An impeachment vote should not be brought to the floor until enough Repub votes are there (and with a majority of Repubs presently endorsing the illegal Venezuela WAR action -that will change- they are not there yet…)
Votes for an impeachment WILL be there as soon as America First Never Trumpers primary Repubs in red districts before the midterms. Some will probably make a campaign promise to sign up for impeachment. Wait until mid-summer, but prepare your charges.
I would suggest some in Congress get a definitive statement from a Federal Court that Venezuela WAS a war action; then they can add it to the list of impeachment charges.
Commit to a formal statement that you are ready to hold an impeachment if enough Repubs indicate their support for it. This way time is not wasted on a proceeding that will go nowhere (as was the case with the last three partisan impeachments…)
Knowing that the Repubs know all this, my guess is they will want an impeachment vote BEFORE Never-Trumpers show up in primaries for the midterms, because the votes to impeach won’t be there yet. People in Congress who realize that Trump staying in is the end of America: don’t fall for that; slow-walk it until the Repub midterm primaries start playing out.
I see an impeachment charge has been filed for Bondi; I doubt that will yield the desired results (although I am open to hearing a strategic argument for it…)
Musing: Is the Venezuela “we get the oil” move a pathetic attempt to get a warchest from the oil companies for Trump Repubs in the midterm primaries?? (against both Never-Trumpers/America First Rebubs in red districts and Dems?) It would sure explain their being down with Venezuela!
It’s pretty obvious Trump already gets grift money himself to put the thumb on the scale for climate-destructive fossil fuels at every possible opportunity…
The interesting thing is he might actually get impeached BEFORE the midterms if the Repubs, facing Never-Trump America Firsters in their midterm PRIMARIES who are polling well, read the room and climb on board the impeachment train to save their asses at the last minute. Not at all saying that is sure to happen, but it’s a distinct possibility. The Dems should NOT bring an impeachment to a vote until they are very sure they have the cooperation of enough Repubs to make it happen. If we have to wait until after the midterms, so be it.
I think it would be better for the country to heal if some of the Repubs were to buy in on an impeachment; but I won’t count on it -he’s too destructive to the notion of a Constitution and has to go any way we can make that happen…
Trump espousing capping credit card fees? That would have been UNTHINKABLE six months ago! He’d want to keep banking institutions on his side so that he and his grifters could access loans with very liberal terms. I think it’s a tell that he knows he’s in serious trouble, and is starting to ballast his Billionaires Boys Club antics. I can’t see how he will undo all his damage though, especially the tariffs. He has screwed the pooch for US trade relations for years after his exit.
Capping card fees is scant consolation for going into debt because of grocery inflation and a shit job market (thanks to uncertainty instigated by his rollercoaster antics…)
While I sure wouldn’t mind impeaching the VP, then the President, as she suggests, that is a political ask that would be very hard to pull off! I think you have to go after Vance if he doesn’t get the memo after Trumo is taken out…
If you are a Repub and can’t see that Trump is toxic, utterly hopeless, and needs to go (and support impeachment…), you are a mother fucking ANTI-AMERICAN CHUD.
True colors time for Rove and other Repubs!
And I am sick and fed up with YET AGAIN another false dichotomy for voters set up by the party Duopoly for the midterms: “Choose Repubs who support Trump…or choose Israel!” 2016: “Choose Trump…or Hillary!” Hillary was a shit-sandwich for workers. 2024: “Choose Trump…or choose Harris!” Not only did Harris have nothing to offer workers, but she was the biggest recipient of AIPAC funding and remained silent on the Gaza genocide AS IT WAS HAPPENING!
Fuck both of you! All we are left with now is hoping for: some Repubs bailing on Trump and Israel (as Massie has set an example…); hoping the Dems commit to no more AIPAC or the like (that’s a longshot, given their refusal at this very minute to pledge to that -just look at Schuumer’s craven Israel-will-get-a-blank-check speech just this past week!); or an alliance of pro-working class Independents (put on the ballots by petition…) that would put pressure on the Dems to do the right thing. I am open to any of these three possibilities…
At this point these are all abject wastes of time.
