by

The Hegseth impeachment thingie and the Democrats who didn’t vote

If there’s one thing Democrats are good at, it’s blaming each other.

Here’s what happened: A Republican representative filed a bill to send Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s impeachment to committee. Speaker Johnson immediately scheduled it. A bunch of Republicans and a bunch of Democrats were not available because this was not pre-scheduled, and the bill failed.

Some Democrats on the internet are mad at the Democratic representatives that didn’t vote. Not that it would have really made a difference — if it looked like enough Democrats were showing up, you can be sure Johnson would have postponed the vote to get enough Republicans there to vote. Remember: we’re still the minority party until January.

Even if this bill had passed, it was only a vote to send it to committee to have hearings on the impeachment. And you can bet the GOP would not vote to impeach.

And even if they did impeach, the GOP Senate wouldn’t remove him.

And even if they did remove him, Trump would appoint a new Secretary who would be approved by the GOP, and then we’d be stuck with whoever this new person would be.

So no, this vote would not have automatically impeached Hegseth. That’s not how it works.

By waiting until January, we can have the majority to get him impeached, but even then, we’d need almost a dozen GOP Senators to vote to remove him. The House impeaches by a majority vote, but the Senate votes to remove that person, and you need 2/3rds of the Senate to agree to that. (That’s why both Trump and Clinton’s impeachments in the past did not lead to their removal.)

So politically, it’s better that this impeachment did not happen now. In January, if he is impeached, and if he is removed, Democrats will have a say in who his replacement will be. They can vote against anyone Trump nominates.

These memes and accusations against fellow Democrats are not what we need right now if we want to accomplish our goals. I’m seeing a lot of these from people who don’t understand politics. Politics is the art of negotiations and compromise. In some ways, politics is a game and you have to know the rules and be really good at the game to win.

And that’s why I am frustrated by my fellow liberals who are screaming for Jeffries to be removed as Minority (soon Majority) Leader and have him replaced with someone who may fit their ideology better — but is not good at the game.

We need leaders who know the game of politics and know how to win it. The leaders in the party are chosen by representatives who know which politician can get things done. They play the game every day. They know who the best players are.

One of the main problems in both parties are the extremists at either end who demand that everything gets done their way and can’t see a middle ground. The GOP has been completely taken over by their extremists, and that’s one of the reasons they lost. We should not fall into the same trap.

This is Politics 101. I’m talking about facts — too many of my fellow Democrats are talking about feelings. Feelings alone don’t win votes and elections.

I agree completely with the goals of my fellow liberals, as you are well aware. I disagree on the politics needed to get there.

by

The new Chief of Staff’s office

Matt Davies
by

And now, the Democrat’s circular firing squad

Yes, we’re all thrilled by the election results. But many Democrats are misreading the reason for it.

Most people voted against the Republicans, not for the Democrats. The voters didn’t suddenly got enlightened and embraced liberal policies. They were mad about gas prices, and the Iran War, tariffs, corruption, the Epstein files, and Trump tearing down the East Wing…

Thinking this was a sudden acceptance of all the stuff we want isn’t supported by the facts. The Democratic Socialists running may have won their races, but almost each one did worse than Harris did two years ago. They were in blue districts and should have won handily. This blue wave was not a “liberal socialist” wave.

So while we should take advantage of this to try to get our agenda passed, we need to be united and reasonable. We need to play politics — and a problem many Democrats have is similar to the problem many conservatives have: They don’t understand how politics works.

cartoon by Peter Steiner

Democrats have immediately filled the internet with demands that Schumer and Jeffries be replaced. It’s only been a few days and already we’re fighting with each other. That is not going to help us accomplish anything. We need to be united.

Do I wish Schumer would be replaced? You bet. I don’t have any problems with Jeffries though — I mean, he’s never been Speaker, give him a chance.

But this infighting is not going to help. Let the House and Senate pick their own leaders without making it a public fight that will only hurt our need for unity right now.

Yeah, we want Trump held accountable. But if the socialist left (which includes ME) spends its time attacking the majority of the party instead of working with them to accomplish our goals, we’re not going to get much done.

You know, that’s how politics has worked since the beginning of time.

I’m not saying give up our goals; I’m not saying compromise on ethics. I’m saying shooting our leaders for not being 100% aligned with what we want is not a winning strategy in politics.

And understand this: Being a leader is not the same thing as having the right positions on the issues. Just because we agree with a politician doesn’t mean they have the skill to bring the party together to get stuff done. I may agree with Bernie Sanders on most issues, but I think he’d be a terrible leader for the party, because he won’t be able to get stuff done.

Pelosi, for instance, was a great Speaker — I didn’t agree with all her policies but she got stuff done.

And that’s what we need. The people in Congress work with each other every day. They know who can get stuff done, and that’s why they vote for who they want as their Speaker.

Let them do their job.

by

Good show

Clay Bennett
by

It’s Election Day!

Been too depressed to post things for a while, but I’m hopeful the results from today’s election will meet the predictions of a blue wave.

In any event, remember that sometimes it takes a while to count all the votes, so we may not have all the results tonight. Republicans will tell you that’s a sign of voter fraud, but only in places where they are losing. Ignore their lies, as usual.

And if you haven’t voted yet, do so! If you waste your vote on a 3rd party candidate or don’t vote at all, you will be making the Republicans very happy.

by

The Current Court

Clay Bennett

by

What to do if you get a traffic ticket

A bit of legal advice: If you get a traffic ticket, call a local attorney before you decide to just “pay it and get it over with.”

I get calls a lot from people saying “I just found out that my license is being taken away because of this” or “I lost my job as a driver because of this” and too often, by the time they realize it, the deadline for appealing the ticket has long passed.

The cops and the judge have no duty to inform you of what pleading guilty may do to your license, so call a lawyer.

This applies to all tickets, actually. Always plead not guilty and ask for a hearing. Even if you don’t hire a lawyer to help you, it’s not going to get worse and maybe the cop will be willing to give you a better deal once you show up in court. (Or maybe you’ll be really lucky and the cop won’t show up.)

by

Immigrants are destroying America

Mike Luckovich

by

A fantasy election (that is still technically possible)

In special elections over the last year or so, Democrats have done about 5% better than the polls suggested.

So I looked at the current Senate polls and made this map. If that happens in November (and no guarantee of that), here’s what the results would be.

Now this is tremendously unlikely, of course, especially since the GOP is doing everything it possibly can to cheat and steal the election, but it’s certainly a nice fantasy. None of the senate prediction pages suggest anything like this. It only has a chance if we all come out and vote in gigantically huge amounts. After all, there are more of us than them, and we prove that whenever we actually show up and vote.

I am posting this also to point out that states that everyone assumes is always red are really not that red — a switch of just a few percentage points and it can go the other way.

Here’s the map assuming Dems do 5% better than the current polls. Light colors means less than 5% lead, medium are 10% and more than that are dark.

Once more, a disclaimer: This is not a prediction. It’s tremendously unlikely to happen. It’s mostly here to say “Look, if we all come out and vote, this is a possibility.”

by

Tackled

Clay Bennett