It's Only A Crisis Because Pelosi Is Afraid To Impeach

     Donald J. Trump, America's current President, wants to be impeached just as Nancy Pelosi says, and he will stone-wall his way into making it happen if he must. Pelosi wants to win even if it means not doing her job, as if Trump will impeach himself for her. 

     So the war is underway. Impeach him and run the risk of helping him get re-elected, or try to beat him at the ballot box while fighting back the morality cops, like Elizabeth Warren, who see this as a clear matter of integrity.

     
 I agree with Warren and I believe Pelosi and the Democrats are joining Republicans in a really dangerous game of wanting to win the politics of the day so badly, they are running from the spirit of justice in a nation much too passionate about honoring that spirit.

     Wantonness is not a great emotion to plan around, but it is the driving force for everything Democrats talk about these days. They want Trump gone so badly, but they are afraid to listen to the Mueller report and just "Do Their Jobs" because of the potential political backlash.

     Instead of simply reading the report- which, I am starting to question if many in Congress have- Democrats want to chase down Bob Mueller and former White House attorney, Don McGhan, who might be forced to testify, but will never be able to say anything that isn't already contained in the report. No matter how much Democrats want their way on this, they will look silly having McGhan turn to pages in the report to read it out loud on television for them. In essence, they want Mueller and McGhan  and Trump to do their jobs for them.

     In fact, Pelosi said as much when she recently resorted to stuttering her way into a weird explanation of Trump trying to "self impeach", a term nobody in the world understands but Pelosi. Even her attempts to clarify herself only amounted to saying that "Trump is building the case for his own impeachment".

     Translation: Pelosi wants Trump to do her job within Congress of whipping up support for impeachment by convincing individuals who are too lazy to do their jobs, to do their jobs and finally read the report. Pelosi herself is more willing to claim that we are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis rather than do her job and accept the answer the Constitution has given for this crisis moment.

     Because of the Providential perfection of our amendable Constitution, you can never have a Constitutional crisis until you run into a problem that the Constitution has no answer for. The problem right now is that the politics are historically horrible on impeachment, which has nothing to do with a crisis at all. This is about Pelosi wanting to have her cake and eat it too. But, everyone wants to have and eat their cake right now, and it's not a good look for any of them.

     Progressive Democrats say they want a woman to be the next President of the United States, but can't find one the masses seem willing to support yet. In addition to their Medicare-for-all plans, these progressives really want America to finally get serious about climate change vis a vis their Green New Deal, which is currently just a cool name and not quite a deal or a plan yet.

     Many of the new progressives in the party came to Washington D.C. on a commitment to impeach this President, but they have been quieted by Pelosi even though the Mueller report gives them more ammunition to impeach than they had when they arrived.

     Republicans have their own wants, but they are limited because they got that tax cut that turned out to be 4-5% bigger than anyone ever wanted or asked for. As it stands, way too many Republicans simply want Democrats to move on from Mueller's findings and turn a blind eye to the outlined obstructions and impeachment instructions messaged in the report. If you read between the lines on Pelosi's "self impeachment" comment, she seems willing to comply.

     Unfortunately for the GOP, moving on from Mueller means moving on to a huge spending bill that Trump negotiated directly with Chuck and Nancy (Schumer and Pelosi) realizing Congress is hardly the right place to make agreements anymore. This odd trio have agreed to a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will probably get jammed by the politics of deficits, special interest add-ons, or a combination of both

     But I am mostly upset with Pelosi who is convinced the impeachment process will "die at the Senate's edge" and has fended her party away from the process, even though she seems more and more willing to discuss the option herself after the controversial AG Barr Senate testimony recently.  If Democrat voters start to feel this President deserves more than he is getting, they will stop pressuring this President and start pressuring his enablers instead- Democrats included.

     Pelosi is correct in her view on the dead end road impeachment faces in the Senate, but she is dead wrong in her overall analysis of the benefit to detriment because justice can never be about politics. Whether every Senator in America chooses to align themselves on the right side of history or not doesn't diminish the importance of making them have to. 

