The Impeachment Clauses Were Written for Donald J Trump

United States Constitution

Article 2, Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

"When the President does it, that means it's not illegal." —President Richard Nixon, in a 1977 interview with David Frost.

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters." — Donald Trump, January 23, 2016

President Richard Nixon did more to concentrate power in the executive branch than any president before him. With the authority he claimed, he refused to spend funds Congress appropriated and he blocked key decision makers from being questioned by congressional committees. This usurpation of Article 1 power was among the articles of impeachment that were to be levied against him.¹

"Carl Bernstein [said] that Richard Nixon was “sui generis”, he was uniquely corrupt and it was hardly thinkable that any US president would be so irremediably crooked.

In support of that contention he said new information about Richard Nixon had emerged which showed that he had attempted to denigrate the name of his predecessor in the White House, Lyndon Johnson, and he even had urged that a safe supposedly holding incriminating documents concerning Lyndon Johnson be blown open. Also that Richard Nixon had instigated surveillance on political reporters and journalists to an unprecedented extent."²

After Nixon resigned to avoid the stigma of impeachment, Congress worked to rein in the notion of an imperial presidency. They were largely effective but Dick Cheney and like-minded Republicans had garnered support for reinstating presidential superiority. Cheney got his break when George W Bush chose him as a running mate and the tragedy of 9/11 supplied ample opportunity.

Republicans were delighted until Barack Obama was elected. Now they decided that a Democratic president was abusing the powers they had worked so hard to confer and consistently cried "dictator" (conveniently forgetting that Bush said governing would be easier in a dictatorship).

Now, the GOP is once again suffering from selective amnesia and are reveling in Donald Trump's wholehearted employment of and blatant abuse of powers they found so untenable for Obama. Their vindictive partisanship, so obvious during Obama's 8 years (refusing to hold confirmation hearings for the judiciary culminating in denying the President his right of a SCOTUS nomination), has become insidious after Democrats retook the House in 2018. To the detriment of our democratic republic, their tunnel vision has led them to fully support a man who was vilified by a vast majority of them when he was campaigning for the Oval Office.

Trump has made Nixon look like an amateur when it comes to abuse of power. He has usurped Congressional powers in trade and allocation of funds, ignored both law and tradition in areas such as nepotism, politicking, personal financial gain, and made a mockery of national security by revealing classified information to unsavory world leaders, including adversaries, and belittling the intelligence community.

For two years the Republican Congress aided him in running rampant, ravaging the tenets of the Constitution and undoing every positive social and ecological gain made by President Obama. (On Trump's part, more out of spite and animosity against Obama than ideology.) The only allowance made to the rule of law was acquiescence in appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in our elections and what part the Trump campaign may have played.

As Mueller did his job and uncovered a multitude of illegalities, Republicans and right wing media levied a continual barrage of insinuation and accusations of bias and overstepping of permissible probes. The Democratic House, under Nancy Pelosi's rule, allowed Trump to continue to abuse his authority and his oath as the idea of impeachment was deemed too risky by Pelosi. Hope's were unfortunately laid at Mueller's feet.

To the dismay of increasing numbers wanting to impeach, Mueller punted. Though finding at least 10 instances of obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense, a dubious DOJ memo saying a sitting president can't be indicted led Mueller to merely aver, "If we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so." William Barr, chosen by Trump as Attorney General and protector, quickly spun the noncommittal report as an exoneration. Republicans and their media arm, as usual more effective than Democrats at spin, claimed victory and the House allowed Trump to continue to ride roughshod over the Constitution and the separation of power.

Below is my list of abuses, illegalities, and violations of the oath of office committed by Trump. Pelosi has allowed these travesties to go unanswered on the mistaken idea that, since the sycophantic Senate wouldn't convict, there would be a backlash that could return the House to the Republicans. That's a disparaging view of the citizenry. Once the multitude of "high crimes and misdemeanors" is enumerated in open hearings the public will be unable to ignore their 2016 electoral college blunder. In addition, seeing the Senate Republicans excuse such criminality might bring out enough voters who care about country over party to hand that body to the Democrats as well. Hope lies eternal....

