Pope Donald the Worst?

 

 Just when I thought I was inured to the fly-paper tackiness of TrumpWorld, they succeed in flabbering the brutal hell out of my gaster. The above AI portrait of the prick as a pontiff honestly did get posted by the White House account on the Truth Social site, and despite the usual formulation of "disappointed but not surprised", I think I'll actually chuck this one into the "surprised but not disappointed" bin.

You see, the knob-glazers surrounding the president have run off with a passion after "buy Greenland" and "make Canada the 51st state", so why not humor yet another megalomaniac delusion of the slowly rotting Turnip-in-Chief? 

I should have expected as much when Sen. Graham spoke as if Trump as Pope was a real possibility:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that the more than 230 Catholic Cardinals in the conclave “keep an open mind” about considering President Donald Trump for the papacy.

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope,” Graham posted Tuesday on X. “This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility! The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!”

Graham showed support for the idea after President Trump was asked by a reporter if “he had anyone in mind” to succeed Pope Francis after he died at the age of 88.

People assumed he was joking. Nay, nay. He was planting seeds. 

An Uncomfortable Win

 

Fox: About a quarter of Republicans are saying they will never vote for Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/ssxqi3Lsov

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 25, 2024

I said a few weeks ago that what would be more interesting to me than the Democratic SC results would be how the GOP open primary turned out. South Carolina is pretty Trumpy, but a 40% showing for his opponent says something--and not because it's her home state.  She was always going to lose this primary, the question was:

By how much and what does it say about the electorate? 

Trump should have romped if we were just going by high-school educated, evangelical white voters. Women voters didn't elevate Haley. She's at 40%, not like, 15%, because of Independent voters (not really, appreciably, crossover-voting Democrats). 

TWGB: He's Flaunting It

 

Trump last night: “Thank you very much for being here. They wanted to use the place … this place is packed. We don’t let people use Mar-a-Lago very much because, as you know, we hold very important documents here.” pic.twitter.com/jyIlDVrZN0

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 2, 2023

Ha, ha. He implies there are still very secret documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. This is so funny to me. So funny I think we need another search warrant.  Because this man is not learning anything from his various brushes with the law yet: like, does it apply to him? He's in well enough trouble over keeping documents at Mar-A-Lago, regardless of his pet Judge Cannon's attempts to delay his trial. We know he had advice of counsel he'd be screwed if he still had documents, but then sort of ignored that. 

So, do I think he's still that stupid? Well, yeah. As the comedian Ron White has established, "You can't fix stupid." He's happily stupid this far in his life, what good would smartening up do him? 

Does he think he has all kinds of rights and privileges other people don't? Huh--well he got told this week he doesn't have immunity against civil trials over 1/6 because what in the world does pretending your election was stolen have to do with being president? He also got told, and not for the first time, that presidents aren't kings and hell yeah, he is liable for shit he's done. 

But why would that stick if it doesn't help him any?

TWGB: The Wild Card

 

This was another one of those weeks where it felt like Trump was on the verge of a comeuppance. I'm starting to hate that feeling. It's the kind of hope you feel when you think Michael Myers has been finally shivved for good just before he bounces back up again. 

Sure, he was deposed in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll. I note that he spewed the same comments against her, now, as a private citizen, that he did when he was president, and kind of hope that means his defense that he said what he said as a defense of himself as the holder of the officer of president goes away, now that he has said the same thing as a private citizen. I also don't see any indication that he turned over a DNA sample. It just seems to me that if the DNA sample was the thing that definitively "set him free" from her claims, he wouldn't be loath to provide it--so what's the deal? 

There was a time when this kind of scandal might have rocked a political career, and still, the mainstream media treats this man, the one-term twice-impeached self-described pussy-grabber--as a completely viable 2024 presidential candidate, even while he is under investigation for stolen government documents under the Espionage Act, his business is under investigation in a civil case in NY, his conduct related to the 1/6 insurrection attempt is under investigation by the 1/6 Committee,  and his attempt to fraudulently disrupt the Georgia vote count is under investigation by a grand jury in Georgia. 