     In fact, this is not the time to run from the process and suggest the ideal of a Constitutional crisis. This is the time to use the process and make every person in Congress have to place their marker in the history books for our grandchildren to study. This is a time to shame those who haven't read the report, and this is also the time to better explain what the word impeachment means.....because, in the minds of many, the word means removal, and Americans don't like removing people WE voted for unless we have no other choice. The first Democrat to own the process of explaining impeachment to US all will help drive the process to its proper conclusion, and they might even win the White House for their efforts.

     An impeachment is a trial.  Period. It is a fact finding process intended to investigate cabinet officials who could be immune to such an inquiry if not for impeachment. Anyone geeky enough to be reading this already understood that. Many Americans do not. The only crisis currently is that Congress is at a stand still in getting documents from the White House for every current congressional investigation, including Russian election interference, and Congress can't begin their duty of oversight without compliance from the Trump administration.

     Insert AG Barr, who runs the Justice Department and is the key lineman blocking out front for all of Trump's obstruction efforts. Ultimately, someone in the Department of Justice will have to decide to indict their boss if Democrats attempt to hold Barr in contempt for not testifying before the House as requested recently. Lying to Senators about the letter he had received from Mueller is also perjury, which is an impeachable offense. As with Nixon, obstruction of a congressional investigation is also an impeachment worthy offense. 

     At the very least, Trump and his administration have promised to obstruct and are presently living up to the promise. The reasons to shut up and do something about this administration are recent, ongoing, and exist outside of the Mueller report, a report which also begs for something to be done.

     Impeachments alone have never resulted in the removal of a President because they were not necessarily intended for that. Before the Senate ever gets a chance to vote to remove a President via impeachment, a majority vote has to happen in the House first. The Founding Fathers intentionally designed an impeachment to be just as difficult as it should be. 

     Despite popular perception, the politics of impeachment are much more damaging to the party of the President, but that is beside the point. The impeachment process is the point and it is a provision designed for scenarios that demand it. It is part of the oath of the office that Congress promises to fulfill when the President and his cabinet fails to fulfill their own oaths.  History has painted impeachments as toxic, but politics themselves are naturally toxic and occasionally corrupt. By reinforcing the toxicity of an impeachment, Pelosi and Democrats are blaming the remedy.

     A concerted push for a better understanding of the process would offer better clarity to the word itself and to the necessity for invoking it when the Constitution demands. The Democrats anxiously screaming for impeachment need to acknowledge the confusion about the process and clarify it enough to tilt public perception and force Pelosi's hand. 

     The reason impeachments have never removed a President is because our hope-filled dream of Democracy in this fractured Republic typically intervenes. In reality, the standard for removal has always been higher than"... high crimes and misdemeanors", even while the standard for impeachment is not. Until Nancy Pelosi gets that and gets the courage to do what is right and not what is politically expedient, she is failing her country, her party and herself.

     I hate to beat a dead horse, but this horse deserves a beating. Pelosi asking for hearings with Mueller is the equivalent of asking him to slap her and the rest of the Democrats over the head with the obvious before they do what the report begs of them. All of this because everyone in D.C. wants a political victory even if America loses along the way.

     Until political wantonness changes, beating Trump at the ballot box is the only trick the Democrat pony can pull off, and Joe Biden is the best option to do it. Yet, beating Trump in 2020 is what Nancy needs. It has nothing to do with integrity, justice or addressing the reason Trump won in the first place. Trump happened for a reason and his approval ratings have never been low enough for me to think that mysterious reason has changed.

     Yeah, Russia is the easy answer, however, I tend to believe that Russia tipped a scale that was waiting to fall over from eight years of the racial uneasiness from a black president that millions refused to call their own. Now, we have millions on the other end of the political spectrum unwilling to do the same with Trump although the underlying issues from both sides are bigger than either men.

   It might be time for each of US to take ownership of our own part of this problem. We all want the America WE dream of but can't see how we become our own worst enemies screaming to the winds for the America we want instead of pursuing a nation that fulfills the wants of many, Trumpians included. The Trumpian army isn't confused about what's wrong even if they have a fully distorted view of who to blame or how to fix it. 

     Because the "Lord Is My Shepherd" I loathe the word want and wantonness, and I run from the use of the word as often as I can. It is a selfish emotion.  It defies my spiritual upbringing and denotes a desperation that defies the constant provisions of God. It screams desperation, yet, some needs are desperate, and I too want this rightfully elected dude gone just as passionately as the rest of you.

