Would Out Founding Fathers Impeach Donald Trump?

It's beyond argument that Donald Trump broke the law when he tried to extort Ukraine by withholding military aid passed by Congress, and then tried to bribe them by promising a White House visit -- all to try to get them to help his re-election effort by getting them to announce they were investigating wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his son.

Democrats think this criminal conduct by Trump is impeachable. Republicans say it is not. And voters across the nation are split on that question.

Robert Reich asks an interesting question. What would the Founding Fathers of the United States have done? Would they have impeached Trump, or just dismissed his criminal conduct as politics? Here is what Reich wrote:

Initially, some of the delegates didn’t want to include impeachment in the Constitution, arguing that if a president was bad he’d be voted out at the next election. But what if the president was so bad that the country couldn’t wait until the next election? Which is why Franklin half-joked that anyone who wished to be president should support an impeachment clause because the alternative was assassination.

So they agreed that Congress should have the power to impeach a president—but on what grounds? The initial impeachment clause borrowed from established concepts in English law and state constitutions, allowing impeachment for “maladministration”—basically incompetence, akin to a vote of no confidence.

James Madison and others argued this was too vague a standard. They changed it to “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

But what did this mean?

One of the biggest fears of the founding fathers was that the new nation might fall under the sway of foreign powers. That’s what had happened in Europe over the years, where one nation or another had fallen prey to bribes, treaties and ill-advised royal marriages from other nations. 

So those who gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution included a number of provisions to guard against foreign intrusion in American democracy. One was the emoluments clause, barring international payments or gifts to a president or other federal elected official. The framers of the Constitution worried that without this provision, a president might be bribed by a foreign power to betray America.

The delegates to the Convention were also concerned that a foreign power might influence the outcome of an election. 

They wanted to protect the new United States from what Alexander Hamilton called the “desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.“ Or as James Madison put it, protect the new country from a president who’d "betray his trust to foreign powers.” Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who initially had opposed including an impeachment clause, agreed to include it in order to avoid “the danger of seeing the first Magistrate in foreign pay.”

During the Virginia ratifying convention, Edmund Randolph explicitly connected impeachment to foreign money, saying that a president “may be impeached” if discovered “receiving emoluments [help] from foreign powers.” George Washington, in his farewell address, warned of “the insidious wiles of foreign influence.”

You don’t have to be a so-called “originalist,” interpreting the Constitution according to what the founders were trying to do at the time, in order to see how dangerous it is to allow a president to seek help in an election from a foreign power.

If a president can invite a foreign power to influence the outcome of an election, there’s no limit to how far foreign powers might go to curry favor with a president by helping to take down his rivals. That would be the end of democracy as we know it. 

Now, fast forward 232 years from that Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to Donald Trump.

It’s not just the official summary of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky in which after telling Zelensky how good America has been to Ukraine, Trump asks for “a favor, though” and then explicitly asks Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, one of Trump’s most likely opponents in the 2020 election.

Trump’s entire presidency has been shadowed by questions of foreign interference favoring him. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation documented extensive contacts between Trump’s associates and Russian figures—concluding that the Kremlin sought specifically to help Trump get elected, and that Trump’s campaign welcomed Russia’s help. 

Trump at one point in the 2016 election campaign even publicly called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, and within hours Russian agents sought to do just that by trying to break into her computer servers.

More recently, he openly called on China’s help, saying before cameras “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”

This is an impeachable offense, according to the framers of the Constitution. Trump did it. 

Case closed.

The Trump Administration Threatens To Use Justice Department To Suppress Our Free Press

Our Founding Fathers knew that the representative democracy they created could not be sustained unless the people knew the truth, and they understood that could only be accomplished with a free and unfettered press. They thought this was so important that they included it in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Trump administration doesn't agree. Trump has repeatedly attacked the press through lies and propaganda. He thinks the press should only report what he wants them to report. Now the Trump administration is going further, as Attorney General Sessions is threatening to use the power of the Justice Department to suppress our free press. This is a dark time for truth and democracy.

