Trump Makes History

 “But he (Biden) will fail at that task, risking both his presidency and his party’s fortunes if he refuses to hold Trump and his enablers to account. A politics of ‘forgive and forget’ will not unify the nation.” John Nichols, The Nation

The final tally was 232 to 197. Ten Republicans voted with the Democrats to hand Trump a second impeachment. After all that has happened over the past seven days, and with more information coming out every day about coordination between the insurrectionists and some on the inside, only ten Republicans had the courage to impeach Trump. 

The rest stuck with Trump. The best counter argument they could muster was a call for unity, and consideration for the delicate feelings of Trump’s loyal base. A few cowards warned against inflaming the nation; others said impeachment wasn’t necessary because Trump will be gone soon. It was a procession of craven Republicans with more fidelity to Trump than to the Constitution. 

 We need healing! We need unity! We need reconciliation! Called the Republicans, as if the past four years never happened. As if more than 350,000 Americans haven’t fallen to Covid. As if their slavish devotion to Trump isn’t responsible for all the divisive rhetoric about blue states and red states, us and them, evil Democrats, and months of racist dog-whistling and demonizing of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. 

The Republicans ask that the millions of Americans who despise Donald Trump and endured four years of cruelty, incompetence, grift, self-dealing, law-breaking, norm-shattering and criminal idiocy, be gentle and patient with those who support armed insurrection. They ask those who waited for the chance to vote Trump out of power to refrain from seeking accountability. It’s like asking for mercy for the arsonist who just torched your house. Republicans only believe in swift justice when it applies to black & brown Americans, Muslims, immigrants, and others they don’t favor. 

I’ve never heard any sane person argue that we shouldn’t arrest child-molesters, rapists, and thieves for fear of sparking anger in the criminal community. The majority of Republicans are happy to let Trump walk away, unscathed. It’s astonishing. It’s also a disgrace and an insult to any person who has sworn the oath of allegiance to the United States. 

Four years of Trump. It’s fitting that he becomes the first president in American history to be impeached twice. That’s his legacy as well as the heavy stone Republicans must carry from now on. They sold their souls and the bill has come due. 

Ten brave souls from a party of hundreds. Only ten. 

Like a nation under siege, the presidential inauguration on January 20 will be protected by a National Guard force of almost 20,000. It’s unknown how many in that number are Trump supporters. State governments from sea-to-shining-sea are bracing for attacks. This is the carnage and chaos wrought by Trumpism. This is what happens when people worship false idols.  

A Nation Starving for Justice

 

“Trump failed to steal the election because he and his legal team are incompetent criminals, not because our democratic institutions defeated him.” Elie Mystal, The Nation

In some ways the fall of Trump is like a Greek tragedy. The con man and his crime family flew too near the sun, and now their black wings are melting and their talons and teeth are disintegrating. 

Serves Trump right. Let it continue. What I’m watching for now is accountability from the politicians. It starts with removing Trump. I’m a lifelong, active Democrat, but I’m not a fan of Nancy Pelosi. She’s obviously very smart -- whip smart, and pretty formidable as a personality -- but I think she’s too much of a centrist and too often on the side of corporate power and enormous, immoral military expenditures. I don’t trust her to lead a legislative charge to reform the criminal justice system, end mass incarceration, make meaningful investments to confront the coming climate crisis, or begin a transition to Medicare for All. 

Today, as words and images and headlines about the insurrection of January 6, 2021 zipped around my brain, I thought back to the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. It was a little more than a year ago when Pelosi and her team drafted the articles of impeachment. Will Pelosi go narrow and shallow or wide and deep? Will she go big or small? I asked these questions on this blog. Pelosi and the Democrats, their eyes looking forward to the 2020 general election, went small, restricting their articles to the crimes identified in the Mueller Report. If our political machinery functioned with any measure of accountability, or justice, those narrow articles would still have been sufficient to take Trump down. They didn’t because Trump by then had cowed the GOP, taken it over, and pissed all over it to mark it as his; they didn’t work because the GOP is deeply cynical and obsessed with holding the intoxicating power of minority rule. Mitch McConnel, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, the detestable Josh Hawley, and so many more, put fealty to Trump (and their own ambition) ahead of fealty to the Constitution and the good of the nation. There’s no getting around that. Too little too late Betsy DeVos. Same goes for you Elaine Chao. You’re no champions of justice, and you do not even have the honor to go down with your captain. Don’t start making sense now Bill Barr. Have the heavy scales fallen from your eyes? Please. You’re marked like former Nazis were in the years after World War II. Don’t tell me you didn’t know, because you did, you noted the political winds and the opportunity for personal gain and made your choice. 

