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Impeachment: The Elitist Democrat Holy Grail

December 26, 2017
by Peter Feinman
Illustration by Tim O'Brien, The Atlantic

Impeachment is the elitist Democrat Holy Grail. Through the forcible removal from political office of the one who never should have become president in the first place, cosmic order will be restored and all will be right with the world. Once the traumatic shock of the election night was over, the therapy for the post traumatic shock disorder among elitist Democrats was the belief in the power of the Constitution to heal America.

In the previous post on my winter solstice reflection on the coming light for the new year, I reviewed some extraordinarily wrong and misguided posts about the election results by Feinman, not me, Peter Feinman, but Ronald Feinman. He successfully predicted the wrong result in almost every single state “in play” for the 2016 presidential election and the less said about his Senate predictions the better. In this regard, he provides a glimpse into the disconnect with reality that prevented elitist Democrats from grasping the tactical brilliance of the immature child candidate in exploiting the fears and insecurities of many Americans to become the winner. Democrats simply were not capable of understanding why they weren’t up by 50% and that all those voters weren’t deplorable.

In this post, I examine how the other Feinman dealt with the new alternate reality where truth and lie have been reversed.

Why We Need a Crash Course in the 25th Amendment (January 22, 2017)

Even before the inauguration had occurred, Feinman already was calculating how the new president could be removed from office. He begins his post with:

Keith Olbermann has said it. Michael Moore has said it. Many intelligent, perceptive people across the political horizon have said it.

Olbermann and Moore! These are the figures of authority he chooses to cite as he launches his argument on how the 25th Amendment can save America? Hard to imagine two more inappropriate people to herald to rally the American people to the cause. And what is it that they and many other “intelligent, perceptive people” know?

…that he is a dire threat to America and its future. Clearly, Donald Trump is displaying evidence that he is mentally unbalanced and unhinged. Many psychologists have said he fits the textbook definition of a psychopath.

He is not even in office and hasn’t demonstrated any presidential behavior yet. He hasn’t even sent a hissy fit tweet about the crowd size yet! Besides, how much confidence should one have in psychologists who can’t even recognize a 7th grade smart-aleck/dumb-aleck in the body of an adult male when they see one?

Nonetheless, even before the inauguration has taken place, Feinman is outlining how the constitutionally authorized removal from office could occur.

He seems, clearly, to be living in a parallel universe, out of touch with reality, and obsessed with his own vanity. Fortunately, there is a constitutional remedy: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 4.

Feinman then details how Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan can lead this implementation. To be fair to that Feinman, no one anticipated that former Christian Mike Pence would sell his soul to the Donald as the savior of the universe and express his gratitude for being blessed to share the same space-time continuum with him.

Donald Trump Is On His Way to Second or Third Shortest Presidency in American History (February 15, 2017)

Hope springs eternal. Not even one month into the new administration and the person who was completely wrong about the election results, offers another prophecy: the briefest term in office ever. The catalyst for the removal from office will be …are you ready for this?… Mike Pence.

The fact that Vice President Mike Pence played a major role in pushing Flynn out is a sign that Pence is already asserting himself with Trump, and it seems clear that Pence will not stand by and allow our foreign policy to be damaged, or our national security to be endangered. The American people, ultimately, would not expect anything less.

After going on and on about how Mike Pence will save the day, Feinman does what every sane Christian apocalyptic knows not to do – be specific about when the End of Days will occur. Nothing good can be gained in such prophetic exactitude. None the less, Feinman persists.

In any case, it seems likely that Donald Trump will be leaving the Presidency at some point, likely between the 31 days of William Henry Harrison in 1841 (dying of pneumonia) and the 199 days of James A. Garfield in 1881 (dying of an assassin’s bullet after 79 days of terrible suffering and medical malpractice). At the most, it certainly seems likely, even if dragged out, that Trump will not last 16 months and 5 days, as occurred with Zachary Taylor in 1850 (dying of a digestive ailment). The Pence Presidency seems inevitable.

