No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
It doesn't look like Congress would have to vote at all to disqualify Trump - you'd just need to get the courts to agree that what he did qualifies as having "engaged in insurrection or rebellion".
The trouble with Republican gatekeepers (or one of their troubles, anyway) is that they didn't keep the damn gate. The Republican presidential primaries have been steadily infiltrated with crazier and crazier candidates over several cycles.
And not just presidential candidates, as Marjorie Taylor Greene demonstrates.
The question is: did he mean any of it? Or did he simply think it would be to his advantage? "The former occupier of the Oval Office was a bad guy--really bad. But gosh gol darn it, we just can't do anything about it. The rules, you know. Now, excuse me, I've got to plot how to get my Senate Majority Leader status back."
I doubt very much that he had an ethical and reality epiphany.
Now, Lindsey Graham is warning Kamala Harris that she could be impeached should the Republicans regain the House
Apparently, Harris supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund which pays bail for low-income individuals. They were involved in paying bail for the Black Lives Matter individuals who had been arrested in the Minneapolis riots last summer.
But could the real reason Graham is threatening Harris because she is, well, black?
@Dave W - There's no mention of the courts in the Amendment, only of "two-thirds of each House", and that's in reference to the removal of disqualification, not the imposition of it. It's not necessarily entailed that you need 2/3 for disqualification. When the 14th Amendment was passed, it was quite clearly aimed at those who had fought for or served in the Confederate state, so no adjudication as to the object would have been necessary, as it was a matter of record. Because no proportion for each House is mentioned for disqualification, wouldn't the inference be simple majority? And that would be a given in The House of Representatives, and probably find the support of more than the seven GOP Senators.
What makes you think there’s any role for either house in disqualification (apart from the possible removal of disqualification)?
You’d need the judiciary’s agreement because it’s their job to rule on the interpretation of the meaning of the constitution. I imagine it would play out something like this:
Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
Some secretary of state refuses to accept the application on 14th Amendment grounds
Trump studs the secretary of state
or, alternatively
Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
Some secretary of state accepts the application
Trump opponents sue the Secretary of State
One way or another it ends up in court, and the judiciary has to decide if what Trump did counts as insurrection or rebellion. But in any case, there’s no place for either house of Congress to vote to exclude him.
Now, Lindsey Graham is warning Kamala Harris that she could be impeached should the Republicans regain the House
Apparently, Harris supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund which pays bail for low-income individuals. They were involved in paying bail for the Black Lives Matter individuals who had been arrested in the Minneapolis riots last summer.
But could the real reason Graham is threatening Harris because she is, well, black?
Well, I doubt he would threaten to impeach just any random Black office-holder, and certainly not one serving in a GOP administration, eg. Condi Rice.
But yeah, there's a definite racial angle to alot of the attacks on Harris("Kamala-mala-mala whatever!"). Whether that was at play here, or whether Graham was just making a false equivalency between paying bail for someone accused of rioting, and inciting a riot, is another question.
Certainly, I think Graham intended his audience to associate the MFF with Scary Black People. But would he have made the same attack if it had been, say, Joe Biden who had donated to the fund?
You'd think they look further ahead beyond trump and his loathsome followers to the long-term good of their party and the country. They seem to be a party of amoral blind sheep.
Without the integtrity.
No. Party always comes first. Always. That's the only morality. Mandela never disavowed his non loyal wife necklacing for the ANC. If you go beyond the party's limits, you suddenly fall off the edge like Thatcher. You toe the party line, you bide your time, you plot, you see which way the wind is blowing. Like Johnson. So. There is no hope for the GOP. Fascism is here to stay. Trump made it mainstream. And Wall Street loved him nearly to the end. Is that the silver lining? The Democrats will be more able to buy the next election? Only if Biden delivers on the economy. And prevents state voter suppression.
Preventing voter suppression is the key thing here. If he fails to do that, no amount of success with COVID or the economy is going to be of much help. I am waiting (hopefully not in vain) for a clear indication that action is going to be taken to address this.
What makes you think there’s any role for either house in disqualification (apart from the possible removal of disqualification)?
You’d need the judiciary’s agreement because it’s their job to rule on the interpretation of the meaning of the constitution. I imagine it would play out something like this:
Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
Some secretary of state refuses to accept the application on 14th Amendment grounds
Trump studs the secretary of state
or, alternatively
Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
Some secretary of state accepts the application
Trump opponents sue the Secretary of State
One way or another it ends up in court, and the judiciary has to decide if what Trump did counts as insurrection or rebellion. But in any case, there’s no place for either house of Congress to vote to exclude him.
I understand what you're laying out, but that doesn't seem necessarily to be the case. If the House of Representatives can initiate charges against the president (i.e., impeachment), why not disqualification? A variety of bill of attainder, as it were. I know that SCOTUS is chary regarding such things, though it affirmed it in the Nixon case. IIRC, it was because SCOTUS treated him not as Nixon but as a class of person. I'm not certain if that would apply here, but I can see how it could, since the class of person is defined in §3, and Trump falls within the class. I suppose that he could then sue Congress....
Impeachment is explicitly allowed under the constitution, while bills of attainder are explicitly forbidden. And the text of the 14th amendment provides no role for the House in disqualifying, so I don’t see why they would have anything to do with it.
