1700 Saturday, 13/Feb/2021 (US EST)
The GOP (excluding 7 out of 50) have just demonstrated:
a) that they do not understand the oath that they have taken AND
b) that they are hiding behind TheLaw when their duty lies ABOVE TheLaw AND
c) that they abdicated from their RESPONSIBILITIES (in exactly the same way that they did not remove Senator Greene from “active duty” in the Senate and left it to the Democratic Party “to do the right thing”! And take “the blame”.)
They voted NO and trump returns to his “normal”, amoral, narcissistic, lying political career. I guess with his character somewhat lower than it was before. But he got away with a crime which he DID commit against THE MAJORITY of Americans AND the Constitution of the USA. And, in the process, set up America as the richest banana republic in the world.
The Oath of Office:
When these Senators took the oath of office they clearly did not have any understanding of the RESPONSIBILITY level demanded of them by that oath. See here. This is that oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
The oath does not tie the Senator to the wishes of their constituents (the voters that put them into power), IT TIES THEM TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES against all enemies including DOMESTIC enemies. This clearly makes any Senator RESPONSIBLE for defending THE COUNTRY. Especially when they need to act to defend the Constitution from the wishes of any person or group who is/are damaging the Constitution in any way. Rather like a parent who is RESPONSIBLE for ensuring that their children obey the law. One wonders what the trump political party (TPP) would do if they were asked who they would rather have AS AN EXAMPLE FOR THEIR CHILDREN. Would it be President Joe Biden (regardless of his political beliefs) or the thug trump?
Remember that The President is a role model for all the children, 370+ million people in the USA and (in the case of the USA) the rest of the world, who look to The USA as the only power in the world that can keep both China and Russia to some level of accountability. So this in fact means that the TPP is prepared to get their children to use the behavior of trump as an example of the lives that those children should lead. Especially if they wish to become the President of the USA. ??? These Senators have set a precedent which says that the president can do exactly as he wishes. The death toll from Covid-19 is rapidly approaching 500,000 as President Biden and the best team he could put in place, battles to fill the vacuum of care that trump left behind him. Without any care or remorse. Probably without actually even being aware of the consequences of his disregard and mis-information.
A Senator therefore takes the RESPONSIBILITY of ensuring the enforcement (as well as the support and defense!!) of the Constitution. And Congress, guided by discussion and voting (under the oath of office) are able to represent the majority of USA (Joe Biden had SEVEN MILLION – 7,000,000 – more votes than trump, fortunately for the USA) to make decisions which are FAR MORE SIGNIFICANT than TheLaw. TheLaw which, incidentally, trump has treated with complete disdain ever since he had the power to do so. Probably about the age of 15 or so!!!
The oath commits a Senator to support and defend The Constitution ON WHICH THE LAW IS (SUPPOSED TO BE) BASED. The responsibility that is acknowledged by taking The Oath is far greater than the responsibility of supporting and defending The Law. That is to ensure that the people of the country are served, protected and guided by The Constitution and that TheLaw is kept up-to-date and in-line with the technology and the knowledge of the current times.
The failure of TheLaw to support and defend The Constitution or TheCode which is RRR (Respect before Responsibility before Rights) is discussed here. The Constitution of the United States is very much in keeping with TheCode but the politicians, who are mostly lawyers, and the lowlife, using wordcraft/rhetoric have managed twist the meaning of many of the words to suit their own immediate opinions, desires and aberrations.
The Technicality and TheLaw:
The trump political party (TPP) which (seems to) consist of a majority of the GOP at this time used a technicality to escape the RESPONSIBILITY of adhering to their oath of office.
Ed note: I do not understand why the vote was not taken in camera. Especially as the impeachment trial was under the cloud of trump thuggery and careers (if not lives) was under the threat by any display of disloyalty to trump. Will follow this up later.
This technicality is based on TheLaw and NOT The Constitution as they would like to believe. The Constitution of the USA caters for the Impeachment of a President of the USA see here for full details.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishmnet, according to Law.