The point I was staggering towards was that had Pelosi gone big, brought the kitchen sink, the corrupt GOP would still have acquitted him, but it would have placed all of Trump’s crimes and misdemeanors in the book, on the record. That might have been a cause worth fighting for. In any case, regardless of how few days remain in Trump’s disastrous and traitorous term, the Democrats must make the GOP go on the record, face again a choice: support Trump or the country. 

Ironically, the destroyer of the Republican Party isn’t even a Republican, not in the Party of Lincoln sense. Trump used the Republican Party like an inflatable sex toy, and he fucked it sideways and upside down, and thrice on Sundays. I despised George W. Bush with incredible intensity. I thought he was the nadir. W earns no pass from me. But say what you will about Bush, he was a decent man at heart, dumb but not crazy, and he respected most of our basic institutions enough not to deliberately destroy them. 

You can’t run a moderate and just government with lackeys and grifters in every key position. Expertise matters. Facts matter. Language matters a lot -- look what Trump’s words incited on January 6. Look at the seeds his words spread over the last four years, seeds of  hate and distrust, cruelty and revenge, incompetence and greed. 

Trump is for Trump and only Trump. So many of us told you this from the very beginning of this terrible era. I predicted serious damage. Look around. Covid-19 has us on the mat because there has been NO federal leadership. You can’t fight a pandemic with 50 different approaches. The president cannot delegate responsibility for fighting a pandemic to the individual states to sort out. Pandemic’s don’t work that way. You can’t defeat a pandemic when you deliberately pit states and regions against one another for needed resources, favoring those groups you like and starving those you don’t. That’s not simply unjust, it’s cruel and stupid. A pandemic is like a war. A reasonable level of command and control is necessary. People have to make sacrifices, be inconvenienced, for the good of the whole.

We knew how this was going to turn out from the beginning. Trump’s future was written in his past. The man was a serial failure, a reverse-Midas; look at the records of his bankruptcies, at his history of cheating the society of his fair share of taxes, his failed marriages, his racism and misogyny, stupidity and cruelty. It was all there, only the consequences of his failure are many times worse. The more power a man like Trump gets, the more he craves. There is no end. I imagine it’s like a heroin  addiction. 

How many days did it take Mitch McConnell to ram Amy Comey Barrett down America’s throat? I think it was 8. Do not tell me that Donald J. Trump cannot be impeached in the time remaining. He can, and must be. We need to construct strong guardrails of precedent right now, at this moment of crisis. The entire American experiment in self-government turns on belief in the rule of law justly applied to all, the high as well as the low; on the peaceful transfer of power after democratic elections; and on two things that have become rare this century: moderation and justice. America is a nation starving for justice, for a sense of essential fairness. We fight among ourselves while the economic screws are applied by billionaires, hedge funds richer than some countries, Citibank and Bank of America, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, ATT and Verizon. One reason MAGA nation is so angry is that they have lived through decades where the elites commit massive crimes, drag us into endless foreign conflicts, cheat the system, rip people off, and walk away with no consequences and no accountability. 

Democrats must bring articles of impeachment to the floor immediately, and they must drag those Republicans who are no longer afraid of Trump with them. This is a guardrail that must be set in stone. For there to be any hope of reconciliation, there must be justice. 

Violated, Broken, and Maimed: The Acquittal of Donald J. Trump

“It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain.” Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

The Senate’s acquittal of Trump was no surprise. The sham trial was no surprise, either. The idiotic defense offered up by Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz was as predictable as snow in Minot, North Dakota in January. Madison and Hamilton are rolling over in their tombs. “Don’t feel bad, men, your Constitution worked pretty well for over two centuries.” But not even in your darkest and most fearful imaginings could you have conjured Donald J. Trump, and an entire political party (save Mitt Romney) of cowards, hypocrites, and incompetents, who without batting an eye traded the rule of law, checks and balances, for the law of the jungle. 

