Friday Open Thread | Back to Impeachment

Posted on June 21, 2019 by rikyrah

I want to talk about the question of impeachment. The polls say that the Democratic Party base is absolutely all-in for impeachment. I am quite sure of those polls. I believe those polls to be true. I am part of the Democratic base. I am an African-American woman. Since Black people ARE the base of the Democratic Party, I understand completely the reasoning behind it.

Black folks believe in the rule of law. And nothing galls us more than when we see the rule of law being so fragrantly disregarded.
I have said numerous times that one of my pet peeves that I won’t let stand is for someone to castigate the patriotism of Black Americans. I don’t know a collective more patriotic than Black Americans. We are the group that had to dig deep to find a reason to believe in this country. We believe in its ideals, and so, when we see instances of those who display everything against what this country IS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR, it needs to be called out.

Black folks gathered all kind of receipts during the Presidency of Barack Obama. We have them collected, stored, and file neatly to be pulled when necessary. We also are keeping receipts during this Administration. We now know that all the GOP said that they represented was an absolute and utter farce. They don’t care about treason against this country. Their supporting Dolt45 in lockstep, watching him trample across the Constitution from the Emoluments Clause to challenging the powers of the Legislative Branch, to his purposefully not filling posts, thus damaging the apparatus of Government, Using the Government to abuse the least of us, along the border and within this country.

We look at what Dolt45 has done, and it’s obvious that he is a criminal, heading a criminal family, and the only people he hires are other criminals. Up and down his Administration are criminals. The Justice Department ‘Memo’ on a President can’t be indicted was bullshyt. Either we are a nation of laws, or we are not. He has committed Obstruction of Justice numerous times, and needs to be held accountable.

This time has been very knowledgeable, so that we know who supports, TRULY SUPPORTS this country. And, its beliefs.

 

Barbara Jordan said the following in her opening remarks at the Watergate Hearings:

Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: “We, the people.” It’s a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

“Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?” “The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men.”1 And that’s what we’re talking about. In other words, [the jurisdiction comes] from the abuse or violation of some public trust.

It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn’t say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the Legislature against and upon the encroachments of the Executive. The division between the two branches of the Legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the Framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers — and the judges the same person.

We know the nature of impeachment. We’ve been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to “bridle” the Executive if he engages in excesses. “It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men.”² The Framers confided in the Congress the power if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the Executive.

And, Richard Nixon’s transgressions were miniscule compared to the crimes and thievery of Dolt45.

This great piece of writing from Adam Serwer about those who really believe, and practice what this country is supposed to preach:

Black Americans did not abandon liberal democracy because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the systematic destruction of whatever wealth they managed to accumulate; instead they took up arms in two world wars to defend it. Japanese Americans did not reject liberal democracy because of internment or the racist humiliation of Asian exclusion; they risked life and limb to preserve it. Latinos did not abandon liberal democracy because of “Operation Wetback,” or Proposition 187, or because of a man who won a presidential election on the strength of his hostility toward Latino immigrants. Gay, lesbian, and trans Americans did not abandon liberal democracy over decades of discrimination and abandonment in the face of an epidemic. This is, in part, because doing so would be tantamount to giving the state permission to destroy them, a thought so foreign to these defenders of the supposedly endangered religious right that the possibility has not even occurred to them. But it is also because of a peculiar irony of American history: The American creed has no more devoted adherents than those who have been historically denied its promises, and no more fair-weather friends than those who have taken them for granted.

There is no greater example of what it means to be privileged than watching the right abandon democracy in favor of authoritarianism as a means to maintain power.

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130 Responses to Friday Open Thread | Back to Impeachment

  5. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 21, 2019 at 5:46 pm

    Who will stop the madman in the White House?