It would have to go up the judicial system. We've missed our chance with Congress, since their only opportunity would have come after a successful impeachment-with-conviction. Congress does not handle judicial-type issues otherwise, and that's what disqualification would be.
They do in other ways, though, don't they? E.g., Martha Stewart. (I think that was primarily because she's a powerful woman with some sharp edges to her personality.)
Also the Big Tobacco execs; Major League Baseball; Mr. Shkreli's over-pricing of medication, etc.
I know Congress does a lot of investigating of stuff, but I think that's usually in the service of deciding what kinds of laws to make next. It's not where they're figuring out who needs punishing and how.
In addition, on September 10, 2002, the Committee's bipartisan leadership sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice regarding possible false statements made by Ms. Martha Stewart--a close friend of Samuel Waksal--to the
Committee, through her counsel, concerning her sale of ImClone stock the day before the FDA rejection of ImClone's application.
How Congress handles these things has shifted over the years, but they can still get a person in a whole world of trouble.
I have been thinking about non-US politics things a bit, and now I have caught up on this thread.
Here is Mitch McConnell's opinion piece in the WSJ. I can read it because I signed in to an existing account but I am not a subscriber. The opinion piece is brief and predictable. Here is the key extract IMHO.
I was as outraged as any member of Congress. But senators take our own oaths. Our job wasn’t to find some way, any way, to inflict a punishment. The Senate’s first and foundational duty was to protect the Constitution.
Some brilliant scholars believe the Senate can try and convict former officers. Others don’t. The text is unclear, and I don’t begrudge my colleagues their own conclusions. But after intense study, I concluded that Article II, Section 4 limits impeachment and conviction to current officers.
Everyone agrees that “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” exhaust the valid grounds for conviction. It follows that the list of persons in that sentence—“the president, vice president, and all civil officers”—likewise exhausts its valid subjects.
If that list of current officers is not exhaustive, there is no textual limit. The House’s “sole power of impeachment” and the Senate’s “sole power to try all impeachments” would constitute an unlimited circular logic with no stopping point at former officers. Any private citizen could be disqualified. This is why one House manager had to argue the Senate possesses “absolute, unqualified” jurisdiction. But nobody really accepts that.
I side with the early constitutional scholar Justice Joseph Story. He observed that while disqualification is optional, removal is mandatory on conviction. The Constitution presupposes that anyone convicted by the Senate must have an office from which to be removed. This doesn’t mean leaving office provides immunity from accountability. Former officials are “still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice.” Criminal law and civil litigation ensure there is no so-called January exemption.
There is a modern reflex to demand total satisfaction from every news cycle. But impeachment is not some final moral tribunal. It is a specific tool with a narrow purpose: restraining government officers. The instant Donald Trump ceased being the president, he exited the Senate’s jurisdiction.
I am trying to understand McConnell's motivations here, especially given the incongruity between his vote to convict and his prior and subsequent statements to the effect that Trump's responsibility for the insurrection (his word) is clear.
McConnell argues here that he is the defender of the system, specifically of the Constitution. Is he genuine here? Please bear in mind that the test is not whether his interpretation is right, but whether it is arguable. That is, does McConnell take a position that is utterly unsupportable, or does his position have legs?
This is very important, I believe. I know everybody here hates his guts, and I'm not seeking to excuse him. What I want to do is understand him on his terms. Only then, it seems to me, can I work out what his game is.
McConnell addresses the attack that he adjourned the Senate so that it couldn't receive the articles of impeachment like this:
Consider the claim that I could have steered around the jurisdictional issue by recalling the Senate between Jan. 14 and Jan. 20, while Mr. Trump was still in office.
The salient date is not the trial’s start but the end, when the penalty of removal from office must be possible. No remotely fair or regular Senate process could have started and finished in less than one week. Even the brisk impeachment process we just concluded took 19 days. The pretrial briefing period alone—especially vital after such a rushed and minimal House process—consumed more than a week.
President Biden, who knows the Senate, stated as early as Jan. 8 that his swearing-in was the “quickest” possible path to changing the occupant of the White House. Especially since the House didn’t vote until Jan. 13, any legitimate Senate process was certain to end after Inauguration Day.
Here’s what the scheduling critics are really saying: Senate Republicans should have followed a rushed House process with a light-speed Senate sham. They think we should have shredded due process and ignited a constitutional crisis in a footrace to outrun our loss of jurisdiction.
If McConnell is advancing a legitimate interpretation of the Constitution, isn't the relevant date the day the trial ends? I don't accept the rhetoric over a light-speed senate sham. He's over-egging the pudding there.
McConnell is obviously done with Trump. He has burnt his bridges by effectively saying that the proper place to deal with Trump is the Courts, among other things. My guess is that he is moving to protect the Republican Party and avoid the nightmare scenario, which is a split and the creation of a third party.
How does this advance his position though? He is not one to shy away from ignoring Senate norms, or even being consistent in argument when seeking to achieve his aims, viz the consideration of judicial appointments. It strikes me that he could easily have adopted an interpretation of the Constitution that allowed him to convict Trump (and no doubt exercise sufficient influence to bring at least 9 other senators with him). So why didn't he?
