Here's The Thing

An amalgam from the Twitterverse:

Bolton cleverly hid the evidence where 45* would never find it - in a book.

But no, seriously now: his minions were aware of it, because Bolton had to submit his manuscript for review by the national security folks.

So the White House knew about it all along, which is another reason they ignored subpoenas and threatened Exec Privilege to keep Bolton from testifying.

They knew. Which means McConnell knew. Which makes it pretty obvious why Republicans are acting like such dicks - again - still - by refusing to allow witnesses or documentary evidence in the impeachment trial.

Getting Up With Fleas

WaPo Letters to the Editor 

Jan. 27, 2020 at 5:12 p.m. EST

I was braced for Dana Milbank’s usual snark, as he seems to have taken Maureen Dowd’s place in our national conversation, but his Jan. 24 Impeachment Diary column, “Roberts comes face-to-face with the mess he made,” was spot on and not for yuks.

Mr. Milbank is right about the legacy of Citizens United, but I wonder if the chief justice has a more basic problem. Sitting there while the president’s counsel spins lie after lie — and not saying a word about it — may be the death blow to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

The chief justice’s passive acceptance of obvious lies does not show him to be a neutral arbiter. It instead shows to those who might come before him in his day job that bad-faith arguments are acceptable rhetoric. In calling out some of those lies, and Republicans’ abdication of their credibility in accepting them, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was intemperate!

So let’s scold the parties “in equal terms.” Hogwash. The chief justice’s fake neutrality may well neuter the Constitution.

Bill Kalish, Alexandria VA

Here's Milbank's piece:

There is justice in John Roberts being forced to preside silently over the impeachment trial of President Trump, hour after hour, day after tedious day.

The chief justice of the United States, as presiding officer, doesn’t speak often, and when he does, the words are usually scripted and perfunctory:

• “The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.”
• “The chaplain will lead us in prayer."
• “The sergeant at arms will deliver the proclamation.”
• “The majority leader is recognized.”

Otherwise, he sits and watches. He rests his chin in his hand. He stares straight ahead. He sits back and interlocks his fingers. He plays with his pen. He takes his reading glasses off and puts them on again. He starts to write something, then puts his pen back down. He roots around in his briefcase for something - anything? - to occupy him.

Roberts’s captivity is entirely fitting: He is forced to witness, with his own eyes, the mess he and his colleagues on the Supreme Court have made of the U.S. political system. As representatives of all three branches of government attend this unhappy family reunion, the living consequences of the Roberts Court’s decisions, and their corrosive effect on democracy, are plain to see.

Ten years to the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, the Supreme Court released its Citizens United decision, plunging the country into the era of super PACs and unlimited, unregulated, secret campaign money from billionaires and foreign interests. Citizens United, and the resulting rise of the super PAC, led directly to this impeachment. The two Rudy Giuliani associates engaged in key abuses — the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the attempts to force Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents — gained access to Trump by funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch to the president’s super PAC.

The Roberts Court’s decisions led to this moment in indirect ways, as well. The court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred a new wave of voter suppression. The decision in 2014′s McCutcheon further surrendered campaign finance to the wealthiest. The 2018 Janus decisionhobbled the ability of labor unions to counter wealthy donors, while the 2019 Rucho ruling blessed partisan gerrymandering, expanding anti-democratic tendencies.

The consequences? Falling confidence in government, and a growing perception that Washington had become a “swamp” corrupted by political money, fueled Trump’s victory. The Republican Party, weakened by the new dominance of outside money, couldn’t stop Trump’s hostile takeover of the party or the takeover of the congressional GOP ranks by far-right candidates. The new dominance of ideologically extreme outside groups and donors led lawmakers on both sides to give their patrons what they wanted: conflict over collaboration and purity at the cost of paralysis. The various decisions also suppress the influence of poorer and non-white Americans and extend the electoral power of Republicans in disproportion to the popular vote.

Certainly, the Supreme Court didn’t create all these problems, but its rulings have worsened the pathologies — uncompromising views, mindless partisanship and vitriol — visible in this impeachment trial. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), no doubt recognizing that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is helping to preserve his party’s Senate majority, has devoted much of his career to extending conservatives’ advantage in the judiciary.