Speaking Ill of the Ill-Starred Dead

 

There are people who find themselves appointed to unpleasant tasks and are called upon to serve, even in difficult circumstances, with zealous attention and exacting rectitude, to achieve a necessary goal with persistence and above all, honor. Ken Starr was not that guy.  And while one shouldn't speak ill specifically of the dead, I am not sure why I should stop a necessary conversation started while he was yet living.

He was, charitably, a nasty piece of work. 

He's most famous for dogging President Clinton and family and associates up until he came across an affair and dragged both the president and the 25-year-old intern through the most salacious interpretations of human interaction imaginable for partisan reasons. But he also defended Prop 8 and Jeffrey Epstein and ignored rape allegations at Baylor when he was president of the University.  He unironically defended Trump against impeachment in a way about as hypocritical as former impeachment manager Lindsey Graham. 

It's hard to imagine a person who took up for more horrendous things and yet (obviously) retained the respect of the larval creeps who managed to do stuff like get on the SCOTUS bench with his tutelage.  You know, like Brett Kavanaugh. 

If any of that sounds disrespectful to the dead, you should have heard what I would have said about him, alive. Probably even to his face with the appropriate lubrication. He had the opportunity to do an awful lot, and what he did was, well, awful. And a lot. 

But They Keep Admitting It, Though.

 

It took me a minute to settle into words what rubbed me the wrong way about MD Gov. Larry Hogan being upset that President Biden referred to a portion of the GOP--the MAGAs, as "semi-fascist. I guess it comes from addiction consciousness--a drunk will deny they have a problem even when confronted with the number of "empties" in their trash. A problem gambler will deny they are out of control even when they are cataloguing their property for what can be sold to cover their debts. It sounds to me like denial--a state of mind just hardened into coping every day with a problem so big it has to hit bottom to finally confront, despite the well-intentioned interventions of others. 

Larry Hogan is what you might call "one of the good ones"--a Republican with which we still can speak. But he's still off in the idea that his party has a temporary illness, and doesn't want to say aloud the bad thing that happened to his party. 

It's not as bad as NH Gov. Chris Sununu wanting an apology from Biden for saying it.  How about--no? If I tell a friend her dress is too short and the world can see her whole panties when she bends over, I mean it. Facts don't care about someone's feelings. And Governor Sununu's party has got a fascism problem. 

He's Attached to Reality, All Right

 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Pres. Trump pushing baseless conspiracy about Dominion voting machines: "I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality." https://t.co/NRwraEI6rO pic.twitter.com/Mx6vQUR9Xq

— ABC News (@ABC) June 13, 2022

 Not everyone is the hero of their own story when they tell it, but very few people make themselves out to be the villain. Bill Barr might have seen through the conspiracy theories that Trump claimed showed that he won, but he helped in his way with creating the illusion that maybe there was something to the voter fraud issue all the same. And if he thought that Trump was actually not in his right mind (as it is possible that Mike Pompeo and Steve Mnuchin considered as well) then he could have just said so.

It clears Trump to claim he was detached from reality, in a way. Poor old Trump, not knowing how to handle a loss, unable to accept it in the gilded frame of reference of his towering ego.  What's a belief to someone like Trump though? He believes he's worth TEN BILLION DOLLARS, give or take. Some people believe Trump is a Christian, but I think he'd be a Hare Krishna if there was any juice to it. It's like telling him something is good or bad, legal or illegal. Believing makes it so, if you have lived an utterly unaccountable existence. 

But two things happened with the curious belief.  He had the presence of mind to try and keep contesting the election on the basis of it, and to fundraise. He's still doing the latter. There's a whole "Trump Won" grift industry out there. It's a fable, but it's profitable. Even if entirely untrue, Trump will hold onto the claims until he's wrung the last iota of value out of it. 

Barr commented that Trump started making these claims directly after the election was called, before those claims could remotely be investigated. This is because he was always going to make those claims. He laughed when referencing D'Souza's "2000 Mules" nonsense. It should be embarrassing for the GOP that people can still make money off of this bullshit, but man, they still do. It's funny that people exist to be fleeced, and it's also very much not. 

