Is it bad that I literally cannot read anything that Nancy Pelosi says regarding “her Catholic faith” without feeling extremely angry and offended?
I can’t say this enough - Catholicism - and any religion, really - is an all or nothing thing. If you don’t wholeheartedly believe in what your faith teaches, why believe it at all?
“The Democrats are so busy with the impeachment, they’re getting NOTHING done!!” - Conservative voters who refuse to acknowledge that the House has passed numerous bills this year, only to have them stall in the Senate because McConnell refuses to bring them to the floor.
“They won’t let Trump face his accuser!” - Conservative voters who refuse to acknowledge that whistleblower identities are kept confidential unless it’s absolutely necessary to identify them, and that this is a policy that predates Trump. The fact that whenever this whistleblower’s possible identity has been leaked, that person has received death threats, is a not insignificant reason WHY their identity is protected. Also the 6th Amendment applies to criminal proceedings, not an impeachment.
“The Republicans were locked out of the behind-closed-doors hearings!” - Conservative voters who seriously don’t seem to care that 13 of the lawmakers who protested being locked out DID have access because they were on the committee, and that Republicans made the rule that in such hearings, only committee members are allowed. Also the hearings were “hidden” for the same reason grand jury hearings are not public – so that witnesses can’t line up their stories - that’s included in the rules for impeachment inquiries passed by Republicans. The Democrats literally ran the inquiry by the Republicans’ rule book.
“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are abusing their power by refusing to hand over the impeachment to the Senate!” - Conservative voters who refuse to acknowledge that McConnell has openly stated on national television that he (a juror) is working with Trump (the defendant) and Graham (also a juror) stated that he isn’t even trying to be an impartial juror, and that the impeachment articles are being withheld until the Senate is willing to hold a fair trial.
This is why many of us don’t bother engaging with you. It’s not because “oh we’re triggered omg” or we know we’ve lost – it’s because you refuse to bring enough intellectual honesty to the table for actual discourse to be had.
If you’re just going to parrot Trump’s talking points about the “witch hunt” and not make a peep to acknowledge McConnell abusing HIS power or the Republicans misrepresenting facts, then you’re not worth the time or energy.
Context: George Floyd’s murderer is convicted on 3 counts. Afterwards, Nancy Pelosi makes a distraction of herself with offensively tone-deaf white-a-cism while expressing support for verdict.
Nancy Pelosi endorsed, campaigned for, and gave money to a pro-nra, anti-choice, anti-lgbt, anti-environment candidate who voted with Donald Trump well over half the time and is under FBI investigation for bribery in a race against a democrat who is none of those things.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have voted nine times to reopen the government, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to allow any of those bills to come to a vote. He and Donald Trump are responsible for 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid because of the Trump Shutdown.
Today marks the end of two years of unified Republican control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. As Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, that means we will finally see oversight and accountability of the president, and for the first time in Donald Trump’s adult life, he will finally have someone to say no to him.
For the last time, Nancy Pelosi is not the Speaker of the House. Until she becomes Speaker on January 3, 2019, she cannot convene the House, schedule a vote or open the government. Republicans control all three branches of government. The #TrumpShutdown is entirely on them.
Trump isn’t the Problem; ergo Impeachment is no solution
Got an email from Common Cause this morning. It was one of those fund-raising emails disguised as a “poll”. This one started off like this:
“Tara, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done to get us this far.
Back in July, when Common Cause first called for an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, the conventional wisdom was against us. House leadership didn’t want to conduct an impeachment inquiry, because they feared it would impact their 2020 election prospects.
But you didn’t give up – and your consistent, powerful advocacy paid off this week as public hearings into Trump’s impeachment began. This couldn’t have happened without you.
Now, millions of Americans are watching as multiple distinguished public servants bravely come forward to describe a dangerous pattern of wrongdoing – bribery, abuse of power, and obstruction of justice – by President Trump.
Tara, how the American people respond to this will determine what kind of democracy we leave for our children’s future.
All week, I’ve been hearing from Common Cause members like you who want to know what Common Cause plans to do next. And as one of our most active members, I wanted to get your input – because we’ll be counting on your engagement and dedication to see it through.
Based on what you know, do you think President Trump should be removed from office? Click here to instantly record your vote, and if you’d like, tell us why once you’ve voted:
YES
NO
Needless to say, I voted “No”, and replied with the following:
“First of all, I am NOT one of your most active members, let’s get that lie out of the way. I’ve done NOTHING towards getting Trump impeached, because I think it’s a fool’s errand.
I wouldn’t waste time and taxpayer money impeaching Trump in the House when we all know it will go nowhere in the Senate. It is a futile act, which will be nothing more than a distraction.
Lawmakers are paid to create and improve laws, not to throw hissy-fit sore loser tantrums because you put up such an unlikable and arrogant candidate in 2016 that she couldn’t even beat a colossal clown of an idiot like Trump.
It’s not Trump’s fault that HRC didn’t visit certain states. Nor is it Trump’ fault that 46% of registered voters were not inspired to vote.
Get over your whining. We all know Hillary is STILL trying to save face, and your organization is controlled by her and her minions.
I’m not saying Trump is blameless - I despise the man. What I’m saying is that trying to impeach Trump is a fruitless effort that will not bring the desired results. He will not be removed from office. All that will be accomplished is that a lot of time and money will be wasted, the public will be led away from being concerned about political developments that should be concerning them during that time period, and the effort won’t even help defeat Trump in 2020.
Then there’s the other elephant in the room. If Trump gets removed from office (which is completely unlikely), why in hell would you want to replace him with a bigger warmonger?