What Bondi and Patel have already said, when contrasted to what little has been released in the files, makes them impeachable. Any more questions put to them will accomplish nothing other than re-establish the well-established fact that they are brazen liars.
Unless Maxwell wants to testify to the location of some bodies that were previously buried on the Zorro ranch, what is to be gained by talking to her?! She’s a serial liar, again, based on what little has been released in the files. Asking her to testify only gives a mic for her to telegraph to Trump to pardon her.
The business of Congress right now should be:
shutting down ICE unless they agree to act with at least the same strictures as local law enforcement (frankly, any local actions should be handled by local police, who could agree to turn over any criminals to them…)
passage of any war powers legislation
new healthcare laws to improve upon or replace ACA
impeachment of Trump
If any Repubs refuse to work on each of those issues (because they can’t read the room the way MGT and Massie already have that Trump at this point is DOA…), Dems and Indies can point that out to voters (and any corporate media not cowering under their beds…) and continue to work on the paperwork for impeachment.
The present lack of seriousness by Congress in dealing with this crisis (other than a handful, and we lknow who they are…) has to be convincing our trading and defense partners to hang it up on the US and cut it out of future trade and defense alliances.
After Trump is forced out, we can assess what course of action is to be taken with Vance, Bondi, Patel, Noem, Luttnick… I would imagine Vance would take the initiative on a house cleaning, even if his replacements would not be our dream picks…
“But we just had some wins in deep red districts!”
Those were districts where the Repub candidates have not yet gotten the memo that Massie and MGT did. Once people rebel against the REAL Epstein pizzagate, and Repubs make campaign promises to impeach Trump and never to back Israel first, Dems will be very hard pressed to win against candidates like that!
If a group of Repubs run never-Trump and no to Israel, THE VERY SAME SPONSORS OF EPSTEIN -that will be unbeatable in red districts. With the exception of Massie and MGT, the Repubs just haven’t read the room yet. They are just being duped into believing that WELL PAID shills like Benny Johnson and Erika Kirk reflect a popular sentiment.
Maybe the Dems are hoping they will continue to believe that…
Now that people are getting that an impeachment IS possible this year (if not a non-partisan one…), I see a discussion being bandied about that it might be better to lame-duck Trump for two years and wait for Vance to be flushed out too.
I don’t think so, if a Dem supermajority can be formed at the midterms. You could always impeach Vance after Trump if he opts to carry on the torch of insanity. But obviously an enlargement of the Court can’t be done until Vance is gone.
But the odds of a Dem supermajority are slim given their continued AIPAC and corporate monopoly donor addiction…
At this point why is that protest not being converted to a National Strike and slowdown?! Given all the atrocities committed in the name of Americans, a protest is pretty much a der-hey; it starts to make the idea of a “protest” to be trivial. It had to start as protests, but at this point much more has to be called on to react against these gangster grifters…
I had not previously taken a hard look at this thread, and it appears to be nearly a year old. I’m going to avoid studying the 35 comments that have been made and just blurt out my thought here:
Please do not underestimate Trump’s capabilities as a master politician, demagogue, and blackmailer/extortionist. In order for an impeachment effort to work to convict and remove him from office, we will have to contend with the fact that the Republicans in the Senate will not (in my opinion) vote to convict unless Republican Party leadership in the Senate shows them that
the vote will clearly work and he will clearly be removed. If it does not work, and if he is left in power, they can probably assume that their political careers are over, at the least, … and given the grotesque vindictive nature of Trump, the well-being and future of themselves and their families may be in question.
They probably want to know that Republicans will emerge still in clear control of the White House, as per the law.
the vote to will not be a political death sentence against each one of them. Even if Trump is removed and even if he is legally prosecuted (it is quite possible that he would not be, given that Vance would then be President), some of the Senators might pull back from voting to convict since their political lives might be over (such as if Trump riles up the people in their states to see them as betraying Republican efforts).
