Post by the Scribe on Feb 1, 2021 9:34:27 GMT
Trump and conservative media fomented fear, anger and hatred in their base that was eventually going to climax in some sort of dire event. The capitol riot will be the least of what is to come unless they are stopped. My only disagreement with this opinion piece is that of Bill Clinton's supposed crime of lying under oath about a consensual affair is a bit much. Yes, Clinton was stupid especially the way the cons had been gunning for him before he stepped into the oval office he should have known better. But it does not rise to what Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II did. Not even close.
If we don't hold Trump accountable for his 'high crimes,' America will pay a high price
www.yahoo.com/news/dont-hold-trump-accountable-high-081501434.html
Larry Strauss, Opinion columnist
Mon, February 1, 2021, 1:15 AM
Some years ago, one of my students won a full scholarship to a prestigious university and then stopped doing her homework. We did the usual interventions but to no avail. When final grades were due, her other teachers and I agonized over what to do. In retrospect, there should have been no dilemma. Surely, some other student on the wait list deserved the opportunity — but we loved this kid and knew she had overcome a lot, and we succumbed to our emotions.
We all passed her — passing her on to that university. She didn’t even make it there for an entire school year.
I probably should have already learned that from passing another wayward senior several years earlier. But he was a truly brilliant kid with no deficit in smarts or skills, so I figured, what was the harm in letting him graduate and outgrow his recalcitrance? A year later, his girlfriend asked me to write a letter on his behalf to a federal judge, in the hope that he would get a sentence at the lower end of 10 to 15 years.
Decades of presidential impunity
I actually stayed in touch with him while he was in prison and sent him books and articles to read, and encouraged him to earn his college degree while he was incarcerated. He did. He also fought fires as a prisoner, earned early release and is now doing well.
I told him I was sorry that I hadn’t helped him to be accountable when he was my student, and he laughed and told me that it wouldn’t have mattered. But I still think about him and about the student who lost her scholarship after we had failed to hold her accountable.
Enforcing accountability is complicated for a high school educator. Unbending consequences can alienate and discourage children, but insufficient consequences can cripple them.
President Richard Nixon on April 17, 1973, in Washington, D.C.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and not just in terms of my students. I am wondering what insufficient consequences can do to a country.
We are hearing a lot lately about the post-Watergate events: Vice President Spiro Agnew given the privilege of plea bargaining himself out of a prison term on corruption charges and resigning in disgrace, House Republican leader Gerald Ford elevated to vice president, Richard Nixon also resigning in disgrace and receiving from the never-elected President Ford a full pardon for all of his crimes as president.
www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/us/spiro-t-agnew-point-man-for-nixon-who-resigned-vice-presidency-dies-at-77.html
www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Gerald_Ford.htm
He understands money: Biden administration should sue Donald Trump to pay for Capitol riot cleanup
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/31/post-capitol-riot-cleanup-and-how-pay-column/6700427002/
Ford claimed the pardon was in our national interest, but I wonder. Ford’s son recently explained it this way: "The idea was to get Nixon out of the way, heal the nation and go forward."
www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/politics/gerald-ford-richard-nixon-pardon-wolf-what-matters/index.html
Healing is important, but to extend his metaphor, how effective is healing without disinfecting? Or, put another way, what are the long-term effects of providing impunity to a criminal president?
If Nixon had been held accountable for his crimes, would President Ronald Reagan and his crew have broken the law to sell arms to Iran and give the proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebel Contras?
www.history.com/topics/1980s/iran-contra-affair
Nixon, Reagan, Clinton let off the hook
The Iran-Contra hearings revealed a Congress stupefied by partisanship, obliterating any hope of accountability, though Reagan did ultimately admit in a televised speech: "A few months ago I told the American people that I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not."
www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/03/05/reagan-acknowledges-arms-for-hostages-swap/7a5cd7cc-a112-4283-94bd-7f730ad81901/
If Nixon and Reagan had been held accountable, would President Bill Clinton have defiled the Oval Office and lied under oath? If not for all the previous failures to hold presidents and former presidents accountable, would we now be listening to Republicans duck and dodge and dissemble about the culpability of former President Donald Trump and excuse his seditious conspiracy with cynical calls for unity?
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-impeachment/clinton-admits-lewinsky-relationship-challenges-starr-end-personal-prying/
Let's get real: Joe Biden, Democrats and America need results much more than unity
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/24/joe-biden-democrats-no-surrender-mcconnell-republicans-column/6680754002/
Holding an impeachment trial for a former president is unprecedented. So would be convicting any president in the Senate — not to mention in a state or federal court of law. There is potential peril in such action. Reasonable people recoiled at Trump’s threats to imprison former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandled government emails. We do not want to become a country in which our leaders lock up their political opponents.