How many elected officials and party hacks have also profited off the voter fraud fable? How many people were threatened or materially harmed? It gets less and less funny. Trump is not detached from reality, but even if he was--is the party that has been his support system and cover-up team all, also, detached from reality? Not quite right in the head? 

No. They are completely sane and fully knowledgeable that the claims about Chinese thermostats and Italian satellites and Venezuelan voting machines and North Korean ballots are bullshit, but they have lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Let me repeat that: they are completely sane and lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Is it any wonder they would rather people not watch these hearings, and that they want to discredit them?  They saw who these people they have been lying to can be on 1/6 and what they are capable of if their ire is roused. And I wonder if they ever thought what would happen if those voters realized they were being used as sheep--sometimes merely used for fleecing, and sometimes served up as mutton? 

They didn't just let Trump lie in people's faces and take their money. They helped. Even when people were getting death threats. When their families were being threatened. When the violence broke out 1/6 and subsequently people died. 

Get attached to that reality. It's not even about what Trump believed. What they fuck did his little friends think? 

They Couldn't Spoil It--Almost

 

I think I could take a moment to acknowledge something really good and historic happened yesterday and really leave it at that...

But I would be a whole other person if I did not take note of the churlish, contemptuous behavior of the GOP jackaloons that still wanted to be sullen and snitty about the smears that they actually made up. The reason I can't leave it alone is that it was unnecessary for them to try and damage someone's reputation with that kind of calumny, but also the nature of it ("She's a friend tto sex fiends!") is a conspiracy theory classic from the same text as blood libel--a kissing cousin, so to speak, of QAnon.

You can't get a whole bunch of people to believe a cabal of baby-eaters is running the world--but depicting a group as deviant is not as hard a lift and can be just as dangerous. They did this to make her unpalatable by pre-smearing the people who would vote for her confirmation with a kind of guilt by association, vide MTG's despicable Tweet:

She says "Any Senator voting to confirm #KJB (sic) is pro-pedophile just like she is." Right out there for the kids who are slow on the uptake and need it spelled all the way out for them. And of course, Marginal Traitor Greed is a vicious lying extremist, but...no. I guess that really is all I have to say about that. But she has definitely articulated, baldly, what Senator Hawley tried to set in motion/ 

In any case, I'd like to think that only the far-right, already Q-enmired types would think this plausible, but I can't help but notice how neatly it folds into the new claim that people opposing the dangerous and dumb "Don't Say Gay" bills are "groomers". This tactic isn't pure politics--it's eliminationist. It uses fear to silence people and wage terror on those who don't stay silent. 

So while I want to embrace this history-making moment, I am disgusted by the antics of those who decided now was a great time to play a dangerous and stupid game with the process. 

You Won't Steal Our Joy

The Senate confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson got super emotional when Sen. Cory Booker brought Jackson to tears with his touching testimony on racial progression. https://t.co/imXiGk6ZeS

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 23, 2022

Where Republicans mugging for the camera and showing every willingness to swim in the sewer to drag an exceptionally qualified Black woman through the mud for the dopamine hit of a Fox News spot exist, I am refreshed to focus on the only US Senator who brought Judge Jackson to tears, Senator Cory Booker, because he supported and respected and showed his joy for this glass-ceiling shattering woman. 

If the calumny and slander of the mugging mental mites, the political parasites, the social media self-checkers like Cruz and the drama-queens like Lindsey Graham, the unapologetic militant police state loving fuckfaces like Tom Cotton and the weasel-headed insurrectionist sumbitches like Josh Hawley made anyone ever want to take a long Silkwood-style shower, he gave us this refreshing moment, this shower of love, to study how Judge Jackson has borne up during an onslaught intended to rattle her and shake her faith. 

And she has persevered throughout questioning that has more to do with right-wing axe-grinding and the next election cycle than her own nomination. She is being accused because less qualified candidates than her were rightly challenged, but a party that no longer has a grip on right and wrong can only see tit for tat. 