This is what Dan Rather had to say about this new threat:

With all due respect, Mr. President and Attorney General Sessions, it appears you can't handle the truth. 

I understand that the press has been a mighty check on the lies, inconsistencies, and cynical ploys that have been coming out of this White House. I understand that it has led to public outcry and a wide ranging criminal investigation by a Special Counsel. I understand that much of this reporting has been based on leaks and unnamed sources, from inside the Administration and from especially the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The exercise of a free and independent press has been the exact bulwark against a government in need of accountability - just as our Founding Fathers envisioned. I shudder to think where we would be without it today. 

So the news that the Justice Department is devoting significant resources to tracking down leaks and changing the rules to target the press is a chilling development. There are certainly times when an issue of great national security should not be shared with the public. And most of the journalism organizations I have known or been a part of take that responsibility very seriously. There are some cases where prosecuting leakers may - may - be warranted. But that is not what is going on here. The goal is very clear. The President has complained bitterly of leaks because he doesn't want to be questioned, even when he has been caught in lie after lie. 

“We respect the important role that the press plays and will give them respect, but it is not unlimited,” Mr. Sessions said. “They cannot place lives at risk with impunity.” That is true. So the question is, what lives have been put at risk with all this reporting? And with impunity? Please save us the disingenuousness. 

The free press is performing exactly as it needs to. And the proof of that is how seriously those who wish their actions remain undetectable consider the press to be their enemy. 

Most reporters I have known take a naked threat such as this as further inspiration to dig even harder to expose the truth. News, as I have said, is what the powerful want to keep hidden.

Would Our Founding Fathers Be Proud Of Us?

The above chart was made from a recent Rasmussen Poll -- done on November 21st and 22nd of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a margin of error of about 3 points. The question they asked was meaningless, but still interesting, because it reveals a bit about what Americans today think of their own country.

What they asked poll respondents was -- If the Founding Fathers Could See America Today, Would They Consider It A Success Or A Failure?

Amazingly, at least to me, nearly half of the poll's respondents (about 46%) said they think the Founding Fathers would consider today's United States to be a failure. I am astounded by that. The United States is the richest and most powerful nation in the world -- both militarily and economically. And more of its people enjoy the rights guaranteed by the Constitution than ever before.

We have not solved all of our problems, and they would probably be a little disappointed by that. We have let the corporations take over much of our government, and we still don't offer an equal opportunity for success to everyone in this country -- but that doesn't mean the country is not a success (but just that work remains to be done).

Do these people saying America would be viewed as a failure really think the Founding Fathers didn't want any change? If so, then I believe they are wrong. The Founding Fathers knew they had not created a perfect country -- a utopia. They hoped, and I believe expected, that we would improve on what they had done -- and we have. And hopefully we will improve even more in the future on the legacy they left us.

I am in that 36% who think the Founding Fathers would think the United States is a huge success. I think they would be proud of what we have accomplished. What do you think?

Never A Christian Nation

This is just a reminder for those right-wing fundamentalists who would like to rewrite history. Some of our Founding Fathers were christians, and others were not -- but none of them meant to create a christian nation. That's why they included the concept of religion in our Constitution. They wanted a nation where believers (in any religion) and non-believers could live together, with each respecting the rights of the other. Those who would make christianity (or any religion) the official religion of this country are not only violating the Constitution -- they are going against the wishes of our Founding Fathers.

U.S. Has Always Been A Secular Nation

Those fundamentalists who claim the United States was founded to be a christian nation are denying history. The Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the Senate in 1797 (just 10 years after the Constitution was written), clearly shows the intention of the Founding Fathers was to create a secular nation -- and that's exactly what they did. That's also why they included religious freedom in the Bill of Rights -- because they wanted a secular nation that would treat all religions fairly, and with no government favoritism of any religion. Those are the facts.

Individual Mandate To Buy Health Insurance Is Constitutional

The president's health care law is currently before the Supreme Court to determine whether it is constitutional or not. The main argument of those who believe it is not constitutional is that the individual mandate that forces people to purchase insurance is not only unprecedented, but would not have been considered constitutional by the framers of the Constitution (or the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence). That is simply not true. Individual mandates do have precedent in our history and were supported by the framers and founders.