Many pundits, along with Pelosi, say voting Trump out in 2020 is the best path, amounting to his "indictment." Depending on an election outcome is more dangerous than impeachment. Allowing Trump's presidency to go unchallenged by the House's oversight mandate validates his blatant violation of the oath and lays a path for the next wannabe dictator to continue to abuse power. After all, a known conman who promised to run the country like his business (despite widely publicized multiple bankruptcies) and laid out his racism and bigotry in his campaign announcement speech was placed in the White House by our undemocratic electoral college on 77,000 votes. Impeachment, whether or not successfully removing this stain on our country, is imperative.

Finally, on September 24, 2019, the Speaker gave her imprimatur to impeachment hearings. The straw on her camel's back was the most blatant national security danger of Trump's most recent illegality (last on the list).

High Crimes and Misdemeanors:

• Emoluments Clause violations
• Usurping Article 1 powers (Illegally dictating trade policy—specifically tariffs, EOs to bypass Congress)
• Campaign finance violations (unindicted co-conspirator in Cohen conviction)
• Destroying documents and communications in violation of Presidential Records Act of 2014
• Virtually inciting race war, xenophobia, and disparaging political opponents (Article 10 of Andrew Johnson's impeachment was proposed by Massachusetts representative Benjamin Butler. It charged Johnson with making speeches “with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues” with the intent to disgrace Congress.)
• Kidnapping
• Refusing asylum in violation of US and international law
• Promising pardons for land theft to build his wall
• Obstruction of justice (in Russian interference investigation and in all other oversight attempts by refusing to allow witnesses to testify; Mueller listed at least 10 instances alone)
• Witness tampering, including making up false executive privilege and "granting" private citizens use of it ("the president does not get to instruct a private citizen to not respond under oath to questions. add it to the articles of impeachment"—tweet by Jennifer Rubin)
• Cooperation w/ Russia in interfering in election of 2016
• Consistent aid in Putin's efforts to discredit democratic rule by refusing to admit election interference, misappropriation of military funds meant for European Defense Initiative; withholding aid to Ukraine
• Habit of divulging classified info (sub locations revealed to Philippine dictator, info given us by Israel told to Russian officials [caused intel to withdraw important source close to Putin for fear of their life], images from Iran which possibly reveal sensitive intel methods [or more leaked intel Israel gave us] so he could tweet snarky sympathy to Iran)
• Overuse of "acting directors" to avoid embarrassing confirmation hearings
• Pathological lying
• Alienating allies, frequently to curry favor with Putin or other autocrats
• Falsifying official documents from NOAA (18 U.S. Code § 2074)
• Subjorning violations of Hatch Act
• Attempting to use position to prosecute not only political enemies but ex-govt employees who tell unpleasant truths about Trump (Comey, Clinton, Obama, McCabe, Brennan [security clearance revoked])
• Extorted auto manufacturers to keep them from signing on to higher emissions standards
• Pelosi's "straw" — Admittedly pressuring Ukraine to dig up, or fabricate, dirt on Hunter Biden to smear his supposed opponent in 2020 election³

¹Watergate Articles Of Impeachment - Watergate.info
Full text of the Watergate Articles of Impeachment as passed by the US House
https://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachmentExcept for the paragraph on Watergate break-in, it could be written for Trump 

²Richard Nixon committed far greater crimes than the Watergate break-in 
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/richard-nixon-committed-far-greater-crimes-than-the-watergate-break-in-1.1433510

³A whistleblower filed a complaint against Trump which is supposed to involve promising someone something he shouldn't. The Inspector General deemed it urgent but the DNI failed to send it to Congress in defiance of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989. While reports of the concern led to the uncovering of the extortion by Trump of Ukraine, there has been no actual linking of the two. An uncharacteristic vote in Senate unanimously passed a resolution to hand over the whistleblower complaint.




A more succinct list of Trump's criminality, with links to further elucidate on each:
"Donald Trump vs. the United States of America"
Just the facts, in 40 sentences.
New York Times, 9/22/2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/opinion/trump-ukraine-whistle-blower.html

Anti-Israeli policy doesn't equal anti-semitism

The New York Times apologized for an "anti-semitic" toon in its international edition depicting yamulka-wearing Trump being led by dog w/ Star of David collar.

I see the toon as more anti-Israel, specifically their RW influence on US policy and Trump's backing of Netanyahu, than anti-semitic. There is a difference between ethnic bigotry and opposition to policy. It's a shame that sensitivity to our current divisive culture can't seem to recognize the difference.