Another possibility is that it is about preserving the filibuster, but Senator Ed Markley has done for that hasn't he (the right wing Dem from some right wing state)? Could it be that McConnell tried to do a deal with the Democratic leadership to the effect that he would convict Trump if they left the filibuster alone?
Fair warning: it's a long article, going over the history of the place and its owner. Given the details, I wonder how many people will be jumping up and down, cheering? And will pieces of the hotel/casino be up for sale?
Preventing voter suppression is the key thing here. If he fails to do that, no amount of success with COVID or the economy is going to be of much help. I am waiting (hopefully not in vain) for a clear indication that action is going to be taken to address this.
It should be done, absolutely. Good luck getting it done, and making it stick long-term--at every level of gov't and at the polling places.
Preventing voter suppression is the key thing here. If he fails to do that, no amount of success with COVID or the economy is going to be of much help. I am waiting (hopefully not in vain) for a clear indication that action is going to be taken to address this.
It should be done, absolutely. Good luck getting it done, and making it stick long-term--at every level of gov't and at the polling places.
How would rectifying it affect the electoral college?
In one sense, very true, but the country is the United States and the make-up of the Senate and the Electoral College reflects this. Senators and members of the Electoral College represent the State. You and I may think it is also undemocratic, but you've got Buckley's of changing it. And it is more democratic than either the Canadian Senate, or the UK House of Lords.
In one sense, very true, but the country is the United States and the make-up of the Senate and the Electoral College reflects this. Senators and members of the Electoral College represent the State. You and I may think it is also undemocratic, but you've got Buckley's of changing it. And it is more democratic than either the Canadian Senate, or the UK House of Lords.
The latter is balanced by having very limited powers. The difficulty is that the US senate is both very powerful and politically skewed.
I am trying to understand McConnell's motivations here, especially given the incongruity between his vote to convict and his prior and subsequent statements to the effect that Trump's responsibility for the insurrection (his word) is clear. <<snip>> McConnell is obviously done with Trump.
I would really and truly like to believe McConnell at his word, that he has experienced an epiphany. But his past actions, especially vis-a-vis President Obama, make that next to impossible to do.
As to being "obviously done with" you-know-who (sorry, I can't permit myself to utter his name or defile my fingers by typing it), remember how many Republicans called him a fake, a con man, a pathological liar, a flim-flam artist, a degenerate, etc. etc. before the party gave him the nomination, and then couldn't wait to be first in line to kiss his big fat you-know-what after that. They won't be "done with" him until the last shovelful of dirt is tossed onto his coffin.
It is a question of which "Big Picture" one looks at.
My guess (and admittedly just a guess) is that McConnell is looking at the fact that, when Trump was elected, Republicans had control of the Presidency, the Senate and the House. In just four years, they lost control of the House, the Presidency and, finally, the Senate. "Big Picture" you don't want to link yourself to Trump any more than you want to book passage on the Titanic.
But the other view is that Trump has appealed to a Very Vocal, Very Active group of conservatives that are necessary to bring out for an election if you, as a Republican, want to win (even though, in raw numbers, that group is not necessarily all that large). You know, the type who want to censure Senator Toomey (Pennsylvania) for his impeachment vote because "we did not send him there to do the right thing." "Big Picture," from this perspective, you have to engage that group---and they insist that you engage by parroting their whacko extremism. It is very much a Tail-Wagging-The-Dog scenario.
Both "Big Picture" views have some validity, but which one holds sway for any particular politician depends a lot on local politics.
Judging from the number of House Republicans who voted against impeachment, the number of Senate Republicans who voted against conviction, and Trump’s continued very high poll ratings among Republican voters, I’d say that the pro-Trump faction isn’t the tail wagging the dog - it is the dog.
I have been thinking about non-US politics things a bit, and now I have caught up on this thread.
Here is Mitch McConnell's opinion piece in the WSJ. I can read it because I signed in to an existing account but I am not a subscriber. The opinion piece is brief and predictable. Here is the key extract IMHO.
<snip>
If that list of current officers is not exhaustive, there is no textual limit. The House’s “sole power of impeachment” and the Senate’s “sole power to try all impeachments” would constitute an unlimited circular logic with no stopping point at former officers. Any private citizen could be disqualified. This is why one House manager had to argue the Senate possesses “absolute, unqualified” jurisdiction. But nobody really accepts that.
I side with the early constitutional scholar Justice Joseph Story. He observed that while disqualification is optional, removal is mandatory on conviction. The Constitution presupposes that anyone convicted by the Senate must have an office from which to be removed. This doesn’t mean leaving office provides immunity from accountability. Former officials are “still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice.” Criminal law and civil litigation ensure there is no so-called January exemption.
<snip>
I am trying to understand McConnell's motivations here, especially given the incongruity between his vote to convict and his prior and subsequent statements to the effect that Trump's responsibility for the insurrection (his word) is clear.
McConnell argues here that he is the defender of the system, specifically of the Constitution. Is he genuine here? Please bear in mind that the test is not whether his interpretation is right, but whether it is arguable. That is, does McConnell take a position that is utterly unsupportable, or does his position have legs?