Trump’s followers are betting that the good times (meaning the tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, defense spending, low interest rates, oil and gas drilling) will keep going -- although it’s against the laws of nature that they do -- and their power grows and solidifies, and that Trump will not at some point become paranoid and turn on them, as Joseph Stalin was wont to do. Politicians of Stalin’s era feared a midnight knock at the door and a firing squad; members of today’s GOP wet themselves just thinking about being maligned by Trump on Twitter and Fox News.   

Afraid to stand up to the bully for fear of losing position and privilege. But not afraid to trash their oath of office and stomp on Madison and Hamilton’s best work.  

The imbecile bully who, after today, may as well be king. Mad king Donald. 

The American government is not a parliament of whores as P.J. O’Rourke once called it, it’s just a cheap whorehouse on the edge of a dying city, with leaky toilets and creaky beds, soiled sheets, and suspicious stains on the floor. 

Hey, Donald, we’re becoming a shithole country. Are you going to bomb us? 

Once again a minority triumphs over the majority.

In 2016 I didn’t think Trump had a chance of becoming president. I overestimated my countrymen’s ability to think logically; I underestimated their pain and fear. In 2020 I don’t see how Trump can lose. Incumbency is powerful in and of itself. Trump’s also sitting on a tower of cash that he can splash around the media landscape. But the real problem, for me, is lack of a Democratic candidate who can unite most of the party, build a large enough coalition, and energize the masses to vote. In the current field, only Bernie Sanders has the mojo to excite people, particularly the young, but the national Democratic Party despises Sanders. Why? For the same reason Republicans won’t cross Trump. Fear of losing power and privilege. Sanders might overturn the gravy train, he might build a movement, he might try to raise taxes on the wealthy and slow the growth of Pentagon spending. He might actually put some official weight behind a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. 

Establishment Democrats and their big money donors aren’t having it. That’s why they let Bloomberg buy his way into the game. That’s why MSNBC and CNN twist themselves into knots to avoid acknowledging that Sanders is a viable candidate. That’s why an unknown pipsqueak named Pete Buttegieg is still hanging around, as if he might stand a chance. It’s why Joe Biden is always described as the front runner. These are the safe guys, tried and true neoliberals and war enthusiasts, the kind of stand up people who would give Juan Guaido a standing ovation. 

I knew this day was coming, but it still leaves me low. What it portends for the future scares me. Intellectually I know that despair is not an option, and that all good and decent people have to keep their hope of a more just world alive; it’s just that today something feels violated, broken, maimed for all time. 

The Rule of Law is DOA

“The buck certainly doesn’t stop at his desk. Major League Baseball coaches face more retribution from the league’s commissioner for decoding their opponent’s signs than Trump will most likely face from the US Senate. It becomes clearer with each passing day that Trump has no problem with living in a swamp, as long as it’s his swamp.” Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch

The odds of witnesses being allowed to testify in Trump’s impeachment “trial” -- and who has ever seen a trial without witnesses or without the accused presenting one iota of exonerating evidence? -- are slim. True to his word, Mitch McConnell has twisted arms and growled threats to keep his caucus firmly in line behind Donald J. Trump. If no witnesses are allowed, we might as well pronounce the Rule of Law in America DOA. Thereafter, the batshit reasoning of Alan Dershowitz will become reality. 

This is the low point of my life as a citizen of the United States of America. I knew the impeachment trial in the Senate would be a farce. It’s astonishing to think that in a little more than three years, Donald J. Trump has shredded our most cherished institutions, and placed himself above the reach of law. According to Dershowitz’s bizarre logic, Trump can shoot Bernie Sanders dead and claim he acted in the service of his reelection, which is of course in the interests of the American people, meaning he will face no consequence whatsoever. Down in hell, Richard Nixon, who said it’s not against the law when the president does it, is smiling at finally being vindicated.  

The moral courage of the entire GOP would barely fill a thimble. How in the hell has Trump turned the GOP into a cult so quickly? Even Mitt Romney, who is independently wealthy and has nothing to fear from Trump, bows in subservience. Did these people never learn the simple playground lesson about bullies? You don’t retreat before a bully, you get in his face and expose him for the coward that he is. 

Profiles in cowardice, profiles in hypocrisy, profiles in sycophancy. This is every last man and woman in the GOP today. 

Donald J. Trump has dodged, ducked, and avoided accountability his entire life. The privileged little white boy, born with a silver spoon in his ass, always plays the victim, even as he stiffs contractors, cheats on his tax returns, lies about his wealth, and boasts about grabbing women by their private parts. The businessman who couldn’t make money in the casino business. The serial adulterer loved by Christian Nationalists. The racist adored by white supremacists. The ally of tyrants. The con man. 

