Republicans must punish The Former Guy who initiated the January 6 insurrection

Echo opinion letter calls out Republicans who defend The Former Guy:

Former Guy Donald Trump (aka #TFG) incited a deadly insurrection against the U.S. government, according to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

#TFG led the January 6th seditious campaign to storm the US Capitol & "hang Mike Pence".

“January 6 was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism... 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 Mike Pence. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth, because he was angry he had lost an election... There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it... 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...”

Lock Trump up!

From- Jake Pickering, Arcata, California.

This article originally appeared on Ridgecrest Daily Independent: Letter to the editor 20 Feb 2021: "Lock Trump up!"

Republicans put American reputation at risk for political purposes

Time to rebuild republicans!

Echo! Columnist Tim Roland writes in the Hagerstown, Maryland Herald-Mail:

Cultists wait for the Republican dog whistles!

I’ve parsed a lot of political talk in my time, and like to think that I’m pretty good at it. Still, I was baffled by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said last week that increasing the debt ceiling was the right thing to do, the smart thing to do and the American thing to do — and that Republicans were prepared to vote in unison against doing it.!😠

Even my savvy conservative friends were stumped at what this was designed to accomplish. It seemed useless as a negotiating tool, since congressional Republicans have made it clear they have no interest in negotiating. Politicians are notable for speaking to their base in code, yet this seemed to be a dog whistle that not even a dog could hear.

Default would crash the stock market, slash 6 million jobs and wipe out $15 trillion in wealth. Not even the Proud Boys think that’s a good idea.

Maybe — and this is only a guess — McConnell is implying that nuking the American economy and trashing America’s reputation and handing the keys of world leadership over to the Chinese is OK so long as the Democrats get blamed for it.

Perhaps we saw the seeds of this in 2009, when Republicans — fearful that Democrats would get the credit for reviving the global economy, saving the U.S. auto industry and essentially cleaning up the mess left behind by lax GOP financial regulations — tried to hamstring President Obama’s ultimately successful effort to heal the economy to health.

Yet even this was nothing compared to the knife currently being held to America’s jugular by a group of people for whom America’s well-being seems of no particular consequence.

Maybe this through-the-looking-glass experience of the past five years is just a speed bump, a logical growing pain of a still relatively young and robust nation trying to find its way.

Or else, it could be a sign of something more, that we’ve taken our particular brand of republicanism as far as it will go, and it is time to tear down and rebuild.

Certainly this is what the MAGA (Trumpziim!) movement has in mind, although it would use despotism, not democracy to create a sea change. Despite all the hand-wringing, however, it doesn't appear that this group poses much risk to democracy itself.

It’s true that they learned from their failures of 2020, and have responded by tilting voting law in their favor and replacing election professionals with political hacks in some swing states. But even if they retake power, then what? The military establishment has made clear it has no taste for any sort of dictator for life, and even if it did, the rip tide of American history is too strong to overcome.

Foreign tyrants can hold democratic protests at bay if they encompass 8,000 or even 80,000 people. They would stand no chance in the face of more than 81 million, which is the number of Americans who affirmed in 2020, that they prefer the ballot box to an overlord. But this 81 million is correct to despair that, for now, the minority is able to do just enough mischief to create a standoff, an environment where great leaps of progress are a pipe dream.

So America stands as a .500 team, too mediocre to make the playoffs but too good to get that high draft pick. To continue the metaphor, it is our good fortune that the world stage at the moment appears to be made up of the National League East, where no one is capable of rising to seize the day.

Maybe this buys us time until the inevitable happens. The MAGA movement is old and it is dying (Maine Writer- moreover, the cult leader is aging in place!), falling on its own sword of indignation by refusing vaccines and maintaining unhealthy habits that have, against all odds, stunted our upward trajectory of longevity. Hillary Clinton was wrong, it is not deplorable, it is tragic, because we have trusted and counted upon people who have failed us. Yet, many have reached the point of no turning back. There is no methadone for political addiction. (Maine Writer- classic cultism, think Jonestown, think Branch Davidians.😢)

History never turns as fast as you would think or want. If you think something should be happening in 20 years, double it. Or triple it. In history it’s just a blink.

Anti-democratic and anti-American forces are galvanizing an army against them, an army of young people who have democracy in their blood. Every effort to stack the deck at the ballot box or blow up the nation’s economy is steeling this young army that much more.

Maybe leaders of these wrongminded efforts don’t care because they won’t be around in another 30 years. Maybe that’s for the best, because they wouldn’t be able to stand what they would see.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

Why did Republican Senators become victims of Trumpziism?

Cynicism and Political Blunder: A Postscript to “The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain"

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/179253

Echo opinion published in the History News Network

Former president 

Jeffrey Herf, Distinguished University Professor, Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park. His essay “The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain with Trump: Notes from German History,” was published in History News Network on January 31, 2021. His book Israel’s Moment: International Support and Opposition for Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949 is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

On February 12, when 43 Republican Senators voted to acquit former president Trump of the charge of incitement to insurrection, they reaffirmed the Faustian bargain they had made with him in 2016. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was the central figure in the GOP’s bargain: in exchange for tax cuts and conservative judicial nominations, he and the Republican senators enabled, supported, tolerated, and lent mainstream conservative legitimacy to Trump. For a month after the 2020 election which Trump had obviously lost, McConnell remained silent while Trump repeated the “stab in the back” lie about the “stolen election.” So, it was not surprising that on February 12, 2021, faced with overwhelming evidence of Trump’s guilt, that McConnell voted with 42 other Republican Senators to acquit him. He was at the center of that nullification. We do not know if McConnell could have found an additional ten votes to convict Trump, but there have been no reports that he tried to do so or that he was willing to join a minority short of the needed 67 votes on the basis of the law, the constitution, the facts and the evidence.

For Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson and Lindsay Graham, and no doubt others, the vote was also an expression of ideological agreement with Trump and Trumpism. For them the bargain with Trump had moved beyond McConnell’s marriage of convenience to an alliance of shared ideological conviction or of a cynicism so deep that they repeated his lies in public. Their problem was that the House Managers were led by former law professor Jamie Raskin, with a remarkable team composed of Diana DeGette, David Cicilline, Joachim Castro, Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, Stacey Plaskett, Joe Neguse and Madeline Dean. That team offered a blend of argument and evidence, from their pretrial brief to Raskin’s opening statement, and those of others that set a formidable standard of clarity and causal reasoning that historians would applaud in their own work. The vote to acquit by the 43 Republican Senators was a clear case of jury nullification, that is, of rendering a verdict that ignored the weight of fact, evidence, and argument.

If the Republicans did not want to admit that a team of Democrats made the case based on the Constitution, the law and the facts, they could have sought shelter in the warm embrace of Charles Cooper, the lawyer with close ties to the Republican legal establishment, who several days before the trial argued in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that impeaching a former President was indeed within the constitutional powers of the Senate. Or, they could point to the 144 constitutional experts, include leading conservatives, who issued a public statement that the First Amendment protection of free speech did not defend the right of the President of the United States to incite a mob to attack the Capitol. Or, being the lawyers many of them are, they could admit that Raskin, and the team of House Managers shredded Trump’s lawyers efforts to use those arguments. Conservative legal scholars and practitioners, as well as the House Managers gave McConnell the arguments, he needed to attempt to rally his Republicans majority to convict Trump. He could have done so with paeans to constitutional originalism, and of the prerogatives of the Senate.

In the course of the trial, Plaskett and Dean documented Trumps’ months long campaign repeating the lie of the stolen election and the need to come to Washington on January 6th. Trumps’ lawyers offered no rebuttal to Raskin’s rejection of the “January exception” to Presidential misconduct in the last weeks in power, nor did they refute the factual record about Trump’s campaign of lies and its consequences. They did not refute the House Managers’ accounts of Trump’s tactical use and approval of political violence. The Senators themselves knew that Trump refused to order his mob to stop when the entire Congress, its staff, and others working in the Capitol were in imminent physical danger. They also knew that when House Manager and Congressman Joaquin Castro said Trump had “left everyone in this Capitol for dead,” he, Castro, was telling them a truth they knew as well as anyone.

Yet, after all that, McConnell voted to acquit Trump, hoping that he could assuage the enraged Trump base. Yet, McConnell, firmly planted in the reality of this world rather than that of Trump’s “alternate facts,” then unleashed the anger he had kept under wraps for the past four years. As McConnell’s denunciation of Trump may be lost in the mass of words about the trial, it bears quoting at length. Bear in mind, that these are the words spoken by McConnell, not Raskin.

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 former 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 former 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 former 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 former 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!

Vice President Mike Pence was singled out in QAnon chants

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 former 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 former 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.

The new Majority Leader, Senator Charles Schumer, gave an address of ten minutes which, had it not been for McConnell’s statement, would be regarded as one of the most remarkable delivered in the Senate in decades. It too is a very important historical document and should be part of the record on History News Network. Yet, McConnell, despite knowing that the House Managers had made their case, joined the jury nullification of the ideologists and cynics in his caucus. He resorted to the constitutional argument about not impeaching a former President, an argument that defies common sense and was rejected by most constitutional scholars and voted to acquit the man he knew was guilty.

It was here that the master tactictian McConnell made a blunder of probable long-term significance. In so doing, he passed up a fleeting and superb opportunity to convict Trump, then disqualify him from running for federal office, and thus take the offensive in a political fight to retake the GOP from Trump’s inflamed base. 

Instead, McConnell’s denunciation of Trump enraged that Trump base, and confounded what is left of a diminishing number of moderate Republicans. Most importantly it left Trump able to brandish his acquittal and denounce the trial as part of “the witch hunt.” Wounded but not politically dead, Trump remained a danger to the remnants of the GOP that had any claim at all to respect the rule of law.

McConnell thus sustained the Faustian bargain made since 2016. In so doing, he failed to learn the meaning of the mob’s chant "hang Mike Pence," the barbaric calls to find House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or Trump’s mocking reference to “Mitch.” Trump and his followers will turn on McConnell and the GOP establishment which voted to acquit but shared McConnell's hatred of Trump. Trump and his base will turn on Republican politicians in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona who refused to submit to Trump’s threats to overturn the results of a free and fair election. The split in the GOP was going to happen anyway, but now the cynics in touch with reality will enter that battle with the Trumpists unable to say they had used their considerable powers to inflict on him the defeat he deserved.

Such historical moments when forces are aligned as they were on February 12, 2021 do not come often. Though McConnell made all the arguments needed to convict Trump, he blinked at the crucial moment. In so doing, he seized defeat from the jaws of possible victory. Trump’s conviction would not have meant the end of Trumpism, but it would have been a severe blow against the past four years of lies and conspiracies. McConnell’s failure to act on what he knew was true and to rally what troops he had in the Senate emboldened Trumpists, and the right-wing extremist practitioners of violence with whom they are now in a relationship of mutual benefit. Before February 12, Republican mantras about law and order and respect for the Constitution had become threadbare. After the acquittal, there is no reason to believe anything McConnell and the 42 other Republican Senators for acquittal say about the rule of law now. Their pleas for bipartisanship are a bitter joke.

