Before we get into the specifics, let’s talk about a hypothetical scenario in which Nancy Pelosi could actually become the President.  If President Trump is removed from office by the Senate, Vice-President Mike Pence would move into the Oval Office and a replacement for Pence would be nominated.  But if Trump and Pence were both impeached and removed from office before a new Vice-President could be nominated and confirmed, then the next in line for the presidency would be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

In other words, if Trump and Pence were both suddenly out of the picture, Nancy Pelosi would become the President of the United States.

We have never actually seen the speaker of the House become the president in such a manner, and such a scenario would appear to be exceedingly unlikely, but it could hypothetically happen.

Up to now, the efforts by the Democrats to get rid of Trump have not gone well.  According to a brand new survey that was just released, only 42 percent of all Americans support removing Trump from office at this point.  And it is likely that support for removing Vice-President Pence from office would be even lower.

So why would the Democrats even bother trying?

I certainly can’t explain why Schiff suddenly has such a desire to go after Pence, because it doesn’t seem to be rational.  According to the Daily Mail, Schiff has made the decision to declare “war” on Pence…

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff has declared war on Vice President Mike Pence, barely a week after his panel finished its hearings on the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

As an impeachment vote loomed Wednesday, Schiff demanded Pence’s office declassify documents that he claims could show the vice president knee-deep in the Ukraine scandal that has brought Trump to the brink.

What Schiff is particularly obsessed about is a phone call between Vice-President Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on September 18th.

Pence’s adviser Jennifer Williams listened in on that call, and she testified about it behind closed doors to Schiff’s committee.  Her testimony was later classified, and Schiff has been badgering Pence to have it declassified.  The following comes from the National Review…

Pence’s Russia adviser Jennifer Williams testified last month about the vice president’s September 18 phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Schiff requested ten days later that Pence declassify her testimony, contained in a November 26 letter from her lawyer, but Pence last week declined to do so in a letter to Schiff.

On Tuesday, Schiff sent a letter to Pence alleging that the testimony given by Williams “raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election”.

In other words, Schiff is inferring that Vice-President Pence “abused his power” just like Trump supposedly did.

During a subsequent appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, Schiff was specifically asked if he was “actively looking” at Vice-President Pence…

Are you actively looking at Vice President Mike Pence and his role in this scandal? And should we expect further revelations either related to the vice president or related to the other core parts of these allegations that have resulted in this impeachment tonight?

In response, he gave an answer that was classic Schiff …

Well, we have acquired a piece of evidence, classified submission by Jennifer Williams, something that she alluded to in her open testimony that in going back and looking through her records, she found other information that was pertinent to that phone call that we asked her about and made that submission. There is nothing that should be classified in that submission but yet, the vice president’s office has said they’re going to assert classification, or it’s classified.

It is not proper to classify something because it would be embarrassing or incriminating, and that summation does shed light on the vice president’s knowledge, and we think the American people should see it. Certainly, any senators in the trial should have access to it.

So why is he doing it?

Well, there is always the possibility that he could be so deluded that he actually believes that he is doing the right thing.  And if he truly believes that he is seeking to have justice done, then that would help to explain why he just won’t let this thing go.

But the truth is that Schiff’s sick obsession with taking down the Trump administration goes back long before this Ukraine scandal first broke wide open.

Like so many other Democrats, he just can’t stand to see Donald Trump in the White House, and he won’t rest until he is gone for good.

If the Democrats could find a way to get Trump removed from office early next year, that would throw the Republican Party into a state of utter chaos and would give Democrats a massive edge heading into November 2020.  And if they could get Mike Pence removed from office early next year as well, that would make it even tougher for the Republican Party.

In the end, maybe that is what all of this is primarily about.  Yes, getting Nancy Pelosi into the White House would be a nice side benefit, but maybe what the Democrats really want to do is to keep Trump from winning again in 2020 by any means necessary.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, nothing they are doing is working.

It looks like Trump is going to be acquitted by the Senate, public approval for impeachment has been falling, and Trump now has a lead against all potential Democratic contenders.

If the Democrats had never attempted to remove Trump, they would have had a great chance of winning the White House next November.

But they just couldn’t resist, and so they have set the stage for a major political disaster for the Democratic Party less than a year from now.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post A Plot To Make Pelosi President? Now Adam Schiff Wants To Go After Vice-President Mike Pence… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

It has been horrifying to watch the Democrats treat the U.S. Constitution with such disdain.  On Wednesday, the nation was riveted as two impeachment votes were held in the House, and both votes were “almost entirely on party lines”.  The following comes from NBC News…

Trump was impeached on two articles. The first vote, 230-197, accused him of abuse of power and was almost entirely on party lines; it was followed quickly by a second, 229-198, vote accusing the president of obstructing Congress. The one-vote difference was that of Democrat Jared Golden of Maine, who voted yes on abuse of power and no on obstruction.

No Republicans voted against Trump. Two Democrats, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who is expected to switch parties soon, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted with Republicans against both articles. One Democrat, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for president, voted “present” on both articles.

I would have liked to see Tulsi Gabbard actually have the courage to vote against impeachment, but at least two other Democrats were willing to stand up and do the right thing.

