To impeach, or not to impeach, that was the question

As of early December, it looks like the Democratic controlled House will impeach the President, and that the Senate will vote to acquit him.  Our country is so polarized, that no GOP Senator would risk being "primaried" because s/he voted to convict him of "high crimes and misdemeanors."  We're seeing a political hypocrisy that we haven't seen since the Clinton impeachment. And it's so sad....  

Donald Trump is a narcisist. He will revel in the House presenting the impeachment to the Senate for a trial.  At that time, political hell will break loose.  The GOP will put their wagons in a circle and defend a president that most elected officials dislike, but our powerless to control.  (Shades of 1930's Central Europe....)   But there are ways that sane men and women from both parties could prevail if they gave the process some out of the box thought.

Many in the mainstream press report that most of the GOP Senators would vote to convict if their ballots were cast in secret.  There is nothing in the constitution that prohibits the Senate from making rules to allow this to happen.  Since politicians are in the business of lying to their constituents at times, saying that they were one of the handful of GOP Senators who voted to acquit should be easy for them.  Will Mitch McConnell take this way out of trouble?

An option that involves the House would be to impeach the president, but not send the articles over to the Senate until they are complete.  The house can approve a subset of articles based on current investigatory evidence, and hold off delivering the indictments until a full investigation is complete - sometime in late 2020.  This would prevent the president from getting the Senate acquittal he wants and allow the House to continue presenting public evidence through election season.  An added benefit for the Democrats would be to allow their presidential candidate Senators to continue their campaigns without having to be in Washington, DC for the Senate trial.

This nation has a serious problem.  Adding "Democracy" to the presidential nominating process has encouraged the bases of each party to grow more and more extreme.  When I was young, there wasn't that much that separated the left and right wings of American politics.  The party leaders would allow the base to voice its opinion, and prevent "extremists" like Lester Maddox and George Wallace (who later moderated his views) from getting on a nationwide ballot.  It is no coincidence that politicians pander to the base before the primaries, and move to the center afterwards. Over time, this process served to cull the centrists from both parties and leave people who want a winner take all process - and we all lose out because of that.

Given the polarized bases, might a middle road be chosen?  The majority of people polled want our president removed from power.  But this doesn't apply to his base.  It will accept no evidence that he has gone past tolerable political limits.  Do we have still have leaders in government who know how to finesse the system to deny the narcissist in chief what he wants - an acquittal?  The jury is still out on that verdict, but I hope they figure out something, as it doesn't bode well for people who have faith in the 2020 elections.

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!:

Al Franken - Giant of the Senate, and the man who should be out next president.

In an age of political correctness on the left, Al Franken was one of its victims.  I will not focus on his resignation from the Senate, nor will I focus on this man's comedic past.  Instead, I will focus on a man who won the respect of people, and is more qualified than our present president to hold that office.

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When Al Franken decided to run for the Senate, many people didn't take him seriously. Because of his previous career in comedy, they thought he'd be making fun of the Senate and its institutions. Even though many people didn't take his candidacy seriously, he won his first election by 312 votes - forcing a recount before he was seated.

During his first term, he barely cracked a joke.  When he did, it was not in public.  He was spending all of his time earning the respect of both his fellow Senators and of his fellow Minnesotans.  By the time the votes were counted in his second election, he won with 53.8% of the ballots cast.

An avowed Liberal, Franken favors a single payer health care system.  He has also addressed conflicts of interest in the issuance of financial securities, by creating an independent board to choose which ratings firm would be used to rate a given security. I could go on and on, but it would sound more like a rehash of a Wikipedia entry than a detailed list of things this man had worked on during his tenure as a Senator.

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Sadly, Al Franken was forced out of office by the puritanical wing of the Democratic party. Although he has showed remorse for his actions (unlike our president), the "Me Too" movement needed sacrificial lambs, and he was chosen.  Yet, he still has the respect of more people in the Democratic party than those who would keep him from running for office again. 

Franken's sense of humor (as a politician) can be summed up by two jokes about Ted Cruz:

1. When an average American thinks of a bad cruise, they think of Carnival.
   When a Senator thinks of a bad Cruz, they think of Ted.
2. I'm Ted Cruz's closest friend in the Senate.
   And I Hate Ted.

Years ago, Charlie Chaplin said that if he knew how evil Adolf Hitler was when he filmed The Great Dictator, he'd never have made the film.  Mel Brooks takes the opposite tack. He tries to belittle and make fun of Hitler every chance he gets.  He feels that people that evil do not deserve respect.  As for me, I wish I could have told Chaplin to make the film, as all dictators need to be taken down, and the best way to do so is with humor.  Franken is the type of person who can and will use humor as a weapon if needed. And he is the only one who could burst Trump's bubble of invincibility with a well placed gag during a debate.

