McConnell Suggests WE Try Trump In Regular Court

                 If you didn't have the stomach to endure until the end, and trust me I barely did myself, you might have missed the most important element to come from the last day of the proceeding.

                While the House Impeachment Managers did a superb job at laying out the case against Trump, they did not do it as emphatically or as quickly as Mitch McConnell did when he and Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, gave their post-acquittal speeches.

                Schumer's words were poignant, prescient and sincere, evoking me to applause as I stood alone in my pandemic quarantined living room trying to swallow the indigestible reality of an acquittal that WE all were witnessing. McConnell's words were poignant as well, but poignant like a prick from a rose thorn or from the pungency of their seemingly sweet aroma that can start to taint if you over indulge and sniff too hard.  

Schumer delivers his post impeachment remarks

                As for stomaching McConnell's very upsetting words? Once again, I too was struggling with listening to a Senator of the United States of America, stand before God and the world acknowledging point by point by point that Donald J. Trump was as guilty as the House Managers said he was, but he didn't vote to convict. With his beautifully ungroomed bouquet of flowers, McConnell baited US in with words he knew we wanted to hear...and then pricked US all on the nose for forgetting the danger of political bouquets and what the rap group Outkast taught us, that roses can also smell like boo-boo.

                My skillset of many years of marriage and raising babies has heightened my ability to sit and endure prickly or smelly situations. So I took deep breaths, held my nose as needed and endured until the end of McConnell's speech. And, I have to admit, McConnell was slightly right on this one and here's why. 

                In honor of the person I am half-heartedly giving credit to in this moment, I am going to try to give the brevity and clarity to McConnell's explanation that he was able to give to the case on Trump. Although the House Managers put forth a quality case, a consensus view developed by the end of it all on the power of brevity and that less could have been more relative to the volume and substance of it all. If it achieved nothing else, McConnell's concise summary of the entirety of Trump's infractions displayed the power of brevity, but his remarks have started a conversation that could last for the next 6 years or more. In my view, his explanation warrants discussion all by itself, for what it hoped to achieve now, and for what it might achieve down the road.  .

                McConnell's explanation for his vote: 

                McConnell's view is, you can surely conduct a vote to block someone from office but only if you've already impeached them, which is to say, the impeachment process was specifically meant for the primary purpose of removing officials from office, not for the secondary reason it was being used in this case which was for the punishment it allows. Again, eliminating someone from running is allowed, but only AFTER you have successfully voted to remove them from office which requires no less than a two-thirds majority. No matter how you feel about removing someone from office and blocking them from future access to that post, these two processes are separate votes and there is no way to take on the secondary pursuit without the primary.

                If right about now you are cursing at me the same way I was cursing at my television when McConnell, the same guy who refused to start the (insert curse word here) trial while Trump was still in office, but is now the guy saying it's the wrong avenue for justice in this case, I get it... but hear me out as I try to make sense of what I eventually heard him say after I stopped cursing and screaming at my television so I could hear what he was trying to say.

                Because the expectation of acquittal was never clearly set into the minds of the public watching along, questions are now simmering over whether or not time should have been allowed for witnesses to bolster this case. As it turned out, the 7 Republicans that defected from their party and stood with their country are the most who ever had the courage to do it in any impeachment of a president. Could a litany of witnesses have been the key to gaining 10 more votes? 

                If the hope of the Democrats from the beginning was to achieve the first impeachment conviction of a president in U.S. history, then there was never enough time given to this. For the slightest hope of 67 votes, it would have always taken more time than Trump had left to serve to make it happen. 

                Why is that important? It's only important if you agree with McConnell and I that impeachment was intended to remove a high ranking official from office and not to reprimand them by blocking their access to political office in the future. According to McConnell's explanation, you can absolutely reprimand a high ranking official for criminal behavior they do in the waning days of their term, but the better place to do it is in the court of law not via impeachment. On that point I mostly agree, although I believe Trump did enough to deserve punishment in both arenas, not just one. If you think blocking Trump from running again would have been sufficient punishment, the impeachment was the right way to go. I believe both arenas are necessary for justice in this moment because, aside from the shame of it all, a post presidency impeachment can only achieve one outcome and that would be blocking someone from running for future office.