     What I don't want is to use want as a strategy to get him out. I don't want an elected president to lose his job without the full benefit of a due process too politically risky to touch. I would like for Trump to get everything he deserves, even if the process results in a real exoneration and not a fake news variety.

     What I also don't want, is for Democrats to pursue a political gain and
short circuit the process and the pursuit of democracy intended by the Founding Fathers who created the impeachment to properly adjudicate the misdeeds of a President gone array. If the misdeeds are unfounded, only the process can fully investigate and set the record straight, either way.

     No matter how Trump fights it, history will be forced to sniff out the truth. No matter how Pelosi fights it, the impeachment process was meant to deal with certain presidential matters and everyone in Congress currently playing politics instead of doing their job to clarify the historical record will be held accountable by history as well.

     No, this isn't a Constitutional crisis because there is an answer for this moment and it lives in the Constitution. One day in the future, Republicans and Democrats will regret not reading the report soon enough, and they'll regret trying to take this moment to use it as an opportunity for their own political gain.  Every American who lets them get away with it will feel the same regret.

Women Like Sex Too: A Simple Defense Of Facebook.

Like many of you, I have had to do my own reckoning with the Cambridge Analytica reality that Facebook has so rudely slapped us with, forcing us to reexamine the things we see and read on The Book, even to the extent of wondering how Russia used our desperate love of Facebook against us in the 2016 election....

....and then I lost my damn self on this whole conversation because I always lose me and every other progressive who thinks from time to time that Russia made somebody who was previously interested in Hillary, more interested in Trump or any other candidate that they eventually voted for. I also lose myself on this Russian bot nonsense when I think they were able to make all the people who hate getting involved in politics less interested through keenly targeted Facebook memes.

Don't misunderstand my concern with what happened. I believe Putin deserves a serious geopolitical punch in the mouth with collective actions by the world as a message and a prelude to something worse if he doesn't stop the nonsense.

What I am tired of is progressive angst in the notion that human beings would get their lazy butts off of their couches to go stand in line for any candidate by inspiration from social media when we can barely decide who is going to pick up pizza when that cheesy pickup promo peaks our interest.

I am, admittedly, the same guy who was complaining about Google telling me that standing in line at O'Reilly auto parts is somehow a (insert curse word of choice here) photo opportunity, even when I'm actually across the street at Grease Monkey and the GPS is just a little off in its tracking of my every (insert another expletive) footstep.

The truth is they ALL are trying to GPS track and content analyze us to the benefit of the public square. In their defense, THEY are typically giving us something for FREE (social media page, email, web based market site) in exchange for the right to sell who we are to a third party. It is a relationship that we are made aware of going in so that we have the option and opportunity to steer clear of the free internet if we so choose. By now, there should be a solid understanding that you still get what you pay for in this world.

But the conversation of this orange man we are enduring in our White House is not something quite as trivial as the Sunday ads we've rejected that come through the so-called free internet now. Who knew enough strategic content could be used towards gaining an Electoral advantage, and that you could actually lose an election by 3 million votes yet, somehow still win the White House just as Donald Trump did?

Al Gore, that's who knew. He already gave us that civics lesson years ago. If Hillary didn't understand the electoral challenge from the Al Gore example alone, I question if she was prepared for the challenge that would have followed primarily being the first female president against a congress of GOP wolves. When you start to analyze things that happen in our world, sex, gender and sexuality are always underlying elements of consideration.

For example, I have resolved in my mind that sex is the oldest known industry to mankind because of things much more simplistic than pimps or patriarchy. In reality, there have always been women just as interested in sex as men think they are, some even more so quietly as it's kept.

The problem is, we do keep it quiet and we don't often open up about the reality that some women enjoy sex quite a bit. Prostitution is, in part, a byproduct of the truth that women love sex too.

While pimps are probably really cool guys with really gifted vocabularies, most of them are smart enough to find the women who want to hear what they are saying. I'm not talking about the sex slave crap or trying to overdo this sex analogy any more than necessary to make a point and keep the modern day attention span long enough for that point to sink in

My point?  People know what they like and listen to what they want to hear.

