MENU

Sections

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy
  • Chestertown Spy

More

  • Support the Spy
  • About Spy Community Media
  • Advertising with the Spy
  • Subscribe
December 11, 2023

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy
  • Chestertown Spy
News Maryland News

Harris: ‘I’m Re-upping For This Fight,’ WBAL News Radio Reports

January 17, 2021 by Spy Desk

Speaking this weekend with Andrew Langer on WBAL News Radio 1090 AM/101.5 FM, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.-1st, said President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment was “the wrong way to go.”

WBAL also reported that Harris — who pledged to only serve for six terms in Congress and who introduced a term-limits resolution in 2013 — said he will run for a seventh term representing Maryland’s First Congressional District in Congress.

Harris compared it to someone in the military deciding to extend their service.

“… (A)t this point in time, I’m re-upping for this fight,” Harris said.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Maryland News Tagged With: andy harris, Congress, election, first district, impeachment, Maryland

Harris One of Four GOP House Members to Skip Historic Impeachment Vote

January 14, 2021 by John Griep

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.-1st, was one of four Republican members of Congress who did not vote Wednesday as the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump for a second time.

With Wednesday’s historic 232-197 vote, Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice by the House. Unlike Trump’s first impeachment, 10 House Republicans voted Wednesday with Democrats to send an article of impeachment to the U.S. Senate for a trial.

Harris, an anesthesiologist, said in a Wednesday tweet that he was in the operating room caring for patients, but would have voted against impeaching Trump.

Harris tweeted:

“Today, I spent my time caring for patients in our district during this pandemic. The Speaker’s divisive, hastily called, and politically motivated snap impeachment is a waste of time when we will swear in President-elect Biden in fewer than seven days’ time.

“In light of his calls for unity and healing, I call on the President-elect to disavow this action. Engaging in a political impeachment that will be moot in one week was another waste of time brought to you by the Democrat majority.

“While I certainly would have voted against impeachment, and the Congressional Record will reflect that, my constituents were better served by my work in the operating room today than by taking part in this pointless exercise.”

A number of Maryland lawmakers apparently feel the First District and the state would be better served if Harris is out of office entirely.

On Monday, 71 of 141 state delegates and 13 of 47 state senators signed a letter calling on Harris to resign for his support of objections to the electoral college results in Arizona and Pennsylvania and his lack of decorum on the House floor after a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol and killed a police officer.

Although Harris, in his tweet, argues impeaching Trump “will be moot” by Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is sworn in as president, many legal and constitutional experts note that a conviction in the U.S. Senate could carry consequences beyond removal from office.

If Trump is convicted, the Senate also could hold a separate vote to make Trump ineligible for holding any federal office in the future, which would put an end to his apparent plan to run again for president in 2024.

For the Senate to convict someone in an impeachment requires a tw0-thirds supermajority vote and the Senate previously has ruled that removal from office is automatic upon conviction and does not require a separate vote.

The Senate also has determined that disqualifying a person convicted in an impeachment proceeding is a separate vote that may be decided by a simple majority.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Maryland News Tagged With: andy harris, House of Representatives, impeachment, president donald trump, U.S. Senate, vote

Gilchrest Backs Trump Impeachment; Md. Lawmakers Call on Harris to Resign

January 12, 2021 by Maryland Matters

Two dozen former Republican members of Congress ― including Wayne Gilchrest ― are encouraging their successors to “protect American democracy by impeaching President Donald J. Trump.”

The letter was sent Monday and circulated by the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.

“For more than 200 years, the peaceful transfer of power has been one of the pillars of American government. Sadly, this tradition has been severely tarnished,” the former members wrote. “There is no excuse for nor defense of a President of the United States to actively orchestrate an insurrection on a separate but coequal branch of government. Surely, the Founders would be sickened by the thought of such actions. As members of the branch that was under attack—not just politically but physically—you must remove the president from office.”

“Congress must send a strong and clear message not just to this president but future presidents that this type of behavior will not be tolerated or accepted,” the letter continued. “Frankly, the message also needs to be made clear to the American people that there is no place in politics for political violence.”

Other signers of the letter include former Virginia representatives Denver Riggleman and Barbara Comstock and former Pennsylvania representatives Charlie Dent and James C. Greenwood.

Rep. Andrew P. Harris (R-Md.). Harris Facebook photo.

Gilchrest represented Maryland’s 1st District as a moderate Republican. He lost the Republican primary to now-Rep. Andrew P. Harris in 2008 and went on to endorse Harris’ Democratic opponent Frank Kratovil Jr., who won the election and served one term before losing to Harris in 2010.

Harris has held the seat since.