McConnell's position fails logically. The U.S. Constitution allows the Senate to inflict two punishments on convicted civil officers:
Removal from office (mandatory)
Disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States (optional)
McConnell claims to believe that the Senate does not have the power to pass sentence on former officials. However, disqualification from holding future office is voted on separately, after a vote to convict. In other words, at the time the sentence of disqualification is handed down the person being so sentenced is a former official by virtue of the previous vote to convict. McConnell's argument is that the penalties described in the Constitution are unconstitutional.
Thanks @Crœsos . Is there enough support for McConnell's position in the legal community to be able to say that it is in a different category to some of the positions put by Giuliani and Co. in support of Trump's 60 failed lawsuits? In other words, is it batshit crazy and sure to fail in the Supreme Court if it ever came to that?
I would really and truly like to believe McConnell at his word, that he has experienced an epiphany. But his past actions, especially vis-a-vis President Obama, make that next to impossible to do.
I don't have McConnell's full history, as prior to the election of Trump I held to the view that the American electorate shouldn't be second-guessed by Australians. I really hope that one day I can return to that blessed state of innocence. I am already very comfortable with the first steps of the Biden Administration.
I take it as read that McConnell is a bastard politician, the sort of bloke I would love to have on my side, using his dark arts for good outcomes. I think of him like Mal Fraser in Australia, who during a constitutional crisis in our Govt, refused to comply with constitutional conventions, but instead complied with the Constitution as he interpreted it in bringing down the Whitlam Govt (Fraser was a conservative, Whitlam a progressive).
Are there other examples in McConnell's past where he didn't just break Senate norms but acted in ways that showed that he was prepared to use crazy interpretations of the Constitution to achieve his goals? I don't think the business with Garland and Coney-Barrett was unconstitutional. I saw it as an exercise of majority power to achieve a dodgy partisan outcome.
Underneath all this is my eternal project of reconciliation. I am trying to work out whether the Dems should reconcile with Mitch. My personal test is whether a Republican is prepared to accept an authoritarian Govt. Its pretty clear that's where Trump was headed on Jan 6, and in usual fashion he has doubled down. Applying that test, Graham, Cruz, Hawley etc are all out. They can't be dealt with. They should be excluded from attempts to work with Republicans. Collins, Murkowski, Romney etc are in. They clearly oppose Trump and his plans. Where to put Mitch?
I am also dancing on a line here. I'm pretty sure every GOP politician supports gerrymandering and voter suppression simply by being involved in the GOP. Even Collins, Murkowski and Romney tacitly approve those tactics. I fully understand why people would just spurn the GOP as a bunch of total bastards.
If I want to reconcile with some but not all Republicans, its necessary to argue that cheating, using the legal system or otherwise, does not break democracy as long as the system, the rule of law if you will, survives. Cheating in the USA and elsewhere has a very long tradition, and in my country is bi-partisan. Where cheating is institutionalised, the fight against it is both legal and political. See the career to date of Stacey Abrams. Its only when cheating is publicly supported, when figures of sufficient authority like the President or a senior politician call for anti-democratic means to be used like they are right and proper, that the system itself is in genuine and immediate peril.
This is a hard argument to make, and I don't like it. But splitting the Republicans into people who you can deal with and people who are to be spurned is a very worthwhile project. America needs a sensible conservative party. It needs a party who will protect the system from right-wing extremists just as the Democratic party in its current iteration protects the system from trotskyites, anarchists and other nasties. The Democrats can help split the GOP in this way, but not at the expense of implementing their platform. They must implement their platform in the next two years or risk losing their newly engaged supporters.
So that's why I am fixated on Mitch. I don't trust him, but the bastard has, I hope, sufficient Republicans who will follow his lead to make a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for all that stuff. It's a faustian pact, I know. McConnell will try to obfuscate and delay and water down Democrat reforms. He is trying to put himself in the position of the One Who Must be Satisfied.
If only Sen. Manchin, who I misnamed in my earlier post, would agree to end the filibuster...
Another law that is being looked at is what is known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 which would have made it a federal offense if the KKK prevented federal officials from carrying out their constitutional responsibilities. The question is is the act limited to just the KKK, or can it be applied to other groups.
The latter is balanced by having very limited powers. The difficulty is that the US senate is both very powerful and politically skewed.
And the House of Lords is not politically skewed? Yes, its powers are limited, but even with the present limitations it remains an essential and vital part of the legislature.
You've not addressed the basic point that the US consists of States and its constitution is premised on that - hence the Representatives to represent the people and the Senate to represent the states.
Hmmm, maybe THAT is McConnell's game here. Is he trying to make himself the One Who Must be Satisfied in order to get stuff through the Senate?
Whatever gives you the idea that McConnell has any interest at all in getting anything through the Senate? What possible reason could he have for giving the Democrats anything that looks like a bipartisan success?
The latter is balanced by having very limited powers. The difficulty is that the US senate is both very powerful and politically skewed.
And the House of Lords is not politically skewed?
Not enormously so, no. No party has a majority (now the bulk of hereditary peers have been evicted) and the peers are far less beholden to party than the MPs. It stinks because of the power of patronage involved, but the Lords does at least perform its constitutional function whereas the US senate frequently seems unable or unwilling to do anything at all.
Thanks @Crœsos . Is there enough support for McConnell's position in the legal community to be able to say that it is in a different category to some of the positions put by Giuliani and Co. in support of Trump's 60 failed lawsuits? In other words, is it batshit crazy and sure to fail in the Supreme Court if it ever came to that?
