One of the more powerful justifications for the impeachment of tRump is that he’s left us no choice. We are faced with an openly corrupt and criminal administration whose core excuse after we cut through all the dancing and deflection is: “We did it, but so what?”
History has given the world a lot of maxims. One of the more enduring examples of this is the recurrence of the need for justice to be swift.
- The sword comes into the world, because of justice delayed and justice denied — Pirkel Avot 5:7 (part of didactic ethical Jewish literature passed down to the rabbis from the time of Moses)
- 21Furthermore, select capable men from among the people—God-fearing, trustworthy men who are averse to dishonest gain. Appoint them over the people as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22Have these men judge the people at all times. Then they can bring you any major issue, but all minor cases the can judge on their own, so that your load may be lightened as they share it with you. — Jethro advising Moses — Exodus 21-22
- Clause 40 of the Magna Carta of 1215, reads, "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice."
- Justice delayed is justice denied — William Ewart Gladstone (attribution unverifiable)
- To delay Justice is Injustice — William Penn
- Justice too long delayed is justice denied — Martin Luther King, Jr
- Lock him up — American public (2019)
Over the last 3 years we’ve been presented with continuous evidence of tRump’s unfitness for the presidency. As Nancy Pelosi pointed out last week, he’s in over his head and just not up to the job. Rather than growing into the office, he’s constantly appealed to the worst of America, committed crimes to enrich himself and committed other crimes to protect himself from the consequences of the first set of crimes. He has marched past the bull in the china shop and become the truckload of dung in the fan factory.
The problem we face is that he’s being protected by cynical, self-serving, clearly dishonest politicians that have no loyalty to anyone but themselves. tRump doesn’t just deserve impeachment for the Ukraine fiasco. He deserves impeachment for being himself — a vile caricature of what a leader should be. Those who continue to support and enable him are equally deserving of his fate.
In fact, the current republican hierarchy is not just an affront to our political sensibilities — they are an affront to history. By attempting to protect a self-admitted criminal from justice, they have forsworn their oaths to the Constitution are betraying their constituents, their country and the entire concept of justice. They are trying to subvert the foundations of our democracy by any and all underhanded means from simple lies about policy to slander, gaslighting, denial and distortion to promulgating insane debunked conspiracy theories.
Regardless of what happens in the Senate, we need to impeach tRump because our concept of Justice allows for nothing else. It is, very simply, the right thing to do. So, thank you to George Kent, Bill Taylor, Marie Yovanovich, and every patriotic American who stands up to the Shameless Witness Intimidator.
Today’s title is a twist on New Orleans’ motto — Let the good justice roll — and is meant as encouragement to all who wish to see justice in America. Whatever our policy differences, we should all be rooting for justice to prevail against the forces trying to pervert it towards their selfish advantage. It’s important that we kick these scoundrels, crooks and liars to the curb and climb back on a positive path to the future.
Seth’s Monday night Closer Look is a decent recap of last week’s news.
And it’s on to the news.
The Impeachment Schedule
In the interest of helping you schedule your TV time, here is the week’s witness schedule. I wonder just how burnt out I’ll be by Thursday afternoon.
Tuesday, November 19
9 AM ET/6 AM PT
Jennifer Williams, Special Advisor for Europe and Russia, Office of the Vice President
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Director for European Affairs, National Security Council
2:30 PM ET/11:30 AM PT
Ambassador Kurt Volker, Former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine
Timothy Morrison, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council
Wednesday, November 20
9 AM ET/6 AM PT
Ambassador Gordon Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union
2:30 PM ET/11:30 AM PT
Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs
David Hale, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Thursday, November 21
9 AM ET/6 AM PT
Fiona Hill, Former Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council
Mr. David Holmes, Political Counselor, U.S Embassy – Kiev, Ukraine
Nosferudi, the Sleaze that Keeps on Sucking
Ghouliani became a caricature of himself years ago. Now he’s a caricature of a bad impression of a caricature of a fool. He bumbles more than a bumblebee.
Mother Jones: Donald Trump Has Had a Lot of Terrible Lawyers. Rudy Giuliani Might Be the Worst.
As a candidate, President Donald Trump boasted that he would hire “the best and most serious people.” But as impeachment bears down on his presidency, a lot of his problems may be because he has hired a very bad lawyer.
