Tuesday, May 30, 2017

INNOCENT VICTIMS OF WAR -- YEMEN TOO




ABSURD TIMES





A chart of Wahabbi exports from Saudi Arabia, a place where Trump feels much at home and the area where his daughter owns clearly marked buildings.  So many you may need to enlarge.


This talks about the Manchester bombings, but it is true for every such incident in the past 3 decades, at least.



While there is absolutely no guilt associated with any of the victims of the bombing in Manchester, all complete innocents, not one seemed to know there was such as thing as "Colonialism," or whatever, each and every one of them was profiled, discussed, lamented, and, frankly, exploited by our western media.  Sympathy pours out, and rightly so, for all of them.



All we know about others are some facts about the perpetrators.  The father, arrested as a result in Syria, was an Al-Quaeda supporter along with his children.  He was one of those who kept opposing Gaddafi in Libya.  At the time, we labeled such people as innocent civilians and used the defense of such people as a pretext for a UN Resolution to attack Libya.  The result is well-know, along with the immigration problem Europe faces, radical terror, etc.



We do not hear about the civilians we bomb or kill in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen.  Wedding parties are a prime example.  How many names have you heard from bombings of wedding parties in Yemen recently?  Nothing.  "Collateral Damage," is about the best they come up with.



A recent attack in Syria killed "people who knew Isis fighters."  Well, let's think about that fact.  Growing up in Chicago, say during Elementary School or Middle School, I often visited the homes of table-tennis partners.  Often, the parents were Greek or Italian immigrants who owned Pizza parlors or small restaurants.  Several of us were well treated to massive dinners, great hospitality, friendship, and so on.  Sometimes the sessions, including looking a photographs, listening to records, etc., would go on until midnight, 12:00 precisely, when a group of guys wearing suits and ties, looking very grim and determined, even evil, came in and the father would say "Get outta here, hurry, no more, tomorrow maybe." And that was it for the evening.  In a sense, you could say I "knew" Mafia or whatever members, but I swear that I was not involved in their activities.  There would be no excuse to bomb me, however.  I was a "civilian".



Anyway, we simply do not humanize any of those innocent civilians we kill, whether or not they would invite us to dinner or want to have anything to do with us.  That's the point.  We see this going on in Yemen, for example.  We wonder why someone would join such a batty organization as ISIS, but we have to consider what the recruiting mechanisms are.  Imagine one of your own family, or perhaps a friend, killed during a wedding ceremony.  You know it has happened before.  You also are not well-off, many of your friends are starving.  You know where the bombs were made, who sent them, and so on.  Is it inconceivable that you would like to retaliate?  Perhaps a nut-job group like ISIS presents you with opportunity to get even.  Would you resist or object because their theological positions are out of tune with yours?  These are simply things to consider. 



Now here is an interview that clarifies some of that.  I've managed to reformat the text so that it is more readable:



"In Britain, police are expanding their investigation into Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester that killed 22 and left dozens injured. Many of those killed were young girls. While the Manchester story has dominated international headlines, far less attention has been paid to other stories this week involving the deaths of civilians. In Syria and Iraq, U.S.-led or backed airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians in the last week alone. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the human rights group Reprieve says U.S. Navy SEALs killed five civilians during a raid Tuesday night on a village in Ma'rib governorate. To talk more about how the media covers civilian casualties, we speak with two of the founders of The Intercept: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald.



Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We're broadcasting from the SkyDome, where the Toronto Blue Jays play, in Toronto, Canada. We were here for a journalism conference, along with our guests, Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, in Britain, police are expanding their investigation into Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester that killed 22 and left dozens injured. Many of those killed were young girls. While the Manchester story has dominated international headlines, far less attention has been paid to other stories this week involving the deaths of civilians. In Syria and Iraq, U.S.-led or U.S.-backed airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians in the last week alone. The journalistic monitoring group [Airwars] says airstrikes on Sunday and Monday reportedly killed up to 44 civilians in Mosul. One local journalist said, quote, "the bombing caused the deaths of more than 20 civilians who were burned in their homes, mostly women and children," unquote. In Syria, Airwars says the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes near Raqqa reportedly killed up to 15 civilians, including two children, on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says U.S.-led airstrikes have killed 225 civilians over the past month, including 44 children.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, in Yemen, the human rights group Reprieve says U.S. Navy SEALs killed five civilians during a raid Tuesday night on a village in Ma'rib governorate. The killings reportedly began after a 70-year-old civilian named Nasser al-Adhal came out of his home to find out what was going on and was gunned down by the SEALs. The Pentagon says the raid targeted al-Qaeda and that seven militants were killed.