There's always someone in the legal community willing to support a supposedly Constitutional argument. McConnell's position is less crazy than Giuliani's but it still defies basic logic. The Supreme Court would never rule on this issue. They held in Nixon v. United States (Walter Nixon, not Richard) that the Senate's conduct of impeachment trials was outside the scope of the Supreme Court.
Are there other examples in McConnell's past where he didn't just break Senate norms but acted in ways that showed that he was prepared to use crazy interpretations of the Constitution to achieve his goals? I don't think the business with Garland and Coney-Barrett was unconstitutional. I saw it as an exercise of majority power to achieve a dodgy partisan outcome.
The two-step McConnell did with the Garland and Coney-Barrett nominations was of a piece with his position on the second Trump impeachment: invent a spurious and politically convenient "Constitutional" standard and abandon it when it becomes inconvenient. It's essentially the same thing. McConnell would reverse himself if we were talking about the impeachment of a Democratic former president.
Underneath all this is my eternal project of reconciliation. I am trying to work out whether the Dems should reconcile with Mitch. My personal test is whether a Republican is prepared to accept an authoritarian Govt. Its pretty clear that's where Trump was headed on Jan 6, and in usual fashion he has doubled down. Applying that test, Graham, Cruz, Hawley etc are all out. They can't be dealt with. They should be excluded from attempts to work with Republicans. Collins, Murkowski, Romney etc are in. They clearly oppose Trump and his plans. Where to put Mitch?
Yeah, the question of whether Democrats can reconcile with Mitch McConnell has already been answered. It was called "the Obama administration". Maybe you've heard of it? Barack Obama tried to get Republican cooperation on countless occasions. Endless negotiations to get Republican support for the ARRA (the stimulus bill to save the American economy) or the ACA ("Obamacare") had the net result of much weaker bills and minimal (or no) Republican support in the end. Obama even offered to gut Social Security and Medicare for them (long-term Republican priorities) as part of a "Grand Bargain" in exchange for spending and tax changes that almost certainly would have been reversed the next time Republicans held power. Offered 90% of his agenda on a silver platter, Mitch McConnell said "No".
tl;dr - the question isn't "whether the Dems should reconcile with Mitch", it's whether there's anything that the Democrats could do to get McConnell (and those like him) to do anything other than obstruct the Democratic agenda. History says this is unlikely in the extreme.
When Obama was President, McConnell went on record saying that the chief business of the Senate was to block everything and anything the President hoped to accomplish, and to limit him to one term.
When Obama was President, McConnell went on record saying that the chief business of the Senate was to block everything and anything the President hoped to accomplish, and to limit him to one term.
Surely President Biden has not forgotten that.
No chance. Biden is showing himself thus far to be a very canny operator.
Hmmm, maybe THAT is McConnell's game here. Is he trying to make himself the One Who Must be Satisfied in order to get stuff through the Senate?
Whatever gives you the idea that McConnell has any interest at all in getting anything through the Senate? What possible reason could he have for giving the Democrats anything that looks like a bipartisan success?
I mean that he is trying to make himself the gatekeeper so he can control the Senate's output. I show my workings in the previous post, FWIW.
It strikes me that the GOP is a different beast in 2020 to what it was during the Obama Administration, in that Trump has fired up the base so much that Senators who vote against Trump's interests are censured by their state party branches. Am I right in this? Are Trump's supporters more aggressive against their own than their Tea Party iteration?
Has the political calculation changed for McConnell?
It strikes me that the GOP is a different beast in 2020 to what it was during the Obama Administration, in that Trump has fired up the base so much that Senators who vote against Trump's interests are censured by their state party branches. Am I right in this? Are Trump's supporters more aggressive against their own than their Tea Party iteration?
They haven't changed. They're literally the same people. Trump just gave them permission to go all in on being themselves.
When Obama was President, McConnell went on record saying that the chief business of the Senate was to block everything and anything the President hoped to accomplish, and to limit him to one term.
Surely President Biden has not forgotten that.
No chance. Biden is showing himself thus far to be a very canny operator.
Thank God! A Christian Machiavellian! May Ms. Harris learn at his feet.
It strikes me that the GOP is a different beast in 2020 to what it was during the Obama Administration, in that Trump has fired up the base so much that Senators who vote against Trump's interests are censured by their state party branches. Am I right in this? Are Trump's supporters more aggressive against their own than their Tea Party iteration?
They haven't changed. They're literally the same people. Trump just gave them permission to go all in on being themselves.
Yep. And going all in on being themselves seems from Australia to mean that there is a change in the political calculation for people like McConnell. He has to adjust.
Am I right that the conversion from Tea Party to Trumpinista (can't believe I went to spell check that) is a material change in the GOP? Judging by the difference in platform between 2016 (details) and 2020 (we support anything Trump wants), it looks that way.
Am I right that McConnell has to make an adjustment not only in moving to Minority Leader, but in how he manages his relationships within the GOP?
Sorry to harp on this, but I really want to screw down a nuanced understanding of the bloke, without actually doing serious research. I'm trying to pick your brains!!!!