Gilchrest changed his party affiliation to Democrat in 2019.

The letter was sent on the same day that 71 Democratic members of the Maryland House of Delegates and 13 state senators signed a letter condemning Harris’ comments about unfounded election fraud and calling for him to resign.

In the early morning after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Harris joined other colleagues in continuing to object to the certification of election results from Pennsylvania.

“Rather than recognizing that your words and behavior in office have damaged our democracy, have threatened our Constitution, and have undermined the nation you are sworn to, your response to the attack on our Capitol was to continue to use the same words and behavior,” the lawmakers wrote. “To vote with too many of your colleagues to undermine a free and fair election. To give comfort to the enemies of democracy within our borders and around the world.”

The morning after the vote, Harris defended his response in a public statement.

“I have routinely and consistently rejected violent protests, whether in the case of yesterday, or last summer. Democrats are calling for unity, yet also calling for the expulsion of Members who objected in yesterday’s Electoral College count. Today, some Marylanders are even calling for my resignation, which I will not do,” Harris said. “My colleagues and I held legitimate Constitutional concerns about how the November election was conducted in certain states and felt compelled to highlight those concerns during the formal vote count.”

By Danielle E. Gaines

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: News Homepage, News Portal Highlights Tagged With: andy harris, donald trump, impeachment, resignation, wayne gilchrest

Op-Ed: Democrats Should have a Plan B for Trump by Steve Parks

February 3, 2020 by Steve Parks

“Total exoneration! It was all a hoax! But now, with my great vindication, the State of the Nation and State of the Presidency are better than ever in the history of the USA, thanks to me and 51 patriotic Republican Senators:  Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz . . .”

We might have expected the president in his State of the Union address on Tuesday to go down the entire roster of Republican senators who voted to acquit him. Sort of like he did in a White House lawn gathering in the middle of the so-called Senate impeachment trial—personally thanking every senator in advance for their acquittal verdict. But, Deadbeat Donald, real estate tycoon, probably knows all about jury tampering. Get used to it, losers. Four more years!

That would be an existential threat to America as we know it. 

But McConnell couldn’t quite grant Trump’s wish to be acquitted before his State of the Union date with Congress. Yet that may not stop him from claiming exoneration even before the preordained Senate acquittal on Wednesday. If he does, every Democrat in the House chamber should walk out—including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, handing her copy of the president’s address back to him as she leads her caucus, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer’s, out into the warm winter night of the Nation’s Capital. 

It’s a fantasy, I suppose, but a fitting slap in the face that President Trump richly deserves. It’s also a rebuke to the Republican Senate majority that abdicated its constitutionally co-equal checks-and-balances responsibility on behalf of a semi-literate, fully ignorant, pathologically mendacious and narcissistic bully with the moral compass of congealed spittle and drool. Who speaks ill of the dead? Who mocks people with disabilities and gold-star parents? Who separates babies from their mothers to make his case for a border wall that can be completed only by confiscating millions of acres from American landowners? As for his ignorance and illiteracy, I cite Trump’s congratulatory tweet to the Kansas City Chiefs on their Super Bowl triumph—”representing the great state of Kansas!” Missourians must wonder if he can read even a map. 

Never mind that he did it before with Russia in 2016. (OK, so the Russians initiated the hack campaign to defeat Hillary. But Donald tagged along with enthusiastic transparency. “Russia, if you’re listening [ya-da-ya] 30 thousand emails. . .”) So, the day after the Mueller hearings ended—the very next day!—Donald inadvertently revealed what he learned from that narrow impeachment escape. Nothing! He called the newly elected president of Ukraine to shake him down by withholding nearly $400 million in military aid authorized by a bipartisan Congress for the “favor” of an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. (He who did his father no favors by joining the board of a Ukrainian energy company.) Trump also sought investigations into the crazy conspiracy theory that the Democratic National Committee server hacked by Russia had been whisked away to the former Soviet Union republic that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to reclaim by armed proxy rebellion.

Trump’s perfidy—arguably treasonable and brazenly impeachable—was exposed in his self-described “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Ignoramus Trump should have known it would be monitored by a dozen or more White House and national security aides. A whistle-blower sounded his alarm. Several witnesses, both first- and second-hand, corroborated his complaint. Trump’s defense, as presented by his trial team, is barely more credible than those excusing his 2016 “Access Hollywood” audio of Trump bragging about sexual assault: It was just locker-room banter.