In Nazi Germany, the Faustian bargain launched by Franz von Papen and Otto von Hindenburg with Hitler ended in Germany’s destruction. The clever cynics who thought they could outsmart Hitler, if still alive in 1945, stumbled through the ruins of their country. In numerous works of historical scholarship, our profession has demonstrated that the German conservatives of the 1930s were nowhere near as clever as they thought they were. They too passed up moments when they could have brought the dictator down. After 1933, that tiny number of German conservatives who dared opposed Hitler paid with their lives.

Mitch McConnell and the Republican senators did not live in fear of the Gestapo. On January 6th, Trump endangered their lives but on February 12 their only fear was of possibly losing an election. Yet, on February 12, with really nothing of lasting significance to fear, McConnell refused to use the power of the Constitution and of the United States Senate to convict Trump. He and his fellow partisans combined cowardice and cynicism with what could turn out to be a major strategic blunder. The Faustian bargain had created habits of self-abasement, cynicism and raw self-interest that proved too difficult to shatter.

Maine Writer post script- In other words, the Republican Senators that were cowards, are the victims of a Trumpzi cult. It's impossible to understand their hypnotic obedience to the political creature they created. They are victims of evil Trumpziism.

Lesson to the United States Senate from President George Washington

Written by George Washington, to "The People of the United States of America", he wrote the letter near the end of his second term as President, before his retirement to his home Mount Vernon. 

Originally published in David Claypole's American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796, under the title "The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States," the letter was almost immediately reprinted in newspapers across the country and later in a pamphlet form.
Impartiality is a duty "under oath"
Lexington Herald Leader newspaper opinion letter echo:

News reports indicate that the U.S. Senate majority party is planning to carry out a sham impeachment “trial” with no witnesses, where the goal is to “be in lockstep with the White House” to achieve “a rapid acquittal.”

"Washington on Dorchester Heights,” is believed to be the first work of art acquired by the state. The full-length portrait depicts a triumphant Washington beside his horse during the British evacuation of Boston in 1776. Painted by Thomas Spear of Massachusettes. Exhibited in the Maine State House in Augusta, Maine. (L'Heureux photograph)

#Opinion_echo: Now, I’m not a lawyer, but those phrases do not in any way represent what would constitute a fair trial. 

Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky should remember that, as jurors, they will be required to swear an oath to be impartial in the case.

The country is filled with partisanship, which is exactly why George Washington warned the country against political parties in his farewell address. I urge my senators to read that address and to actually put their country before their political party by living up to their constitutional duty to be fair and impartial jurors.

Jean Amick, Lexington, Kentucky

Speaker Pelosi Statement on Urgency for Fair Senate Trial

Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives #MoscowMitch Senator Mitch McConnell a lesson about what his oath of office really means.

January 3, 2020

#IMpotus45 "...every U.S. Senator is required to take an oath to ‘do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws'."

In December, the House upheld its Constitutional duty to defend democracy For The People, honoring the vision of our Founders for a Republic. In an impeachment trial, every U.S. Senator is required to take an oath to ‘do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.’ 

“For several months, the House has subpoenaed documents and witnesses which the President stonewalled. These cases are now in the courts. While the House nevertheless was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, Leader McConnell knows full well that the President’s obstruction of the House impeachment inquiry is unprecedented and in defiance of our system of checks and balances.

“Today, #MoscowMitch Senator McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up.

“Leader McConnell is doubling down on his violation of his oath, even after the exposure of new, deeply incriminating documents this week which provide further evidence of what we know: President Trump abused the power of his office for personal, political gain.

“The American people deserve the truth. Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the President or the Constitution. The GOP Senate must immediately proceed in a manner worthy of the Constitution and in light of the gravity of the President’s unprecedented abuses. No one is above the law, not even the President.”

Post Script - IMpotus (Impeached Donald Trump)

Historic editorial in The New York Times- echo opinion about impeachment of Donald Trump

This historic echo editorial opinion published in The New York Times in support of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump was given a stereo endorsement in Mother Jones....

The New York Times Editorial Board published a clear message for Congress this weekend: Impeach! 

The case against him is “short, simple and damning,” they say.

The editorial was composed in advance of next Wednesday’s scheduled floor vote on the two articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee has filed against President Donald Trump in the full House of Representatives. It will be just the third time in U.S. history that the House votes to impeach a president. 

"I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of Donald J. Trump....____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”

The Times editorial board wrote:

To resist the pull of partisanship, Republicans and Democrats alike ought to ask themselves the same question: Would they put up with a Democratic president using the power of the White House this way? Then they should consider the facts, the architecture and aspirations of the Constitution and the call of history. 

In that light, there can be only one responsible judgment: to cast a vote to impeach, to send a message not only to this president but to future ones.

A New York Times editorial has supported the impeachment of Donald J. Trump and this echo opinion published in Mother Jones echoes the opinion.  Meanwhile, the Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix rightly criticizes Senator Mitch McConnell for claiming a verdict in the Donald J. Trump impeachment trial, even before he takes an oath according to the Constituti

By stonewalling as no previous president has, Donald Trump has left Congress with no choice but to press ahead to a Senate trial. The president insists he is innocent of any wrongdoing, yet he refuses to release any administration documents or allow any administration officials to testify — though, if his assertions are in fact true, those officials would presumably exonerate him. He refused to present any defense before the House whatsoever, asserting a form of monarchical immunity that Congress cannot let stand.

It’s significant, and rather unusual, for the Times to take such a firm stand on impeachment. 