    4 immigrant toddlers were hospitalized with vomiting, fever yet received no medical treatment. A 2 year old was completely unresponsive with eyes rolled back in her head.
    😢😢😢

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5d0d3bbce4b07ae90d9cfe4f/amp

    Reply
  10. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 5:14 pm

    Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) Tweeted:
    How is it not the top story on every news channel that a bunch of GOP lawmakers in Oregon are literally fugitives from the state police and have teamed up with extremist paramilitary groups to shut down the state capitol? https://twitter.com/fawfulfan/status/1142154716559937541?s=17

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 3:58 pm

    Oh really:

    Court Unseals Manafort Docs, Revealing Texts With Hannity

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/paul-manafort-sean-hannity-texts-court-docs

    Reply
  23. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    Over in England:

    MIRROR: Cops called to Boris & lover over bust-up #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/13BLVfCYpW

    — Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) June 21, 2019

    Reply
    • SouthernGirl2 says:
      June 21, 2019 at 12:31 pm

      🎵🎤Who’s that man I see
      underneath the hanging tree
      he looks just like me
      so tell me am I really free
      could have been my mother
      crying for my brother
      and everybody, everybody, everybody
      praying for peace
      but who’s gonna protect us from the police🎵🎤

      Reply
  33. eliihass says:
    June 21, 2019 at 11:40 am

    So, Chuck Todd finally got his interview with the treasonous buffoon..

    These folks will help burn this country if it meant they’d get access..

    Reply
  34. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 11:32 am

    After white cop kills black suspect, Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg tries to navigate fallout in South Bend
    By BILL RUTHHART
    | CHICAGO TRIBUNE |
    JUN 21, 2019 | 5:00 AM
    | SOUTH BEND, IND.

    In the aftermath of a white police officer fatally shooting a black suspect in South Bend, a mostly African American crowd of family members, pastors and politicians gathered at a street-side vigil to voice anger over the killing, question its circumstances and emphasize their distrust of the police.

    One key leader wasn’t there to hear their grievances: Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The rising, 37-year-old Democrat had suspended his presidential campaign to return home, but mostly remained out of public view for three days.

    When he resurfaced, it was to deliver a speech telling six newly sworn police officers that they carry the “burden” of past racial injustice between police and minorities.

    “We’ve spent years working to build trust between city leaders, public safety officers and members of the community we are charged to serve,” Buttigieg told the officers Wednesday. “Today, those same relationships we’ve worked so hard to build are in jeopardy. It’s a reminder to all of us how fragile our work can be.”

    A few hours later, the mayor appeared at a civil rights center flanked by the local NAACP chapter president and supportive African American leaders, saying the work to help the city heal could begin even as the “process” into investigating what happened plays out.

    The two events illustrate the delicate balance Buttigieg is trying to strike in the most marked challenge of his presidential campaign to date as his relationship with South Bend’s African American community has come under renewed scrutiny.

    On one hand, Buttigieg is attempting to show African American voters, whose support any Democratic presidential hopeful needs, that he understands the importance of constitutional policing and the ramifications of controversial shootings of black residents by officers. On the other, the mayor has to be careful not to draw conclusions about a shooting that’s under investigation or alienate law enforcement nationally as well as the local officers he relies on to fight crime.

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 11:05 am

    I was so happy when I discovered his beautiful work.🤗🤗

    https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/1142043141639483393

    Reply
  37. Ametia says:
    June 21, 2019 at 10:53 am

    I want to see this movie

    The Last Black Man in San Francisco
    https://a24films.com/films/the-last-black-man-in-san-francisco

    Reply
  40. eliihass says:
    June 21, 2019 at 10:04 am

    “…does he at least get credit for calling it off..”

    Just a little while ago. Proud enabler and routine offender, Hallie Jackson (MSNBC) to Kirsten Gillibrand re: the treasonous buffoon and his ridiculous ‘botched mission’..

    You really can’t make this stuff up..

    Reply
  41. Ametia says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:59 am

    I, AMETIA, don’t want to HEAR JACK SHIT about Joe Biden!

    PERIOD

    This is all about TRUMP 45 & his dirty, filthy, thuggery, lying, racists, ignorant, greedy, criminal ASS.

    THE FUCKING END!!!!!

