Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Next Congress May Be An Impeachment Congress

Unless all of us do something to stop it, that is.

Consider the progress, or lack thereof, of immigration reform over the past eight months.  After Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together last July to pass an imperfect, but nevertheless real, comprehensive bill, the House has spent the entire time engaging in a series of stalls.  First, the Republican majority said it was going to enact reform on a "piecemeal" basis.  President Obama and Senate Democrats sent signals that they could live with that approach.  Result:  no legislation, piecemeal or otherwise.

Then the House GOP announced a series of "principles" for reform, which embraced citizenship for undocumented minors, but residency only for their parents.  Again, Obama and Senate Democrats indicated they might be willing to live with that.  Again, no legislative progress.

Then the Tea Party caucus, the tail that wags the dog named John Boehner, denounced the "principles" altogether and said they wanted nothing to do with making immigration reform a reality, because Obama couldn't be trusted to implement it.  Again, the Democrats bended, in the form of a proposal by Senator Chuck Scuhmer to delay the implementation date of reform to sometime in 2017, to get around this obstacle.  This was dismissed out of hand, almost as soon as it was proposed, because Obama would allegedly use this delay to deliberately flout the law until reform went into effect.

Get the picture?  They contend that Obama is breaking the law when it comes to immigration, but have no intention of doing anything that might stop this alleged breaking of the law.  As undereducated as Tea Partiers are, and as beholden to the undereducated white vote as they are, even they know that immigration is an issue that has to be addressed, sooner or later.

But not if, in the short run, they can use it as a basis for impeachment proceedings against Obama.

And there you have it.  The real reason that Republicans and their conservative supporters don't want to do anything between now and Election Day 2014, so that they don't accidentally misplay what pollsters currently tell them is a winning hand.

The Tea Party Congress knows that the country has largely turned against them.  They know that the public is with the Democrats on virtually every issue currently facing the nation.  Even Obamacare is proving, day by day, to be less of an albatross for Democrats and more like a rising tide that will help them win elections for years to come.  For all practical purposes, Obama has beaten the Tea Party, and this past week's enactment of a clean debt ceiling increase confirms that defeat.  And the Tea Party hates him for it.

Short of an assassination attempt (G-d forbid), impeachment is the last card they have to play against the President.  And, if the Tea Partiers feel that they need to do so, they will spend two years of full Congressional control proving it, at the expense of the nation and its needs.

Is this want you want?  Outside of the Tea Party, is this what any of us want?  Of course not.  And it's one reason why, if you are a progressive or even a voter who cares more about the country than about partisanship, you cannot afford to treat this as an off-year for voting, one that doesn't affect your concerns.  Because it does.  We can't afford to let immigration, climate change, bank regulation and gun control, among other issues, go unaddressed while the Tea Party wrecks havoc at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

So please register.  And contribute.  And VOTE, above all.  Even if you think the choice is between the lesser of two evils.  Because, if you vote the right way, there will still be less evil.  And you will have helped to make that happen.

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