I have said it before, I will say it again. With any party, there will be swings to the left and to the right. Trump is as far right as the GOP can go. I believe it has to begin swinging back to the middle, most certainly after the 2022 midterm elections. I look for Texas to go blue at the mid-term. That will be a radical wake-up call for the Republican party.
Why? n The Republican Party of Texas has really failed its people with the current ongoing disaster in Texas. It was warned ten years ago that it needed to winterize its power infrastructure and it did nothing, preferring to cut taxes and delaying capital expenses. The people are angry there.
And who is coming to their aid? The Democratic Administration. People are going to remember this.
Comments
And not just presidential candidates, as Marjorie Taylor Greene demonstrates.
The question is: did he mean any of it? Or did he simply think it would be to his advantage? "The former occupier of the Oval Office was a bad guy--really bad. But gosh gol darn it, we just can't do anything about it. The rules, you know. Now, excuse me, I've got to plot how to get my Senate Majority Leader status back."
I doubt very much that he had an ethical and reality epiphany.
Apparently, Harris supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund which pays bail for low-income individuals. They were involved in paying bail for the Black Lives Matter individuals who had been arrested in the Minneapolis riots last summer.
But could the real reason Graham is threatening Harris because she is, well, black?
You’d need the judiciary’s agreement because it’s their job to rule on the interpretation of the meaning of the constitution. I imagine it would play out something like this:
- Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
- Some secretary of state refuses to accept the application on 14th Amendment grounds
- Trump studs the secretary of state
or, alternatively- Trump files paperwork to start getting on the ballot for 2024
- Some secretary of state accepts the application
- Trump opponents sue the Secretary of State
One way or another it ends up in court, and the judiciary has to decide if what Trump did counts as insurrection or rebellion. But in any case, there’s no place for either house of Congress to vote to exclude him.Well, I doubt he would threaten to impeach just any random Black office-holder, and certainly not one serving in a GOP administration, eg. Condi Rice.
But yeah, there's a definite racial angle to alot of the attacks on Harris("Kamala-mala-mala whatever!"). Whether that was at play here, or whether Graham was just making a false equivalency between paying bail for someone accused of rioting, and inciting a riot, is another question.
Certainly, I think Graham intended his audience to associate the MFF with Scary Black People. But would he have made the same attack if it had been, say, Joe Biden who had donated to the fund?
No. Party always comes first. Always. That's the only morality. Mandela never disavowed his non loyal wife necklacing for the ANC. If you go beyond the party's limits, you suddenly fall off the edge like Thatcher. You toe the party line, you bide your time, you plot, you see which way the wind is blowing. Like Johnson. So. There is no hope for the GOP. Fascism is here to stay. Trump made it mainstream. And Wall Street loved him nearly to the end. Is that the silver lining? The Democrats will be more able to buy the next election? Only if Biden delivers on the economy. And prevents state voter suppression.
I understand what you're laying out, but that doesn't seem necessarily to be the case. If the House of Representatives can initiate charges against the president (i.e., impeachment), why not disqualification? A variety of bill of attainder, as it were. I know that SCOTUS is chary regarding such things, though it affirmed it in the Nixon case. IIRC, it was because SCOTUS treated him not as Nixon but as a class of person. I'm not certain if that would apply here, but I can see how it could, since the class of person is defined in §3, and Trump falls within the class. I suppose that he could then sue Congress....
They do in other ways, though, don't they? E.g., Martha Stewart. (I think that was primarily because she's a powerful woman with some sharp edges to her personality.)
Also the Big Tobacco execs; Major League Baseball; Mr. Shkreli's over-pricing of medication, etc.
Congress can subpoena witnesses to testify and they can make laws, but aside from impeachment they can’t indict, convict, or punish individuals.
I know Congress does a lot of investigating of stuff, but I think that's usually in the service of deciding what kinds of laws to make next. It's not where they're figuring out who needs punishing and how.
IANAL. I double-checked several things, and found I misremembered some things. But this is my "best at this moment" understanding.
--Martha Stewart: Congress went after her, big time. I'd thought she'd testified; but, try as they might, she didn't. But there was lots of wrangling.
"Congressmen Address Martha Stewart Affair: Aired September 10, 2002 - 14:34 ET " (CNN transcript of Congressional news conference).
--I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of possible call and response among Congress, witnesses, charges, and courts. But...
"Explainer: How powerful are Congress subpoenas, contempt citations?" (Reuters).
--And from "H. Rept. 107-802 - REPORT ON THE ACTIVITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE FOR THE 107TH CONGRESS107th Congress (2001-2002)", end of the "THE IMCLONE CANCER DRUG INQUIRY" section:
How Congress handles these things has shifted over the years, but they can still get a person in a whole world of trouble.
Here is Mitch McConnell's opinion piece in the WSJ. I can read it because I signed in to an existing account but I am not a subscriber. The opinion piece is brief and predictable. Here is the key extract IMHO.
I am trying to understand McConnell's motivations here, especially given the incongruity between his vote to convict and his prior and subsequent statements to the effect that Trump's responsibility for the insurrection (his word) is clear.
McConnell argues here that he is the defender of the system, specifically of the Constitution. Is he genuine here? Please bear in mind that the test is not whether his interpretation is right, but whether it is arguable. That is, does McConnell take a position that is utterly unsupportable, or does his position have legs?