Yes, Israel and Jews are an inseparable pairing, but the opposition of nearly two thirds of American Jews to the invasive land stealing and discrimination of Palestinians and AIPAC's influence in our policy decisions is evidence that displaying antagonism to policies is not the same as ethnic bigotry.

Some may say that it's too soon after the vicious killings at synagogues to bring this up, but I say it's more necessary now. The white supremacist terrorists make us too sensitive to the targeting of an ethnic group indelibly linked to a whole country when their targets are more diverse (don't forget the African-American churches in Louisiana) and even American Jews separate Israeli policy from Jews in general.

Don't let wholesale bigotry cloud the picture of who the real enemies of sanity and community are.

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I also posted this on Democratic Underground. One response there noted:

"It was anti-semitic. The dog is wearing a Star of David and Trump was wearing a yamulka. Both jewish symbols not just Israeli symbols. Now remove those symbols, give the dog Netanyahu's face. Even better, showing Trump as Netanyahu's lap dog."

Point taken on that.

Healthcare Issues link to Mueller Report for Dems

Polls say healthcare is voters' #1 issue so Democratic leadership use that as an excuse to let Trump's impeachable offenses go largely unpunished. This misses an opportunity to rid us of the infestation of self-serving, party-first-&-let-country-be-damned Republicans in Congress.

McConnell made their absolute partisanship clear in November 2008 when he vowed to make President Obama a 1-term POTUS and confirmed his stance by abrogating Senate's duty and ignored Judge Garland's nomination. Then, despite excoriating the idea of Trump as POTUS during 2016 campaigns, he, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz and others quickly jumped on Trump's snakeoil wagon and with cheerleaders like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes have fully supported the corrupt administration in its steamroller destruction of every environmental, economic and social advance made in the past 30+ years. While Affordable Care Act has largely escaped over 50 attempts at repeal, they're still trying.

The links between the corruption and attacks on ACA in Trump's administration and his Congressional boosters has been ignored, or at least not defined. This misses an opportunity by Democratic leadership and presidential candidates to both show they are the party determined to increase healthcare access and affordability while giving a solid reason to turn both houses of Congress blue. The Mueller Report made official what has been obvious in the administration but the Republican Senate's complicity has mostly been gone unmentioned. Holding on to their majority leads them to resist correcting problems such as election security. After all, Russia Saudia Arabia and other foreign powers like having a manipulative asset in the White House and a right wing legislative body. Putin's apparatchiks helped elect Trump not just in social media manipulation but by directly invading voting systems. Mueller made this clear. So is it any wonder Congressional Republicans resist passing laws to bolster election security?

Democrats need to stress their fealty to the rule of law and their interest in citizens' concerns by continuing to reveal the depth of corruption of the administration and Congressional Republicans and that cleaning house, both the White House and Capitol, is the best route to healthcare issues as well as the others that top the polls of American voters. There is no separating concerns of healthcare, gun violence, security (both national and electoral), Social Security, Medicare and the corruption that has become the face of the Republican Party. Democrats must shout loud about the connection.

The GOP Is Out of the Closet — Update

The goals of the conservatives in the Republican Party have not changed much in the past 40 years: cut taxes, reduce those troublesome regulations businesses must deal with, roll up the social safety net for the freeloaders, squash organized labor, and support the traditional family — even when it means women must bend to the will of over-moralistic religionists and LGBT folk have no right to a family.

Many Republicans claim their party is dying; being taken over by a radical new “Trumpism.” Yet this ”old” GOP & the “Party of Trump” have a lot in common despite Mr Trump's so-called populism. He ranted about Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street during the campaign but his proclamations and signing of Republican bills have removed much of the protections put in place to prevent the financial barons taking advantage of “regular folk” — and removing protections meant to prevent another financial meltdown.

Trump's, and “old Repubs’," catering to the 1% is only a fraction of the anti-populist actions of the current administration. The Washington Post has compiled an extensive list ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/24/what-trump-has-undone/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.caa455fe3322 ). But the conservative agenda is not the only aspect of so-called mainstream Republicanism Trump has inflicted upon the country. He has also blown off the door on a 50-year skeleton in the GOP closet.

“In the letter written on vice presidential stationary, Nixon explained to a North Carolina woman his reason for supporting school integration with a much broader endorsement of treating everyone equally.
‘Basically, I believe in working for full opportunity for all our citizens, regardless of race, creed, or ancestry,’ he wrote on September 29, 1959. —From the Washington Examiner

Nixon advisor Kevin Phillips in 1970: “.. Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans…”

That skeleton was racism. While Nixon seemed to express a belief that it was even against American interests (“...Nixon also expressed a concern that if the U.S. was viewed as "racists," most of the world would back the Communists and ‘leave us disastrously isolated in a hostile world.’" —Washington Examiner), Republican animosity towards African-Americans was well-ingrained.

