Tag Archives: impeachment

Near and far

Last night my city, Newton, Massachusetts, became the 14th community to pass a local resolution asking the federal House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether there is cause for impeachment based on Trump violating the two Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution (there is). And, for Obstruction of Justice.

I helped! It was K’s birthday last night so I didn’t attend the second of two hearings, but I dutifully wrote my letters and spoke at the last hearing. I’ll admit that I didn’t think it was going to pass.

The Resolution can be viewed as a formal way of asking the House to do one of its most important jobs: performing oversight of the Executive Branch.

The resolutions have been passed by cities in Massachusetts, California, and Vermont. Hopefully, more and more towns and cities will do the same.

The idea of these resolutions is to create tangible evidence of the citizens’ will to adhere to the Constitution. It is all about applying pressure. It is not to make the argument for impeachment.

As you all know, the delay in impeaching this autocratic, corrupt and destructive president is not a problem of evidence. It’s not a problem of having too many possible judicial interpretations of the Constitution. It is solely a problem of the failure of political will. Party over country, etc.

I’ve said enough about this elsewhere, so I’ll leave it at that.

The digital collage was chosen for its juxtaposition of near and far views — the window into a home and the observatory with a view of the heavens — which goes to the relationship between local and federal power. Detractors of the resolution argued that it overreached the correct exercise of local power. Bah, I said to that and will say to that again: Bah!

Civil War not Watergate

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I was pawing through boxes of historic fiction at the Schenectady Library book sale not long ago, when one of the volunteers sidled up to me and said, “This one’s really good.” Of course I bought it.

(Don’t you love volunteers? Better yet, volunteers that read? I suppose I don’t need to tell you that she was grey-haired, shorter than me, and about ten years older?)

“My Name is Mary Sutter” by Robin Oliveira* tracks the experiences of a headstrong midwife from Albany who volunteers as a nurse in Washington during the Civil War. Not only was it a good read (a downright page turner, in fact), the novel also offered a provocative model for my own writing.

Oliveira manages to include tons of vivid historic detail without ever letting the story falter. I learned so much about medical training/procedures of the era, the war, the physical state of the capital at that time, and the limiting expectations foisted upon women in the mid-nineteenth century. Even so, the story and the characters drove the narrative, start to finish. I couldn’t put it down.

Hospital wards for the wounded are a grim landscape, of course, and Oliveira does not spare us. There are descriptions of grotesque amputations, filth, fever, and the suffering caused by inadequate supplies and staff. The sense of national loss is overwhelming. Personally, Mary Sutter suffers one loss after another herself and is tormented by the notion that she has her ambition to blame.

Though unrelentingly dark, the themes of forgiveness and redemption also run through these pages. It’s a tale of striving, grief, and resilience — on both personal and national levels.

I didn’t expect to find relevant political wisdom within, but did.

These words take my breath away. Not surprisingly, they describe Lincoln’s sense of urgency in a moment of crisis — his awareness of how much was at stake.

“A country’s imminent failure should
rouse even the stars to fainting.”

Wow. They have stayed with me for days.

I’d like to tattoo them on Nancy Pelosi’s forehead. Or, email them to the Newton City Council, which seems poised to shoot down a House Resolution on Impeachment at a hearing tomorrow for various lame reasons.

The quote wakes me up to the fact that the Civil War is a far better historic reference for our current catastrophic government than Watergate. Then as now, it is not at all clear that we will survive as a nation.

Enough!

Afternotes:
More about the local impeachment resolution on my Tumblr blog here.

*The author describes the fascinating genesis of the novel and her research here.

The B&W photo is mine from Climate Science March, Boston, 2017

Don’t be fooled

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Don’t let the bedroom eyes fool you.He desperately wants to eat the doll lying there, a mere five inches from his nose.

Evening found me in a Newton Corner church shoulder to shoulder with like minded neighbors. None of us have been fooled — not for a New York minute.

Free Speech for People and Roots Action leading the charge.

impeachdonaldtrumpnow.com

The idea is to get cities and towns to pass resolutions asking the House to begin investigating whether there are grounds for impeachment (there are, of course — more unfolding by the day). The idea is to express tangible outrage and exert public pressure.

They are focusing on the emoluments clause because that evidence is already in, even without the tax returns. DJT has been in violation of it for every minute of every hour since he took the oath of office.