Tag: impeachment

Why Nobody Knows Nuthin About How Impeachment Will Turn Out

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

While we’re in the worst Constitutional since late 1860 there’s no discernable endgame at this point. I just don’t know how it’s going to endup. It could end up either way. Either way, we’re not prepared for the new era. Either we convict Trump and hopefully put him prison after due process or he escapes and things get very dark, very quickly. Here are a series of reasons why I simply have no idea what is going to happen next.

Bill Barr
Barr has been very quiet. It’s very possible he’s going to strike at what he feels is the best time to cause the impeachment process to come to a grinding halt. I could see him thinking that if he dropped the smoke bomb of a wide-ranging list of criminal referrals connected to the Infowars-level bullshit theory that it was actually Ukraine and the Democrats who were the origin of the Mueller probe that all of Trump’s problems would go away. He might think this because similar bullshit messaging worked before with The Mueller Report so lulz. There’s a huge risk associated with this, however. The risk is that after about 24 hours of The New York Times buying into this bullshit ploy completely, other people might come to the conclusion that it’s a staggering abuse of power. So it would be used as yet another Article of Impeachment.

Asymmetrical Radicalization
One thing we all underestimate is how completely fucking insane the Republican Party became in the latter years of the Obama Administration. The Republican Party only sees liberal democracy as a means to an end — and that end is as much power as possible. So, while the Democrat Party sees itself as bound by the normals of a democracy, the Republicans just lulz that. So Republicans will crucify Democrats for the slightest infraction while they lie and cheat as much as humanly possible to keep Trump in power. This is a very real problem. Do not underestimate it going forward in the impeachment process.

Republican Senators — Mission: Impossible
There may come a point where 20 Republican Senators face an impossible political decision — the likelihood they will be primaried if they vote for conviction will be equal to the probability they will lose their general if they don’t vote for conviction. I honestly have no way of predicting how they would solve this problem. It’s simply impossible. None of them have any honor or courage — or at least have shown none to date — so, I don’t know. It could go either way.

Brexit
If No Deal Brexit does, in fact, finally happen on Oct. 31, then there’s a chance that will slow the global economy in such a way as to harm Trump’s political fortunes in a very unexpected manner. Trump’s got a base of about 35%. It’s rock solid. If the economy tanks that might change just a little bit.

Violence
Trump could very well up the ante and start transactional crimes with his Twitter feed. In other words, instead of dog whistling this or that thing, he might actually say: Do this. It could be anything from killing members of Congress to killing the whistleblower. You would think this would be bad for Trump — and it would be — but there’s also a chance that it will slow impeachment down just enough for Republicans to say, “Lulz, let the people decide in Nov. 2020.”

Trump Going Bonkers
This is a such a big known unknown that I simply don’t know how to gauge it. If Trump finally snaps in a very, very public manner, things could get very, very messy. But the gears of government are so fucking slow Trump could still make it until January.

Government Shutdown
It’s possible the government will shut down long enough that impeachment momentum ends. Trump survives and he rigs the 2020 election in his favor. Lulz!

Moscow Mitch May Feel Sated
It’s also possible that just as Moscow Mitch fills the last possible open position on the Federal bench with a young hack MAGA judge, he will find Trump having his trial in the Senate. Moscow Mitch will feel he has gotten the last ounce of blood from Trump and he’ll abruptly do the Pence Pivot. Lulz!


Attempting To Sketch Out Who Would Be The Deciding Vote To Convict Trump In The Senate

Shelton Bumgarner

I’m no Ashley Feinberg. But I have a moment to mull a very interesting situation — is it possible to predict who might be the deciding vote to convict Trump should he be impeached by the House?

You need 67 Senators to vote for conviction. But here’s where things get screwy — the votes are done in alphabetical order. You need 67 Senators to vote but the Democrats and Republicans would be scattered across the alphabet. If you work with the assumption that all will be counted present and all will vote, at what point do you know for a fact Trump is convicted?

Here is where things grow exponentially complicated and I just don’t have the resources to do anything about it. I just don’t know the personalities involved. I have found a page with the US Senators in alphabetical order, but this is where I stop for the time being.

If anyone wants to help me do some predictive vote tallying, let me know.

migukin (at) (gmail) (dot) com.

Nancy Pelosi Was Very Lucky

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’ve seen some talk on Twitter about how Nancy Pelosi was “right” and huzzah, leave it to a woman to save the day. While I do believe she’s the right leader for the moment I call bullshit on any notion she right to be so extremely reluctant to give the pre-whistleblower impeachment cause any support.

