Now that impeachment of President Trump seems somewhat likely, some are also calling for the concurrent impeachment of Vice President Mike Pence.

Whoa, cowboy.

That’s a nice little fantasy you’ve cooked up there. I have no opinion about whether or not Pence deserves to be impeached; I’m certainly no fan, but I haven’t seen enough evidence to convince me that he should be.

But even if you disagree, there are strong arguments against bringing Pence into this. If this were a purely legal process, public opinion wouldn’t matter. But impeachment is a political process, and there needs to be a way forward after it’s over. According to a recent Fox News poll, 51 percent of American voters think that Trump should be impeached and removed from office. As the process continues, that number should continue going up. But if the Democrats are seen as making a power grab, it could go down. As long as the process ends with the Republicans retaining the Oval Office, nobody can credibly accuse them of that.

Once the House votes to impeach the president, it will be up to the Republican-controlled Senate to remove him from office, a very unlikely outcome. Until recently, I’d have said impossible, but the conservative backlash against his betrayal in Syria has been vehement. And as this president seems incapable of learning, it’s not hard to imagine him committing similar offenses in the near future. How many more of them will it take for his colleagues in the Senate to start wondering if they might not be better off dealing with a Pence administration, especially if public support for impeachment continues to grow. But there is no scenario whatsoever that would lead the Republicans in the Senate to approve a course of action that would lead to President Nancy Pelosi. None. Don’t even want it.

The main thing the Democrats have to avoid at this point is the appearance of overreach. Speaker Pelosi is well aware of this. Impeaching and removing a president is extreme enough, and it would be a phenomenal win if accomplished. But it would be a win for the American people and the principles of democracy, not the political agenda of a particular party. That’s how impeachment should be. There is a price for this kind of win, though, and that price is President Mike Pence.

I say it’s worth it.

From Julius Caesar:

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Many wish to handcuff the churl Donald for treason, take out the Vice Crook as well.

Eh, it’s a bad idea. House wins must stay credible.

President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria to make way for a Turkish invasion has met with a chorus of disapproval, including such unlikely voices as Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell, and even Lindsey Graham. The decision was apparently made after a phone call with President Erdogan of Turkey, and seems to have caught everyone else off guard.

Clearly, a deal was made between the two leaders. But the question is, was Trump negotiating on behalf of the United States, or on behalf of Donald Trump? Given recent events involving Ukraine, it seems fair to speculate that it might be the latter. So, did Trump benefit financially from the deal, possibly related to Trump Towers Istanbul? Did Erdogan agree to dig up dirt on Trump’s political opponents? Did the orders come from Putin? We just don’t know, and again, this is all speculation. But something doesn’t feel right about this. And this time, it’s his own party that’s calling foul.

I say to them, you have only yourselves to blame. This is why we don’t tolerate corruption in our leadership. If you were comfortable with his abuse of power when it was only to steal an election, you are the ones who have given him license to abuse it now to sell out US foreign policy. For you bid this be done when evil deeds have their permissive pass and not the punishment.

From Measure for Measure:

For we bid this be done
When evil deeds have their permissive pass
And not the punishment.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

He’s evil. Had the dumb VIP wimps not entertained of his peevishness, he’d now be restrained.

I was planning a rant about the Ukraine scandal this morning, but the Atlantic article “If This Isn’t Impeachable, Nothing Is” says everything I was going to say and more. I can’t even pull a quote; just please go read it and then come back and enjoy the anagram.

So basically, the timeline is this:

1. The Mueller Report was released. It detailed how the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, how the Trump campaign was aware of and welcomed that help, and how President Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation into his involvement no fewer than ten times.
2. The Republicans chose to put party over country and the Democrats decided to cower in the corner, and the President was not held accountable in any way for his actions.
3. The President, having been emboldened by his perceived invincibility, explicitly tried to strong-arm a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 election on his behalf by manufacturing fake evidence of wrongdoing by his political opposition.

It is now incumbent upon Congress to impeach. Failing to do so at this point is a dereliction of duty. It is no longer enough to say that we can’t do it because the Senate won’t convict. I think Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it best (regarding calls for impeachment made before this particular scandal broke):

I want to see every Republican go on the record and knowingly vote against impeachment of this president, knowing his corruption, having it on the record so that they can have that stain on their careers for the rest of their lives, because this is outrageous to protect the amount of lawlessness and corruption coming out of this presidency.

On the other hand, if this President is still not held accountable, even for something as outrageous as this, what else will he then feel entitled to do? At some point, we have to stop blaming him for all of this, if the rest of us are willing to just sit back and allow it all to happen.

From Timon of Athens:

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Congress must hold him in, as conmen.

Bye.

This week, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) became the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to end his campaign.

From All’s Well That Ends Well:

All’s Well That Ends Well

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Swalwell tells end: “Halt!”

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been hearing increasingly disturbing reports about conditions in the detention centers along the border. On Monday, a group from Congress went to visit these camps, and they found the claims to be true. According to Mother Jones, the House representatives report the situation is dire:

The testimony from members of Congress who had the rare chance to visit three Border Patrol facilities in Texas this week has been damning: detained women instructed to drink from toilets, pervasive verbal harassment by guards, and conditions that, for many, confirmed their worst fears of the Trump administration’s cruelty at the border.

