Category Archives: impeachment

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today while waiting for my MacBook to download the latest operating system I watched the second day of the House Impeachment Managers prosecution of twice impeached, disgraced, former President Trump. Once again it was a masterpiece of preparation and presentation. The House Managers were exceptionally wise by not simply focusing on Trump’s incendiary speech on the White House Ellipse but going back years playing videos of him urging his voters to violence and to the violence they committed in his name.

Having actually attended one of his rallies in October 2016 trusting that my flight jacket with all my unit patches chronicling my military serve would allow me to pass relatively unnoticed, I was able to watch the rally and talk with supporters one on one. Thankfully none questioned me about my views on Trump they were just eager to share their views with a veteran. They talked about the conspiracy theories promoted by Alex Jones and QAnon, election fraud, massive amounts of racist, Antisemitic, and anti-immigrant statements. The paraphernalia they wore included clothing that espoused both racism and violence, and this was at Regent University, one of the largest and most well regarded Evangelical Christian Universities. The attendees were by and large very well off people, after all Regent is located in Virginia Beach, one of the most affluent, white, and Republican cities in Virginia. Ironically, even though Trump won here in 2016 he lost by a significant margin in 2020 and the Representative for Virginia District 2, Elaine Luria, a Democrat and retired Navy Surface Warfare officer and successful business owner won re-election. Likewise, Senator Tim Kaine carried the city.

But in 2016 Trump, who was preceded by Rudy Giuliani preached his standard stump speech which included the conspiracy theories, the lies about Hillary Clinton, threats against political opponents, and urged the crowd to violence. I was glad that I said nothing because I could have been a victim. But one of the interesting facts is that since the rally was held on private property nobody wearing any anti-Trump or pro-Hillary clothing or paraphernalia were turned away by security personnel including Secret Service officers.

The evidence produced by the Impeachment Managers was designed to cut the legs out from any arguments that his legal team might offer Friday. Once again they were dispassionate in presenting the evidence while using enough video evidence and personal experience to connect with the emotions of how normal people feel when they see the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, the Senate President Pro-Tem, in fact the entire line of succession have to flee for their lives during the insurrection that Trump organized and encouraged the assault, and did nothing to to stop it.

Their arguments were devastating from a legal, Constitutional, historical, religious and moral precedents. There is nothing in the Christian, Jewish, or Islamic religious traditions that would support a not guilty verdict. There is nothing in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, or anything in American law to support an acquittal. There is nothing in the Greek and Roman classicists arguments about democracy and republics to support any argument to support an acquittal, nor is there anything in the Enlightenment philosophers or jurists to support a verdict of not guilty.

In fact the only argument for acquittal is that of the personal, moral, and political cowardice of the GOP Senators who are so afraid that without Trump’s violent supporters they cannot remain in office. That is cowardice. What would Abraham Lincoln who was expected to lose his bid for re-election in 1864 do? We know that, he expected that he could very well lose but he did not back down. Winston Churchill was another who refused to abandon principle even though it left him in the political wilderness of Great Britain for years until with Hitler threatening to overrun Europe and invade England he was named Prime Minister, and despite so many terrible defeats he remained firm in resisting the Nazis. Neither are they Theodore Roosevelt who when he saw the GOP being taken over by corporate and banking interests intent on harming average Americans split the GOP by running on the Bull Moose platform. He didn’t win, but neither did the GOP. Likewise, he had no hesitation in speaking the truth even when it opposed the sitting President, Woodrow Wilson who would not have been President but for Roosevelt splitting the GOP.

When criticized for his opposition of Wilson’s war policies and even threatened with death Roosevelt wrote to the editor of the Kansas City Star:

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

A criminal ex-President is not worth sacrificing one’s office, honor or everlasting reputation to defend, even if his violence filled Cult rises in opposition. I would love to see if just a dozen Republican Senators would remain faithful to their oath of office and the oath they took as jurors in Trump’s impeachment trial. Their cowardice will redound through all American history and into eternity if the God I believe in exists, but then what does eternity matter when leaders are willing to betray their oaths to suck the ass of a former President and his violent supporters who hate the Constitution, the Declaration, and all the highest ideals of our nation. Eternity matters nothing when that is at stake, because eternity and theological beliefs are all suppositional unprovable. I may believe, but I cannot prove those beliefs, and I won’t unlike Trump’s allegedly Christian Cult kill for them.

Friday Trump’s pathetic defense team will likely begin and end their defense of him using arguments false equivalence, trying to re-litigate the constitutionality of the trial itself, something already decided. They will play video of protests in Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis out of context in order to show that the mon that attacked the Capitol was no different than those protesting the murders of Black men and women at the hands of police and private citizens. At no time did anyone call for killing the Vice President, or members of Congress. Those videos will only be shown for the benefit of the twice impeached ex-President and his Cult of violent supporters. If this was a normal criminal trial the judge would rule the defense out of order for introducing evidence completely unrelated to the crimes of the defendant.

But as I said before, this is not a normal criminal trial, otherwise jurors wouldn’t be allowed to leave the courtroom during the proceedings or meet with the defense attorneys afterward as Senators Cruz, Hawley, and Graham did today in order to plan their defense strategy.

Impeachment was designed at a time when our founders and framers believed that Senators regardless of their political beliefs would be men of integrity and make their vote based on the evidence, not their political future. Now in the light of history and humanity, we know, that unless something miraculous happens that very few men and women Senators of the Republican Party will vote to convict based on the evidence and that they will sacrifice their sacred oaths, honor, and integrity to impeach and bar Donald Trump from ever holding public office again. Their moral cowardice will encourage and foster more violence, more death and anarchy, because they decided that their honor, oaths and integrity were of less value than shit.

The defense begins tomorrow. I hope to be back in time from Richmond to see it, though I might be able to listen to it on my Sirius XM radio in my car.

So, until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+