Once Trump is acquitted there’s no return to the halcyon days of pedestrian political corruption. The system of checks and balances has been gamed. Get ready for full bore kleptocracy because there is nothing that can stop Trump. He may only be king of America’s rotting carcass, but he’s still king. 

The artist Patti Smith put it well in her memoir, Year of the Monkey: “A true darkening of days. All of the resources that could be used to scrape away lead from the walls of crumbling schools, to shelter the homeless, or to clean a foul river. Instead one candidate desperately shovels money down a pit, and the other builds empty edifices in his own name, another kind of immoral waste.” 

The All-American Circus

“Any plan for the future, therefore, which seeks to calm troubled waters will have to sweep barriers away, rather than pour oil over turbulent tides.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Are you ready for the circus? Chief Justice John Roberts may be presiding, but Mitch McConnell is the ringmaster, and crooked Mitch -- despite swearing an oath and signing his name in a book -- has already made it very clear that he’s not interested in impartiality, evidence, testimony from witnesses or any other standard aspect of a “trial.” Trump added a pair of odious legal personalities to his defense team, Ken Starr, of Clinton Impeachment fame, and Alan Dershowitz, pal and defender of Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased pedophile. Perfect casting. Slimeball on slimeball. 

America, we are in for a farce of the highest order. 

Trump’s made-for-TV-lawyers will cook up a big batch of nonsense for his defense. How else to defend a man whose conduct is indefensible, against whom the evidence is clear and overwhelming? A man who operates the White House as a criminal organization? Starr and Dershowitz  and other members of Trump’s Dream Team will likely attempt to turn the entire proceeding on its head. They want spectacle, a cross between The Apprentice and a WWE main event. They’ll paint the Democrats as Trump’s malign persecutors, a bunch of Javerts intent on hounding Trump out of office. They’ll portray Trump as the victim of a gross injustice. They’ll say it’s all Hunter Biden’s fault, and repeat the bogus claim that Trump did nothing wrong in trying to extort Ukraine for his own political gain. 

Keeping tabs on Trump’s transgressions is dizzying. It started on Day 1, the minute Trump placed his small white hand on the Bible and swore to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution. That was the foundational lie. Ever since, Trump has made a mockery of the presidency, doing everything he can to debase, weaken, and eviscerate the Constitution. He’s had plenty of assistance from Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, a rabid pack of see no evil, hear no evil, speak gobs of gibberish Kool Aid guzzlers. Day after day they rush to Trump’s defense and try with all their might to justify King Donald’s idiocy and cruelty. They steadfastly ignore all the investigations and lawsuits the Trump regime has spawned, content to wallow in the sewage flowing beneath Trump’s throne. 

While McConnell holds down the fort in the Senate, Trump continues his War on Reality, braying about his “perfect” phone call with the Ukranian president, Hillary Clinton’s emails, how much money he’s helped America’s banks accumulate; railing against low-flow showerheads and toilets and energy efficient household appliances. Trump claims to have no idea who Lev Parnas is, even though numerous photographs of Trump and Parnas have surfaced. His supporters lap the make-believe up like a kitten with a bowl of thick cream. Trump speaks their language, reinforces their biases and prejudices and complete lack of understanding of how a democratic republic works. He feeds and justifies their sense of grievance and alienation at the hand of the Libs. 

The Circus is here. The cast is ready. The Kool Aid is chilling and the popcorn is popping. Sit back, relax, enjoy the All-American show. 

Trump Joins the Club

“Second, if the Democrats were really a Left opposition party, the majority-Democratic House would already have impeached the Malignant One for any number of fascistic, corrupt, and ecocidal crimes more harmful to humanity than UkraineGate…” Paul Street

Trump is impeached. The Orange Menace joins Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton in the ignominious Impeachment club and, forevermore, will be labeled the “impeached 45th President.” Serves the fool right. Despite the batshit noise and smoke and disinformation kicked up by Trump’s GOP enablers, impeachment was necessary. The only disappointment for me was that Nancy Pelosi left so many of Trump’s impeachable offenses on the cutting room floor. 

