Hope at Last or Last Hope?
Hope Hicks will testify to the House Judiciary Committee today about her role in various incidents described in the Mueller report. Perhaps some shocking facts will emerge that will push Nancy Pelosi to allow her minions to impeach the criminal Trump. I doubt it somehow, since Pelosi has already made it clear that there is not one thing Trump could do that would cause her to allow her party to impeach. Watch your fingers, if you use the i-word. Bang, bang, Nancy’s golden gavel is coming down on your head!
USA Today says Hicks is the first Trump administration official to testify to Congress about Mueller. Will Hope also be the last?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/19/hope-hicks-testify-congress-robert-muellers-report-trump-administration/1486526001/
The Hill says the White House says she is immune to testimony… perhaps inoculated by Nancy Pelosi?
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/449213-white-house-says-hope-hicks-immune-from-compelled-congressional
But this testimony will happen “behind closed doors” which really does describe the nature of our supposed Democracy pretty well. Whatever became of those quaint old notions like “government by and for the people”? Um, transparency, anyone?
Secrecy and democracy cannot exist in the same system of government. I’m not the first person to point that out. But you know what’s cool? Secrecy and democracy almost rhyme. Alexander Pope could have made a cool couplet using them, maybe something like:
“Where e’er you see, smothering truth, the blacken’d veils of secrecy,
There you know no longer shines the sacred light of democracy.”
Or something like that. But Pope’s would scan better.
If there’s any Hope in this hearing at all, it’s only a secret hope that we may never get to hear.
Still, it could be interesting— or not. A transcript (redacted I’m sure) will be released from the testimony, and I’ll check it out, for sure. Look for my notes here on the Side. Could be some salacious stuff they’re hiding behind those closed doors. Don’t you wonder how many times Trump grabbed Hope Hick’s kitty-cat? (Not to mention Kellyanne’s.) No wonder the doors are shut to us public peepers.
But, seriously, folks, these ongoing hearings that Nadler and Schiff are doing seem sorta useless, don’t they? What exactly does Nadler hope to find out from Hicks that isn’t in the Mueller report? Nadler’s read it, right? Still, I guess I’d rather talk to Hope for awhile than read that boring report again.
I’m starting to agree prospectively with the still-to-come-in-the-future Supreme Court decision that will say, “Without legitimate legislative purpose, investigations like these are searching for wrong-doing, rather than trying to prove accusations of wrong-doing. Without impeachment, random investigation is a fishing expedition, not legitimate legislation.” Then Brett Kavanaugh and his buddy Clarence will hold Nadler down and threaten to do all sorts of things to him, don’t worry about it, just some high-school hijinks, you know. And it will be hard to argue with them, especially since they are actually the final argument, the last word.
And, honestly now, doesn’t it seem a little stupid to keep investigating the Mueller report if you don’t plan to impeach? C’mon, Dems. Impeach or shut up already!
We know Trump is a criminal from public testimony by Michael Cohen and from the written evidence of Robert Mueller. And from his own recent statements. Heck, Nancy even said so herself. It’s not like you need more evidence than that to begin an impeachment inquiry. I know it’s what Nadler wants. Only Nancy Pelosi is standing in the way.
But, with the only way out of this sad situation dammed up by Pelosi’s dinosaur stubbornness, the Blue Clowns go round and round on their Escher staircase of investigation, now behind closed doors. They’re like salmon stuck in an Escher river, if you can possibly picture that. Better close your eyes for a second, but keep reading, please. An Escher River flows in an endless circle, down and up and up and down at the same time. It keeps going back up the same mountain slope it is flowing down from, and vice versa, in a strange, optical illusion loop. An Escher river never reaches the sea. Can you picture it, with those poor fish like Nadler and Schiff flopping around in a sad little circle back where they came from without going anywhere?
I do understand why you moved behind closed doors, Jerry, I really do, dude. It’s kind of embarrassing to conduct useless investigations in public view.
While the Blue Clowns circle uselessly behind Grande Dam Pelosi, William Barr-Behind-Bars is revving up the engine on his bulldozer with the words “Investigate-gate ™” spray-painted in black across the blade of his roaring orange machine of destruction. Picture Gina Haspel in the role of Rachael Corrie. Barr’s gonna tear the whole Circus down, if he has to, and the House with it. Better get out of the way. Billy Barr-Behind-Bars’ Bulldozer is coming for you.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/12/doj-cia-officers-spygate-interview/
Check out this threatening piece from the Federalist.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/18/5-ways-michael-flynns-new-lawyer-expose-spygate/
Hey, maybe you wonder sometimes why a progressive, environmentalist independent like me researches and links so often to conservative or even radically fooked-up extremist blogs and such. Shouldn’t I just listen to NPR and believe every word they say like most of my friends do?