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Given the man who is POTUS now, we know that Franken is good enough to be president. We know that he is smart enough to be president. And he is still well liked by the majority of Americans.  Hopefully, he will throw his hat into the ring, and be elected our 46th president in 2020.

Al Franken for President - 2020

Elizabeth Warren

The more Elizabeth Warren speaks in favor of Hillary, the more that it is apparent that she, not Hillary, should be the woman running for the highest office in this country.  Hillary Clinton, fairly or not, has been tarred for years with the brush of dishonesty. Her detractors have said that she's a liar long enough for the fiction to become an apparent truth. People believe the slander, and Hillary has no way to show that she is an honest person.  Warren, however, is a fresh face, and someone more in tune with the people - and it shows!

Warren has the charisma that Hillary doesn't have, as well as the integrity that Trump lacks. She understands the economy better than many people on Wall Street, and yet, she sides with the common person.  This is a rarity...

As much as I wanted to have a Bernie Sanders led ticket, I can accept a Clinton-Warren ticket.  Only one problem - Hillary would be overshadowed by Warren, and this is unacceptable for any person wanting to become president - especially a woman.  So it is highly unlikely we'll see Elizabeth Warren run for anything other than her Senate seat.

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Warren would be smart NOT to take the offer of the vice presidential slot on the ballot.  She is one of the most influential people in the Senate, and would have great power when the Democrats eventually regain control of the chamber.   More importantly, her resignation from the Senate would allow a Republican governor to appoint a conservative to take her place.

Does it make sense for Warren to leave the Senate?  No.  But she may get caught up in this year's crazy presidential campaign.  And I'm afraid of that.  We need people like her in the Senate until America regains its sanity - and I don't see that happening anytime this year....

The fourth horse in the race

Do not interpret this post as an endorsement of Hillary.  As much as I am not a fan of any of the GOP candidates so far, I am not a fan of Hillary. At the time of writing this entry, I know more about where the 3 GOP candidates stand than I do of where of where Hillary stands - and that's a big problem. Hillary is a Machiavellian Sphinx.

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The democrats have a big weakness - they have no fallback candidates. Elizabeth Warren does not want to run for president - her power, like Ted Kennedy's power, is to influence the debate from the Senate chamber. She is a true liberal, and has more access to the levers of power as a senator than she ever would as a presidential candidate. If she were to run against Hillary, she would only force Hillary to move to the right, instead of being able to pull Hillary to the left, as she could from the Senate floor.

Next comes Bernie Sanders. I respect him because he's a true, honest liberal. He will likely run for president, even though he can't win. The taint of the "Liberal" brush has made it impossible for him to capture any of the "Red States". Yet, he has ideas which must be included in the presidential debate, although he has no chance against Hillary.

But who is left in the Democratic party to challenge Hillary?  If there is anyone, then who is he/she, and what does he/she stand for?

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Let's say that Hillary loses.  Who does the Democratic party have on its bench for the 2020 run? I see no one who can capture enough Red states to make a difference. This is very important. Although demographics are favoring the left over the long term, they strongly favor the right in the short term. Gerrymandering, abuses of political powers, stacking of the courts, and other tactics will make it much harder for the left to gain power in the normal cycle of the political pendulum - and this is dangerous, as it will make the stakes even greater each election cycle, and authoritarians tend to abuse power to stay in power.

If we look at the recent problems in Ferguson, MO, we find that there is a political district whose officials are not representative of the community as a whole. A large percent of the community has been disenfranchised (made ineligible to vote) because of minor legal infractions.  Even though these people have paid their time for their crimes, their rights have not been restored.  Add to this, a government which is financed mostly by predatory law enforcement, and one has a pot ready to boil over.

What happens when the pot boils over?  The most recent time it did, we had riots - which makes the people from the community look bad.  These riots are disorganized, and do not serve much than to be a collective release of anger. This is inexcusable, as much as it is ineffective. But what would happen if these same people were to get illegal weapons and overthrow the police using selective assassinations?  We could see a situation similar to that occurring in Central Europe in the 1920's - where Fascists and Communists fought in the streets, and a relatively unknown Austrian found a voice and a forum to gain power after a short stint in prison.  You might have heard of his most famous book - its English title is "My Struggle".