Civil rights advocates were invited to join the Republican Convention in 1960. But it was a dishonest overture. From Ben Fountain in The Guardian:

“Goldwater delegates berated and shook their fists at the press, and African American delegates were ‘shoved, pushed, spat on and cursed with a liberal sprinkling of racial epithets.’ Something new and nasty was afoot; Republicans were acting like a bunch of Dixiecrats. One black delegate had his suit jacket set on fire. The southern caucus at the convention named its hotel headquarters “Fort Sumter” after the starting point of the civil war. Jackie Robinson spent several “unbelievable hours” on the convention floor, and summed up his experience thus: ‘I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.’”

Nixon, himself, came out of that closet once he was in the White House:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” —Vox, quoting story by Dan Baum: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon  

Tricky Dick used racial fear to help support his ill-chosen “War on Drugs.” He could demonize enemies by feeding into what was seen as an ingrained apprehension. So much for racism being against American interests. The infamous Nixon tapes show his previous anti-racist tracts were a political front. Jews, blacks and Italians were targets of his ranting on several of the recordings.

Ten years later, Lee Atwater, who had been one of the architects in the "southern strategy,” was an operative in the Reagan White House. He had favored buzz words like “forced busing” as substitutes for the taboo “N word” in working to turn Dixiecrats into Republicans. It was not a fluke that Reagan’s first major speech as a nominee was at the Neshoba County fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi. In his campaign he polished Atwater’s buzz words into what we now call “dog whistles.”

Reagan filled his policy speeches with dog whistles to that GOP skeleton. In pleas for supporting his conservative dislike of the social safety net and his voodoo economics, he brought up the spectre of the “welfare queen.” Never mind that African-Americans didn't dominate the welfare rolls, those hearing the whistle knew who he meant. Every conservative call for welfare reform refers to that false meme.

Reagan eagerly adopted right wing evangelicals into the Republican fold as honored members. Feeling their power wane after the 1950s (when they managed to get God included in the Pledge of Allegiance), Reagan rewarded their support by including LGBT community in his quiet whistling. HIV/AIDS was called GRID by the moralists who saw it as a sinner’s deserved punishment. That straights were also caught up in their god’s judgement was easily ignored.

The Republican discrimination war openly targeted “takers” who weren't just non-whites on welfare but now included the 99% Romney so disparaged. Since, generally, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans, part of the GOP’s 50-state-strategy was gaining control of state governments so districts could be gerrymandered to ensure federal power. And while they had state legislatures in hand, they could further disenfranchise Democratic voters, including most African-Americans, by making voting more difficult. They vaguely tried guarding the closet door by cloaking the racial aspect in supposed election viability. After all, no one likes voter fraud. Trump has continued pandering to fears of voting irregularities. In doing so, he again reneges on his populism con since those who are most affected by the Republican voter ID laws are the working folk for whom he claims to champion.

Those “mainstream" Republicans can no longer hide their skeleton. The main difference between them and Trump (paradoxically considering Mr Trump's aversion to veracity) is honesty — about racism anyway. Discrimination lies at the core of virtually every social law brought up by Republicans and every one of them has a moralistic &/or racist basis. While some of the more seasoned of the GOP’s pols still try to claim reasonable grounds for these laws, the closet door is wide open. And anyone who is not a well-to-do White male Protestant is in the crosshairs.

Trump rails against immigrant rapists and violent “animals,” and the Repub Congress fight against rational immigration reform and support the wall to keep them out. No one mentions building a wall along the northern border — Latinos don't cross that one.

Trump sees “fine people” among the white supremacists and the rest of his party make lame admonishments against their actions while never bothering to admonish Trump and his blatant acceptance of their racist core.

The supremacists claim the same brand of discriminatory “Christianity" as right wing evangelicals so they suffer no rancor from the religionists who cling to the adulterous Trump. The hypocritical moralists overlook Trump’s blatant misogyny because he panders to their own desires to have total control over women, especially where reproductive rights are concerned.