Nope. That’s backwards thinking, folks. Dinosaur thinking. Go ahead, say it with me, “Dinosaur thinkin’ leads to extinction.” If you tend to agree with someone, then you already know what they think, right? What a waste of time, studying what you already know. Instead, I think it’s way more fun to gather information from the people I disagree with, because that’s exactly what I don’t know. My dad loved to say that you have to know your enemy, and he’d rail at the generals and politicians who were too stupid, sometimes too racist, to bother to try to understand how someone different than themselves thought. This principle is as true of logical thought and political debate as it is of warfare. You must understand the opposition to refute them. And to not underestimate them. And to have some hope of anticipating their plans. And to grow, yourself.
I guess that’s what Trump meant when he kept saying “oppo” the other day like he had just learned the term. (except the grow part) Hey, he’ll take it from anybody. Waddaya gonna do about it? Impeach or somethin’? Trump’s not a bright bulb, but he’s a realist. When you say you won’t punish him, then, fine, he’ll go ahead and take advantage of that by doing whatever the hell he feels like, thanks a lot, ma’am. Still, I wonder what he meant, exactly, when he said he had “seen a lot of things” but never called the FBI. Um, like what, Donnie? Wouldn’t it be cool to ask him that? Under oath.
I’ve got some real news for you all, folks. All the news in the P.R. Burn-em Circus is fake news. My favorite news sources are fake news, and yours are, too, whether you know it or not. News is propaganda, and it’s all being spun up into cotton candy in that mixer we call the media. Cotton candy for the Circus audience. Blue or Red, take your pick. It tastes the same, and it’ll all make you sick. Sure, it costs a lot, and it’ll kill you in the end. But when the kids ask, you buy some for them, and grab a squishy handful for yourself. Who cares, right? It’s the Circus. Gobble it up, kids. I’m busy watching the lady on the trapeze right now.
So, what do you do, when all the news is fake news? How do we work to figure out what we can of what’s true? Here’s a metaphor for you. Imagine the “News Stream” which is really a river of words and images pouring past us all day long. The babbling water we look at is being formed by the river bottom below. That riverbed is, metaphorically speaking, the real information that shapes the waves we see on the surface of the News Stream. Down there underwater where we can’t quite see, a few tiny flakes of golden truth are mixed in with lots and lots of similar-looking flakes of fool’s gold, all of that mixed together with bucket loads of sand and clay and silt (the bullshite commentary that mostly passes for news, right?) there clogging up the river bottom. To get even a little truth, you’ve gotta dredge up all that muck, and pan out a whole lot of crappy sediment to find those few gold flakes. Follow me? That’s me, that bent-over dude by the side of the river, panning out a couple a tiny gold flakes of truth for you all.
So, I sifted out this one little flake of complicated meta-gold for you here, as I looked into this conservative climate denier blog. Better take off your Blue or Red sunglasses to see this one. This article from ‘Newsbusters’ criticizes NBC for praising Gov. Jay Inslee— whom I admire from the Side for his strong stance and action on the climate crisis— for promoting his climate change agenda, which NewsB.S.ters writer thinks is fake news. ‘Cause they’re climate deniers, right? So, I guess I have to praise this bad post for being stupid enough to share some good thinking by Jay Inslee and some decent reporting on it by NBC. He praises them in his attempt to criticize them. And I suppose I’m criticizing the suicidal climate deniers like this guy by praising the reverse effects of his bad thinking, which reveals itself in trying to express itself. I hadn’t seen the NBC report before encountering it here. Thanks, I appreciate it, climate-denier dude! You’re doing some good work for us Climate Voters by being an anti-science chump, though I doubt you realize it, and I doubt you will join us. Don’t worry about it. We’re trying to preserve a livable environment so chumps like you can live in it, too.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2019/06/17/nbc-hails-inslees-big-idea-defeat-climate-crisis
I’m a climate voter for 2020, and I’m not gonna vote for anybody who doesn’t put saving the environment at the top of their priorities. Left, right, or sideways, a candidate who puts climate first will get my attention. And nobody else will get my precious vote. As a citizen, my vote is my one coin, the only gold I have. And the politicians will have to earn it.
Jay Inslee could earn mine.
Stepping away from the Democratic party and looking in on the Circus from the side has shown me so much. One thing that’s becoming clearer to me is just how limited and distorted our Red and Blue-tinted news views really are. Someone who only gets information from a source of their own color is trapped in the closed news cycle of reinforcing their own beliefs. It’s an Escher news stream that flows nowhere new. And all the gold has long ago been taken out.
I’m panning away on the side of that flow, hoping against hope that a glimmer appears in the leavings. Maybe something Hope says will swing the Democrats toward impeachment. Or some other little flake will drop into the pan. It may be a prospector’s hope, but it’s better than none. After all, there’s always hope, when morning comes at last.
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