To talk more about how the media covers civilian casualties, we're joined by the co-founders of The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald.

Glenn, should the Manchester model be used for other victims of war? The model of—well, I mean, we know about the 22 victims, the horrific attack, the suicide attack in Manchester, as these tweens, these mainly little girls, 10, 12, 11, 13, attended the Ariana Grande concert. We've learned the kids' names, a number of them, their parents. Parents had come to pick up their children. And our hearts grieve because we know who they are. They could be our families. We don't know the names of the children in Yemen who died in a Navy SEAL attack a few days after President Trump became president. A Navy SEAL died, but also at least 30 civilians died, among them, women and children.

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, we all do media criticism of various types, and I know, over the years, I've voiced all kinds of critiques of U.S. media coverage. But if I had the power to just, overnight, remedy one of them, this discrepancy is the one that I would choose, because think about how powerful it is, just the effect that it has on us as human beings. Even just randomly when it pops into our Twitter timeline or onto our Facebook page, you see the name and the story and the grieving relatives of someone who was killed at this concert in Manchester. No matter how rational you are, you feel anger, you feel empathy, you feel so emotionally moved by the horror of the violence that was perpetrated.

So, imagine if there was any kind of balance whatsoever, where we knew the names of any of the victims of the indiscriminate violence of our own government, let alone the comprehensive coverage of the victims that is devoted when we are the victims of violence, how much that would affect the perception that we have of the violence that our own government perpetrates. We keep it so abstract. We usually just hear 14 people died. The Pentagon claims that it's militants and terrorists. It's left at that. At best, we hear they finally acknowledge four civilians are killed, but it's kept very ethereal, very distant and abstract. We never learn their names, as you said. We never hear from their families. We never hear their life aspirations extinguished. And if there was just some attention paid to telling the stories of the victims of our own government's violence, I think there would be a radical shift in how we perceive of ourselves, the role we play in the world and who bears blame in this conflict.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, look at how many times we read or hear reports that the United States has bombed a wedding party or a funeral. And there is never a description of, well, who was the bride, who was the groom, you know, who were the people that were killed, and what were their dreams. It's unfathomable to me that if we had a wedding party in the United States that was somehow bombed in a terrorist incident, that we wouldn't know the names of every single person who was killed. We would have heard about where the people were going to go on their honeymoon and, you know, the—what the bride looked like when she was preparing for it. We hear nothing about any of these people that are killed, with our tax dollars, in our name.

Trump just inked this deal with the Saudis for well over $100 billion. It could be as much as $400 billion when it's all said and done. Defense stocks go to record highs. What does that—what are those weapons going to be used for? Well, in the immediate future, they're going to be used for what they're being used for now, which is to utterly destroy Yemen, where the United States and Saudi Arabia are absolutely razing to the ground the poorest country in the Arab world and have caused a catastrophic health crisis in that country, which already was facing a total completion of their water supply. We don't think about victims of war in the same way that we talk about victims of school shootings in this country or victims of terrorism when it's—when ISIS claims responsibility for it. It's a problem.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I wanted to ask you, in the broader context, the refugee crisis now that is engulfing Europe—in the headlines, 6 million people waiting to be able to emigrate into Europe. We don't, in the press, cover what is the basis of this refugee crisis, what the reality is that, when it comes to Iraq, it's been 20 years of warfare in Iraq. In Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, you have this—in Democratic and Republican administrations. So, basically, it's been the interventions and the military actions of the West that have created the refugee crisis, destabilized these countries, made it impossible for the people to stay. I'm surprised that more people haven't left Afghanistan than have already tried to flee to Europe.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, it's much more difficult to get out of Afghanistan. But you're totally right: The U.S. wars did this.

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, you know, what's so strange about it is, in our own personal lives, if we have friends or family members who compulsively blame other people and look for fault on other people and never accept responsibility for their own actions and the way that it contributes to problems, we say, "This is a real pathology. You need to start thinking about how it is that your own actions contribute to problems." And yet, the number one rule of U.S. media discourse is that whenever there's violence or attacks, the one thing we don't want to do is think about the role we played in provoking it.