Now that the votes are over, many on the right are looking forward to a swift acquittal of Trump in the Senate, but it is being reported that the Democrats are actually considering withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate for at least some period of time…

A group of House Democrats is pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders to withhold the articles of impeachment against President Trump that emerged from the House on Wednesday, potentially delaying a Senate trial for months.

The notion of impeaching Trump but holding the articles in the House has gained traction among some of the political left as a way to potentially force Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, to conduct a trial on more favorable terms for Democrats. And if no agreement is reached, some have argued, the trial could be delayed indefinitely, denying Trump an expected acquittal.

Since they have already made such a mockery of this process, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they want to trample on the Constitution some more.

Thankfully, an increasing number of Americans are seeing through their petty games.  Yesterday, I discussed a new CNN survey that found public support for impeachment has fallen substantially, and today I came across another new survey that discovered that even most Democrats believe that Nancy Pelosi and her minions are being highly disingenuous…

In the latest Zogby Analytics survey, 67% of voters said that they “believe the Democrats are more interested in impeaching the president as opposed to passing legislation that will help Americans.”

And the shocking sidebar: A majority of Democrats, 53%, believe this is the case too, said pollster Jonathan Zogby.

Prior to Wednesday’s dramatic vote, there was an extended period of debate on the House floor, and several Republicans definitely rose to the occasion.  For example, here is a great quote from Represenative Mike Johnson…

“There has never been a single-party, fraudulent impeachment process like the one being used today. Our Democratic colleagues have weaponized the impeachment provision of the Constitution to nullify the votes of 63 million Americans who elected President Donald J. Trump.”

And Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia made national headlines when he compared this impeachment process to the trial of Jesus…

“When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers. During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president in this process.”

But the best speech of the day belonged to Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins.  He didn’t have long to speak, but he definitely made it count…

“I have descended into the belly of the beast. I have witnessed the terror within, and I rise committed to oppose the insidious forces which threaten our Republic,” Higgins opened.

“America’s being severely injured by this betrayal, by this unjust and weaponized impeachment, brought upon us by the same socialists who threaten unborn life in the womb, who threaten First Amendment rights of Conservatives, who threaten Second Amendment protections of every American patriot, and who have long ago determined that they would organize and conspire to overthrow President Trump.”

“We don’t face this horror because the Democrats have all of a sudden become constitutionalists. We are not being devoured from within because of some surreal assertion of the socialists’ newfound love for the very flag that they trod upon.”

“They are deep established D.C.,” he continued.

“They call this Republican map flyover country. They call us deplorables. They fear our faith. They fear our strength. They fear our unity. They fear our vote, and they fear our president.”

“We will never surrender our nation to career establishment D.C. politicians and bureaucrats,” Higgins closed. “Our republic shall survive this threat from within. American patriots shall prevail.”

If you would like to watch the entire speech on YouTube, you can find it right here.

America is more divided right now than it has ever been in any of our lifetimes.

I am greatly saddened by what I believe is coming, because our nation is going to be ripped to shreds.

Now that the effort to remove Trump from office has spectacularly failed, keeping Trump from winning another term is literally going to be a matter of life or death for many on the left.  And if Trump is able to win another term in November 2020, we are going to see a national temper tantrum unlike anything we have ever seen before.

But what is the alternative?  Are we supposed to roll over and give the left everything they want just so they won’t go nuts?

I don’t think so.

Prior to this impeachment saga, all the polls showed that it was likely that a Democrat would win the presidency in November 2020, but now all of the momentum is with Trump and the Republicans.

Unfortunately, the election next November is not going to solve our deeper problems no matter who wins.

America is in the process of being torn in pieces, and 2020 promises to be a very, very dark year for our nation.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post This Is A Very Dark Day In American History appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Meanwhile, the heavily slanted and exceedingly bitter coverage of this impeachment process by the mainstream media is deepening the very painful political divisions that have been tearing America apart.  This week, there will literally be hundreds of pro-impeachment protests in cities all across the nation, and the anger that we see on the left is rising to a level that is absolutely frightening.

If President Trump does win again in 2020, everyone already knows what is going to happen.  Key Democratic leaders and the mainstream media have been stirring the pot day after day, and all of the frustration that they have been fueling will reach a crescendo if Trump is not defeated next November.

In order for any political system to operate successfully, most of the population must be willing to accept the outcomes that system produces.  But now we have gotten to the point where a large portion of the population is ready to start burning things down if election results don’t go their way.

If the Democrats truly believed that President Trump did something that warranted impeachment, they should have gone out of their way to make the impeachment process in the House a fair, bipartisan effort.  But instead, they alienated their Republican colleagues at every turn, and that was a tragic mistake.  After the sham that we just witnessed in the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sees no reason to take an impartial stance in the Senate…

McConnell on Tuesday made clear he’s not interested in giving in to any demands from Democrats. He said that the partisan House impeachment would result in “an almost entirely partisan outcome in the Senate as well.”

“I’m not an impartial juror,” McConnell said. “This is a political process.”

McConnell’s strategy relies on keeping Democratic requests on procedures, documents and witnesses bottled up and maintaining pressure on any wavering Republicans who might agree with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push for more evidence.