By the time Trump got his political pardon when Chris Wallace bemoaned the “poor optics” of Mueller’s testimony to Congress in the summer, there was a very, very strong case for impeachment. Politically what was needed was Pelosi to rally the troops and lay out the case to the American public. No one had any idea — especially her — that Trump would take his “pardon” as a gimme to do the exact same thing all over again.

Even then, there were unprecedented obstacles to the whistleblower’s effort to get the authorities to look into the situation in the first place. So, in a sense, it all came down to Trump’s vainglorious behavior and dumb luck. Pelosi is not a mindreader and she’s not a clairvoyant. She could have even have had a very good read on Trump and STILL not be in the right to risk the fate of the entire country on her “hunch” that Trump would self-own. I just am not willing to give that to her. She was wrong, in that sense. At least in my opinion.

Or, put another way, I’m willing to give her supporters the facts that support their case. But my interpretation of those facts is dramatically different. That says more about my personal relationship to power than anything else. I just don’t believe in any form of blind faith. To say Pelosi “knew stuff” is the liberal version of MAGA cult blind-faith in Trump. She didn’t know jack shit.

She was very lucky –very, very lucky. But now that she’s won the historical lottery she is, in fact, just the leader we need to expunge Trump from our political system. Hopefully.

V-Log: Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & Recent #Impeachment Developments

Some thoughts.

Honest Question: Why Is Bill Barr Still A Free Man?

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

What the fuck is going on with Attorney General Bill Barr? He’s in the middle of a criminal conspiracy disguised as a the Executive Branch and…nothing. No one seems to be calling for his resignation. It’s like since Rudy is the lightning rod, Barr is free to go about his business being the demonstrably deeply criminal leader of the Justice Department.

There’s one specific issue I would like to be looked in — what was the exact sequence of events that led Bob Mueller to end his investigation into the firing of James Comey? Something about that particular event doesn’t smell right. One thing about Mueller is he became an avatar for a lot of liberal rag against the Trump Administration. We imbued him with a lot of qualies that he may — or may not — actually possess. He’s a lifelong Republican and Bill Barr’s friend.

Given the sheer depth of criminal behavior that Barr has presided over at the Justice Department, that makes me wonder that maybe he might have suggested Mueller wrap things up in time for Trump to start is 2020 re-election campaign. It’s pretty conspicuous how Mueller fell on his sword for Trump in any number of different ways. A lot of avenues of investigation simply were not looked into.

People who seemed bound to get indicted never were. I mean, Don Jr. is just as conspicuous in his conspicuous need to commit crimes as his father. I have no idea what happened, but it seems like now that it’s clear that Trump’s running the Executive Branch like a mafia don that maybe someone should look into that.

Barr has already done enough to warrant him being in jail for contempt of Congress. If I was going to use the House’s inherent contempt powers, Barr is the guy I would use it on. That guy needs to suffer politically somehow. He needs to experience some sort of consequences for his behavior.

The Executive Branch Of The United States Is A Criminal Enterprise

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We’ve always suspected Trump Org was essentially a criminal syndicate, but the recent whistleblower revelations make it clear that as my mom would say — you take yourself wherever you go. The sheer breath of the criminal activity that’s taking place in the Executive Branch right now is astonishing. And just think how bad it will get if we aren’t able to remove Trump from office.

What’s more, that House Trump is so detached from the regular methods of governance that they would release what they did the last few days is pretty telling — and astonishing. They are completely devoid of any sense of public service. The entire Executive Branch is full of craven criminals who don’t even realize how criminal they are.

Again, as I’ve said, there are some pretty big existential issues at stake. If we can’t remove Trump, there are no assurances that there will be a free and fair election in 2020. In other words, a fish rots from its head. We have to slice the boil of this systemic criminality by removing Trump as quickly as possible.

Really, in a sense, we have our fate in our owns hands. We need to do some triage. The conditions that caused Trump’s rise will remain. But we can address those issues when we are forced to get them again.

The Existential Case For Removing Trump Immediately

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The reason why removing Trump immediately is so absolutely important — existential, even — is one very troubling fact; Trump called the president of Ukraine the day after he was given a political pardon by the “poor optics” of Bob Mueller’s testimony to Congress.

That act, in itself, requires we remove Trump from office within days, not months. In fact, if I was in charge of messaging for Congressional Democrats that’s the one point I would never shut up about. If you talked to a Democrat in Congress, you would here that mentioned at some point during the interview.

