Trump’s Impeachment Needs to Transcend Partisan Concerns

That this IS a partisan question is an object lesson in why the 2-party system is bad – that the question of partisan advantage over its TIMING is a serious concern for Democrats is an indication that the 2-party system is BROKEN. Trump is not a Republican in anything but the technical sense. His divisive politics; his disregard for the law; his contempt for reason, science, & faith in equal measure; his venal narcissism, his reductionist worldview rife with misinformation and nonsense – any of these traits are obvious to anyone willing to appraise him honestly, and each is sufficiently disqualifying on its own. That evidence also mounts weekly indicating he committed acts of treason to secure his current office, and has sought repeatedly to prevent investigations into his behavior are icing on that cake, and unnecessary as far as determining grounds for impeachment.

This man and those who serve him are an existential threat to the survival of this nation. Removing him from office is not sufficient, but it is a necessary first step, & any short-term concerns about the partisan political cost of taking that step are misplaced. The Republican Party has failed repeatedly to place the needs of the country above their party when it came to the threat this man posed, and they will suffer for it – if Trump is successfully removed from office it will likely mean the end of their party as it currently exists, either through organic infighting or because Trump himself brings it about.

But Trump is the apotheosis of the corruption that has infected the American system for decades, and the things that make him a threat are not inherently conservative. If Democrats make the mistake of prioritizing their group over the needs of the greater whole, they prove they are also not worth preserving, and we would be better served destroying both parties together, and building new political structures to manage ideological differences. The Constitution does not demand parties at all, and even if we have them, it does not require only two.

Any long-lived institution will naturally seek its own perpetuation. Such self-preservative instincts are perfectly fine – even beneficial – so long as they also provide symbiotic benefit to the society of which they are part.  But when that relationship becomes more parasitic, and those self-preservative moves become actively hostile to the society’s own survival, the sane response for that culture is to dismantle the infecting institution.

Formal Call for Impeachment, Redux

Today I wrote a second letter to the collective Congressional Republican leadership:

Dear Speaker Ryan:

I have written to you before on this matter, but new developments compel me to do so again.  As before, I am not your direct constituent, but your position is such that I must appeal to you nevertheless.

Sir, your time is up.  Your time is long past up.  As I write this, the national media is showing loops of retired General Michael Flynn’s visit to federal court, to plead guilty to lying  to the FBI, and his statement that he is actively cooperating with the Special Counsel investigation of Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign and administration.

From this day forward, every minute you continue to make excuses, overlook, and obstruct justice (morally if not legally) regarding the crimes of this President costs you and your party on an existential level.  Donald Trump is not just unfit for office, an embarrassment to the nation and to your party, but a traitor, and it is now only a matter of time before that is proven in court.  Allowing him to remain in office in the face of this reality is a dereliction of your duty of the highest order, and the longer you do so, the more serious the consequences for your party once you are left with no choice but to support his impeachment and trial for removal.

The writing is on the wall.  Your only chance now to avoid the destruction of the Republican Party forever is to break your alliance of convenience with Donald Trump and remove him from office.  Articles of Impeachment have already been submitted in the House.  Apply your influence to bringing them to a vote.  Support that vote in the affirmative.  Urge your colleagues in the Senate to vote for removal.

Remember the lesson of Richard Nixon.  When it became clear his presidency could not be salvaged, Republicans in Congress ensured that while his ouster did indeed harm their electoral chances in the next election, they were able to recover as a party quickly and usher in the Reagan era only a few years later.  Trump’s crimes dwarf those of Nixon, and so the damage you have done your party by making common cause with him may be more lasting.  But the alternative of continuing to back him as his closest advisors and family begin to fall to indictment after indictment, and it becomes ever-more undeniable that Donald Trump himself was and remains at the center of all their misdeeds – that path will lead to consequences far worse.  The time will still come when you will have no choice but to support impeachment, but when that moment arrives, you will not be able to convince Trump to resign, for he is far less rational than Nixon, and you will not be able to convince him it is in his best interests.  And he will call YOU a traitor, and the most extreme victims of propaganda will believe him, in spite of all evidence.  And whether it is from prison or Trump Tower, he will lead those extremists out of the Republican Party altogether.  The result will be that you and your colleagues will no longer have the votes to remain a viable national party ever again – of course, neither will Trump’s followers, but he does not care about that, and never did.  He only cares that he can surround himself with sycophants, and bilk the gullible of their money for his own enrichment – and there will always be plenty such people to keep him happy.

For the sake of your own party’s future, you MUST impeach Donald Trump.  It has the added benefit of being the right thing to do, and you know it.

CCed: Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Roy Blunt, Sen. Cory Gardner, Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. John Thune, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Steve Scalise, Rep. Luke Messer, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

On The “Death Tax”

I am not remotely the first person to point this out, of course, but since it is a key part of the current debate over reshaping the American federal tax code, I figure one more voice raised can’t hurt.

