[Peace-discuss] impeachment

[C G Estabrook]

<https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/>

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

The point is easily extended to all recent presidents. Of course Trump should be impeached (like Obama) for ‘aggressive war,’ under Nuremberg’s defintion.

—CGE


> On Mar 15, 2019, at 6:53 PM, Ian Welsh <noreply+feedproxy at google.com> wrote:
> 
> Ian Welsh
> There Is No Downside To Impeaching Trump For Democrats
> Posted: 14 Mar 2019 04:57 PM PDT
> Nancy Pelosi recently said:
> 
> Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.
> 
> I note, first of all, that Nancy Pelosi ruled out impeaching George Bush, so her reluctance to impeach for clear crimes is consistent with her record. I never understood why others thought that Pelosi would be pro-impeachment. The idea that she’s some partisan fighter is contradicted by her record. Pelosi is what she has, she has beliefs, and those beliefs include that the right is respectable and that left are unrealistic losers (as when she dismissed the Green New Deal.)
> 
> But let’s leave Pelosi aside for a moment. The Democrats have control of the House. They can impeach. They cannot convict in the Senate, but impeachment is certainly possible.
> 
> Why would they want to?
> 
> Because it would cripple Trump and Republicans. During the period of the impeachment, Republicans would be able to get virtually nothing done, except by executive fiat.
> 
> Because the impeachment hearings would completely dominate months of news cycles: constantly hammering in every illegal, crooked, corrupt and cruel thing that Trump has done.
> 
> This is largely a no lose, if you were actually partisan: there isn’t a lot that House Dems can get thru anyway while the Republicans control the Presidency, Senate and Supreme Court. You can’t actually get most of your legislation thru without crippling compromises so this is fine.
> 
> Control the news cycle; make sure bad legislation doesn’t pass for months; keep Trump tied down fighting impeachment and on top of that spend months talking about every shitty thing he has done.
> 
> Some may argue impeachment might “backfire”, that Americans “want to see legislators working”, but that sort of argument has been made for decades. Contempt for Congress isn’t going to get much worse (it hardly can), and if working means doing the wrong thing, it’s better not to.
> 
> In the face of all the positives, like dragging Trump thru the mud, crippling his ability to do anything, and controlling the news cycle, impeachment starts looking, politically, like an obvious thing to do.
> 
> And if you actually care about justice, well, Trump is at the very least, a walking emoluments violation. He is clearly profiting from being President. Carter had to sell his peanut farm, Trump hasn’t even put everything into blind trusts and many of his businesses are clearly profiting from his Presidency.
> 
> Bush should have been impeached. Trump should be impeached. Ironically, Clinton, who was impeached, shouldn’t have been (lying about consensual sex is a ridiculously low bar.)
> 
> Pelosi made the wrong decision with Bush. She appears in danger of making the wrong decision here. I doubt she’ll change her mind, but I hope I’m wrong.
> 
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