                Punishing Trump or anyone else via impeachment isn't illegal. For McConnell or anyone else to suggest it absolutely CAN NOT be done would suggest the seven Republicans and 50 Democrats who voted to convict did something wrong, and they did not. In reality, McConnell is dead wrong in that, if this case was before them, they had the duty to vote on it, one way or the other. The fact that 43 Republicans chose not to convict was a vote of their conscience, just as it was for the 57, although the political conscience can be terribly self serving at times, so take all of their votes with a grain of salt.

The Long Term Impact of McConnell's Explanation

                At this moment, it's hard to say if many other Republicans agreed with McConnell's final analysis on Trump or if they appreciated him basically eviscerating their support for Trump while creating a carved out explanation for himself, for his vote and for his political future relative to that vote, however, consider this point as a prediction for the future of Republicanism. Based on the McConnell explanation alone, every Republican who wants the same off-ramp can now denounce Trump and support the idea that he needs to be prosecuted in court for his crime as an explanation for their vote to acquit too. In fact, whether they wanted this question on their backs or not, it's coming thanks to McConnell drawing a line in his party. Before long, it might even soon be called taking the McConnell clause, or something like that.

                Now,  my agreement with McConnell's view is technically only a partial agreement in that I do believe Trump can and should be prosecuted in the regular courts just as McConnell suggests, but I also believe a conviction in both arenas was not outside of the current laws even if it is a potential slippery slope as McConnell explained, a slippery slope McConnell himself added water to by refusing to conduct this 5 day trial before Trump left office, but I digress.

                To dig deeper into the McConnell explanation, it is his belief that allowing the Democrats in Congress to openly use impeachment simply for their intended purpose of disqualifying Trump from future elections could have set precedence and allowed Congress to pursue a similar route against a regular citizen with inflammatory rhetoric or behavior who wants to be president someday. 

Could Congress block any person 
they consider treasonous from
future office, not just Trump? 

                Had Trump been convicted and eventually banned from the presidency, could the precedence have made way for a pardoned Edward Snowden, for example, from running for president because the party in control of Congress at that time determined he was treasonous and the only way to give him his just desserts would be to disqualify him from the presidency? Yes, the idea of Snowden getting pardoned and then running for president is a bit far-fetched, yet, with the impeachment and conviction of Trump, could disqualifying any feared political candidate via an impeachment trial have become a new norm as McConnell suggested?

                If you think on it for just a while, you realize McConnell was totally reaching at the idea of any random person being willing or able to run for president just as he is forgetting that impeachment is only for high ranking officials while in office, not for wanna-be high ranking officials with toxic rhetoric that scare people. But, that's what McConnell is forgetting.

                . What WE are forgetting is, at the time of this trial Trump fit both of those descriptions, at least for the purpose of trying to hold him accountable for the insurrection he incited. The fact that McConnell and Pelosi made no demands for Trump to be tried while still in office is not insignificant in the least. Leaving office took the punishment he deserved- which just so happened to be the only punishment the Constitution allows for- out of the picture and left behind the subordinate or additional punishment of blocking him from future office as the only punishment remaining. Therefore, the process of convicting him as if still in office became the only way to achieve the actual goal intended, which was to block him from future office.

                Once again, it is not illegal to try someone after they leave office nor is it unheard of historically, which leaves us where WE are now, determining the justness of this particular pursuit of justice. While the Constitution made pursuing an impeachment conviction possible, it made achieving an impeachment conviction much less possible with the necessity of 67 Senators required to achieve a conviction. Said another way,  pursuing justice against Trump was possible via impeachment or the regular courts, but the distinct possibility of achieving a conviction and hoping for a fair punishment always existed via one route, and that was and still is the traditional court route.

                When listening to McConnell, it felt for a moment like he was being totally unpatriotic for trying to politically have his cake and eat it too by condemning Trump before the world so he could later show us all where he stood on the all the bad stuff Trump did, but I changed my mind just a bit by the time he was done. 

