#Impeach
It was a day.
January 7, 2021
Impeach and remove.
25th Amendment.
January 6, 2021.
Hurt people hurt people.
Misinformed people hurt people.
Cruel leaders hurt people.
“So anyway, that’s why disinformation is dangerous.” -Brooke Binkowski
L
O
V
E
big.
[Seane Corn]
We must try.
From The Nation:
“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. “They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”
LA Times/KUSI TV in San Diego:
The woman shot and killed [seven other people were injured] inside the U.S. Capitol Building during a violent pro-Trump siege Wednesday was an Ocean Beach resident, according to her extended family and media reports.
Her husband confirmed to KUSI that the woman, whose shooting was captured on video, was 35-year-old Ashli Elizabeth Babbitt, and said she was a 14-year Air Force veteran.
Her final post on Twitter:
“Nothing will stop us…they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less that 24 hours…dark to light!”
From Richard Engel, NBC News Foreign Correspondent:
“Police seemed very chummy with the protestors (insurgents) who also seemed to know exactly where to go.”
From journalist Evan Osnos, The New Yorker:
“The moments that surprised me most were not the young thuggish types; that’s eternal. What made me wonder about the future of the country was the presence of the grandmothers.
As darkness approached, police fired a series of flash-bang grenades to shoo people down from the balconies and steps. A heavyset man in a white maga hat stood in a crosswalk, watching the crowd begin to move. He was happy. “They sent a message. That’s enough,” he said. He turned to walk away and added, “Of course, if we come back, it will be with a militia.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/mob-rule-in-the-capitol
Discussing social media and Capitol insurgence and attempted coup.
Clint Watts, former FBI special agent, and Roger McNamee, author of Zucked/Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe.
Thread from Andrew Yang, Thursday, January 7th:
There are 3 problems with our media that are fueling polarization: 1. The closing of 2,000 local papers, which are typically not very partisan; 2. Cable news maximizing audience share by adopting political stances (Fox); and 3. Social media’s supercharging of conspiracy theories.
The easiest one to address is reopening local papers. There is a bill in Congress – the Local Journalism Sustainability Act from Rep. David Cicilline, Rhode Island, and others – that would help support thousands of local publications. Congress should pass it immediately.
For Cable News we should revive the Fairness Doctrine which the FCC had on the books until 1985 that required that you show both sides of a political issue. It was repealed by Reagan. If there was ever a time to bring it back it’s now.
The most difficult and important is to overhaul social media. We need federal data ownership legislation mirrored after the CPRA in California. There should be ad-free versions of every platform. Section 230 should be amended to not include content that is amplified by algorithm.
The basic problem is that social media creators and companies are rewarded for having more extreme and untrue content. The goal should be to change or balance the incentives. Tech, government, media and NGOs need to collaborate on this to support fact-supported journalism.
There is an opportunity here to support artists, musicians and creatives as well whose work right now the market is ignoring. One element of this ought to be a degree of support for those whose work tries to elevate and inform rather than divide and denigrate.
The big tech companies are essentially quasi-governments unto themselves at this point – the problem is their decisions are driven by maximizing ad revenue, user engagement and profit growth. That’s not the set of incentives you want when deciding what millions regard as truth.
Our government is hopelessly behind on tech. Legislators haven’t had guidance since 1995 when they got rid of the Office of Technology Assessment. The average Senator is 62. Speeches won’t do much against trillions of dollars of financial incentives.
Edward Snowden, President Freedom of the Press:
Never forget that the Freedom of the Press is the very first part of the Bill of Rights. If you’re out on the street claiming to defend the Constitution, the way you do that is by protecting reporters, not attacking them. Even if you hate the media, anything less is un-American.
Outside the Capitol (on Wednesday), Trump supporters took all the equipment from a news media crew (hearing it was AP) and are looking for ways to set it on fire.
Impeach.
December 19, 2019Christianity Today
MARK GALLI
DECEMBER 19, 2019
An important moment: Christianity Today, the key evangelical magazine founded by Billy Graham, calls for Trump’s impeachment, describing him as “a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.
The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.
To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?
Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html
IMPEACH
December 15, 2019
These editorial boards have all called for impeachment.
-NY Times
-Washington Post
-USA Today
-LA Times
-Salt Lake Tribune
-Tampa Bay Times
-Orlando Sentinel
-Boston Globe
-NY Daily News
-Chicago Sun-Times
-Philadelphia Inquirer
-SF Chronicle
Mother Jones, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent organized labor representative, community organizer, and activist. She helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. [1837-1930]
Mother Jones Magazine
The Growing List of Damning Newspaper Editorials Demanding Trump’s Impeachment
“We’ve seen enough.”
The New York Times: “Impeach.”
To resist the pull of partisanship, Republicans and Democrats alike ought to ask themselves the same question: Would they put up with a Democratic president using the power of the White House this way? Then they should consider the facts, the architecture and aspirations of the Constitution and the call of history. In that light, there can be only one responsible judgment: to cast a vote to impeach, to send a message not only to this president but to future ones.
