Impeachment and Fidget Spinners

* The “world’s greatest deliberative body“? Just how low is the bar on deliberative bodies? No public fist fights?

* “I don’t know if he left on the best of terms. You don’t like people testifying when they don’t leave on good terms.”–That’s President Trump on why he’s opposed to former national security adviser John Bolton, author of the upcoming “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” testifying in his Senate impeachment trial.  

* One argument against impeachment–made formally by White House counsel Pat Cippolone–is that “They’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that’s occurring in approximately nine months.” As in Democrats want to ride roughshod over the will of the people. Nice try. Law school professors can nod in rhetorical acknowledgement.

But such diversionary arguments disingenuously avoid the obvious issue. Accountability for an impeachable offense is not, uh, trumped, by timing. If you believe Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and has a track record that virtually assures that he will continue his MO until the November election, you can’t idealistically and negligently just let it ride for now. If you believe that this unethical, immoral, pathologically impulsive, impeachable president is a threat and a menace to American democracy, to the environment, to race relations and global relationships, you sure and hell don’t give him a pass for nine more months.

* Lewinsky to Zelenskiy: Republicans controlled the Senate during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial–and acquittal. That was the GOP then, hardly avatars of impartiality, but still shy of lockstep, lock-down sycophancy to party fealty. This, alas, is now, with Republicans–including those directly mocked and ridiculed by Trump–whoring out for a leader with an avenging cult following, acting like the party of Lindsey–not Lincoln.     

* In an ironically bizarre way, the introduction of fidget spinners among some peers by North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr seemed more than silly. Given a man-child president with serious attention deficits, a toy designed to be spun to relieve the boredom of having to pay attention to something important seemed appropriate.

* “Lock her up.” “Take her out.”  It’s the way a misogynist-in-chief talks, whether the target is an opponent (Hillary Clinton) or a politically unhelpful ambassador to Ukraine (Marie Yovanovitch).

* Pertinent signs we’ll never see at a Trump rally: “Most Pro-Strife President Ever.” “We Shall Overcomb.”

* “Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats. They will take your guns away.”–And this  NRA sop is what happens when you vote for Trump.

* Imagine how worrisome Saudi Arabia would be if it were not an ally?

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