I've raged, because I can, watching this, and she cannot, because she is living this and has to be professional. When Sen. Cotton accuses her of loving terrorists because of her service as a public defender, I want to intimately introduce him to the concept of due process that actually is a cornerstone of the Constitution he himself swore an oath to and is pretending now not to know about by shoving said document down his narrow throat. Also, I think GWB and company actually are guilty of war crimes and I've been saying so for years. 

When Josh Hawley accuses her, a woman and mother of daughters, of being soft on sex criminals, I want to throw out the discussion of whether he was slow as MO AG to investigate Gov. Eric Greitens' crimes until it was politically convenient to do so. His silence on Roy Moore. And the general disapprobation he is rightly receiving for this slander. 

As a woman, I cringe at the contempt and condescension thrown her way, the interruptions by men who think they are great because the Fox News camera is going to love them. I can only imagine what it would be to be a Black woman seeing this appalling display of white men in power, trying to disempower a woman every bit their equal in education and dignity, and their superior in mastery of herself. 

I have no doubt she will be seated on the highest bench, but I am appalled at this display by such obvious political maneuvers by pure partisan shitheads. Have they no shame? Of course not. Can their shame-glands be kickstarted by anything at all? I don't even know, but I have feet and time. 

This Is The GOP

 

This is the Affirmative Action pick for Vice President. If you think this is bad, just wait til their Affirmative Action pick for the Supreme Court is handed a lifetime appointment. pic.twitter.com/XArHeTKwct

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 21, 2022

You might know Charlie Kirk from being a big-headed manchild without a college degree who talks to conservative youth about white supremacist nonsense, or, if you're lucky, you don't know this SOB at all.

What I do know is that the elected Vice-President of the United States has been the DA for San Francisco, the AG for the state of California, and a US Senator. That's not affirmative action, those are qualifications. That's actual work at actual jobs of importance. In the way that being a well-paid dupe peddling lies to dopes is not work. She works to make things suck less. Charlie Kirk exists to make things suck more.

Judge Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is a highly educated legal professional who clerked with Justice Breyer and went on to an established judicial career. She has significant experience both as a defense lawyer and a judge, and has been rated by her peers (not Charlie Kirk, who is certainly not one of those) as well-qualified. 

There shouldn't need to be an answer to the mindless burblings of a racist fool, but I'm of the mind that you should call these assholes out loudly and often. And the reason is, he's only foghorning the racism to the folks too dim to hear the subtle dog-whistles blown by the more legitimate GOP spokes-cretins. (Brit Hume also made a slightly snide allusion to whether VP Harris "ticked boxes" today. Did he mean a racial box? Is he putting down her qualifications, as if no presidential ticket in history ever did not have certain voter demographic considerations in mind?)

It's a little defensive and maybe even shrill when Sen. Lindsey Graham has to tell us that the GOP are "used to" being called racists. But why have they never taken the hint and looked at why that keeps happening, especially when they elected a whole birther as president and are now using QAnon tropes against a Black woman? 

When they are supported by people who want to carry Confederate flags and think "Black Lives Matter" is a radical statement, and they cater to that ethos, maybe there's a pretty good reason they are being called that. When GOP allegations regarding "voter fraud" all seem to point to concern about turnout in places where people of color vote, they aren't really hiding anything. 

When Sen, Marsha Blackburn wonders if Judge Jackson is carrying a hidden CRT agenda through a handful of what I will generously call "misunderstandings" about what any of her prior statements mean, it's hard not to believe she is just participating in culture war axe-grinding, rather than a good-faith discussion of what Jackson's record actually shows. 

And somehow, Cruz, Sasse, and Cotton were all in their own various ways, even worse. 

This confirmation hearing is supposed to be about the nominee, and yet it is ostensibly about the Republican party and how, at a 6-3 conservative advantage on the court, they nonetheless need to grandstand about the courts. It's about the GOP. And yes, ok. We see them.

We really do. 