And what's particularly ironic about it is that when it comes to other countries, we're really good at doing that. For example, if ISIS shoots down a Russian plane or someone inspired by ISIS kills a Russian ambassador in Turkey, instantly, overnight, every pundit, every media outlet blames Russian foreign policy. They say, "The reason this happened is because the Russians are bombing in Syria or because the Russians have provoked ISIS around the world." We make that causal connection when it comes to our enemies.

But to make that causal connection when it comes to ourselves—you know, there were warnings that if Iraq—that if the U.K. invaded Iraq or if the U.K. began bombing in Syria, they would have exactly the kind of terrorist attacks that just happened in Manchester. But to talk about the causal connection there becomes instantly taboo. And what that means is that we just don't examine the policies that are invoked in the name of stopping terrorism that are actually doing more to fuel and provoke terrorism than any other single factor.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Can I just add one small part of this? You know, he's—I can't shake this guy from my existence, but Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, who has been serving as a shadow adviser to the Trump administration, he was on Fox News last week in prime time on Tucker Carlson's show. Tucker, of course, took over from Bill O'Reilly. And the two big points that Erik Prince was pushing, one was we need to put mercenaries in charge of the war in Afghanistan. And he likened it to the British campaign in India, which was a murderous campaign, where Churchill boasted about the use of chemical weapons. So it's an interesting analog that Prince is using for his proposal on private companies taking over the war in Afghanistan.

But the second point that he made is, the left is completely nuts in the United States because they loved the Soviet Union when it was a left-wing repressive government, and now they're demonizing Putin just because he's not part of the Soviet Union, but he's the same kind of an authoritarian. And isn't it great that Trump has brought these two countries together? What's interesting about that is that Prince himself is at the tip of the spear of a move to try to monetize the refugee crisis right now. His solution is to get countries and thugs in countries like Libya to get into business with the European Union to actually prevent people from leaving North Africa or parts of the Middle East to come into Europe. And he wants to do it with a privatized maritime force, accompanied by Western military advisers, working with local militias. This whole administration, in a way, is up for sale. And when you have people like Erik Prince who are masterful mercenaries running around the scene, and they're your biggest advocate in the U.S. media when it comes to the Russia issue, it raises a lot of questions.

I do think the Democrats have lost their minds with not seeing some value to having peaceful relations between Russia and the United States. The problem is, I'm not sure that that's what Trump is actually doing. But there's a lot up for sale right now. And I think Democrats are blowing a lot of opportunities by just focusing on a narrow aspect of Trump's buffoonery, because there's a lot of high-stakes stuff going on.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us."

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Legal Justifications for Impeachment


THE ABSURD TIMES


"No, my son. I have it on the Highest authority that you'd best enjoy yourself here, for afterwards there is no chance for you."

So, we will finish with the impeachment now. 



  • Emoluments: Anything he does enriches himself, including visitors at Trump tower near the White house.  Also, the only bank that would even consider loaning him money was Russian owned.  Not clear how much he owes.  Every act so far designed to enrich the upper 1% (he is one of them).
  • Treason: Ample evidence of sharing top classified information with Russia – in the White house!
  • Firing Comey, stating the whole reason was to hinder the investigation into him, his staff, and Russia:  All clearly obstruction of Justice and admittedly so.



The Constitution uses the term "high crimes and misdemeanors", not clear what the latter is in this case, but the crimes part is pretty clear.



Below are discussions of it in more detail, including one congressman, from Texas, who openly called for the impeachment.  Some phrases had been blanked out as [expletive deleted], but we used linguistic techniques to reconstruct them.[1]





















Last week, Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green became the first congressmember to call for President Trump's impeachment from the floor of the House of Representatives. Since then, the African-American lawmaker has received a barrage of racist threats, including voicemails in which callers threaten to lynch him. For more, we speak with Congressmember Green.



TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, is it true you've received death threats? I want to—I want to go to a town hall meeting Saturday, where you replayed recordings of threatening voicemail messages left for you. Let's go to these two particularly disturbing messages. I want to warn our viewers and listeners, the calls contain graphic racial slurs.


CALLER 1: Hey, Al Green. We've got an impeachment for ya. It's gonna be yours. It's actually going to give you a short trial before we hang your [nigger] ass.

