b. traven
Over 100 years ago Carl von Clausewitz wrote his definitive analysis of war vs. peace. One of his key mandates to those under attack went something like this “When under a strong attack, a stronger counterattack is called for.” That is how we and our allies won WW II in less than four years and why our phony war on terror is in its 18th year with no end in sight.* Our politicians, fearful of counter attacking the forces supporting perpetual war, have failed to end the fantasy.
Donald Trump has been waging aggressive warfare against not only our constitution and the rule-of-law, but specifically on the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi. Now is the time for a strong counterattack and that is called Impeachment. Each day that goes by with the Democratic-controlled House failing to launch a strong counterattack against Trump only makes him stronger and the protection of our democracy weaker.
* Less then a year after we entered the war in December 1941 we had secured bases in northern Africa and started the planning for strategic counter attacks. By he time I entered the Air Corp as an 18 year old in 1943 our planners had put together a strategic counterattack on Germany’s war effort. Ploesti. in Romania supplied 25% of the Reich’s fuel. We assembled an air armada of 175 bombers to destroy the Ploesti oil fields production. Our losses were significant but the counter attack shook the German military. Impeachment is our Ploesti.
traven is a veteran of War War II serving from 1943-1946 in the US Army Air Corps.
The Contrary Perspective 
Von Clausewitz and other theoreticians of war would always avoid certain loss. A full-frontal attack on Trump will only strengthen his position. And in the end, i.e. the Senate, impeachment is a certain loser.
On the other hand, a determined strategy to go after the host of more marginal characters around Trump and in the Republican Party could bear fruit fairly quickly once people feel that there is a price to their toadyism. Right now, all the attacks go to Trump and he ignores and defuses them, but he can’t and wont defend everyone around him.
The challenge, however, is to get any coherent policy out of the Democrats. If they set about picking off Republicans one at a time for their hypocrisy and greed, they’d gain some valuable scalps.
Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has been adamantly opposed to resorting to impeachment from the start. She is THE Great Impediment to the process being launched. I am well aware that impeachment cannot succeed with GOP still dominating the Senate, where the actual trial would have to be held. (I imagine Mitch McConnell would find a way to avert even bringing the matter of trial to the Senate agenda.) Pelosi’s argument that launching the process is too “divisive”–with our nation already politically divided like no other time in my own considerable lifespan!–is absolutely pathetic!! It represents abject cowardice. I continue to advocate for launching impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives as a matter of principle. Pelosi and most other Dems in Congress are old enough to remember that there is such a thing as acting on principle. Failure to act is tantamount to giving a stamp of approval to Trump’s vile words and actions. I have ceased to call myself a “patriot,” but I am still a citizen of the United States, and I feel personally demeaned, degraded, even soiled, by Trump’s continuing presence in the office of POTUS. I would like to see the Democratic rank and file in the House rise up and dethrone Speaker Pelosi, but I imagine that is highly unlikely. The dreaded appearance of “divisiveness,” you know? I think we should envy the British Parliament and other legislative bodies in the world that allow calling for a vote of No Confidence in leadership.
I want the GOP to lose badly at the polls in November 2020. If the economy tanks before Jun-July ‘20, a fair percentage of Trump Cultist voters (~ 45% of likely voters) and oblivious Independents who would vote for the incumbent have time to process the role of Trump administration policies in inducing the recession. Since abolition of abortion will not be the motivating factor in that election that it has been for the GOP since 1980, a sour economy leading into the election would be impossible to overcome. If the economy is not severely floundering by mid-2020, Trump may not be beatable. ANY Republican presidential candidate will be hard to beat if the economy doesn’t suck.
Why stress ANY GOP candidate? Because a smart Democratic impeachment strategy does not remove President Chaos too soon. The reason for this is that almost zero percent of the conservative voter cohort is aware of just how ignorant the current Oval Office narcissist occupant is (not to mention their absolute unawareness that everything Trump does is based solely on calculations of how the action/inaction serves the interests of one DJT, and fuck anything else), and that same group is oblivious to the fact that not only is Mike Pence at least as ignorant as DJT, he is even more basically stupid. And each of them is maximum Dunning-Kruger, to boot.
