Impeachment Redux 

Just Checking In:  How’s the new year treating you?  As far as I can tell so far it’s not much different from 2020, except of course for the insurrection which is not over yet as reports are that future attacks are in the offing, in various state capitals and in Washington DC, putting current inauguration plans in jeopardy. With the death count at 374,341, the virus is even more out of control than the Trump mob and we’re on the verge of another impeachment, only this time rather than relying on descriptions of a “perfect” call we’ve got receipts in the form of selfies and videos and those videos are truly horrific, especially the one of Capital police being beaten while Trump was doing his Epstein jig to the music in his protected studio.  The terrorists, and to be clear, they’re terrorists rather than demonstrators, got frighteningly close to doing far more damage than they pulled off, which isn’t to say that they didn’t pull off far too much.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that those responsible for the protection of the Capitol failed miserably, and that while some of that was due to a 9.11 type failure to imagine the worst that could happen as well as general incompetence, it’s more than likely that when a thorough top to bottom analysis of last week’s events is completed, it will be revealed that some high up in the administration, particularly one or more of Trump’s recently placed supplicants at the Defense Department, including acting Secretary Chris Miller and former Devin Nunes aides Kash Patel and Ezra Cohen Watnick were among those who, under the direction of their orange leader, intentionally disregarded the obvious threat largely because the maniacs were Trump fans rather than Black Lives Matter racial equity protestors or even Bill Nye the Science Guy whose pro science rally resulted in the call up of more troops.  That said, there were some heroes including Officer Brian Goodman who at his own peril misdirected a horde of threatening thugs keeping them away from where many Senators were sheltering and Officer Brian Sicknick, ironically a Trump supporter, who died from injuries sustained while doing his job. Sadly, another Capitol officer, Howard Liebengood committed suicide over the weekend. On a scale of one to ten Speaker Pelosi is level fifteen furious, she’s not just talking another impeachment, she’s doing it, telling VP Pence that she’ll only halt the process if he forces Trump out of office. Though there have been reports that Pence is considering going the 25^th Amendment route because he’s beyond hurt that Trump, who throws everyone around him under the bus, paid off his long time loyalty by doing the same to him, he’s been largely silent.  The bottom line is that we have no idea what is really being discussed nor how dire things really are which is saying a lot because we do know that concerns about Trump’s instability are so heightened that Pelosi has spoken with Pentagon officials to limit his ability to play with his “football.”  Nor do we know if Pence would even be able to get enough of the remaining cabinet members, a group that includes Secretary of State Pompeo who appears to still be on the Trump bandwagon and supplicants Alex Azar, Ben Carson and Wilbur Ross, assuming he’s not on life support somewhere, to cooperate though it is worth noting that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin who sometimes acts like he cares about stability or at the very least market reaction, cut short his Saudi Arabia jaunt short to rush back to Washington. As to those two women who supposedly moderate Trump’s worst instincts, Melania was busy doing a photo shoot while her husband was egging on his marauding fanbase and refused to be interrupted because, come on, it was a photo shoot for her planned cocktail table book and Ivanka’s publicist wants us to think that despite her tweet calling the goons patriots, a tweet that she later deleted, that she was doing her best to get her father to calm his fans and that it was her influence that got him to issue his video, the one that looked like a hostage tape and that he now regrets because he doesn’t want any of his fans to think that he really wants a peaceful transition to take place. And on the gossip side, for what it’s worth, the Daily Mail reports that Melania plans to file for divorce shortly.  I really don’t care, do you?  

Lies and Consequences: Though it’s still likely that Trump won’t be forced out early, or at least until he gets back from his trip to examine his wall in Alamo, Texas, not that Alamo but still an Alamo, he is suffering some consequences for his actions, not from most in the Republican hierarchy as with few exceptions, that crowd insists that pushing him out early would be divisive, because divisiveness is only a problem when the perpetrator isn’t Trump?  The slapback is coming from the social media companies. Trump has lost, at least temporarily, access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, Shopify and Pinterest and a number of cash apps, among others.  That loss of Pinterest must really hurt because where else can he post pictures of his golden toilets and Shopify, holy Devin’s cow, no more MAGA hat sales.  Twitter says its ban is permanent, which is totally freaking Trump and his fan base out. Twitter is so serious that the company’s staff spent the weekend shutting down Trump aides and family members when they tried to send messages on his behalf.  In addition to slamming the companies for trampling on his First Amendment rights,  a call that a number of his most dedicated Congressional sycophants echoed,  Trump called for his fans to all migrate to the alt right Parler platform where calls for insurrection are not just allowed, but de rigueur. Unfortunately for Trump Apple and Google pulled Parler from their app stores.  They were quickly followed by Amazon which booted Parler from its web hosting service which is a bigly deal.  Parler CEO John Matze initially claimed that he had many other hosting options but later admitted that he’s been having a hard time finding another company to pick him up while also confessing that his law firm has dropped his company.  Parler will probably be back online eventually, but for now they remain dark.  As to the First Amendment, it applies government not private entities despite Trump and his enablers assertions to the contrary.  It’s not just the social media companies, the PGA has cancelled plans to hold their 2022 championship at Trump’s Bedminster course and also announced that they will not hold events at any of his other courses.  A number of corporations, including Marriot, Citibank, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield have also taken action, announcing that they will not be making political donations to any of the members of Congress who voted against confirming the Electoral College results.  JP Morgan took things a step further saying that they are putting a freeze on all political contributions, a little bit of bothsiderism given who the trouble makers are right now. Count Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz among those most affected by all this. A number of their local papers and Senate colleagues are calling for them to resign and former Missouri Senator John Danforth who mentored Hawley now says that supporting him is “the worst mistake” he’s ever made “in his life” something that former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill/current MSNBC pundit who Hawley unseated would most certainly agree with.  Over the weekend, newbie Arizona Senator Mark Kelly’s twin brother and fellow astronaut teased that he’s considering challenging Cruz next time he’s up for reelection, unfortunately Cruz isn’t up again until 2024, still identical twins in the Senate would be kind of fun.  Maybe by then the Vindmans will be back in government too. Of course, the twinning assumes that we make it through the next two weeks and that all those insurrectionists leave Washington which won’t be easy for some of them as a few who have not been arrested at least so far have been put on no-fly lists and might have to walk all the way home to wherever it is they came from.

Nine Days