He effectively stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing for nearly a year to consider President Barack Obama’s eminently qualified nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy. And, expanding on earlier transgressions by Democrats, he blew up generations of Senate procedures and precedents requiring the body to operate by consensus so that he could confirm more Trump judicial appointees.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. On the day the impeachment trial opened, the Roberts Court rejected a plea by Democrats to expedite its consideration of the latest legal attempt by Republicans to kill Obamacare. The court sided with Republicans who opposed an immediate Supreme Court review because the GOP feared the ruling could hurt it if the decision came before the 2020 election.

Roberts had been warned about this sort of thing. The late Justice John Paul Stevens, in his Citizens United dissent, wrote: “Americans may be forgiven if they do not feel the Court has advanced the cause of self-government today.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, in his McCutcheon dissent, warned that the new campaign finance system would be “incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy.”

Now, we are in a crisis of democratic legitimacy: A president who has plainly abused his office and broken the law, a legislature too paralyzed to do anything about it — and a chief justice coming face to face with the system he broke.

Aside from the slight whiff of Both Sides - which of course is an absolute shibboleth for Press Poodles - I can get next to it.

It Bugs Me, Man

Nothing bugs me more than when I start thinking I have to make common cause with The John Birch Society.

First, Nancy MacLean makes mention of The Liberty Amendments:

The Liberty Amendments:

1. Term Limits - US Congress
2. Repeal 17th amendment
3. Term Limits - SCOTUS
4. Federal balanced budget
5. Move tax day to the day before election day
6. Periodic review/re-authorization of federal departments
7. Redefine the Commerce Clause
8. Limit eminent domain
9. Change the process for amending the Constitution
10. States' nullification of federal statute or SCOTUS decision
11. Federal Voter ID

Then I have to put my gag reflex in cold storage long enough to sit thru Mark Levin:

Just kidding - I tried to listen to Levin and there's just no fuckin' way for me to get thru it. 

I tried - honest - I did.

So instead, here's a history teacher guy - Keith Hughes (YouTuber Hip Hughes):

And then, I had to listen to Art Thompson as he rebuts:

It's the Long Game, but we're seeing it in acceleration mode now. 45* screwed up the timing, and is making it harder for the Daddy Staters to hide their hands, so a lot of them are trying to stay with it, even though they're really scared that enough of us are hip to their tricks now - that even the rubes are beginning to see the contradictions.

Today's Tweet

If this doesn't make your skin crawl, then you're part of the problem.

ERNST: "IA caucuses are this next Monday evening. And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Demcaucus goers. Will they be supporting VP Biden at this point?"

H/T @JaxAlemany pic.twitter.com/tYYkSPuIDY

— Alan He (@alanhe) January 28, 2020

And there it is, kids. The latest version of the Benghazi Moment - when Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz (et al) admitted on camera that their "investigations" had nothing to do with finding the truth, or national security, or the well-being of Americans who sometimes risk it all serving the country.

They don't really care about any of that.

It was all about the typical GOP rat-fucking - intended only to drag Hillary down in the polls.

And here we are again.

On Ken Starr

Ari Melber on MSNBC: We watched Ken Starr punch himself in the face.

Today's Tweet

Also, Today's Poe (I hope - who the fuck knows anymore?)

“McDonalds is connected to the Clintons... people are being cannibalized.”

Guys, I don’t think the QAnon people should vote. pic.twitter.com/PkGTx0f8RE

— Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) January 25, 2020

Today's Tweet

This @PaulLidicul guy's amazing.

I can't breathe 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/G98GJ30RZv

— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) October 12, 2019

Today's Quote

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy — not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day. It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

-- Alexander Hamilton, Aug 1792

This is from a "note" to George Washington.

Reading some of it now, I get a very bad feeling that someone is taking Hamilton's warnings and following them like a playbook.

Today's Tweet

It won't matter, of course. These folks hit the reset button every morning and everything starts over.

Omg let's retweet the hell out of this. pic.twitter.com/nv5NLYWuAG

— Kenidra4Humanity (@KenidraRWoods_) December 6, 2019

New Shit

So this is more than a little weird. Two of my least favorite genres come together to make something that I like.

GangstaGrass.

And now my brain hurts.