Senate Republicans sign off on Trump dictatorship
As I watched Republicans in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial enthusiastically lubricate America’s slippery slope from democracy to dictatorship, I packed my bags for the journalist gulags at Guantanamo Bay, glanced back at the week and asked: “What the (BLEEP) just happened?”
GOP, with Dershowitz assist, says Trump can do as he pleases: President Donald Trump doesn’t ask much from his Republican supporters. Just absolute fealty, adoration and daily worship at an altar shaped like his butt.
So it was that Senate Republicans contorted the remnants of their integrity into pretzels during the president’s impeachment trial, nodding dutifully as arguments that once would’ve made a conservative’s head explode were made to defend King Trump.
Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump’s lawyers and now a parody version of a respected attorney, said Wednesday: “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest. And if a president does something, which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
It’s the kind of argument authoritarians love to hear. On Thursday, Dershowitz tried to say his direct quote from the trial was being “distorted,” which makes about as much sense as the initial argument. (Words. Do they really mean anything anyway?)
Appearing in the week’s “Imagine if Barack Obama Had Said This” file, Republican Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, of North Carolina, acknowledged he has “no problem” with a politician getting damaging information on a political opponent from a foreign country.
That lines up well with the lesser known part of the Federalist Papers titled, “Foreign Election Interference Rocks!”
Meanwhile, in an effort to make pretty much everyone’s brain say, “That’s it, I’m outta here,” Justice Department lawyers went to federal court Thursday to say a president can be impeached for the very thing Trump’s attorneys in the Senate trial are saying he can’t be impeached over.
Make sense? No, of course it doesn’t. None of this makes sense.
The Justice Department is fighting House subpoenas related to the Trump administration’s failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Their argument is that Congress can’t use the courts to enforce subpoenas. On Thursday, one of the Justice Department attorneys told the judge a better tool for Congress would be, among other things, impeachment.
In the Senate, Trump faces an obstruction of justice charge for not complying with House subpoenas. The argument there is the president CAN’T be impeached for not complying with congressional subpoenas.
So, you see, impeachment is the best tool against a president who won’t comply with subpoenas, but a president can’t be impeached for not complying with subpoenas. It’s like saying the best way to save someone is to throw a life preserver while also saying throwing life preservers is strictly forbidden.
I imagine that’s why it feels like we’re all drowning.
Smollett snooping for dirt in already dirty case: In what I’ve dubbed “The Stupid Case That Will Never Get Sorted Out,” actor Jussie Smollett has dispatched his attorneys to look for dirt on former Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who was given the boot last month.
A Tribune report described this development as “an apparent attempt to paint Johnson as untrustworthy as part of Smollett’s countersuit against the city’s attempt to collect overtime pay incurred by police during its investigation last year into the then‘Empire’ actor’s claim that he had been beaten in a racist and homophobic attack.”
That whole sentence makes me want to move into the forest and never come out.
Thanks to State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s ham-handed and secretive handling of the case, in which charges that Smollett faked the crime were abruptly dropped, we still have no full account of what happened.
If anyone would like to join me in the forest, my tree is always open.
Pritzker seeks corruption, should look under every Democrat: In his State of the State address, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Illinois lawmakers need to combat political corruption and “restore the public’s trust in our government.”
He pledged to root out “greed and corruption.”
That’s easy. All the governor needs to do is lift up a couple Illinois Democrats, and he’ll find some. Then maybe check in one of the toilets he had removed from his “second mansion” to save on property taxes. I bet there’s still a little greed and corruption swirling around in there.
Super Bowl: It’s Super Bowl weekend, a true American tradition centered around eating meats wrapped in other meats while watching large, sweaty men collide for our entertainment.
The Kansas City Chiefs are vying for the team’s first Super Bowl title in 50 years, and the San Francisco 49ers are hoping to overcome an injury to starting quarterback Nancy Pelosi and bring the storied franchise its 80th (give or take a few) championship.
While the 49ers defense, anchored by “large man who could beat me up” and “other large man who could beat me up,” is formidable, I think the Chiefs have the edge with their vaunted offense, which regularly tosses racks of Kansas City barbecue ribs onto the field, distracting the defensive linemen long enough to sneak past them and score.
All my money, of which I have none, will be placed on Kansas City to win. The final score will be 143-111 (this is basketball, right?) and the MVP will go to me for eating all the Cheetos before my kids get to them.