Can anyone blame McConnell?  If the Democrats had tried very hard to conduct things fairly in the Senate, McConnell would have been forced to at least maintain a pretense of objectivity.

But now all of that is out the window, and the stage has been set for President Trump to potentially turn the Senate trial into his own version of “show and tell”, and many on the left are fearing the worst.

For example, the following is what one USA Today reader is anticipating from the upcoming trial…

President Donald Trump is not satisfied with avoiding conviction in a Senate trial. He wants a spectacle and platform to humiliate the Democrats, former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter. If Trump gets his way with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a World Wrestling Entertainment event will replace a serious impeachment trial.

After all that Trump has been through in recent months, it is quite understandable that he would be eager to “humiliate the Democrats”.

In particular, I think that Trump is quite keen on telling the whole world about what Joe and Hunter Biden were really up to in Ukraine.

According to a new survey, 62 percent of Americans believe that Trump will be treated fairly in the Senate.  And since Republicans control the Senate, things are likely to proceed a whole lot differently than they did in the House.

Once the Senate trial begins in January, you might want to grab some popcorn, because it promises to be quite entertaining.

The Democrats were apparently hoping that by tightly controlling the process in the House that they would be able to get the American people on their side.  But instead, a CNN poll that was just released found that public support for impeachment has fallen substantially…

A CNN poll released this week, conducted by SSRS December 12-15, among 1,005 adults, found that 45 percent support impeaching the president. That reflects a 5-point drop from November’s results, which showed support for impeachment at 50 percent.

Support for impeaching the president, even among Democrats alone, is dropping. In November, 90 percent of Democrats supported impeaching the president. The most recent results show the number falling to 77 percent — a 13-point drop in one month.

A 13 percent shift in one month among Democrats is absolutely catastrophic for Nancy Pelosi and her minions.

This is a failure of epic proportions, and Pelosi’s political future is looking exceedingly grim at this point.

Meanwhile, things have never looked better for President Trump’s political future.  According to another new poll that was just released, Trump would beat every single one of the top contenders for the Democratic nominaton if the election was held today…

The national survey, taken as the House of Representatives planned an impeachment vote and the Senate a trial, showed Trump defeating former Vice President Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 5 points, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8 points.

In hypothetical head-to-head contests, Trump also led South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg by 10 points and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.

But before this impeachment saga ever began, all of the polls showed all of the Democratic contenders defeating Trump quite soundly.

Since it was never likely that Trump would be removed from office by the Republican-controlled Senate, many believed that Pelosi launched this impeachment process as a way to damage Trump and the Republicans for the 2020 election, but if that was her goal she is failing spectacularly.

At one time, it appeared that the 2020 election was potentially going to be a landslide for the Democrats.

You can forget all about that now.  By impeaching Trump, the Democrats may have just given him the edge that he needs to win in 2020, and for many on the left that is the worst possible outcome imaginable.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post By Impeaching Trump, The Democrats Are Destroying Both Our Political System And Their Chances Of Winning In 2020 appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The U.S. Constitution sets a very high standard for impeaching a president.  In Article II, Section 4 it says the following: “The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

So in order for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office, he must be convicted of treason, bribery or some other crime.

But nowhere in federal law is “abuse of power” defined as a crime.  And that is a huge problem, because how can you convict someone of “abuse of power” when there is no law against it?

Ultimately, “abuse of power” is a very vague phrase that could mean just about anything.  After all, is there any president in modern American history that has not abused his power at some point?

And if President Trump does get impeached by the House, that is going to set an extremely dangerous precedent.  In the future, are we going to start impeaching presidents for “abuse of power” whenever an opposition party gets control of the House of Representatives?

As for the charge of “obstructing Congress”, at least there is some precedent for that.  It is actually properly called “contempt of Congress”, and the following is what Wikipedia has to say about it…

Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a Congressional committee or subcommittee—usually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of requested documents.

Yes, President Trump has instructed members of his administration to refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas.  But is this really something that we should be impeaching a sitting president for?

In the end, these are matters that can be easily sorted out by the courts.  If the President or members of his administration continued to refuse to comply with Congress after a court had ordered them to do so, then the Democrats might have an argument, but that has not happened in this case.

And most Americans simply do not care that President Trump may have been “obstructing” Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.

If any president is going to be impeached and removed from office, it needs to be for something very serious, and it needs to be a matter that generates a large national consensus.

The Democrats should have dropped this impeachment inquiry a long time ago, but at this point they can’t turn back without looking exceedingly foolish.  Debate will begin on the articles of impeachment on Thursday, and according to the Washington Post, those articles of impeachment could “be voted on by the full House next week”.

Since the Democrats have a solid majority in the House, and since they are so obsessed with taking down Trump, the outcome of the vote is already a foregone conclusion.

They are going to vote to impeach President Trump, and that means that there will be a trial in the Senate.

If the Democrats had come up with something more substantial in their articles of impeachment, there would have been a chance that they could have swayed some moderate Republicans in the Senate, but as it stands now that does not appear to be too likely.

This entire impeachment process has been a comedy of errors by the Democrats.  No matter how many breaks go their way, they just can’t seem to do anything right.