For a man who sees himself as a tough guy, Trump sure is a whiny pussy. That six page letter he dropped on Pelosi will go down in history -- not for the reasons Trump wanted -- but because it’s a perfect example of his blatant ignorance of the most basic aspects of the Constitution, and his complete disregard for the rule of law. Trump’s constant white is black, up is down, round is flat, 2 + 3 = 6 pronouncements are morally dispiriting and intellectually exhausting. Trump’s manifest venality wears his opponents down. How does one respond to a man who refuses to recognize reality? Who lies as he breathes? Who wears his intellectual sloth as a badge of honor? Who doesn’t, or possibly can’t, read? Who spends most of every day watching Fox & Friends and Tweeting utter nonsense? 

Wasn’t it comforting that Vladimir Putin came out in support of Trump? 

Every last Republican who voted against impeachment deserves a ringside seat in Hell. For siding with Trump, for standing against the Constitution, for contorting themselves into pretzels to defend Trump’s indefensible behavior, they have earned the wrath of history. These people are craven hypocrites, and they know it. If Barack Obama had extorted the President of Ukraine and withheld military aid, the GOP would have gone into a full-tilt existential meltdown, an absolute freak-out. It would have been the end of the American republic, treason, the worst crisis in American history. Mitch McConnell would have tied the noose and picked out the highest tree in DC himself. Sean Hannity would have soiled himself. Limbaugh would have suffered a coronary. 

But the news that most astonished me this week was the House vote to approve a whopping increase in the Pentagon budget, including funding for Trump’s racist border wall.  My local Congress-twit, Salud Carbajal, cast his vote for the increase, as did many other Democrats. Who cares about deficits? Who cares that the bloated American military is a first-class contributor to global warming, a massive, worldwide carbon-spewing machine? The GOP certainly doesn’t care, though when they are out of power all they do is moan about the federal deficit, demand the country tighten its belt and live within its means lest we bequeath our children an albatross. The Democrats tax and spend; Republicans cut taxes and spend. Even worse, this ridiculous increase came on the heels of reporting that the Pentagon (surprise, surprise) lied repeatedly about our nineteen-year-old war of choice in Afghanistan. Turns out that when the top brass said we were making great progress, we actually weren’t. Of course any simpleton had already grasped that the mighty US military lost the “war” in Afghanistan years ago. But let’s hand the Pentagon and the generals and Lockheed Martin more tax money to piss away. And because we do, what choice do we have but to consign thousands of low-income Americans to hunger and want by slashing food programs? 

When a country is as corrupt as ours keeping despair at bay is difficult. We’re ruled by bankers, hypocrites, liars, and assholes who will not be satisfied until they reduce all they behold to a smoking pile of rubble. The whole system is riddled with gangrene and cannot be reformed from within.  

Christmas nears. The abyss opens before us. The devil is laughing. 

The Worst and Dimmest: the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

“Rich man wanna be king/And a king ain’t satisfied/Till he rules everything.” 

Bruce Springsteen

If hell exists, Devin Nunes will occupy a front row seat in Satan’s luxury box, near the fiery pit, where the smell of sulphur is most pungent. Listening to his opening statement for less than five minutes made me want to puke. An acquaintance, the comedian Kimmie Dee, put it aptly, albeit crudely, when she posted on Facebook that Nunes’s ability to speak with Trump’s dick in his mouth is remarkable. Indeed. Nunes is quite a talent. 

What is the strange hold Trump has over many Republicans? Why does this bombastic, ignorant, narcissistic, ridiculous failure scare the bejesus out of the GOP’s rank and file, its leadership, and the Republican National Committee? I suppose one can ask the same question about any cult leader. Logic, reason, morality, and common sense go right out the window. Here, drink this Kool-Aid and all your doubts and difficulties will evaporate.  There was never any mystery about Donald Trump or any question that he would govern the same way he ran the Trump Organization or that he would fail spectacularly; spectacular failure is Trump’s stock-in-trade, as is lying, cheating, and defrauding others. What is mysterious, baffling, is the utter, complete lack of honor among congressional Republicans. Damn near every last one of them has debased himself or herself since Trump got anointed by the Electoral College. Loyalty to a political party or a leader at the expense of the law, the country, or principle is a hallmark of despotism. Every last member of the GOP has forgotten that he or she swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution, not the GOP and certainly not Donald J. Trump. 

What is wrong with these people? Wake up, open your eyes and look at whose ass you’ve been kissing for three years. 