All this makes me think the optimum strategy to get rid of Trump AND get voters who switch from him to come to the polls — where many Independents and single issue conservative voters who still turn to vote against the GOP presidential candidate just might also check the boxes for candidates for Senate and House seats who have (D) behind their names — is to bring impeachment charges very late in 19 or early in 20. That is plenty of time to publish lists of witnesses to be subpoenaed, tighten the screws on lesser fish in the school (a la contraryperspective’s point above, begin and carefully accelerate the media campaign for impeachment to capture peak public attention by spring/early summer ahead of the conventions, and forward Articles of Impeachment to the Senate just following the GOP convention.
This timeline puts the GOP in a real bind, should public opinion go against them significantly. Stay with President Chaos, or try to bring on someone with less baggage — almost certainly Pence, who can be savaged in the media at least as substantially as the orange shitbag?
I don’t know where the SDNY investigation into Trump world stands presently, but there is a significant chance that it (and 15 other potential legal hazards https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-world-faces-16-known-criminal-probes/) will augment Congressional impeachment proceedings.
In short, there is no imperative to initiate impeachment presently, and strategic advantages to choosing a different, future time instead. Not acting today, this week, or until later this year does no harm to the project to not only end the Trump presidential period, but (and this is essential) also perhaps bring about a Presidency/Senate/House all occupied by a political party that just fucking MIGHT positively address the imminent existential issue of climate change which could only be superseded by the release of WMD at similar scale. It’s probably too late to avoid a significant catastrophe, but this is maybe the last opportunity to give it a halfway decent try. Please mobilize, millennials, and do not sit this one out for purity purposes.
I fear you place much too much faith in the Dems! My own impression of Mr. Pence is that he’s actually pretty darned shrewd. It’s just the fundamentalist gospel he preaches to the GOP base that is stupid. I think Pence has tried to put some distance between himself and Number One, only posing for photos with the Chief for major events, when his presence is obligatory. If I read your comment accurately, you believe abortion will have been outlawed (it’s almost at that point now, anyway, via state by state legislation) before the elections. How else could it cease to be a major issue? But, it will not cease to be thus, because the court battles will go on for years, what with the appeals process. I also believe there is a possibility that Chief Justice Roberts might again disappoint (shock will be the better word) the hard right and vote in favor of preserving Roe v. Wade. You read it here first, folks! This, of course, assumes Trump will not get a chance to appoint another Justice during his first term.
Be careful what you wish for. Shen Zhou (art of war) has a different outlook on battles. Read book 1 & 2 of his famous and timeless work.
It’s like saying our own civil war was totally about slavery. Just spent the day driving through rural Kansas. Strange mix: old white folks in $80k pick ups and Mexican restaurants staffed by non green card people. Anti aborting sign proliferating I-70.
Just pulled off the road for the night in Boonesville, MO. Non of this ground covered today will support impeachment. The backlash will be devastating. Walk softly and carry a big stick. Old advice. Coup is a big stick.
Before the bubbas can stew over it. Swoosh gone and soon will be forgotten. Another sound bite in the mentally of flyovers
I am shocked. Our coeditor seems to have joined the ranks of the Clinton “incrementalists”. The robust progressive members of what is left of the Democratic Party after more than a decade of Clinton “triangulation” and loss of power is yearning to see real fight back action from party leadership not’ wait and see ‘passive leadership. Now is the time for real leadership to step forward to get “Il Duce” himself not the swamp rats around him. Mueller took care of that with Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, et al..
Need we remind coeditor that all the swamp rats have been subpoenaed but Trump has ordered all of them to ignore the subpoenas? Long court battles with Trump appointees on the benches will make a fool of Nancy Pelosi’s be patient policy. The counterattack is a policy to start getting the facts our faster and showing that the Democrats can be tougher than the Trumpsters. War is another form of politics and we are at war to save our democracy from an incipient dictator.