Editorial page editor James Bennet shed light on their reluctance to call for earlier impeachment inquiries both of Trump and for Andrew Johnson in 1868, Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998 (only Johnson and Clinton were impeached). Bennet wrote that the “conclusions varied with the circumstances, but the editorials shared a deep reluctance, if not aversion, to the impeachment process itself. 

Words like ‘agony,’ ‘divisive’ and ‘traumatic’ are salted through these previous editorials.” In 1998, the Times supported the initial investigation, but not the impeachment itself.

Trump faces two charges laid out in nine pages by the House Judiciary Committee. 

1.  First that he attempted to leverage U.S. military assistance and a White House meeting for Ukraine’s president in exchange for Ukraine digging up dirt on his political rival Joe Biden; 

2.  Second, that he “sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively” the House’s investigation into the matter.

Of course, a majority vote in the House is not the end of the impeachment discussion. Assuming the House votes to impeach, the matter will move on to the Senate, which will hold a trial and ultimately have to get it through the Republican-controlled chamber with a two-thirds majority. 

In advance of taking his oath as required in the Constitution * Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already announced that there will be “no difference between the president’s position and our position in how to handle this,” and he could derail proceedings in any number of ways. The Times acknowledges that, saying “that leaves the defense of the Constitution, and the Republic, to the House of Representatives.”

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/12/13/sen-mitch-mcconnell-breaks-impeachment-oath-before-taking/2645862001/

*Sen. Mitch McConnell breaks impeachment oath before taking it!  "I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of Donald J. Trump....____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”

Kentucky challenge to Senator McConell and Donald Trump- 3 opinion echoes

Maine Writer post script* to this cluster of opinion letters:

Trifecta of echo opinion letters from the Kentucky Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper: 

MCCONNELL VS. CONSTITUTION
Reminder to Senator Mitch McConnell: "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;...."

Only 33 percent of people in Kentucky approve of his failed leadership & unexplainable support for Donald Trump.

Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell says he will stop this Trump impeachment dead in its tracks when it comes before the Senate. Isn’t it in the U.S. Constitution that if the House impeaches a president, a trial has to be held in the U.S, Senate with the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding? Didn’t know Mitch had that much power to override the Constitution. Of course, Mitch wants you to send him some money, too, for his campaign. Gotta love our strong defenders of the Constitution.

From Bob Sutton, Springfield, Kentucky

Evangelicals: TRUMP SUPPORTERS are A TURN-OFF

The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity

Not only could Donald Trump shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and be forgiven for it by his base, Evangelical Trump supporters could witness him suddenly sprout a pair of horns out of the top of his head, watch his feet morph into hooves, and watch a 5-foot-long tail sprout out of his tail end, and still support the man.

This is one of the many reasons why America’s Sunday morning church attendance has declined over the past several decades to the low it is at now. If Evangelical Christians want people who work 40 or more hours a week to wake up early every Sunday morning to attend church, they need to practice what their pastors are preaching and stop listening to and following behind a known liar like Trump.

Nobody is going to let so-called Christians, who blindly support Trump as they’re watching him get crazier by the hour, convince them they should wake up early on the only day many of them have off to attend services. These supporters need to stop telling people that they support Trump, because it makes them look like huge hypocrites. And that makes many people not want to attend church.

Yolanda Averette, Lexington Kentucky

Donald Trump is "A WANNA-BE DICTATOR"

Judge tells Trump he's not a king!

Donald Trump isn't going to like his Constitution 101 lesson: "Presidents are not kings."
A federal judge's stunning rebuke of the White House on Monday came as the result of a case by House Democrats to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify. But it serves as a thematic frame for an entire (failed!) presidency, for Trump, who has never played by the rules.

Donald J. Trump is an above-the-law dictator who would like to be a full-blown dictator like his comrades Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. Why is Trump cozying up to them? U.S. citizens and other nations in the world deserve to know the answer. When Trump meets with (former KGB agent!) Vladimir Putin and North Korean monster Kim Jong Un, separately in private, one has to wonder what, in general, are they discussing?

During the 2016, presidential campaign, I remember Republican nominee Trump saying nuclear weapons were made to be used. Trump says he doesn’t want war. I don’t believe or trust anything he says. He has lied to us so many many times during the first three years of his chaotic, bizarre presidency.

If Trump thought that going to war before the 2020 election would help him be re-elected, I believe he would do it. President George W. Bush took us to war in Iraq in 2003, right before the 2004 election. It helped Bush win re-election.

A vote for Trump in the 2020 election is a vote for four more years of Trump-style (dangerous!) dictatorship.

From Paul L. Whiteley Sr., Louisville, Kentucky

*Maine Writer Post Script- this cluster of opinion letters are letting Senator McConnell know that his failed leadership is at risk. He should resign from the Senate, while he can still get out from under history's stamp of evil Trumpziim. 

Senator Mitch McConnell gives Donald Trump a first grader instruction about how to fight ISIS

Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, is majority leader of the U.S. Senate.
Withdrawing from Syria is a grave mistake

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post

Although Senator McConnell does not mention Donald Trump by name, the fact is, there is only one man who authorized this tragic mistake to abandon Kurd allies.  Donald Trump gave the gravely mistaken order.  He is responsible for the subsequent carnage and he is therefore guilty of enabling a crime against humanity while the faithful Kurds are the victims of Turkish genocide.

Washington Post Op-Ed- Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake. It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important alliances. Sadly, the recently announced pullout risks repeating the Obama administration’s reckless withdrawal from Iraq, which facilitated the rise of the Islamic State in the first place.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I have worked with three presidential administrations to fight radical Islamist terrorism. I have distilled three principal lessons about combating this complex threat.

