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GOOD!
I wonder if former MA governor is going to join them in that?
I think he left Josh Treasonburger Hawley with no hair on the back of his head through nuclear glaring last night.
Katherine Clark
My rep and member of the democratic leadership, Katherine Clark, BOLDLY tweets that Trump should be removed from office and then just goes home instead of actually using the House's constitutional powers to try to remove Trump from office. The democrat leadership is useless.
The next two years of the democrats doing nothing to help people because they were afraid of their own shadow/ losing corporate donors, then losing the house and the senate because they did nothing are going to be excruciating.
Is she in MA?
Or did she find the nearest bed and land in it like 1,000 other reps, senators, and staffers did?
Or did you not notice that their session ended at 4:30 am last night after a traumatic incident, and one might naturally want to go home and sleep after that?
I think Clark is a giant hot air balloon myself, but your expectations this morning are unreasonable and irrational.
I thought that Congress is
I thought that Congress is now adjourned until after the inauguration, no? No one should deny them a good night of rest, but after the insurrection yesterday it seems like a really terrible time to take almost 2 weeks off.
That could change
I strongly suspect that some of that lockdown time was spent drafting things and screen capping tweets.
Except for Josh Treasonburger, who was doing fundraisers, and Ted Cruz, who was being flayed alive by Romney.
Recess, Not Adjournment
Generally, there isn't a lot of legislative business when there is a presidential turnover to a different party, so they take a couple of week break of meeting on the floor. But they can easily re-convene either house quickly if they need to. Many of the newer folks stay in town because there is a lot of business they have to do (like hiring and getting settled).
Expect to see them reconvene on Monday and vote soon after.
Completely Rational
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you missed that Speaker Pelosi, with the presumed support of her leadership including Representative Clark, was awake enough to gavel the house out of session for the next two weeks.
My rational expectation was that they wouldn't just go home and hope for the best for the next two weeks while our democracy is literally under attack. My rational expectation was that they would announce they would immediately begin impeachment proceedings and work towards expulsion of the House members who publicly repudiated our democratic process.
Instead the House said "Fingers Crossed. We're leaving it up to Pence and the cabinet of sycophants to do the right thing. Good luck, everybody!"
But Representative Clark made a nice tweet, so that's something.
Of course they're going home,
Of course they're going home, it's dangerous there. What do you think they're high school teachers or something? They don't have to put themselves in harms way and they won't.
Things are moving very
Things are moving very quickly and you can expect that the House will reconvene on Monday to start the impeachment process. There may still be some 25th Amendment discussion going on, which would put the POTATUS out of power immediately, but require a vote within 4 days assuming the President objects. That is the fastest path, though it will depend on the 2 chambers if they uphold the VP's request.
It can look like they just went on vacation, but a lot is happening right now.
Things that have to be
Things that have to be weighed in any consideration of impeachment or 25th Amendment
...
- damage POTUS might do in the next 13 days if they do nothing
- damage POTUS might do while impeachment proceedings ongoing. Even if they somehow have some lightning-fast assembly of charges and evidence, he remains President through the process of impeachment and trial.
- damage POTUS might do if 25th Amendment invoked. Sure, maybe Pence and a majority of Cabinet Secretaries would sign-on to a statement that he's behaved erratically and it is interfering with his response to crisis situations and calls into question his ability to do his job. Then what?
--25th Amendment is a bit vague on concrete details at some points (or that haven't been tested) and sometimes seems to rely on the underlying good will and propriety of the chief executive (there hasn't been a good track record for things like that with this chief executive)
--He could declare that he's all set and ready to resume duties, which would set up a constitutional fight which would serve his martyr complex and "steal" narrative
--I think he's generally functional enough that nobody could establish diminished capacity (to any normal evaluation) on short notice
--You'd either have him returning from "suspension" with time left in his term and a full head of rage - or - have him still suspended, but raging against another steal, messaging out that he's still "in charge", sending orders to gov't departments & military, telling followers that he's "government-in-exile" etc...
--- Also, you wouldn't have him out of the White House in that last scenario, so he's have that as backdrop for his fantasy word.
--Even if they did assemble some reasonable premise to keep him out of the knife drawer/match box/gun cabinet for two weeks - it is a dangerous precedent to establish that a duly-elected president can be "gotten out of the way" for a little while when the rest of government needs/wants it without having a rigorous process and burden of proof.
I was talking this out with
I was talking this out with someone today, considering things like whether there would be enough Republican support for impeachment and then conviction, and/or if Pence and a majority of Cabinet secretaries would back a 25th Amendment move.
I came out of the conversation figuring that neither one was very likely in the absence of an explicit "smoking gun" (such as What if commander-in-chief was found to have interfered with security of Capitol in advance? and that there wasn't much time to gather/sort evidence.
Then, later today, I read this...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/with-an-erratic-desperate-trump-still-in-char...
If true, I would call that an explicit and damning smoking gun.
Oh this is so funny, this
Oh this is so funny, this went from protest, to riot, to coup, to insurrection, faster than Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.
Katherine Clark's latest post
- Katherine Clark today
Since I've been griping about the timid democrats for 4 years, I should also say that it looks like they're finally getting it.
it’s also
very unlikely to garner the 17 (19? i’m not sure when ossof and warnock are sworn in) senate republican votes necessary for passage
Perdue's term ended on 1/4
Perdue's term ended on 1/4, dunno about Loeffler's. Other incoming Senators were already sworn in - I'd think they'd do this as expeditiously as possible.
Ball's in Georgia's Court
You have to wait for Georgia to certify the election results. Their deadline is January 22nd.
Maybe So
But in this case, starting the process is way better than just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. I doubt this will be the last impeachable offense being considered by the man with unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons in the next two weeks and it sounds like the R's are wavering.