TWGB: You Know He Did--The Sedition Edition

 

So, raise your hand if you are in any way surprised that Trump, the loser of the 2020 presidential election, called his stalwarts at the Willard Hotel on 1/5 trying to prevent the certification of the election from happening. Right--nobody reading this blog at this point, I would think. After all, if you read the news that Trump's bestest little 1/6 buddies at the Willard also had gotten burner phones, it really starts to look like the White House was coordinating with the rally and the rabble-rousers. And they really wanted to postpone the certification as if something else could have happened.

Like, they were hoping the Eastman memo was going to be a thing. No really, it's dumb and it also seems to check out.

This pisses me off. I totally blew the stupid alternative electors thing off at the time as being about stupid hopeful people being stupid and hopeful, and assumed the White House puffery of same was just about "keeping Pappy happy"--the bullshit geld you had to pay to stay in Orange Tyrant's good graces. But now it looks like those alternative slates were purposeful and not some random grassroots fuckery. It was totally about having those slates in play for when/if Mike Pence decided to play ball. 

Bold strategy. It's like the rules don't say Air Bud can't play basketball. So obviously, let the dog play.

Can They Get a Witness?

 

Looks like Trump’s BS-artist attorneys may have crossed the line from BS to something much more serious. https://t.co/Mh5uu1Dkj2

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) February 13, 2021

I feel like this impeachment really, really needs the kind of answers that will only come from getting people under oath. (Also I think the longer this goes, the worse for everyone who wants to retain loyalty to Trump over their oath of office, but sometimes, I am an actual hope fiend.) I think it would also be neat if Trump's own lawyers would stop lying, but I guess he is getting the exact kind of defense that he wanted from them. 

I also find myself more and more interested in the kind of "help" Sens. Lee, Cruz, and Graham have been offering to the defense. Especially since Sen. Lee got an interesting phone call during the siege that is at issue, and also because Cruz and Graham were a big part of promoting the Big Lie that kept the anger growing.

I mean, we wouldn't want something this important to be rushed, right? 

UPDATE:  Well! Apparently Magic 8 Ball says "Yes!" and we are getting witnesses, with Senator Graham putting his name in the aye column. What this means: since we're definitely going to have someone called, Trump's defense is going to call everybody including Inspector Gadget and Penny, and when there are objections such as: "No, those are cartoon characters, and you can't call them", Trump and friends will be able to say "See, that was rigged, too."  It's childish but Trump has been getting away with childish for this long, so....

UPDATE: Aaaaaand, we're not getting witnesses. I should probably be more irritated than I am based on Twitter, except, I'm not. Look, it was gonna turn into a spectacle, the Senate has other things to do, Republicans are going to acquit, and and I watched Mike Lee's hands the entire time. Just because it's over doesn't means it's over. Yadda yadda yadda. The acquittal is also a part of the crime. Even the testimony would have been part of the cover-up. Forget about it Jake, it's Chinatown. 

I already knew we weren't getting witnesses, plural. How the fuck mad am I supposed be? There will be criminal trials for the criminals. 

Perverse Psychology

 

Lindsey Graham repeats his warning not to call witnesses during the trial. He says if Democrats vote to call a single witness, “we’ll want the FBI to come in” pic.twitter.com/FqtDfUBWdL

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) February 2, 2021

Oh no, and what will the FBI do? Investigate the bad things that....the president and his associates caused with their "Stolen election" lie? Or follow the funding of the event where it all went so wrong and the facilitation of it by Trump campaign staff? Explore what exactly happened with the changes made at the Pentagon and whether there was a virtual "stand-down" order surrounding the January 6 events?

Taken at face value, Graham wants us to believe that a lengthy trial would be a bad thing for the country. It seems to me that would be true if one's definition of the US was "the Republican Party". As it is, I don't even think it's good for the GOP not to face what has happened. And even if witnesses were not heard at the trial, what happened will nonetheless be heard. 

Of course, it could be that Graham just concerned about his own possible role, and that of his Senate colleagues being further exposed. But that does not strike me as being a Democrat problem. At all.

Would I Put It Past Him?

 

Well, this certainly sounds like an election violation or several:

Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested because counties administer elections in Georgia. 

“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Raffensperger said. 

In an interview on Capitol Hill on Monday evening, Graham denied that he had suggested that Raffensperger toss legal ballots, calling that characterization “ridiculous.”

