Censure?

“The readiest surest way to get rid of censure is to correct ourselves.” Demosthenes

At bridge Terry Brendel argued that Congress should censure Trump for his actions regarding Ukraine rather than go through an impeachment trial that will inevitably end in him remaining in office and hand him an issue in his re-election bid.  A Los Angeles Times editorial laid out the rationale:

    A House vote to impeach President Trump appears inevitable. So how can the country be spared the further division that would come from a wrenching impeachment trial? One solution would be for House Democrats and Republicans to take an unprecedented step in American history: Adopt a joint resolution censuring the president for improper conduct. Such an action would put presidents on notice that manipulating foreign governments to extract personal political gain is unacceptable. In return, Democrats would agree to drop impeachment articles.

    Censure is neither endorsed nor prohibited by the Constitution, which makes it a good escape hatch. And it’s not a completely novel idea. Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, two great public servants of different political stripes, courageously advocated for censure in December 1998 to ward off a trial in the Clinton case. The country would have been better off if Democrats and Republicans had embraced the idea.

The only problem with this scenario is that the Republicans remain in lockstep with Trump, the Constitution be damned. Dean Bottorff replied to my post:

    Your argument makes sense. However, in the words of H.L. Mencken: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." I will posit that a simple censure is wrong, if only because the facts of what Trump did are undeniable and present a fundamental threat to American democracy. Obviously, the Republicans, who have become the Party of Party (not unlike the former Ba’ath Party of Iraq or the NSDAP of Germany), act only as sycophants of their leader. Conventional wisdom says you are correct about the outcome. But I would argue that even if impeachment ultimately fails, it is not necessarily a given that this will improve Trump’s re-election prospects; and, quite possibly, will weaken the re-election prospects of the Republican senators who vote to acquit despite overwhelming and damning evidence of wrongdoing clearly within the scope of what the framers considered “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Moreover, this modern Republican party should forever be damned by history.

Ray Smock

Ray Smock also disagreed with the L.A. Times, arguing:

Censure is a joke. A slap on the wrist with no consequences. Why would we censure a president for committing high crimes and misdemeanors when the Constitution provides the remedy?  The Democrats have the high moral and legal ground no matter what happens in Mitch McConnell’s Senate.

Anne Koehler Wrote: “Another way out would be for Trump to resign like Nixon.  Fat chance.”

Trump reached a new low, if that is possible, with a fake orgasm mockery of former FBI lawyers Lisa Page (above) and Peter Strzok at a campaign rally. On a lighter note Senator Kamala Harris responded to Trump’s sarcastic tweet that he’ll miss her now that she’s dropped out of the Presidential race by answering, “Don’t worry, Mr. President.  I’ll see you at your trial.”  During a House impeachment hearing, after Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan stated that under our current system a President may name a child Barron but cannot anoint a nobleman, the White House put out a statement under Melania’s name chastising her.  Karlan subsequently apologized, something foreign to Trump’s DNA.

In a Banta Center club championship game Norm Filipiak and I, partnering for the first time, finished fifth out of fifteen with 53.2%, good for.83 of a master point.  After working as a manager for JC Penney and Sears in several locations, including Jackson, Michigan, he purchased a bakery and an entertainment center in Michigan City.  On the way home at Route 49 and the tollway entrance I got caught in a horrendous traffic jam due to the light being out.  There was no cop on the scene to direct traffic.  Because my rotator cuff has been giving me problems, I asked Joel Charpentier to bowl for me. Joel, who hadn’t bowled in three years, struggled for seven frames, then tripled and finished with a 169. I left early and got a holiday haircut from Anna in Portage.  At Nativity Church I picked up two packages of oplatki Christmas wafers, a Polish tradition, one for our family and the other for Toni’s sister Marianne. In Nativity’s office was a former student named Guernsey from my Vietnam war course.

 oplatki wafers; below, Sandy and Sara Carlson at Valparaiso University

Neighbor George Schott hosted the annual condo owners meeting, my first since serving as secretary for eight years.  Three longtime board members, former president Ken Carlson, Treasurer Kevin Cessna, and President Sandy Carlson, all announced their intention to retire, and only one person was willing to serve in their place.  Sandy tried to get me to come back onto the board, and I offered to do so in two years if she served another term.  She reluctantly agreed and persuaded two women to jointly serve. The issue of snow removal came up.  The company charges $400 each time it plows and $350 to shovel sidewalks.  Most residents enter their units through their garage and don’t mind taking caring of their own sidewalks, but the condo could be liable if someone delivering packages has an accident.

Jimbo Jammers finished the regular Fantasy Football season 10-2-1, usually good enough for first place, but Phil edged me out by a half-game.  We both have a bye in the initial round of the six-team playoff and hope to meet in the finals.

The guilty pleasure HBO series “Mrs. Fletcher” stars Kathryn Hahn as Eve, a horny divorced housewife suffering from empty nest syndrome after her lunkhead son Brendan (Jackson White) goes off to college.  It opens with Eve, a senior center administrator, hearing loud moans emanating from the common room where folks are knitting and playing checkers.  The source: an old man’s computer. The geezer’s son tries to stick up for him by telling Eve, “He has no pleasures in life.  You have any idea what that’s like?”  After a friend calls her a MILF (Mom I’d Like to Fuck), Eve looks up the definition on the computer and becomes attracted to porn, has rough sex with a stranger, tender sex with a woman, and fantasizes about being serviced at a massage parlor, participating in a threesome, and starting an affair with a teenager bullied in high school by Brendan (I was relieved that she did not act upon that urge). Labeling the series a “fascinating misfire,”Sophie Gilbert, reviewer for The Atlantic, wrote: “Like her biblical namesake, Eve senses she’s been missing something crucial. It isn’t porn that is fascinating Eve so much as the idea that, in her mid-40s, she can reject every assumption she or anyone else has ever had about herself and start over.  For Eve, porn is freedom.”  “Mrs. Fletcher” is a bleak commentary on contemporary life when people, to quote Gilbert, “are too busy tapping their phones to forge meaningful connections.”

I was asked to teach an IUN second semester History class and be a consultant on a Valparaiso University grant to contribute material to the Flight Paths interactive documentary website.  I declined the offer to return to the classroom but accepted the latter.

At the first annual IUN Artist Collective Holiday Pop-up Market in Savannah Gallery, I was delighted to find Casey King’s work and that Casey was on hand to show me his most recent work, including a mock ad for the Frank N Stein Drive-In that once attracted crowds to the Miller Beach neighborhood when Dunes Highway was a heavily traveled route between Chicago and the Lake Michigan dunes communities prior to construction of the Tri-State expressway.  Corey Hagelberg’s environmental coloring book was also on display.