A Brief History of Impeachment
-- by Matthew Dunnyveg
Right now, liberals are trying frantically and hysterically to impeach Trump for telling the Ukrainians to keep a close eye on the actions of Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who has been engaged in corrupt activities. This is after trying to nail Trump unsuccessfull on two other matters: His relationship with the Russians that liberals haven't been able to show is criminal, or even untoward. The second account involves the conviction of Manafort and the "flipping" of Cohen on paying former paramours for their silence. The problem is that paying off former paramours for their silence is hardly an illegal act, at least the way Trump is alleged to have done so. The question is when does a witch hunt become a witch hunt for liberals?
Unfortunately, neither situation is unique in history. Impeachment clauses exist in the federal, and all state constitutions, to remove from office officials guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors". Instead of removing corrupt officials, impeachment has been used by the bad people, primarily liberals, to remove their political enemies from office. We will consider the impeachment cases of Andrew Johnson, Huey Long, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton as follows:
Liberals tried to take down Andrew Johnson because they were disgusted. Liberals had just fought the most bloody war in US history in order to destroy the South, and Johnson stood in their way. It's not that Johnson didn't think Southerners shouldn't be punished for trying to escape liberal rule; he just didn't harbor liberals' homicidal hatreds for one-third of this country's population.
The most important charge against Johnson was his violation of the Tenure of Office Act:
This law was passed by the "Radical Republicans" (i.e., the most militantly liberal Republicans) to ensure that Johnson was denied one of a president's most basic Constitutional duties, namely the right to choose his own cabinet and advisers. The Tenure of Office act did this by requiring that Johnson get permission from Congress before firing any cabinet member. The particular individual the liberals didn't want fired was Edwin Stanton, who was then Secretary of War (what today would be known as Secretary of Defense). This was because Stanton was one of the most radical of the Radical Republicans; he wanted the South destroyed to pay for their treason to liberalism. Johnson avoided being removed from office by a single vote though the Tenure of Office Act wasn't declared unconstitutional until 1887. In other words, Andrew Johnson was impeached for trying to protect Southerners from liberals. Johnson's impeachment was him against the entire liberal establishment. Johnson retained the presidency because the charges were so ridiculous that a few senators couldn't bring themselves to vote for this terrible injustice.
What Johnson had going for him was that the liberals overreached. What almost destroyed Johnson was that Southern voices didn't matter, despite being forced to remain part of a country we wanted no part of. This won't apply if liberals go after Trump since his constituents haven't been disenfranchised--at least not yet.
In 1929, Governor Huey Long called the Louisiana legislature into session to consider a special tax bill on Standard Oil of a nickel a barrel (42 gallons) on their oil. Huey not only lost this battle, but it prompted an organization of the most liberal legislators, called the "Dynamite Squad", to take Huey down by impeaching him, and the charges leveled against Huey were telling indeed.
Among the charges brought against Huey were that he hosted a conference for all the country's governors at New Orleans and was allotted six thousand dollars to do so. The problem is that Huey had the entire amount converted into cash. The problem is that $2,500 of this amount was unaccounted for. The reason is that Prohibition was in effect, and while never proven, no doubt this amount was spent on illegal liquor, and likely strippers and such for entertainment; we're talking about New Orleans! Liberals charged Huey even though this kind of thing had long been standard practice among Louisiana's politicians.
Another charge liberals hit Huey with was that he was involved in what we would call deal making today. Huey promised legislators that he would do things for them if they would do things for him, despite the fact that none of these things were illegal. So, liberals charged Huey with bribery. Ostensibly, the only way Huey could've avoided this charge would've been if he never tried to work with legislators to get his bills passed.
But the most serious charge, and one liberals lacked the decency even to try to cover up, was that Huey tried to tax a big corporation to provide monies for things like paved roads, hospitals, and schools. As is the case now, liberals were so lacking in common decency that in their initial list of charges, liberals formally charged Huey with trying to tax Standard Oil, what they thought was an impeachable offense. This was a gift liberals unwittingly handed to Huey, and he had a field day with it.
Huey only managed to escape removal from office because he was so popular with the people. In an exercise of making their legislators see the light by making them feel the heat, enough average voters raised a ruckus so that their elected officials didn't dare vote to impeach Huey. Whereas it took two-thirds of senators to impeach a governor, Huey was able to present a "round robin" letter in which fifteen senators swore they would vote against impeachment no matter what. This stopped Huey's impeachment cold, with only two senators to spare. This is the man liberals called a "fascist" because he crushed all opposition when the truth is that this opposition came close to destroying Huey.
As with Trump, Long was lividly hated by the Establishment, but loved by the people, who saved him. Calling Huey a fascist at a time when fascism was a major force in Europe got liberals nowhere. It is the same with Trump; liberals only succeed in making Trump more popular with their silly, insulting names.
Liberals managed to damage all of these politicians with their impeachment efforts, but the only politician they managed to take down was Richard Nixon. When Nixon was elected in 1968 because of the unacceptable radicalism of the Democrats, he was the first Republican president since 1932 (excepting Eisenhower, who was hardly partisan). Then as now, liberals couldn't brook the idea that the country wouldn't be led by one of their own, just like Trump. The problem Nixon had that Trump doesn't is that Nixon ran as an American but governed as a liberal. To name but a few instances, Nixon was for gun control, mandatory legalized abortion, affirmative action; and he started the EPA and the DOE. Since Nixon betrayed his constituents to try to appease the liberals, when these liberals turned on Nixon like a pack of wild dogs, Nixon had nobody to speak up for him, and he went down. Unlike Nixon, Trump does have the backing of the American people. There will be a real fight to take down Trump.
Last on our list is Bill Clinton, the only president of the liberal establishment ever to come close to being impeached. Of course, the charge Clinton was impeached on was lying about Monica Lewinsky. This effort failed because of all the traitorous things Clinton did (e.g. Loral), he was charged over a charge all too many voters felt was nebulous and not very serious, and several Republicans saw this.
The lesson here for today is that if liberals did manage to take down Trump, we'd be fools to expect Republicans would go after his Democrat successor no matter what that liberal did. Republicans have a long and sordid history of betraying American interests in favor of liberal interests. Americans would not be able to reciprocate in kind. We have no representation worthy of the name.
The bottom line is that even with minimal Republican support, liberals aren't likely to be able to take down Trump since impeachment requires a supermajority. He simply has too much popular support. But Trump will only be saved if enough average voters melt down congressional phone lines the way we did when liberals tried to force amnesty on us. In other words, We The People must be involved.