The estate tax – or the “death tax” as the Republicans so cleverly rebranded it – does not “tax money a second time.” It does not “penalize the successful.” And it also does not, by the way, hurt small businesses, or farmers, or the average American family (it has always been designed to target only very large estates, though the specific threshold has varied, and it does not affect businesses at all).

When someone dies and passes their wealth on to one or more heirs, that is a transfer of money. It is changing hands, and therefore owners, in exactly the same manner as when someone is given a gift, or someone wins the lottery (both of which are also subject to taxation over a certain value). The previous owner is dead, and so cannot be penalized by anything, taxes or otherwise. Therefore, the money is moving from one person to another, and most of the time when that happens, there is a tax involved. When buying goods or services, the seller is expected to pay a sales or income tax on the money paid to them. When a wage is earned for work done, a tax is paid on those earnings. When interest is accrued through investment, when a gift is given, when a prize is won, taxes are expected to be paid. You may not LIKE having to pay taxes, but that is the price you pay for being a part of a society that has money and a government that regulates that money so it has a reasonably consistent value (not to mention all the other services that government is supposed to perform).

Letter to Republican Leadership

Today I’ve mailed copies of the following letter to all 12 members of the House and Senate Republican leadership (including Orrin Hatch as Senate President pro tempore, and even the new and largely ceremonial positions they created just recently).  Salutations and addressing, of course, vary for each, but the body is the same for all.

Dear Speaker Ryan:

I write this letter to the collective Republican leadership of both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.  I am not your constituent, but I am a fellow citizen, and I write to you now as such, and because you are the only ones who can truly take the steps necessary to avert disaster.

Donald Trump is terminating the DACA program.  He is implementing his threatened ban against transgender people in the military.  He kept border checkpoints open in a hurricane evacuation zone.  He has pardoned Joe Arpaio.  He threatened – repeatedly, and in the wake of an unprecedented natural disaster – to shut down the entire federal government to finance a border wall that won’t work and which he has said repeatedly the United States wouldn’t even be paying for in any case.  And that’s just what he’s done IN A WEEK.

He demonizes a free press and makes excuses for white supremacists.  He threatens nuclear war with the most unstable regime on Earth.  He seeks to make alliance with the single most corrupt leader in the world (and almost certainly knowingly accepted the same man’s direct aid in getting elected).  He is trying to break the entire American health care system, killing thousands, so he can “win” a legislative victory unavailable by any other means.  Across the board, he has appointed men openly hostile to their stated missions to virtually every government agency, where he has not emptied them out altogether.  He pays himself with taxpayer funds in open defiance of the Constitution, and invites foreign dignitaries to do the same.  He is a liar (and not even a good one), a sex offender, and a narcissist. He makes a mockery of every ethical standard; all the ideals of a country founded on principles of equal opportunity; the history of a political party whose first president was Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator; and even his own, ever dwindling supporters.

It is not enough to distance yourself from the controversy he generates.  It is not enough to sternly disapprove of his wild accusations.  It is not enough to call him corrupt or incompetent.  It is not enough to mock his obvious inability to even behave like an adult, never mind fulfill the duties of his office.  It is not even enough to (rightly) call him a racist or a traitor.

Calling him out for his lies on Twitter is not enough.  Sharing memes making fun of him is not enough.  Embarrassing exposes are not enough.  Lodging complaints through public comments; even letters like this, contacting Congresspeople and Senators is not enough.  Holding protests, however massive and however frequent, is not enough.  None of it has been enough – he is still there, and he is still making it worse with each passing day.

It has been more than 8 months, and this dangerous lunatic has taken hold of the fabric of our country – it is frayed, and much patched, it’s true, but it is still OURS – and he is ripping it apart.

We must do more – YOU must do more, as an elected representative of this country, and among the only people with the power to do so.  If you don’t hurry up, I fear there will only be 2 outcomes left – either it will no longer be possible to wrest it from him, or what we get back once we do will be too ruined to fix again.

So I urge you as plainly as possible, and in the strongest possible terms – set aside your partisanship.  Donald Trump is not a Republican in anything but name – you have known this since he announced his intention to run.  He is not on your team.  He does not hold your interests or your goals at heart.  He will not pay back your loyalty to him.  He has already demonstrated that his only concern is his own survival and prosperity, and that he is happy to gain those things at the expense of anyone and everyone around him.  He is a threat, clear and present, and he must be faced as such.  Every day you do not initiate impeachment proceedings is another day you are in dereliction of your duty not just as an elected official but as an American.  Impeach Donald Trump.  Do it today.  Do it before you cast away any remaining hope that history will remember you with anything but scorn.