The Washington Post: “The case for impeachment“
We believe Mr. Trump should receive a full trial in the Senate, and it is our hope that more senior officials will decide or be required to testify during that proceeding, so that senators, and the country, can make a fair and considered judgment about whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office. We have reserved judgment on that question. What is important, for now, is that the House determine whether Mr. Trump’s actions constituted an abuse of power meriting his impeachment and trial.
USA Today: Impeach Donald Trump
The current board has made no secret of our low regard for Trump’s character and conduct. Yet, as fellow passengers on the ship of state, we had hoped the captain would succeed. And, until recently, we believed that impeachment proceedings would be unhealthier for an already polarized nation than simply leaving Trump’s fate up to voters next November.
Los Angeles Times: “We’ve seen enough. Trump should be impeached.”
The Times’ editorial board was a reluctant convert to the impeachment cause. We worried that impeaching Trump on essentially a party-line vote would be divisive. It is also highly likely that Trump would be—will be—acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, and that, rightly or wrongly, he would point to that in his reelection campaign as exoneration.
But those concerns must yield to the overwhelming evidence that Trump perverted U.S. foreign policy for his own political gain. That sort of misconduct is outrageous and corrosive of democracy. It can’t be ignored by the House, and it merits a full trial by the Senate on whether to remove him from office.
The Boston Globe: “Impeach the president“
Impeachment does not require a crime. The Constitution entrusts Congress with the impeachment power in order to protect Americans from a president who is betraying their interests. And it is very much in Americans’ interests to maintain checks and balances in the federal government; to have a foreign policy that the world can trust is based on our national interest instead of the president’s personal needs; to control federal spending through their elected representatives; to vote in fair elections untainted by foreign interference. For generations, Americans have enjoyed those privileges. What’s at stake now is whether we will keep them. The facts show that the president has threatened this country’s core values and the integrity of our democracy. Congress now has a duty to future generations to impeach him.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Impeach President Donald Trump“
The impeachment investigation has been an attempt to get to the truth about the president’s abuse of power. One career civil servant after another has testified to the same facts confirming the whistle-blower complaint that triggered this investigation. Those facts have not been disputed, even by most of the president’s defenders.
That ensures that the shocking language describing Trump’s actions—“high crimes and misdemeanors,” “threat to national security,” and “clear and present danger”—are not partisan weapons.
And that is why we endorse a vote to impeach the president. While his removal from office is unlikely, his crimes against the country, and the Constitution, warrant that outcome.
The San Francisco Chronicle: “What is the alternative to impeachment?“
It helps, however, to consider what it would mean not to impeach the president—to leave him in the company of the vast majority of presidents who faced no such rebuke. The pernicious effect would be to elevate the conduct memorialized in the articles of impeachment to the status of acceptable presidential behavior.
The president compromised our nation’s best interests for pure political self-profit, as baldly as a Chicago alderman holding up a zoning change for a bribe. Trump has brought impeachment upon himself.
The New York Daily News: “The truth hurts: the House Intelligence Committee presents a coherent and compelling case for impeachment“
There may be no single, smoking gun, but there’s ample acrid black stuff rising from the White House.
The Orlando Sentinel: “The House should vote to impeach Trump, and the Senate should remove him from office“
The question was never if Donald Trump did something wrong.
Of course he did. The president of the United States got on the phone and asked the leader of a foreign power to investigate a domestic political opponent. Only the most cynical partisan would think that’s OK.
The question is whether he ought to be impeached for it, and the answer is yes.
The Tampa Bay Times: “The case for impeachment“
With reluctance, we conclude the U.S. House of Representatives has enough reason to justify the impeachment of President Donald Trump. We harbor no illusions that the president’s impeachment by the House will lead to his removal from office by the Senate. But we hope the impeachment process and a trial in the Senate will give voters a more complete picture of Trump’s conduct, because they will deliver the ultimate judgment on his performance in November.
The Salt Lake Tribune: “Impeachment proceeds as it should“
To paraphrase Mr. Jefferson,
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to confront the clear and unrefuted wrongdoing of someone in high political office, and to assume among the powers granted to Congress by the U.S. Constitution the duty to oversee, investigate and, if warranted, impeach and remove the president of the United States, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that the Congress should declare the causes which impel them to the action.
ABOUT THE IMPEACHMENT REPORT
The official report from the House Intelligence Committee on Donald Trump’s secret pressure campaign against Ukraine, featuring an exclusive introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author and biographer Jon Meacham
For only the fourth time in American history, the House of Representatives has conducted an impeachment inquiry into a sitting United States president. This landmark document details the findings of the House Intelligence Committee’s historic investigation of whether President Donald J. Trump committed impeachable offenses when he sought to have Ukraine announce investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Penetrating a dense web of connected activity by the president, his ambassador Gordon Sondland, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, and many others, these pages offer a damning, blow-by-blow account of the president’s attempts to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election” and his subsequent attempts to obstruct the House investigation into his actions. Published here with an introduction offering critical context from bestselling presidential historian Jon Meacham, The Impeachment Reportis necessary reading for every American concerned about the fate of our democracy.
Introduction written by historian Jon Meacham.
[Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House; Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship; Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush; Songs of America; and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. He is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians.]
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