https://youtu.be/7pDxQPWD3L4
There won’t be a test, or funny hats to join, though Church Elders advise parishioners be familiar with the capricious divinity of the human brain. Oh, and recycle!
(This may be transcribed into permanence, though Evidentialism warns “Beware Dated Text.”)
Dear Rep. Pelosi,
Longtime caller, first-time listener.
First off, as Class President of the high school musical we call Congress, congratulation on a stellar freshman crew. The representatives that won elections in 2018 turned the House Democrat, flipped red states blue and were part of more than 400 bills that passed the House, from climate change to gun control, according to the D.C. publication The Hill. (That the Senate did nothing with most of them is not your cross to bear.) They also coalesced to produce the first Impeachment Inquiry of a first-term president. Bravo!
Now please call them off.
On Wednesday, the House will vote on two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. This is hardly a fitting gift for the holiday season, I understand. And I also realize the impossible position you’re in: You are the parent of a petulant toddler who has disobeyed house rules — in front of dinner guests, no less! To not take action would be to tacitly endorse the little shit’s behavior.
We could see you at the dinner table, trying to keep it together. Through pussy-grabbing, porn mistresses and charity scams, you were as patient as humanly possible. And when you finally did announce the discipline — an Impeachment Inquiry — you were somehow both remarkably reserved and remorseful.
Now please use that skill to talk your underlings off the ledge. Here’s why:
Rüsselsheim Impeachment will fail. Already, the narrative is forming: a unified GOP vs. divided Dems. Two House Democrats — Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota — opposed the resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry and are expected to vote no on the articles of impeachment. No Republican has strayed, nor will they, despite MSNBC’s quaint hopes. Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have already announced they do not plan to call witnesses during the impeachment and estimate it will take 7-10 days. Just in time, the GOP shall trumpet, for Christmas. At what cost asterisk?
Los Mochis The Democratic winning streak will snap. Around next November. When Trump emerges victorious from the trial, he and his loyal sidekicks will ride the same wave that boosted Bill Clinton’s approval rating after his affair. When it come to jury trials, America loves stories of white men evading justice. Perhaps that’s because it’s America’s story, too.
Justice can still be meted. Trump’s most aggravating personal trait is that he’s never paid for a thing — physically,emotionally, financially — in his life. We used to think Reagan was Teflon. Donnie makes him look like fucking Velcro. But with a little patience, karma may finally pay a visit to Pennsylvania Avenue, which leads us to the good news…
There’s an artful way out of this loss. It’s Trumpian, so I know you’re going to say no. But just hear me out.
Come Wednesday, announce that you are not going to impeach the president. Instead, take back the Xmas present Republicans are trying to make of the impeachment and make it your own. Go vengeful Santa on their asses.
Consider how Americans would take the following press conference, made in the same solemn tone as the inquiry:
“To all Americans, I’d like to announce that the House of Representatives has decided not to move forward on the impeachment of Donald Trump.
“My colleagues and I feel that bringing impeachment charges before a Republican-run Senate would be tantamount to bringing a case before a rigged jury that works at the behest of a judge in on the fix. Despite our 658-page House Judiciary Committee report, which detailed the president’s abuse of power and obstruction of justice, it’s clear that our counterparts across the aisle have divorced themselves from fact as much as the president.
“During the inquiry, we brought a parade of credible, expert witnesses — Bill Taylor, a former Ukraine ambassador; Fiona Hill, former director for Europe and Russia at the NSC; Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman; even EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, a Trump appointee. All testified to abhorrent behavior from the top office of the United States: Do us political favors for military protection. Yet not one Republican believes this action to be unacceptable.
“So, instead, we make our case to you, the American people. You will have the opportunity to be the jury AND judge on November 3. If you found Mr. Trump’s behavior as unacceptable as we did, you can render your verdict at the ballot box.”
“This wasn’t an easy decision, and there was much debate in the House about the appropriate measures to take. Ultimately, we decided to follow the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution. Just as our government is designed to be by, for and of the people, so too should its most important legal decision.
“The American people have been through enough. They have seen the evidence. They have heard the testimony. They, like we, want to move past the endless bickering and get back to work on getting this country back on track.
“Thank you. And happy holidays.”
Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Richard Jewell, opened this weekend to $5 million, a thumbs-up from more than 70% of the nation’s critics and with Oscar whispers circling the Warner Bros. flick. I gave it four out of five stars for my outlet.
I would have given it five stars, but there was a ginormous caveat in the way: Clint took an unwarranted shot at an old colleague of mine. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs and I worked the police beat at the AJC, though I had moved to another paper by the time of the Centennial bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games.
Scruggs, who died in 2001, was the primary reporter in the AJC‘s bomb coverage. She also broke the story that the FBI was looking at Jewell as the primary suspect. And when Eric Rudolph, an anti-abortion extremist and member of the Army of God sect, confessed to the bombing, Scruggs took it on the chin from competing outlets for her aggressive, over-eager zeal to get a scoop. Which was true. Kathy had the bite force of a rabid pit bull when she got hold of a story.
But, to hear Eastwood tell it (on film), Scruggs took it on the chin, literally. The film accuses Scruggs of sleeping with an FBI agent to get the story. The AJC has protested its portrayal, which is irony perhaps at its purest. And Warner Bros did what the AJC did 2 1/2 decades ago: It told the protesters to go pound salt.
But the paper was right. Eastwood screwed this up.
I say that with all the hesitancy I can muster. In truth, I have spoken to Eastwood more often than I talked to Scruggs, and consider myself a fully biased fan of his work. But Eastwood must have had an acutely unpleasant run-in with the press of late, because he took a hatchet to media the way Jack Torrance opened doors. 
Eastwood got virtually everything wrong about reporters in Jewell, which is odd, since we really were the antagonists in this story. We did swarm. We did leap. We did jump the gun.
But for some reason, the 89-year-old director needed a villain incarnate, and created one with Scruggs. He directed Wilde to play the reporter as if she were Cruella de Vil with a notepad. In the film, Scruggs flips off fellow reporters, weeps at press conferences and basks in the standing ovation she receives for initially breaking the Jewell story.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit. The woman portrayed in Jewell is not Kathy Scruggs.
I can’t speak to the specific allegation Eastwood made. But I can say with no degree of uncertainty that his notion of a newsroom is antiquated and, worse, waaaay off. Reporters don’t give standing ovations. We can barely tuck in our shirts. We don’t even applaud when colleagues win a Pulitzer Prize. And no reporter screams in delight when a story runs above the fold in banner font. We hold our breaths and pray we don’t need to run a correction.
The inaccuracy is a jarring failure on Eastwood’s part. He won a best director Oscar on the back of historical research by screenwriter David Peeples for the Western Unforgiven. Peeples was also nominated for an Academy Award, though he didn’t win.
Maybe it was studio pressure. Maybe it was Eastwood’s well-publicized conservative political leanings that prompted him to take a shot at the media. Maybe he clashed with one of us on a red carpet (where we are at the zenith of our assholeness).
But to take a shot at a dead woman? Come on, Clint. That’s like shooting the guy in the black hat in the back.
More puzzling was that the filmmaker already had a believable villain in us. Throughout Jewell, reporters camp out in front of the suspect’s home, follow him wherever he drives and badger even Jewell’s mother in the feeding frenzy. When we amass, bad shit happens.
Alas, that wasn’t sufficient for Jewell.
I still remain a fan of the work of both Scruggs and Eastwood. One of the highlights of my career was to have an interview included in a collection of stories about the director.
So I will bid an RIP to Kathy and a best-wishes to Clint come Oscar season. I hope the movie does well. I will do my best to forgive it.