I’m so tired of hearing Republicans claim that Democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election. Republicans conveniently forget that their boy Trump lost the popular vote; the only reason he made it to the White House is because the undemocratic Electoral College favors small states over larger ones. Impeachment is not about the 2016 election. Impeachment is about one co-equal branch of our government checking the abuses of power by the executive. Our Founding White Fathers had many shortcomings, but their fear of unchecked executive power was grounded in experience. 

Having no defense, all Republicans can resort to are spurious attacks on the process.

Grifter's Carnival

“Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic.” Chris Hedges

On the one hand, it’s absolutely comical to watch Donald J. Trump flail around like an orangutan with a mongoose attached to his testicles, but on the other, what we’re witnessing is the outing of the entire corrupt American political system. It’s laughable enough when Trump warns his base that they stand to lose their guns, their religion, and their military if he’s impeached, less so when both Republicans and Democrats have mercilessly pursued whistleblowers like Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden into prison or exile. And when either party spouts off sanctimoniously about doing the business of the American people -- which neither party has done since the mid-1960’s -- it’s hysterical. As I’ve said on this blog many, many times, we do not have a democracy and our government only marginally works for us; we have a tyranny of a minority of people and corporations that have the money and influence to buy legislative favors and judges. Tax holidays for the rich, corporations and special interest groups, and cruel austerity for the poor, is not how a democratic government works for its citizens. 

There are only two instances when the American government can be roused to action: undeclared military interventions that go on without end is one. Cutting taxes for people and corporations who already have more money than they know what to do with is the other. Think I exaggerate? A majority of Americans want decent jobs, affordable housing, health care, educational opportunities, meaningful action to curb the effects of climate change, plus reasonable, commonsense restrictions on the sale of military-style assault weapons. The political class, which purports to represent “the people,” wants none of these things and will never deliver it under the current capitalist framework. 

The journalist Chris Hedges wrote recently that while the impeachment of Donald J. Trump is necessary,Trump’s ouster won’t change the underlying system one iota. Yes, impeachment -- if the Senate convicts (not likely) -- will remove from office the most idiotic, malignant, amoral, and corrupt president in American history and possibly key underlings like Mike Pompeo and William Barr, but loyal servants of the status quo like Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will remain in place, as will douchebags like Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes and Rick Scott and Ted Cruz and Susan Collins. Many congressional districts will remain rigged and widespread voter suppression will continue; North and South Dakota will still have the same disproportionate political clout in the US Senate. The Supreme Court will remain a subsidiary of the Federalist Society. The undemocratic Electoral College will still supersede the will of voters. 

What astonishes me is the utter lack of honor on display in Washington D.C. It’s just a big grifter’s carnival, with damn near everyone in the trough up to his or her neck. Maybe it has always been so. Did Joe Biden make calls and open doors for his wayward son, Hunter? It’s highly likely that he did, but rich, well-connected people do this for their kids every single day. It’s risible to hear Donald J. Trump accuse Joe Biden’s son of being a know-nothing loser who walked away with millions, when his own offspring carry his criminal DNA and would be working behind the counter at Wendy’s without Daddy Trump’s money and name, but no level of hypocrisy, or irony, is too much for The Donald. Born halfway to home plate with a platinum spoon up his ass, Trump still made a hash of every business venture he tried. 

It’s all a perverse joke. I might laugh if it wasn’t so serious. Donald J. Trump has waged a two and a half year siege on the rule of law; the GOP has been content to stand by and help him do it, and the Democrats too feckless to fight.

The Ball Is At Nancy Pelosi's Feet

“Trump is a habitual criminal.” James Risen

Well, those of us who wanted the Democrats to launch impeach proceedings the minute they took control of the House have finally got our impeachment. We’ve reached Nancy Pelosi’s threshold for serious wrongdoing. Now the question is, how do the Democrats proceed? Stick to the safe middle and base their case on the Ukraine issue alone, or tack on Trump’s multiple other impeachable offenses? Go narrow or wide? Shallow or deep? Slow or fast? This week I’ve read pieces advocating a go-quick approach, and an equal number practically begging the Dems to slow down and be thorough, meticulous. Build a mountain of evidence, so tall that even a modern Republican -- spineless, corrupt, hypocritical as such are now -- has second thoughts about being on the wrong side of history. While not likely, it’s possible that some Republicans will face reality, find their spines, and remember their sworn oath when the evidence against Trump is too overwhelming to ignore. 