Putin, pimps and advertisers are only able to target the vulnerable, not produce them out of thin air. In reality, people do what they want to do or something pretty damn close to what they were thinking about in the first place.

Friends and family didn't start to fall distant on Facebook before during and after the electing of Trump because the Russian bots incited their discord. Some folks really loved them some Donald Trump, and they didn't want to be as open and honest about it because of the same reason our teenage daughters won't talk about banging someone like our boys tend to do on the regular.

Even with the downtrend in teen pregnancy, some babies happen because women like sex too. Women like sex, some of your friends and family voted for and still like Trump (and might do it again) and advertisers need to send you a coupon for that stuff you like, want or simply need based upon their strategic compilation of your social media life. As much as we'd like to blame the world for things we'd like to change, there is no way to change anything when you can't accept it for what it is.

If you don't want to be sold a product or told to go out and vote for that person you already like anyway, shut yourself off of the internet and social media in particular. Also disconnect the data on your phone as well as your wifi-signal while you are driving and I am pretty sure you will only see targeted mail and campaign flyers every two years or so.


Of course, they are asking more details about us in the upcoming census, so it might be prudent for anyone too concerned with a world trying to decide what we want to just live off the grid and keep up with everyone you know and love on Facebook- with a fake profile- and no likes or comments of course.

Normal Voters Really Want Normalcy To Return

Apparently, denying something happened
is all that matters to Donald Trump.

It used to be normal that we defend the actual victims of domestic violence.

Not the accusers! Those liars remain exactly what they were ten years before the #metoo movement decided to be. I know we would like to pretend that WE are a new America poised to give a damn when women insist we should, but this is Real Talk...For People Who Need It (SquareBiz), and I'm not convinced that enough abusers or women are ready to vote for a woman or believe her claim of abuse.

This matter of America's foremost leader being an unrepentant misogynist works because plenty of men remain just like him and plenty of women voted for this man with complete knowledge of his history with women. Those women- who shall primarily remain anonymous, for obvious reasons- are excused for their support of president Trump because the bulk of the evangelical community has also joined him and are clearly going to vote for him again if given the chance to do so.

It used to be normal that we'd fight against the efforts of the Soviet Union.

That nation is now simply called Russia because they fought the United States beyond their ability to afford the war, and it cost them an entire union. Yes, that Russia is the same Russia that is now happily fighting us in other ways, including automated bots that disseminate spoon fed information to the same list of people that I mentioned above:  my oldest brother, women who question #metoo and other women but not Trump, prominent evangelicals and the Trump base, aka, the Trumpians.

It used to be normal that certain standards of operation like having a presidential staff with security clearances or obvious obstruction efforts of an ongoing investigation would draw the ire of a Congress that most of us were raised as children to understand had an equal balance of power within the three branches of government. It used to be normal that Congress eagerly jumped upon opportunities to show the president their equal level of power like they did when overwhemingly voting in favor of sanctions against Vladimir Putin and Russia.

This Congress wont even force Trump to enact those sanctions that were voted upon with a veto proof majority, further conceding their equal level of power to a president that wants our military to give him a parade.

If you've seen this meme, maybe normal is just an illusion
Click here to compare the actual 1956 platform to this meme

It used to be normal that going through background checks, vetting, bonding or anything of the sort was considered "due process".

Now we have presidents- and supporters of the president- willingly defending a man who can't get permanent security clearance due to domestic violence issues. Instead of questioning why he remained in that job and who gave the call to keep him there every time his interim clearance lapsed over the past year (they last for 180 days with an option for another 180 days), this conversation has devolved into a question of due process with no trial under way and no reason to invoke the idea of due process unless you are confusing Rob Porter's issues with your own, Mr. President.


Even with acknowledgement for the sharing of platforms planks when politics demand, it used to be normal that Republicans behaved like Republicans and Democrats like Democrats.

Now, we have  a president that has control over both houses of Congress and is embroiled in a debate with his own party over immigration and increasing the deficit. If the signs of the death of political normalcy aren't clear enough, what more do you need?

