Trump has committed these crimes in plain sight and confessed to some of them, like obstruction, on television. These are not merely constitutional violations but severe threats to national security and public safety that require immediate action – investigation and indictment as well as impeachment.
…
Any possibility of bipartisan support for impeachment, for the GOP to put country before party is a myth. The Republicans created this situation: they long ago abdicated their duty through corruption and capitulation. If the GOP were to impeach Trump, they would effectively impeach themselves, since they are caught in Trump’s web of criminality.
…
All Trump cares about is money, power and being immune from prosecution. Impeachment hearings actually threaten all three of these things.
…
We have heard from younger voters and voters from marginalized groups who no longer want to vote for the Democratic candidate because her flippant dismissal of impeachment as an outcome has led them to believe that the two parties are the same. They are not the same: one party is an existential threat, and one party is deeply flawed. We encourage you to support the Democratic candidate in 2020. But we demand that the Democrats confront our grim reality head on – that there may not be a 2020, that there may not be free and fair elections, and that every day is damage done. It may be a partisan game to you, Speaker Pelosi, but for the rest of us, and for this country, it is a matter of life or death.
It is critical that the stakes are made clear. Refusal to impeach sends the message that the situation cannot possibly be that dire – it if were, the Democrats would move to impeach, right?
…
Let us be clear: we do not think that, if the House impeaches Trump, the GOP-dominated Senate will convict. We also do not think that if the Senate, by some miracle, impeaches Trump, that he will leave. Trump has made it clear he will not leave office even if the will of the people demands it in an election, and even if the will of Congress demands it in impeachment. Trump is an aspiring autocrat, and the GOP is seeking a one-party state.
So what is the point of the House impeaching Trump? An informed public is a powerful public, and hearings are the best way of informing the people on what the White House has done.
…
The House must begin impeachment proceedings to help restore America's standing in the world and because it is their constitutional duty.
Impeachment sends a message about who we are as a country and what we will accept and abide. The rule of law demands action. Refusing to take action is normalizing atrocity. Lawlessness must be confronted regardless of the outcome, as a matter of principle and conscience. Fighting only the battles that you know you will win is a sure way of ensuring you lose; preemptive surrender, in a rapidly consolidating autocracy, is permanent surrender. The American people have suffered enough under Trump; they should not have to suffer due to Pelosi’s capitulation as well. We all deserve better than this.
In a tweet Kendzior quotes Cholpon, an Uzbek poet killed in Stalin’s purges. Kendzior says we Americans should embrace these ideas. She adds, “Do not submit to those who abuse you; do not obey in advance.”
Part of what the poet wrote (translated from Russian):
You are alive, not dead,
You are a man, you are a human,
Don’t be in chains,
Don’t beg,
Because you also are born free!
A tweet from LOLGOP. The first part is from Ron Fein, the second from Kendzior.
It's about protecting us, not punishing Trump.
Jamal Khashoggi might be alive today and hundreds of kids might not be orphaned if Congress did what it should.
Melissa McEwan of Shakesville adds to the discussion, first responding to Pelosi saying impeachment is “divisive.”
http://www.shakesville.com/2019/03/nancy-pelosi-im-not-for-impeachment.html
And, yes, it is. Except the country is already divided — into people who support a vile authoritarian bigot whose agenda is undiluted malice and who is subverting our democracy to turn the country into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kremlin, and people who are resisting this relentless nightmare with everything we've got.
…
And if I still believed we had free and fair elections the outcomes of which Trump would respect, or unbiased courts through which we could seek legal remedies, then I would be advocating against impeachment for all of those reasons.
But I don't see whence will come relief anymore. The longer we wait, the longer Trump and the Republican Party has to consolidate their power. And they are exploiting every second for maximum gains.
Meanwhile, people are dying — in the United States, along the southern border, in Syria, in Somalia, in Yemen, and elsewhere around the world — because of the Trump Regime. Pelosi may be right that Trump really isn't worth the potential costs of using every tool in the drawer, but they are.
Fernand Amandi, in a tweet, says that soon after Pelosi made that statement
thousands of accounts mushroom out of the nowhere with the exact same somnambulistic mantra, “Relax, she’s playing chess.”Kendzior she got lots of those too. She adds:
An authoritarian mindset is not only about accepting abuse of power. It's about unquestioning submission to authority, period, even that which seems benign. It's conformity, complacency, and capitulation.So … Don’t be lulled into complacency.
No comments:
Post a Comment