Impeachment Rising
The Trump Bunker is extending its defenses. Layers of balloon walls, which keep popping when they bump against the razor wire. Not only is Trump refusing access to any information subpoenaed by the Blue Clowns, but to the side-show barkers as well. Reporters will be allowed into the bunker by exemption only. Friends access only. I sure don’t think they’re going to give this clown an exemption. I’ll just have to keep looking in from the side.
In the jumble of clowns jostling together around the Trump Bunker, the Red clowns seem to be slowly changing color. A yellow streak is turning the Red Party clowns to Orange. Strangely, it’s having the same effect on some of the Blues. Soon, a new Orange party will come into the ring. They will chase both the Blue and the Red clowns. And their guns will be real.
It looks like William Barr is contemptuous about being held in contempt of Congress.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/william-barr-contempt-rod-rosenstein_n_5cd48369e4b0796a95d8a18e
The Barr (behind bars!) DOJ gave Rod Rosenstein a warm send-off. Not a word in the article about Rosenstein testifying to Congress, of which possibility I’ve heard exactly no one mention anywhere. Why not? The “fact” is he’s had a central role in the Mueller investigation from start until now. Why not have a chat with him? In public. Under oath.
Instead of making the same arguments for impeachment over and over again, I’ll let Politico do it.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/10/democrats-impeachment-trump-1315838
I was complaining the other day that I was going to need to find some more words to describe current events than “crisis”. I was also perhaps overly critical of Slate for a particularly bad article. It happens, right? But today they are helping me figure out what to call this constitutional thingy we are knee-deep in, if it isn’t a “crisis”. Personally, I’ve always favored the colloquial, “Deep doodoo.” Or, what’s that one about “without a paddle?” A paddle called impeachment.
The overly extended metaphor at the end of the Slate article is also right in line with the aesthetic of the View. I’m not sure what the smell of steamed amphibian is, but I’m guessing I don’t like it! But I think the smell of burning canvas as the big tent goes up in CO2 is worse.
Take note of how many of our experts are talking in reference to metaphorical frogs in hypothetical pots, please. What they seem to agree on is that if you’re waiting for the lawyers to tell you that it smells a lot like freshly steamed amphibian, you’re doing it wrong.
Here’s a thoughtful conversation with a Constitutional scholar on the purpose of impeachment.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-constitutional-scholar-on-the-purpose-of-impeachment
I take that as an inference to be drawn from that one paragraph where he’s talking about obstruction, and, in the very last sentence of the paragraph, as he concludes that this fits within Congress’s role and its basic scheme of power. And so I draw an inference in that paragraph where he’s basically saying this has got to go to Congress, the public body, to act on all this.
This is exactly right. My reading of that Mueller paragraph is the same. Mueller is saying he can’t indict the president, only Congress can. And, in this case, must. Via impeachment.
Not surprisingly, Commonweal’s against impeachment. Cooper provides a useful overview of the two sides here. But his own additions at the end offer no original thought. Parroting Pelosi. This “divisiveness” issue is confusing to me (though I’m used to that!). Would it be divisive to impeach someone like Hitler, while the tool of impeachment remained in place? I use the extreme comparison only to delineate the crucial point, which is that divisiveness is not a bad thing, when the other choice is accommodating evil. I understand the reluctance to act. As Jefferson pointed out, “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” But, the time has unfortunately come, when division is necessary to root out evil. I, too, wish that weren’t true. But I think it is.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/vote-him-out
But why am I so insistent on impeachment. Why not wait until January of 2021? What could possibly happen between now and then?
How about a Trumped-up war with Iran? This is not clowning around! Those bombs will kill real children. Worth noting that B52s are the most inaccurate of all our bombers. Their intent is massive destruction.
It looks like the darkened third ring of the Two-Party Circus has begun to make some noise.
This war build-up would seem bizarrely obvious as a gambit, if I hadn’t seen it work before. Hopefully enough pundit and public pressure will come against this obvious distraction from the closing circle around the Trump bunker. It’s a little hard to understand what possible motive Iran could have at this point for attacking shipping in the Gulf. On the other hand, it’s easy to see why the bunkered Trump would need something to save his threatened position.
More war drums from Fox. Excuse me, deter Iran from what, exactly?
https://www.foxnews.com/us/pentagon-us-ship-patriot-missile-battery-middle-east-iran
Last course for today is some leftovers from a few days ago. But not as moldy as Old Joe.
The Clown Fashion Show is still being prepped in the side ring. Pete Buttegieg— that’d be Mayor Pete to you— is dressing in his religious garb.
https://www.axios.com/pete-buttigieg-religion-republicans-15bfd0c8-63f4-49b6-bb4b-ee2b3d189e8d.html
But it’s not his religious views that are wowing the onlookers in California, or at least that’s how Politico sees it.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/09/buttigieg-california-donors-1313119
I think Kamala Harris is in danger of losing ground to a number of people [in her home state],” says veteran L.A. politics watcher and attorney Jessica Levinson, the former president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.
“Mayor Pete is the flavor of the month, he’s really excited people, particularly in the LGBT community,’’ she says, though “[Harris] actually has more specific policies than he does.”
So, I guess it’s not about his policies, either. Policies, schmolicies. Mayor Pete plans to improvise. I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing in a rapidly changing environment like a battlefield. But it’s hard to vote for someone who doesn’t seem to stand for anything.
For example, protecting the living world that protects and shelters and nourishes us all.
Or we could just rely on God to take care of it for us while we march off to war. Again.
Guess what the single biggest producer of greenhouse gases is? If you guessed, “the military” you’ve probably got a view from the side.
https://www.tni.org/es/node/22587
And here’s a little climate news for this morning.
Fox News publishes an environmental story. Who would have thunk it?
And this is about as close to home as possible. Wildfires in May must be extremely rare here in Lane County. I actually can’t remember any, though I’ve only been here 38 years. It’s time to declare a climate emergency in Lane County!
https://www.registerguard.com/news/20190510/firefighters-responding-to-fire-near-cottage-grove
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