A Failure to Excommunicate

We’re not really sure what to do at this point.

Evidence of another impeachable offense has been uncovered. And by “uncovered”, we mean admitted to, live, on national television. That’s about as close as it gets to shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Although we have to wonder whether that would make any difference either.

Details are still coming out — journalists are doing their jobs — but essentially Donald Trump leaned on Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s son. You do this for me, I’ll steer some government funding to you.

That’s what Rudy Giuliani told America Thursday night. An initial denial, followed within seconds by yeah, we did it, of course we did it. So what?

And he’s right: So what?

People who take this shit seriously are taking it very seriously, now, in the moment, as it unfolds. It’s not just that someone was shot in the middle of Fifth Avenue, it’s that here’s the tape, here’s the smoking gun, here are the fingerprints on the smoking gun, and christ, here’s the goddamn confession.

So what?

Nancy Pelosi has made a political calculation that impeachment isn’t worth the bother, that we can just wait it out another year — another fifteen months — and hope that Trump doesn’t draw another inside straight in the Electoral College. Any action the House takes will die in the Senate anyway, so why bother?

So what?

The counterargument — y’know, fuck it. We all know the counterargument, that sometimes you need to stand up for what is right and just, consequences be damned, and you’re just imagining consequences anyway, your fears stem from a faulty premise, misunderstood history, that your very inaction stifles the outrage you deem necessary to take action in the first place.

We all know this. So what? We can devote ourselves to stating the case as eloquently as possible, and you’re still not doing shit.

Kind of ironic, that. Nancy Pelosi as Mitch McConnell. Demanding that Democrats take action ain’t going nowhere, so why bother? So what?

And thing is, we did bother. The 2018 election brought Democrats back to power in the House, despite all the obstacles to voting, all the high-precision gerrymandering, enacted by Republicans to prevent that. We bothered. Hard. 2018 saw the highest midterm voter turnout in a century.

So yeah, we bothered. So what?

And that’s why we’re not really sure what to do at this point. The collapse of our governing institutions, legal and societal, is complete. They all still exist, power is still held and wielded, but the checks on that power, the very thing we have prided ourselves on as a democratic republic, have failed. Nobody is going to save us. Even the people we elect to save us cower in fear.

And, oh yeah, we’ve lost a third of North American birds since 1970. We’ve lost 88 percent of freshwater “megafauna” — the big critters — globally. 34 million Americans are already enduring global warming.

Shit’s going down. Hard. So what?

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Actual Pelosi quote, just in:

If the Administration “persists in blocking whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation.”

She’s doing nothing as hard as she can, folks.

@nojo: That’s reminiscent of the “Innocent Bystander” strategy Pelosi utilized during the CaliguBush regime to avoid holding anyone accountable because the Dems were supposedly helpless to stop any of the Republicans’ abuses.

The fact is that only like 35% of Americans want Tr666p to be impeached. Despite the open corruption, racism, incompetence, lawlessness, and aligning himself with foreign dictators and despots against America’s own journalists and intelligence agencies.

It’s impossible to respect 65% of the indolent, ignorant public for knowingly wearing a giant “kick me” sign, and one understands now why our rulers treat us so contemptuously with impunity.

And there has been an incredible amount of futile hand-wringing over the state of American “democracy,” as if that word has any relevance in our ongoing debacle.

American “democracy,” with the insatiable greed of the 1% married to the sociopathic racist hatred of most voters as it’s foundation, has gifted us with Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, each one more sleazy, corrupt, and degenerate than the last. And then there’s Newt Gingrich and the Ku Klux Kongress, another gift of American “democracy” that keeps on giving. Political scientists demonstrated years ago that what Congress does has zero relationship with what the American people want and would benefit from.

Obama was the best president in most of our lifetimes, and the first thing he (and Holder and Geithner) did was work overtime to ensure that none of the Wall $treet oligarchs and CaliguBush/Cheney sycophants could ever be held accountable for their actions. It’s not easy to look back on those years in the aftermath of the economic collapse with rose-colored glasses, especially since the RepubliKKKans jettisoned all pretenses of governing along with any positive vision of the future, yet kept getting reelected anyway.

Can’t remember who said this, but “when you add up the American equation, Tr666p is the result.” There’s no chance of fondly remembering America’s “democracy” when Tr666p and his cadre of criminally insane, lying, grifting, hateful morons are what it shits out.

I used to think that the US government could be a force for good in this nation and the world, despite it’s dire track record of inhumane cruelty and destruction.

However I’ve been forced to rethink this as every one of our revered democratic institutions has failed in the face of $hitler, a raging, ranting, racist, dumFux Nooz-gorging moron. The people that work in Congress, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the DOJ, DHS, the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA/alphabet soup of “intelligence” agencies, and countless others have all discredited and humiliated themselves by becoming $hitler’s enablers, sympathizers, and collaborators. They’re mentally weak, anti-ethical, immoral, and can’t ever be trusted to do the right thing.

It’s up to you to save democracy now, random anonymous internet commenter. Christ, whatta crock of shit.

@¡Andrew!: Yeah, I keep looking for a way out, but every conventional avenue is closed. We voted! Historic midterm turnout! So what?