But what are the dangers of not holding a president accountable? If Trump’s "high crimes" and low ones are the price of Nixon’s impunity, and Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s, then one day, sooner than we might think, what will be the price of Trump’s?
www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
Larry Strauss has been a high school English teacher in South Los Angeles since 1992. He is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and the author of more than a dozen books, most recently "Students First and Other Lies: Straight Talk From a Veteran Teacher" and, on audio, "Now's the Time" (narrated by Kim Fields). Follow him on Twitter: @larrystrauss
www.amazon.com/Students-First-Other-Lies-Straight-ebook/dp/B00LH8IA10?ots=1&slotNum=0&imprToken=4ab97228-51f5-ddfa-a3a&_ga=2.180348711.248871450.1600002765-1865521976.1594220948
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's brazen high crimes set corrupt precedent for future presidents
If we don't hold Trump accountable for his 'high crimes,' America will pay a high price
www.yahoo.com/news/dont-hold-trump-accountable-high-081501434.html
Larry Strauss, Opinion columnist
Mon, February 1, 2021, 1:15 AM
Some years ago, one of my students won a full scholarship to a prestigious university and then stopped doing her homework. We did the usual interventions but to no avail. When final grades were due, her other teachers and I agonized over what to do. In retrospect, there should have been no dilemma. Surely, some other student on the wait list deserved the opportunity — but we loved this kid and knew she had overcome a lot, and we succumbed to our emotions.
We all passed her — passing her on to that university. She didn’t even make it there for an entire school year.
I probably should have already learned that from passing another wayward senior several years earlier. But he was a truly brilliant kid with no deficit in smarts or skills, so I figured, what was the harm in letting him graduate and outgrow his recalcitrance? A year later, his girlfriend asked me to write a letter on his behalf to a federal judge, in the hope that he would get a sentence at the lower end of 10 to 15 years.
Decades of presidential impunity
I actually stayed in touch with him while he was in prison and sent him books and articles to read, and encouraged him to earn his college degree while he was incarcerated. He did. He also fought fires as a prisoner, earned early release and is now doing well.
I told him I was sorry that I hadn’t helped him to be accountable when he was my student, and he laughed and told me that it wouldn’t have mattered. But I still think about him and about the student who lost her scholarship after we had failed to hold her accountable.
Enforcing accountability is complicated for a high school educator. Unbending consequences can alienate and discourage children, but insufficient consequences can cripple them.
President Richard Nixon on April 17, 1973, in Washington, D.C.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and not just in terms of my students. I am wondering what insufficient consequences can do to a country.
We are hearing a lot lately about the post-Watergate events: Vice President Spiro Agnew given the privilege of plea bargaining himself out of a prison term on corruption charges and resigning in disgrace, House Republican leader Gerald Ford elevated to vice president, Richard Nixon also resigning in disgrace and receiving from the never-elected President Ford a full pardon for all of his crimes as president.
www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/us/spiro-t-agnew-point-man-for-nixon-who-resigned-vice-presidency-dies-at-77.html
www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Gerald_Ford.htm
He understands money: Biden administration should sue Donald Trump to pay for Capitol riot cleanup
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/31/post-capitol-riot-cleanup-and-how-pay-column/6700427002/
Ford claimed the pardon was in our national interest, but I wonder. Ford’s son recently explained it this way: "The idea was to get Nixon out of the way, heal the nation and go forward."
www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/politics/gerald-ford-richard-nixon-pardon-wolf-what-matters/index.html
Healing is important, but to extend his metaphor, how effective is healing without disinfecting? Or, put another way, what are the long-term effects of providing impunity to a criminal president?
If Nixon had been held accountable for his crimes, would President Ronald Reagan and his crew have broken the law to sell arms to Iran and give the proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebel Contras?
www.history.com/topics/1980s/iran-contra-affair
Nixon, Reagan, Clinton let off the hook
The Iran-Contra hearings revealed a Congress stupefied by partisanship, obliterating any hope of accountability, though Reagan did ultimately admit in a televised speech: "A few months ago I told the American people that I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not."
www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/03/05/reagan-acknowledges-arms-for-hostages-swap/7a5cd7cc-a112-4283-94bd-7f730ad81901/
If Nixon and Reagan had been held accountable, would President Bill Clinton have defiled the Oval Office and lied under oath? If not for all the previous failures to hold presidents and former presidents accountable, would we now be listening to Republicans duck and dodge and dissemble about the culpability of former President Donald Trump and excuse his seditious conspiracy with cynical calls for unity?
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-impeachment/clinton-admits-lewinsky-relationship-challenges-starr-end-personal-prying/
Let's get real: Joe Biden, Democrats and America need results much more than unity
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/24/joe-biden-democrats-no-surrender-mcconnell-republicans-column/6680754002/
Holding an impeachment trial for a former president is unprecedented. So would be convicting any president in the Senate — not to mention in a state or federal court of law. There is potential peril in such action. Reasonable people recoiled at Trump’s threats to imprison former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandled government emails. We do not want to become a country in which our leaders lock up their political opponents.
But what are the dangers of not holding a president accountable? If Trump’s "high crimes" and low ones are the price of Nixon’s impunity, and Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s, then one day, sooner than we might think, what will be the price of Trump’s?
www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
Larry Strauss has been a high school English teacher in South Los Angeles since 1992. He is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and the author of more than a dozen books, most recently "Students First and Other Lies: Straight Talk From a Veteran Teacher" and, on audio, "Now's the Time" (narrated by Kim Fields). Follow him on Twitter: @larrystrauss
www.amazon.com/Students-First-Other-Lies-Straight-ebook/dp/B00LH8IA10?ots=1&slotNum=0&imprToken=4ab97228-51f5-ddfa-a3a&_ga=2.180348711.248871450.1600002765-1865521976.1594220948
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's brazen high crimes set corrupt precedent for future presidents