Charles Pierce: The Momentum Is All in One Direction Now

[babylonsister]

The Momentum Is All in One Direction Now
The Republican clowns are lining up, but we know what happens next.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 31, 2019


The train, it has left the station.

Thursday morning, after a mercifully brief debate that nonetheless contained its share of crazy, the House of Representatives approved a resolution setting the rules and procedures for the process of impeaching the President* of the United States. The vote was nearly straight party-line, 232-196. Along the way, we learned the following:

1) House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is such a perfect specimen of the successful mediocre white man that they ought to stuff him and stand him up in the Smithsonian. Remember, this is the guy who once accused the president* of being paid by Vladimir Putin. He's also the guy who pretty much admitted that all the fuss over Benghazi, Benghazi, BENGHAZI! pretty much was designed to ding up Hillary Rodham Clinton's poll numbers. So there are brighter bulbs in the chandelier.

But, with that background—and who knows if McCarthy actually remembers having said this—for him to get up before god and CSPAN and say:

They have predetermined the president's guilt. They have never accepted the voter's choice to make him president. So for 37 days and counting, they have run an unprecedented, undemocratic, and unfair investigation. This resolution today only makes it worse. I've heard members on the other side say they promise rights to the president but only if he does does what they want. That's equivalent of saying in the First Amendment, you have the right to the freedom of speech but you can only say the words I agree with.

He's not only stuffed with talk-radio talking points (How in hell did he wedge an oblique whine about the First Amendment and political correctness in there?), but he's convicted of hypocrisy out of his own mouth. He's also very boring. (Say what you will about Jim Jordan—who showed up in a suitcoat on Thursday, befitting the solemnity of the occasion—but he's never dull.) My guess is that his caucus will remove McCarthy as the face of the president*'s defense in the House pretty quickly.

Link to tweet

2) The Democrats are Very Sad that it's come to this. Yeah, I don't believe it, either. There's nothing sorrowful about having to do your constitutional duty. I'm more in line with David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who said:

It is a sad day, but not because Congress has the courage to stand up for our democracy but because the president's conduct has forced this action.

In 2016, the country took a dangerous chance. In 2018, it began the process of correcting that horrific mistake. That process continued on Thursday, and now, it will go forward.

more...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29655263/house-vote-impeachment-rules/

[dchill]

1. "The guy who once accused the president*...

... of being paid by Vladimir Putin" was apparently just jealous. He must have got his ticket on the TrumPutin Train.

[roamer65]

2. The country wanted HRC more than Dump. By nearly 3 million votes more.

It wasn’t the country voted for a dangerous path. It was forced down it by an decrepit, broken election system.

The electoral vote scheme has to go.

[warmfeet]

3. Impeach,

convict, remove, imprison. That is our task.

[Skittles]

4. it is unbelievably sickening how repukes are putting Trump above America

fucking TRAITORS

[Kaiserguy]

5. In my life time of many years

I have never known the Republican Party to put the good of America first. It has always been Party, Greed , Power and the 1% first, America and her citizens last.

[Skittles]

6. well, I guess I am thinking of Nixon

they did tire of him eventually