Well, far less credible if you listen to Alan Dershowitz’s legal theory on abuse of power. If the president believes his election is in the public interest, whatever he does in that pursuit is quid-pro-quo immunized—excepting only pecuniary sins (like accepting cash in brown bags which sunk vice president and former Maryland governor Spiro Agnew months before Richard Nixon resigned in impeachment disgrace). In other words, seeking re-election that he believes is in the “national interest” means Trump could get away with anything to further that outcome. Taken literally, that includes assassinating his rival. Hey, why stop at smearing Biden? Anyway, his Senate defenders made up for Donald’s failed Ukraine coercion by smearing the Bidens at every opportunity.

But Dershowitz goes way further in twisting the Constitution into ring-kissing knots for Trump. If Putin claimed Alaska because Russia once owned it, just as he did in stealing Crimea from Ukraine, and if Trump said, “You’re welcome, Vlad,” that would be “terrible,” Dershowitz concedes, but not impeachable! 

We doubt Donald would go that far, though he’d be tempted if Putin offered to pay him personally for the real estate. And although Trump has deployed such mob lingo as “take her out” when referring to Marie Yovanovitch, fired U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, I doubt he’d conspire in assassinating Americans, though he’s stoked people at his rallies to retaliate, citing “Second Amendment” solutions. Trump is so unhinged to moral, strategic and intellectual responsibility that we have no idea what he might resort to in saving his own skin. How about provoking a war to distract from impeachment or, in upcoming months, un-election. Didn’t he nearly do that with Iran? 

Democrats should have a Plan B in case Donald prevails in 2020. Use the Senate’s obscene fealty to His Trumpness to bury them in another Blue Wave. We’re looking at you, Moscow Mitch and all your Trump Toads, led by Lindsay Graham. You complain that the House didn’t have first-hand witnesses to Trump’s extortion of Ukraine. Then, when you have a volunteer witness who was in the Oval Office with Trump, you say the clock has run out. You don’t want to hear National Security Adviser John Bolton testify because word has it that he’d testify the president ordered himself and others to make the “drug deal” with Ukraine happen: Smear Biden or you don’t get your weaponry. Instead you say, we’ve heard enough, even as you complain it’s not nearly enough to impeach the president

We can’t count on ever hearing from Bolton. Not even through his book. That’s because we can’t count on it being published. There’s nothing to stop Trump from brow-beating national security officials now reviewing Bolton’s manuscript into redacting it to death. Or blocking publication altogether.

The House should subpoena Bolton to testify. Now. Maybe the subpoena will get nowhere. But by keeping the heat on, who would bet against the pertinent passages of Bolton’s nonfiction being leaked? Or that more witnesses will step forward to blow the whistle once the dam of Trump lies breaks? 

Seventy-five percent of Americans polled on the issue said there should have been witnesses. Otherwise, it’s not a trial. And, as Pelosi says, without a trial, there can be no acquittal. Instead, we have a sham—a real hoax as opposed to Donald’s fake hoaxes in attacking Bob Mueller, Adam Schiff et al.

The remedy, aside from defeating Trump in November, is to capture the Senate, retain the House and stifle Trump if he wins again. Thwart him. Nullify him. Make him a four-year lame duck. Don’t approve any nomination, particularly to the courts, unless his name is Merrick Garland. And if he so much as jaywalks to enter his emolument-clause-violating Trump International Hotel near the White House, impeach him again. It may be partisan. But this time, with McConnell involuntarily retired, America might have the votes to rid us of this monarch-wannabe embarrassment to our constitutional republic, Donald John Trump.

Steve Parks is a retired journalist now living in Easton.

 

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Op-Ed Tagged With: impeachment

House Impeaches Trump: Here’s What Maryland Leaders Said on the Floor

December 20, 2019 by Maryland Matters

Maryland’s congressional delegation voted along party lines as the U.S. House voted to impeach President Trump Wednesday night, making him the third president to be impeached in U.S. history.

Trump was impeached on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress. The charges surround allegations that Trump improperly pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival in an effort to interfere with the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

No House Republicans voted to adopt either impeachment article. Two House Democrats voted against both articles of impeachment — Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey. Van Drew is reportedly planning to switch parties to become a Republican.

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted yes on the first article but against the obstruction of Congress article. Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted “present” on both articles.

Maryland’s delegation voted entirely along party lines.  Democratic Reps. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, John P. Sarbanes, Anthony G. Brown, Steny H. Hoyer, David J. Trone and Jamie B. Raskin supported both impeachment articles. Republican Andrew P. Harris voted against both articles.

All but Trone spoke on the House floor Wednesday.

The vote came after a lengthy and heated debate on the House floor, as Democrats warned that Trump had trampled on the U.S. Constitution, while his GOP defenders accused the House majority of manufacturing a case for impeachment due to their disdain for Trump’s policies.

