The 2020 Election, Part 2

Yes, its August 26, 2019, and we're already on to part two of this thread.  You can find Part 1 here.

The new news, so to speak is now on the Republican side where President Trump has a second contender, former Republican Congressman from Illinois and current radio host Joe Walsh.

Walsh joins Bill Weld in the GOP camp in contesting Trump for the nomination.  He came out of the chutes over the weekend on one of the news shows basically declaring Trump to be mentally imbalanced, so he clearly doesn't mind speaking his own mind.  Walsh is from the Tea Party wing of the GOP (Weld is a Libertarian) and so this most recent challenge is aimed at, to at least some degree, Trump's base.

It has little chance of success, but it is interesting that the GOP race appears to be gaining some additional competitors, including one who is as likely to be insulting towards Trump as Trump might be inclined to be towards him.

I have to admit that when I hear the name "Joe Walsh", I think of the rock guitarist.

Joe Walsh, lower left, as one of the members of the James Gang.

Joe Walsh, the rock guitarist, was responsible for one of the most eclectic rock album covers, that being for his album You Bought It--You Name It, which features the USS Yorktown after it sustained damage at the Battle of Midway.  Rocky Mountain Way, from the album The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, remains a regional classic.
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September 5, 2019

Wyoming's Democratic Party has announced that only candidates who are Wyoming residents will be eligible for party support.

That would seem self evident and indeed Wyoming's law requires a person to be a resident in order to run for office.  During the last Gubernatorial campaign this became an issue for one of the Republican candidates who was challenged on the basis that his ranch house might actually be in Colorado. That particular issue was never resolved and he lost in the primaries, but it's clear that this is what the state's law requires.

None the less that hasn't stopped out of state gadfly candidates from registering to run here.  There's some misbegotten belief, apparently, that small population states, like Alaska and Wyoming, are eager to vote for people from elsewhere.

In fact, its much more likely that the opposite is true. While Wyoming has elected a lot of politicians to office who were born elsewhere, they were residents and the state can be highly provincial about such things.  The state's voters aren't going to vote for an out of stater.

Chances may be that the election of Liz Cheney confused some on this point.  Cheney did in fact have low adult connection with the state and that was repeatedly pointed out during her early campaign for office when she was first elected.  However, it's also missed that her first campaign at all was a failure and that the primary in which she secured her position featured a tight three way race in which either of the other two Republican candidates would have undoubtedly defeated her if his opponent had dropped out. So the lesson there isn't the one some to think it is.

It definitely isn't the lesson some current Californian has drawn who has registered as a Democratic candidate here on the basis of liking the state but not liking Cheney.  Whatever that person may think is the case, she won't be getting Democratic money.

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September 9, 2019

Former South Carolinian Governor and Congressman Mark Sanford has announced against President Donald Trump for the Republican primary, making Sanford the third Republican to announced against Trump.

Sanford has come out early on fiscal responsibility.  His campaign, in addition to being faced by the uphill nature of running against an incumbent, is likely to be plagued at least a bit by Sanford's troubled personal history which features an embarrassing absence from his duties while he was a governor due to an extramarital affair.

An interesting feature of the current races is that the crowded field of Democratic challengers is starting to narrow, while the Republican field, which is much much smaller, is starting to expand a bit.  None of the current GOP candidates challenging President Trump are likely to stand much of a primary chance.

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September 10, 2019

I wasn't aware of this when I posted yesterday, but billionaire Howard Schultz has also dropped out of the race, concluding that at best all he would be was a spoiler.

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September 13, 2019

I didn't turn it on, but my wife did, so for the first time this seasons, well actually the second, I saw part of the Democratic debate.  I probably watched a little over 30 minutes of it.

That was enough to make it plain that the Democrats are likely to loose the Presidential election in the fall of 2020.  The debate was essentially an effort to see how far to the extreme left each candidate could go and how much money the nation doesn't have could be spent.

During the portions I saw health care and gun control were the two big topics.

Gun control provides an excellent example of why the Democrats loose elections.