Of course they still believe that they are doing “the right thing”.  During a hearing on Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler made it sound so simple…

Walking through the evidence and testimony so far in the impeachment inquiry, Nadler observed, “the President welcomed foreign interference in our elections in 2016.  He demanded it for 2020.  Then he got caught.”

In doing so, Trump “violated his most basic responsibilities to the people” and broke his “oath” of office, Nadler concluded.

But in reality, the Democrats are not winning over the American people with their arguments.

In fact, they could actually be alienating the very voters that they desperately need to defeat Trump in November 2020.  The following comes from an opinion piece by Liz Peek…

Here’s what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has done by undertaking a reckless and partisan drive to impeach the president: absolutely guaranteed that anyone who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 will vote for him again next year. Guaranteed, as a result, that Trump will be reelected.

Across the United States, tens of millions of Americans are furious that Donald Trump, a man they respect, has been bullied and bloodied by hate-filled, crazed political antagonists who mock him, lie shamelessly about his policies, obstruct his every move and, most disgusting of all, savagely demean his wife and children.

We’ll see what happens.  But as things stand today, the Democrats do not seem to have a prayer of being successful in removing Trump from office.

However, they sure are stirring up a lot of anger and frustration on the left, and that could have very serious implications as we approach the next election.

If President Trump wins next November, the Democrats are going to be kicking themselves for ever going down this path.  All of the polls taken before this impeachment process began looked really good for them, but it is entirely possible that they could blow yet another election that they could have easily won.

In politics, it never hurts to have a little luck.  And even though this impeachment process has been very painful for President Trump, it may just be the stroke of luck that he needs to win another term.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post “Abuse Of Power” And “Obstructing Congress”? Is This Really The Best That The Democrats Could Come Up With? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

On Friday, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy appeared on the “Morning Joe” program, and what he had to say is really shaking a lot of people up…

Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Friday that he has spoken to GOP senators who are thinking of voting against Trump.

“It’s a small list on one hand,” Murphy said. “I don’t buy this secret ballot thing. If there was a secret ballot, there’d still be only a handful of them that would vote to impeach this guy.”

Up until now, most of us had assumed that Republicans in the Senate would unanimously stand behind Trump.

But according to Murphy, cracks are starting to form.

It is certainly possible that Murphy could be lying, but what purpose would he have for lying about these private conversations?

Of course we definitely are not talking about a long list of potential turncoats.  In fact, he openly admitted that only a handful of Republicans are thinking this way…

When pressed, Murphy said that as it stands he thinks there are a maximum of five Republican senators willing to turn on the president: “I think that’s probably right.”

This is not a major crisis for the Trump White House yet, but it definitely has got to be alarming for any cracks to be forming at all at this stage.

So who specifically are we talking about here?

Well, it has been suggested that Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski are all potential candidates to turn on Trump.  In particular, Collins and Murkowski are essentially Democrats for all practical purposes, and so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if either one of them turned on Trump.  In fact, they both have voted against Trump in a number of high profile votes in recent years.

For Romney, this could be an opportunity for sweet revenge.  Trump and Romney have exchanged insults for years, and Romney has already publicly referred to Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian officials as “troubling in the extreme”…

He has called Trump’s prodding of Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden “troubling in the extreme.” When the president also called on China to investigate Biden, Romney blasted the move as “wrong and appalling.”

Romney, 72, is seen as having the most freedom to vote to convict, as he made his concerns about the president’s character known during the 2016 primary, when he excoriated Trump as “a phony” and “a fraud” in a last ditch effort to deprive him of the nomination.

Needless to say, President Trump is deeply concerned about what could potentially happen in the weeks ahead, and he has been working very hard to court the support of his fellow Republicans in Congress…

Since the fall began, Trump has hosted more than 40 Republican senators, primarily for weekly lunches. The White House has also hosted Republican House members for weekends at Camp David, and Trump has brought lawmakers to several sporting events, including to the World Series in Washington and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York City.

But despite all of that effort, the outcome of the upcoming Senate trial is still surprisingly up in the air.  Just check out the following numbers from Politico…

A tracker by Politico, which is evaluating the current position of each of the 100 senators, estimates that there are only 35 firm votes to remove Trump from office. A further 10 are down as probably, five maybe, 31 probably not, and 19 a firm no.

So why aren’t more Republicans in the Senate a “firm no”?

In fact, why aren’t virtually all of the Republicans in the Senate a “firm no”?

Something stinks about all of this.  In Washington, far more goes on behind the scenes that most of us would dare to imagine.  And a tremendous amount of pressure can be brought to bear on our representatives when very powerful people want them to vote a certain way.

I still think that it is extremely unlikely that pro-impeachment forces will get the 67 votes that they need in the Senate to remove Trump from office.  And if it doesn’t look like there will be 67 votes, some Republicans that would be inclined to betray Trump may chicken out and decide that it isn’t worth the risk if the effort is not going to be successful.

But we definitely live in unprecedented times, and anything could still happen in the weeks ahead.

Top Democrats have indicated that they would like to have the full House vote on impeachment some time around Christmas, and so it looks like we could actually see the Senate trial happen in January…

The Senate’s legislative calendar, released Wednesday, includes an ominous blank spot for the month of January, a reminder that the proceedings surrounding impeachment are fluid. Although the details for an impeachment trial remain unclear, Senate Republicans said they can guarantee at least one thing: Trump’s defense will be heard.