In my opinion if impeachment is the fastest way to get the truth out to the American citizens and it the Republican Senate exonerates him in spite of that they will lose, not the Democrats.
My dear traven, history is littered with aggressive counter attacks that have spelled the doom of the counter-attackers. In the end, Trump will come and Trump will go. The damage he causes to the rule-of-law, to the environment, and to democracy itself in the US, however, can only happen because of his enablers. Strip those enablers of the immunity from consequences that they currently enjoy and the Trump agenda will quickly crumble, as will Trump himself.
Trump consciously attracts attention for his outrages because he has proven that he is the real Teflon Don. The toadies in Congress can just say, “er, that’s Trump, not us.” But force them to defend their crass hypocrisy on taxes, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the role of Congress vs. the Executive, Obama playing golf, etc., etc., etc., and they do not have the Teflon shield to protect themselves. Neutralize 5 Republicans in the Senate and Trump’s so-called agenda goes up in smoke. There are more Justin Amashs waiting to be liberated!
Compare this strategy with a big show trial in the House that ends up hardening lines between the parties, causing the more vulnerable Republicans to circle the wagons with their anti-democratic brethren. Who can say for sure, but von Clausewitz was no idiot and wouldn’t advocate the Charge of the Light Brigade.
All that said, there is no reason to think that a strategy of aggressive investigation that morphs into an impeachment is a bad one. The idea would be to build support by hammering away and exposing the lawlessness of the Administration. From a military perspective, it is a classic softening up exercise – pound them into their bunkers before overrunning them.
Unfortunately, you are advocating for Pelosi’s “slow and steady” approach to building a bigger case by squeezing (via threat of perjury penalties) more facts out of…invisible witnesses!! Emperor Trump has instructed all still in gov’t employ to defy subpoenas by the legislative branch. And he’ll likely claim he can shield former employees via Executive Privilege, preposterous as all this is. The attempts to move ahead with investigations in the House, alone, will be tied up in courts for…untold months going forward. I’ve already stated that I recognize the reality of no Senate trial transpiring. So, am I hopelessly out of step with the modern world in believing there is still such a thing as ACTING ON PRINCIPLE?? As a nation, do we really want to say, in essence, it’s “okay” for a mentally deranged (and I say this in dead earnestness, not to try to score political points) POTUS to break all the rules established over two-plus centuries?? I say, again: IMPEACHMENT NOW!! [Addendum: Yes, personally, I am out of step with many aspects of current societal “norms.” And American politicians, on the whole, are more sleazy and spineless and lacking in principles than ever, in my view. But my personal feelings are not at stake in the rule of Emperor Trump. The well-being of the nation–and by extension the whole world, US influence being what it is–is what’s “merely” at stake.]
No, I’m advocating a much more agressive oversight strategy that precipitates a clear constitutional crisis. Go after all the underlings in the DOJ, call in the Trumps jr. and assorted hangers on. When they don’t show up, call them again, and call in the people around them. Force the Republicans to explicitly support an imperial presidency and then call them out for it. Stop supporting any so-called bi-partisan activity until the subpoena’s are answered, etc., etc. Just don’t bother to call it “impeachment.” In fact, they should explicitly deny that it is an impeachment and rhetorically ask, “impeach for what?” Cause some confusion and be ready to rumble. That will give them a chance to grab the narrative out of Trump’s hand. Right now there is no visible strategy at all and just playing nice obviously does not work.
I just returned from a seven-week trip to the United States and came across the following on-line discussion of this subject: Democrats Face Decision On Impeachment, The Real News Network (June 10, 2019). Thankfully, the program’s participants confined themselves to the domestic political matter at hand and refrained from any mention of the word “war,” a subject about which few living Americans — especially Nancy Pelosi — have any knowledge or experience. As George Orwell prophetically wrote in “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” (the book-within-a-book from 1984):
“… war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them. They are aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favoured workers whom we call ‘the proles’ are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.”