Giuliani is failing his most basic task of publicly defending his client. With little evidence that Giuliani is carrying out actual legal work for the president, that public role would seem to be his one job. This week he attempted to do so in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, describing the July 25th phone call during which Trump asked Ukraine’s president to do him “a favor”:
“Allegations of Burisma-Biden corruption weren’t even a major part of the conversation. The focus was on Ukrainian corruption broadly speaking and out of a five-page transcript Mr. Trump spent only six lines on Joe Biden.”
The line quickly drew derision on Twitter. There is no word-count threshold for crimes or abuses of power.
Some Number Are in and They Don’t Look Good for Donnie
A veto proof majority of the country thinks tRump is a schmuck. There’s room to improve some of the numbers, but 70% agree he was a bad liddle’ Donnie. Wow.
Politico: Majority of Americans support ousting Trump from office, new poll shows
Seventy percent of Americans said President Donald Trump was wrong to pressure Ukraine’s leader to pursue probes into his political opponents, according to a new survey, and more than half of respondents indicated he should be removed from office.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll published Monday found that 51 percent of those surveyed believed Trump should be impeached by House lawmakers, as well as convicted by the Senate. Six percent said that while Trump’s actions were wrong and that he should be impeached, he should not be ousted by the Senate.
An additional 13 percent also deemed the president’s push for foreign investigations of his rivals to be wrong, but believed he should neither be impeached nor convicted by Congress. A quarter of respondents, 25 percent, said Trump did nothing wrong.
Something Wicked This Way Comes
I Guess the Jokes Just Write the Defense
Washington Post: One of the defenses of Trump is — literally — a TV-cartoon joke
“Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit. Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?” — Sideshow Bob, “The Simpsons,” Season 6, Episode 5, 1994
This rhetorical absurdity, originally intended as a joke on a TV cartoon, is now being trotted out in all seriousness by the GOP. What New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait has called the “Sideshow Bob defense” has become central to Republican efforts to shield President Trump from accusations of wrongdoing. Because the Ukrainian quid pro quo was ultimately unsuccessful, the argument goes, no crime was committed, even if one was attempted. The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal wrote (apparently not joking): “Many people in the Administration opposed the Giuliani effort, including some in senior positions at the White House. This matters because it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it.”
The Disgust Volcano Hovering Over Pompeo Erupts Burying Him in Hot Scorn
Poor Mikey is taking it from both sides. Couldn’t happen to a smarmier shill.
Thomas L. Friedman at The New York Times via MSN (no firewall): Mike Pompeo: Last in His Class at West Point in Integrity
It seems like every story you read about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo always includes the sentence that he graduated “first in his class” from West Point. That is not a small achievement. But it is even more impressive in Pompeo’s case when you consider that he finished No. 1 even though he must have flunked all his courses on ethics and leadership. I guess he was really good in math.
I say that because Pompeo has just violated one of the cardinal rules of American military ethics and command: You look out for your soldiers, you don’t leave your wounded on the battlefield and you certainly don’t stand mute when you know a junior officer is being railroaded by a more senior commander, if not outright shot in her back.
The classes on ethics and leadership at West Point would have taught all of that. I can only assume Pompeo failed or skipped them all when you observe his cowardly, slimy behavior as the leader of the State Department. I would never, ever, ever want to be in a trench with that man. Attention all U.S. diplomats: Watch your own backs, because Pompeo won’t be.
Mother Jones: Trump Turns on Pompeo After a Week of Damning Testimony
President Donald Trump—a man with an unparalleled penchant for turning members of his inner circle—is now taking aim at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to NBC News. Trump reportedly blames Pompeo, long seen as one of his most loyal cabinet members, for the damning testimony delivered by a parade of State Department officials during the impeachment inquiry.
This isn’t the first time the president has hinted at an emerging fracture. After Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in behind closed doors last month, Trump implied that Pompeo had made a mistake in hiring Taylor for the post. Still, he insisted to reporters, “Mike Pompeo, everybody makes mistakes”.
That’s a relatively forgiving remark compared to today’s report that Pompeo is walking around the White House with a target on his back. Trump’s anger at Pompeo likely boiled over with last week’s first set of public impeachment hearings, where three State officials—Taylor, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine—provided highly damaging testimony about Trump’s efforts to coerce Ukraine into interfering in the 2020 US election.