I confess that after this prophecy, I checked the calendar to see when the 199th day of reckoning would occur. Another way to check was with MSNBC The Eleventh Hour with Brian Williams. Night after night he intones the number of days into the presidency. He is not providing a countdown to its ending, he is marking a count up of our imprisonment as was done during the Iranian hostage under Jimmy Carter leading to his election loss in 1980. Our days of capture are now over 300 and the prophecy of early removal has been exposed as a pipe dream by the desperate. Besides, why exactly would elitist Democrats want Mike Pence as president? In effect, Pence functions as insurance to mitigate the chances of Democrats voting to impeach the president.

Feinman has no illusions about the Pence’s shortcomings from a Democratic perspective but what other option does he have? The Republican Party?

Can We Count on the GOP to End the Trump Presidency? (August 6, 2017)

And for many of the list of critics above, the accession of Vice President Mike Pence would be seen as a plus, although not by progressives and Democrats. But the instability and uncertainty associated with Donald Trump is seen as likely to end under a Pence Presidency, even though it would be the most conservative Presidency since Calvin Coolidge, in many ways, to the right of Coolidge or Ronald Reagan, the other conservative favorite. So for many Republicans and conservatives, they will have won the power to promote their agenda, but be much more able to predict their direction and goals than under the unpredictable Donald Trump. Expect the eventual abandonment of Trump by Republicans as the months go by into 2018. A Pence Presidency is likely coming sooner rather than later, with the best situation for Republicans being to resolve the matter before the midterm Congressional elections next year.

Notice how Feinman has learned the lesson of being too precise. No more exact number of days until End of Days; now it’s “sooner rather than later.” He still can’t grasp the possibility of “never.” If it turns out that removal from office is due to the two-term limit of the 22nd Amendment rather than the forcible removal through the 25th, I think Feinman and others who experienced PSTD on election night 2016 will become the Walking Dead, unable to function in the alternate universe of continual fake news that incredibly has become the real world. How long will MSBC persist in counting the days until our freedom anyway?

Feinman still has not given up hope.

Just 43 Republicans Joining with Democrats Could End Donald Trump’s Presidency (August 20, 2017)

The crisis that Donald Trump represents cries out for movement toward impeachment and trial to remove him from the Presidency, unless he agrees to resign, or Vice President Mike Pence, in league with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a majority of the Presidential Cabinet agree to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment Section 4, as mentally incompetent to stay in office. Neither of these seems likely at this stage, as we enter the eighth month of the Trump Presidency later in August.

As the goddess closes one door, she opens another. If the 25th Amendment is not going to work, what about outright impeachment? In the House of Representatives, only a majority is needed to impeach. Here Feinman wonders if the necessary number of Republicans will join the Democrats to make it so. He implicitly presumes that 100% of the Democrats will favor impeachment so the only issue is convincing a couple of dozen Republicans to defy party loyalty.

The centrists and moderate conservatives who are uncomfortable with Donald Trump are known as the Republican Main Street Partnership, estimated at 67 members of the House (about one out of every four Republicans) and a minimum of 4 in the Senate.

Feinman then names names. He names names in both the House of Representatives and the Senate as possible candidates to effect first impeachment and then conviction. With the Alabama Senate election, one less Republican vote is needed. I confess in my opinion, Feinman is grasping at straws. Plan A with Democrats winning the election failed. Plan B with Mike Pence taking the lead under the 25th Amendment is a non-starter and Plan C with Republicans in the House voting to impeach is an extreme example of wishful thinking. The only realistic way for impeachment to occur is if Democrats win the House in 2018 and even then Democrats may refrain from doing so. Wake up and smell the coffee.

I suspect Feinman has grudgingly learned to live in the real world. While he is not ready to accept the 22nd Amendment as the solution, he is ready to abandon the activation of the 25th Amendment as a likely event. As for impeachment, he now has to wait for the midterm elections. So much for the short presidency. He may even think that if Mueller produces a damning report or is fired before he can do so, then impeachment will occur. Hope still springs eternal for those trapped in the horror of the real world. We are witnessing the Democratic struggled to cope with reality one proposed solution at a time in the face of the success of the greatest con artist in American history who has a hold on a segment of the American public Democrats still ignore.