So much drama playing out today, and I have no faith it will lead to anything. But maybe it will! Maybe this time Lucy won’t yank the football!

@ManchuCandidate: We’ll see. We’ll see what she says. We’ll see what she does. We’ll see whether she’s mealy mouthed about it, or pulls a John Lewis on us.

The Narrative is hers for the asking, and she knows it.

@nojo:
I know. She better know how to cut a Trump and hard.

The fact that Trump just realized he gave them his 2016 MO and his 2020 “plan” which is odd as Ole Joe Biden is stumbling around compared to Warren right now.

China, if you’re listening, we still need Tr666p’s fucking tax returns.

Welp. We’ll see. They’re tossing everything to Judiciary, which is the first step.

@nojo: The Tr666p regime is the best argument for particicutions that we’ve ever had. Skip to the penalty phase, and there’d be millions of volunteers.

LAT:

“Democrats said they would not create a special committee, such as the one during the Watergate scandal. Instead, pending investigations in six House committees will continue, and the strongest evidence will be forwarded to the Judiciary Committee, which will examine whether to write articles of impeachment.

“Several Democrats said the inquiry would be expedited, but no timeline was discussed. Pelosi’s formal declaration, although a historic and grave step, will not substantially change the day-to-day progress of the investigations. The declaration will not accompany any formal vote on the House floor nor give the committees any new oversight or investigative authority. But it focuses the House’s mission for the final weeks of 2019.”

Okay, I’m definitely waiting this out. I wanna see some meat on the bones.

If nothing else, Wednesday is turning out to be a shitload of fun.

/future headline/

“Tr666p Vows to Attack US if 2020 Election Decided by Americans”

Pro tip #1: Don’t email your talking points to the opposition, Trump Admin.

@ManchuCandidate: Still waiting it out, but damn I’m enjoying the show.

@¡Andrew!: The House Ways & Means Committee chairman flies under the radar and may have an ace under his sleeve for Nancy:

Huff Post: Democrats are sitting on a potentially explosive allegation about Trump’s tax returns

Meanwhile, I want Nancy or Notorious RBG to get UK Supreme Court Justice Lady Hale’s bad-ass spider brooch that she wore while handing Boris Johnson his ass.

@nojo:
The Dems have a majority in the House for impeachment proceedings.

@SanFranLefty:
When Trump reigns it pours

The SS Tr666ptanic just hit the iceberg, and this is only the beginning. We haven’t even seen the tax returns yet, and when the shocking, depraved criminality all comes out the RepubliKKKans will be holding hands and clinging to the anchor. They deserve each other.

Worth noting is that there is zero chance that $hitler will win the popular vote in 2020. He’s never even come close to cracking a 50% approval rating, currently around 38%, and there’s no possibility of expanding beyond his base of Despicables because they’ve declared total war against everyone else. So the only question is whether they’ll be able to hack the voting systems or manipulate the loathsome (s)Electoral College to steal the presidency again.

Bad as it is to have to watch this shitshow at a distance, imagine what it must be like to have to go to work with these people – do the current Republicans in congress officially count as ‘people’? I’m not sure – every day. I don’t know how they stand it.

At school, when I had to do some kind of Sport activity because… well, because… eschewing anything to do with balls for obvious reasons I took up fencing. It had overtones of modern dance though without actual jazz hands, and allowed for a good deal of poncing about in tight breeches. Our coach fled Hungary where he’d been the Olympic coach so we naturally spent a good deal of time mocking his accent. He was very strict about form, and for the better part of two years, I learned how to be en garde with a foil, to advance and retreat, to lunge, to parry and counter-parry en tierce, en octave, etc. I was finally allowed to fight against boys trained in the same manner. This was okay, I mean I didn’t shriek and throw down my foil, so I was picked for a team to fight against another school. They knew nothing about the proper rules of conduct and didn’t care. My opponent came at me waving his foil like a club and I was defenseless. I’m often reminded of that experience as I watch Trump’s behavior because if your opponent refuses to acknowledge the rules you are at a terrible disadvantage, all your experience and training acts to undercut any response you might make. Unless you’re very, very experienced and can cut your way through the barrage of malicious incompetence. I think maybe Pelosi knows how.

Welcome to Weight Watchers new Attorney General Bill Barf diet plan. You won’t be able to stop puking up everything you’ve ever eaten after seeing Tr666p’s nude pix.

@Benedick: “a good deal of poncing about in tight breeches.”

Do tell.

May your thighs and your tallywacker be as hard as the Queen’s diamonds.

— Traditional English blessing, probably

@Benedick:
Makes sense as to Trump’s “success.” Hard to play by the rules when the opponent doesn’t.

Problem is (ignoring the rules) doesn’t work in the rematch.

Roodi is quite the inept fucker. Worst criminal conspiracy in history.

@¡Andrew!: Sounds like a panto dame.

@ManchuCandidate: This is true, but the thing is that my opponent’s school had no rules. Oh wait, I see what you mean: had he faced a real fencer instead of a clueless dolt like me, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Perhaps that’s true though it seems a touch optimistic. But will that be the lesson we’re all taught by the current political spectacle?

@Benedick:
Probably no because a large chunk of the MSM is as clueless as the Trump Admin.

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