Opinion: Republican Judge Offers To Help Congress Impeach Trump
By Rmuse on Wed, Feb 22nd, 2017 at 11:20 am
Ohio Republican Judge: "We can't let him get away with the 'dozens of dazzlingly illegal things Trump has already done... because America is at stake."
*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
Loyalty, allegiance, fealty, or devotion are all words that imply a deep-seated sense of duty or unwavering attachment to something like a cause or a nation, or someone like a family member or close friend. There is also loyalty to a political party that one might think has to be earned and carefully cultivated. Over the past month, if nothing else, Republicans have shown an unwarranted sense of loyalty to a man who deserves nothing but contempt as a politician and revulsion as a human being leading many to wonder just what Trump would have to do to lose favor of even one of his fellow Republicans.
Now, it looks as if there is at least one Republican alive who understands the importance of a White House occupant with a grasp of the U.S. Constitution, hewing closely the rule of law, and comprehending the crucial nature of diplomacy; he also understands the threat to America in allowing Donald Trump near the White House, much less tolerating him occupying it. Unlike any other Republican thus far, that lone Republican, a distinguished judge for three-decades, says Trump has to go immediately and he is offering his expertise to start drafting articles of impeachment for the good of the nation.
Mark P. Painter is a recently retired Ohio appellate judge who was also the first American jurist to ever be elected by the United Nations General Assembly to the United Nations Appeals Tribunal. Judge Painter’s credentials are uniquely extraordinary as a world-class jurist, but his primary concern as of late is the clear and present danger of allowing Donald Trump to remain in the White House or any position of authority and power.
Mr. Painter penned an op-ed for The Cincinnati Enquirer that was reposted in USA Today and says he is a lifelong Republican, and that from 1968 through 2004 he voted exclusively for Republican presidential candidates; it is what any sane human would consider a dyed-in-the-wool Republican loyalist. However, he also said, like a very tiny number of Republicans, that he has watched as “’his” party went from “what once was a sane, center-right party go off the rails, first to the extreme right, then to wherever Trump is, which is in another universe.”
That “other universe,” the one many Americans and world citizens consider a bizarre combination of a Adolf Hitler as carnival con man drove Mr. Painter to make what he says is tough decision; “End this dangerous presidency. Trump must be impeached and removed with all haste.”
Judge Painter cited the same list of Donald Trump’s affronts to America, its Constitution, and common decency as every other civilized human being, and noted that only Congress can send the reality show swindler packing, but there is really only one thing on his fairly long list that is grounds for immediate impeachment. It is true that there are the issues of colluding with a hostile foreign power to influence American policies, but those issues are still being exposed. However, what is beyond refute is Trump’s violation of the Emoluments Act and continuing gross conflicts of interest that began at his inauguration and have gone on unabated and unchallenged. It is important to note that Trump still owns and profits from his expansive businesses [ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-donald-trump-trust-20170204-story.html ] that include making money with every weekend golfing trip to Florida, his old lady’s refusal to live in the White House, and his family’s vacations and business trips around the country and the world. By his own admission, Trump only put his sons and a businessman in charge of day-to-day operations; Trump still owns everything including all the profits from the government he is in control of whether it is putting up Secret Service agents in Mar-a-Lago, Melania’s place of residence in New York, or when foreign dignitaries stay at his hotels anywhere on Earth.
Look, Trump can’t be impeached for being an entitled bully, or an “illiterate tweeter,” or attacking his detractors any more than he can over his penchant for making up fake terror attacks or inauguration crowd sizes or popular vote numbers. In due time, however, he can be impeached for colluding with Russia and lying about his and his staffs’ collusion, but investigations and the wheels of justice in that kind of case turn slowly, but they do turn. However, Trump violated the Constitution the day he was inaugurated by profiting from being president including every time a foreign dignitary spends one penny at a Trump property or he hauls the Secret Service to his Florida country club festivities; the other gross conflicts of interest are another issue entirely.
Judge Painter noted that “his” congressman, Steve Chabot (R-OH), has been a stalwart defender of Trump from the media, “which is simply reporting Trump’s machinations.” However, he also said “It’s time for him [Chabot] to man up and start drafting the articles of impeachment,” and reminded Mr. Chabot that “he did it for Clinton for far less than Trump has already done.”
In case Chabot forgot what the impeachment process entails, or needs assistance getting started, Judge Mark P. Painter said “We can’t let him get away with the ‘dozens of dazzlingly illegal things Trump has already done” and that “because America is at stake; If you need help drafting those articles of impeachment, Steve, I am available.” And, if Judge Painter needs co-signers to his offer, there are tens-of-millions of real Americans at the ready because they too realize that America is at stake.
**The above article includes a report with commentary by R Muse**
New Dem Governor Reverses Course In Major North Carolina Voting Rights Case
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who narrowly unseated Republican Pat McCrory in November, announced Tuesday that he is reversing course in a major voting rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state will no longer defend a series of voting restrictions passed in 2013 by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by McCrory that a federal appeals court has ruled constitute unconstitutional "race-based vote suppression."
Since 2013, the state has fought to implement a law that eliminated same-day voter registration, cut a full week of early voting, barred voters from casting a ballot outside their home precincts, scrapped straight-ticket voting, and got rid of a program to pre-register high school students who would turn 18 by Election Day. That law also included one of the nation’s strictest voter ID requirements.
The NAACP sued the state, and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the civil rights group in a blistering ruling last July, holding that Republican lawmakers set out to suppress African-American voters “with almost surgical precision.”
In striking down the law as unconstitutional, the court noted that the legislators first studied which demographic groups used which voting methods, and then moved to eliminate those favored by black residents. The law was a perfect example, the court noted, of “the inevitable tendency of elected officials to entrench themselves by targeting groups unlikely to vote for them.”
Before he lost his re-election bid, McCrory had appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the 4th Circuit's decision. Now, Cooper is reversing the state's position and seeking to withdraw the petition for the high court to review the case. He also announced that he is dismissing the private attorneys the state had been paying to defend the law, an effort that cost nearly $5 million in taxpayer dollars.
“We need to make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote, not harder, and I will not continue to waste time and money appealing this unconstitutional law,” Cooper said in a press release on Tuesday. “It’s time for North Carolina to stop fighting for this unfair, unconstitutional law and work instead to improve equal access for voters.”
The state's new Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who like Cooper beat his Republican opponent by a narrow margin in November, added that the move will save the state a great deal of money going forward.
"Attorneys representing the plaintiffs have agreed to waive up to $12 million of legal fees from the more than three-year litigation if the petition is dismissed and the litigation ends," he said in his own statement on the matter.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider taking up the voting rights case at its March 3 conference.
The case, however, may not be completely dead.
Though the Governor's Office and the state's Justice Department have withdrawn their petition, the State Board of Elections remains an active party in the case. Election law professor Rick Hasen notes that the board and its individual members—some of whom are Republican—may be able to keep hiring outside counsel to defend the voting restrictions.
This twist comes amid a separate court battle for control of the state Elections Board. While the new governor would normally appoint a majority of the board's members, Republicans in the legislature passed a bill of questionable legality to strip him of that power just before he took office. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/north-carolina-cooper-voter-suppression
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