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I can’t believe I am writing this. But I’m really dreading seeing The Teflon Don get away with, yet another in his long series of abuses.
Maybe there is another way. Maybe there is a practical way to short-circuit the patented-Trump process … where Donnie-boy gets away with, yet another “prank” in the eyes of his adoring fans (and crime-spree enablers).
One does not have to know how to “read tea leaves” — to know that the GOP Senate is just going to just let him walk … back into the office, where who knows what he will try to break next.
Democrats have a better choice than impeachment
CNN, Opinions — Nov 28, 2019
[...]
After amassing the testimony and preparing for the articles of impeachment, the House could change course and introduce a resolution for censure of the President. In it, they would recite all the behavior that would go into articles of impeachment. But instead of Trump's removal from office as a remedy, it would essentially place the impeachment process in abeyance until the House can determine whether it will be able to hear from additional key witnesses.
This is a viable option for many reasons.
[The writer Charlie Firestone then goes into the many reasons ...]
A censure would issue a formal warning: This is unacceptable behavior for a president, but we will not remove you from office this time. However, pending further testimony or should there be any instance of further wrongdoing, the appropriate remedy is removal from office. Ideally, the Senate would also adopt a resolution of censure, though support for Trump and the politics of the upcoming election would suggest that that is highly unlikely.
This is not a new notion. A censure was proposed in earlier stages of the process by AEI's
Norman Ornstein and Boston Globe columnist
Scot Lehigh, among others. It essentially
places a marker of condemnation pending a further
possibility of bringing an impeachment.
[...]
Of the several reasons for Censuring Trump that Firestone cites, it was the pragmatic one that got my attention. Namely, since it is a near certainty the foregone-concluding Senators of the GOP, will vote to acquit the president — the protectors of law and order will after THAT, have no recourse, no remedy of curbing Trump’s behavior going forward.
And we will have effectively given Trump yet another “
gift of exoneration”, going into 2020 campaign ad barrage season.
It’s not like the public would stand for a 2nd Impeachment Inquiry — once the Senate acquits — even as Trump continues to ride roughshod over every Constitutional convention and norm.
So why don’t we beat him to punch — and be unconventional first: Give Trump a “public time-out”; and hold out the “real punishment” for later, if his bad behavior continues.
And best of all it would take away the “psychological win” the ‘Trump and the Trumpetts’ would claim ad nauseam, from here to his “very hard to imagine” 2nd-term “Vindication Speech.”
Readers of my
work, know I am the last person to give Trump “a pass” — to look the other way when he does something terrible and/or wrong. But I’m tired of just ‘following the rules’ of polite society {ala the Mueller-Barr
hi-jacking}, only to see the National Bully, kick yet another constitutional kid’s ass.
It’s long past time the Bully and his gang
were out-smarted. It’s time the principled, reality-based kids put the
Bully in a Box — one that everyone can plainly see. Put an end to his
free-range hell-raising, once and for all.
Trump on Censure has this Trump-Timeout effect written all over it. I kind of like that.
Could it be time to put the “Unimpeachable one” — on permanent notice. A perpetual Timeout so to speak.
Censuring Trump, as Firestone puts it, especially with a suspended Impeachment Inquiry lurking in the background, could have such an affect: of finally cooling derelict Donnie’s jets.
It could be the one thing — that finally sticks to Teflon.
What do you think. Is this idea crazy enough — to actually work?
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