Lesson No. 1 is that the threat is real and cannot be wished away. These fanatics threaten American interests and American lives. If permitted to regroup and establish havens, they will bring terror to our shores.

Second, there is no substitute for American leadership. No other nation can match our capability to spearhead multinational campaigns that can defeat terrorists and help stabilize the region. Libya and Syria both testify to the bloody results of the Obama administration’s “leading from behind.”

This truth extends well beyond counter-terrorism. If we Americans care at all about the post-World War II international system that has sustained an unprecedented era of peace, prosperity and technological development, we must recognize that we are its indispensable nation. We built this system, we sustained it, and we have benefited from it most of all.

When the United States threw off the comforting blanket of isolationism in the 1940s, and took the mantle of global leadership, we made the whole world better, but we specifically made it much better for the United States. If we abandon that mantle today, we can be sure that a new world order will be made — and not on terms favorable to us.

The third lesson is that we are not in this fight alone. In recent years, the campaigns against the Islamic State and the Taliban, in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, have been waged primarily by local forces. The United States has mainly contributed limited, specialized capabilities that enable our local partners to succeed. Ironically, Syria had been a model for this increasingly successful approach.

In January, following indications that the president was considering withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan, I thought the Senate should reaffirm these crucial principles. Senators would have the opportunity to debate our interests and strategy in the Middle East.

The Senate stepped up. A bipartisan super-majority of 70 senators supported an amendment I wrote to emphasize these lessons. It stated our opposition to prematurely exiting Syria or Afghanistan, reemphasized the need for sustained U.S. leadership to fight terrorists, and urged that we continue working alongside allies and local forces. While I was disheartened that nearly all the Senate Democrats running for president and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) opposed the amendment, the consensus position of nearly all Republicans and a number of Democrats was encouraging.

Unfortunately, the administration’s recent steps in Syria do not reflect these crucial lessons.

The combination of a U.S. pullback and the escalating Turkish-Kurdish hostilities is creating a strategic nightmare for our country. Even if the five-day cease-fire announced Thursday holds, events of the past week have set back the United States’ campaign against the Islamic State and other terrorists. Unless halted, our retreat will invite the brutal Assad regime in Syria and its Iranian backers to expand their influence. And we are ignoring Russia’s efforts to leverage its increasingly dominant position in Syria to amass power and influence throughout the Middle East and beyond.


Predictably, our adversaries seem to be relishing these developments. The resulting geopolitical chain reaction appears to have been perfectly distilled by an online video which, according to reports, shows a smiling Russian “journalist” strolling around a just-abandoned U.S. military base in northern Syria. A strategic calamity neatly captured in one Facebook post.
AD

As we seek to pick up the pieces, we must remain guided by our national interests and not emotions*. While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s offensive into northeastern Syria is misguided, is it really the case that the United States would prefer that Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces control the region rather than Turkey, our NATO ally? 

We need to use both sticks and carrots to bring Turkey back in line while respecting its own legitimate security concerns. In addition to limiting Turkey’s incursion and encouraging an enduring cease-fire, we should create conditions for the reintroduction of U.S. troops and move Turkey away from Russia and back into the NATO fold.

To keep pressure on Islamic State terrorists, deter Iranian aggression and buy our local partners more leverage to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad to end the underlying conflict, we should retain a limited military presence in Syria and maintain our presence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. We must also work closely with allies threatened by this chaos, such as Israel and Jordan, and redouble international efforts to pressure the Assad regime. And Congress must finally pass the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act to hold the regime accountable for its atrocities.

To keep pressure on Islamic State terrorists, deter Iranian aggression and buy our local partners more leverage to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad to end the underlying conflict, we should retain a limited military presence in Syria and maintain our presence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. 

Also, we must also work closely with allies threatened by this chaos, such as Israel and Jordan, and redouble international efforts to pressure the Assad regime. 

It is my hope that Congress will finally pass the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act to hold the regime accountable for its atrocities.

Finally, whatever happens in Syria, this situation must chasten the United States against withdrawing from Afghanistan before the job is done. We must recommit to our Afghan partners as they do the heavy lifting to defend their country and their freedoms from al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

As neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more talk of “endless wars.” But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars are won or lost.

The United States has sacrificed much in years-long campaigns to defeat al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and stabilize the conflicts that foster extremism. But while the political will to continue this hard work may wax and wane, the threats to our nation aren’t going anywhere.

*Tongue in cheek it seems ironic to me for #MoscowMitch to write about "emotion".  He often looks like his face will crack if he dares to change his affect. 

Donald Trump and his shoe shine cult

This echo article was published in The Hill

In The New Yorker cover titled 'The Shining' shows Senator Lindsey Graham (Whatever Happened to Lindsey Graham?*), Senator Mitch McConnell, #fakeAGBarr, who are dutifully polishing Trump's shoes. 

The upcoming cover of The New Yorker magazine.  On Twitter, the magazine revealed the "shoe shine" cover. 

The cover, titled “The Shining” was drawn by Barry Blitt. 

Although the cover pictures does not show Trump’s face, as he has his head raised, but shows each of the three men looking unhappy to be doing the task.

Both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are prominent supporters and defenders of Trump. They have both become Trumpzi cultists, throughout Trump’s time in office.

#fake Barr faced criticism for how he handled special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats alleged the (#fakeBarr) 4-page memo he released outlining the principal #fake conclusions from Mueller’s more than 400-page report was insufficient and “misrepresented” the full report.

Moreover, #fake Barr opted against showing up to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee, because he is a coward.

The New Yorker has used previous magazine covers to take shots at #stupid_Trump, recently showing him “walled in” during a prolonged government shutdown.