So, for a fairly short blogpost: would I put it past him though? Well....no. And do I think I'd like to know if he had a chat with election officials in South Carolina? Maybe. Sure.

I mean, we want free and fair elections, right? Count every legal vote, yes?

UPDATE: Well this isn't half-peculiar:

Graham tells reporters he’s also spoken to election officials in Arizona and Nevada

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) November 17, 2020

If Graham thought we would take it in the sense of "It's NBD because I talk to states about what votes they're going to count all the time", I would say that that certainly doesn't improve upon things.

Lindsey Graham is on His Bullshit Again

 

Lindsey Graham tells young women that, “There’s a place for you in America — if you are pro-life — if you embrace your religion and you follow traditional family structure".

What a bad guy...pic.twitter.com/KwBppG65oV

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 1, 2020

I did not think Graham would make a more bare-faced exclusionary statement than the remarks he had regarding Black and brown people living in South Carolina, but here he goes again. Now, as for me, I have been in America since birth, and firmly believe in taking care of the health and rights of people who have been born (as well as the pre-natal care for pregnant people so that they can have healthy babies if they choose), am militantly agnostic, and understand that traditionally, people have formed many kinds of families, so I would certainly like to think there's "a place" for me in America. 

 (And I happen to also know that the phrase "young lady" rankles many actually young ladies who have just been told what they should believe as it rankles me at my big age. It always seemed a bit of a condescension.) 

 Like Trump's foolish "we're getting your husbands back to work" comment, these words show no recognition of the diversity ofwomen's lives. We are sometimes the sole breadwinners in our households, we go to work and have meaningful careers, we want to be paid what we are due, and not dependent on another person's labor, but women have suffered the brunt of job-losses in this pandemic. Trump talks about women wanting safety from hypothetical (and presumably Black and brown, because, wow, yes, dog-whistles!) strangers, when surrounding himself (and being, himself) persons who are abusive to their partners, in a party that that privileges the gun rights of abusers over our lives. 

 As with the right wing's touting of Amy Coney Barrett's seven young qualifications, we are faced with a picture-book image of women as household angel, who "keeps sweet" and raises babies, not hell. His view seems to me like a faded antique, and for many women who grew up as I did, the feeling should be that the genie has long been out of the bottle. This appeal he's making is towards certain evangelicals who go out of their way to extoll "family values" in a way that barely values people, let alone families.

And Graham wonders why he has been so dominantly outraised during this campaign. (Did he not know us frails control our own purse-strings these days?)

Role-Knowing and Place-Keeping

 

Lindsey Graham in 2020 telling Black people where they can go and what they can do in South Carolina:

“If you're a young African American, an immigrant you can go anywhere in this state(SC)...you just need to be conservative not liberal.”

-Lindsey Graham pic.twitter.com/7QuWSvohtY

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) October 10, 2020

Senator Graham just encapsulated a interestingly large load of freight in a small statement. If you are an African-American or an immigrant, you just have to present yourself as a conservative. I don't even think he really means you have to be a conservative. Think whatever you want, very quietly. But you will conform. 

I can't think of any message more dreary and opposed to the idea of intellectual and religious freedom. The idea that you can go anywhere in a given state in this land of the free and home of the brave--so long as you step correctly and not out of line, has a deep history in sundown towns in particular as a threat and in the idea of respectability (in politics) in general. What Graham is with such southern graciousness explaining is that Black and Brown people very well might have rights that he would respect, if they can produce "the receipts" to legitimize themselves.  

It's breath-taking. And it also explains why so many Republicans seem so fond of voter suppression. They would sure like to let everybody vote, but damn it! Some folks just vote wrong.

I could go further to say that it isn't just Black and Brown people that he, representing Republicans, is talking about. We are not much removed from conservatives wanting to criminalize LGBT people, or from criminalizing women from seeking their reproductive rights. Keep your gayness in the closet, though, or your abortions in the back alley, and maybe, Sen. Graham has a place for you, too. If you vote Republican.