Each candidate repeatedly cited the fact that some high percentage (it varied, which means that they are citing vague statistics, not hard and fast ones) of gun owners, or NRA members support some sort of measures to address current concerns.  But in every instance but one the candidates then launched into suggestions that almost no gun owner supports and many non gun owners also do not support.  As they each credited each other, with one single exception, it's pretty much the case that every time they opened their mouths on this topic a sizable chunk of fence sitting Republican and independent voters made up their minds to vote for Trump.

Trump, speaking of the economy, stated the other day that people will vote for him as "they have no choice". For gun owners, that's pretty much clearly the case.  O'Rourke stated flatly he'd confiscate AR15s, which no candidate, save for one, backed away from.  Therefore the Democrats will now go through the remaining part of the campaign branded with the very fear, confiscation, that has driven them away from the Democrats in the past.  Booker would license every gun owner in the United States, a second position that gun owners don't support and, as the nearly the only country in the entire world that doesn't require citizens to have ID cards, and which has a large illegal immigrant problem, is hypocritical.  Based on drivers needing to have driver's licenses, it's also poorly thought out as that's a state, not a Federal, requirement (I drove a semi truck while employed by the Federal government on a Federal permit that trumped state licenses. . .and I didn't have a CDL that would otherwise have been required.  Kamala Harris proclaimed that she would address the topic in Fascist fashion and simply issue executive orders, apparently believing that shes' running for Dictator rather than President.

O'Rourke's position, we note, is a gift to the NRA, which is already using it.

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That last item of Harris' did bring a rebuke from Joe Biden who noted that it was flatly unconstitutional.  Harris made it plain that she wasn't inclined to worry about that.  Gun owners will worry about that and every American should worry about that.  President Obama ramped up that practice which first came under common modern use in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt and its' flatly anti democratic and fascistic in nature.  A President that could get away with left wing "you can't own that" will give rise to right wing "you can't own that" in no time at all.  This practice is actually an existing one that right now threatens to undermine democracy and its essentially the means by which many democratic countries of the past, right back to ancient Rome, became autocracies.  Biden was correct to note its illegal.

The only candidate who sounded reasonable at all on this issue was Amy Klobuchar who never gave her position on gun control but noted that there are three moderate bills actually capable of passing Congress in Congress right now and that action should be taken on them.  Nobody else took that difficult but honest view, which focuses attention on what is going on right now and points out that if a person really thinks legislative action should be taken, it ought to be taken now.  The other Democrats sound hypocritical in comparison as if they'd prefer to ignore the present in favor of keeping this as a campaign issue.  I'll write on those bills later.

The entire performance pretty much shows why the Democrats can't win outside of urban areas anymore.  Everyone is okay with banning and unconstitutional acts in regard to something they dont' use.  As I've noted before, if Kamala Harris issued an executive order banning NASCAR, I wouldn't care. Some would. That's the point.

On Harris, Harris proved vulnerable on her past as a prosecutor and Klobucher did as well.  But Harris much more so.  The specific vulnerability was to the black incarceration rate, which there's no defense of.  Nobody had really good responses to this but Harris is really vulnerable as a prosecutor really can't walk away from this issue if you are also advocating illegal confiscation.  Confiscatory laws, particularly drug laws, make up a large percentage of the crimes that people, including blacks, are in prison for, and if that was your early career, and you are for confiscation now, that's something that can't be ignored.

This brings up the fact that the candidates were at a historically black college which gave them the opportunity to call Trump a racist and to maintain that they are not.  That's become a very common theme in the Democratic Party but it's risky.  People who are inclined to vote for Trump as they fear how far the Democrats are going to the left are now effectively being called racists as well if they determine to make that vote, which really hardens their position on the Democrats in general.

