Cowardly, Cruel and in Denial

Don’t Mess With Me: Well it’s official, yesterday a somber Nancy Pelosi took to the podium to say “sadly, but with confidence and humility ... I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.” Her formal announcement wasn’t surprising but still it’s significant. Assuming the Democratic controlled Congress votes for some if not all of the articles that are ultimately presented, and they will, Trump will join Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton in becoming only the third president to be impeached while in office. Richard Nixon, the president that most of us identify as having been impeached because he’s the one who actually stepped down, actually left office before he could be impeached after being told by some fellow Republicans, the kind that don’t appear to exist anymore, that the writing was on the wall. As we all know Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about his dalliances with Monica Lewinsky, rather than for anything “trivial” like trying to extort a vulnerable foreign leader and, though the charges against Johnson were a bit trumped up to use a timely term, he was impeached for trying to undo the outcome of the Civil War, a simplification of his story, but still a substantially correct one.  Getting back to Speaker Pelosi, she was in no mood to take any crap from the right wing peanut gallery, so later in the morning, during her usual Thursday news conference, she blasted James Rosen, a reporter from the very conservative Sinclair Broadcast Corp, the media outlet he landed at after being fired from Fox for engaging in some sexual harassment, when he asked her if it was true that she hated Trump.  Pelosi snapped back “don’t mess with me,”  adding that as a Catholic she doesn’t hate anyone.  Apparently Rosen had really stepped in it, possibly because he like me did not know that Catholic children are taught that “hate” should never be used in connection with another human being, that is a violation of the Church’s interpretation of the Fifth, not the Amendment but the Commandment.  To drive that point hope, last year Pope Francis said that to hate is to murder in your heart.  Anyway, Speaker Pelosi who is fairly devout, said that she thinks Trump “is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence,” she thinks “he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our ‘dreamers,’ of which we are very proud” and she thinks “he’s in denial about the climate crisis,” but no to the hate word.  She also says that she prays for him, which is, I suspect, far more than most of the rest of us can say. 

Anyway, getting back to the impeachment thing, the Democrats are now drafting the articles, deciding whether to include any of those obstructions detailed in the Mueller investigation or whether to limit themselves to issues related to the Ukraine mess because those items are easier to understand and because their newbie, moderates need things to be simple and relatable.  So far only one Democrat, Representative  Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, one of the two who voted against formalizing the impeachment inquiry, has indicated that he will vote against all the articles of impeachment "unless there's something” that he hasn't seen or heard before.  After the formal vote which is expected to take place before the Christmas recess, the action will move to the Republican controlled Senate where Trump is expected to mount a boisterous, possibly reality show defense, unless of course some calmer voices prevail, and it’s likely that some of them will try to tamp things down.  That’s not to say that the Senate will vote to convict, absent a shootout on Fifth Avenue, and maybe even then, that is not going to happen but some Republican Senators who will ultimately vote with Trump are likely to vote against allowing him to call some of the witnesses that their House colleagues want to hear from.  Already, Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most dedicated fanboys, has rejected the idea of subpoenaing Adam Schiff’s phone records and others such as Senators Susan Collins and Mitt Romney are unlikely to support anything that turns their chamber into a three ring circus. With majority votes required for a lot of these things, Republicans will have to adhere to some decorum, just some.  Returning to phone records, despite Ranking Intel Member Devin Nunes’ outrage that his were “subpoenaed,” they weren’t, but apparently Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas’ were, and the devious and talkative Devin’s number got caught because his number showed up all over their call records.  Of course Nunes says sure he talked with Rudy a lot about the weather but never about Ukraine or Ambassador Yovanovitch who he claims he didn’t even know existed until this month and that he doesn’t remember any of those calls with Parnas, because who would remember calls with an indicted fellow anyway?  Several news outlets reported that Lev and his attorneys are closing in on a plea deal with the Southern District of New York; assuming those reports are true and the two sides can agree on details, we’ll all be hearing more from Lev soon. That should disturb lawyer/fixer Rudy Giuliani, but he appears too busy or demented to care.  His Ukraine escapades continue, no one including Trump’s advisors, the State Department or officials in President Zelensky’s government are at all pleased about him traipsing around Kiev trying to dig up Biden dirty, but maybe Trump’s okay with his actions because against all logic they continue.  Rudy’s already out there tweeting about finds from the Ukraine Chamber, whatever that is, and “misuses” of US funds during the Obama days.   Then of course there is The Donald, he’s pulling his old Mueller “of course I will testify” routine.  Oddly enough Fox’s Judge Napolitano who earlier this week said that Trump is guilty of committing impeachable offenses is now saying that Trump should testify in public.  It’s not clear why he would say that, maybe he wants to watch Trump dig his own grave? Count me among those who think that while he will tweet away, Trump will not testify under oath for fairly obvious reasons.

Crime Blotter:  Though he has now pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for committing campaign fund violations, California Representative Duncan Hunter is still in Congress and up until two days ago was still voting.  The House Ethics Committee has now notified him that he can no longer do that.  It’s worth noting that the now former California Congresswoman Katie Hill stepped down because she had a consensual but inappropriate relationship with a Congressional staffer.  So who would have guessed that Republican men and Democratic women are subject to different standards, although to be fair to men the standard differential could just relate to party affiliation as former Al Franken could attest. Also, George Nader, the pedophile from an earlier chapter of the Trump saga has now been charged with funneling money to the Clinton campaign. Campaign violations and inappropriate canoodling pale in comparison to what we learned this week about the death of sixteen year old Guatemalan migrant Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez.  He died from complications of the flu while under the “care” of the Border Patrol.  And by “care” think, being left in a locked cell with a raging fever despite a notice from a nurse practitioner that he should be carefully watched and transported to a hospital emergency room if his fever didn’t go down.  That happened in May, we are now once again in flu season and despite recommendations from the Center for Disease Control that migrants should be given flu shots, the Customs and Border Patrol has decided that in addition to providing inadequate care they aren’t going to bother with shots because who cares about a few more deaths anyway?