This is very important, I believe. I know everybody here hates his guts, and I'm not seeking to excuse him. What I want to do is understand him on his terms. Only then, it seems to me, can I work out what his game is.
McConnell addresses the attack that he adjourned the Senate so that it couldn't receive the articles of impeachment like this:
If McConnell is advancing a legitimate interpretation of the Constitution, isn't the relevant date the day the trial ends? I don't accept the rhetoric over a light-speed senate sham. He's over-egging the pudding there.
McConnell is obviously done with Trump. He has burnt his bridges by effectively saying that the proper place to deal with Trump is the Courts, among other things. My guess is that he is moving to protect the Republican Party and avoid the nightmare scenario, which is a split and the creation of a third party.
How does this advance his position though? He is not one to shy away from ignoring Senate norms, or even being consistent in argument when seeking to achieve his aims, viz the consideration of judicial appointments. It strikes me that he could easily have adopted an interpretation of the Constitution that allowed him to convict Trump (and no doubt exercise sufficient influence to bring at least 9 other senators with him). So why didn't he?
Another possibility is that it is about preserving the filibuster, but Senator Ed Markley has done for that hasn't he (the right wing Dem from some right wing state)? Could it be that McConnell tried to do a deal with the Democratic leadership to the effect that he would convict Trump if they left the filibuster alone?
What do people think? Where am I going wrong?
"Trump era in Atlantic City to end with a blast Wednesday in implosion of Trump Plaza" (USA Today, via Yahoo).
Fair warning: it's a long article, going over the history of the place and its owner. Given the details, I wonder how many people will be jumping up and down, cheering? And will pieces of the hotel/casino be up for sale?
It should be done, absolutely. Good luck getting it done, and making it stick long-term--at every level of gov't and at the polling places.
How would rectifying it affect the electoral college?
I'd like to see this analysed for fairness.
The latter is balanced by having very limited powers. The difficulty is that the US senate is both very powerful and politically skewed.
As to being "obviously done with" you-know-who (sorry, I can't permit myself to utter his name or defile my fingers by typing it), remember how many Republicans called him a fake, a con man, a pathological liar, a flim-flam artist, a degenerate, etc. etc. before the party gave him the nomination, and then couldn't wait to be first in line to kiss his big fat you-know-what after that. They won't be "done with" him until the last shovelful of dirt is tossed onto his coffin.
My guess (and admittedly just a guess) is that McConnell is looking at the fact that, when Trump was elected, Republicans had control of the Presidency, the Senate and the House. In just four years, they lost control of the House, the Presidency and, finally, the Senate. "Big Picture" you don't want to link yourself to Trump any more than you want to book passage on the Titanic.
But the other view is that Trump has appealed to a Very Vocal, Very Active group of conservatives that are necessary to bring out for an election if you, as a Republican, want to win (even though, in raw numbers, that group is not necessarily all that large). You know, the type who want to censure Senator Toomey (Pennsylvania) for his impeachment vote because "we did not send him there to do the right thing." "Big Picture," from this perspective, you have to engage that group---and they insist that you engage by parroting their whacko extremism. It is very much a Tail-Wagging-The-Dog scenario.
Both "Big Picture" views have some validity, but which one holds sway for any particular politician depends a lot on local politics.
McConnell's position fails logically. The U.S. Constitution allows the Senate to inflict two punishments on convicted civil officers:
McConnell claims to believe that the Senate does not have the power to pass sentence on former officials. However, disqualification from holding future office is voted on separately, after a vote to convict. In other words, at the time the sentence of disqualification is handed down the person being so sentenced is a former official by virtue of the previous vote to convict. McConnell's argument is that the penalties described in the Constitution are unconstitutional.
@Amanda B Reckondwyth speaks wisdom here:
I don't have McConnell's full history, as prior to the election of Trump I held to the view that the American electorate shouldn't be second-guessed by Australians. I really hope that one day I can return to that blessed state of innocence. I am already very comfortable with the first steps of the Biden Administration.
I take it as read that McConnell is a bastard politician, the sort of bloke I would love to have on my side, using his dark arts for good outcomes. I think of him like Mal Fraser in Australia, who during a constitutional crisis in our Govt, refused to comply with constitutional conventions, but instead complied with the Constitution as he interpreted it in bringing down the Whitlam Govt (Fraser was a conservative, Whitlam a progressive).
Are there other examples in McConnell's past where he didn't just break Senate norms but acted in ways that showed that he was prepared to use crazy interpretations of the Constitution to achieve his goals? I don't think the business with Garland and Coney-Barrett was unconstitutional. I saw it as an exercise of majority power to achieve a dodgy partisan outcome.
Underneath all this is my eternal project of reconciliation. I am trying to work out whether the Dems should reconcile with Mitch. My personal test is whether a Republican is prepared to accept an authoritarian Govt. Its pretty clear that's where Trump was headed on Jan 6, and in usual fashion he has doubled down. Applying that test, Graham, Cruz, Hawley etc are all out. They can't be dealt with. They should be excluded from attempts to work with Republicans. Collins, Murkowski, Romney etc are in. They clearly oppose Trump and his plans. Where to put Mitch?