                It was only a bit, because McConnell absolutely was trying to be politically expedient voting to acquit and immediately sneaking down the alleyway to avoid holding himself accountable, suggesting a traditional court to hold Trump accountable for all the negatives McConnell admitted to, but he was also making an important and necessary move to save his party from the legacy of Trump. Love him or hate McConnell for behaving like a politician if you want, the politics on what he did are sound.

                Mitch McConnell's declaration that this was a vote of conscience came down to a vote and an explanation of that vote which, for better or worse, shall remain bonded as one (the vote and the explanation of it) and married to his legacy and the legacy of this impeachment until time ends. 

Why?!

                 Because it forced 42 other people to join him or take the full backlash of acquitting Trump by themselves. To be more clear, either Trump will be 42 Senators closer to state indictments for his actions or 42 Republican Senators will refuse to agree with McConnell when they are asked by the media if they do agree with the McConnell Clause or not. The most entertaining scenario- that the GOP will slowly fracture into two camps on the subject of convicting Trump or not- is also the most likely to happen. 

                If like me you are upset with McConnell and what he allowed his party to do to US for years, not one word of the previous paragraph made you sad.

                 

Pandemic Newsflash: Consumer Confidence Is Our New Leader. Political Spin Has Novel Coronavirus

      [ADOLESCENT WARNING! THIS ARTICLE HAS A TON OF SHIT AND A FUCK OR TWO]

        It has been a while since I've written on politics; a year in reality, however, over two years if you exclude the piece I wrote last May on Pelosi and her reluctance to impeach Donald Trump. Since I've been away, a lot has happened in our world, but really, not a damn thing has happened at all except the 2018 elections and this current pandemic, the matter that brings me back to the arena of political lip flapping.

        I would love to think that something I enjoy researching and engaging in so much is more than just creative political opinionating, yet, I am now well aware of how truly foolish politics can become thanks to the last 3 years of pure foolishness we've been reduced to. Of course, this is not to suggest that politics are not important. This is to insist that the day to day exchange of thoughts and ideas in our current political arena has been proven to be nothing more than the last surviving circus in America with a ton of elephants and donkeys rolling around, doing silly tricks and shitting all over the place in the process. If anyone has watched the manner in which Congress has gone about dealing with what should be the most bipartisan issue in the history of bipartisan issues and can describe their behavior any better than I did in that last sentence, I highly encourage you to do it and share the results with me. I am totally curious on how many creative ways there are to describe a shit show.

        I enjoy Twitter and Facebook (sorry Google) as much as the next person, but my decision to get away from writing full blown articles (that I would want to read) about televised political pooping was not easy, but it was necessary. At some point it became obvious that the media was simply using Trump- and other people's anger towards him- for the sake of clicks and revenue, and there was just no easy way to not be a part of all that except to not be a part of all that, so I took a hiatus and decided to write a book instead.

        Now that we are all locked down in a pseudo-national quarantine, many of us have had the opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our lives, drink a lot, or drink a lot and reflect on ourselves and our lives all at the same time. Drinking and reflecting typically involves a replay of all the regrets, so I would encourage dancing when you drink and not much reflecting on life. Just a suggestion. Nonetheless, if you have embraced the opportunity to get to know the people in your home, including the one you see in the mirror every morning, you might finally be coming into the realization that nobody, and I repeat, nobody can be the blame for your happiness or sadness.  My apologies if I lost you or killed your morning buzz from that comment.

        For those who are still with me, I have to confess that I mostly lived by that mantra before the election of Donald fkn Trump. I include the FKN with no intention of disrespecting the President of the United States of America that I have very little respect for, but to emphasize the depth of the hatred I HAD developed for the guy we call president. I'm using all caps to bring strong attention to the word HAD, because I USED to hate the guy. Now, I just feel terribly sad for him and US.