Black football players protest police violence against minority communities with a gesture offered by a veteran: kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem. Trump uses it to fire up his racist base by ignoring the point of the protest and claiming the players are being unpatriotic and disparaging the military. The rest of the GOP happily jumps on the bandwagon. After all, Black Lives don't Matter.

To quote again from Ben Fountain’s article: “Cut taxes and regulation, roll up the social safety net, squash organized labor to nil. It’s worked out wonderfully for the job creators. While the true believers in the base were fighting the Kenyan in the White House over prayer in the schools and immigration and the hetero sanctity of marriage, tidal waves of money have been flowing upstream to their bosses.”

As long as Trump continues to line the right pockets and fire up the discriminatory base that Republicans have counted on for so long, they hedge and rationalize and try to cloak their skeleton in the closet with patriotic colors but it can't be hidden in the closet any longer. Sunlight is bleaching its bones.

"Trump didn't pull the trigger in Christchurch. But the man who did praised him as a symbol of 'white identity'." —subtitle of Salon article by Chauncey DeVega, 3/15/19


"Trump’s Caravan Hysteria Led to This"
The president and his supporters insisted that several thousand Honduran migrants were a looming menace—and the Pittsburgh gunman took that seriously. —Adam Serwer, The Atlantic


"Mail bomb suspect appeared to be fervent Trump supporter" —Rebecca Morin, Politico

"White Supremacists, Extremists Celebrate President Trump’s Latest Racist Tweets" —Anti-Defamation League, 7/15/19

The above articles show that Trump deserves the title of "Racist-In-Chief." The media has skirted the epithet since his bigotry-filled speech announcing his candidacy. Hopefully the shyness in truth-telling has gone the way of the avoidance in calling him a liar — in the circular file.

His Congressional and White House minions have helped prove me right when I first posted this in June of last year. Even those who make a shy stab at disagreeing with what Trump said about the Congresswomen known as "The Squad," still claim the tweets and statements in White House garden were not racist.

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As I was researching for this, I came across Ben Fountain's article in the Guardian — "How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump." I suggest you read his better written explanation: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/05/trump-reagan-nixon-republican-party-racism

What Happened to General Flynn?

Once upon a time, Gen Mike Flynn was respected among natonal security circles. President Obama even placed him as his Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Now Flynn is being investigated as essentially a traitor. What caused the fall?

Some might point to his being fired by Obama about a year into his post. He resigned, forced out, due to ineffectual leadership. He was accused of being difficult to deal with and subordinates mocked him for his "Flynn facts" — "alt-facts" before the term was coined.

Flynn's criticizing of Pres Obama begins shortly after. Projection, blaming others for one's own shortcomings, apparently infected him as it has with most Republicans. That made him of like mind with Donald Trump, a long-time Obama critic who focused on irrelevancies or outright lies. (I suspect Obama warning Trump not to hire Flynn was one way to assure he'd get a job with Trump.)

Before Trump discovered him, Flynn began a career lobbying for foreign governments. His previous roles in the military and DIA probably allowed him to collect exorbitant fees. Russia and Turkey were obviously willing to pay for his expertise — but how much more than for his contacts as a lobbyist?

Special Counsel Mueller is investigating Flynn for colluding with Turkey to abduct a US resident and extradite him back to Turkey. It would be bad enough if he were to aid in this while an advisor on Trump's campaign, but his loyalty to Turkey's desires were to continue after the election, after Flynn was part of the administration. It's not a stretch to wonder about whether he shared more than his contacts with his foreign clients. His knowledge of our military and defense capabilities would also be if high value.

Am I to believe that being fired as Director of DIA was enough to turn a career US military general into what could be called a treasonous agent? Just what the fuck happened to Gen Mike Flynn?


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Matt819 on Democratic Underground pointed out my use in the original post of the term "double agent" was incorrect since it implies that the US received a benefit from Flynn's actions. I have therefore, replaced the term with a more appropriate one: "traitor."

Healthcare Battle Exposes Republican Bigotry

In the one-sided battle to pass a supposed healthcare bill, Republicans have proven their bigotry and lack of concern for 99% of the US population. GOP members if both houses of Congress have claimed “repeal & replace” is why they were elected. The problem is that the voters who elected them weren't choosing based on any actual facts.

Many who sing the R&R chorus say Obamacare must be replaced but when asked about the Affordable Care Act, say it’s fine—has problems, but they’re all for it. Partisan bigotry along with the racism surrounding much of the opposition to our last president.