Managing the Public Hearings
It looks like a lot of thought went into keeping the deflectors from derailing the hearings. Kudos.
Robert P. Baird at The New Yorker: The Public Stage of the House Impeachment Inquiry
The hearings, although not a show trial, were unquestionably designed by the Democrats to be, at least in part, a show. As the Republican counsel, Steve Castor, noted at the outset of Friday’s hearing, the stately Ways and Means hearing room had been transformed into a television studio: there were blinding klieg lights mounted atop the neoclassical friezes, choreographed entrances and exits by the witnesses, and shouts of “On your butts, guys” to the photographers and cameramen just before Adam Schiff, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, gavelled each hearing into session. Schiff’s prominence as the de-facto leader of the impeachment inquiry made the Intelligence Committee a natural host for the public hearings. But the small size and relative sobriety of the committee also appeared to be a factor. By contrast with the other two committees that have participated in the private hearings—Oversight, which has forty members, and Foreign Affairs, which has forty-seven—the Intelligence Committee has just twenty-two members. It is also accustomed to conducting its business away from the cameras, and often with significant bipartisan coöperation. For the Democrats involved in the inquiry, who have taken pains to present their work as a solemn, careful undertaking, the lack of “pizzazz,” as Jonathan Allen, of NBC News, put it on Wednesday, was almost certainly a feature, not a bug.
Behind the spectacle, however, was a more subtle stagecraft. A few weeks ago, while the depositions were still taking place underground, Sean Patrick Maloney, a New York Democrat and a member of the Intelligence Committee, told me that that the goal of the proceedings was to “develop the hard facts and the real evidence, and . . . build our church on that rock. That is where this thing succeeds or fails, and should succeed or fail: on the facts.” When we spoke again last Thursday, however, Maloney recognized that the challenge facing the Democrats, now that they’ve moved into public and adversarial hearings, was different. “If you spend any amount of time with Jim Jordan and guys like that,” he said, “then you know that the facts and the evidence, even when overwhelming, are not enough. You need to tell a persuasive story that is more powerful than whatever smoke screen he’s kicking up.”
The structure of the hearings themselves served as a prophylactic to the sorts of disruptions that someone like Jordan, an Ohio Republican who was temporarily named to the Intelligence Committee for the public hearings, was expected to incite. By allowing untimed opening statements, followed by two forty-five-minute rounds in which only Schiff, Nunes, and their respective counsels could ask questions, the Democrats were able to keep attention focussed on the testifying witnesses. As Mike Quigley, an Intelligence Committee member from Illinois, told me, “The first rule of all this is to let your witnesses be who they are and get out of the way.” On Wednesday, Taylor alone spoke for forty minutes during his opening statement, and it was three and a half hours before a Republican representative other than Nunes was allowed to ask either witness a question.
Bonus Links
These are stories (and a Mitch themed Pacman game) that I would have covered if I wasn’t way past TL;DR already.
emptywheel: The Conflict between the GOP’s “Hearsay” and “Whistleblower” Defenses
MoscowMitch: MconMan — Online Game
Wonkette: Know What This Trump Impeachment Needs? More Pay-To-Play Horsesh*t!
Talking Points Memo: Nunes Protégé Now At White House Sues Politico Over Impeachment Stories
Rolling Stone: House Democrats Investigating Whether Trump Lied to Mueller
Huffington Post: Did Someone Just Fart On Live TV? You Be The Judge Of MSNBC’s ‘Fartgate’
CNN: Trump administration knew in May Zelensky felt pressured to investigate Bidens
Some Truly Good News That Has Nothing to Do with Agent Orange
We are ending the news section on a high note.
Good News Netwok: World’s First Ebola Vaccine Approved for Global Use After Saving Hundreds of Thousands During Outbreak
The world finally has its first ever approved Ebola vaccine.
Within 48 hours of the European Commission approving the vaccine earlier this week, the World Health Alliance (WHO) verified that the treatment also reached its health and safety standards for global use, making it the first vaccine with clinical efficacy to protect individuals 18 years of age or older at risk of infection with the Ebola virus.