 
        My deep sadness started over 2 yrs ago, when I no longer had the desire to write another word about this man. At the time, I also started that book project, so my assumption initially was that I could not easily co-mingle my brain when it came to writing. While the book is finally  winding through final edits, I now realize my inability to co-mingle had very little to do with anything other than the state of depression I was in for American politics. In a way, I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics- my deceased mistress- via the election of Donald J. Trump, which essentially acknowledges that I experienced anger, stage two of grief, for way too long towards this man we call president. Most of our denial happened during the campaign, and we can all recall the bargaining we went through of blaming Hillary for being an awful candidate, or blaming non-voters for not voting. We are not over the Russia blame, but that's another topic for another day.
     
        Every divinely authored sermon in life is one you are learning yourself as you are sharing it with others. I used to love sharing the image to the right as a sermon to myself and to encourage other people to take ownership of themselves and dominion over their emotions. In the spirit of a true confession that might help someone else who is struggling with the same issue, I used to hate our fuckin' president and the mere sight of him made me angry. I ran away from talking about him because there wasn't anything new to be said, but mostly, I was mad as hell and couldn't find enough creative ways to say that or anything else.

        Today, I acknowledge that Trump used to own me the way he currently still owns a bunch of you. I am writing again today to purge this issue, to hopefully save some of you from the silent chains you bear, and to take back agency with myself and my native realm of artistic expression- political lip flapping. He who angers you might own you......but he who kills your creative spirit is killing you as well. So, I am back to writing about politics again because a newsworthy matter has arrived. But, mostly I am writing because I must.

        I am writing again today because pandemics happen about as often as ill-suited businessmen winning the presidency. While we have found ourselves to be mostly vaccinated against the damages of voting for the wrong person to lead our nation, we have also found out that vaccinations against viruses and bad presidents take a while to be created and only work if you take them.

       The best option that exists to deal with a novel virus is to self distance, mask up or stay home for the biological ones, and educate yourself on the nuances of the other virus any way you can until it is forced to go away via concerned citizens or term limits, whichever comes first. If you hadn't noticed, pandemics are great for film study or research of any kind. This moment film study/research for me came without intention as I was simply enjoying my morning coffee and scrolling through the movie channels to make sure I get maximum value for the premium channel services I am paying for during this pandemic. Because I insist on getting value out of my purchases, I now know why we are all going through this pandemic like a kite without a string.

       "Where's My Roy Cohn" was the documentary I came across and it left me wishing I had researched him back when his name first became mentioned in connection with Trump. I had seen a few pieces about Roger Stone which made me believe I understood a little bit about Trump, but Stone admits in this documentary, Cohn created him too, and you simply can not understand Trump or Stone without knowing Roy Cohn.

        For those who aren't old enough or didn't follow the Roy Cohn story close enough to know much about him, this documentary not only let's you know who he was, it tells you everything you need to know about the current ring leader of our Washington D.C. circus, and why he wants the spotlight kept on him and all of his pronouncements instead of any other animal in the act, including the media.   

        Yes. The media is just another animal stuck in this circus act, because most of the media has no way of knowing how to make it all end, and the rest have no desire to. The media of America is as dirty as Donald says we are even if we have tried our level best to minimize our overt dirtiness with him. Similarly, the Congress of America is as corrupt and guilt worthy as anyone when it comes to how we got into the mess we are in However, no one should read these indictments and consider themselves exempt.

        If you are not a part of the media or Congress, you still consume whatever media they give, giving them very little reason to feed you anything else, and you vote- or don't vote- with partisan predictability allowing for life-long incumbents and giving them no reason to listen to you. The real circus used to exist because it had a crowd that made it exist. In America's political circus, you are now either a performer or you are the constituents of the performance, because, the people who refused to go to the circus because it glorified caged animals played as active a role in making the circus go away as the people who got bored with the show.

        When I took a look in my own mirror over two years ago, I saw a disgruntled media person as well as an angry constituent who kept buying a damn ticket, and I no longer wanted to be either one. I was covering Donald's latest moment of disrespect towards someone new each day as if it deserved to be talked about like news. Mostly, it was and is just shocking and embarrassing. It absolutely is not newsworthy anymore. Pandemics aside, history will give us all plenty of time to be shocked by this MAGA moment in history that we've created or allowed. With all due respect, with everything at stake and no one steering us through this but YOU, it is not time to keep being shocked by another day of the same shit.