Republicans are a strange breed. They’re all about the Constitution and the rule of law when they’re in the minority, but put them in power and the only oath they swear is to the Party, no matter how ridiculous and corrupt it becomes; they throw their weight behind a man like Donald Trump, and then cower before him like little bitches. Terrified of Trump’s tweets, they allow Trump to run roughshod over the Constitution, its separation of powers, checks and balances, and the most elemental norms of decency, like not putting innocent children in cages or denying school lunches to millions of school kids. 

The list of Trump’s high and low crimes, his misdemeanors and felonies, is long. James Risen is correct: Trump is simply a habitual criminal. The man has been like acid on the American republic since the day he placed his hand on the Bible and lied. For the next few months, Trump is going to spin like a top, froth and fulminate against the Democrats at every opportunity, call Adam Schiff names, portray himself as the victim of a Deep State witch hunt, whine, and declare how unfair it all is and how it should be illegal. Get ready. It’s going to be an all-out onslaught of drivel, bullshit, wild claims, boldfaced lies, conspiracy theories and hypocrisy the likes of which Americans have never seen before. 

Before long, Trump will have convinced 40% of Americans that Joe Biden, with assistance from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, shot JFK. 

I doubt that the tone of his chat with the new Ukrainian president was far different from that used by Trump in other instances with other foreign leaders. We have to understand the way Trump perceives the office he holds. In Trump’s criminal mind, a president is like a mafia don, the ultimate authority, the Alpha male, the toughest guy in the neighborhood, and the Man who controls it all because he controls the biggest gang. This may be why Trump cannot fathom how, or why, Congress has any authority over him. In his muddled mind Trump believes he’s back in his tower in New York, his name on top, and every decision his alone to make. Receiving any resistance to his whims freaks Donald out, messes with his sense of himself as a badass with nerves of steel, muscles, a large cock, and real hair. Nobody checks Don Corleone, and Donald Trump thinks nobody can check him. This is why the asshole needs to be impeached.  

All I can say is that the Democrats better not blow this chance. I’d say we keep an eye on Nancy Pelosi to make sure she doesn’t use legislative judo to concede an advantage for no reason. Pelosi only did the right thing when forced, impeachment isn’t the road she chose or wanted because she is a pillar of the Establishment, but now the ball is at her feet and the field is opening before her. When the instant comes, when the goal-scoring chance presents itself, will she make the right decision, pick the correct pass or let the chance go begging?

The other thing I agree with James Risen about is the absurd way the mainstream media covers Trump, as if he’s a serious man rather than the bloviating incompetent that he is. Trump has opinions aplenty but a shocking lack of even basic knowledge. Most of what he says or tweets is unintelligible nonsense. The press should treat Trump as he is: habitual liar, immoral ignoramus, and total grifter. Trump was never in a million years going to grow into the office, and not once in three years has the Orange Menace come close to being Presidential. 

Blue Ribbon President

“Winning the vote required seventy-two years of ceaseless agitation by three generations of dedicated, fearless suffragists, who sought to overturn centuries of law and millennia of tradition concerning gender roles.”  Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour

I rarely remember my dreams, good or bad, but the other night I had a doozy and it has stayed with me. It was the day after Trump launched his Twitter tirade against Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, four duly-elected members of Congress, which is, let’s recall, designed to be a co-equal branch of our government, not subordinate to any president and definitely not the Orange King. I must have gone to sleep wondering how this draft-dodging, philandering, tax cheat, who has failed his entire life at everything he’s tried except reality TV, gets away with it time and time again. There seems to be no circumstance that will either turn Trump’s supporters against him or inspire Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to launch impeachment proceedings.

Anyway, here’s the dream, or nightmare, depending on your point of view, as best as I can remember it. 

The big day finally arrived for the members of the North American Sheep Council. Six grizzled ranchers in two extended cab pickups traveled east from Sand Draw, Wyoming, towing trailers that contained eight award-winning sheep. Though the ranchers despised the Federal government, they were tickled pink to be invited to the White House by President Trump, and couldn’t wait to show the president himself just how wonderful the agricultural sector of the economy was doing. Bobby and Cliff and Clem and AJ and Emmett and Wade were tingling with anticipation. They had packed their best suits and boots, their MAGA hats and bolo ties. They admired Trump’s no-nonsense style, the way he stood up for America and heaped ridicule on the Democrats.  