The Ervebo vaccine, which was developed by pharmaceutical company Merck, has already been used to quell emergency outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and several other neighboring countries.
Musical Interlude
Get out and volunteer, just like 50 years ago.
Short Takes
If you crossed Donald tRump and Mitch McConnell, you’d end up with Donald McConnell, a short-fingered spokesclown for the international asshats of evil. In other words, we’d get yet another lying skin sack full of toxic sludge and criminal intentions just like Gym Jordan, Devon Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, et al.
Anyone else notice the parallels between King Donald the Incompetent Dotard and Charles II of Spain? Charles II suffered from hydrocephalus, was boorishly ill-mannered, had notoriously tiny hands, and went bald by age 30. He was supposedly extremely easily manipulated by other heads of state, as he could barely even read or write.
Between all the ass-kissers, ball-coddlers and taint-lickers tRump has slobbering around his tiny, tiny man boy parts, you’d think he wouldn’t have time to fulfill his presidential duties … oh, wait …
Dirty diapers and dirty tricks are just two of the unwanted things you get with today’s republican party.
Congress is currently mulling over a bill to change the honorific used for republican congresspersons from “The Honorable” to “The Deplorable” and to replace referring to them as “my esteemed colleague” to the more accurate “that worthless bag of lies.”
In a stunning revelation, it turns out there’s yet another reason for Agolf Twittler withholding all of that aid from Ukraine. He was hoping to divert it to covering the expense for his next extended golf outing (and to sneak in some renovations for his overpriced, decaying dump of a hotel at Doral) since he’s already burned through the Secret Service’s presidential protection budget for the next decade.
Get out and vote like your life depends on it — IT DOES!
Nosferudi has graduated from being Mr. Noun-verb-and-911 to being tRump’s slack-jawed lackwit in residence. He has a lot of competition for the stinkiest stench of the full-throated criminal enabler, but he has come to epitomize the punky scum at the bottom of the barrel where tRump finds his sicko-phants.
America’s conservative movement looks more and more like a bowel movement every day.
Start spreadin' the boos, he’s whinin' today
He wants to be a part of it
New York, New York
His bigoted views, are really cray-cray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York
He’s gonna wake up, in a city that doesn't sleep
And find He’s king of the swill
Dung of the heap
These little man blues
Are still holding sway
He'll make a brand new mess of it
In old New York
If he can blow it there, he'll blow it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York — sincere apologies to Frank Sinatra
If you like Short Takes please check out GNR(U) Presents: Snark O’ the Day hitting the recent diaries list every day at 7:30PM Eastern. Sunday night’s episode. And last night’s: GNR(U) Presents: Snark O' the Day, Final Restroom Edition
Today’s Quotes
Just like there’s always a tweet, there’s always a quote. The Teddy Roosevelt quote at the end is intended as a palate cleanser and a commentary on all the bunched undies in response to the crowd at the baseball game’s greeting for Mr. Deplorable.
The notion that you can withhold information and documents from Congress, no matter whether you’re the party in power or not in power, is wrong. Respect for the “rule of law” must mean something, irrespective of the vicissitudes of political cycles. — Former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy
Democracy depends on a system of checks and balances for “abuse of power”, especially by the president. “Because impeachment is not about punishment, impeachment is about cleansing the office of the Presidency. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. — Republican Senator Lindsey Graham
The day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena was the day he was subject to impeachment, because he took the power from Congress over the impeachment process away from Congress and he became the judge and jury. — Republican Senator Lindsey Graham
We can do the right thing, or we can lower our standards and allow the president to cling to public office – regardless of the consequences to our nation, to our system of justice, and to our future generations…Our nation is indeed at a crossroads. Will we pursue the search for truth, or will we dodge, weave and evade the truth? The investigation is legitimate, and ascertaining the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the unqualified truth is absolutely critical. — Republican Senator Mitch McConnell
High crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the United States put their own interests, their personal interest, ahead of their public service. — Republican Vice-President Mike Pence
The United State is a nation of laws, not men. And I do not believe we can ignore the facts or disregard the Constitution so that the president can be placed above the law. — Republican Senator Richard Burr
If the president does something illegal, corrupt or dastardly, the impeachment process is available. No single prosecutor, judge or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress. — Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh
I think that it is outrageous that any attorney general — Republican or Democrat — refuses to comply with Congress’s constitutional right to hold them accountable and the Justice Department accountable. I would say that if that if this was a Republican just like I do now because it’s a Democrat. Not only that, I think this has gone on so long and the stonewalling by the attorney general has been so egregious, that I think he has to resign. — Republican Senator Marco Rubio
What I want is total transparency, you have to have transparency. — Donald J. tRump
Any violation of civil rights will be aggressively pursued and prosecuted by my administration. No one will be above the law. — Donald J. tRump
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. ― Theodore Roosevelt
The Hypocritical Oath (2019 Update)
In addition to being required to sign non-disclosure agreements, mutual defense pacts and super secret double probation releases for the Conman-in-Residence (aka the Rezident). the crack investigative team here at NNNE Oppo Research Inc™ have discovered that all republican politicians are required to take The Hypocritical Oath before they are given access to laundered campaign funds, NRA and evangelical minister support and Proud Boy backing. Since they lack the imagination and skill to write an oath entirely from scratch, they’ve closely modeled theirs on and plagiarized from the Hippocratic Oath.