    Reply
  42. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:56 am

    This is the link to the video of them in court, arguing this demon azz shyt😠😠

    The looks on the judges’ faces 😒😒

    Govt says doesn’t owe detainees children soap, toothbrushes

    https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/govt-says-doesn-t-owe-detainees-children-soap-toothbrushes-62376517707 via @msnbc

    Reply
  43. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:45 am

    Scientists push back against apparent purge at USDA under Trump

    Kevin Hunt, a geographer at the USDA’s Economic Research Service, talks with Rachel Maddow about the Trump administration’s effort to push scientists out of the USDA, and the newly formed employee union in his division of the department of which he is the acting-vice president.

    Reply
  44. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:41 am

    Pressure, new union thwarts moves to politicize USDA under Trump

    Rachel Maddow reports on Trump agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue’s effort to sideline career USDA scientists whose research doesn’t agree with Trump’s agenda, and how political pressure and a new employee union played a role in reversing some of those decisions.

    Reply
  45. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:38 am

    Trump has chosen lobbyists to run EPA, HHS, DOD, and Interior

    Rachel Maddow reports on the industry lobbyists running federal agencies in the Donald Trump administration and notes the irony of Trump boasting at a Florida rally of staring down lobbyists just hours after tapping former Raytheon lobbyist Mark Esper to run the Department of Defense (replacing former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan).

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 9:36 am

    Hicks transcript provides window on 2016 dual Trump tape crises

    Rachel Maddow reports on the evasiveness and obstruction of testimony by former Donald Trump aide Hope Hicks before the House Judiciary Committee, but finds insight in a passage about how the Trump campaign handled the Access Hollywood tape while a rumored lewd tape of Trump with Russian prostitutes was assigned to Michael Cohen to handle.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 21, 2019 at 10:07 am

      That anyone actually believed this 2-dime crook to begin with..

      Reply
      • SouthernGirl2 says:
        June 21, 2019 at 11:29 am

        Last night I read he’d answer every question. This morning the bittttchass didn’t show up. His attorney stated it was for health reasons.

        Reply
        • eliihass says:
          June 21, 2019 at 11:33 am

          He gave the Washington Post an extended interview, promising that he was eager to testify … And this morning was a no-show.. with his attorney later releasing a statement saying he was ‘ill’.. and would show up at the next rescheduled date .. but only after Nadler announced they were going to subpoena his crooked b*tt..

          He’s clearly trying to buy time for some dubious purpose..

          Reply
  53. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:54 am

    @revrrlewis
    Follow Follow @revrrlewis
    More
    Brian Kilmeade is against diplomacy with Iran: “Why would we talk to them? Blowing up tankers of our allies, then they blow up our drone, and then we’ll talk to them? Makes us look so weak!” Says that Trump was “giving them an out” by calling the shootdown a mistake.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 21, 2019 at 10:14 am

      He and the rest of that cohort of FOX twerps are love that some call the treasonous buffoon a ‘mobster’ – something they actually like as in their mind it boosts the buffoon, gives him some sort of ‘street cred’ and gravitas …and they erroneously believe that the ‘fearless’ mobster image unnerves those who don’t like/support the buffoon …which they like …

      https://twitter.com/Maraki8888/status/985525787456692229?s=20

      Reply
  54. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:51 am

    When you gotta agree with Bill Kristol😒😒🤨🤨

    https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1141871465698123776

    Reply
  57. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:47 am

    Let’s also be clear that it wasn’t Bolton or Pompeo who started the path to where we are now. It was Trump. He’s the one who instigated the JCPOA withdrawal, overriding his national security team at the time. We’re where we are right now because of Trump. https://t.co/r215nnTkys

    — Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) June 21, 2019

    Reply
  58. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:45 am

    I love this post, Rikyrah: I texted a friend last night and said… I am furious with Robert Mueller. He did a disservice to the country. All of that time and no indictment for Trump or his spawns. Then he waited weeks to push back against Barr. He let Barr’s lies stand for weeks. When he did give a press conference, he said even if he’s called before Congress, he’s not going to go outside of his report. I’m livid. The country is in chaos and he don’t want to go before Congress? WTF? The DOJ rule about not indicting a sitting president MUST be changed. It’s bullshyt fuckery.