Needless to say, the mainstream media is going to be relentlessly covering these proceedings, and the whole world will be watching.

But the most fascinating action will actually be going on behind the scenes.

Pro-impeachment forces will be working night and day to try to get the 67 votes that they need, and if the potential vote count starts to creep close to that number, that is when things are going to start getting really interesting.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post Only 19 Senators Are A “Firm No” Against Impeachment – And There Are Whispers Some Republicans May Turn On Trump appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Many have assumed that a backlash against impeachment will greatly benefit Trump during this election season.  But history has not been kind to other presidents that have gone through an impeachment process.

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached by Republicans in the House of Representatives.  Johnson was not convicted by the Senate, but Republicans went on to win the next presidential election.

In 1974, Republican Richard Nixon resigned rather than face almost certain impeachment.  Democrats won the next presidential election even though they had a relatively weak candidate (Jimmy Carter).

In 1998, Republicans in the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton, but the Senate did not remove him from office.  However, Republicans did end up winning the presidential election in 2000.

So that means that the opposition party is three for three in cases similar to what we are facing now.

Could that actually be the key number that top Democrats are looking at?

On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi announced that the House is moving forward with articles of impeachment, and one CNN article sounded almost giddy that this is actually happening…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved the House much closer to impeachment Thursday when she officially directed the Judiciary Committee to draw up articles of impeachment. (As if it wasn’t already.)

But her announcement all but guarantees that President Donald Trump will be impeached. This is happening, people.

But Trump is not going to be removed from office, and millions of Democrats are going to be deeply disappointed when that does not happen.

Of course Nancy Pelosi has never suggested that her effort will be successful, and she continues to insist that her hand was forced by Trump…

“I’m really sorry the president made this necessary by his complete disregard for the vision of our founders,” she told reporters Thursday. “An impeachment is not a pleasant experience. It can be divisive. We don’t take any glee in this at all. It’s heartbreaking. But the president gave us no choice.”

What Pelosi is trying to do is to take the moral high ground.  Her intended audience is voters in the middle of the political spectrum, because they are the ones that will decide the 2020 election.

And it appears that things could move along quite rapidly in the House from this point forward.  In fact, NBC News is reporting that House Democrats are being told “not to make plans” for the weekend just prior to Christmas…

Pelosi did not say whether she had set a deadline for committees to write the articles of impeachment or when a full House vote would take place. Members who attended a closed-door Democratic caucus meeting on Wednesday, however, said they understood that the House would vote on articles before the holiday recess. One member said they were told to “not make plans” for Dec. 21 or 22, the weekend before Christmas.

I have been warning for months that the Democrats were going to impeach Trump, but at first a lot of people didn’t believe me.

But at this point even Donald Trump appears to be resigned to the fact that he will be impeached…

“If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business,” the president said in a pair of tweets shortly before Pelosi spoke.

It will only take a simple majority to impeach Trump in the House, and Democrats currently control 233 of the seats.

Of course there is still a possibility that some Democrats could actually vote against Pelosi, and one Democrat has already made it clear that he plans to do just that…

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, one of two Democrats to vote against formalizing the impeachment inquiry, said he plans to vote against all the articles of impeachment “unless there’s something that I haven’t seen, haven’t heard before.”

He warned Democrats to “be careful what you wish for” and he added that impeachment “is tearing the nation apart. … And I want to bring people together.”

But a whole lot more Democrats are going to have to defect in order for the impeachment vote to fail, and right now there is absolutely no indication that is likely to happen.

In fact, most Democrats can’t wait to impeach Trump.  On Thursday, Representative Al Green actually suggested that they could try to impeach Trump again if the first attempt does not work…

Thursday on C-SPAN, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) discussed impeachment, saying “there is no limit” to how many times the House and Senate can try to impeach President Donald Trump.

Green said he suspects Trump will have additional offenses in the future, so he believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will “move forward” with a vote to impeach Trump for his alleged quid pro quo demand with Ukraine and then try again “at a later time” if they find more during their investigations.

Sadly, most of the Democrats in Congress don’t seem to understand that they are tearing the country apart, and that could have very serious implications in the not too distant future.

But in Washington, winning is everything, and Democrats are absolutely obsessed with November 2020 right now.

Just consider what Nancy Pelosi told a CNN town hall on Thursday…

“Let’s not even contemplate that,” Pelosi said at a CNN town hall Thursday evening in response to an audience question about what checks will exist in the House of Representatives if Trump is reelected and the impeachment process is over.

“Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly our planet,” Pelosi said.

Nancy Pelosi knows that the Senate will not vote to convict Trump, but that is not what she is after.

Her grand plan has always been to damage Trump for the 2020 election, and only time will tell if her gamble was successful.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post Is The Impeachment Effort Simply A Political Ploy To Win Votes For Democrats In 2020? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

On Tuesday, House impeachment investigators will hear testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and according to a draft of his opening statement he plans to tell them that he notified his superiors twice regarding his concerns that military aid to Ukraine was being withheld in order to pressure the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens…

The White House’s top expert on Ukraine twice notified superiors about concerns that the president and those working for him were linking foreign aid to Ukraine with investigations that would help President Donald Trump politically, a push that he said could undermine U.S. national security, according to an opening statement obtained by USA TODAY.

The testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman before the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees Tuesday will mark the first time lawmakers investigating the impeachment inquiry will hear from someone who listened to Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — the call at the center of the impeachment investigation that included a Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

This is likely to be bombshell testimony, but the American public won’t get a chance to hear from Vindman firsthand because the Democrats made a critical strategic mistake.

At the outset of this process, the Democrats decided to keep the proceedings shielded from the American public.  This has opened them up to tremendous criticism from Republicans, and it has resulted in them missing opportunity after opportunity to move public opinion more dramatically.

For the past month, the Democrats have looked like they are trying to hide what they are doing, and the process has been deeply unfair to President Trump.

Finally realizing that they have massively screwed up, the Democrats now plan to hold a vote in the House later this week that will make the next phase of the impeachment inquiry more open to the public.  In a letter to her fellow Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi explained why this move is being made at this time.  The following is an excerpt from her letter…

This week, we will bring a resolution to the Floor that affirms the ongoing, existing investigation that is currently being conducted by our committees as part of this impeachment inquiry, including all requests for documents, subpoenas for records and testimony, and any other investigative steps previously taken or to be taken as part of this investigation. This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the President and his Counsel.

‘We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump Administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives.

If the Democrats are going to be successful, they need to get somewhere around 60 percent of all Americans on their side, because it is at that level where certain Republicans in the U.S. Senate would feel comfortable betraying Trump.

In order to do that, the Democrats desperately need to get these proceedings on television, and this resolution will finally authorize that.

But will this be a case of too little, too late?

We shall see.

Ultimately, the Democrats never should have gone down this road, and even if everything they are alleging is true there is nothing that Trump has done that represents a “high crime or misdemeanor”.

And with Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate, you would think that Trump should be feeling quite safe.

Unfortunately, so far only seven Republicans have publicly stated that they have ruled out removing Trump from office, and most Republican Senators are purposely refusing to take any sort of a public stand.  Here are a few examples…

• Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho): “I’m a juror and I’m comfortable not speaking.”
• Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): “I’d be a juror, so I have no comment.”
• Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.): “I don’t need a strategy for impeachment because I may be a juror someday.”
• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine): “I am very likely to be a juror so to make a predetermined decision on whether or not to convict a president of the United States does not fulfill one’s constitutional responsibilities.”

So much for loyalty.  President Trump recently endorsed Senator Risch, and this is how he is repaying Trump?

If the Republicans in the Senate came together and released a public statement in which they pledged not to remove Trump from office, that would immediately suck all the life out of the impeachment process.

But they are not going to do that.  In fact, there are persistent rumors that quite a few Republican Senators are ready to stab Trump in the back.

Whether you support Donald Trump or not, the truth is that every American should be deeply alarmed by what is happening in Washington right now.  In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville warned us that this might happen someday: “A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”

The scenario that he warned about is playing out right in front of us, and if Donald Trump is removed from office it is going to cause irreparable damage to our system of government.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article.  In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post The Democrats Really Think That They Have Finally Got Trump This Time appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

And now all of the political strife and discord in this country has been given a focal point.  I have repeatedly warned that Democrats should have never gone down the road of impeachment, because either way this process turns out it is going to be very bad for America.

If Trump is impeached by the House but protected by the Republicans in the Senate, the left is going to go absolutely ballistic.

But if Trump is impeached by the House and then removed from office by the Senate, the right is going to go absolutely ballistic.

Either way, this story is going to have a very negative end.

And even if Trump wasn’t in the White House, the seething hatred between the left and the right would still be there.  In fact, things have gotten so bad that a new survey found that 67 percent of all Americans believe that we are “on the edge of civil war”…

Partisan political division and the resulting incivility has reached a low in America, with 67% believing that the nation is nearing civil war, according to a new national survey.

“The majority of Americans believe that we are two-thirds of the way to being on the edge of civil war. That to me is a very pessimistic place,” said Mo Elleithee, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.

I was stunned to see such a high number.

Obviously most Americans don’t actually want a “civil war”, but this is what most of them see coming.

Earlier today, I came across an article about a Major League Baseball umpire named Rob Drake that is now in hot water for posting about “civil war” on Twitter…

Major League Baseball is looking into a now-deleted tweet from umpire Rob Drake warning of a civil war if president Donald Trump is impeached.

According to a copy of the tweet obtained by ESPN, Drake tweeted that he planned to buy an assault rifle “because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020″.”

Is that really how this chapter in American history is going to end?

Are we destined to see utter chaos in the streets?

I am not saying that we should all try to find a way to agree on everything.  When it comes to our most fundamental values, there are certain things that I will never, ever, ever agree on with my political opponents.

And the fact that our nation no longer has a cohesive set of values is definitely a big part of the problem.  With various national leaders constantly touting their own value systems and trying to pull us in a whole bunch of different directions simultaneously, it is certainly not surprising that we have ended up at this point.

But nobody should want a fractured nation where we are literally fighting with one another in the streets.