Pence is a homophobic, racist Bible stomper who wants to replace the Constitution with the Bible! Not only that, but he is more bellicose than Trump, and would never make any peaceful overtures to foreign leaders, like Trump has done from time to time.
I’m an ex-Democrat, a “peacenik” if you will. I find the new breed of Democratic policies of approving and orchestrating bloodthirsty attacks on sovereign nations that pose no threat to the safety of our people to be abhorrent and completely goes against my beliefs about what policies should matter to all politicians, be they “Democrats” OR “Republicans”.
I didn’t leave the Democratic Party - the party left me. Impeaching Trump is a massive waste of time and money, and it’s only purpose should be to protect and serve the American people, but we all know that that’s not what’s happening here.
There’s a great sticker I saw once. It shows two different identical piles of dog poo. The caption is,
‘Democrats? Republicans? Same shit, different piles.’
That’s how I see the duopoly. No matter who is in power, the United States will continue to illegally invade other countries. It will not stop if Trump is impeached.
We are a rogue nation, supplying the world with arms in order to help them kill innocents. Our terroristic foreign policy will not stop if Trump is impeached. The world will not suddenly right itself if Trump is removed from office. Laws will still be created that benefit only the 1% and screw the 99%.
Things didn’t go wrong starting with Trump. Obama dropped a bomb every 26 minutes of his entire Presidency. Trump now drops one every 12 minutes. Both are heinous acts that make me ashamed to be an American.
It was Obama, not Trump who took away our right of Habeas Corpus.
It was Obama who deported more immigrants than all previous Presidents combined.
It was Obama who tortured Chelsea Manning, and made a fool of himself downing a plane with a foreign President on board, in an effort to capture Edward Snowden, a whistleblower hero who revealed twisted truths about our government.
It was Obama who sat silent during Standing Rock while American citizens were tortured by American “officers of the peace” paid by our taxes to do the bidding of a foreign oil company, to oversee the completion of a project that does not serve or benefit the American people one iota.
It was Obama who opened up the Arctic for drilling TWICE.
It was Obama who signed over 1000 new leases for underwater drilling in the Gulf.
It was Obama who signed contracts to build 30 new nuclear plants.
It was Obama who said not a word while HRC sold 20% of our Uranium stores to Russia.
It was Obama who didn’t say peep as the Opioid crisis rose to massive proportions.
It was Obama who never admonished cops for killing unarmed black Americans.
It was Obama who signed the Monsanto act.
It was Obama who took Hillary’s advice and destroyed Libya.
It was Obama who bailed out the banks and let millions of Americans lose their homes.
It was Obama who never filed charges against the banksters who destroyed our economy.
It was Obama who orchestrated taking down all Occupy camps simultaneously.
It was Obama who refused to bring charges against the previous administration for war crimes they committed.
And it was Obama who tried to start a war in the Ukraine on his FUCKING FINAL DAY IN OFFICE!!
Trump is an extension of the problem, not the cause. Our politicians are ALL bought by big money, and that will not change if Trump is impeached.
Donald Trump, many other Republican politicans and pundits, and even some Democratic Party politicians are literally playing games with Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) life.
The bad faith arguments, lies of omission, blatant mischaracterization of Omar’s statements, fear mongering, and disingenuous appeals to patriotism that contribute to this need to end.
I think I’ve said before, but I’ll repeat it nonetheless: nobody not on the ticket in 2016 did more to sink Hillary than Comey did. Yet Benjy thinks he’s a Democrat.
Why not go with a Deep State cartoon? It’s just as ridiculous to claim all these people (and everyone else Benjy doesn’t like) are part of a singular, ill-defined entity, but at least it wouldn’t be as demonstrably wrong as claiming Comey is a Democrat.
*
Also: yes, I see that the blind Lady Justice is looking up.
Sharing with Congress an intelligence-agency whistleblower complaint that raised an “urgent concern” about President Donald Trump’s Ukraine dealings is a good step. Allowing that whistleblower to meet with congressional investigators should be next. Our view.Opposing view.
For our liberal friends. Criminals will always ignore the law when it suits them. DUI’s, falsified gun permit applications, and the like. Fuck you and your bullshit “gun control.”
Pelosi asking supporters to donate & fight to save Roe vs. Wade while simultaneously backing Pro-Life democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (even after his Texas home was raided by the FBI over an investigation into the former Soviet Republic.)
THE ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS AREN’T AS GOOD AT PANDERING & PRETENDING LIKE THEY USED TO BE.
Reminds me of that observation by Pelosi that she was struck by how swift and decisive her young staffers were, knowing instinctually to barricade the door, shut the lights and get under the table, because they had spent so much of their childhood doing active shooter drills.
sorry to be pedantic for a moment but this is important: those young staffers didn’t know what to do INSTINCTIVELY, they knew what to do REFLEXIVELY. the human instinct in confusing and scary situations is just to freeze up and look around for direction. untrained people in a group will almost always react to deadly situations by freezing up in confusion. this is why we have drills: to teach people over and over what to do when they can’t think of what to do.
gonna stress this again, those young people were reacting reflexively. not instinctively, reflexively. they had been drilled, over and over, until they were at the point where those reactions happened automatically, not because of an inherent human instinct, but because when confusion and fear shut their brains down, trained reflex took over, and they did as they had been taught.
active shooter drills in school are arguably really stressful and traumatizing to kids. it’s definitely fucked up a generation, though the blame can probably be put on our awful gun laws rather than trying to deal with the reality of so many awful people having so fucking many guns. but in this one awful situation, with all the awful people, and all the guns, where the worst did actually happen and a lot of unprepared old people just froze up, those kids’ drills went and saved a lot of lives.