AMY GOODMAN: This is another one of the phone calls left on Congressman Al Green's voicemail.


CALLER 2: You ain't gonna impeach nobody, you [nigger]. Try it, and we'll lynch all you [fuckin' niggras]. You'll be hanging from a tree. I didn't see anybody calling for the impeachment of your [nigger] Obama, when he was born in Kenya. He's not even an American. So [fuck] you, [niggra]!

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Green, these you got on your voice message machine?

REP. AL GREEN: We did. And they have been turned over to the Capitol Police. There will be an investigation. It is our hope that the persons who perpetrated this kind of ugliness will be caught and that they will be properly prosecuted.

But I also said at the town meeting, and I will share again now, that this type of effort to intimidate will not stop what we are trying to accomplish. It won't thwart our efforts one scintilla. We will move forward.

And I am concerned about my staff. We have a lot of young people that work in our office. We have an intern that's still in high school. And persons making these kinds of harmful threats, literally saying they will murder me, these things create a good deal of concern for my staff. So, we're going to do all that we can to protect ourselves, but we assure people that we will continue to move forward.

And finally, I really want to make this point. This had to be exposed because you cannot hide hate. If you hide hate, hate will grow and fester. Hate becomes emboldened. So you have to expose it. You also have to expose it so that the American people can know that people of color live with this kind of behavior that is not something that we have to assume won't be perpetrated upon us. These are ugly statements, but it doesn't matter whether you are the CEO of a major corporation or a member of Congress. People in this country—some, not all—believe that they can intimidate you by threatening to lynch you.

One more thing. The calls in support far outnumber the hateful calls. They far outnumber those who would perpetrate invidious discrimination. And I want to emphasize this, because I believe in America. I really do believe that my country, the country I was born in, the country I love, I salute the flag—I believe that this country is moving in the right direction. There are some bumps in the road, but we are moving in the right direction. I believe that we still believe in liberty and justice for all. I believe we still believe that this is a country where all persons are created equal. So, I think we've just got to deal with these issues. We cannot hide them. They have to be exposed. But I still am grateful to be in this great country.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, I want to thank you for being with us.

On Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan testified to the House Intelligence Committee that he had growing concerns last year that Trump's campaign may be colluding with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election—and that the Russians might lead Trump officials down a "treasonous path." Trump has now hired a lawyer to represent him in the ongoing investigation, which has sparked mounting calls for Trump's impeachment. For more, we speak with John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People, one of the organizations that launched the "Impeach Donald Trump Now" campaign just moments after Trump's inauguration.



TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: John Bonifaz is also with us, Free Speech for People. John, you came on Democracy Now! like within a week of the inauguration, calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump. How have things changed? You focused on violations of the Emoluments Clause at the time. Explain what your concern was with that. And is that still what you feel is grounds for impeachment?

JOHN BONIFAZ: Amy, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be on with Congressman Green and with you this morning.

We have launched this campaign with RootsAction on the day of the inauguration at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org. More than 1 million people all across the country have called for this impeachment investigation in light of the president's direct and ongoing violations of the anticorruption clauses of the Constitution. His refusal to divest fully from his business interests placed him on a collision course with the Constitution from the day he took the oath of office. But we have since expanded the grounds for our call for an impeachment investigation to include obstruction of justice, in light of the shocking revelations that the president fired the FBI director to try to stop a criminal investigation that may incriminate him as well as other associates in his campaign.

Congressman Green is an American hero. He's standing up for our Constitution and our democracy at this critical moment in our history. And we're urging people all across the country to join us at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org, to stand with him and to make sure that this president be held accountable via the impeachment process.

AMY GOODMAN: So how does this move forward right now, John Bonifaz?

JOHN BONIFAZ: I think it's incumbent upon all of us all around the nation who believe in our Constitution and the rule of law and democracy, that no one, not even the president of the United States, is above the law, that we stand up, that we stand with Congressman Green, that we call on our members of Congress to join him in making this call to issue an impeachment resolution and start the process in the United States House of Representatives.

I know there are people who are saying, "Well, we need to get the facts out." And we do need to get the facts out. But as Congressman Green has eloquently stated, we need—we already have these facts. They're talking about getting other facts. The facts are out on obstruction of justice. The facts are out on the violations of the anticorruption clauses of the Constitution.