       We all know where to go to find his latest tweet if we need a jolt to our senses with a fresh bucket of embarrassment. If that doesn't work, go see the Globetrotters. Unlike the circus, they still have a crowd. Otherwise, nothing has really been newsworthy about this man we are forced to call president for well over two years, and that includes that slow moving, dodge-able bullet called the impeachment trial. By the time Pelosi finally decided she had enough, America was stuck in a "why now" moment of disbelief over her late pull of the trigger. When we all woke up from too many hours of impeachment coverage, we were left feeling as if the thing she finally impeached him for was much less important than the Mueller report, especially considering how Trump openly did towards China the same thing that he was impeached for doing with Ukraine.

        Trump is only right about the slime in Washington D.C. because he rubbed shoulders, donated to to both sides and slid smoothly without detection between the slime for years. In essence, he was and is the slime too, so nobody noticed or cared that he was there. In addition, nobody understands the slime or the slimey better than him, however, he told us that from the very beginning along with a bunch of other things that have many of us shaking our heads as though he wasn't up front about it all. Of course, he straight up lied about the taxes, but you get my point. He is who we thought he was, so the rest is up to YOU. You can remain stuck in denial, anger, depression, or bargaining away the blame on non-voters, but its time for acceptance so we can save our nation.  In the final analysis, if this pandemic and the presidency of Donald J. Trump does not help us to achieve anything personally, then it will not help us achieve anything collectively because all change begins with YOU.

        I am proud that I stared into the mirror over two years ago, saw a guy who was angry over a silly white man with an orange tan, and said enough already. Two years later, I am actually over the sadness and fully within acceptance, but Facebook doesn't really give you a wide range of options to click when responding to posts or comments in regards to Trump, so 😢 wins every time for me still.

        Now that I stand here healed and on the other side of my pain, I am also proud to say that I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics too, and it has helped me immensely as we all sit back and watch the kind of disarray in D.C. that we've never seen at historically bipartisan moments when the world desperately needs leaders to lead.

        Take it or leave it. Congress is broken and Donald is all we have, which means we don't have much. After watching the Roy Cohn documentary, I now understand how we got him (and Ronald Reagan too btw😳....yes, watch it) and who he is better than I ever did before. At the risk of a spoiler for those of you who haven't seen it, it will explain why Trump pretends everything is a positive no matter how bad it looks. This is what Trump learned from Cohn as the number one lesson. This is what he does no matter the moment before him. This is what has worked for him immeasurably prior to a pandemic, and this is exactly what is going to kill him figuratively, along with countless Americans literally, because a virus with no vaccine and this level of contagiousness will become the kind of bad news that even Roy Cohn could not spin before it is all over.

        It all ready is, and you can't simply tell people who are afraid of a virus that is killing thousands, 'you are doing a good job' when you are not. The job will be good when WE the People are willing to go places again. PERIOD!! What our president is doing right now will not bring confidence to anyone, which means he is functionally useless, which means YOU are the only hope WE have left.

Watch any 4 television commercials in a row like I did, and
see if you notice any trends or similarities in the theme? If
you can't already tell, YOU are the only hope for this economy. 

     
        Scared people need honesty over bluster. Scared people realize viruses don't know your political affiliation so they want truth in times of fear and not Roy Cohn derived political spin. To watch Donald do his thing before I knew about Roy Cohn was infuriating and terribly confusing before I grew to accept it for what it is. To watch him now that I know what he is doing and why he keeps doing it despite watching it not work day after day is enlightening to the point of almost refreshing in a way. What this pandemic and that documentary has shown me is that, Donald can't lead any other way, and he might not be interested in learning after all of these years of using the media to simply spin the narrative, just like Roy taught him.

        In a way, this pandemic has proven to everyone still evaluating what we currently have in a president versus what we are being offered by way of Joe Biden, that Donald only knows spin....and golf. He might know real estate, but he has failed a lot in that arena and we have yet to see those taxes to determine if he's particularly good at real estate, so the jury is still out on the topic.

