{"id":1315108,"date":"2019-09-28T23:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T05:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/micek-column-only-shock-about-trumps-actions-is-that-were-shocked\/"},"modified":"2019-09-28T23:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T05:48:00","slug":"micek-column-only-shock-about-trumps-actions-is-that-were-shocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/micek-column-only-shock-about-trumps-actions-is-that-were-shocked\/","title":{"rendered":"Micek column: Only shock about Trump\u2019s actions is that we\u2019re shocked"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The explosive release of a federal whistleblower complaint alleging that President Donald Trump abused the power of his office, and that \u201cunidentified White House officials\u201d then attempted to cover it up, is sending shockwaves throughout Washington.<\/p>\n

And while the underlying details of the complaint were eye-opening and alarming, its fundamental premise was not.<\/p>\n

Given the choice between protecting and promoting his own interests, or the interests of the nation he was elected to govern and whose Constitution he swore to uphold, Trump\u2019s interests win every time.<\/p>\n

From crassly pitching his ailing Doral resort in Miami as the site of the next G7 meeting to revelations that the Air Force essentially propped up a Trump property in Scotland to a lawsuit alleging that Trump is illegally profiting from his hotels and restaurants in Washington, D.C. and New York, the priorities of America\u2019s reality star-in-chief have been on public display for months.<\/p>\n

But there is something so singularly offensive about Trump\u2019s utterly transparent request for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It makes every previous assault on our Democratic norms by the narcissistic 45th chief executive look like an amateur hour performance in comparison.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,\u201d the whistleblower wrote in a 7-page memo.<\/p>\n

Finally, in plain English: Trump\u2019s avarice laid bare.<\/p>\n

Trump, predictably, has pushed back, dismissing the Congressional impeachment inquiry as the latest iteration of the ongoing \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d He can bluster and deflect as much as he wants, but the undeniable proof of his self-dealing is vivid in the rough transcript the White House released on Wednesday. It\u2019s an extraordinary exercise in mob-style shakedowns, prefaced by only the slenderest of pleasantries.<\/p>\n

By early Friday morning, a majority of the House\u2019s membership \u2013 at least 225 of the 435 sitting lawmakers \u2013 supported some kind of impeachment action.<\/p>\n

The bulk of those votes were overwhelmingly Democratic, though, as NBC News reports, they are not unified in voting to impeach Trump. Some Democrats, as well as Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich., have asked for an inquiry, while others support an investigation initiated by the House Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

Some Democrats, mainly from vulnerable districts, have yet to announce their intentions.<\/p>\n

While much work remains for Democrats who serve on the six congressional committees charged with conducting the inquiry, it\u2019s more than safe to say that impeachment will become the definitional debate of the 2020 campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump will use it to rail against Democrats in his hockey stadium rallies, as he carpet bombs his ever-loyal base with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory. Democrats will use it as a cudgel in their ongoing argument that Trump lacks the fitness to lead. Everyone who believes something will continue to believe it, and the needle among loyalists won\u2019t move.<\/p>\n

Where this gets worrying for Trump, beyond the prospect of carrying the mark of impeachment with him into history (assuming he and it get that far), is his standing among the independent voters who were so critical to his election in 2016.<\/p>\n

The Mueller affair, while damning, was difficult to quantify. Here we have, in the president\u2019s own words, an attempted shakedown of a foreign leader to secure his own re-election. And he\u2019s selling out the country to do it. Every voter who\u2019s seen an episode of \u201cThe Sopranos\u201d can recognize that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a nice presidency you got there. It\u2019d be a shame if anything happened to it.<\/p>\n

John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The explosive release of a federal whistleblower complaint alleging that President Donald Trump abused the power of his office, and that \u201cunidentified White House officials\u201d then attempted to cover it up, is sending shockwaves throughout Washington. And while the underlying details of the complaint were eye-opening and alarming, its fundamental premise was not. Given the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 21:48:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}