And we're dealing right now with a constitutional crisis, in which this president is openly defying the rule of law in our Constitution. So, people all across the country need to stand up. Nine communities, including the Los Angeles City Council, have already passed resolutions calling on Congress to take this action. Brookline Town Meeting in Brookline, Massachusetts, is going to vote this Thursday on this question. And many other communities in the weeks ahead will do that, as well. And people can go to our site at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org. They can download a local resolution and have it passed in your community. Hold an impeachment town hall, as Congressman Green did this past Saturday, and get your community talking about this critical question of our time. This is about our Constitution. It's about our democracy. And we all need to stand up.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, have Republicans come to you in support, any of your—any of the Republican congressmembers?

REP. AL GREEN: Well, I've had Republicans to say to me that they oppose these ugly things that have been said. I have not had any Republicans to tell me about the resolution that I'm proposing or the impeachment effort. And that's because I have not asked. I have intentionally not approached colleagues on this issue. This is a question of conscience for me. And I hope that my colleagues will approach it as I have, but I will not ask anyone to do this. I'm not lobbying anyone. I have concluded that this has to be done, and my hope is that others will see things similarly. But if they do not, I will understand. I think the people of the United States of America, as John has indicated, have to get involved. It's a participatory democracy. If the people will advance their will, the will of Congress will be advanced.

AMY GOODMAN: The Hill has reported that Congressmember Justin Amash of Michigan, Republican, admitted Trump may have committed an impeachable offense if he asked FBI Director James Comey to drop the FBI's investigation into Flynn. Amash is at least the second Republican openly to say Trump may have committed an impeachable offense. Also Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo did, from Florida, said this on CNN last week. Your thoughts on this, Al Green?

REP. AL GREEN: Well, thank you, Amy. I think a good many people see the obstruction of justice, and a good many people understand that obstruction of justice is impeachment. I think it's beneficial that three members of the Republican Party have given these indications. But I also understand that there are a good many members who will be silent until given the opportunity to vote. And at that point, they will voice their opinions. My hope is that they will have heard from enough of their constituents, so that they better understand the will of the people. I think the will of the people will prevail. It's just a matter of making sure people understand what the issues are.

And finally, this, on this question of others, I believe that others who desire to speak up will have the opportunity to do so as more things come out, as there's more evidence presented. I think that we haven't seen the last of this evidence that is ultimately going to be presented. But I also know that we already have enough to impeach, because of the firing and because the president confessed on national television that he did it because of the investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Texas Congressmember Al Green, John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. AL GREEN: Thank you.

JOHN BONIFAZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: We'll continue to follow your actions on the floor of the House, Congressman Green, and this whole impeachment movement around the country.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we'll go to London to speak with Tariq Ali about the suicide attack at the Manchester arena. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.








[1] Devices such as phonemes, allophones, syntax, dialect, and so on.  It also shows a certain personality and level of education, all pointing to a typical Trump voter (although, of course, not all of them).

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

WHY AND HOW TO IMPEACH NOW -- MIDTERMS


THE ABSURD TIMES



SECTION 1
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
SECTION 2
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
SECTION 3
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
SECTION 4
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
    
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.


DECISION FOR IMPEACHMENT
EDITORIAL MEETING

We had an editorial meeting of the entire staff to discuss the future, or lack of it.  Editors and contributors such as Czar Donic, Bernard Shaw, Arthur Schopenhauer, Papa Yaga, Honest Charlie, Ellis Dea, Tsar Donic, and others sat at the table.  In the center was the most beautiful chocolate cake you've ever seen in your entire life.  That cake was really wonderful, believe you me. 



First discussed was the farce of religion and what is done in its name.  Arguments flew back and forth until Shaw said:



Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.



That pretty much ended the discussion, especially since Arthur began to show signs of irritation and nobody wanted to let him go on about the subject.



Eventually, things led to the talk of impeachment.  It is pretty clear that such a step would have to be started by congress, with a majority of Republicans, and that was considered unlikely so long as Trump was likely to sign anything they finally sent them.  He likes signing things anyway, no matter what they mean.  If something happened, abruptly, we would get Pence, the Ryan, then Hatch, then Tillerson, and so on down the way until perhaps things would wind up with Betsy De Voss as President.  So, something had to be done.



