Castle Magus

"We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever he said he was doing. We sent him there to represent us."

"Him" being Pat Toomey, one of the very few Republican Senators who broke ranks with the Trumpublicans and actually voted correctly to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial (for what good it did). By the way, Pat Toomey is a Senator for Pennsylvania, a state that, you know, Trump lost, so it looks like he was representing the majority of his constituents, in this case.

So yeah, that pretty much says it all. The GOQP[1] in 2021, ladies and gentlemen. "We do not want our politicians to actually do the right thing. We want them to represent asshats like us, to whom 'the right thing' is like a crucifix to Dracula." It's also the real reason why they elected Trump himself in the first place.

I was actually shocked and vaguely pleased that Richard Burr of North Carolina (i.e. the dumbass who was giving out fidget spinners during the first impeachment trial) voted to convict Trump this time, too. He's getting shit on for it, as well, which is sad and says more about how terrible the North Carolina GQP is than it says about Richard Burr. I mean, Richard Burr is mostly shit, too, but at least he did the right thing in this one particular case. (Again, for what good it did, which is probably the only reason he and the other guy above did it, since they knew it wouldn't actually matter and that Trump would still get acquitted even if they did vote to convict. There's also the fact that Richard Burr isn't running for reelection, so he didn't really have much to lose and thus probably didn't give much of a shit one way or the other, good or bad.)

Also, something something "cancel culture" or whatever.

[1] - Saw some people in the comments under those articles using GQP instead of GOP, and I like it. Think I'll start using it.

So, Trump was acquitted again, thanks once more to all the "also deserve to be in prison" Trumpublicans, which just goes to show that the entire concept of presidential impeachment has basically been rendered worthless and useless now.

Fortunately, there's still the vastly looming specter of all the myriad crimes Trump can and hopefully still will be charged with on a case by case basis. I've been doing a "has donald trump been charged with crimes yet?" Google search at least a couple times a week ever since he left office, whenever I happen to think about it.

That said, I'm not going to hold my breath on any of that ever amounting to anything, either. Until and unless Trump actually ends up in a prison cell at some point before he dies, it's nothing but pie in the sky pipe dreams to think that his corrupt, corpulent ass will ever face any actual consequences for his horseshit. At least, if you believe (as I do) that capital-H Hell (or some similar eternal punishment afterlife) isn't a thing that actually exists, anyway. If it does happen to exist, though, then... well... I think Trump's in for it.

"Hi. Here is our 100th episode... and yeah, it's about Donald Trump and all of his lies, crimes, impeachments, and insurrections."

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Only slightly less than one more eternityday until Donald Jizzstain Trump is officially no longer the President of the United States of America.

So that's a thing, I guess. Another achievement for our big winner SCROTUS: first president to be impeached twice.

I expect exactly jack and shit to come of this one, as well. I'd be glad to be wrong.

Mealy-mouthed Bitch McConnell is saying he maybe would actually vote to convict Trump this time. Fuck Bitch McConnell. Regardless of anything else, I'm glad the House is waiting until his ass is gone from his position as Senate Majority Leader before sending the shit over to the Senate. After January 20, he'll just be the Senate Minority Leader (not that he can't still do shit-tons of damage, even from that position, but at least it'll be mitigated somewhat).

"'I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,' McConnell wrote."

Well, if he'd fucking done that during the first impeachment trial, rather than just making the whole goddamn thing into a fucking joke, maybe we wouldn't be where we are now, and maybe Trump wouldn't have been the first president impeached twice, because he'd have been the first president convicted once.

In any case, as I said before, if nothing else comes of this aside from Trump maybe not being able to run for POTUS again, I'd be good with that, I guess.

"Hi. It would be neat if the broken Senate and the broken Supreme Court could fix the broken impeachment process so we can save the broken country."

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"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

-- George Washington, Farewell Address, Saturday, September 17, 1796

Post by John Scalzi.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Well, except maybe for the "if I were a Democrat" bit, as that doesn't apply to me.

*weary sigh + facepalm + eye roll + smdh*

Article via rabbitucker via FB.

Also, one of my senators, Richard Burr, gave out fidget spinners to fellow Trumpublicans the other day apparently to help them cope with the utter boredom of the impeachment trial. Go fucking figure.

Okay. I'm once again reinstating my self-imposed (but long since abandoned) moratorium on reading, and, more importantly, ranting about political shit. At least, I'm going to try it for a while, anyway. Maybe a week, maybe two, maybe a month, hopefully longer.

The way I see it, I already know for a stone cold fact that I'm going to be voting for any and all Democrats come November. No amount of anti-Trump/anti-Trumpanzee news is going to somehow make me vote even harder against them. That's not a thing that is even possible at this point. As such, there's just no point in bothering with it. And no rant by me is going to change anyone's mind about Trump (especially since, given how curated my FB feed and f-list is, it's mostly just being seen by those who already agree with me, for the most part [or at least, I assume and hope that's the case... if not... I'm not sure I even want to know]). Lastly, nothing I say or share or "retweet" or whatever is going to magically remove Trump (and McConnell and Graham and Kavanaugh and... etc.) from office.

Mainly, this means no more Seth Abramson threads for a while. But also, no more other shit, either. Just today, I (re-)added NPR and BBC to my FB feed, but now I'm going to turn right around and take them back off again. That was probably the tipping point for this decision, in fact.

It probably won't make me happier, per se, to do this, but I think it'll at least maybe help a little with the all the headaches (both literal and figurative).

The only thing I won't be eschewing is Some More News by Cody Johnston. ­¬_¬

As per usual, Donald Trump recently claimed that he has no idea who Lev Parnas is. This is what Trump says about anyone and everyone who has ever admitted to doing crimes with him.

Might Donald Trump very well be the first President of the United States of America to be impeached more than once?

Here's my question though: with all this hullabaloo about impeaching Trump, I want to know what, if anything, can be done about the obvious malfeasance of Mitch McConnell[1]? Can he be impeached as well? Or whatever equivalent process may exist (or may not exist, and if not, can it be brought into existence)? Is there anything, within the law, that Pelosi (or anyone else) can do about this?

Trump's impeachment needs to result in Trump being removed from office. This is an objective fact. Mitch McConnell[1] is standing in the way of this. Mitch McConnell[1] intends to subvert this and make sure it does not come to pass. This is also an objective fact. Mitch McConnell[1] needs to be punished and removed from office for his refusal to punish and remove Trump from office. Mitch McConnell[1] needs to be held accountable for his blatant complicity with Trump and Trump's crimes. How one goes about removing Mitch McConnell[1] from office, however, is what I don't know. Or if there is no legitimate process to accomplish that, that's even worse...

"Vote him out" is about the only legitimate process I can think of, but that takes time (far too much, given the situation) and, as seen by the fact that Mitch McConnell[1] is even still in office at all at this point, despite all of his prior (pre-Trump, even) brazen malfeasance, it just goes to show that "vote him out" is not all that good of a solution on which to bank everything, because he very well might not be voted out in November, despite how terrible of a Senator and how horrible of a human being he is, all due to his constituents who keep right on voting for him apparently being blithering imbeciles.

[1] - And a lot of others in the Senate, of course, but McConnell is the Majority Leader for the Trumpublicans and is effectively in charge of the Senate, so let's just start with and focus on him now.