That and health care also gave the Democrats the chance to show that a lot of their solutions to everything involve the application of cash.  Julian Castro came out strongly for reparations for slavery, which is a favorite Democratic position this year.  It'd be expensive, obviously, and is likely among the programs that would be least effective in addressing the situation of poor blacks. The most effective would be to take the Stroud position from The New Republic of old and enormously limit immigration until blacks achieved economic parity, given as its well known that immigration hurts them the most, but as the Democrats are racing towards being towards an open border, they can't argue for that.  Reparations present tricky issues of other types, of course, as if black Americans are entitled to them for crimes against their dead ancestors, American Indians certainly are as well.  Irish Americans might be as well for all the repression they first faced when they entered the country.

Indeed, when dealing with reparations for crimes of the past, the situation becomes particularly tricky.  Would reparations be justly reduced for the descendants of black Americans who served in the Frontier Army, against Native Americans, after the Civil War?  Do the descendants of men who died fighting to end slavery get a tax break so that their tax dollars don't go to reparations?  What about the descendants of abolitionist?  Shouldn't reparations only be paid for by taxes on those whose ancestors lived in slave holding regions of the country at the time, which would mean most Americans wouldn't be taxed for that at all, as most American's progenitors came into the country after slavery was illegal in the region in which they landed.  Or is it purely economic in nature, in which case the horrific bondage of their ancestors must be, as noted, compared to that of the natives, who lost an entire continent, and who would certainly be entitled to reparations as well?  Certainly American Indians and American Asians shouldn't be taxed at all for this as they had no role in slavery whatsoever.

This may seem facetious but a lot of middle Americans have a pretty good idea of their own families past and they bristle at the idea of reparations for sins of their fathers that their fathers didn't commit. And to the extent sins were committed, and they certainly were, you can argue both that there ought to be a statute of limitations for them.  If not, there are no people on earth that can't claim they're entitled, at some point to them. This is the second reason that reparations are a bad idea which makes the Democrats look superficial.  An application of cash to the descendants of slaves probably helps few such people today and looks like we believe that a few dollars just cures everything, even if they are dollars we have to take from everyone (including the people we're giving them to) as we really don't have them.

Health care is nearly that way too as the basic campaign has come down to some version of Medicare for all, as if that's free for everyone.  Only one candidate was really willing to talk about how to fund that, which came down to taxing the rich, but the problem is that if this is to be paid for it would amount to a really massive tax increase.  People who have looked at it sometimes maintain that Richard Nixon's gift to the elderly of Medicare for everyone over 65 years of age was an unwise fiscal decision.  Which brings us back to the fact that the Democrats come across as if they live in a nation that has absolutely endless government money, and yet we're not paying for the government we have right now.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders came across, additionally, as looking really old, although Biden is a vigorous old, and Sanders is a unhealthy looking old.  Their ages are however really showing.

And so is the Democratic trend to run towards the left in the primary, where they tend to get stuck and then loose the general.  This year, they're further to the left than they've been at any time in my lifetime, which means frankly the Democratic candidate is likely to loose and if elected likely to be completely ineffective.  The nation's politics, therefore, continue to descend towards complete ineffectiveness.

On other news, Rand Paul called Liz Cheney a "warmonger" for not supporting President Trump's near surrender in Afghanistan.  I guess that makes me one too.  However, it's a bad idea.

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September 17, 2019

While it puts me in the position of blowing our own horn, what we noted above about O'Rourke's position being a gift to the Republican Party has become the standard op-ed line over the past few days.  I.e., he really hurt all of the Democrats in his campaign by coming out for gun confiscation.  Thousands of middle of the path voters will swing Republican because of O'Rourke, who doesn't have a chance at this point anyhow so he's mostly hurting each other.

Irrespective of that, and perhaps based on data prior to the debate, an NBC poll predicts Trump will loose the Presidential election and the Democrats make big gains in both houses.  It's early for polls, and recently they haven't been that accurate, so that can't really be looked upon as the beginning of the end of the story.

Lots of attention is being paid to Joe Biden's age as he seemed to make multiple speaking blunders during the debate.  People are pointing fingers at Julian Castro for seemingly pointing out Biden's age, which Castro denies as his intent.