With this particular gaffe, I'd almost like to think a nail was put in the coffin of the bullshit "Democratic plantation" narrative, but probably the heck not. After all, one of it's promoters, Candace Owens, just paid for a very conforming group of people  (well, they were color-coordinated) to sit on the White House lawn to hear from a very sick man for about fifteen minutes. Probably with some infection risk involved but oh well. The optics looked good to them. 

Even A Kick is a Boost

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on FOX just now: "My opponent will raise $100 million ... I'm being killed financially. This money is 'cuz hate my guts." pic.twitter.com/hqMIqpdUoe

— The Recount (@therecount) September 24, 2020

Lindsey Graham is pretty sure people hate his guts, and for just having said it out loud where the people can hear, I'd throw quarters at his head while he repeats it if he's really hard up for money. I mean, I'd really wing them and I'd probably keep it to like, a couple dollars' worth because I pay tolls on my commute, but it's fun to hear. Also he doesn't even have guts so how is that happening?

But really, Fox News is giving Senator Graham, one of Trump's big old Renfields, free airtime to do fundraising and he looks close to tears. Incumbency as a Republican Senator in a Red state wasn't supposed to look like this, and especially not after having donated all his internal organs to Trump to keep his chances alive. It's actually crazypants, and he's right to feel some kind of way about it. (But wasn't Reasonable Lindsey, in one of his faces of eve moments, actually saying he knew there was a demographic time bomb underway?)

You know what I do to feel good about things this week and that Lindsey Graham might try? Well, step one, I open a frosty IPA or pour a couple ounces of chilled bitters like Fernet Mint into a glass, and then I watch the ActBlue Ticker go BBRRRRRRyour campaign is trash.

I realize I am signal-boosting Graham's cash-ask. Whatever, throw quarters at him to gimp for clout. But as for me, I would like to kick his slats for the beautiful tubthumping music of the night it makes. I take my pleasures where I find them.

TWGB: No, I Mean, Everybody is in the Loop

This second video shows indicted Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman with President Trump and RNC chief Ronna McDaniel at Mar a Lago in April 2018. Trump and Parnas take pics. McDaniels hugs Fruman and says she's glad he is attending. https://t.co/ty87AAWTI1

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 30, 2020

"In the loop" is such a funny term. In the part of my brain that is perpetually five years old, I think "Froot Loops" when I think about loops. When I think of people being "out of the loop" politically, I think about George H. W. Bush. He didn't actually seem to really be out of the loop. Regarding the Ukrainian shakedown, Ambassador Gordon Sondland (who is still! after all this! Ambassador to the EU! Which is kind of amazeballs, right?) said "Everyone was in the loop." And friends--

That shit just keeps seeming truer and truer. It seems like a lot of (Republican) people should know better about all of this stuff, well and truly including US Senators who just recently decided they really did not want to see new documents, and they really, really, did not want to hear from more people, regarding the impeachment (which is forever) and the removal (which will happen by law or by entropy) of President Trump from the White House.

After all, some of the folks who cast votes this Friday to hear no more evil, see no more evil, and try like hell to say no more about it, were right there when the Obama Administration tried to leverage out Ukraine's dodgy prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Those senators still were paying attention when Trump held up that aid, like Senator Portman. Senator Ron Johnson is in this loop. Lev Parnas claims that Trump's over-eager Renfield Senator Lindsey Graham is very in the loop, and that a letter was delivered to Graham from Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, looking for sanctions against Ukraine officials. There are US Senators who have been well-briefed that the CrowdStrike theory that Trump wanted investigated was also a lie.

Trump Makes Front Page News!

As only the third president to be impeached, today's vote was a significant vote--very historical! That has put him in something of a very special minority. But it should also be noted, if Trump was a little bit put out that he did not make the cover of Time Magazine as the Person of the Year (I think I did detect a whiff of sour grapes) at least he can take some consolation that he will definitely be on all of the front pages now.

