th<\/sup> 2019<\/i><\/p>\nThis coming week will see live continuous broadcast of the impeachment hearings from Congress. The testimony is expected to be devastating for Trump, particularly in light of the fact that at this point, there is no doubt that he engaged in extortion and bribery in order to try to force the Ukraine government to fabricate a case against the son of Joe Biden, at the time his most likely rival in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
The GOP have already got the bad news that, by the very rules they set up themselves, they can\u2019t bring in witnesses that don\u2019t have any particular bearing on the issues at hand, so we won\u2019t be seeing Hunter Biden, or Monica Lewinsky, or Alex Jones, or Yosemite Sam. We\u2019ll be seeing the people who testified in closed sessions, and they will be spending the first half of their time being examined and crossed by professional lawyers, and the Congressmen will just have to wait to do their usual five minutes declaiming about how the Deep State caused Global Warming Which Doesn\u2019t Actually Exist, or whatever. In other words, they aren\u2019t going to be able to try by tantrum.<\/p>\n
Oh, and they already ruled out making the whistleblower testify publicly. I guess they figure he already got enough death threats from the Trumpentrash, who had to settle for assassinating the Trump balloon.<\/p>\n
Republicans are planning to swap out the comically inept Devin Nunes for a live cow…no wait, I misread that. They are planning to swap him out for the quicker witted and more vicious Jim Jordan, who is simultaneously trying to persuade prosecutors that he knew nothing\u2014nuffink\u2014about college athletes being raped on his watch. Nunes is the one suing the cow, I forgot. Creme of the crop, those two. So we won\u2019t see the hoped-for distraction circus of demands for birth certificates, who killed Ben Ghazi, or Newt declaiming that people who bang their secretaries while holding public office are disgraces to the nation and ought to be shot.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s all this coming week. Rachel Maddow isn\u2019t going to get a wink of sleep, but she\u2019ll be wearing a grin you would never want pointed right at you.<\/p>\n
For right now, the GOP is doing a magnificent impersonation of the Hindenburg disaster, minus any vestiges of sympathy for the people on board. \u201cOh, the serpentity!\u201d.<\/p>\n
The party is disintegrating before our very eyes. Usually off-off year elections, involving three or four states, grab little attention outside of the states in question. But this year the elections revealed a shift in the electorate of 20-30 points toward the Democrats in all locales and at it\u2019s biggest in the conservative suburbs. In Kentucky, Republicans were so dispirited they didn\u2019t even try to steal the election after the fact.<\/p>\n
Another Republican congressman announced his retirement, and I\u2019m guessing that between now and February, another dozen will decide not to run for reelection. That may include a couple of Senators.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Trump\u2019s Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, is suing Trump \u2013 yes you read that right. A president\u2019s chief of staff is suing him. Even the late unlamented Allan Drury would have trouble coming up with a political situation more bizarre than that one. He wants courts to affirm that he can be subpoenaed, and if he is, he must testify, and non-disclosure agreements be damned. Imagine Leo McGarry suing Jed Bartlet. No, I can\u2019t either. But that was a sane White House. In fact, until now, they\u2019ve all been at least more-or-less sane. Goofy and inept, but not flat-out mad. Welcome to Trumptown. Mulvaney, who gleefully copped to several of the most serious charges Trump is facing and told the world to \u201cjust deal with it\u201d is sane enough to know he needs a court to protect him from that madhouse.<\/p>\n
The State Department professionals are in open revolt against Trump and Pompeo for their treatment of personnel who were guilty of nothing more than obeying the law and serving the public interest. In particular they are furious over the treatment of Ambassador Yovanovitch, who was seen as a impediment to Trump\u2019s efforts at extorting the Ukraine in hopes of dirt on a political rival. Combined with similar reports from Justice, where Barr is seen as a pig and a disgrace, to the EPA and Department of Agriculture, who are being punished for being against pollution and admitting climate change is real, it looks like in-house coups are forming all over the place.<\/p>\n
I wonder what the Joint Chiefs of Staff are thinking. Have they decided what they are going to do if Trump unilaterally launches military action against Iran, or California?<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s John Bolton. He\u2019s mad as the mist and snow himself, but it\u2019s a integral kind of mad; he actually has some sort of moral pedestal he uses to support his views. So he\u2019s genuinely unhappy that Trump is kowtowing to North Korea and letting the Russians use him.<\/p>\n
The day before leaving office, and without telling Trump\u2014or anyone\u2014he unilaterally released $141 million of the $400 million in military aid to the Ukraine that Trump was holding up in hopes to getting dirt on the Bidens. Even Oliver North wasn\u2019t that audacious when he defied Congressional dictates. It was a stunning development in some genuinely interesting times.<\/p>\n
And this morning, he announced that he signed a book deal. I think even Trump is gonna figure that this isn\u2019t going to be a book on Bolton family recipes for lutefisk. Although what Bolton will discuss will smell even more evil. As Garrison Keillor said, \u201cthat piece of cod which surpasseth human understanding.\u201d Or John Randolph might describe at \u201clike a rotting mackerel in the moonlight, it alternately shines and stinks.\u201d Bolton may not be friends with Trump, but he\u2019s definitely going to be chummy.<\/p>\n
Bigger fish to fry this week. Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pre-Denouement Death by a thousand cuts for the GOP November 10th 2019 This coming week will see live continuous broadcast of the impeachment hearings from Congress. The testimony is expected to be devastating for Trump, particularly in light of the fact that at this point, there is no doubt that he engaged in extortion and … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Pre-Denouement — Death by a thousand cuts for the GOP”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,676,60,385,1],"tags":[884,443,677,353,899,897,351,780],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-congress","category-politics","category-trump-impeachment","category-uncategorized","tag-biden","tag-congress","tag-hearings","tag-impeachment","tag-jordan","tag-nunes","tag-trump","tag-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\nPre-Denouement -- Death by a thousand cuts for the GOP · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=769\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pre-Denouement -- Death by a thousand cuts for the GOP · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pre-Denouement Death by a thousand cuts for the GOP November 10th 2019 This coming week will see live continuous broadcast of the impeachment hearings from Congress. 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