Age should perhaps be of interest.  None the less, it might be worth noting that Biden, despite his 76 years, is the only candidate who immediately cited the Constitution, and correctly, when Harris, age 54, argued she could and would take what amount to dictatorial and disturbingly fascistic actions in regard to her position on firearms.

Age aside, according to one major news outlet the contest is really between Biden (76), Elizabeth Warren (70) and Sanders (78), which if correct makes the field notably grey.  Indeed, that would mean that only one is a Baby Boomer, Warren, with the two other front runners, if that is correct, in the "Silent Generation", even though they obviously aren't silent.

Indeed, it's interesting that in this context somebody like Harris, age 54, seems young, even though I can assure you that, at age 56, she isn't.
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September 25, 2019

One of the advantages of being really busy in our current day and age is that I miss a lot of the daily drama of all sorts, including political drama. That's my only excuse for missing the explosive story that a whistle blower has blown the cover on a conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

It's important to note here that we don't actually know what was said between the two men at the time that Ukraine was attempting to secure U.S. aid.  Both men acknowledge that they spoke, but that's about it.  The undisclosed whistle blower accuses Trump of trying to enlist Zelensky into investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter, who was vice president of a Ukrainian gas company.  That's about all we actually know.

Trump claims that he did nothing wrong and Zelensky regards the conversation as completely confidential.  Ukraine did receive the foreign aid it sought but, as far as we know, no investigation occurred.

None the less, the story has been explosive, in no small part because Joe Biden is the Democratic front runner.  Indeed, this story will likely cause him to pull out even further in front. The story was enough to cause Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to announce that the House would conduct an Impeachment Inquiry, which is a huge change in her position.

Now, an Impeachment Inquiry isn't the same thing as attempting to Impeach a President.  It's at least one step short of it, if not three or four, and it has its own risks.  One risk is that the conversation turns out to be pretty anticlimactic, and Trump has indicated that a transcript of the conversation will be released today.  If that transcript doesn't have what the whistle blower asserts it does, Pelosi may have been effectively parried and embarrassed by this move. A lot of Democrats who have all but convicted Trump in the press would be as well.

Of course if the transcript contains something more than that, but less than what the whistle blower claims, we're truly out to sea.  Trump's character is such that he seems to say nearly anything that's on his mind, and if he stated something negative about Hunter Biden, or even halfway did, noting that he thought there was a problem with him of some sort, all that will do is cause there to be months of distracting yelling back and forth.  Of course, if the transcript confirms the whistle blower, which we can have reason to doubt if the transcript is being released, we'll really be in different territory and Trump may well have gone too far not to have this be the most prominent feature of the remainder of his term.  Indeed, Republicans right now are generally being fairly reticent about committing on their opinion which would suggest that they're waiting to see which way this story breaks.

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September 25, 2019, part two

And so here's the released transcript. It should be noted that is is a transcription, and the original transcription itself noted that its from notes, and therefore not a transcription of the actual conversation verbatim.  It appears to be pretty close, however.

UM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

SUBJECT:

PARTICIPANTS:

DATE, TIME

AND PLACE:

(C) Telephone Conversation with President

Zelenskyy of Ukraine

President Zelenskyy of Ukraine

Notetakers: The White House Situation Room

July 25, 2019, 9:03 - 9:33 a.m. EDT

Residence

The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, -somebody who wasn't given much of a change, and you ended up winning easily. It' a fantastic achievement. Congratulations. 

President Zelenskyy: You· are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for _this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example to our elections and yes it is-true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation· that we were able to achieve a unique success. I'm able to tell you the following; the first time,\you· called me to congratulate  me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often. 

The President: [laughter] That's a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that. 

President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that. 

The President: Well its very nice of you .to say that. I will say that we do  a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it's something that you should ·really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel, she talks Ukraine, but she ·doesn't do anything. A lot of the European countries are the. same way· so I think it's something you want to look at but the United States has been very ·very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. 

President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right not only 100%, but actually 1000% arid I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron . and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest· partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and- I'm very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a· lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. . We. are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically, we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United  States for defense purposes. 

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it There- are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation . I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you say yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you. do it if that's possible. 