What a perfectly apt description of the contemporary United States, its “governing elites,” and low-wage temp workers angry at their exploitation but unable to contemplate any organized political movement to upset the status quo in their favor. The very word “war” has become nothing but a worn-out, hysterical euphemism used as a tattered cover for official malfeasance, mendacity, and manipulation. Better for the Speaker of the House to just cut off all funding for America’s endless and ruinous military blunders — as Congress did in 1975 — instead of wasting what remains of her sordid life reading theoretical treatises on a subject she will never comprehend. Neither Von Clausewitz nor Sun Tzu have anything to say that an American government official — political or military — would possibly put to good use. Their venal career and post-career interests make wisdom and integrity on their part unlikely in any event. But back to the subject of impeachment …
Program participants Jeff Cohen and Kamau Franklin pretty much cover the points raised by others here. Jeff Cohen favors impeachment if for no other reason than just bringing some information to light which might (possibly) hurt Trump politically. Kamau Franklin advises concentrating on other, more important issues — like single payer health care and relieving burdensome student debt — that might convince voters to mark their ballots for Democratic Party candidates in the upcoming 2020 elections. I agree with Kamau Franklin and disagree with Jeff Cohen, although the latter did say one thing that I think merits elaboration, even though it further weakens his already unconvincing argument. Namely:
Jeff Cohen: “… I believe the Democrats have just bungled it by focusing on the wrong issues and now they’re stuck. …”
Stuck indeed. And how badly they have bungled it with that ludicrous “Russia” (meaning, Emmanuel Goldstein) crap, I do not think they even know. And it only compounds their demonstrated stupidity for them to assume that the Trump administration — and especially Attorney General William Barr– will allow them the leisure time in which to decide on an impeachment strategy. The Attorney General has only just now set out to investigate the shady origins of “Russiagate” which extend up into the highest levels of the Obama administration and down into the bureaucratic bowels of the Deep State “Intelligence Community.” Robert “WMD” Mueller has already exhausted persecuting all the marginal non-entities connected with this travesty and may now get his own time in the witness chair. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and Britain’s MI-6 all have dirty fingerprints all over this criminal farce — I have in mind Comey, Brennan, Clapper, and Christopher Steele, just for starters — and once Barr’s investigators get organized and off on the chase, the corporate Democrats and their favored media stenographers will wish to high heaven that they had never uttered one syllable of the word “Russia.”
Two further on-line discussions have a direct bearing on what will soon develop a life of its own thanks to a Clinton/Obama Democratic Party that will most likely inflict Donald Trump on the US and World for another four years:
Steele cuts a deal with DOJ. Brennan in big trouble (Video). The Duran Quick Take: Episode 194. Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris, The Duran (June 6, 2019)
And …
Mueller’s Trump-Russia spy turns out to be Obama spy working for Ukraine (Video). The Duran Quick Take: Episode 199. Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris, The Duran (June 10, 2019)
With corrupt and brain-dead “Democrats” for an “opposition,” President Donald Trump hardly needs to ask for any friends. A lucky man indeed. As Matt Taibbi wrote recently for Rolling Stone Magazine:
“Upon becoming president, however, [Donald Trump] is placed under a massive, unrelenting investigation by the same law enforcement bodies that allowed him for decades to get away with anything and everything. In a great cosmic joke, when justice finally springs to action, its agents go looking for the one crime in the legal code Trump apparently didn’t commit.”