Mitch McConnell’s whip, John Cornyn, was on Meet the Press and kept pushing the idea that Democrats refused to work with GOP to structure the bill, ignoring the fact that they not only weren't consulted, but were kept out of Senate's secretive discussions. He also claimed, as have others, that Democrats haven’t offered any suggestions. Blatant falsehood — all Democratic amendments in the House were summarily shot down and they were shut out of Senate confabs.

The simple fact is that Republicans are using their admitted animosity to anything Barak Obama did to further their agenda of abrogating federal responsibilities to “promote the general welfare." They have long sought to increase presidential power while seeking to supposedly return sovereignty to the states. The actual goal is to gut federal control of regulations that prevent corporations from bilking the people and befouling the environment all in the name of the almighty dollar —unfettered avaricious capitalism. Financial inequality, much increased since Reagan began the renewed attack on capitalist restraints, is apparently of no concern. And the inability of working & middle classes to afford things like health insurance and basic medical care seems to follow, for Republicans, the Scrooge mandate: let them die and decrease the surplus population.

The tax-cut-for-the-rich House bill and the let-em-die Senate bill wouldn't be necessary if the bigotry against something named after Obama wasn't a driving force. It would be more in line with actually representing constituents’ interests to explain to them that the ACA most agree has helped is actually the dreaded Obamacare and that fixing it is of far more importance than pushing their bigoted partisan attack on our last president by pushing a failed meme of repeal-&-replace.

Why is logic such a foriegn concept to the RW?

This was originally posted July, 2017. It was updated June, 2020.


I could start with the idea that religion is inherently illogical, but the warped version of Christianity pushed by RWers is a slap in the face to honest followers of that faith. Unfortunately, since Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority helped push Reagan’s destructive agenda, conservatives have handcuffed themselves to these radicals. Far too many in elected positions at all levels actually display a theological intent. (Full disclosure, I'm a confirmed atheist.) In the RW perversion, any other faith or sect is not just wrong but worthy of their most vehement disdain.

Many of these RW religionists claim affinity to Judaism, but that's just because Israel plays a vital role in their end-of-days mythology. Islam, which prays to the same supreme entity, is reviled — but bigotry against Muslims is at the core of the discrimination these days, not differences in tenets. Hypocrisy is prevalent in this because while they push for anti-Shari laws, they try to pass legislation with exactly the same misogynistic prohibitions and fealty to faith.

The most bigoted of far right conservatives gladly work with the religionists as both seek control of social mores, especially concerning reproductive issues. The conservatives, particularly the tea party faction, wish to absolve government from honoring that pesky preamble to the US Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Note the highlighted words. The RW focuses on the carefully constructed negative connotation of “Welfare” — an image they’ve fostered as depicting lazy, corrupt people who leech from hard-working folk — hard-working white folk.

President Reagan’s “welfare queen” was never Caucasian. He never said so, but made it clear nonetheless. He knew how to work his base, the incorrectly named “Moral Majority.” (This is the “instincts in common” which Lindsey Graham should have referred when he wrongly praised Trump’s useless missile strike on Syria.) The religionists were happy to sign on to the Reagan administration’s plans to cut support for the welfare crowd because they were seen as immoral as well as moochers, evidenced by supposedly high crime rates and single mothers in the inner cities where most of them supposedly lived. It was irrelevant that not one aspect of the stereotype was based on fact.


Trump’s pandering to his base uses the same deliberate misconceptions. He even taps the religionists who conveniently overlook his obvious ignorance of Biblical scripture and obvious lack of morality (see “Access Hollywood” video and numerous law suits alleging sexual abuse) because he vows to continue misogynistic attacks on women's reproductive rights and continues the crime-ridden inner city meme. He also feeds the insecurity of those white religionists with his vows to “build the wall” and ban immigrants to protect us from Mexican rapist druggies and Muslim terrorists.
That white insecurity was voiced by Rep Steve King: "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." His term, “our civilization,” was dog whistle for those who fear the fact that whites are rapidly becoming a minority in this country. Radical so-called Christians are also concerned about this. Besides their self-righteous moralistic opposition to abortion, they also look unfavorably on birth control because they want their numbers to increase — more soldiers in God’s army. The failure to see the oxymoronic aspects is due to the perverse tunnel vision of their extreme views.

