Yesterday, I had a rather crowded late morning/early afternoon. The radio opera was Vivaldi’s “Bajazet” which I had never heard of, let alone heard, before. However, atthe same time, Theater od War was mounting a Zoom production of Aeschylus’s play “The Suppliant” (an unusual word in English these days – but think “The Refugees”), as a vehicle to jump start a discussion on Ukraine, and with an all-Ukrainian chorus (including a very remarkable 12-year-old girl.) My final decision was to watch the play (and subsequent discussion) but with the opera softly in the background. So I’m not able to share much about the opera. In the end I made the right choice, I think. There was a note that the session was being recoorded – it is not yet posted at their site, but if and when it is I’ll share the link. Also included were three professional actors whose names you migh recognize – David Strathairn (Danaus), Oscar Isaac (Pelasgus), and Willem DaFoe (Aegyptus.)The play dates to the mid-fifth century BCE (450 BCE plus or minus 10) but so much has not changed. One line: “Those who speak in foreign tongues are never fully welcome.) As are all of their productions, it was very moving. On top of all that, I received cinfirmation to visit Virgil today – so I’ll be around even less than usual. But I’ll be in as much as I can.
Cartoon –
I didn’t know who Mola was either. He appears to have been Franco’s Jeff Clark (or Roy Cohn) but he died in an air crash in 1937 and his name disappeared.
Short Takes –
CNN Politics – Why Republicans want to redefine one word in the Constitution
Quote – The Constitution refers specifically to the “legislature” in each state determining the time and manner of federal elections. Backers of the “Independent State Legislature Claim” argue that since the Constitution doesn’t name other parts of state government — including courts — they should have no power to check the legislature on the subject of federal elections. Even if a state’s constitution or laws give power to courts or a governor, the theory argues legislatures should be able to ignore them. Clck through for full analysis. The case in question is Moore v. Harper. I don’t want to forget that myself, nor do I want any of us to forget it. After it’s decided, we’ll know whether it’s OK to forget it … or whether we eill never forget it, whether we want to or not.
Mother Jones – Don’t Fall into the Collusion Trap on Trump and January 6
Quote – This question is an important one, but it is also a trap. Trump and his comrades have been rather deft at developing a tactic to protect him from charges of profound wrongdoing: They raise the bar. If Trump is caught holding a match outside a burning house, Trump and his defenders will say, “Do you have proof he doused the interior with gasoline? That’s fake news. A hoax.” Click through for full explanation. Neither the Committee nor prosecutors are IMO likely to fall into this trap, but since public opinion can help or hurt a case, it still matters.
Glenn – J6 committee subpoenas WH Counsel Pat Cipollone. Will he testify or coverup Trump’s crimes?
Meidas Touch – Michael Cohen REACTS to Trump attacks on Cassidy Hutchinson
Robert Reich – The Supreme Court’s War on the People (yes, I also used the text article.)
Beloved Community Talks | The Replacement Theory and White Fear: It Starts in Our Minds
This is a seminar produced by The King Center through “The Beloved Comunity Speaks” program, and it is 45 minutes even after I cut off some intro. I don’t expect anyone to watch it without setting aside time to do so, and I understand anyone who doesn’t want to do that. I share it mainly because I have a long online relationship with Scott. When he first “came out” on LinkedIn as a “reformed racist” in 2010 (and asked for advice how best to help eliminate racism from anyone willing to give it), I was new to LinkedIn myself but I felt I had to respond with support, and we have been LinkedIn contacts ever since. It hasn’t been easy for him (racism is not the only thing he is recovering from) but he has never wavered. He works with The King Center at least annually now. I’m proud to know him.
Puppet Regine – CoVid-19
Beau – Let’s talk about Elmo and a phrase I never thought I say….
Glenn Kirschner – Two topics: how to combat the Supreme Court revoking women’s rights; how to hold Trump accountable
Meidas Touch – AOC brings the HOUSE DOWN with Scathing Speech After Roe v Wade Decision
The Lincoln Project – Wandrea “Shaye” Moss
Farron Balanced – Fox News Host Hilariously Smacks Down Dr Oz For Lying About Poll Numbers
OwlKitty in Lord of the Rings
Beau – Let’s talk about unpacking the Supreme Court decision…. (I am in favor of a two-pronged strategy – expand AND impeach. But then I’ve always been a belt-and-suspenders type)
Glenn Kirschner – Steve Bannon Headed for Prosecution for Criminal Contempt. Here’s What Congress Should Tackle Next.
Meidas Touch – Ivermectin-pushing doctor cited by far right EXPOSED as a fraud
The Lincoln Project – Dragon of Budapest
MSNBC – Rep. Raskin: ‘Steve Bannon Committed A Crime Today’
Ring of Fire – Lauren Boebert Ripped To Shreds Over Misspelled ‘Imeach Biden’ Effort
Police Scotland – “Don’t be That Guy”
Most guys don’t look in the mirror & see a problem. But it’s staring us in the face. Sexual violence begins long before you think it does. #DontBeThatGuypic.twitter.com/78B05S5lRk
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
As I’ve been saying, I have a number of articles saved regarding how white supremacy thinks, when it increases, how it expresses itself, and so on – and especially, what to do about it. I hope to get to all of them eventually. This is not one of them – but it is about accountability, which, like democracy, is not threatened.