President Zelenskyy: Yes, it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President,-· it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to· open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United· States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our Ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and y9ur .confidence and _ have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one· of my assistants· spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. G1uliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and. we will meet once he cones to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around-us. I will make sure  that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people._ I also· wanted to ·tell you that we are friends. We are great· friends and you Mr. President have. friends -in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people ·and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you . 

The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me. 

President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell ·you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I'm knowledgeable.about the situation. Since we have an the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start. as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovicli. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

The President:  She's going to go through some things. I will. have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people. 

President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United· States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them· again in the future. I also wanted to thank you .for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On ,the other hand, I also wanted to ensure you that we will. Be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one  of· the issues. that is very important for Ukraine is· energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities· and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support. 

The President: Good. Well., thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like -to come to the White House,. feel ·free to call. ·Give us a date and we'll work that out. I 1ook forward to seeing you. 

President Zelenskyy: Thank ·you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and I get to know. you better. I am looking forward to our meeting and I .also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kiev which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country Which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September l we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that,· it might be a very good idea for you to.travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine. 

The President: Okay, we can work that ·out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time. 

President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President. 

The President:· Congratulations on· a fantastic job you've done. The whole world was watching. I'm not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations. 

President Zelenskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye .

Comments to follow.

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September 25, 2019, part three

Well there are certainly days in which a single news cycle can radically change the status of matters. This appears to be one such day.

To recap events, Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy had a telephone conversation on July 25.  Just recently an intelligence officer who was aware of the conversation filed a whistle blower complaint regarding it.  

Before we go further, we should note that the fact that a junior officer in the executive branch of government can file a complaint that causes such things to come to light is, in and of itself, a triumph of the American system, irrespective of what a person thinks of the other details of the story.  Indeed, I'd question if such a thing would have occurred prior to the Vietnam War.

At any rate the intelligence officer filed his complaint and the news broke late last week.  Yesterday President Trump announced he'd release the transcript of the conversation, and today he did.

Starting there, a person has to wonder what went into the calculation to release it.  Perhaps the President didn't think it harmful, or perhaps he thought it could be explained, or perhaps he simply felt he had no choice, with the Democratic House moving to start an impeachment inquiry.

In any event, today it was released and its set forth above.

This very likely will set the tone for months, assuming that something gigantic doesn't happen to distract from it.  And its likely that the House will ultimately see a Bill of Impeachment.  It's too early to predict how that will go, but the fact that it will occur, if it does, will be a disaster for the Trump Presidency and the Republican Party in general, most likely.

Only two Presidents have been impeached.  Facing an impeachment trial ruined the administration of Andrew Johnson.  Bill Clinton survived his remarkably well and the Republican Party which brought the issue to trial did not.  Nixon would have been impeached had he been tried, but he stepped down and saved the country from the ordeal.  Trump will certainly not step down, and this doesn't rise to the level of Watergate, but the upcoming drama will be destructive in multiple ways.

While its really a separate topic we might take a brief look at the impeachment process itself.  The House is holding an inquiry on impeaching Trump.  Similar processes occurred before both the bill of impeachment being filed as to Nixon and Clinton.  The process will run from weeks to months and will become a primary focus for the Democratic, and Republican, candidates for office.  Should a bill of impeachment be filed and passed, the trial will occur in the Senate, and that will take weeks as well.  Indeed, while the election is over a year a way, it may well be the case that there's not enough time to really complete it.

Which doesn't mean that it won't be attempted.  If it is, the country could well go into the fall of 2020 with it still running, which means that the sitting President may face an ongoing impeachment trial during the election season.  If he were tried and removed before the election it would mean that a new candidate would likely have to replace him, probably.  If he's tried and impeached after the election it might mean that the vice president would become the president, although I'm not completely certain how that odd process would really work.

All that makes for a powerfully messed up election seasons.  

With all of this going on, it's now quite possible that the Republican candidate in the fall won't be Donald Trump, but as no major candidate has announced a run at the office yet, we can't guess who that will be.