Then again, Feinman’s faith in Pence and the Republicans to do the right thing may not be misplaced after all. According to an article by McKay Coppins on “God’s Plan for Mike Pence” in the current issue of The Atlantic (I get the printed copy), there almost was a coup after the Access Hollywood tape went viral. Pence would have become the Republican presidential candidate then. He declined. Perhaps he recognized that the candidate had no shame and could not be bought off if it meant going on record for all eternity as being a loser. As events proved out, Pence was right.

Still the palace intrigue continues. Coppins reports:

But for all his aw-shucks modesty, Pence is a man who believes heaven and Earth have conspired to place him a heartbeat—or an impeachment vote—away from the presidency. At some crucial juncture in the not-too-distant future, that could make him a threat to Trump.

He suggests:

It’s not a matter of when Republicans are ready to turn on Trump,” the aide said. “It’s about when they decide they’re ready for President Pence.”

Suppose the Mueller report is damning. Suppose Mueller is fired. Suppose people are pardoned. Suppose Republicans are looking at a wave year that will make them a minority party in both chambers. Then suppose that they decide now is the time to remove the RINO President who is bringing the party down. The entire Democratic strategy for 2018 is running against the most unpopular President in American history. Suppose he is gone by the fall election season and the new President Pence is too new to have established a record yet. What happens then? Maybe Feinman got it right after all.

A Pence Presidency is likely coming sooner rather than later, with the best situation for Republicans being to resolve the matter before the midterm Congressional elections next year.

Survival cancels programming. That is the equation. Suppose the Republican Party decides its survival is at stake, what would it do then?

Happy New Year. It should be an interesting one.

Can Mueller Redeem the Republican Party?

November 15, 2017
by Peter Feinman
Image from mapledanish.com

Can Robert Mueller redeem the former party of Lincoln? That’s a tall order for any individual especially when it is not even part of your job description. Nonetheless, he may end up being the one who restores the Republican Party.  It is a party in flux struggling to define itself with an uncertain outcome.

RINO Steve Bannon has declared war on the Republican Party. He is focused like a laser on the evisceration of the former party of Lincoln. He is doing so in the name of his patron leader who last year used the Republican Party as his vehicle to become President by exploiting the fears and insecurities of the people politicians ignore.

Thanks in part to these efforts, for Republicans, the Commonwealth of Virginia has become the New Lost Cause. Which state will be next?

Despite the setbacks, the RINOs are proceeding full speed ahead regardless of the consequences. Who cares if Arizona votes Democratic as long as Flake is out? Who cares if Nevada votes Democratic as long as Heller is out? That will show those weak Republicans who is boss. So what if the Senate is Democratic?

Now we may observe a cause of the problem. We need to stop here and examine how the brain operates. If we want to understand the decision-making process that at first glance seems self-destructive, we need to study how the mind works. For example, why do young people pay higher automobile insurance rates? Why are young people in more accidents?  When something goes wrong why do young people so often respond, “I didn’t think of that”?

The answer quite simply is this is what immaturity is all about – the inability to consider consequences or even to be aware that there will be any for actions taken for the moment. The brain hasn’t developed to the point where it is capable of recognizing what adults naturally do (most of the time). To do so is part of the growing experience.  The immature mind simply isn’t capable of making adult decisions.

As it turns out, Time Magazine addressed that exact issue in the national political arena without intending to. In article in the November 6 issue “We Need to Talk about Kids and Smartphones,” the magazine honed in the problems adolescents face because of their use of smartphones. “(W)e understand enough about young people’s emotional and developmental vulnerabilities to recommend restricting kids’ escalating phone habits.”