You might suppose that, in response to this historic event, Trump might have tried to cover himself with at least a little sangfroid to demonstrate he wasn't even in the least bothered. If you did suppose that, however, I don't know whose act you've been watching all these years, because what he actually did was take the time to, during his campaign rally, suggest that a revered elder statesman was looking up from hell while patting himself on the back for assisting in the late congressman's getting the funeral honors he had earned during a lifetime of service while also taking his digs at the gentleman's widow, a current sitting congresswoman.

In other words, he was true to form. Sad!

If there was any hope he could take heart in the certainty that there is simply no likelihood that the GOP-majority Senate would vote to remove him from office, there is a great possibility that Senate Majority Leader McConnell's mouth has already snatched defeat from the jaws of an easy win. Democratic House Speaker Pelosi has suggested that the articles of impeachment might be delayed in being sent to the Senate to see exactly how the trial would be handled first.

This seems to me to be the right thing to do. The House Judiciary Committee extended an invitation to Trump to participate in the hearing on the constitutional basis for impeachment. (Trump via his lawyer declined.)  He and his supporters have claimed a lack of "due process" which rises to the level of histrionic and ahistorical (Witch trials? Pontius Pilate? when Trump is facing neither hanging nor crucifixion, but only a Senate trial) which have nothing to do with actual process and everything to do with having no actual fact-based defense of what Trump has done. (Trump, by the way, is the last person who should sit comfortably making a due process argument about the death penalty.)  His supporters ignored the facts and whined about process.

Well then, great. Here's a chance to have a stellar, non-sham process in the Senate. Instead of a rubber-stamp acquittal like the approval of his barely-qualified judicial nominations. You know, the kind of swift rush to exonerate a man that would sort of always look a little too rushed? The kind that doesn't even merit the term "trial"? The kind that always leaves a guilty little asterisk next to Trump's name--impeached by the House, but you know.  Mitch McConnell's wife works for Trump. And Lindsey Graham. You know the kind of man he is....

There is also another benefit to delay beyond any pressure it places on the Senate. This presidency is scandal-plagued. The turnover in White House staff, cabinet members, etc. for various reasons is all a part of the failure of leadership that goes to the very top--Trump himself. He said he would pick the very best people--has he? He said he'd drain the swamp--is that so? There will be other whistleblowers.  The story of Trump's financial records is not over. There are still lawsuits and SCOTUS decisions pending. An entire shoe store remains to fall, and I personally think this favor the long game. It is likely--I think, per the odds--Republicans will come to rue siding with this man.

Maybe that's just my opinion. But I say Trump's dealings look bad because they are bad, and it's because he's bad.  And I don't think a hidden good guy sits in that stage-makeup'd and grifting body.

It Will Always be a Stain

"I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here": Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham predicts Trump impeachment will "die quickly" in the Senate https://t.co/c2ei3yZxa5 pic.twitter.com/3LeqhocGpk

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 15, 2019

There's something exceptionally gratuitous about Senator Graham's assertion that he isn't even trying to be a fair juror, rather like Senator Mitch McConnell's assertion that he is letting the White House call the tune regarding the Senate impeachment trial. They could, after all, just make appropriate serious noises about the respect they have for the Constitution and feign interest in a fair process. We'd still know it was likely a sham on their part, but it would maintain some of the dignity of the office of US Senator, which might even have more than sentimental value. Instead, they are making it genuinely clear that they have no intention of letting little things like facts or propriety interfere with King Trump's abuse of power.

It may be, simply put, that nuance is no longer something they have any faith that either Trump or their base understand and that even the mildest imposture of taking this seriously would be seen as disloyalty. They are less concerned, however, that their current pose is one wholly at odds with justice or the separation of powers--offending Trump should not be their overriding concern as members of a co-equal branch of government.

Having baldly stated that they will just go through the motions to get the thing over with, however, runs the risk of tainting an acquittal as having been completely partisan and not based at all in the damning facts of the matter. They are handing Democrats a cudgel I hope they don't fail to use. The hypocrisy is something their noses should be rubbed in.

“I know many of them don’t want the president to be impeached, but I’ve got a duty far greater than just getting to the next election.” @LindseyGrahamSC pic.twitter.com/mBPmCGFCZ4

— Windsor Mann (@WindsorMann) December 14, 2019