Of course when you ask people about who should be blamed for this mess, Democrats point at Republicans and Republicans point at Democrats.  If you doubt this, just check out these numbers…

Among Democratic voters, 63 percent say GOP leaders are “very responsible” for the decline in civility and 86 percent say Trump is “very responsible.” Only 10 percent of Democratic voters place a large degree of blame at the feet of their party leaders.

Among Republicans, those numbers are flipped – 67 percent of GOP voters say Democratic leaders are “very responsible” for the decline in today’s politics, easily the largest culprit among those voters.

Frustration and anger have been building in this country for a very long time, and now this impeachment process threatens to be a flashpoint.  No matter what happens, tens of millions of Americans are going to be deeply, deeply upset by the result, and you don’t want to be there when their anger is unleashed.

A number of years ago I wrote a novel which envisioned absolutely massive protests in Washington D.C., but at that time I had no idea that Donald Trump would become president or that the Democrats would one day try to impeach him.  And now it looks like the Democrats want to have articles of impeachment ready by the end of this year, and that means that a Senate trial is coming soon.

And once a Senate trial starts, the eyes of the entire world will be on Washington.

Many on the right are assuming that a Senate trial will be a slam dunk for Trump, but it is not necessarily safe to make that assumption.  On Wednesday, the number two Republican in the Senate said the following about this process…

“The picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we’ve seen, I would say is not a good one,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told CNN. “But I would say also that until we have a process that allows for everybody to see this in full transparency, it’s pretty hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like someone that already has his mind made up about how he will vote.

There are going to be a lot of twists and turns to this drama in the weeks ahead, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the end result will not be a good one for America.

And as I just detailed above, a large percentage of the population shares my pessimism regarding how this chapter in American history will end.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article.  In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post Most Americans Do Not Believe That This Chapter Of American History Is Going To End Well appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

In addition, the impeachment of a U.S. president would unleash havoc on Wall Street.  Trump has warned that the stock market would crash, and it is likely that he is quite correct about that.  Of course the U.S. economy is already steamrolling toward a recession, and so instability on Wall Street would only escalate our economic problems.  It is not hard to imagine the U.S. economy plunging into a deep recession or possibly even a full-blown depression pretty rapidly after Trump is removed from office.  And with utter political chaos reigning in Washington, it would be difficult to convince anyone that things would turn around any time soon.

If the Democrats could have just been patient enough to get to November 2020, they would have had the opportunity to vote Trump out legally.

But they didn’t want to do that, and now we are headed down a road that is going to tear this country apart.

What do you think the left is going to do if Trump is not removed from office and then he goes on to win again in 2020?

Needless to say, it would be a temper tantrum unlike anything we have ever seen before in American history.

On the other hand, how do you think Trump supporters will react if Trump is illegally impeached and removed from office before we even get to the election?

We truly are in unprecedented territory, and it is very difficult to see how this story is going to end well.

This is a can of worms that never should have been opened, but there is no going back now.  According to NBC News, the impeachment inquiry is rapidly moving forward, and Democrats plan to focus their impeachment case on Trump’s “abuse of power”…

House Democrats are zeroing in on a framework for their impeachment case against President Donald Trump that will center on a simple “abuse of power” narrative involving the president’s actions regarding Ukraine, according to multiple people familiar with the deliberations.

As Democrats continue closed-door depositions with critical witnesses and prepare to move to the next phase of public hearings, they are wrestling over which elements and evidence to bring in, which to leave out. The goal is to explain to the public the reasoning and relevance of any eventual impeachment charges.

But can a president actually be impeached for an “abuse of power” that does not involve the breaking of any specific laws?

As a former lawyer that has studied constitutional law, I would definitely consider that to be unconstitutional.  And removing a president using this sort of a pretense would set an extremely dangerous precedent.

Unfortunately, right now the momentum is on the side of the pro-impeachment forces.  On Friday, yet another prominent Republican came out in favor of impeachment…

Former Ohio Governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said Friday he now supports impeaching President Donald Trump.

Kasich said it was White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitting there was a quid pro quo between the United States and Ukraine that “pushed me really across the Rubicon.”

Of course many could argue that John Kasich isn’t a real Republican at all, and they would be right.

And ultimately Kasich doesn’t really matter.  What really matters is what the Republicans in the U.S. Senate think, because after the House votes to impeach they are going to decide Trump’s fate.

The Democrats only have 47 seats in the Senate, and it is going to take 67 votes to convict Trump, and so the math would seem to favor the president.

But there are only a few Republicans in the Senate that are truly loyal to Trump, and things could still go either way.

In the end, it is not comforting to realize that one of the key votes in the Senate is held by “Pierre Delecto”…

Mitt Romney has a secret Twitter account that he used to promote his failed 2012 campaign and now uses to engage with reporters and condemn political moves with which he disagrees.

It was revealed Sunday evening by Slate that the 72-year-old Utah senator goes by the name Pierre Delecto, with the handle @qaws9876, on his undercover Twitter account that he admittedly uses to act as a ‘lurker’ on the social media site.

