The easiest and most reliable method of prediction is simply projecting social, economic, cultural and political trends downward while avoiding optimism, All the negative factors have developed in past years. Corrective forces cannot be foreseen with confidence. History shows that such forces may appear, but what they may be and how effective they may become cannot be known ahead of events.
Here and there, however, we can see some immediate crises where solutions may develop at any moment. I’m thinking right now about the Jeffrey Toobin scandal. New Yorker magazine has already fired him for pleasuring himself during a zoom conference. It’s explanation? Its desire to foster “an environment where everyone feels respected and upholds our standards of conduct.” Fair enough, but CNN hasn’t announced whether it intends to retain him as its chief legal analyst. Does it have standards? Any kind of standards?
Maybe. It has announced that it will hire a key witness of the incident. Participants in the Zoom conference must be anxious to know what set Jeffrey off. Was it me? Was it him? Was it her? CNN can’t leave these questions unanswered.
Donald Trump’s future will remain uncertain for the some years. But we can predict one aspect. He will continue to tell the world that he’s a winner. He must insist to he dying day that he won the 2021 election, probably by a huge margin. His victory may have been stolen, but he’s still the winner. He has to be. It can’t be otherwise. This might explain his fury at any mention of Richard Nixon’s resignation. He has forbidden any mention of his predecessor departure. Losers resign. Winners don’t. Trump has asked for a major send-off on Inauguration Day next week, according to people familiar with the matter, before one last presidential flight to Palm Beach.
Trump shut the idea down almost immediately. And he has made clear to aides in separate conversations that mere mention of President Richard Nixon, the last president to resign, was banned. It appears he expects a ceremonious presidential send-off on his last flight to his Florida palace.
Impeachment, not presidential pomp and circumstances, is now in the air. The House voted 232-197 with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats, to impeach Trump for the second time with a week left to go in his term, The impeachers must move fast to catch the villain before he leaves office. Nancy Pelosi has chosen ed nine House managers to prosecute Trump on a single charge of incitement of insurrection during the Senate impeachment trial. Although the constitutional purpose of impeachment is to remove a federal official from office, this time a Senate trial would not occur until after Biden is sworn into office at noon next Wednesday. The Senate could, however, vote to prevent Trump from holding another federal office or revoke the benefits of a former president.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former law professor at American University, will lead the House impeachment managers. He tried in early 2017 to block Congress from certifying Trump’s election victory. He also advocated using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
1. Jamie Raskin: Early Objector, 25th Amendment Advocate
In October, Raskin sponsored legislation promoting a role for Congress in invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which was designed to be used for continuity of government if the president is incapacitated .
2. California’s Eric Swalwell has been in the national spotlight for the past month about the nature of his relationship with Christine Fang, a Chinese national who the FBI suspects of being a spy. Pelosi has defended Swalwell and rejected calls to remove him from the intelligence committee. He was among the most aggressive promoters of the narrative that Trump and his campaign conspired with the Russian government to rig the election. He compared what he called Trump-Russia collusion with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
3. David Cicilline: a former mayor of Providence now in his sixth term in Congress, is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and a former public prosecutor. Gay rights activists celebrate Cicilline as the first openly gay mayor of a state capital in the United States. He has been less celebrated as the son of a Mafia lawyer and brother convicted on federal charges in a courthouse corruption scheme.
4. Rep Ted Lieu a four-term Democrat, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, is a former Air Force prosecutor in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps has made a career of trolling Trump. He has somehow found time to attack V.P. Pence’s wife for her religious beliefs.
5. Rep. Joaquin Castro proposed impeachment in 2017. He has been a lawyer in private practice and chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations. In 2017, after a federal judge struck down Trump’s restrictions on travel from several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle Eastern, Castro began talking about impeachment.
6. Colorado’s Diana DeGette, in her 13th term, is chair of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. She worked as a lawyer in private practice. She has worked hard and ineffectively on controlling Americans exercising their Second Amendments. Despite her energetic efforts she made national news when she revealed that she was ignorant of the fact that magazines could be reloaded. NRA’s two word verdict: “Pretty stupid.”
7. Stacey Plaskett represents the Virgin Islands, She has been a state prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office and senior counsel at the Justice Department. she said.
8. Rep. Madeleine Dean is a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
9. Joe Neguse was a litigator in private practice.
My prediction for Nancy’s production: boredom, soon forgotten.
John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.