The wording here makes it clear that the Impeachment process includes the disqualifications listed. It does not in any way suggest that Impeachment has to take place before the disqualification process as was stated by trump (ineffective and semantic manipulating) lawyers. Read the definition again and it becomes clear that the duties of the Senate ARE ABOVE THE LAW AND ARE SUBJECT TO THE OATH OF OFFICE.
Responsibility:
RRR (Respect before Responsibility before Rights) provides a simple explanation of RESPONSIBILITY here. The TTP have clearly demonstrated that they do not even qualify for Level 1 (Self).
Surely they must realize that no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, not a single person, has the ability to maintain loyalty to trump for any length of time. The amoral thuggery to which trump is prepared to stoop means that at some time soon that person WILL be told (not asked) to do something which will require action/s beyond their moral “tolerance” and you will go the same way as VP Pence. Thug trump had a pretty good go at murdering him.
If one cannot realistically take care of one’s SELF you cannot even understand the RESPONSBILITY for a FAMILY, or even a GROUP (the GOP) never mind a COUNTRY of 370+ people and the infrastructure on which it depends.
So, I guess, one really cannot expect any such person to even understand that they must destroy any threat to their COUNTRY over and above FAMILY or SELF. Which is of course honoring The Oath which the Senators took on entering Office and BEFORE THEY COULD CARRY OUT ANY OFFICIAL DUTIES.
The creators of The Constitution were even smarter than they are credited for by keeping The Constitution simple and free of misdirecting qualifications which could encourage lawyers to play semantics with the interpretation.
Defending the Constitution in keeping with The Oath is as simple as they could possibly have made the impeachment process.
I guess Politicians = Lawyers (The convolution of TheLaw) = a terrible confluence of two of RRR (Respect before Responsibility before Rights) major Problems.
How sad!
Jude
PS. As I finish off this Post, which could have proved to be a very simple course of action for impeaching trump, it strikes me that maybe Mitch MConnell’s final words on the subject need to be followed through. I think he was saying: trump is guilty and he should be removed FROM POLITICS entirely and furthermore the legal (judiciary) system has the ability to do this for us without our (GOP’s) need to risk the stability of the GOP or personal risk. J
PPS. Sunday 14 Feb 1700 EST US
This is an excellent summation of the Impachment Trial :
An answer placed on Quora (https://www.quora.com) by Thomas Crowne. Well said, Jude.
The trump wasn’t convicted for a number of reasons. Firsly here are Mitch McConnell’s own words.
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President.They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election. Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. The House accused the former President of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law. Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.The issue is not only the President’s intemperate language on January 6th. It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat.’ It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-President. I defended the President’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.”But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims. The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things. Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally. This was different. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began. Whatever our ex-President claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world. A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration. But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election! Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the President sent a further tweet attacking his Vice President. Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence. Later, even when the President did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later. And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals. In recent weeks, our ex-President’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism. Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.That is an absurd deflection.74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did. And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.
“One person did.”
Now on the surface, those words seem powerful, until you realize that Mitch McConnell did not vote to convict Failure 45. He publicly admits that not only was Douche 45 responsible for the attack on the Capitol, he also admits that the justification for that attack, that Disgrace 45 lost the election due to fraud, is complete bullshit based on lies and conspiracy theories dreamed up by liars and bought and swallowed by morons.
But he did not vote to convict. Now I’ll answer your question.
Fuhrer 45 was not convicted because (A)the majority of the members of his political party, who are elected officials, know he’s guilty but are spineless cowards who are afraid of his base of racists, bigots and morons; (B)others in the Senate, and everyone else throughout this country, who genuinely believe Wants To F*ck His Daughter 45 did nothing wrong, are just as amoral as he is.
Compulsive liar? They don’t care.
Got tens of thousands of innocent Americans killed due to incompetence, apathy, and stupidity? Doesn’t matter.
Raging narcissist? Still their kind of guy.
Racist and bigot? They love him even more and want him to come over for a home visit.
End PPS.