Small crowd for the Impeach and Remove rally today. Probably 40 or so people on the march around Philadelphia City Hall this afternoon.
Small crowd for the Impeach and Remove rally today. Probably 40 or so people on the march around Philadelphia City Hall this afternoon.
Maxine Waters @RepMaxineWatersRepresentative Waters tells it like it is! We probably don't need to examine anything further than the excuse offered by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to get an idea of how the Senate is going to vote on Wednesday the Fifth.
I’ve never seen a more insufferable & pathetic group of Senators than those in the GOP. They’ve chosen to strap themselves to a corrupt con man they KNOW is guilty. They’re all cowards. None of them belong in the Senate. They should go home and grow a backbone!
11:42 AM · Feb 1, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
In a statement accompanying the announcement of his vote Thursday, Alexander said that the “there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.”This is essentially a repeat of what the national mood was after President Clinton's impeachment in 1999. Problem is, President Trump is credibly accused of far more than just answering a question about an extramarital affair incorrectly. People, including myself, didn't doubt that Clinton did what he was charged with, but that the charge was insufficient cause for removal from office. Representative, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff:
By not following the will of the people, Schiff said, senators place themselves in danger of their other achievements being overshadowed by their removal vote.When challenged about the fairness and allegedly "rushed" nature of the trial, Schiff pointed out that: “there’s nothing that I can see that we could have done differently because as the senators have already admitted, we proved our case.” and “They’re not spectators. They have control over the proceedings. And they could have insisted on witnesses and documents and for whatever reason, chose not to.”
...
“The founders gave us more than words. They gave us inspiration. They may have receded into mythology, but they inspire us still. And more than us, they inspire the rest of the world. ... And increasingly they don’t recognize what they see. It’s a terrible tragedy for them; it is a worse tragedy for us.”
President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner put out the "peace plan" that we've been waiting for for the past three years. It may have been an attempt at a distraction from the impeachment drama, but if so, it was a complete and utter failure at giving the Palestinian side anything worthwhile. In no way is this plan going to settle or resolve anything. People in my group Christian-Jewish Allies wrote the book Why Palestine Matters: The struggle to end colonialism. A major thesis of the book is that Israel engages in "Settler Colonialism." When Britain took over India, that was not settler colonialism as the British just plain ruled the country and could eventually be kicked out. When European settlers took over what is now the United States, that was settler colonialism as they displaced the native peoples. Citizens of Israel have pushed out and displaced citizens of Palestine. The proposed "Deal of the Century" continues the process of pushing Palestinians into what are effectively copies of South African "bantustans," sort of self-ruling territories with no effective independence.
Under President Trump’s newly unveiled peace plan, the Palestinians will be granted limited autonomy within a Palestinian homeland that consists of multiple non-contiguous enclaves scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The government of Israel will retain security control over the Palestinian enclaves and will continue to control Palestinian borders, airspace, aquifers, maritime waters, and electromagnetic spectrum.Under no circumstances would the citizens of any country consider an arrangement like this to constitute liberty or security.
What does the Palestinian President, Mahmud Abbas, think of the deal?
Abbas explained to the Arab foreign ministers that Palestine had already severed relations with the Trump administration over its recognition in 2017 of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but that Palestine had continued to have a relationship with the US Central Intelligence Agency for the purposes of jointly combating terrorism. It appears that this relationship has also now been ended.Also,
The foreign ministers of the 22 member states of the Arab League voted unanimously completely to reject the Kushner Plan. The Arab League statement explained the rejection, saying that the American Plan did not offer the slightest rights to the Palestinians or provide for any of the aspirations of the Palestinian people.