The United States is not the first nation to have established an impeachment process. Neither are we the first nation to learn that, as a process to achieve accountability – well, let’s just say it is far from perfect. Here’s a little history so that we can consider similarities and differences.
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Why the British abandoned impeachment – and what the US Congress might do next
Impeachment was developed in medieval England as a way to discipline the king’s ministers and other high officials. The framers of the U.S. Constitution took that idea and applied it to presidents, judges and other federal leaders.
That tool was in use, and in question, during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Republicans raised questions about both the constitutionality and the overall purpose of impeachment proceedings against a person who no longer holds office.
An impeachment case that was active in Britain while the framers were writing the Constitution in Philadelphia helped inform the new American government structure. But the outcome of that case – and that of another impeachment trial a decade later – signaled the end of impeachment’s usefulness in Britain, though the British system of government offered another way to hold officials accountable.
A century later, impeachment no longer carried a risk of execution, but in 1786 the House of Commons launched what would become the most famous – and longest – impeachment trial in British history.
The lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons, impeached Warren Hastings, who had retired as governor-general of British India and was back in England, for corruption and mismanagement. That action provides a direct answer to one current legal question: The charges were based on what Hastings had done in India, making clear that a former official could be impeached and tried, even though he was no longer in office.
Future U.S. president John Adams, who was in London at the time, predicted in a letter to fellow founder John Jay that although Hastings deserved to be convicted, the proceedings would likely end with his acquittal. Nevertheless, Adams and Jay were among those who supported the new U.S. Constitution, whose drafters in 1787 included impeachment, even though that method of accountability was close to disappearing from Britain.
Nearing the end of its usefulness
The trial of Hastings, in Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, didn’t actually begin until 1788, and took seven years to conclude. The prosecution included Edmund Burke, one of the most gifted orators of the age. Eventually, though, the House of Lords proved Adams right, acquitting Hastings in 1795.
This stunning loss could have been the death knell for impeachment in Great Britain, but Hastings was not the last British political figure to be impeached. That dubious honor goes to Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, Scottish first lord of the admiralty, who was charged in 1806 with misappropriating public money. Dundas was widely assumed to be guilty, but, as with Hastings, the House of Lords voted to acquit.
These examples showed that impeachment, even when the accused government official had done the things that he was accused of doing, was a blunt, cumbersome weapon. With both Hastings and Dundas, the House of Commons was willing to act, but the House of Lords – which was (and is) not an elected body and therefore less responsive to popular opinion – refused to go along. As a tool for checking the actions of ministers and other political appointees, impeachment no longer worked, and it fell out of use.
A new method of accountability
The decline of impeachment in Britain coincided with the rise of another, more effective process by which high officials there could be held accountable.
If a prime minister receives a vote of no confidence, there is an alternative to resignation: call an election for a new Parliament, which is what Callaghan did, and let the people decide whether the current government gets to stay or has to go. If the prime minister’s party loses, he or she is generally out, and the leader of the party with the new majority takes over. In 1979, the defeat of Callaghan and the Labour Party paved the way for the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister.
This provides an immediate course of action for those who oppose a British government for any reason, including allegations of official wrongdoing, and delivers a rapid decision.
In the United States, by contrast, a president can be accused of corruption or even sedition but face no real consequences, so long as one more than a third of the Senate declines to convict.
If impeachment is rendered useless in the U.S., as it was in Britain two centuries ago, the Constitution does offer another remedy: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Originally intended to prevent former Confederates from returning to power after the Civil War, Section 3 bars people who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. from serving in state or federal governments, including in Congress or as president or vice president.
The language in the amendment could justify barring Trump from future office – and the resolution to do so may require only a majority vote in both houses of Congress, though enforcement would likely also need a ruling from a judge.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I don’t think it requires a whole lot of logic, or imagination, to see that instituting the option of a vote of no confidence (or the equivalent) would not work well here. I think the most obvious reason is that, in those nations which use it, there are at least three active political parties, so that it is impossible to govern without forming some kind of coalition with someone. Here, a vote of no confidence would be essentially the same as a recall election. And, if you have ever lived through one of those, you know how dangerous those can be. And particularly with no consistent media delivering facts.
Further, a vote of no confidence, like impeachment, is a political tool. What we need today (and would have benefitted from having for the last four years) is a legal tool. The decision that no sitting president can be prosecuted for crimes is based on one legal opinion almost fifty years old. Some of us thought it wrong at the time. Many thought it wrong during the events of the last four years. Yet it is held as sacrosanct.
I am not a lawyer nor a legislator myself. But might Congress not consider writing and passing a law along the lines that no one in the Federal Government, elected or appointed, can be considered immune from prosecution for any Federal crime, or any State crime committed under that State’s jurisdiction, even while in office? Because that’s what we have needed, and I guarantee we will need it again. (Actually, we need it already. I’m confident Nameless will concur and have a suggestion.)