In the last two impeachment efforts, Trump and senior Republicans were able to find a way to argue in the Senate that there were valid reasons not to vote to convict.
I have not followed things closely, but to give an example, I see that John Thune replaced Mitch McConnell in the Senate in 2024 as the Majority leader. Mr. Thune’s statements regarding previous impeachment efforts reflect (according to what AI is telling me on the fly) sympathy toward Trump. I would have been shocked if the Senate Republicans, or President Trump through his politically vicious maneuvering, had allowed into this position anyone who might be likely to turn around and support an impeachment effort against Trump.
Check that support level come June or sooner! That’s my bet. We need to make sure the States prevent any funny business at the midterms, and my conjecture is many Repubs will bail on him.
Look at how they eventually gave it up on Noem.
The previous impeachment efforts were a BFM; they should not have been brought after doing a headcount and seeing the votes were not there for it. A public signed statement by the Dems saying they were ready, and will do so once the votes are there, would have sufficed. Bringing an impeachment to the floor when the votes aren’t there yet? A “vote of conscience”?? That pisses most voters off as a timesuck.
A Repub in a traditionally red district will be in better shape by the midterms for having voted to impeach Trump than to stand and salute as the Titanic goes down and Trump flies out to a country with no extradition treaty…
Yes, I agree, and I not only hope you are right, but I think there is something to what you’re saying. But for those of us who are going to discuss this in the background, while events unfold, I suggest that we do it with both eyes wide open.
This means acknowledging that every Republican Senator will be taking a massive risk by voting to remove. It may even be the case that we could help them a little. Going forward, if I knew that a Republican in the House or Senate voted for Impeachment, I as a voter registered as an Independent would very much consider such a vote to be a point in their favor, when I stepped inside the voting booth. I will legally vote in a Republican primary to support any Republican who votes to remove Trump from Office, just as I have already supported (or at least counted relatively favorably) Republicans who oppose Trump’s disgusting attempt to undermine our vitally important voting system, and his attempt to seize office in an illegal act, by claiming that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen.
We can also emphasize that the longer this all goes on, the more it becomes clear that Republicans in the House and Senate risk not only whatever principles they have, but also their political futures, if they continue to protect Trump. So, they cannot escape having to measure the risk on both sides of a conviction vote.
Here is a bit more color on what I mean by my own voting approach:
I live in Arizona where unaffiliated voters can vote in whichever primary they choose, other than the Presidential Preference election in which case they must be registered within that party. In the primaries, I have sometimes voted in one or the other party, when there was a particular candidate I wanted to support or oppose. In the Presidential Preference elections, I have once registered democrat (2016) and once Republican (2024) when there was a particular vote I wanted to cast. Then I have changed my party affiliation back to Independent. All legal. (Not only legal, but I would argue it is within both the spirit and letter of the law, since I truly am independent and have many views that would be considered consistent with Republican voting of the older variety).
In the general election and in the primaries, since 2021, I have considered support for Trump’s stolen election narrative totally disqualifying. I will not vote for any candidate who supports this narrative, and will likely not support even one who is quiet about it.
I will, however, consider voting for Republicans here and there. I almost never end up doing it, since they seem to take so many positions that I oppose, but I want them to know, if they somehow do vote for Impeachment, and if they have other qualities that I can support, I genuinely will consider voting for them. Every two years I spend hours studying the candidates and trying to find a Republican I can support, but it is very hard. Every four years I name Republicans who, if they ran for the Presidency I could actually consider voting for them. I think this is a very productive exercise to engage in, and I encourage others to do it. In 2024, this included a number of “Rockefeller Republicans” such as governors Phil Scott of Vermont, Larry Hogan of Maryland, and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, along with Republicans in Congress who had voted to get Trump out of office in 2021 such as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Senator Romney.
Yes, many of these politicians have other qualities and stances that bother me, and sometimes I can’t say for absolute certain that I would vote for them… it would also depend on the Democratic and 3rd party candidates. Still, I highly recommend this exercise every four years to anyone who thinks they might want to try it.
