Tag Archives: impeachment

Impeachment II: Electric Boogaloo

I guess impeaching a president is a little like riding a bike, with one modification: Not only do you remember the process; you become better at it.

Just look at how streamlined impeachment was this time around. There was no dallying on a charge; no bickering over wording, no debate over the meaning of “I want you to do me a favor, though.” We didn’t have to learn another country, or another obscure foreign diplomat’s name; no Ukrainian recipes to remember. There was even a highlight reel!

Think about it: When have we ever seen a crime and trial within six weeks? The rest of our legal system should be so brisk.

Of course, doing it better doesn’t mean a different outcome. The verdict is as predetermined as O.J.’s murder trial — and just as sensible.

But that’s the beauty of the theatrical encore we get to the Trump presidency. Just as Donald Trump is the most honest liar to ever hold political office, so too are his supporters. Unlike Trump, however, the GOP must put its fealty to the mad king in writing.

They did it on Insurrection Day, and they will do it on Impeachment Day. They have said, in the form of a roll call vote, that to be a proper conservative, one must assert feeling over fact, faith over evidence. If you have a hunch about something, they argue, that’s enough to challenge the reality of it.

And the reality is: Donald Trump is above the law in conservative eyes. Full stop.

But there is reason to be optimistic. While House impeachment managers made their case to persuade a Senatorial jury the first two days, The final day of prosecution was made to persuade the nation — or at least an evidence-based nation. And granted, that may be only 55 percent of America. Maybe less. But that is America of the present.

But even that 45% must now ask themselves: Do I want my vote to become a lifetime appointment? Because that the goal in the first coup attempt.

It will be fascinating to see what the GOP becomes in the next two years — presumably in the vacuum of Twitter space — without a circus leader. Perhaps it will find a new Great Leader. Perhaps a Cruz. Or Hawley. Or Taylor-Green. Maybe a Trump. The Republican Party has been a cult of personality since Reagan, so there’s no reason to assume that will cease.

But in the impeachment sequel (which, like the Godfather II and Empire Strikes Back, eclipsed the original), we have seen those in office willing to sign a petition opposing the factual. That strikes me as risky strategy for those seeking higher office in the next election cycle.

Just a hunch.

The Wit(ness)less Path

Image result for iowa caucus"

Evidentialism isn’t much on karma, but it fully embraces the concerto of circumstance. And today’s  was a doozy.

On the same day at the witness-less impeachment of Donald Trump whimpered to its inevitable euthanasia, the Iowa Caucuses kicked off a year of primaries, presidential puffery and, eventually, an actual vote to do something Nov. 3. Oh, and Rush Limbaugh has lung cancer (apparently that 30 years of hot air Rush spewed was carcinogenic). Image result for rush limbaugh"

Now that’s a confluence of events: One party will acquit its leader while another will appoint a new prosecutor. All while the war’s most inaccurate reporter rots from the inside. Say this for the upcoming presidential election: It will be the most honest in modern political history.

Doubt it? Love him or loathe him, does anyone truly feel like they don’t know who Donald Trump is? Are his supporters hard to distinguish? Are there really any on-the-fencers left in America? If so, what the fuck have you been doing for four years? Read something.

The Left, meanwhile, is harder to read; is Bernie a socialist? Will Warren really stick it to the .01%? Could the billionaire sniping between Michael Bloomberg and Trump get any better? (Trump accused Bloomberg of demanding boxes for debates. “The president is lying,” Bloomberg responded in a release. “He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.”)Image result for bloomberg trump"

Despite the differences on the Left, they do all share a through-line: All promise to have the spine to bitch-slap Trump. Democratic voters also have a singular though-line: Someone who will bitch-slap Trump.

Which is why Democrats should actually celebrate the vote the Senate took last week to bar any witnesses in the impeachment trial.

Consider, for a moment, the firmament the GOP would have claimed if it had allowed witnesses. Senators could have argued (however speciously) that the trial was a fair proceeding, complete with evidence and witnesses. Neither, however, amounted to enough to warrant removing the president, they would argue. Soak it in enough politispeak, and it may even sound legitimate.

Now, however, Republican Senators have to sell America on the impartiality of a witness-less trial. A much harder stretch, even when playing to dimwits. Like the jurors in the O.J. verdict and the lawmakers who voted to invade Iraq, there are names listed specifically behind these actions. We can decide if there will be a day of reckoning.Image result for oj verdict iraq"

A day after the Senate vote to ban witnesses, a wily hacker, presumably Democrat, massaged the Wikipedia entry on The United States Senate to read this:

The United States Senate was formerly the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which, along with the United States House of Representatives ― the lower chamber ― comprised the legislature of the United States. It died on January 31, 2020, when senators from the Republican Party refused to stand up to a corrupt autocrat calling himself the president of the United States, refusing to hear testimony that said individual blackmailed Ukraine in order to cheat in the 2020 presidential election.