A “Great Cosmic Joke.” What an apt and succinct description of the basket with no bottom into which the moribund Democratic Party chose to throw all its political and legal eggs. Now we shall see …
I believe it is unprecedented for an administration to launch investigations of the personnel involved in a Congressional investigation. Did Eisenhower order investigations of the Joseph McCarthy infrastructure? HUAC continued on its merry path after its chief ogre had been disgraced. Did Gerald Ford order investigations of those who finally forced fellow Republican Nixon from office? (Of course, back in those “good old days” [?] there were enough fairly sensible members of GOP to grasp that trying to save Nixon was a lost cause.) Trump is not “merely” a vile excuse for a human being, he is genuinely a POTUS Like No Other we’ve ever had. Biden is, thus far, clearly the choice of the Democratic Establishment, the Hillary of 2020. This nauseates me on general principles, not as an adherent of their party–because I ain’t! Right now, Joe is playing terribly “presidential,” but he is–or has been in the past, at least–capable of getting fired up. But that’s when he tends to put his foot in his mouth! I continue to believe the Dems need to put forth a firebrand to take Trump on. As for Trump’s own “energy level”–which I suspect comes out of a vial or little envelope of some illicit substance (for us mere citizens)–to what end does he put it? Spouting nonsense to elicit thunderous cheers from automatons pre-programmed to adore him. Wow, what a fantastic (to borrow a favorite Trump word) achievement!
Just to clearly state my position at the outset, I favor abolishing the CIA because it Can’t Identify Anything and would lie if it did, just to keep in practice. Ditto for the FBI because the Furtive Bungling Idiots make even J. Edgar Hoover look like a Constitution-respecting civil libertarian. Sacking the Joint Chefs of Stuff and hacking the Pentagon budget in half would help a lot, too. Hence my vote for the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2016. As Eugene V. Debs said: “I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don’t want and get it. Having said that …
Mueller and Comey (FBI), Brennan (CIA) and Clapper (NSA) worked for the Obama (executive branch) administration and other administrations before that. Investigating them and their role in fomenting the cosmic hoax “Russiagate” falls squarely within the purview of the Attorney General. He has not only the authority to investigate such criminal activities as these persons apparently committed — remember Iran-Contra — but the sworn duty to do so. I, for one, hope that he does. If President Trump wishes to take credit for a little justice finally done cleaning out a tiny fraction of the Deep State Swamp, then I see no problem with his doing so. History might record that as his only worthwhile contribution to the nation’s history.
The corporate Dems for the past two-and-a-half years have sounded to me like Tricky Dick Nixon and Tailgunner Joe McCarthy at their hysterical, red-baiting worst except that the “Reds” today don’t have much to say about affairs in the Russian Federation and haven’t since the end of the 1980s. The Mainland Chinese still have a “Communist” government but capitalists keep getting richer there with every passing year. The United States has really fallen behind the curve as to recent developments in the outside world but seems oblivious to its increasing irrelevance.
The Clintons and Obamas betrayed the working-class base of the Democratic Party for a few million dollars in table scraps from the billionaire donor class. Until the party gets rid of them and their pathetic Republican Junior Varsity act, Donald Trump and the Republicans will have little difficulty hanging on to power and wealth for another four years. Trying to mount another meaningless distraction by impeaching President Trump will not get the corporate Dems what they imagine, either now or later. Medicare For All and forcing an end to these limitless foreign military debacles might do the trick, electorally. But the Insurance, Pharmaceutical, and Weapons Industry lobbyists will most likely not let Peace and Full-Time Employment happen. Democrats, after all, do not care if they win, as long as they get paid.