This led to the 25th Amendment.  For some reason, actually for obvious reasons, there has been a tremendous upsurge of searches of the 25th Amendment.  It seems that until LBJ, after the Kennedy assassination, recognized the need to have things clearly outlined and the amendment was passed.  So we looked it up, several places, along with discussions, and here it is:



Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.[3]



Additionally, after the Vice President, comes the Speaker of the House (Paul Ryan), then the President pro temp of the Senate (Orrin Hatch of Utahahah), and then the Secretary of state and so on dawn the cabinet.  However, section 4 has never been invoked, although the other sections have been needed.  Mike Pence could conspire with other member of the cabinet, and then send a letter to Ryan and Hatch.  After that, things get hairy, but they are spelled out and all you need to do is read and imagine.  It could happen.



The decision was made to talk about impeachment, obviously, with a slight objection from Papa Yaga, and we promised to put an explanation of Russsia at the end.  He agreed, and thus the discussion.



We need to review the election.  Bernie Sanders was very popular and had great enthusiastic support, both from regular Democrats and from independents.  Many who were Obama voters, and some who later voted for Trump, were amongst his supporters.  However, the party was seen as having been bought by corporate interests, and Hillary's ties to Wall Street were well known.  Her long association with corporate interests represented everything that had turned off many voters, anger some, and led many others simply not to participate.  It is still clear that the party is unwilling to be the party of the lower and middle classes, the unions, teachers, and workers, and instead does what it can to support the corporate world.



The only worse force is the Republican Party.  As it stands today, it is not only highly influenced by corporate interests, but those very corporate interests have been appointed to Presidential Cabinet positions.  In other words, Democrats may have served corporate interests, Republican are corporate interests.  This is what we call a two party system.  Trump fooled enough people by not sounding corporate, that is the only difference. 



He wants to provide Tax reform.  More precisely, he wishes to take 800 billion dollars away from Medicaid and give it to corporations in the form of tax cuts.  He will try to undermine and remove any and all of the "New Deal" and any legislation passed since that helped the lower and middle classes.  There is no doubt.



So what does this have to do with impeachment?  Simply this: it is necessary to keep the Republican Party, the majority party in the House, preoccupied with this and other issues until a midterm election can allow enough opposition party members to be elected to stop some of this attack on people.






Blame the Russians for interfering? Haven't we gone over this enough? First, we know there is no direct evidence that they did the hack.  Beyond that, who knows?  We do know that we constantly interfere in other people's elections and governments, even overturning them. There is no reason to doubt that they adopted our practice.  It is the job of our own center-intelligence folks to look out for that.



Trump said "I love Wikileaks!"  He encouraged them to look for Hilary's e-mails.  And we don't care about them anyway.  If Donald can share intelligence openly with the Russians, why can't she have her own e-mail system?  And who cares?  She is over with and the only thing that is now disturbing about he is that she wants to be considered part of the "resistance".  That is worthy or resistance right there.






Ok, so we know all the typical B.S., but we do need to occupy Congress with something distracting to keep them from screwing us.  The most obvious is Impeachment, using every Chauvinistic and Jingoistic (look the words up) cliché we can, even though we know it is erroneous.  It is the only sort of thing that would get our media and Trump types to start impeachment.  So, here are some points to make:



  • The Russians have hacked into our "Democracy" (forget the real definition of "Democracy"
  • Trump and his team worked with them on this.
  • Lots of money went to Russia and then much gets kicked back to Trump.
  • Flynn told the Russians that they were going to life sanctions when Trump becomes President.
  • Flynn got paid by Turkey (his guys in suits attacks peaceful demonstrations in D.C. and Erdogan is now attacking the D.C. Police force for defending the demonstrators). 
  • Russian TV hired Flynn.
  • Kushner gets payoffs from Russia (remember, Russia = Bad Guys).
  • Trump fired Comey, head of FBI, because he investigated all this.
  • People involved with Trump and Russia are all taking the 5th which means they are guilty – Trump says so.



There are even some true points to make, although they might be less effective:



  • All republicans seem to want people to die of existing conditions.
  • People will loose their disability payments.
  • Food Stamps will be cut in half or more.
  • They will soon go after Medicare, Social Security, and anything else that helps people.



Well, that's about it.  It has been very tiring to watch this happening.  We have had it.