The specific area of concern relates to the adolescent brain still in a stage of development and not yet fully-formed.  The lower gray-matter volume in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) involving emotion processing and decision-making is critical according to the researchers. “We know for a fact that teens have very underdeveloped impulse control and empathy and judgment compared with adults.” The prefrontal cortex is another area of concern. That area of the brain is essential for focus and interpreting human emotion. Teenagers don’t have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex and hence have problems with self-control and judgment. So if you yank a 13 year-old smart-aleck/dumb-aleck from school and dump him in a military school your hopes that the changed environment will lead to maturity may be for naught. It is possible that the adolescent brain in question will remain locked into its present state without ever developing a fully-developed anterior cingulate cortex or prefrontal cortex. As a result person never develops into adult maturity capable of empathy or impulse control as a brain scan would reveal. Such an individual would always focus on the immediate, on the moment, without being aware of consequences. For example, “I have a great memory” becomes “I forgot” when faced with the consequences.

The Russians used this knowledge of how the brain works when it interfered in our presidential election. As reported in an article “The Drama of Reality TV, Brought to You by Russia (NYT 11/9/17), the Russians drew on the lessons of reality TV shows that are geared to our adolescent mind. A reality show producer observed that the key to manipulating contestants into acting a certain way was to “tap into their fears, passions and ego.” In this regard, Facebook was a godsend since people had revealed exactly those conditions. For the reality show producer, Facebook was like an instruction manual for the exploitation of people. The Russians realized this and used that knowledge in their campaigns to manipulate the fears of Americans based on race, religion, and politics. The article asks if these Russian trolls caused these insecurities or simply provided an easily-accessible vehicle for people to openly express them and act out.

In other words, a person doesn’t need to believe that Barack Obama is a foreign-born Moslem to manipulate people through that phrase and become the center of attention. Like a reality show producer or a Russian troll, a person only needs to know that the targeted audience will respond to a product that channels those insecurities and fears to his own benefit. Like a reality show producer or a Russian troll, a skilled 7th-grade smart-aleck/dumb-aleck can hone in on the emotional state of his marks and produce amazing results.

By coincidence, the same day as the article on reality TV, the NYT also published an article on “Are Mass Murderers Insane? Usually Not, Researchers Say.” Instead, one should focus on anger of the disgruntled and the aggrieved that eventually is unleashed in violence in response to some perceived humiliation. Using a database based on four killings as the minimum number for a mass murder, the researchers determined that the majority of the killers were disgruntled workers or jilted lovers acting on a deep sense of injustice. A contributing factor is long-term stress such as from failure in school, to keep a job, or from a disabling injury. Sooner or later something may trigger that rage to become violent. Certainly a skilled politician in a professional wrestling arena knows how to push that person’s buttons to produce the desired result.

In light of the above, it is important to recognize the role of the condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists in fostering deep-rooted fears and insecurities which could be exploited by the opposition. Indeed, these people helped create the very vote that boomeranged on them. Consider two of the most common expressions of fear and insecurity by people the coastal elites look down on as inferior subhumans:

Barack Obama is a foreign-born Moslem.

We’re talking back our country.

When Jesse Jackson ran for president was he accused on being a foreign-born Moslem? Is there anything in those words that identifies a person as black? If people had wanted to make racist comments against Obama couldn’t they have done it without resorting to the fantasy that he is a foreign-born Moslem? So why use this term which technically isn’t even an insult but a simple description? Is “foreign-born Christian” an insult? Why did this phrase resonate?

The second phrase clarifies the concern. People are scared. People are scared for themselves. People are scared for their families. People are scared for their community. People are scared for their country. And instead of addressing those fears and insecurities politicians either ignore them (the Republicans) or stoke the flames (the Democrats).  The condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists responded to these two expressions by saying “Yes, you subhuman degenerate 47%-ers, you should be afraid, you should be very afraid. The demographic deluge is coming. The demographic deluge is coming for you. The demographic deluge is the dawning of the Age of the Hyphens and you are the losers in the new world order. And then the Democrats wonder why these scared people voted for an immature child who played on precisely those fears. For highly educated people, either the condescending arrogant self-righteous elitist are still stupid even one year after the election or they have complete confidence in the demographic deluge.