“The founders’ great fear of a rogue or corrupt president is the very reason why they enshrined impeachment in the Constitution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor ahead of the vote. “If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”

Only two other presidents had previously been impeached by the House: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Both of those presidents were acquitted by the Senate.

Trump also appears to be headed for acquittal in the GOP-led Senate. A trial, in which House Democrats will argue their case before the upper chamber of Congress, is expected to begin next month.

Some senators have been cautious about stating whether they’ll vote to remove Trump from office, arguing that they’ll be jurors in the trial and don’t want to prejudge the outcome. But not Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

McConnell told reporters Tuesday that he is “not at all impartial” on impeachment and that it is a “political process.”

As lawmakers prepared to vote on Wednesday, Trump wrote on Twitter: “SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS. THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!”

Trump held a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Mich., on Wednesday night. “By the way, it doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached, the country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong and we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like never before,” Trump said, according to The Washington Post.

Democrats, including some in districts won by Trump in 2016, streamed onto the House floor during the day-long debate on Wednesday to make their case for impeachment.

Hoyer, the House majority leader, said that in his nearly 40 years in Congress under six presidential administrations, he never expected to “encounter such an obvious wrongdoing by a president of the United States. Nor did I expect to witness such a craven rationalization of presidential actions which have put our national security at risk, undermined the integrity of our elections and defied the constitutional authority of the Congress to conduct oversight.”

Hoyer also paid tribute to one of his predecessors, the late Rep. Lawrence J. Hogan Sr. (R-Md.), one of the few Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who supported impeaching President Nixon in 1974.

Republicans, meanwhile, spent the debate accusing their Democratic colleagues of pursuing a political vendetta against the president, pointing frequently to statements Democrats had made supporting impeachment before the Ukraine investigation was launched.

“The few Americans that are going to be watching this — because they know what the outcome is, we all know what the outcome is — they’re wondering why are we trying to negate the votes of 63 million Americans instead of talking about the things that Americans care about,” Harris said.

Democrats vehemently denied GOP attacks that they were pursuing impeachment because they hate Trump’s policies or dislike him personally.

“I resent those who say this is about reversing the election,” Ruppersberger asserted. “This isn’t about whether or not you like Trump; it’s about upholding our Constitution. Allowing this conduct to go unquestioned sets a dangerous precedent.”

One independent congressman, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, sided with Democrats to vote for both articles of impeachment. Amash, who helped found the conservative House Freedom Caucus, left the GOP earlier this year after calling for Trump’s impeachment.

Trump’s “actions reflect precisely the type of conduct the framers of the Constitution intended to remedy through the power of impeachment, and it is our duty to impeach him,” Amash said Wednesday on the House floor.

Here are remarks of Maryland’s other members on the House floor:

Brown 

“President Trump betrayed his oath. He abused his power, the immense power of the presidency. He threatened our elections by inviting foreign interference. He chose investigating a political rival over defending our national security. So today, we must use our power, the extraordinary power endowed by our Constitution and entrusted by the people, the power to impeach.”

Raskin 

“American elections belong to the American people, not the American president and not foreign powers. No president may cheat the people by working with foreign governments to steal from us a free and fair election. And no president who attempts it may cover up that cheating by systematically obstructing Congress and our work. Article 2 of the Constitution does not authorize a president to do whatever he wants. The reason we have a Constitution is to keep government officials from doing whatever they want.”

Sarbanes 

“Voting to impeach the president is a weighty decision. It is not something you reach for, it is something you’re brought to reluctantly, when the evidence presented can no longer be denied.”

“The president’s actions compromised the national security of the United States, undermined the integrity of our democratic process and betrayed the trust of the American people.”

“In soliciting foreign interference, President Trump took direct aim at the heart of our democracy. The American people should decide our elections, not a foreign country. As long as the president continues to invite foreign interference into our democracy, the integrity of the 2020 election remains at risk. The question is: Will Congress allow the president to place his personal interests above those of his country? I urge my colleagues in the House to join me in answering that question with a resounding no.”

By Robin Bravender

Don’t miss the latest! You can subscribe to The Talbot Spy‘s free Daily Intelligence Report here. 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: News Homepage, News Portal Lead Tagged With: Chestertown Spy, Congress, Hoyer, impeachment, Trump

Copyright © 2023

Affiliated News

  • The Chestertown Spy
  • The Talbot Spy

Sections

  • Arts
  • Culture
  • Ecosystem
  • Education
  • Mid-Shore Health
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Shore Recovery
  • Spy Senior Nation

Spy Community Media

  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • Advertising & Underwriting

Copyright © 2023 · Spy Community Media Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in