Instead of publicly vacillating between “should we impeach Trump or should we not impeach Trump” while posing for PR pictures holding up ancient books on “war,” Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic party “leadership” should read through and study a recent speech made by Chris Hedges: The Thought Police Are Coming, Information Clearing House (June 13, 2019). If they need its contents and importance explained to them, they can ask Representative Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and presidential candidate who courageously advocates dropping all charges against Julian Assange, freeing Chelsea Manning from purely vindictive imprisonment (again) and pardoning Edward Snowden. President Trump does merit indictment for viciously persecuting whistleblowers and publishers, true, but then so does former President Obama and long-time presidential aspirant, You-Know-Her (because everybody does). Most relevant here from Mr Hedges’ speech:
This character assassination [of Julian Assange] was championed by the Democratic Party establishment after WikiLeaks published 70,000 hacked emails copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The Podesta emails exposed the donation of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State, to the Clinton Foundation. It exposed the $657,000 that Goldman Sachs paid to Hillary Clinton to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. It exposed Clinton’s repeated mendacity. She was caught in the emails, for example, telling the financial elites that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign statements. It exposed the Clinton campaign’s efforts to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Trump was the Republican nominee [emphasis added]. It exposed Clinton’s advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. It exposed Clinton as the principal architect of the war in Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs provided to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, should have remained hidden, that the public did not have a right to know, but they can’t then call themselves journalists.
WikiLeaks has done more to expose the abuses of power and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. In addition to the war logs and the Podesta emails, it made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency and their interference in foreign elections, including in the French elections. It disclosed the internal conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of Parliament. It intervened to save Snowden from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow after he made public the wholesale surveillance of the American public by our intelligence agencies. The Snowden leaks also revealed that Julian was on a U.S. “manhunt target list.”
The Democratic Party has no reason for existence if it cannot defend us from totalitarian oppression carried out by the US government at the direction of a transnational corporate oligarchy that considers the United States just another “population containment zone” and “marketing territory.” Ridding the US presidency of Donald Trump sounds all well and good, but if the Democrats do not also rid themselves of greasy-pole-climbing grifters like the Clintons and Obamas, then someone just like Donald Trump, or worse, will emerge as Big Brother: torturing Winston Smith in Room 101 just because we let him.
Not too long after his single term as POTUS, George Herbert Walker Bush gave a very brief speech at the University of Connecticut. (I recall this because I am a resident of that state and former radio broadcaster at that school’s main campus.) His fee was $30,000. So Madam Clinton’s Goldman-Sachs paycheck was, indeed, absurdly “generous.” I believe we learned of its magnitude without the help of Wikileaks, however. [I acknowledge I may be factually in error on this.] I have always been a supporter of Wikileaks and made a donation to Chelsea Manning’s defense fund at time of original court-martial. It is news to me, however, that the 2016 Clinton campaign wished for Trump to be their opponent. This is plausible, of course, since every opinion poll had her defeating him with ease. I have pointed out myself here on multiple occasions that I consider the Democratic Party moribund and morally bankrupt (not exactly a new development!). But this does not obviate my firm view that Trump’s abuses of power and implementation of policy changes intended to accelerate the degradation of our environment MERIT impeachment, impeachment NOW. If a thug is holding a knife to your throat, demanding your valuables, do you tell the cops “I don’t want your help because of corruption in your department”? The thug might hire a really slick lawyer and evade punishment, just as Trump almost certainly won’t be convicted in an impeachment trial before the Senate as currently constituted. But I vote for action over passivity in this attempt at a valid analogy.
As a matter of fact, the John Podesta emails — published by Wikileaks — revealed Mrs Clinton’s campaign chairman advising her to make Trump the “Pied Piper” candidate, telling media outlets friendly to the Democrats to play up his candidacy. Trump got billions of dollars worth of free “earned media” as a result. Way to go, genius Democrats.
Mr Podesta’s metaphorical use of the Pied Piper fable obviously envisioned Trump tuning up his flute and leading all the mesmerized Republican rats down to the river where they would drown, thus ridding the town (Washington DC, and by extension the United States) of the vermin infestation. Forgetting how the fable ended, of course, the Democrats watched in stupefied disbelief as Trump and his little flute led many of their own little children away into the wilderness of Red State resentment against NAFTA unemployment and everything else associated with the name “Clinton” generally. Someone really ought to explain the true meaning of childhood fables to the corporate Democrats before they attempt to make another of these simplified morality tales the foundation of their political strategy.
