Posted on 02/08/2019 5:40:16 AM PST by yesthatjallen
One of President Trump's sharpest congressional critics on Thursday vowed to force a House vote to impeach the president, citing the race-related scandals facing top Virginia lawmakers to argue Congress's responsibility to fight bigotry — “starting at the top.”
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said the refusal of both Virginia's governor, Ralph Northam (D), and the state's attorney general, Mark Herring (D), to resign after admissions of wearing blackface in the past "is but a symptom of a greater syndrome that currently plagues our country as a result of not acting on President Trump’s bigotry."
Green argued that the pair has been emboldened "to a great extent because the Trump presidency has sent a message that you can be immune to the consequences of bigotry, by daring those with the authority and power to constitutionally remove you from office."
"We no longer stare bigotry down; bigotry now stares us down," Green said in a statement, released late Thursday night. "Further, an argument that Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring should resign will subject us to accusations of political hypocrisy if we refuse to take on a bigoted president."
Green introduced articles of impeachment against Trump in the last Congress, forcing floor votes on the measure twice against the wishes of Democratic leaders. The first, in December of 2017, was supported by 58 Democrats.
That number rose to 66 in January of 2018 — a rise attributed to Trump’s derogatory comments about Africa made just a week before that second vote.
Green's articles accused the president of inciting racial divisions across the country, pointing as evidence to Trump's ban on travelers from predominately Muslim countries and the president's equivocal response to racist violence in Charlottesville, Va., in the summer of 2017, among other incidents.
Green did not indicate when he would force a third vote.
The effort will pose a headache for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who have sought to tamp down impeachment efforts in their ranks. The leaders have argued the need to build public support for such a step, and to allow special counsel Robert Mueller the time needed to wrap up his long-running probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 election results. Efforts to oust the president before then, the leaders argue, would only politicize Mueller's findings.
“The Clinton impeachment was totally political and wrong,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said last week. “As a result, I think we’re being prudent and careful, and we’ll see what Mueller has to say.”
Green has dismissed that argument, noting that the Mueller probe "is unrelated to bigotry."
The scandals facing the top Virginia lawmakers have stunned the state and put Democrats — in both Virginia and Congress — on the defensive as they seek the appropriate response.
Northam is under fire for his association with a racist photograph in his 1984 medical school yearbook. And Herring is fighting for political survival after revelations that he dressed in blackface as an undergraduate college student in 1980.
Separately, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) is facing allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 — a charge he vehemently denies.
Virginia's Democratic delegation released a joint statement Thursday night, amplifying their earlier calls for Northam to resign. They have not demanded the same from Herring, instead urging the embattled attorney general to continue his "in-depth discussions with leaders and others in Virginia" and to "stand ready to answer questions from the public if he is to regain their trust."
Green on Thursday made clear he thinks that's not enough.
Didn’t Al Green announcing Trump’s impeachment long before racist and rapist Democrats were exposed in Virginia?
In the early 1980s, two college kids wore Halloween costumes therefore... impeach Trump. That’s his position, that’s what he’s going with.
Don't recall reading that anywhere in the Constitution.
I do recall something about free speech. The attempted criminalization of IS ILLEGAL!
Time to start charging the subversives with Failure to uphold their Oaths to the Constitution/ malfeasance of office.
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness.”
I wonder if Al regards a certain fellow Democrat from Texas who said this with the same level of outrage as he does with Trump.
I think this a$$hat is “acting stupidly.” If Obama “had a son” it would agree with this guy, if it survived past the time when it could legally be aborted.
Shut up, Dems. Clean up your own rats nest. You moral degenerates have a lot of filth to sanitize before you can continue flinging poo.
#metoo until it’s with a Democrat, then it’s a politically motivated attack...
Al, baby.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
But I’m afraid it’s too late for you the worms have ate in and have hollowed out the contents.
Amazing!! We had to wait a whole week to link Northam’s blackface to Trump by the Democrats. I would have assumed it would come a lot sooner than this.
Is this the same Al Green that ran for congress and won because voters in his district thought he was the singer?
Tight logic, really tight. /S
Deeply confused in the heart of Texas...
“First we’ll hang him. Then have a trial”
Or “High tech lynching”, eh, Mr Green?
democrats don’t have brains, and can’t reason logically. This is pure junk.
The "derogatory comments" about Africa depends, I think, on the uncorroborated allegation of one person who supposedly heard Trump use a disparaging word--it wasn't something it said in public trying to get people to have a negative view of one of the tropical paradises in question.
The Charlottesville comments have been totally distorted--when I heard them on the day of the incident they sounded very reasonable but now they have become grounds for impeachment. Acknowledging that some good people may not want the statue of Robert E. Lee removed is equated with support for neo-Nazis.
Geico guy
Take him to the river. Drop him in the water. Hold his head under until there are no more bubbles.
RATS, in general, have a long way to go to reach the absolute pinnacle of stupidity that Occasional-Kotex has staked out but this loser is sure trying.
Impeachment is his game. Failure is his name.
A few thoughts. Show us the president in black face like all these other "bigoted" politicians then you may have a case, Al.
Being a bigot, which Trump is obviously not given all of his efforts for blacks and hispanics, is a high bar to prove against Trump. He has shepherded in the lowest unemployment for black and hispanics in the history of the country. Not exactly the sign he is a bigot.
Green uses Trump's ban on muslims as proof of his bigotry. Most Americans would not call this bigotry but an attempt to keep them safe by screening that population for terrorists.
I know impeachment is a political process and not a legal one, but I find it hard to see how the House and the Senate will act on the unsubstantiated charges that he is a bigot, a subjective judgment at best.
Mr. Green, you're on your third attempt to impeach Trump now. I'm afraid you'll be working on number four after it fails.
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