The reason why that particular point is so absolutely important is it’s a simple way to explain, in political terms, the gravity of what’s going on. If Trump was some sort of political genius, the last thing he would do it wait about 24 hours to actively commit the very crime that consumed the first two years of his presidency. It’s a very relatable insight into the dark recesses of who Trump is as a person. It’s this specific datapoint that elevates a partisan political issue into a human existential one.

Trump, the bonkers self-own artist

I mean, if you had a buddy who pull such a stunt, you would likely able him as toxic and lowly ease him out of your life. To have someone with such a mentality as the leader of the free world is absolutely, existentially unacceptable.

It proves that if you don’t remove Trump, then, well, there is pretty much no opportunity to have a free and fair election in 2020. Within 24 hours of being acquitted in the Senate, Trump is likely be even more brazen and emboldened. As such, it’s a lot like the Losers in IT and the silver bullets they hand-made. They believed they would work and then they missed.

In fact, another avenue of messaging for Democrats is to never shut up about the existential nature of what’s going on. Impeachment is a painfully slow process in the era of social media and as such messaging is absolutely, deathly critical. You have to keep reminding the populist hoards on Twitter what the stakes are. You throw everything you have at this particular aspect of the situation.

The reason is, House Trump wants this to be strictly political issue. If it’s a political issue, they win. No question. If it’s framed as a matter of politics, there’s no question Trump is acquitted so he can continue to running the Executive just like TrumpOrg — like a criminal enterprise.

Framing what’s happening as existential to the average American also keeps people entertained. If you manged to convince them this is The Stand of American history, then you keep interest and momentum. If it’s seen as a political matter, given how long it will take, then Mich McConnell won’t even actually hold the impeachment proceedings in the Senate.

Now, there’s one element to all of this that absolutely has to be at the forefront of your mind going forward. Trump is nothing more than malevolent version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. What’s more, he’s not only the master of the self-own, he’s likely to grow more and more erratic as the pressure of the House impeachment inquiry moves forward. So, really, that’s a part of this that simply can’t be predicted.

It’s very possible that just as McConnell is about to dismiss the whole thing in a wave of his partisan hand, Trump will tweet out a dick pic. I’m not kidding it really is possible at this point. The man is not well and the entire journalist ecosystem is complicit in hiding it.

Anyway, I am very ambivalent about Trump’s fate right now. It’s just going to take too long. Trump will be able to control the narrative and that will be that. But, like I said, he’s not only got some sort of degenerative mental issues going on, he’s the master of the self-own.

V-Log: Trump’s Impeachment Strategy

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Why American Democracy Is Dead

Shelton Bumgarner

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The issue is, if you don’t have the balls to impeach Trump now for wide range of criminal behavior, you give him a green light to do his worst as part of the 2020 Election.

I mean, really, if the House is so fucking reluctant to impeach Trump for a whole slew of criminal behavior, what’s to stop Trump from brazenly attacking individual Electors post-election 2020 should he lose. Remember, there are actual human beings who have to vote for president. Human beings are by definition flawed and subject to the whims of personality.

If Trump loses the popular vote and the Electoral College, what’s to stop him from sicking MAGA on individual Electors by doxxing them via Twitter? Or, really, what to stop some MAGA plutocrats from bribing Electors before the vote. Trump could simply pardon them and hunker down. It’s not like the Senate will impeach him for even that.

Once that’s been established, then one of two things happen. Either people give up voting altogether and we sink into a Russian-style managed democracy or there’s a revolt in Blue States. Of course, Trump would simply use such a revolt to abolish Blue State governments and turn them into military districts.

Then Trump names himself president for life. House Trump gets its thousand year Trump. A lot of creative people leave the States for various parts of the globe. America sinks into a MAGA dystopia. Colleges are either shut down or purged of anyone who doesn’t agree with the Dear Leader.

It’s over guys. We had a good run. I guess I’ll die in a Trump branded re-education camp at some point in the next 20 years.

Why I Don’t Take Impeachment Seriously

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Emmet Flood is nowhere to be seen. So that indicates to me that no one in the Trump White House takes impeachment seriously. Or, to put it another way, Flood doesn’t see it as enough of a challenge to get involved.

Flood was, as I understand it, the lead Clinton defense attorney during that impeachment effort. And Flood was floating around during the Mueller investigation. But he bounced after that was wrapped up.

So that seems to indicate that all of this is moot. There’s just no political will to actually do anything about Trump. Trump can faux pout all the wants to, it’s until Flood pops up again that I will takes any of this seriously.

The dystopia is here. We’ll little more than a managed democracy like Russia at this point.