By Donald A. Collins | 15 February 2021
Church and State
Page one NY Times on Sunday February 14th, St Valintine’s Day story by Peter Baker and Sabrina Tavernise “Clearest Record of the Attack, the Close Calls and the Near Misses” shocked me to the quick.
That our beloved two party system suddenly was exposed as weak and vulnerable while only 7 Republican Senators voted to convict the evil Trump, while their leader Mitch McConnell agreed Trump was guilty yet joined 42 other Republicans in not convicting this dangerous felon who continues to hold huge sway in his party.
A Senate still bruised from the most violent attack on the Capitol in two centuries acquitted former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday in his second impeachment trial, as all but a few Republicans locked arms to reject a case that he incited the Jan. 6 rampage in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.
Under the watch of National Guard troops still patrolling the historic building, a bipartisan majority cast votes finding Mr. Trump guilty of the House’s single charge of “incitement of insurrection.” They included seven Republicans, more members of a president’s party than have ever returned an adverse verdict in an impeachment trial.
But with most of Mr. Trump’s party coalescing around him, the 57-to-43 tally fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and allow the Senate to move to disqualify him from holding future office.
…
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, embodied the tortured balancing act, denouncing Mr. Trump on Saturday, minutes after voting to acquit him, for a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” In blistering remarks from the Senate floor, Mr. McConnell, who had openly considered voting to convict Mr. Trump, effectively argued that he was guilty as charged, while arguing that there was nothing the Senate could do about it.
Trump acquitted of inciting insurrection, even as bipartisan majority votes ‘guilty’ https://t.co/uiAZQpbU4A
— MSN News (@MSNNews) February 14, 2021
I wrote many pieces before November 3rd and after which forecast Trump’s usurpation of unwarranted power because of Republican weakness.
The Achilles Heel in our system has emerged, recognized and acknowledged and left open for Trump’s or anyone’s future abuse.
McConnell, you are a pitiful excuse for a leader.
Among those 7 who showed courage we can only pray you will be selected to assume power in this deeply flawed and politically immoral party’s future.
Those House Impeachment Managers led by Jamie Raskin seem to me to be huge National heroes from now on, places from which future leadership will emerge!
Meantime our democracy is perched on the razor’s edge and could go either way into the Slough of Dictatorship or the renewal of true leadership.
At nearly 90 I may not be around to learn the outcome.
Half of Americans view Trump's presidency as a failure https://t.co/tGwYkyf8dE pic.twitter.com/m8IF1KD8HU
— Forbes (@Forbes) February 15, 2021
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store
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