Religious moralistic fervor prevents them from recognizing that denying reproductive choice, especially to low-income minorities, is a self-fulfilling prophecy in losing majority status. Yet they cheered Trump's first volley in this counter-productive quest. Trump used an executive order to not only reinstate “global gag rule” but make it more restrictive by cutting funds to any clinic that even mentions abortion as an option. (Obviously, free expression is also not something Trump cares about.)

Republicans in Congress add to the perversion of logic by cutting funding for maternity care in their latest farce of a healthcare bill (Joy Ann Reid called it TRyanCare.) The failures in syllogism are obvious here also. Conservative politicians and their religious allies claim to champion “the pre-born.” More rational folk fail to see how reducing pre-natal care furthers the aim of protecting those “pre-born.” This willfully ignorant stance is also behind the decades-long attacks on Planned Parenthood.

On March 30, 2017, Vice-President Mike Pence broke a tie in the Senate for a bill allowing states to defund Planned Parenthood. Trump will undoubtedly sign it if it makes it to his desk. ( http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/mike-pence-johnny-isakson-planned-parenthood-vote-senate-236702 ) With Republican governors and legislatures holding a majority of states, this will result in the closing of even more of the already too scarce clinics, many of which provide vital pre-natal care to those same “somebody else's babies” as well as low-income women of all ethnicities.

It never ceases to astonish me that these phony moralists cannot see the links between readily accessible and affordable birth control and reductions in abortion rates. The only explanation can be their efforts towards theocracy. Many, including elected officials, readily admit this unconstitutional bent while claiming to be the true patriotic Americans who cling to founders’ “original intent.”

The last Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the tax cut for the wealthy ineffectually masquerading as a healthcare bill, continues all the unChristian and bigoted ideology described above. Donald Trump eagerly embraces this bill, though it's doubtful he’s aware of any of its details. (It's well known his narcissistic attention deficit proscribes him from reading anything longer than a couple paragraphs, especially if his name doesn't appear.)

Mitch McConnell and other conservatives, with healthcare insurance supplemented by tax dollars, claim that accessibility is the focus of our health insurance needs. This ignores the gulf between accessibility and affordability. The free market forces of capitalism they idolize will bring down costs, they say, even though such price wars have never been a factor in health insurance, not to mention health products and medicines. The working folk who bought into Donald Trump's bald-faced lies about his support for them are the ones who will pay with their lives if this tax cut for the wealthy, known as Trumpcare, passes. The hated “welfare queens” and other denizens of the feared inner city will also pay — along with the rural poor who are unmentioned perennial victims of RW war-on-the-poor efforts.


All this brings me back to the original idea — logic is a foreign concept to the RW. And the more radical they are, the less logic is a graspable concept. Republicans claim to be the working man’s party (gender bias intended) who aims to decimate government’s control when the only regulatory guidelines they target aid corporations in theft of wages and destruction of a healthy environment. They claim to be the righteous, moralistic party yet want to remove accessibility to basic healthcare, including necessary prenatal coverage for the female family members of their supposed base of working men. (It should also be pointed out that Planned Parenthood’s low income clients include men, belying their false depiction as nothing more than wholesale abortion mills.)

They claim to be the true patriots who honor the US Constitution and its founding tenets while denying the Establishment Clause and suborning a president who openly violates the article against emoluments. (Their support for a president they disparaged before Nov, 2016, despite the mounting evidence for Trump's collusion with a foreign adversary to interfere in our elections and his admitted obstruction into that offense is a whole new blog. Or three.)

While claiming to be faithful Christians, they fully support the radical factions who make a complete mockery of the tolerant socialism Jesus taught and focus on the hateful bigotry of the Old Testament evident in books such as the much-cited Leviticus.

Ari Veshi posed a question on his MSNBC show on July 12, 2017, pondering just what it will take for Republicans to finally denounce the disaster known as the Trump Administration. It apparently will take a great deal of blatant, obvious, and utterly irrefutable physical evidence of clearly illegal activities. My fear is that even meeting those requirements won’t be enough for a faction that is so deathly allergic to logic.

If You Really Care about Pregnancy Discrimination You Should Care about Reproductive Justice! https://nwlc.org/resources/if-you-really-care-about-pregnancy-discrimination-you-should-care-about-reproductive-justice/

Senate is moving quickly to dismantle Title X preventive health care protections. House already has. Trying to use the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used law, to undo the protections set in place by President Obama's rule: https://www.democraticunderground.com/11389836