The following article was taken from The New Republic. It was written by Einer R. Elhauge, who is on the faculty of Harvard Law School. Professor Elhauge also joined an amicus brief supporting the mandate's constitutionality. Here is what he wrote:

In making the legal case against Obamacare’s individual mandate, challengers have argued that the framers of our Constitution would certainly have found such a measure to be unconstitutional. Nevermind that nothing in the text or history of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause indicates that Congress cannot mandate commercial purchases. The framers, challengers have claimed, thought a constitutional ban on purchase mandates was too “obvious” to mention. Their core basis for this claim is that purchase mandates are unprecedented, which they say would not be the case if it was understood this power existed.

But there’s a major problem with this line of argument: It just isn’t true. The founding fathers, it turns out, passed several mandates of their own. In 1790, the very first Congress—which incidentally included 20 framers—passed a law that included a mandate: namely, a requirement that ship owners buy medical insurance for their seamen. This law was then signed by another framer: President George Washington. That’s right, the father of our country had no difficulty imposing a health insurance mandate.

That’s not all. In 1792, a Congress with 17 framers passed another statute that required all able-bodied men to buy firearms. Yes, we used to have not only a right to bear arms, but a federal duty to buy them. Four framers voted against this bill, but the others did not, and it was also signed by Washington. Some tried to repeal this gun purchase mandate on the grounds it was too onerous, but only one framer voted to repeal it.

Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another founder, President John Adams.

Not only did most framers support these federal mandates to buy firearms and health insurance, but there is no evidence that any of the few framers who voted against these mandates ever objected on constitutional grounds. Presumably one would have done so if there was some unstated original understanding that such federal mandates were unconstitutional. Moreover, no one thought these past purchase mandates were problematic enough to challenge legally.

True, one could try to distinguish these other federal mandates from the Affordable Care Act mandate. One could argue that the laws for seamen and ship owners mandated purchases from people who were already engaged in some commerce. But that is no less true of everyone subject to the health-insurance mandate: Indeed, virtually all of us get some health care every five years, and the few exceptions could hardly justify invalidating all applications of the statute. One could also argue (as the challengers did) that activity in the health care market isn’t enough to justify a purchase mandate in the separate health insurance market. But the early mandates required shippers and seamen to buy health insurance without showing they were active in any market for health insurance or even health care, which was far more rare back then.

Nor do any of these attempted distinctions explain away the mandate to buy guns, which was not limited to persons engaged in commerce. One might try the different distinction that the gun purchase mandate was adopted under the militia clause rather than the commerce clause. But that misses the point: This precedent (like the others) disproves the challengers’ claim that the framers had some general unspoken understanding against purchase mandates.

In oral arguments before the court two weeks ago, the challengers also argued that the health insurance mandate was not “proper” in a way that allows it to be justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause. These precedents rebut that claim because they indicate that the framers thought not just purchase mandates but medical insurance mandates were perfectly proper indeed. 

Santorum Proves He's An Idiot

Someone on his campaign staff should have reminded Rick Santorum of the old adage that "it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". Because this right-wing nut has opened his mouth and shown the entire country that he is without a doubt a complete idiot. It's not the first time Santorum has let his mouth overload his ass, but it may be the most egregious.

What did he say this time? Well, he's decided that America is not as free as it was during the time of the Founding Fathers (1787?). This is what he told an Iowa crowd at a campaign stop last weekend:

Our founders said [our] rights were given to us to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Does anyone here believe that first inalienable right is as whole as it was at the time of our founding? It isn’t. Does anyone believe that our freedom is as whole as it was at the time of our founders? It is not.

How could he possibly believe (or even utter) such a ridiculous thing? Did he skip every day of his American History classes in high school? While the Founding Fathers did a great thing by giving us our independence and our Constitution, they actually provided freedom and rights to only a limited minority of the residents of this country at that time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the huge majority of African-Americans still slaves at that time? They would not be freed for another eight decades, and would not be guaranteed equal rights by the government for another hundred years after that. And that's not all. Women could not vote (or even own property in many places). It was not until the early Twentieth Century that all American women were given the right to vote.