I am personally a bit weary of those who keep seeing the obvious but continuously ask themselves the most obvious, thus rhetorical questions imagined. Yes, there are plenty of people that continue to support this man despite all the reasons "you" think they shouldn't. His issues with style, delivery, focus, empathy and a history twice as bad as his present gaffs are not enough to run off prominent preachers who either see something beyond the ability of the rest of us, or they see a puppet who they can get stuff from. Either way, they are with him and by default against you, Bob Mueller and normalcy.

They are also not against Russians because they are not dumb. What most of you people wishing for your normal back don't quite get is that smart people don't discount the fact that Donald Trump probably did benefit from the Russian intrusion into our election. They also don't automatically look at the polling numbers and tell themselves that he could win again without Russian involvement.

What you people who need your normal back also don't quite realize is that these are the same people who willingly gerrymander as well as obstruct voters for the sake of keeping their slipping grip on power, so why not Russians?

I still think exiling the spiritual understanding of forgiveness and Grace away from our schools because it offended people while letting everything else in was stupid. But that's the conservative me talking. Mostly, I am too proudly Socialist and too against the two-party hustle to care that the Democrats could be begging for a problem if they keeping frowning in disbelief over the notion that people support Trump.

Get over it and get over your wish for normalcy. If our lazy voters had a chance to do it all over again, they would have voted Bernie Sanders into office. I would be dancing, but we would all be trying to figure out how a Socialist will govern without any Socialist driven legislation coming out of either branch of Congress. While people like @RachelMaddow try to keep a calibration of what normal used to be so that we don't allow this administration to confuse us when normal finally returns, I say she and everyone else is dazed and confused and probably won't see things clearly until their concussions symptoms clear.

Our old normal only involved the participation of less than half of the country, and that was at the best of times, not mid-terms when turnout is significantly less. Several citizens have to watch, listen or actively ignore our embarrassment of a president while they rethink their previous belief that their vote didn't matter, but many citizens turn on this circus and feel more than justified of their decision to wash their hands of all of it. Whether we have an electorate more motivated to do their civic duty is still a wait and see proposition that has apathy, gerrymandering and suppression efforts it still must overcome.

Mitch McConnell looked flabbergasted as he stared into the camera and tried to explain to a section of Trump's current support how Barack Hussein Obama became our 44th president. His only recourse was to promise them that he would block Obama at every turn and make his effort to preside over this country as difficult as one human being possibly could. Now, all of that energy is being recalled and renewed against Trump, except Republicans have a political majority so the parallel isn't quite the same even if the sentiment is.

The new normal is likely being evidenced at anti-Trump protest rallies and with recent special election results. Governor Scott Walker, in Wisconsin, is refusing to hold a special election because the last one he allowed went for the Democrats. Right now, the generally motivated as well as the generally interested but hardly motivated voters are running off of the same energy, and that is a good thing. Whether it shall be an enduring thing is something to worry about when you realize that our president- who loves his freedom and Russia way more than your sense of normalcy- has decided that the best way to protect himself and Putin is to flood the waters with more press than the average person can endure and hope it makes them downright weary when it comes time to vote.

His plan seems worthwhile given the fact that the media is stuck in a paradigm of unprecedented ratings and interest in the latest news while simultaneously being disgusted by the person they are giving so much shine to each day. Trump's presidency may be saving a few dying newspapers across the country as we speak. Although his rhetoric continuously drives those he disgusts towards further hatred of him, it gets spin'd and retold by FOX news and by those Russian bots that keep generating half-truth memes to keep Trumpians motivated and fully on board.

If Russia is still as against America as it was when it was a union too, they have NOT only reignited the Cold-War that we declared victory over, they are winning the damn thing from the inside out with Donald Trump in office.

I write to you today because our president is also a Russian bot who refuses to denounce or fight back against Putin and quite possibly colluded with him to win the job. Our Congress is loathe in their responsibilities because they are unsure of how to do their job and keep their power at the same time. Meanwhile, WAY too many of you are looking for normal again while the war for our ability to still be called a union rages on.

What many of us see- including Facebook, finally- is that the necessity for nuclear war has been usurped by the simplicity of a digital one. WE are currently engaged in a war that WE don't understand so we can not be winning it. By the time we fully discover the extent of this war we will have endured internal damage that will never allow us to return to whatever normal used to be. In fact, when you think of it, old normal is probably to blame for this mess.

So please, stop looking for it.