As Delecto, Romney often used the “like” button to promote anti-Trump tweets…

If that’s not bad enough, Romney is using the “like” button on his Pierre Delecto account to file away those tweets that make Mitt Romney’s heart sing: tweets accusing Trump of swindling kids with cancer, about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, and attacking Newt Gingrich for impeaching Bill Clinton while cheating on his own wife.

Of course the Democrats are going to need more than just Mitt Romney to remove Trump from office, and without a doubt there are other Republicans in the Senate who do not like Trump at all.

In fact, GOP strategist Mike Murphy has argued that there are 30 Senate Republicans that would vote to convict Trump if the vote was held in secret.

But how many of them are willing to do it publicly?

We shall see.

In Washington, the elite like to have men and women in Congress that have been compromised in some manner, because it is so much easier to “persuade” them to vote a certain way when push comes to shove.

In the end, I don’t know if pro-impeachment forces will be able to get to 67 votes, but if I was President Trump I would definitely be sweating right now.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article.  In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post If Donald Trump Is Impeached, That Will Be A Sign That All Hell Is About To Break Loose In America appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Unfortunately, a slim majority of the U.S. population now appears to be on the side of the pro-impeachment forces.  A little over a week ago, a Fox News survey was the first poll to show this…

A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.

President Trump blasted that poll on Twitter, but then earlier this week Gallup released a survey with even worse results…

Currently, 52% say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 46% say he should not be. This is roughly the opposite of what Gallup found in June when asked in the context of special counselor Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Subsequently, the highly respected Pew Research Center released their own startling poll…

The new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Oct. 1-13 among 3,487 adults, finds that 54% currently approve of the House’s decision to conduct an impeachment inquiry, while 44% disapprove.

Neither party engenders a great deal of confidence that they will be “fair and reasonable” during the impeachment inquiry, the survey finds. About four-in-ten (43%) expect that the Republicans in Congress will be fair in handling the inquiry, while slightly more (47%) say the same about the Democrats in Congress.

Once can be a coincidence, twice is a trend, and three times means that we have a major problem on our hands.

In fact, an average of all the latest national polls about impeachment shows that “a majority of Americans” now support this process…

For the first time, a majority of Americans said this week that they supported the impeachment of President Trump. Not just in one, outlying poll — in an average of all current national polls compiled by the data journalists at FiveThirtyEight.

From a historical perspective, this is really stunning, because during Richard Nixon’s impeachment process a majority of Americans never supported his impeachment until the very end.

And in Bill Clinton’s case, public support for his impeachment never even reached the 40 percent mark.

So to see that more than 50 percent of Americans are in favor of impeaching Trump is rather stunning, and it shows that the mainstream media still possesses an immense amount of influence in our society.

But even if everything that the Democrats are alleging that President Trump did is 100 percent true, there is still no impeachable offense here.

Whether you are a fan of Trump or not, you should want to see justice done in this case.  Ultimately, our representatives in Washington are supposed to be our “public servants”, and they should be treated just like everyone else.

If it can be shown that President Trump’s behavior specifically fits the elements of a specific federal crime, and if that specific federal crime rises to the level of a “high crime or misdemeanor”, then President Trump should accept his fate.

I have gone over all of the “crimes” that the Democrats are accusing Trump of committing, and they must not be reading the federal statutes regarding these crimes very carefully, because Trump’s actions don’t fit any of those statutes.

Look, if Trump was really guilty of a “high crime or misdemeanor”, there would be plenty of Republicans in Congress turning on him by now.  And I am not talking about turncoats like Mitt Romney that have their own political agendas.

If President Trump was really guilty, a large number of Republicans would turn on him just like we witnessed during the Nixon saga.  When it become clear that Nixon was guilty, members of his own party rapidly abandoned him, and Nixon was forced to resign.

But that hasn’t happened in this case, and it is not going to happen because Trump is not guilty.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are going to draft articles of impeachment anyway, and at this point it looks like the vote in the House is going to go against Trump.

So then the drama will move to the Senate, and Mitch McConnell is telling everyone to be ready for a trial “as soon as Thanksgiving”…

Majority leader Mitch McConnell told Republican senators Wednesday to be ready for an impeachment trial of President Trump as soon as Thanksgiving, as the Senate began to brace for a political maelstrom that would engulf the nation.

An air of inevitability has taken hold in Congress, with the expectation that Trump will become the third president in history to be impeached — and that Republicans need to prepare to defend the president. While McConnell briefed senators on what would happen during a Senate trial, House GOP leaders convened what they expect will be regular impeachment strategy sessions.

The good news is that McConnell has pledged to protect Trump, and that almost certainly means that the effort to remove Trump from office will fail.

But the uproar that the Democrats and the mainstream media are creating over all of this is going to divide this nation even more deeply, and it is setting the stage for the kind of civil unrest that I have long warned about (#ad).

When this process is finally over, about half the country is going to end up believing that Trump committed some sort of major crime but that justice was kept from being done by Trump’s Republican friends in the Senate.

There is going to be so much anger on the left, and what makes this situation even more volatile is the fact that we are heading into an election year.

We have never seen anything like this before in American history, and things are about to get very, very ugly.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

The post 3 Polls Show A Majority Of Americans Now Support Impeachment As A Major Constitutional Crisis Looms appeared first on The Economic Collapse.