Nor can we know yet who the Democratic candidate will be.  Oddly, while we might presume that this will benefit Biden, it might very well not.

Indeed, all of a sudden there's indications that Warren is the front runner.  If that's the case it may be that Democratic voters who viewed Biden as the best choice to run against Trump may be mentally moving past that and are now choosing a candidate based on who they think they like the best.

Of course, we haven't actually looked at whether or not there's an impeachable offense that's raised by the conversation.  Lots of Republicans are saying there isn't, while Democrats are saying that there is.

I don't know if there's a crime in the conversation as I'm not an expert on that topic in general.  But we would note that there's a school of thought that a President doesn't need to commit a crime in order to be impeached.  The last two attempts certainly involved crimes, but some claim that the "misdemeanors' mentioned in the Constitution doesn't mean criminal misdemeanors, but rather serious offenses in office.

If that interpretation is correct, and so far nobody knows if it really is it would mean that this provision of the Constitution is similar to a parliamentary vote of no confidence, but limited to cause. And frankly that makes some sense.  Simply impeaching a President for a criminal misdemeanor would be odd.  Malfeasance in office makes a lot more sense.

Congress, at least since the 1860s, hasn't had the occasion to test that however.  The Clinton impeachment came close, and frankly was very ill advised, but it wasn't quite on the topic.  If the Senate removed a President for malfeasance, it would certainly restore the balance of power to Congress, and actually massively reset it.  Once its done once, it can always be done again, and there's always the temptation to do it.  Like all things that are potentially vices, once its done once, it gets easier to do in the future.

So, if the standard is malfeasance, is there enough there to state a case for impeachment?  I'm not going to go so far as to say whether a person should be impeached or not, but its hard not to read the statement above and not come away with the impression that President Trump was hoping that President Zelenskyy would commence an investigation of Hunter Biden. And that is wrong.  And it's also hard not to wonder if Zelenskyy wasn't more or less being told that if he didn't cooperate that his country might not receive the aid he was seeking.

Zelenskyy was in the United States meeting with President Trump today and said that he didn't take it that way at all.  And of course he was there.  Having said that, the fact that he didn't take it that way doesn't mean it wasn't meant that way.

All of which may simply mean that this is another example of Trump being amazingly loose with his tongue.  When Nixon sought to interfere with the Paris Peace Talks during the election of 1968 that was truly sinister, but this example might just be one of Trump saying things he shouldn't or possibly not grasping that a leader of a nation just doesn't do things like this.

Anyway a person looks at it, his phone conversation with Zelenskyy was a major blunder.  The fact that these things were said, irrespective of how they were meant, will be difficult to live down.  And the now released comments about how the United States was seeking to aid Ukraine and other nations, particularly Germany, weren't are embarrassing.

How the GOP will react to this will be interesting.  Right now most Republicans are probably simply trying to read the wind.  And so far all the numerous predictions that segments of the GOP were set to break with Trump have proven to be wrong.  They may just stick with him, in which case there will not be enough votes to remove Trump should he be impeached.  But the entire specter will invigorate Democrats all the way through the fall.

Of course, the wild card really is if the House acts quickly and an impeachment trial is set, and then Trump chooses to resign.  That seems unlikely but the so much that recently has, has seemed unlikely.  Indeed, it's not entirely impossible that this entire episode will simply pass and by fall not be thought of much.

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September 26, 2019

Wyoming Congressman Liz Cheney, who is presumed to be running for office, and presumed to most likely be running for reelection to her current seat, if not taking a run at the U.S. Senate, dismissed the House's move towards an impeachment inquiry out of hand yesterday, rejecting the move as being based on nothing whatsoever.

Cheney has generally backed Trump and has risen quickly in GOP ranks in the House.

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September 27, 2019

Yesterday morning hearings were on where the Acting Head of National Intelligence testified before a House committee.

I wouldn't have turned it on, or even have known that it was on, but my wife had the television on so I caught part of it.  It was interesting both at the time and later, as I hadn't yet seen the whistle blower's letter.