To believe Santorum's statement is true, you would have to believe that only white male property-owners deserved freedom -- because those were the only people who had freedom at the time of our Founding Fathers. But then I sometimes believe that is exactly what many Republican right-wingers, especially the teabaggers, actually do believe.

The truth is that while this country has not yet fulfilled its promise of freedom and equality for all its citizens, the United States is today a freer country than it has ever been in the past. And only a total idiot would say otherwise.  

Honor America Today - Then Make It Better

It's the Fourth of July, America's birthday. This is the day we celebrate declaring our independence from Great Britain and glorify the Founding Fathers for not only declaring that independence, but also fighting to make it a reality. And I have no problem with that. I am also glad that happened, and I am glad I was born in this country.

But this is also the time that some want to celebrate "American exceptionalism" -- the idea that somehow we are better than other nations because of what the Founding Fathers did back in 1776 (and in 1787, when the Constitution was written). I have always been uncomfortable with this view of America. This was not a perfect country when it was created, and we still aren't living up to the ideals we claim to believe in.

We claim to believe in freedom, and yet when the country was created a large part of the population was living as slaves (and it was even written into the Constitution that these slaves would only count as 3/5 of a person). It would not be until decades after the Constitution was written that slavery would be outlawed, and then another hundred years after that before laws were written to give the descendants of those slaves the same rights as other Americans.

We claim to believe in equal rights, but we are still struggling to guarantee those rights to all of our citizens. When this nation was created, the right to vote was granted only to a small number of citizens -- those who were white, who owned property, and who were male. If you did not meet all of those requirements then you did not have full and equal rights.

It was not until the early part of the Twentieth Century (about a century and a half after the country was created) that women were even given the right to vote in all of the states. And it was not until the 1960s that the right to vote was guaranteed to African-Americans in all states. Even today, gays and lesbians are denied rights in most states that other Americans take for granted.

Too often, right-wingers in this country try to make it sound like our Founding Fathers created a perfect country -- which we have messed up. That is ridiculous. Our Founding Fathers were flawed men who created a deeply flawed country. It is to their credit that they provided a way to change that deeply flawed country by amending the Constitution which governs it. But whether those on the right like it or not, we live today in a freer and more equal country than at any other time in the history of this country -- that is just a fact.

Our Founding Fathers knew they had not created a heaven on Earth. That is why they provided the means for change. And I expect many of them wanted and expected their descendants to make changes to this country -- changes that would fulfill the dreams they had.

I honor our Founding Fathers on this day. But I also honor the many Americans who came after them and made the country even better. But if there is one thing that needs to be realized on this auspicious day, it is that the job of making America even better has not been finished (and in fact may never be). It is our job to build upon what our ancestors have done and make this country better for all Americans -- regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, age, color, or sexual preference.

This is a day when we should remember and honor our past. But it is also a day when we should re-dedicate ourselves to doing our part to making this country better for all its citizens. Failure to do so would dishonor those who came before us.

The Radical James Madison

Adam Cohen over at Zero Energy Construction did a post on the quotes of Founding Father James Madison.   I thought it was excellent so I'm reposting them here:


"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."

"America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts."

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

"Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic."

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."

"Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

"I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment."

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

"In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority."

"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."

"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty."

"The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy."

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."

An American Hero And Fixing A Flawed Vision

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Last Saturday night, I heard one of our modern politicians say that our Founding Fathers "had it right". That is a popular notion these days. It is also wrong. While they had the vision to create a new Republic and set it on the path toward justice and freedom, we must admit that their vision was seriously flawed.

Among other injustices, their flawed vision allowed for the existence of slavery and counted these slaves as only three/fifths of a person. Fortunately, through the efforts of great American heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we have been able to correct their flawed vision in many ways. But it is still a work in progress.

Maybe someday, with a little luck and a lot of hard work and sacrifice, we can truly make that flawed vision "right".