    Reply
  59. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:31 am

    Phuck Outta Here

    Fin Gomez
    ‏Verified account
    @finnygo
    11h11 hours ago
    More
    SCOOP: Allies of @SarahHuckabee commissioned a poll In Arkansas “weeks ago” about a potential gubernatorial matchup w/ other likely GOP. Results showed SHS “crushing” her opponents. Sanders seriously considering but likely won’t decide for 2 years

    Reply
  64. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 8:17 am

    They never want to govern responsibly 😒😒🤨🤨

    https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1141896974049927168

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 21, 2019 at 11:14 am

      In the thick of the Birther attacks that demeaned and endangered the lives of the historic president and his black wife and traumatized their 2 then still minor daughters..

      “..Ivanka Trump, the daughter of Republican real estate mogul Donald Trump, will host a fundraiser for Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s Senate bid next Wednesday, a campaign source familiar with the event said.

      The event, with a suggested contribution of $5,200 per person, will be held at Ivanka Trump’s home on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

      She and her husband, Jared Kushner, had bundled $41,000 for Booker’s Senate campaign as of May. Booker has raised raised $6.5 million so far this year…”

      https://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/ivanka-trump-fundraiser-cory-booker-094288

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 21, 2019 at 11:26 am

      “…Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) says he doesn’t regret fundraising with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump during his 2013 Senate campaign.

      Booker told BuzzFeed podcast “Another Round” Saturday that he wasn’t the only national Democrat that accepted money from the president’s daughter and son-in-law at the time..”

      https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/344819-booker-i-dont-regret-fundraising-with-jared-kushner-and-ivanka

      “…Years before Bill Stepien became one of Donald Trump’s top political advisers, he helped launch a behind-the-scenes effort backing an underdog Democratic candidacy: Cory Booker’s bid to become Newark mayor.

      Stepien is now a top White House advisor …The GOP push in 2002 to help Booker, then a city councilman in the state’s largest city, against then-Newark Mayor Sharpe James was one of the earliest signs of the kind of bipartisan alliances Booker, a two-term senator, would later form.

      Though that initial Republican endeavor failed, Booker would become mayor of Newark four years later and continue to build partnerships with politicians and activists across the political spectrum, from Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to Wall Street bigwigs to serving on the board of a pro-school voucher group with now-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

      Booker maintained a warm relationship with Christie, who, like him was a big believer in expanding charter schools. He refused to criticize Christie during the Bridgegate scandal or when Christie became the most unpopular governor in state history. More recently, when Booker’s Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee tore into then-judicial nominee Paul Matey — a former Christie administration official — over an array of Christie administration scandals, the New Jersey Democrat wouldn’t join them.

      Among those involved in the 2002 PAC was Mike DuHaime, then a Republican operative in his late 20s who years later would go on to become chief strategist for Christie. So was Bill Baroni, a Republican attorney ..DuHaime, Baroni and Stepien all worked for the late Republican New Jersey Rep. Bob Franks. All three would later take on high profile roles with Christie..

      Baroni, who was one of two people convicted for playing a role in the Bridgegate scandal, began serving an 18-month prison sentence this week. Stepien, who was also caught up in the scandal but was never charged with a crime, was Trump’s political director and is now working on his 2020 reelection campaign…”

      https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/14/cory-booker-trump-bill-stepien-2020-1273466

      Reply
  73. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 7:47 am

    She is probably safer in jail than with her husband 😠😠
    But, arresting HER?😒🤨

    https://twitter.com/NewtownAction/status/1141878732887613440

    Reply
  91. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 6:36 am

    You all do realize that we would more than likely be at war with Iran this morning but for Vlad picking up the phone and telling Dolt45 to sit his silly azz down 😒

    Reply
  98. rikyrah says:
    June 21, 2019 at 2:55 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄 😄😄

    Reply

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