It would now appear that Trump’s impeachment is an inevitability.
He is so uncaring of the emoluments clause that he made news this week by having the announcement made that his club in Miami will be hosting the G7 gathering next year. The decision was made through a brutal process that involved studying ten possible venues, none of which has been revealed, and was then made through no means that is going to be reviewed or revealed to anyone. A massive amount of money is going to be funneled into his pockets by foreign countries, which is a direct constitutional violation.
You get impeached for that.
Meanwhile his acting chief of staff openly admitted a quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine in which he basically threatened to withhold money given to Ukraine by Congress in exchange for them investigating his political rival.
You get impeached for that.
At the same time he withdrew American military support from the Kurds and thousands of them have been slaughtered. Supposedly a cease fire has been negotiated, but it’s only for five days, word is that it’s already been violated, and it wouldn’t have been necessary in the first place if Trump hadn’t ignore the advice of pretty much everyone and withdrew US support, a move encouraged by Putin and the president of Turkey.
That’s not an impeachable offense, but it may be enough to shake enough GOP support so that the vote in the Senate may not go the way he wants it to.
He also had yet another meltdown, deriding Nancy Pelosi for being a third rate/grade politician. Her response was to basically pull the Doctor Who stunt, stopping just short of saying, “Don’t you think he looks tired?” Trump’s response? To say SHE looked tired, which was right up there with when Hillary Clinton in the debates said that he was a puppet and he replied, “You’re the puppet!” It’s the equivalent of a kindergartner arguing that his tormentor is the real poopie head.
That’s not a impeachable offense, but it simply places another nail into his coffin. The country is watching as he melts down. The poll numbers contending that he should be impeached are climbing faster than they did under the Nixon administration and he’s on the verge of joining a very special, select group of presidents: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and him. It remains hilarious that the GOP had no trouble impeaching Clinton over lying about sex, but still won’t line up to condemn Trump for doing far, far worse. A current count has Trump guilty of over 2500 conflicts of interest, all of which are being investigated.
The only question that’s left is: is Trump going to wind up in jail?
Of course not.
He has a private plane. At some point or other, he’s going to flee the country. He’ll take family members, maybe, and head out probably to Saudi Arabia. He loves them, it’s run by a murderous dictator, he has business dealings there, and it’s warm. As much as we speculate over how nice it would be to see him pay for his crimes, I think we have to come to the realization and admission that that’s never going to happen. He has spent his entire life avoiding being answerable for every crime he’s ever committed, and I’m positive that he’s going to avoid having to answer for his crimes as president. The absolute worst thing that happens is he’s thrown out, Pence pardons him, and then he bolts the country before any states can arrest him.
So he won’t pay for his crimes. The Kurds, American voters and the world will, but he won’t.
PAD
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That’s odd! This Freaked Out Friday column seemed to be quite a bit longer and more interesting in the e-mail version. Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or is this version close to a thousand words shorter than the one I thought I remembered reading?
Can you post the content of that email? I’ve been waiting for hours and seems like this post won’t be updated.
Kath here. I had the wrong file so I posted it then realized it was a repeat. Peter is at the Memphis Comic Expo this weekend so he could not get me the file I needed as he was there. this morning I posted the correct entry.
Always love to read these. Thanks, Peter.
It seems clear that most Congressional Republicans are in an abusive relationship with the current chief executive. Common signs of being in an abusive relationship are when the abuser routinely:
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Humiliates or embarrasses you
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Constantly puts you down
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Is hypercritical
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Refuses to communicate
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Ignores or excludes you
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Engages in extramarital affairs
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Engages in provocative behavior with the opposite sex
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Uses sarcasm and an unpleasant tone of voice
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Displays unreasonable jealousy
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Displays extreme moodiness
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Makes mean jokes or constantly makes fun of you
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Is dominating and controlling
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Displays withdraws of affection
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Invokes guilt trips
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Makes everything your fault
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Isolates you from friends and family.
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Uses money to control
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It makes one wonder why Congressional Republicans continue to support him. They seem more afraid of losing their political careers via tweet than of willingly surrendering their remaining dignity, power and respect in service of propping up a continuing corrupt mountain of lies.
anything else.
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Nothing else comes even close to being as important to them.
Interesting column. I hadn’t thought of Trump choosing exile over arrest. That’s possible. I don’t think a pardon from Pence is in the cards because Pence is in the Ukraine deal up to his whiskerless neck. So either Trump fires Pence, appoints someone brand new, and trades a year being POTUS for a pardon… Or we get the first woman President without so much as an election.
I will hope for the latter. Time will tell.
Impeachment likely will happen.
But, the G7 stuff won’t have anything to do with it.
Trump changed his mind about hosting the G7 in Florida.
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Hilarious is not the word, not even close.
Impeachment is inevitable, but conviction by the Senate is not. As witnessed by Graham’s resolution condemning the impeachment inquiry (on grounds that anyone who’s been to law school — like Graham– knows are total BS) with 40+ Senators on board, I would say it’s unlikely. And you still have polls saying close to 40% still approve of Trump after ALL the blatant crap he’s pulled, all the personal consequences that they’ve suffered for their support (with the trade wars, tariffs, lopsided tax cuts), all the hypocrisy they’ve had to put out to prop him up … they will NEVER admit they were wrong. At least after Bush the Right stopped talking about what a great President he was and he quietly faded away. Trump is never going to give up the limelight, and for those who say he won’t step down even if he’s convicted…I have to say, I’m worried they may be right. Even if he does leave the WH, he’s going to tweeting šhìŧ about everything Dems (and likely a good number of Repugs) do.
wow. I’m coming at this a bit late, but my response now is the same as it would have been on the date of posting. Trump is going nowhere. He wont flee, he doesn’t NEED to. trump could literally murder someone in downtown Manhattan and the republicans in the senate wouldn’t vote to impeach.
While I somewhat agree with david’s last sentence – the millions of his followers who were desperate for someone to follow and obey, at least, would apparently forgive him for anything – from the beginning of his administration, one of the very most likely outcomes I’ve seen for Trump is his transforming Air Force One into an escape plane for a fugitive from justice.