer
to your very pertinent question because it’s next to
incomprehensible to me how anyone who has even
a vague understanding of trump’s utter insanity and
evil could possibly think anything less than a very
aggressive plan to defeat him could have the slightest
chance of success!

While it’s vitally necessary to begin the impeachment
inquiry against him ASAP to document as fully as
possible all the evidence of his impeachable crimes,
we already have far more than enough to charge him
with now. If those who still want to delay an inquiry
say we don’t have sufficient facts to begin the process,
we can be sure they really mean NO amount of evidence
will satisfy them as they don’t want him impeached at all.

Of course everyone who knows trump must go wants to
be sure he will end up losing his trial in the Senate after
finally being impeached in the House.

However, unless enough Republican Senators begin to
fear for their own re-elections in 2020, not enough of
them will turn against him to insure his conviction in a
trial before that election.

But rather than waiting for impeachment and a following Senate trial after the election — with the hope that the Democrats will recapture the Senate in sufficient numbers
to guarantee trump’s conviction and removal from office —
if Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the leadership of the House
Democrats care even a fig for their sworn oath to protect
the Constitution, they will launch the impeachment inquiry
with a vigor equal to their inexcusable efforts to forestall
such proceedings.

There is rising impatience and anger among important
segments of the Democratic electorate at the self-imposed
impotence of the House leadership. And the resulting
uproar against the House Democrats for “…sitting on their hands letting trump get away with his crimes” certainly
would overshadow the reaction to whatever the outcome
of an impeachment inquiry would be.

I will be very disappointed if Elizabeth Warren isn’t the nominee, as presidential candidates with her charisma, dedication to righting economic and social injustices, and impeccable qualifications rarely appear and even more rarely get elected. Cynical and disillusioned voters often think people like her are too good to be true and foolishly fail to support them.

But another progressive candidate would still be worth
supporting and would get the votes of most young
liberals and progressives as well as much older ones
like me.

This is a fairly strong statement, but if — regardless of
whether or not trump would survive a trial in the Senate — the Dems fail to impeach him, essentially the American Revolution will have been fought for, and come to, nothing.

If trump is allowed to escape even the slap on the wrist
an impeachment by the House but no conviction by the
Senate would amount to, he could complete his treasonous coup against our constitutional republic and its small “d” democratic form of government — and there might never be future presidents.

I think the danger is that grave.

Jean de la Fontaine got it right. And no other head of state in American history was less “animated with the love of truth and virtue” than trump. For as a sociopathic malignant narcissist, trump is incapable of feeling any normal emotion.

While even his very stunted intellectual development doesn’t keep him from knowing the words “truth” and “virtue,” he literally has no idea what they mean and, therefore, can’t exemplify them.

I take and understand your points. but while I give Nancy Pelosi great credit for essentially birthing the ACA as if she were delivering her own child, I don’t agree that her incremental approach to the almost certain impeachment of trump is the most appealing or effective one.

And this is the first time in her long career of remarkable achievements I’ve found fault with her strategy and tactics.

You and I may have similar outlooks on a number of issues, but on this one we can do no more than agree to disagree.

Of course “congressional action in everything is led
by public opinion and not the other way around.”

That’s a principal reason why the United States has
never become the country it could and should have
and why few, if any, other countries ever have as well.

There you have it!

Yes, Hurd did criticize trump several times recently;
but when he announced he won’t run for another
term, he said he will vote for trump in 2020.

….Go figure.

Hurd actually did. I didn’t think very much
of him before, and I do even less now.

But very sad to say, the vast majority of
his soon-to-be Republican colleagues in the
House are even less intelligent and principled
than he is.

I find him a sad case. It’s not saying much; but while
Hurd appears to be smarter than the average Republican
dimbulb congressman or woman, he lacks what it takes
to withdraw his support and vote for trump.

It looks that way to me, too.

I’m for the inquiry, too, and concur with you it’s
important to have the word “impeachment” on
the table.

And whether or not the inquiry and all of its
ramifications strengthen the Democratic hand, as
much of the truth regarding trump’s treasonous
conduct and other impeachable offenses as can
be wrested from him and his criminal associates
must be made public.

I agree with you, and Adams knew very well what he
warned about.

If the current political crisis continues to worsen, it
won’t be much longer before the existence of this
constitutional republic will be in free fall — and it
won’t take a modern-day Nostradamus to predict the
possible dire consequences.

Yes, and the U.K. is a very striking example of this.
I wonder how long it will take the Brits to regret the
election of Boris Johnson as P.M.?

No, it definitely won’t be soon enough to affect Brexit, but
I wasn’t thinking of that but just in a general way. For
sooner or later I think they will realize the Conservatives
made a poor choice in picking Johnson.

Of course, I don’t think they had a plethora of good people
to choose from.

It does sound familiar — and not in a good way.

No wonder at all. But then, to coin a phrase, “Clowns
of a feather flock together.”

Hear, HEAR!

It’s actually very simple. I read the post of yours
Kalima responded to; and while I’m not a parrot,
I agree with every word she wrote and could have
written substantially the same comment she posted
had she not done so first.

Roger that.