Is Christian Hypocrisy Destroying The World & U.S.?

Before Pope Francis addresses America, I thought I
would offer this great nation a religious address of my own.

Gay marriage, or the war to stop it, is a religious one.

The war against aborted babies that may or may not be kicking on a table while clinging to life that is ironically, only being sustained for the proper harvesting of the brain from this particularly described- unwilling research donor- is a religious war as well, even if Carly Fiorina tells you its about the decency of all Americans.

Marijuana? Religious, even among  Catholics (Mexican, Irish, Italian...etc.) who drink for sport but abhor dope heads and question marijuana's medicinal value over that prescribed medicine waiting to potentially be recalled or over prescribed to a depressed PTSD soldier who is likely to die from the depression or the pill addiction but not the weed.

God knows that those hooded folks used religious justification to terrorize long before Dylann Roof thought it could kick off that religious race riot that way too many so-called religious folks promised was sitting on the edge of inevitability 20 years ago or more.

Religiously conservative Jews are now promising us all that Iran is the worlds great Satan while religious Iranians say similar things about Israel and America.  Regardless of who might be right, the mere references are a tug at the heart strings of religious folks who understand man's historical journey towards a manifest anti-Christ destiny, and the unwitting preemptive strikes from all sides that only help to prepare the necessary smokescreen for his comfortable arrival.

I could have titled this post, "Religious Hypocrisy" but that's not an accurate depiction of America's reality or my particular grievance.

Jews are already on record as describing JESUS AS A HOAX while anxiously waiting for the REAL Christ to please stand up and prove that previous Jewish rabble rouser a liar.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Muslims are too deeply engaged in their own religious disagreement as a tenant of religion itself.  Sharia law could never come to exist without a faction of Muslims insistent on this caliphate mission. How gracious can Islamic Sharia Law pursuant's possibly be towards other religions while struggling to be tolerant towards the very people that they pray with every day and in the same way.

Although Muslims don't quibble with one another over the day, the necessity and quantity of prayer, worship and fellowship, they are at war over the importance of their religions founding prophet, Muhammad, whose family lineage and rebellious life journey pointed one direction for some Muslims, a different direction of thought and behavior from other Muslims, and that inevitable "third" group who can empathize with both sides of this war.

Islam and Judaism are Exempt from Grace

These two confused and thus confusing religions are actually free from the unequivocal call of Grace that asks but one thing from each and every Christian;

Exercise your faith in the gift of Grace by exercising your giving of Grace.

It puts Christians in the cat bird seat of religious pecking order relative to who and whom God expects to be the most gracious.

Might that be religious piety for a Christian (Me) to place a higher expectation upon the behavior of Christianity over every other religion?

I dare any Muslim or Jew (or atheist and agnostic for that matter) to battle EVERY Christian in a war to be gracious. I'll bring my crew and you bring yours, and we'll battle it out near the performance stage at Denver City Park next weekend.

As it stands, American Christian lawmakers, and the people they think they represent, aren't necessarily kicking butt in the battle to be gracious, especially towards desperate middle eastern refugees and migrants praying to God for a little American Christian Grace.

Long before Ben Carson's recent stupidity towards Muslims, Muslims questioned the full divinity of the prophet who inspires Christians to be gracious. Yet, this historically tolerant capacity of people inspired by Grace must have influenced a few of these refugees and migrants into death tempting sea voyages towards western/Christian refuge instead of more Islamic disagreement and violence.

For times like these.

At times like these, I often find myself confident that God needed black slaves in America.  Not so much for the reason that whites found valuable, but for value that would manifest itself in years and days after the scars solidified their shape on our backs.

The necessity of blacks in America and the necessity for America in the world is similarly linked, ordered and scarred to achieve tenacity and temperance when a balance is needed from both powerful forces. Insensitivity and intolerance on a macro or micro level is an entirely understandable human policy for the selfish, the weary or the scarred.

It's just not gracious.

For the Grace of God, trees made to nourish a nation have to grow up and take their place in the forest. Not only to realize the value of their purpose, but to stave off the proliferation of the selfish trees that evil uses to overtake the landscape and swallow up the rain and the sun from the rest of US.

If that analogy doesn't quite make sense to you, its likely because I'm talking to a different kind of Christian.