Another cover from March of 2018, also drawn by Blitt, shows Trump nude behind a lectern while taking questions from the media.

*"The “Little Jerk"- Once defined by his loathing for Donald Trump, but (what happened?) Lindsey Graham is now all-in for the (stupid) president. Why? "....has a politician ever debased himself more in public, than Lindsey Graham...?"

Republicans must face the fact - Russia influenced the 2016 election

"Donald Trump cynically tries to paint everything Congress does as being pure politics, as if it were all some kind of game. But it is not."

Maine Writer opinion- Senator Mitch McConnell has become the Charlie McCarthy dummy who speaks whenever Donald Trump throws his voice.

Columnist Eugene Robinson echo opinion:

National View: Congress can't just shrug, look away- echo opinion published in Duluth News Tribune, in Minnesota.

The escalating war in Washington is not between the White House and Democrats, despite what President Donald Trump may claim. 

Rather, it is between an executive and the people's duly elected representatives in Congress, whose sworn duties transcend politics. 

There's a big difference.

Trump tries to drag everyone and everything down to the basest, most transactional level, which is the only level he seems to know. 

In his telling, it's Democrats who are demanding to see his tax returns, Democrats who want public testimony by special counsel Robert Mueller and former White House counsel Don McGahn, and Democrats who are holding hearings and issuing subpoenas for the sole purpose of persecuting Donald J. Trump.

The president cynically tries to paint the whole thing as pure politics, as if it were all some kind of game. But it is not. An adversarial foreign power, Vladimir Putin's Russia, maliciously interfered with our presidential election in 2016. Trump campaign officials and advisers had scores of unusual contacts with Kremlin-connected Russians, then lied about those contacts. Trump tried repeatedly to thwart any investigation of those contacts and lies, engaging in conduct many legal experts believe clearly amounts to obstruction of justice.

None of this is normal or acceptable, none of it, and Congress does not have the option to shrug and look away. Acting in the name of the nation, the House Ways and Means Committee has the statutory authority — and good reason — to look at Trump's tax returns. Acting in the name of the nation, the House Judiciary Committee has the duty to read Mueller's entire unredacted report and hear from Mueller and McGahn. Acting in the name of the nation, the speaker of the House must decide whether Trump's conduct was so egregious that impeachment hearings should be held.

The fact the House of Representatives is presently controlled by the Democratic Party instead of the Republican Party does not alter its responsibilities — or mitigate its powers.

Most congressional Republicans, shamefully, are shirking those responsibilities — but not all of them. According to published reports, the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. in an attempt to determine whether he lied in a previous appearance before the panel. Lying to Congress, as former Trump attorney Michael Cohen unhappily learned, is a federal crime that can get you sent to prison.

The Washington Post quoted a source familiar with Trump Jr.'s thinking as saying he is "exasperated" and "thinks they just want a PR stunt." Assuming everyone has the most venal motives is apparently a Trump family trait. Perhaps it genuinely would never occur to the president's son that a Republican senator, of all people, might take his constitutional duties seriously.

It is astounding that more Republicans have not dared speak a word, let alone take any action, to assert the authority of Congress as a coequal branch of government in the face of a presidential power grab. Trump's defiance of wholly legitimate requests for information and testimony is the kind of thing that normally would spark bipartisan fire and brimstone. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., obediently follows Trump's lead and declares, "Case closed."

In truth, though, the case is still very much open. Trump recently had a telephone conversation with Putin during which, Trump said, the two leaders briefly discussed the "Russian hoax." Trump reportedly did not take the occasion to cite Mueller's voluminous, detailed findings about Russian election interference and warn Putin not to dare do it again. Why on earth not?

Senator McConnell is like a Donald Trump Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist puppet.

Do Republicans in Congress think it's just fine for Putin to try to influence our elections as long as he favors Republican candidates? Or are they so frightened of Trump they're afraid to say anything? History's judgment will be brutal.

The dereliction of Republicans, however, does not obviate the duty of members of Congress who happen to be Democrats. I'm not naïve enough to think the House will proceed with no regard whatsoever for politics and the coming election. But I guess I'm idealistic enough to believe that most members of both chambers — and, I used to think, both parties — do take seriously the fact they have been entrusted to do the people's business and defend the people's democracy.

The framers of the Constitution clearly envisioned a Congress that would stand up to an overbearing, overreaching president. Trump is cheapening and defiling his office. Members of Congress — not Democrats, but representatives of the people — must not follow suit.

Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post. 

Dreamers must receive the immigration protection they deserve

A Washington Post editorial echo.

The border-security compromise is a good start. Now help the ‘dreamers.’- The Washington Post Editorial Board

CONGRESSIONAL NEGOTIATORS reached a compromise on border security that delivers half a loaf or, as President Trump sees it, less than a quarter of a wall — just $1.375 billion of the $5.7 billion he wanted for construction of a barrier along the Southern border. It’s a modest deal that doesn’t address the most important immigration issues, such as the status of the “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants predominately brought to the United States as children. But with dysfunction having become the Washington norm, it is practically a triumph that GOP lawmakers summoned the will to break an impasse, forged an accord with Democrats knowing it would displease Mr. Trump and plan to send it along to him to sign or veto.

Barring last-minute snags, the president appears set to sign the measure to build 55 miles of new fencing and fund the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, thereby averting another government shutdown. That would end a gratuitous standoff that could have been avoided in December had Mr. Trump supported legislation that provided more border security funding than he ended up securing after a five-week partial government closure. Pandering to his base, he opted for a fight, venomous tweets and paralysis.

Good for Congress, and good for the Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, for schooling Mr. Trump on the art of the possible. 

