Tag Archives: impeachment

Trump and Nixon

Yes, this is Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. The photograph was taken at the Westin Galleria March 11, 1989, at a fundraising event, Houston High Society’s Party of the Year. Nixon would have been about 76 years old. He had resigned the presidency fifteen years earlier. Trump would be about 43 years old, working on building his empire. Trump had been courting the disgraced Nixon at least since 1983 when he invited Nixon to move into Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump lived. A series of letters between the two, previously unknown, was revealed to the public by the Nixon Foundation just two years ago.

A footnote is appropriate here. The image Donald Trump paints of himself as a self-made, tremendously wealthy, successful businessman has always been a fraud. That Donald Trump is a fictional character created as the star of the NBC television program, The Apprentice. The image was crafted by television producer Mark Burnett in 2004 and promoted heavily by NBC under the guidance of then CEO Jeff Zucker. That character never existed.

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And So It Goes….

US Senate

It is over now. In the 241 year history of the United States there have only been three impeachment trials of a president. The impeachment of Donald J. Trump ended just as expected, with his acquittal by the United States Senate. The Senators sat as jurors but heard no live witnesses and read no documentary evidence other than that gathered by the House of Representatives. That was a marked departure from all other impeachment trials in the Senate.

What have we learned? We have learned that our government process has devolved into one where only party loyalty and raw political power counts. The House, with the Democrats in the majority, did not allow Republicans to call witnesses. The Senate, with the Republicans in the majority, blocked witnesses and documents and considered voting to “dismiss” the charges without even allowing the House managers to present their case.

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