Sincerely,

Alon Rand

I have few illusions about how weighty my words will be – I’m doubtful the men (and one woman) who are named on the envelopes will even read them.  Letters to members of Congress are accorded almost no weight at all if they do not come from a constituent of the member in question, and I live in the districts/states of none of them.  But it is what I can do right now, along with posting my words here, and speaking up elsewhere where possible, so it is what I have done.

This Was Not In Doubt

Today, again, Donald Trump has demonstrated what kind of person he is.  What kind of person he has always been.  What kind of person, it is nearly certain, he will always be.

It has been stated before – many times now – but I will say it again: Donald Trump is a racist.  He has denied it – weakly – in words, but shown it amply, again and again, by his deeds.

I was going to write more – much more – but then I saw Keith Olbermann’s latest, and knew I was better off sharing that instead.

Olbermann is right.  Trump is a pig.  And anyone still supporting him is even worse.

A Vivid Reminder – Trump is not JUST Racist

The Purge Of Transgender People From American Life Has Begun – Huffington Post

The DACA revocation is getting a lot of attention right now (and rightly so), but this matters too.

The Trump administration is systematically attacking and marginalizing the most vulnerable segments of the population to score cheap political points and distract attention from their rampant corruption. They have made common cause with the bigoted fringe of right-wing extremism – not only Nazis and other elements of the “alt-right” but the rabid religious right that seeks to ostracize and dehumanize every part of the LGBT community as well. And let us not forget that inroads are also already being made against women’s equality as well, with rollbacks of equal pay and family leave policies.

It is obvious to anyone willing to be honest that it will not stop here if this is allowed to continue. It begins with undocumented immigrants and the transgender community, but it will soon expand to encompass a reversal of the still-fragile gains that homosexuals have earned, and yet more extremes of open racism. This is what “Make America Great Again” always meant – it was a call to fully restore privileged status to straight, white, Christian men, and shove everyone else back down to second-class positions.

And we must remember, with each new policy rollback, every reversal of the long and painful road towards universal equality (which we still had not yet achieved), that the Republican Party generally, and those currently in Congress in particular, are complicit. When the public pressure becomes so overwhelming they can no longer drag their feet, when the evidence of treason, corruption, criminal activity, and malfeasance is too undeniable to ignore any longer, and they have no other choice than to remove him from office, we must remember they made all of this possible, through their dog whistles, their willful blindness, their lust for power at any cost, their naked partisanship, and their own unspoken bigotry. They must not be allowed to paint themselves as virtuous once they are backed into a corner and forced to do the right thing at last.

Doesn’t Mean Surveillance Didn’t Happen

Justice Department affirms no evidence Obama wiretapped Trump – Reuters, via Yahoo

Though I will note that their wording was rather specific. It doesn’t rule out either electronic or telephone surveillance ordered by either federal law enforcement or intelligence services, authorized by a properly-obtained FISA court warrant.

We don’t know that there was such surveillance, but they also carefully did not say that there wasn’t. Frankly I hope so – would be useful evidence, probably.

Democrats Need to Keep Their Eye on 2018

I hope they all work hard to keep this low-key. I understand the urge to lay the groundwork early – this is the most open Democratic field since 2004 – but I think the midterms are unusually important this time around. As a party, they need to be working REALLY hard for 2018, because it’s going to take a lot of effort to flip Congress in both houses, and that’s pretty much vital (one or the other would halt the Republican legislative agenda, and if it was the Senate that would impede the nomination of terrible people to executive and judiciary roles, but that’s not enough – we need to get Trump out of office ASAP, and unless the Mueller investigation forces Ryan and McConnell’s hands by concluding unexpectedly quickly, that probably won’t happen before 2018).

Though there is an interesting bit of strategic calculus that McConnell and Ryan better start considering, in light of recent information. There is now sufficient evidence for a hostile House of Representatives to draft articles of impeachment against not just Trump, but Pence as well (there’s far less on the latter, but enough). If current trends persist in the coming months, there’s a very real chance that Ryan will lose his majority, and therefore his speakership. If Democrats do manage to flip both houses of Congress in 2018, they might well draft articles of impeachment against both Trump and Pence. I’m dubious of the chances for the ensuing Senate trial against the latter – it requires a 2/3 vote to find an impeached official guilty, and the chances of the Democrats expanding to a majority that large are basically nonexistent – but there remains an outside chance that we could wind up with Republican dithering and partisanship now leading to President Nancy Pelosi by the end of 2019.

I admit it’s highly unlikely given what we know now, but consider also: we only currently know about 2 ways in which Pence has sided with Trump against both the law and the public interest. That does not mean there aren’t more, and worse ones. And there is also the fact that Pence has hired his own legal team (with much more skill and relevant experience than Trump has been able to secure) to defend against exactly this sort of thing. If these 2 comparatively minor infractions were all he’d done, I’m doubtful he’d have high-priced lawyers already on retainer. Who knows what else he’s done, or allowed to happen, so as to stay on Trump’s good side?