I am also dancing on a line here. I'm pretty sure every GOP politician supports gerrymandering and voter suppression simply by being involved in the GOP. Even Collins, Murkowski and Romney tacitly approve those tactics. I fully understand why people would just spurn the GOP as a bunch of total bastards.
If I want to reconcile with some but not all Republicans, its necessary to argue that cheating, using the legal system or otherwise, does not break democracy as long as the system, the rule of law if you will, survives. Cheating in the USA and elsewhere has a very long tradition, and in my country is bi-partisan. Where cheating is institutionalised, the fight against it is both legal and political. See the career to date of Stacey Abrams. Its only when cheating is publicly supported, when figures of sufficient authority like the President or a senior politician call for anti-democratic means to be used like they are right and proper, that the system itself is in genuine and immediate peril.
This is a hard argument to make, and I don't like it. But splitting the Republicans into people who you can deal with and people who are to be spurned is a very worthwhile project. America needs a sensible conservative party. It needs a party who will protect the system from right-wing extremists just as the Democratic party in its current iteration protects the system from trotskyites, anarchists and other nasties. The Democrats can help split the GOP in this way, but not at the expense of implementing their platform. They must implement their platform in the next two years or risk losing their newly engaged supporters.
So that's why I am fixated on Mitch. I don't trust him, but the bastard has, I hope, sufficient Republicans who will follow his lead to make a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for all that stuff. It's a faustian pact, I know. McConnell will try to obfuscate and delay and water down Democrat reforms. He is trying to put himself in the position of the One Who Must be Satisfied.
If only Sen. Manchin, who I misnamed in my earlier post, would agree to end the filibuster...
And the House of Lords is not politically skewed? Yes, its powers are limited, but even with the present limitations it remains an essential and vital part of the legislature.
You've not addressed the basic point that the US consists of States and its constitution is premised on that - hence the Representatives to represent the people and the Senate to represent the states.
Not enormously so, no. No party has a majority (now the bulk of hereditary peers have been evicted) and the peers are far less beholden to party than the MPs. It stinks because of the power of patronage involved, but the Lords does at least perform its constitutional function whereas the US senate frequently seems unable or unwilling to do anything at all.
Not disputing that.
It has and creates far less democratic deficit than the US Senate.
There's always someone in the legal community willing to support a supposedly Constitutional argument. McConnell's position is less crazy than Giuliani's but it still defies basic logic. The Supreme Court would never rule on this issue. They held in Nixon v. United States (Walter Nixon, not Richard) that the Senate's conduct of impeachment trials was outside the scope of the Supreme Court.
The two-step McConnell did with the Garland and Coney-Barrett nominations was of a piece with his position on the second Trump impeachment: invent a spurious and politically convenient "Constitutional" standard and abandon it when it becomes inconvenient. It's essentially the same thing. McConnell would reverse himself if we were talking about the impeachment of a Democratic former president.
Yeah, the question of whether Democrats can reconcile with Mitch McConnell has already been answered. It was called "the Obama administration". Maybe you've heard of it? Barack Obama tried to get Republican cooperation on countless occasions. Endless negotiations to get Republican support for the ARRA (the stimulus bill to save the American economy) or the ACA ("Obamacare") had the net result of much weaker bills and minimal (or no) Republican support in the end. Obama even offered to gut Social Security and Medicare for them (long-term Republican priorities) as part of a "Grand Bargain" in exchange for spending and tax changes that almost certainly would have been reversed the next time Republicans held power. Offered 90% of his agenda on a silver platter, Mitch McConnell said "No".
tl;dr - the question isn't "whether the Dems should reconcile with Mitch", it's whether there's anything that the Democrats could do to get McConnell (and those like him) to do anything other than obstruct the Democratic agenda. History says this is unlikely in the extreme.
Surely President Biden has not forgotten that.
No chance. Biden is showing himself thus far to be a very canny operator.
I mean that he is trying to make himself the gatekeeper so he can control the Senate's output. I show my workings in the previous post, FWIW.
It strikes me that the GOP is a different beast in 2020 to what it was during the Obama Administration, in that Trump has fired up the base so much that Senators who vote against Trump's interests are censured by their state party branches. Am I right in this? Are Trump's supporters more aggressive against their own than their Tea Party iteration?
Has the political calculation changed for McConnell?
They haven't changed. They're literally the same people. Trump just gave them permission to go all in on being themselves.
Thank God! A Christian Machiavellian! May Ms. Harris learn at his feet.
That's it in a nutshell!
Am I right that the conversion from Tea Party to Trumpinista (can't believe I went to spell check that) is a material change in the GOP? Judging by the difference in platform between 2016 (details) and 2020 (we support anything Trump wants), it looks that way.
Am I right that McConnell has to make an adjustment not only in moving to Minority Leader, but in how he manages his relationships within the GOP?
Sorry to harp on this, but I really want to screw down a nuanced understanding of the bloke, without actually doing serious research. I'm trying to pick your brains!!!!
Why? n The Republican Party of Texas has really failed its people with the current ongoing disaster in Texas. It was warned ten years ago that it needed to winterize its power infrastructure and it did nothing, preferring to cut taxes and delaying capital expenses. The people are angry there.
And who is coming to their aid? The Democratic Administration. People are going to remember this.