Talking Heads — Burning Down the House
This is my favorite Talking Heads song. It came to mind when I read the main article on Slate today.
Short of winning both houses of Congress, we hope at the least for a Democratic takeover of the House in the mid-term election so they can vote on impeachment. Trump has a lot more to worry about than the political hot potato of trying to remove him from office outright. Slate explains why it's the powerful House committees with their subpoena powers which Trump really should be worrying about.
Slate has a great must read top-of-the-page article this morning:
But for the president, the concerns are much more personal. A Democratic takeover would be catastrophic. Instantly, the House would be converted into a hive of investigatory bodies. In a Democratic House, the grand Washington battle will no longer be Trump versus Mueller. It will be Trump versus 21 subpoena-wielding House committee chairmen, played out in public on a 24-hour televised loop.
Unlike a legislative agenda, executive oversight can be prosecuted by just one chamber. Taking control of the House would empower Democratic committee chairmen to aggressively pursue every aspect of the president’s personal and political interests. I know a little bit about how this would look. I served as the Democratic staff director of a House oversight subcommittee during the administration of Republican President George H.W. Bush, when Democrats like John Dingell, Henry Waxman, and my old boss, Barbara Boxer, wielded their oversight authority aggressively enough to make agency heads quake. Subpoenas were frequently threatened but seldom required, as Bush administration officials usually came around to the notion that compliance was the better part of valor. slate.com/...
Under Republican control, the Senate and House committees were useless in getting to the truth about how Trump was running a criminal enterprise from the White House. While I don’t want to tempt the fate gods, it does look like the Democrats are likely to take over the House of Representatives.
Consider, as the State article does, the purview of just a few of the 21 House committees. Note how many of them could open investigations directly or indirectly related to the transgressions of Trump and his minions.
- The Ways and Means Committee could subpoena President Trump’s tax returns.
- The Finance Committee, chaired by Maxine Watters, could investigate the phenomenon of Russian oligarchs.
- The Judiciary Committee could look at gun violence, DACA, and also explicate the authority of a special counsel to indict a sitting president.
- House Foreign Relations Committee could initiate hearings on Trump’s erratic courtship of North Korea and his excessive affection for Russia.
Those of you who are my age remember the TV show ”This Is Your Life” hosted by Ralph Edwards which was a big hit in the 1950’s and on radio before that. Here are five of the most memorable shows. I can imagine Trump on the show having a parade of figures in his life, recent and distant past, surprising him on live TV and accounting how he screwed them.
Consider the president’s unbridled anger as he watches a cable-news version of This Is Your Life, a procession of Cabinet secretaries, disgraced former White House officials, unpaid construction contractors, disqualified eligible voters, terrified Dreamers, abandoned factory workers, and colorful NDA signatories, all led by Democratic House committee chairs, many of whom Trump has traduced in nasty personal terms.
With that image in mind, you can see why Trump stops short of firing Mueller. If a rash decision to dispatch the special counsel costs Republicans their House majority, the president will subject himself to a ceaseless barrage of charges, confessions, and revelations. For Trump, that’s the nightmare scenario. Slate
There’s much more. Check out the Slate article.
Lyrics:
Get them out
Ah
Watch out, you might get what you're after
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight, wait 'til the party's over
Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather
There has, got to be a way
Burning down the house
Here's your ticket pack your bags
Time for jumpin' overboard
Transportation isn't here
Close enough but not too far,
Maybe you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire, huah
All wet, hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hundred, sixty five degrees
Burning down the house
It was once upon a place sometimes, I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work say baby what did you expect
Gonna burst into flame
Go ahead
Burning down the house
My house, is out of the ordinary
That's right, don't want to hurt nobody
Some things, sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house
No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet
Everything's stuck together
I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fightin' fire with fire, huah
Yea
Burning down the house
Burning down the house
Burning down the house
Monday, Apr 23, 2018 · 3:34:29 PM +00:00
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HalBrown
Here’s what Charles Blow has to say about impeachment in his New York Times column today:
Folks, have a seat and get some tea. I have something to tell you that you may not want to hear: Everyone still hoping for Donald Trump’s removal from office is hoping against the odds.
Yes, Trump is wholly unqualified, lacking in morality and character, a consummate liar and surrounded by corruption. Yes, every day that he occupies the presidency he is a threat to this country, its ideas, conventions and comity, but also arguably to the safety and security of the world itself.
But, although a perspicuous case can be made for his removal, that is an uphill battle because enough of the public and the political class abhor impeachment and find removal to be extreme and indecorous, even for a compromised president.
It is possible that Trump could be impeached if the Democrats take the House of Representatives (odds are that they will) but a conviction in the Senate (where odds are the Republicans will retain a majority, however slim) is all but impossible.