I think once the House delivers articles of impeachment to the Senate, they must hold a trial. There's no way around that. Sounds again like no conviction, but we have to get it done and move on.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Thursday that he is looking at next week to file his resolution to formally condemn former President Trump and try to bar him from holding future office. Kaine is still gathering input but has drafted a resolution that would formally censure Trump. It also includes provisions that would mirror language in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment on barring officials from holding future office.

"In a way I view it as kind of censure-plus because it has these two factual findings that could have the same consequence as an impeachment conviction," Kaine said. "It's not just, 'hey you did those things and that's bad.' "

1/28/21
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/536 ... rom-future

So I think that answers MaineDave's question question and it looks good. Do both - the impeachment trial must go on, but also do the censure-plus. Trump must be prohibited from running again. Dual impeachments and a censure-plus should send a clear signal, but it is not enough. What are the NY State prosecutors doing? Without further consequences future autocrats will pick up where Trump left off and that will be the end of The Republic. No pressure.

MaineDave wrote:Is Kaine's proposal just a censure or a censure under Section III of the 14th Amendment (which would bar him from seeking office again)? At least if it's a 14th Amendment censure then there is SOME punitive action for Trump's incitement of a mob. If it's just a slap-on-the-wrist censure, then why bother?

@ MaineDave: first thanks for jumping in here, welcome to BookTalk.Org.

I’m thinking that beyond a senate vote to actually convict FPSfB of “Incitement of Insurrection” censure is a long shot attempt at preventing T**** (I refuse to spell the actual name of the 45th president) from holding a future Federal Office of Honor, Trust or Profit. I’m reflecting on history. In particular I’m thinking of Joe McCarthy and Bill Clinton. The former was censured but only actual death kept him from holding additional offices of “honor, trust or profit”. McCarthy was a weirdness that was a genuine American original, Same/Similar as in a unique situation with Clinton, he was impeached in lieu of censure and like T**** (45) FPSfB. Was acquitted at trial.

Section III of the 14th Amendment in my opinion requires conviction in the senate which then allows a simple majority vote to bar future federal office of honor, trust or profit. Censure doesn’t guarantee the future barring of offices to any individual in question because the sections sited have vagaries of interpretation due to a lack of specifics. As I written (i think). We are venturing into new territory, unique legal concepts. The 14th amendment can be interpreted as a barring of future political positions, but it hinges on it being interpreted as being a capable legal precedent. I personally have little faith that the current court or congress has the mental health of mind to rationally think through the complexity of current affairs.

Anything less than conviction of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” (which “Incitement to Insurrection” falls well within the category of) will not diminish potential future MAGA influences which because of their weird thinking caused the mess we see ourselves living with now. For me there is a complexity here, John Roberts, the Chief Justice has declined to preside over T****’S second impeachment trial. According to Roberts, he (Roberts) lacks requirement to preside because T**** is no longer a sitting president. Roberts ignores, in my opinion, the second part of impeachment. Which is the actual barring of future offices. Robert is setting this unprecedented impeachment trial up for what is surely to be a future Supreme Court Case.

Censure can be merely a “slap-on-the-wrist”. We are venturing into new territory not only legally but morally, politically and believe it or not, economically as well. We are witnessing the fight between labor and libertarian ideas. I fear that libertarianism will win the day, possibly many days to come, if not years. You see, It all comes to money.

Who’s money is the community going to fight for? Lately, it’s been corporate dollars that seem to be most precious. Strange if you ask me. In the age of conglomerates, an era of corporate dominance. We the people who have championed individual liberty now seem to be standing alone. In the age of conglomerates.. collusion, organization, planning, control, divide and conquer economically is the actual daily struggle we all deal with. Government has to be larger than that which is out to dominate the individual. Think about it?. Logically, the larger the conglomerate, the necessary and corresponding largeness of government must needs be.

See how complex the simple impeachment of an absolute piece of shit becomes?.

