Poll: 4 in 10 support impeaching TrumpAutoplay: On | OffMuch of the public is eager for the impeachment of President Trump. A poll last week found that 40 percent of Americans already “support” impeaching him, and the same survey — by highly regarded Public Policy Polling — found that another 12 percent are “not sure.”From the outset of his presidency, Trump has been violating the U.S. Constitution in a way that we have not seen before and should not tolerate. It’s time for members of Congress to get the impeachment process underway.The Constitution states that to start impeachment proceedings, a document or “resolution calling for a committee investigation of charges against the officer in question” must be introduced in the House of Representatives. Such a move would have been appropriate from the moment that Trump became president.As documented in depth on the ImpeachDonaldTrumpN ow.org website — where more than 600,000 people have already signed a petition for impeachment — the president continues to violate two “emoluments” clauses in the Constitution. One prohibits any gifts or benefits from foreign governments, and the other prohibits the same from the U.S. government or any U.S. state.To uphold the bedrock principle that no one should be above the supreme law of the land, a resolute member of the House must now take the lead in introducing a resolution to get impeachment rolling. That process is necessarily difficult — and essential. Former White House counsel John Dean, who served President Nixon from 1970 to 1973, told The Atlantic magazine: “I don’t think Richard Nixon even comes close to the level of corruption we already know about Trump.” Since that interview with Dean three weeks ago, we’ve been learning more about Trump’s unconstitutional corruption as president. The case that Trump is in flagrant violation of the Constitution gained added strength over the weekend when The Associated Press reported: “New documents confirm that President Donald Trump retains a direct tie to his business interests through a revocable trust now being overseen by one of his adult sons and a longtime executive of the Trump Organization.”What’s more, AP reported, “Trump is the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is tied to his Social Security number as the taxpayer identification number, according to documents published online by the investigative nonprofit ProPublica. And Trump can revoke the trust, which was amended three days before his inauguration, at any time.”Members of Congress should initiate an impeachment process because of two clear provisions in the Constitution.The Foreign Emoluments Clause says: “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”And the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause (also known as the Presidential Compensation Clause), which cannot be waived by Congress, says: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.” In addition, a House committee’s impeachment probe should also investigate whether President Trump is violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 (STOCK Act). One of the few federal ethics statutes that specifically include the president, the STOCK Act — among other provisions — prohibits the president from (1) using nonpublic information for private profit, and from (2) intentionally influencing an employment decision or practice of a private entity solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation.A crucial test for democracy is whether people in high places can violate the law with impunity. For democracy in the United States, the biggest danger is unchecked presidential ability to violate the Constitution. In a speech on the House floor last Thursday that spelled out some of Trump’s extreme conflicts-of-interest, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) closed with a cogent reference to the fact that Congress can “even explore the power of impeachment.”Let the exploration begin.Norman Solomon is co-founder of the activist group RootsAction.org, which has nearly 1 million supporters online. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the Democratic National Convention, where he was the leader and coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network. RootsAction and Free Speech For People are sponsoring the grassroots impeachment campaign at ImpeachDonaldTrumpN ow.org."
President Donald Trump reportedly did not realize he was promoting chief strategist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council (NSC) Principals Committee when he signed the executive order dropping intelligence and defense officials from the top government panel and elevating the former Breitbart News chair in their place.The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump had not been fully briefed on his own executive order, which became "a greater source of frustration to the president" than the protests and legal actions over his travel ban blocking immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.Reporters Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman depicted an administration that's just barely keeping a lid on its internal crises, turf wars, and lack of preparation—and a scheming chief strategist that's successfully taken advantage of it all.They wrote:[White House chief of staff Reince] Priebus told Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon that the administration needs to rethink its policy and communications operation in the wake of embarrassing revelations that key details of the orders were withheld from agencies, White House staff, and Republican congressional leaders like Speaker Paul D. Ryan.Mr. Priebus has also created a 10-point checklist for the release of any new initiatives that includes signoff from the communications department and the White House staff secretary, Robert Porter, according to several aides familiar with the process.Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president's dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump's anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.Trump seemingly clarified on Twitter that he calls his own shots, "largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it." He also accused the Times of writing "total fiction" about him.The executive order promoted Bannon, a white nationalist with no foreign policy or government experience, to a regular seat at some of the most sensitive meetings at the highest levels of government, along with other NSC meetings. Meanwhile, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—who need to be confirmed by the Senate—were directed to only attend meetings when discussions pertain to their "responsibilities and expertise."The memo led to speculation that the right-wing power grab in the executive branch could be setting the stage for a coup d'état.
Media against him, Bannon is alt-right and in charge of a lot of things, picking on China, banning Muslims and then being kicked in the balls by judges stopping him, Spicer's aggressive press conferences, his cabinet picks are billionaires so not sure they 'the people' at the heart of their ideas just greed for themselves, his proposed ambassador for the EU will be blocked by EU members, his proposed UK visit where we don't actually want him and MPs won't turn up and he just wants photos with the Queen and that is about it, his choice for middle eastern advisor is his son-in-law. That is all before we talk about his own horrible sexist, racist, dumb-ass, short attention span, phone-putting-down, self. What are we on 17 days?
Trump's latest executive order! Oh no!!! http://hepwori.github.io/execorder/
Quote from: thunderlips on February 07, 2017, 01:14:46 pm Trump's latest executive order! Oh no!!! http://hepwori.github.io/execorder/Glad to see our fears of Trump are based in reality.
Sorry to pop the liberal dream world bubble... But there is no win scenario. The problem is American society is rotten to the core, as a result of 50yrs of bad decisions (including liberal "progressive" values, and corporatism of both the left/right). Trump/Bannon are not the problem, so anti-democratic lefty fascists are not going to impeach them, and "magically all better now". The corporate liberal dream of "getting rid of Trump" would only make him a martyr, which would bring an even nastier revolution. Maybe start dealing with the actual problems instead???
If his approval rating hits a low enough level the backlash may not be too bigly.
Quote from: grey on February 07, 2017, 02:50:02 pmIf his approval rating hits a low enough level the backlash may not be too bigly.You can't quiet the mob with "look at these statistics we made up". ...they are on to that trick.
Quote from: Mr.DeMartino on Yesterday at 01:40:32 Trump is a liar and a con man.
Quote from Mr.DeMartino on June 14, 2019 at 02:28:07 Donald Trump is a lying sack of shit
If the mob is limited to the poorest, least-educated, most ill-informed people...
I know, why doesn't Trump just roll over counterrevolutionar y running dog American protesters with tanks...
...sounds pretty racially-supremacist and homophobically facist, to me. Hitler.
I am not even sure what the criteria for impeachment is.
Quote from: Ptolemy on February 07, 2017, 08:32:48 pmQuote from: hippo on February 07, 2017, 08:14:18 pmI am not even sure what the criteria for impeachment is. Who knows, they tried to impeach Bill for getting his knob waxed or whatever. Perjury and obstruction of justice, FYI.
Quote from: hippo on February 07, 2017, 08:14:18 pmI am not even sure what the criteria for impeachment is. Who knows, they tried to impeach Bill for getting his knob waxed or whatever.