"The Charbor Chronicles": Trump Impeached

I have long been expecting - and yes wanting - to write those words.

Clearly, I am not the only one, as there were mass demonstrations literally around the country demanding that Trump be impeached (see link to the article below).

No other president in the history of this country has so richly deserved this dubious distinction. No other president has been so blatant with his intention to abuse the power of the office that he now holds, and to act in a manner that betrays just how convinced he is that he is above the law.

Now, this nightmare of a presidency will always be associated with the impeachment, and the abuses of power that brought him there. He will always be associated with trying to receive aid from the Ukraine (and Russia, of course), and then going towards extraordinary lengths to try and obstruct justice and bully witnesses. He will be remembered for trying to cover up his wrongdoings, once he got caught, or finally had an inkling (which he too rarely does) that he might actually be caught and held accountable and compromised.

Indeed, there has never been another president who was so blatant with his intention of abusing the office, and of acting in a manner so contrary to the best interests of the country. That is why I feel this is a good thing, at least showing that the system of government that is designed to keep abuses of power in check actually works. Again, no other president has been in such need of being kept in check. His crimes even make Nixon's actions look small, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested some time ago.

Trump has his defenders, obviously. Republicans are on his side, and his impeachment is almost assuredly not going to get past the Senate. Hell, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham both have promised that it will go nowhere.

But they will not be able to reverse this outcome from the House, which impeached Trump.

There were plenty of Democrats who were quite articulate in voicing their rationale for holding Trump accountable. One of my favorites, which I actually heard on the car radio, was from Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from the District of Columbia. She made a comparison between the impeachment of Clinton two decades and change ago, versus the one now against Trump:

Twenty-one years ago on the House floor, Norton said of the Clinton impeachment, “the framers raised the bar as high as possible, allowing impeachment not even for crimes, but only for high crimes. The Republicans have lowered the bar as low as they can to reach tawdry private consensual sex.”

“The facts of Trump’s impeachment have no parallel in American history in seriousness of the acts and strength of the evidence presented,” Norton said. “Unlike President Clinton, President Trump has denied all wrongdoing and continues to abuse his office, creating a clear and present danger to our country and to our constitutional checks and balances.”

She explained the differences between the two impeachments, and the two presidents, quite clearly. God knows I am no fan of the Clintons, but there were at least some boundaries with him. With Trump, there is a complete absence of limits, and absolutely no sign of regrets, and no admission of even the smallest possibility of being wrong about something. It struck me how true this was as soon as I heard Congresswoman Norton say this, and so it seemed like something worth sharing here.

There were others who spoke eloquently, but probably the best one was Adam Schiff of California. Here is how he opened his case for impeachment last evening:

In his speech during House impeachment debate this Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) summed up the case against President Trump, saying that “when a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits, despotic in his ordinary demeanor, known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — which such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity to join in the cry of danger to liberty to take every opportunity of embarrassing the general government and bringing it under suspicion, to flatter and fall in with all of the nonsense of the zealots of the day, it may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Those words, originally spoken by Alexander Hamilton in 1792, are a “prefect description of the present danger emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” according to Schiff.

Schiff could not have gotten a better quote from a Founding Father that more perfectly encapsulated the threat that Donald Trump poses to democracy. He then proceeded to lay a very compelling case on why impeaching Trump is an absolute necessity, if we are to preserve this democracy. I added the video of it down below, because it was stirring to watch, and is worth seeing for yourself, if you have not already done so. Frankly, I might watch it again myself in the near future.

Ultimately, both articles of impeachment passed. The first one was for abuse of power, and it passed with a vote of 230 to 197, with one member (Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii) voting present. The second article was for obstruction of Congress, and it passed with a vote of 229 to 198, with Gabbard also voting present on this article.

No Republicans voted in favor of impeachment, although the one independent in the House, Mishigan Representative Justin Amash, voted with the Democrats in favor of the two articles of impeachment. Otherwise, there were some Democrats — Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey — who voted against Article 1. Then, a third Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, joined Peterson and Van Drew and voted against Article 2.

So, how did Trump respond?

Well, he held another rally. Of course he did. This one was in Michigan, and not for the first time, he used the royal "we" in describing himself. He claimed that the Democrats never give him credit for anything, as he once again took credit for the allegedly strong economy, where indeed, the wealthiest are raking in profits like never before. Here are a few of his comments from the rally last night:

"It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached. The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we've never had before."

In typical Trump fashion, his rally deteriorated into a bunch of insults. He even insinuated that a former Congressman and World War II veteran John Dingell, making his little snarky suggestion that he was "looking up" at everything, clearly insinuating that Dingell is in Hell.

All class, all of the time is Trump, eh?

And that is actually a perfect segue to announce that right now, I am so tired of all of this, so tired of hearing Trump and his utter nonsense and behavior that obviously proves the case that he is unfit to hold the office that he presently occupies, that I am taking a break from writing about him for the duration of the year. He will surely make news, and make more headlines. But barring something truly astonishing that would make avoiding writing about him virtually impossible, I am giving myself the Christmas gift of taking a break from this man and news surrounding him until the holiday season is over. No news stories on my end about Trump until 2020.