After the hack, Wikipedia quickly took down the entry and restored the original, perhaps one of the first times Wiki has publicly made an entry inaccurate.

But the point was made. For three years, we have lied to ourselves about what would move the political needle: The Muller report? Nope. Ukraine? Next. Political assassinations? You’ll have to do better than that. The only thing that’s going to remove Trump is an overwhelming electoral loss. And even that may be disputed (the guys contested an election he won, for god’s sake).

The results in Iowa will do more than pick a first-round winner. When it and 49 others states have run their preliminary 5ks, they will give us a clearer picture of who we are as Americans. Are half of us flat-Earthers? Anti-vaxers? Half of us believe you’re in a cult. The other half think you’re too hard on the Kool-Aid. We’ll see in less than a year.

If we choose it, impeachment starts now. But make no mistake: We will sleep in beds we made.

 

 

Ernest Goes to Impreachment

I awoke today to the above headline from U.S. News & World Report, which asserted that Donald Trump had assembled a legal impeachment team that resembled “Made-For-TV” entertainment, including Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the feckless prosecutor who considered a blowjob high crimes and misdemeanors two decades ago.

At first, the team surprised me. Didn’t Trump spend, literally, months eviscerating Starr publicly for being as incompetent as, well, Trump (just without using the name)?Image result for ken starr clown

Then I punched myself in the nose for being surprised. I should be lobotomized for expecting a modicum of consistency from Trump. Perhaps I have been. Maybe that’s why Trump sniffles so much; he’s trying to breathe in the fumes from the evaporated brains of those who hear him speak.

As is often the case with a slackwit like the president, I often find myself questioning whether there is intent hidden within the idiocy. And while Trump himself likely doesn’t know how a hat works, his GOP overlords may have subtly shifted political tactics on the American populace — particularly the under-educated and over-churched.

After all, does it not seem reasonable that the vanguards of the Republican Party (McConnell, Graham, Murdoch, the Koch Bros., etc.) would take a political pathway that’s been effective for decades, the “Southern Strategy,” and morph it into an easily digested Flintstones chewable for an American sub-strata that still holds to those principles — namely, Trumptards and Evangelicals?Image result for koch brothers mcconnell

Of course, it isn’t politically expedient to brazenly play on race-baiting. So this isn’t The Southern Strategy. Say hello to the GOP’s Simpleton Strategy. It’s like the Southern Strategy, only with way more better.

Consider, for a moment, GOP presidential tickets going back four decades. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won consecutive terms decisively, despite popular ridicule of our president co-starring with a chimp in Bedtime for Bonzo. The notion of that as a deal-breaker now seems quaint.Image result for reagan bonzo

Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, took the Simpleton Strategy a step further, with dimwit Dannie Quayle as vice-president. Remember when Quayle tried to spell potato on a chalkboard? Again, in the context of today, with a president who spells “smoke” “smock,” the error seems cute. Back then, though, we must have demanded some level of intelligence, because Bush-Quayle lasted one term.Image result for dan quayle potato

It was in 1996 that the GOP made its last attempt to scaffold a respectably intelligent ticket: Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. Dole was a Senator, Kemp the former Secretary of Housing. Easily the highest combined IQ on the GOP ticket in decades. They were trounced by Clinton-Gore, winning just 159 Electoral votes, the lowest since Goldwater in 1964.Image result for dole kemp

And with that went the last double-sanity ticket.

Since then, the GOP has seamlessly blended the Southern Strategy of the 50’s and 60’s into the Simpleton Strategy we see today. After the Dole-Kemp fiasco, we got Mensa shoo-in George W. Bush — twice. (“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”)Image result for bush fool me once

That was followed by John McCain and Sarah Palin, a VP pick McCain later admitted regretting in an HBO documentary shortly before his death. You remember Sarah. The everywoman,  a workaday mom who just liked to hunt wolves from helicopters after soccer practice.Image result for sarah palin helicopter hunting

Then there was old Mitt Romney. Here’s what the GOP offered: A president who, among other things, believes that God lives near a planet called “Kolob,” that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, that we should baptize dead people, that drinking caffeine is a sin, and that it is sacrilege to wear underwear created by anyone other than Mormons. And Republicans were stunned he and Paul Ryan lost to a black man.Image result for mitt romney religion

So they have returned with their Simpletonest Strategy yet: Prop up a game show host and Evangelical afraid of women to the nation’s highest pulpit, and have them sing “Witch Hunt” in acapella.

And it may work in 2020. Simple is easier than smart. Keep in mind, as the 24/7s lament unenlightened districts, as the House asks voters to look up facts, as Democratic contenders bathe in a miasma of name-calling and Wokeness, this simple math question: Which is more likely to turn out voters — Playing to the lowest-common denominator, or praying for the highest?

Careful you don’t pass out holding your breath in solemn reflection.