Here we go 'round the prickly pear

Mr. President, you’re from Queens.

You may fool the rest of the country, but I’ll call your bluff any day of the week.

Opening an impeachment inquiry is exactly what we must do when the President obstructs justice, advises witnesses to ignore legal subpoenas, & more.

Bye 👋🏽 https://t.co/4O9PNbYFki

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 17, 2019

I still say:  well, maybe.

Axios has a nice graphic showing the 67 Representatives who favor impeachment (66 Democrats and Rep Amash), leaving 151 who don't (you need 218 to impeach).  Will those 151 come around after hearings?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Besides, I still think impeachment without removal leaves Trump neither shamed nor claimed, but invisible and bulletproof.  There's an old adage:  if you strike at a king, you had better kill him.  Striking at Trump's presidency is not remotely the same thing as killing it.  But that's why I've included John Oliver's thoughts on the subject, even though we don't reach the same conclusion:

On the impunity argument:  who thinks Trump would be shamed, even challenged, by an impeachment result that didn't end in a vote to remove him from office?  The clip Oliver plays from the ABC interview is Trump at his most aggressive.  What has he learned from the Mueller report, from everything that has happened to him in office?  Nothing.  He only understands consequences?  Really?  He still thinks he did nothing wrong in discriminating in housing, or calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, or for the Obama birther conspiracy nonsense.  The real question of impunity is:  did the Republicans ruin the effect of impeachment when they impeached Clinton?  Because that was an almost groundless impeachment, which didn't exactly increase the public's appetite for impeachment proceedings.  And despite the fact Watergate is NOW a by-word for corruption at the Presidential level, Ford lost election mostly because he pardoned Nixon (and presided fecklessly over a bad economy, one that only straightened out when Paul Volcker raised interest rates to double digits and held it there until inflation succumbed).  It might have been a nearer run without that.

Is impeachment a binary process, an either/or?  I honestly think it should be, otherwise we end up with the Republican impeachment of Clinton for purely political reasons.  Do we want to unship that weapon and let successive Houses wield it with impunity?  Or do we want to use it to actually remove someone from office?  Since the Senate won't make Trump go, perhaps we can use it to make the GOP go?  Then again, how does that play in Texas (Cornyn) or Kentucky (McConnell)?  Aye, there's the rub.

Again, should Trump be punished?  If so, do it in a court of law, on criminal charges.  Do it by the people voting the bastard out, and the courts doing their duty under the criminal statutes.  That's the way you defeat a President acting with this level of impunity.  Trump cannot be shamed; he can only be imprisoned.

Well, IMHO, anyway.