I think we should not lose sight of the hard fact that it was the “intricacies” of the Electoral College that gave Trump the White House (whose interior he had redesigned, all the better for him to further sully it). A goodly number of states have now passed legislation to award their EC votes to the winner of the popular vote. Whether this will ever be approved on a national basis remains to be seen. Notwithstanding the, um, “severe shortcomings” (I must be feeling charitable!) of Mr. Trump’s opponent in 2016, one still must ask “What could be more absurd than ensconcing in office the LOSER of the popular vote??”
Following up on the above thought concerning bungled metaphors as political “impeachment” strategy, I have in mind here the fable of The Boy Who Cried “Wolf!”. Substitute “Democrats” for “Boy” and “Russians!” for “Wolf!” and you have the congenitally idiotic Democrats doubling down on dumb. For all their vaunted degrees from prestigious Ivy League universities, I have to wonder how they ever got through elementary school. Even young kids know that you don’t go around pointing at — and screaming about — an invisible nothing if you want other people to take you seriously. As only the latest example of this epic political stupidity — like from three days ago — consider the following:
Warren, Sanders Call to Impeach After Trump Welcomes Dirt From Foreign Powers, by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams (June 13, 2019).
The linked article contains several instances of Democratic elected officials pointing at invisible Russian wolves and howling at the moon, but the quoted tweets from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders reveal the essential bankruptcy of “Russia-gate” as a political model for unseating an incumbent President from the Ruling Oligarchy’s other right-wing faction. Senators Warren and Sanders sure bit at the bait on the barbed hook this time. I once would have found it hard to believe that intelligent and informed adults could swallow and regurgitate utter and discredited bullshit like the “Russia-gate” hoax, but the following statements have cured me of that last lingering delusion. Check it out for yourself, fellow Crimestoppers:
“The Mueller report made it clear: A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a 2020 White House hopeful, tweeted late Wednesday. “Now, he said he’d do it all over again. It’s time to impeach Donald Trump.”
… and …
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed his 2020 rival, saying Trump’s comments — which came during an ABC News interview that aired Wednesday — demonstrated once more that “[w]e have a president who thinks he is above the law.”
In the first place, as a mountain of actual evidence shows, the Clinton campaign paid a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to supply them with salacious — and completely fabricated — dirt on Donald Trump. This notorious “Dossier” — vouched for by both the British and American “Intelligence” services (MI-6, FBI, CIA, and NSA) — forms practically the entire basis for the “Russia-gate” hoax. In other words, the hoax has no basis any more than the boy has seen a real wolf. This actual “attack on our elections” — from the outside and inside both — apparently causes Senator Warren no distress. Her self-interested hypocrisy on this point will — and ought to — come back to haunt her presidential ambitions.
In the second place, the so-called “report” by Robert (“Iraq has WMDs”) Mueller indicted not one American individual for either “colluding” with a foreign government or “obstructing” any investigation into the collusion that didn’t happen. Senator Warren simply has no evidence to support her untrue statements, and to the extent that she keeps on making them, she will continue to lose credibility. For the record. Mueller essentially bailed out after striking out, mumbling some vague and embarrassed insinuations about Congress doing whatever Congress might want to do about something or other should Congress wish to do that. What I like to call “mumbling mealy mouthfuls of mellifluously modulated mush.”
As for Senator Sander’s woefully innocent understanding of legal life in America: Gerald Ford’s pre-emptive pardon of Richard Nixon placed every succeeding US President “above the law,” as Glenn Greenwald helpfully explained in his book With Liberty and Justice for Some (2011). Or, as George Orwell wrote in 1984, “In Oceania” (US and UK) “there is no law.” Ask Julian Assange, whose human right to freely think, speak, and publish, only Tulsi Gabbard (among the Democratic presidential candidates) seems willing to defend.
So much for The Pied Piper and The Boy Who Cried Wolf: two childhood fables the true meanings of which the Corporate Democrats — whose ranks now include Senators Warren and Sanders — utterly fail to comprehend, even as they foolishly attempt to apply their incomprehension in real political life.