The apple of their eye was Elvira, their prize-winning brood ewe, a beauty with a dozen blue ribbons to her credit, the most ribbons won by a ewe in the long history of the North American Sheep Council. On the day of their visit, Cliff led the sheep onto the South Lawn, Elvira ahead of the others, her head up and proud as if she knew she was about to be in the presence of the most powerful man in the world. She had been brushed and groomed, her teeth cleaned, and her hoofs buffed. Cliff was smiling so broadly with pride that his face hurt. 

The president emerged, surrounded by dignitaries and Secret Service, mounted a couple of steps to a stage, gave the thumbs-up sign to the ranchers, looked at Elvira and nodded his head with apparent satisfaction, clapped his hands and gave another thumbs-up. He made a short speech, most of which Cliff couldn’t hear, though he did catch the words “great” and “beautiful” and “our country.” The president then shook hands with Bobby and Cliff and Clem and AJ and Emmett and Wade. He told them he was proud of them and that they were the kind of men who made America great. Then Trump said something to a man in a dark suit and walked away. The man in the dark suit tapped Cliff on the shoulder, nodded his head toward the White House, and took Elvira’s leash and led the brood ewe away. Cliff followed, not quite sure what was going on, but a few minutes later he was sitting outside the Oval Office, and it was much quieter than he’d imagined, kind of like a museum, what with all the paintings on the walls and the chandeliers and the thick carpet, but then he heard a bleat, then another, and he knew it was Elvira, and she didn’t sound right, so he opened the door to the office and got the shock of his life. 

Hours later, when his whole world had turned upside down and reporters and producers from CNN and ABC and CNBC and MSNBC and The Today Show and TMZ and Good Morning America, and outlets from overseas, wanted to interview him, and get a photograph of Elvira, Cliff marveled that he’d had the presence of mind to get his iPhone out and turn the camera on. He wished he hadn’t let AJ and Wade talk him into posting the video he shot on Instagram, and he wished even more that he could get in the truck and hightail it back to Sand Draw, where his life was normal and quiet. And of course he was worried about Elvira, whether or not she’d ever be the same because the poor girl looked morose. 

The media storm hit harder than any blizzard Cliff had ever experienced, and suddenly he was at the center of it, accused by the Trump White House of being a loser with an axe to grind, of being an agent of Iran, a communist, a socialist, and in league with The Squad. The pudgy Attorney General, William Barr, went on all the networks and said that Cliff should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, though he never said what law Cliff may have violated. 

Kelly Anne Conway accused the Democrats of concocting the whole thing in an effort to embarrass the president, and that the video was fake, created in a Hollywood studio. Conway also accused Elvira of pursuing the president very aggressively, with no respect for his feelings. 

Trump then Tweeted that he was claiming executive privilege over the entire matter; William Barr immediately agreed that Trump had the Constitutional authority to do so. 

Senator Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News and launched a tirade against Cliff, claiming that the rancher had trained Elvira to seduce the president. Graham called for Cliff to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act.

When Mitch McConnell was asked if he planned to condemn the president’s behavior, the Senate Majority Leader replied, “Absolutely not. I’m from Kentucky.”

What really hurt was when Trump Tweeted that Elvira was not his type at all, and that she should be euthanized, and if she wasn’t euthanized, he was going to sue.  

Many Democrats demanded that Trump be impeached, that of all his crimes, high and low, his insults, his racism, his misogyny, this was the absolute worse, cruelty to a defenseless animal being far worse than cruelty to a defenseless Guatemalan or Salvadoran child. 

Nancy Pelosi went on all the networks and said that while she understood the feelings of her fellow Democrats, launching impeachment proceedings wasn’t practical because the GOP-controlled Senate would never impeach Trump. According to sources close to Pelosi, the Speaker was also concerned that if Democrats dug too deep into Trump’s dalliance with Elvira, the Republicans might fling the numerous peccadillos committed by FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton in their faces, hurting their electoral chances in 2020. Though roundly mocked for her cowardice, Pelosi refused to budge. “Don’t get me wrong,” Pelosi told reporters, “I don’t condone the president’s behavior, but I have more important things to do for the American people.”

Meanwhile, Cliff and the boys and the sheep finally hit the highway for home, shadowed for nearly 600 miles by a fleet of black SUV’s and an FBI surveillance drone.