The counter to the false claims about the demographic deluge remains Lincoln just as it was in the mid-19th century. It is easy for Republicans to refute the threat if only Republicans realized that they have nothing to fear but fear itself. With RINO Bannon and his minions stoking the fears it may be easier for Republicans to succumb than to overcome. It is easier to terrorize than to inspire.  Unless, of course, Mueller can provide Republicans with the opportunity they need to take back the party of Lincoln by cutting off its current head. Sometimes Moore is too much.

R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016)

March 12, 2016
by Peter Feinman

Lincoln Memorial

In the past few days, some Republicans have mentioned the name no Republican presidential candidate dares mention: Abraham Lincoln. No self-respecting candidate seeking to survive the primary gauntlet would be so foolish as to utter the name of America’s greatest president. There simply is no place in the Party of Malice for Lincoln.

Democrats deserve no kudos either. They opposed Lincoln when he was alive and with their relentless pursuit of victimhood and identity politics, there is no place for him there either today.

We face the prospect of a presidential election when the candidates of the two national parties are under indictment and instead of hope, hate will be watchword.

Despite the abandonment of Lincoln from national discourse, it is still worth considering what he had to say both for what he achieved then and what he could achieve today if only there was a place for him in national politics. In a debate with Stephen Douglas on July 10, 1858, in Chicago, the future President redefined how one was to define an American in a way those today who despise him have not yet learned.

“We are now a mighty nation…We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years [to 1776] and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,-with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men….We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; …they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration [on July 4] to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves-we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit.”

Notice what Abraham Lincoln was doing here. He reminded Americans that it is the annual celebration of July 4 that links the people of the present to the heroic forefathers who had created and built this prosperous country four-score and two years ago. This connection he referred to seems biological in nature. But suppose one wasn’t a Son or a Daughter of the American Revolution? Could one still fully celebrate July 4? Now listen to Lincoln’s answer:

“We have besides these men-descended by blood from our ancestors-among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe-German, Irish, French and Scandinavian-men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us,”

How is it possible for immigrants to this country to celebrate a holiday to which they have no biological connection?

“but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

For Lincoln, one did not need to be a blood-descendant of the American Revolution to be one with the spirit of the event. Immigrants were entitled to have their shot at living the American Dream. Through adherence to the principles of the Declaration of Independence every American stood as one with those who had fought and died for America’s birth. The new Republican Party that Lincoln had joined was the immigrant party (except maybe not so clearly the party of the Irish) and later the Black Party, the party whose political interests were served by reaching out newly arrived and newly enfranchised. By disavowing immigrant restrictions it succeeded in holding on to a fair share of the foreign-born vote, especially among younger Protestant voters. These immigrants from Scandinavia, France and Cornwall, among other places, supported Lincoln, Union and America.

So now think again about these familiar words from the Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” When Lincoln said “our fathers” he knew that many people in the audience were not descendants of those who had founded the country. But Lincoln was not excluding them by this word choice, for by examining his words from five years earlier we see that he knew how much of America and the support of the Union depended on the immigrants to this country. In 1858 he had merely referred to the “moral sentiments” that connected the immigrants to the Founding Fathers; now, in the midst of the Civil War, he asserted they had been baptized by blood into the American covenant community. Those who fought to preserve the Union stood as one with those who had fought in the war to create the Union. They sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic with the same gusto that Americans once had sung Yankee Doodle Dandy. They were Americans by Choice.

As we just celebrated the Sesquicentennial of the Homestead Act, the Morrill-Land-Grant Colleges Act, and the Pacific Railway Act launching the Transcontinental Railroad, I am reminded that even without the Civil War Abraham Lincoln was a great President who understood America as a great work always in progress, that he acted to ensure people would have a home to call their own, the education to be able to live the American Dream, and the infrastructure to connect the country. To fulfill the American Dream in the 21st century, our immigrant country needs to be inspired not just by Lincoln’s monument and legacy, but by people who reach for his vision, his eloquence, and his leadership. Who will tell his story? Lincoln may belong to the ages, but does he still belong to the Republican Party?

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”