Even better, though, if Mr. McConnell and other congressional leaders now take further steps to resolve immigration disputes wrongly deemed irresolvable by conventional wisdom.

They should start by defusing the time bomb ticking for the more than 1 million young dreamers, whose lives and livelihoods will be devastated if Mr. Trump’s decision to rescind their protections from deportation, and work permits, gets the green light from the Supreme Court. That’s possible, and should it happen, it will destroy families and communities in districts represented by Republicans and Democrats alike. (The Center for American Progress has published an online interactive map showing the number of dreamers in every congressional district.)

Trump signaled his willingness last month to negotiate over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , albeit with a narrow proposal that would exclude many dreamers and extend others meager relief: just three years of work permits and deportation protections, with no pathway to legal status or citizenship. Congress would be wise to improve now on Trump’s blueprint with legislation that would provide permanent protections for young migrants who have been raised in this country and are Americans in outlook, allegiance and expectations.

Congress could also legislate relief for hundreds of thousands of people who have been living legally in this country with temporary protected status, in many cases for decades, having fled conflict and natural disasters in their home countries. The administration has ordered their protections withdrawn, as well. A proactive Congress would intervene to ensure that those migrants, often the parents of U.S. citizens, have a viable and secure future in communities where they are well integrated.

Problem-solving was once taken for granted in Congress. Regaining that muscle memory is a matter of embracing bipartisan compromise.

Republicans empty vote promises

“The problem is what we’ve seen so far for Congress, it seems, is not in the attempt to reach a deal [but] to make a statement rather than make a law. And these kids (DACA) are going to be timed out here soon. And so we’ve got to actually get serious with it.”~ Senator Jeff Flake (About the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ~ DACA)

As disappointed and, frankly, angry, as I am about how the Republicans rammed through a 500 page "tax cuts for the rich" bill without allowing the Senate to read it, my disdain continues for those who were sold a "pig in a poke" to barter for their support.  Surely, seasoned Senators like Susan Collins and Jeff Flake knew better than to believe that the empty promises thrown at them in exchange for their vote to support the bad economic reform was just whistling in the wind, by Mitch McConnell.

The Daily Beast reports: by Andrew Desiderio

SO MUCH FOR THAT
House Republicans Already Shooting Down Tax Bill’s Promises
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) got assurances for their votes. Someone forgot to clear it with conservatives in the other chamber.

House conservatives are already indicating that they're prepared to block some of the key legislative promises that Senate Republicans demanded in exchange for their votes on tax reform legislation.

Republicans are whistling in the wind- right wing partisans won't hear them- when they believe Senator McConnell's empty promises in exchange for their votes.

Those promises materialized in the frantic final hours of the tax debate last week, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) assurances that some of their personal legislative priorities would be dealt with in exchange for their votes.

Senator Collins said she received a promise that the Senate would consider two bipartisan pieces of legislation that would ostensibly mitigate the negative effects that could come from the tax bill’s repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. Flake said he received a “firm commitment from Senate Leadership and the administration” to work on a permanent protections for the soon-to-be-ended Obama-era program that shields children of undocumented immigrants.

Both senators ended up voting for the tax bill, giving it the 51 “yes” votes it needed to pass. Within days, however, reality began setting in that those promises might have been flimsy at best.

Moving the Collins and Flake deals through the House was always going to be an uphill climb, with a conservative bloc sharply opposed to both measures, having dubbed DACA a de facto form of amnesty and arguing that the health insurance market stabilization bills that Collins supports are tantamount to a bailout for health insurers and what they view as a broken system. On Monday, those conservatives railed against McConnell for making promises on legislation that they have long opposed.

“We still have the same issues. Nothing has changed in the last two months just because we’re fulfilling our promise on delivering on tax reform,” Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Daily Beast. “I find it problematic to be promising something that the House has shunned from very early on.”

Lawmakers made it clear that they felt no reason to support the proposed deals, and blamed Senate leaders for trying to wheel and deal their way to a successful result on reforming the tax code and slashing rates, an issue they believe all Republicans should have been united around from the start.

“I think this is exactly what the American people are sick of: learning about trading votes to modify the healthcare system and one fifth of the economy in exchange for a tax vote,” Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told The Daily Beast. “So it seems like it would be wiser for Republicans to actually follow what is in the Republican platform and not what is in the Democratic platform.”

GOP leadership has long had difficulty corralling its conservative members on even its own agenda. And on Monday, aides scoffed at the idea that leadership would be able to sell them on swallowing what the Senate’s more moderate lawmakers produced in their tax bill—let alone really try.

“McConnell is asking for us to vote for these unpalatable things to do tax reform,” a conservative House GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “We have someone who’s taking a hostage, we have to negotiate with them, and, oh, they happen to be from the same party.”

The aide was granted anonymity to candidly discuss House conservatives’ longstanding frustrations with the Senate and with McConnell throughout the Trump presidency, in particular the upper chamber’s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The likelihood that the House declines to follow through on either the Collins or Flake measures may not, in the end, complicate tax reform at all. The Senate has already passed its tax bill and the House could simply pass the Senate’s bill—meaning that even if the senators raise objections, the bill would still be able to pass.

That was the risk each senator took by giving up their votes before firmly securing their legislative promises.

Collins had been extremely skeptical of the Senate bill because it included a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate—something that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says would result in 13 million more Americans uninsured over the next 10 years. She demanded that Congress pass two bills in exchange: one crafted by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) that aims to lower premiums in 2018; the other co-authored by Collins and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and would provide a federal reinsurance pool worth $4.5 billion.