The president for his part insists that he inherited the family separation policy that led to this situation from the Obama administration. This is, for lack of a better term, a complete bald-faced lie. The Trump administration would have you believe that this is a continuation of the Obama policy and that they were overwhelmed by a sudden increase in people trying to enter illegally. But they volunteered for this job. This situation was created by a policy of his own administration called “zero tolerance.” This meant, in theory, the arrest of anyone attempting to cross the border, but in practice, it included people legally seeking asylum as well.

Under the Obama administration, illegal border crossings were treated as a misdemeanor. Arrests were reserved for those suspected of serious crimes, like trafficking, and those rare instances did involve family separations. However, these were temporary. Under Trump’s policy, the family separations range in the thousands, and because of inadequate record-keeping, the families may not be reunited. Ever.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the cruelty being inflicted on the detainees is not due to a lack of resources, but rather, a deliberate policy choice. A Trump administration lawyer actually argued in court that they weren’t legally obligated to provide soap and toothpaste to detainees. What’s important to remember is that these are children. Their parents did not commit a felony in bringing them here. And even if they had, it would still be our obligation to treat them humanely. Desperately trying to defend the president’s policy, Brian Kilmeade accidentally said the quiet part out loud when he made the case to his viewers that everything’s okay, because these are not our kids.

Notice how he also frames the current crisis as being a result of increased immigration, rather than a deliberate policy decision, while at the same time affirming that the president is trying to send a message. When Kirstjen Nielsen, then Secretary of Homeland Security, was asked last year if the family separation policy was meant as a deliberate deterrent, she was shocked and insulted, and walked away as reporters continued to ask her the question. However, according to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, it was intended as a deterrent. Cruelty, it would seem, is the whole point.

This intentional performative cruelty has not only created a culture of viciousness among his supporters, but it has also permeated among those tasked with taking care of the detainees. Last week, ProPublica published an exposé of a secret Facebook page for current and former Border Patrol agents that revealed a mocking disdain for the detainees. The stench is noxious, but the fish rots from the head.

We can argue about whether or not our nation’s immigration policy has been strong enough, but no matter where you stand on that issue, the answer isn’t this. You can’t just say “Well, they broke the law” or “Blame the Dems” while families are being ripped apart and children languish in squalor. One hundred years from now, our children’s grandchildren will study this moment alongside the Japanese internment camps as a cautionary tale. We’re already there. Because it’s truly breathtaking that we’re committing such flagrant human rights violations so brazenly out in the open with so little public backlash.

This president likes to strut like a prizefighter, but he has a glass jaw. He will cave to public pressure, as he has done so many times before. We can’t lose our stomachs for this fight. Democrats have one chamber of Congress and the public microphone that goes along with a primary election. We are not without a voice here.

From Henry VI, Part Three:

And there it doth remain,
The saddest spectacle that e’er I view’d.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Let’s eradicate the set dirt-ridden hate camp.

We have to end this.

I’ve been resisting supporting impeachment (rhetorical jokes aside) because I think it’s generally harmful for the country, and all for what? President Mike Pence?

Even when the Mueller report was released, detailing an abundance of evidence of obstruction by the president, and an explicit invitation for Congress to take up the baton (volume 2, page 8), I still wasn’t fully convinced that impeachment was the best option.

I’ve now come around. His behavior since the Mueller report was completed has been far worse than anything that’s in the report, and that’s already a high bar. The difference now is that if his power isn’t checked, it could do long lasting damage to our democracy. President Pence would be bad, but we’d survive it.

The dishonest release of the Mueller findings was just the beginning. We then saw a blanket denial of all Congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony. He’s now starting a ridiculous mock investigation into the FBI to further the cover-up of his crimes. What is impeachment for, if not for this?

In other times, the President of the United States knowingly spreading doctored videos of the Speaker of the House to make her appear drunk or impaired would be the worst thing he did this week. Now, it barely makes the list.

And if he loses in court and a judge tells him to release the documents, and he still refuses, then impeachment may not be the best option. It might be the only option. And who knows what happens next?

From Macbeth:

And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Motherfucker lousily escalates a snowy indemnity.

Sorry about the language. That’s just how the letters worked out. And civility is so 2018.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Trump caved. Bigly.

So this wholly gaga shutdown has ended.

Now, a trial ahead.

The president is paying very close attention to an impending storm this week, and by that, I mean Paul Manafort’s cooperation with the Mueller investigation.

Manafort was candidate Trump’s campaign manager in the summer of 2016. If there was Russian collusion, he would likely have been in the loop. But that’s just the thing we know. This cooperation could potentially produce a long list of shady activities we wouldn’t have even known to ask about.

I won’t speculate any more about that, but if Mueller is cutting a deal, he must be getting something in return. What say you, Shakespeare?

From Henry VI, Part One:

Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Paul flips: a black portent for a cheat sheet.

From Macbeth:

Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause
Within the belt of rule.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Fear: Trump in the White House by clearheaded Bob and the calculated anonymous Times article mark the last stretch of this hurt lifeless vision.

John McCain, a war hero turned public servant, passed away yesterday at the age of 81.

From across the political spectrum, tributes too numerous for me to list or link poured in over old media and new media alike. In a moment of apartisan solidarity, I retweeted a touching sentiment from Sarah Palin:

Today we lost an American original. Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs. John never took the easy path in life – and through sacrifice and suffering he inspired others to serve something greater than self.

The current president’s tweet was a bit terser: “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

Brit Hume, of all people, reacted “Still not a kind word about McCain himself.” Indeed.

From Othello:

He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

He may sulk, hit hay at a giant he feels humiliated by.