       Through his two hour daily televised circus events, Trump reveals his style of leadership for all to clearly see. In a moment when the playbook has already been written for him, in simple words with large text, Trump is floundering and can't seem to read this Dr. Seuss book or listen to Dr. Fauci's advice.  Recent polls suggest only 35% of Americans are still listening to him for guidance through this pandemic. While some of you might be focusing on the number I just shared and evaluating who in the hell that 35% could be, I am focusing on the fact that someone decided we needed a poll asking who are you listening to right now. As I publish this piece, I am two days removed from my 51st birthday, and I am hard pressed to recall when such a question has ever been asked. Ever!!

        If you watch Governor Cuomo (NY) each day, you quickly realize this should be so easy to do, yet, all Trump can do is the same thing he has done from day one. In this crazy circus of elephants and donkeys, the ring leader turns just so happens to be a one-trick pony.

        For every other situation prior to this pandemic, his song and dance has been enough to at least satisfy his base and satiate Mitch McConnel and Republicans from the urge to preserve the now mythical co-equal balance of power that WE were falsely made to believe would protect us from tyranny back in grade school.

             Most importantly, WE. Me. You. US, now know that WE are the straw that stirs the drink. Without us, all the ingredients could be available, but the sugar will settle to the bottom and the drink will taste so awful that it doesn't matter what price you put on it, WE won't buy it. The signs were always there if you listen a lot of news. Whenever they talk about the economy- under Obama or Donald- they define the strength of it as being one thing and one thing only. CONSUMER CONFIDENCE! If WE can't trust what you are selling us, WE surely won't trust dying over what you are selling us, will WE? I love the taste of well made Kool-Aid just like the next person, but not enough to die for it, especially when I can just make that shit at home.

        In the name of home-made kool-aid, I'm back into this arena of political lip flapping because my brain is no longer co-mingled, and there is finally something worth flapping about, which is this current conversation over CONSUMER CONFIDENCE; aka., YOU and me. I started my mirror moments over two years ago, so I am fully into this process of self realization we are all enduring during the era of Trump in general and the pandemic specifically.  At the risk of over inflating my own value, it seems clear to me that me, and people like me, will determine when it's time to get Taco Bell back to normal business levels, not elected officials. If you fools who aren't taking this seriously could save the economy by yourselves, the current businesses that are still open would not be down 40% in sales, but they are, and, even with a return to everything open, everybody won't be outside buying Taco Bell until everyone can be made to feel safe while doing it.

            I ask you, random consumer reading this post? Are you rushing back to any place that is crowded and has a potential health risk just because its one of the places who has an owner deciding to open so you can regain your sense of normalcy, or are you willing to let the other people buy shoes at an understaffed Ross until you feel confident that it is safe?

        Don't answer that. You don't need to. Without question, only consumer confidence will work to save our economy. Period. There is a window for business owners with limited liquidity to ride the storm to save themselves by offering stock options instead of money, so they can retain staff with the promise of future wealth sharing, but that is also much too close to Socialism and much to close to right to ever happen. Because fighting to become the powerful makes some people afraid to share what they've gained, many powerful people will practically risk and lose everything they have rather than willingly let go of their power. Donald J. Trump is exhibit A for this dynamic as he holds on to his powerful way of manipulating the world at the risk of losing the presidency and millions of lives during his watch.

        If circumstances play out as they are currently headed, we will get to witness a mass realignment of power- be that actually or just conceptually- as WE all are forced to fully reckon with the reality that capitalism is controlled by the consumer and no one else. In other words, how often you stare yourself in the mirror each morning and the message you deliver to the person standing there will determine the future of your individual financial situation, which will determine the future of our nation. In other words, this post and our future is all about YOU.

    In the face of a pandemic, getting to know yourself is kinda' not optional unless you intend to drink yourself broke to avoid all of that. For those of us embracing our mirrors and saving our money, it is clear. WE the People are the only hope for our personal survival and for the survival of our nation, and the rest of the world is anxiously waiting to see what we'll do next. Not just about opening our country, but whether or not we will return to who WE used to be for ourselves and the world at large. 

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.