Flake, meanwhile, is one of a few Republicans who supports a bipartisan version of the DREAM Act that was introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). But while Durbin, the Senate Minority Whip, has said he’s willing to block any spending bill that does not codify DREAMer protections before the end of the year, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate have said they don’t plan to deal with the issue by the end of the year. The White House, meanwhile, has stressed that they only promised Flake a seat at the table, not a final legislative outcome.

On Monday, Flake downplayed the significance of the administration’s commitment to work with DACA, which was given when Trump first announced he was rescinding the program in September with a six-month phase-out. Instead, the Arizona senator described it as an affirmation of Congress’ role in the process.

“Both the vice president and the president have said they want to work with me on it. That wasn’t my condition to vote for the bill. It wasn’t. It was a secondary thing. But I’m glad I got it,” Flake told The Daily Beast in an interview. “The problem is what we’ve seen so far for Congress, it seems, is not in the attempt to reach a deal [but] to make a statement rather than make a law. And these kids are going to be timed out here soon. And so we’ve got to actually get serious with it.”

Flake has been one of Trump’s sharpest critics. When he announced in October that he wasn’t seeking re-election in 2018, he took to the Senate floorto cast Trump as a “reckless” threat to democracy.

On DACA, though, the senator appears to have faith in Trump.

“I’ve said before I think this is one area the president has said some good things about wanting to do it. I think his instincts on DACA, at least, are probably better than some of the advice that he’s gotten on this,” Flake added.

Wyoming echo - spike Republican health plan

Jackson Hole Wyoming News

Certinly, Jackson Hole Wyoming isn't where liberals hang out, which is why this published opinion by Eugene Robinson in the Jackson Hole News and Guide, in Wyoming, caught my eye. 

Television journalist and author Tom Brokaw didn't seem to catch this opion published in:

Although the Republican doomed efforts at their cruel health care reform are temporarily on hold, their efforts could strike like a Wyoming snake in the night, if poeple like Eugene Robinson let their guard down. Kudos to the Jackson Hold News for printing this opinion:

Keep focus on killing cruel health care bill- Eugene Robinson published in the opinion page of the Jackson Hole News & Guide (Tom Brokaw alert!)

Focus, America, focus. The most urgent task right now is to make sure a stake is driven through the heart of the GOP effort to gut Medicaid and balloon the ranks of the uninsured.

I know that the Russia investigations are charging ahead, with Capitol Hill appearances by members of President Trump’s inner circle scheduled for next week. I know that Trump gave an unhinged interview to The New York Times on Wednesday, bizarrely undermining his own attorney general. I know that one of the few remaining giants in Washington, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has received a tough medical diagnosis.

There will be time to digest all of that. At present, however, health care is still the main event (and it continues because the GOP doesn't like the bitter taste of defeat). 

This isn't the first time the Republicans’ gratuitously cruel effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act has looked dead. 

In March, House Speaker Paul Ryan called off a showdown vote, glumly declaring, “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” But he managed to get a revised measure passed in May, prompting Trump to hold a sophomoric victory rally at the White House.

That bill would have caused 23 million people to lose health insurance (more than 17,000 of them are in Wyoming!) over a decade and slashed Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Action then shifted to the Senate, which came up with a bill that would grow the numbers of uninsured by 22 million and cut Medicaid by $772 billion. Experts gave differing opinions on which version was more cruel.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s attempt to ram through his monstrosity collapsed in a heap last weekend, as both the far-right and moderate wings of the GOP caucus balked. In desperation, McConnell then proposed an approach that Trump once ruled out but now eagerly embraces: Repeal the Affordable Care Act now and worry about replacing it later.

According to the CBO, taking the repeal-only route would mean 17 million more uninsured within a year and 32 million more in a decade. Insurance premiums would soar, and in more than half the nation’s counties there would be no insurers willing to service the individual market. Appalling.

McConnell’s gambit appeared to fail Tuesday when three GOP moderates — Susan Collins, of Maine, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia — announced they would vote no. Their stance means McConnell lacks the votes even to open debate on repeal-only, let alone pass it. That should be the end of the story.

But it would be a mistake to take anything for granted. Senate naysayers are under tremendous pressure to give in, and the reason has nothing to do with health care. It’s pure politics.

For seven years, since the day the Affordable Care Act was passed, Republicans have been vowing to eradicate it “root and branch,” as McConnell likes to say. And for seven years, the GOP has reaped political benefit from that categorical pledge — while giving no serious thought to what a replacement system would look like.

Obamacare, you will recall, was once Romneycare; it was fashioned after a system Mitt Romney successfully implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts. It is based on ideas originally developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation, ideas the GOP once liked — until President Barack Obama embraced them.

While Obama was in office, Republicans in Congress could blithely pass repeal bills knowing the president would never sign them. Now that Trump sits in the Oval Office with pen in hand, however, repeal becomes a real possibility — as do the awful consequences.

McConnell said he will bring the bill up for a vote next week anyway. In effect, he threatens to call the opponents’ bluff. Fortunately, they do not appear to be bluffing. There is no indication that a luncheon Wednesday for GOP senators at the White House — at which Trump basically threatened revenge against anyone who votes no — or a smaller gathering of senators later that evening changed any minds.

But the right-wing message machine will continue to loudly accuse no-voters of committing political treason. So it is more important than ever to remind senators that the repeal-and-replace bill is monumentally unpopular — polls last week showed its approval rating between 12 and 17 percent — and that the legislation’s cost would be paid in human suffering. We would return to the days when medical expenses were the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

Keep the pressure on. The (health care) war is not yet won.(MaineWriter- we can do much better!- Let's try Medicare4All)