That letter is set out below.

Some observations.

There was a comment by a Republican member of the committee that while he disapproved of the President's comments to the Ukrainian President, that this is not what the whistle blower was blowing the whistle about, and rather the complaint concerned dissemination of information.

The Committee members had the letter by that time and having heard that, it seemed like a reasonable statement as he'd read it, and I, like most of the audience, had not at that time.  But in reading it, that's flat out false.  That's exactly what he opened his letter with.

Moreover, and seemingly missed, the whistle blower did not hear the conversation himself, rather he was reporting something he had been told by White House staff.  So this is something that, before it concerned  him, concerned members of Trump's inner circle in some fashion.

There is more to his report than that, but that was the leading feature and, moreover, he was reporting what had been brought to him by White House staffers directly.  So this is basically a transmitted concern from inside the White House.

Making matters worse, according to the letter, there appears to have been some sort of effort to conceal what occurred.

With all this being said, regarding the actual incident, it frankly appears worse in some ways than initially reported.  About as much as can be said in defense of President Trump regarding it is that he says stuff without thinking and he seems to have no concept of proprietary and boundaries in conversations.

There may be more to that, perhaps, than meets the eye.  Lawyers have a highly developed concept of what is a privileged conversation but laymen tend not to, often feeling free to tell people details of conversations that those whose occupations have a developed sense of privilege never would.  Maybe Trump, having always been a wealthy man and seemingly never having had to respect any boundaries in what he asks people to do, just doesn't grasp that you can't ask a foreign head of state to do something like this.  Indeed, I've seen one comment sort of this effect noting this as about his only defense in the national press.

If so, that's not much of a defense, and the person making the observation noted that.  Trump may very well not grasp it, but with the contents of this letter, he's in real trouble and the GOP is really in a difficult position.  My guess is that not ever Republican will be willing to fall in line this time, particularly in districts in which they don't have a safe seat in an election season where seats could be changing.  It makes a person wonder if politicians like Republican Ben Sasse, who had been in opposition to Trump on a lot of matters until just recently, will reassert that independence.  2/3s of the Senate are needed to impeach a President so it seems really unlikely that there's be that degree of a bolting, but I wonder if some will, should it proceed that far.

It's far from clear that it will go that far.  There's certainly renewed emphasis on impeachment in the house, but there remain a lot of reluctant Democrats in and out of the House who feel that it would be just better to ride through the next election with this as in issue.  Some hold that view as they don't want this to become a precedent in American history, and there's real reasons to be concerned about that.  Indeed, my guess is that if Trump was actually tried, some Democratic Senators would not vote to impeach him in part on that basis.  Another reason is that keeping this around makes for a unique election issue that Trump and the Republicans will have a very difficult time handling.

On other matters, one thing that can really make lawyers look awful are Congressional hearings of this type.

I don't know it with a certainty, but my guess is that most of the people on the Committee are lawyers and they frankly acted like bratty junior lawyers in their first deposition.  They interrupted, made big speaking questions that are really in the nature of grand standing testimony, and the like.  It's the kind of thing that makes people hate lawyers and lawyers know better.

It also really shows how the American Congress is really deficient, even after over 200 years of existence, in comparison to Parliament when it comes to real procedure.  If this had been a Parliamentary hearing, a neutral committee head would have appointed who would have gaveled down the committee members for abusive questions and refusing to allow the witness to answer.

That's not really a minor matter.  Hearings are supposed to achieve something.  Compared to actual hearings the one in the movie The Godfather is so much more mature its not even funny.  Indeed, Congress looks so much more congressional in cinematic depictions than it does in real life, it's obvious that the public has a concept of how things are supposed to work, even if they don't really work that way.

Not that all the questions were bad, but at least 75% of them, in the short portion of the hearing I viewed, would never have been allowed in a court and would have brought a rebuke from a judge if attempted in a deposition that required judicial intervention.

And with this post, this now having moved on to a new phase of things, we'll close out Part II of this trailing post.

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Related threads:

The 2020 Election, Part 1