- I will disrespect the honor and integrity of those republicans in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such betrayals as are mine with those who are to follow.
- I will apply, for the benefit of the guilty, all measures that are unethical, embracing those twin evils of dishonesty and baseless accusations.
- I will forget that there are ethics to politics and that honesty, morality and integrity outweigh cheap tricks and shallow lies.
- I will not be ashamed to say “I do not remember,” nor will I fail to gaslight my constituents when my guilt becomes apparent.
- I will ignore basic human rights as well as those defined in The Constitution. Most especially, I will proudly make the claim that “It’s Ok if you are a republican.” If I have the opportunity to do something despicable, I will not hesitate. It may also be in my power to destroy a life with lies and baseless claims. I will embrace this power with gleeful abandon and rejoice in the damage I do. I will happily play God.
- I will forsake my constituents, their hopes and their dreams in my ceaseless pursuit of partisan political power. I will, without evidence, accuse my opponents of my own sins, transgressions and crimes.
- I will distort truth wherever possible, because truth is the enemy of my cause.
- I will destroy the environment that sustains us, in the knowledge that nothing is more important than satisfying the lust for wealth of the oligarchs who support me.
- I will deny that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, including that subset of the white population who I’ve bamboozled, as well as everyone else who has seen through my insincere and dishonest statements of policy.
- If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy graft and corruption, loathed while I live and remembered with disdain thereafter. May I always act so as to destroy the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of screwing over those who seek my help.
Impeachment Addendum to the Hypocritical Oath
With the onset of the impeachment inquiry, the republicans have added a few new promises to their oath.
- As a republican office holder, I promise to pretend I never said any of the things I actually said and to act completely contrary to any simulated heartfelt sentiments I might have expressed in the past when I baselessly and incessantly accused Democrats of lesser crimes than are currently at issue, calling for harsher punishments.
- I promise to ignore evidence, engage in wanton character assassination of witnesses and to make grandiose and idiotic claims of innocence.
- I further promise to deny, deflect or distort any and all substantial charges, while simultaneously making ridiculous claims regarding my own integrity to my constituents.
- I will ignore statutory confidentiality of information and selectively leak distortions of closed-door testimony that mischaracterize the actual testimony. Given the opportunity, I will recklessly and illegally expose whistleblowers.
- Being of low moral character, I promise to lie, cheat and steal until such time as I am caught red-handed, at which time I will blame Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the deep state conspiracy for my personal failings. I will never take responsibility for my crimes and will go to meet my maker with the stench of unrepentant corruption staining my soul.
Required Pet Photo
My beloved companion for the last 16 years, Indiana Jones (aka Indy) passed away peacefully in her sleep around 10AM Monday morning. She had been in declining health for the last couple of years. Words fail.
Closing Notes
Continuing good wishes to {{{{oldhippiedude}}}} and {{{{Msdude}}}}
Continued speedy recovery to {{{{niftywriter}}}} my every other Tuesday partner.
This was from the last event at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia back in 1989. The song is chosen as an homage to our indefatigable bringer of the local good news, Runaway Rose.
Disclaimer: Republicans still suck.