@ DWill: If I recall correctly; Joe Biden emphasized his primary motivation for a 2020 run was to get T**** out of office. As I recall, that was when the right-wing started shouting that “old Joe” had symptoms of dementia. If you recall this was about the time that our friends from the right (no names please) started going hole hog on BookTalk.Org with the recent standard market conspiracies that still seem so delicious to upwards of 75 million Americans. Anyway, So Joe, recognizes that people want FPSfB gone, Joe knows, that there is little chance of dethroning the”chosen one” but ‘Old Joe’ has hope. His hopes are strengthened by an unusual support. Black Americans think ‘Old Joe’ can be trusted as an ally, someone who is keyed to the community, the middle class. African Americans, ‘Black America’ , Rural America, it’s not just black and white. It is Latinx, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese.. the variations beco moot. I am Slovenian, how much variation exists among East Europeans?

So Joe B with an earnest heart, just wanted, like so many other good thinking American people wanted, an end to the absolutely worst POTUS in American History! So.. announcements are made, ‘Old Joe’ is campaigning to be front and center, mind you.. he like.. so many others ( including the Lincoln Project) have little hope.. but hope can be audacious, hope can make the most diverse of people’s coalesce to not only re-establish a tenuous community but to seed the future of some lost community through the wholesome fertilization shared cultural identity.

What happened instead was ‘;Old Joe’ was accused of being a tool of the ultra progressive left..(what ever that means) Innuendos were made that Joe was incapable of actual leadership, that he was just trying to setup some scenario that would place Michelle Obama as the actual president. I mean, there were conspiracy theories everywhere, Joe had to shut things down. I personally had to listen to some of these horseshit ideas from many people in my circle. The algorithm amplified so many bizarre ideas about ‘Old Joe’s’ intentions that he was forced to contend that he’d be in ‘it’ for a full ‘eight year term’ . Joe Biden’s intent is merely to put Trump behind us. I just want to reiterate my recollections of Biden’s early pronouncements. I too was unable to locate the specific source, in my defense there is a fluidity of action between this most recent presidential campaign and the current government that some postings may have vagaries that given current complexities pinpointed sources will be difficult to pin down.

It is nearly 11pm; I I truly want to get into more of this.. but right now my brain is bent ‘

May we have a drumroll please. The trial will shortly begin. It's too much to hope for a conviction, but if the graphic evidence the Democrats present can finally stigmatize Trump, that will be something valuable. The Democrats will also want to repeat the words of Lynn Cheney, again and again.

It's been a tense week. Reliving that hellish day was an extension of the national trauma. The prosecution brought out what all of us absorbed almost without noticing it, because we know this monster: he did nothing to stop it. The president of the United States was happy with an attack on Congress by a mob, because they were serving his tyrant ego.

I wish it was as easy to understand the 40 percent of the country who are in denial about the election because it serves . . . what? What do they get from moving firmly into denial? What do they get by serving the monster's ego, by attaching themselves to ever more absurd claims instead of opening their eyes? A sense of solidarity? Really? When did it become so important to be in solidarity against urban, liberal culture rather than with the rest of their country?

Was it the election of a Black president, combined with his embrace of Black culture and the liberal extension of health care to those they consider unworthy? Was it a long rear-guard battle for religion and guns and against those who examine that way of life critically? Was it a deep, unacknowledged longing for a figure of strength and authority? Was it some witch's brew of all of that, simmering over the fires of Murdoch? When did the sense of persecution make them so ready to embrace unreality rather than accept their eclipse?

I have been hearing, from many quarters, the cold-eyed repudiation of "This is not who we are." I know that they are right - this is the country that has been enslaving and lynching and oppressing people for centuries, and the horrible divisiveness has been a force more powerful than our ideals of justice and equality for our entire history. Yet when I hear it I feel scorched inside, because "This is not who we are" is an affirmation of the goodness and the ideals, not a description of reality. I am not trying to deny reality, I am trying to change it, by believing that we as a country can be better than the sadistic systems that we somehow accepted and agreed not to admit the truth about.

Harry Marks wrote:I wish it was as easy to understand the 40 percent of the country who are in denial about the election because it serves . . . what? What do they get from moving firmly into denial? What do they get by serving the monster's ego, by attaching themselves to ever more absurd claims instead of opening their eyes? A sense of solidarity? Really? When did it become so important to be in solidarity against urban, liberal culture rather than with the rest of their country?

You ask additional good questions searching for answers to the above quandary. I would add mental illness to the mix. Dr. Bandi Lee, editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President has been loudly warning about Trump's mental illnesses combined with a criminal mentality. Without stiff penalties Trump develops a shared psychosis with his followers. This explains much of the confusion.