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"My Struggle" is not the name most people associate with this book. They are more familiar with its German title "Mein Kampf". Years ago, I had a conversation with a friend whose political views shifted far to the right, a friend from whom I disconnected to preserve my sanity. And at that time, we both came to the conclusion that the political left decays much more quickly, as it tends to place more emphasis on the rights of the individual than the political right. The political right puts a greater emphasis on the needs of the tribe (its tribe) over that of the individual, though it uses misleading language stressing individual and collective liberty.

We've seen this problem before. Leaders (from the right) stir up hatred for selected minorities who do not have the power to fight back - and the average person follows, as a herd mentality takes over. In 1934, it was hard to believe how quickly a free Germany changed into an authoritarian state. People got tired of the political battles, and surrendered power to an authoritarian government simply to end the fighting - and instead, got war. We have that same danger in today's America - give those authoritarians power, and they will keep us poor and in forever wars. So it is extremely important for the political left to again have a strong back bench of people who know how to use the levers of power - if only to check and balance the political right.....

Now that the lunatics are in charge of the asylum, now what?

If the lunatics were in charge of the above asylum, I'm not too sure of how bad things would get. However, the lunatics are now in charge of the asylum below, and there's no limit to how much damage they can do....

Here's the problem - the wingnuts from the GOP's extreme right wing have taken over the party, and people like Ronald Reagan would be considered a leftist if his actions were listed without his name being attached to them.

Why is this important?

There is a lot of damage that can be done when one party is in charge of the legislative branch. There is even more damage that can be done when the same party is in charge of both legislative and executive branches of government. Regardless of what one thinks of today's Democratic party (and I don't think much of them), I am very upset at the rhetoric coming from the party in power.

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I'm a person who believes that as much power in society as possible should be left in the hands of the individual, and not the big corporation or big government. So my philosophy had led me to support a "pro choice" position on abortion, as well as a "pro 2nd amendment" position on gun control. The opponents of my viewpoints have valid reasons to disagree with me, and I respect their positions as important enough to discuss. In a healthy society, this discussion would lead to policies that would minimize the negative effects of preserving these individual rights. Sadly, in our society, both parties (and their supporters) are shouting past each other, saying nothing that the other side finds worthwhile to listen to.

This post will not be one that attempts to justify my position on these controversial issues. I could almost as easily justify the opposite positions on these issues - save that I don't want big government, big business, or some moral zealot telling me what I can do (or not do) with my body, and another moral zealot telling me what I can (or can't) use to protect myself (and my rights).

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When one party gains too much power, it can implement laws without the consent of a significant number from the opposition party. We live in a society where important decisions are being made with a public that is split 50/50 down the middle on most issues. Sometimes, this is needed. Other times, the opposite (no action) would be the best course of action to take.

Our founding fathers designed the American system to slow down the pace of decision making. The House of Representatives was designed for hot heads to vent their steam, while the Senate was designed to let bad bills go and languish in committee until they are dead and buried. This is very different from a unicameral parliamentary system as used in most of the British commonwealth - where one party can act very quickly. and get voted out (a vote of no confidence) at a moment's notice.

We suffer from a system which has become sclerotic. But should we be in a rush to change our system?  I doubt that major changes are needed. Instead, I think we need "small" changes such as term limits and non-partisan (or bipartisan) drawing of congressional district maps. We might also consider laws that break up the two party monopoly, mandating the governmental support for a third party in the same way that the Democrats and Republicans are supported in most states' laws today. Another avenue to help third parties would be laws to allow third party cross-endorsement of major party candidates. No matter what, we need to do something to destabilize the two major parties, as to help facilitate new ideas in the "public debate"....

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I find it amazing that both the Tea Party (on the right) and many leftists believe that the big banks are out of control. Yet they haven't bothered to look across the aisle to find that common ground needed to design meaningful regulation of the financial services industry, to rebuild checks and balances (like the Glass-Steagall act which once separated Commercial Banks from Investment Banks) needed for a sound economy.

In 2008, we almost saw a complete systemic collapse of the banking industry. I was in a bank that was reasonably well capitalized (I can't say anything about it now, as I no longer follow it in detail), while other "too big to fail" banks could have collapsed had the Federal Government not stepped in to save them.  (The HBO movie, "Too Big To Fail" gives a good idea of what was happening behind the scenes, and shows how close we were to the collapse I still fear so much.)

Recently, in the latest "Must Pass" bill, designed to keep the Federal Government running, we saw a relaxation of the "Dodd-Frank" rules that were designed to help prevent another systemic collapse of the financial system. Sadly, this bill was signed into law.

Right now, the lunatics are in charge of the asylum. Will they continue to act irresponsibly, now that they have the power to govern? I'm not sure. But I hope things will change for the better....