Just the Facts, Ma'am

The smart thing would have been for Republicans to lay low, let the Democrats carry out their impeachment inquiry, and then reject it in the Senate. There's no way the Dems will be able to muster the 67 votes necessary to carry impeachment through the Senate.

Instead, we see the Republicans turning the impeachment inquiry into a three-ring circus. It seems that a lot of incumbent Republican representatives and senators are worried about getting "primaried," so they are showing their unquestioning support for Trump in the face of the insurmountable evidence brought against him by civil servants in his employ. The coup de grace may very well be the testimony of John Bolton, who has a big bone to pick with Trump. What then?

It was better for Republicans that the Democrats kept the inquiry behind closed doors. That way they could make up whatever damn fool lie they liked to the public. Now, it will all be out in the open for everyone to hear and so far it has been pretty ugly with all the grandstanding the Republicans have been doing.

Defending the indefensible is tough. Basically, you have to throw all the allegations back on the Democrats, as Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia tried to do in challenging Rep. Adam Schiff to testify himself. One of the Republicans' canards is that Schiff coaxed the testimony out of the infamous whistleblower that got this inquiry going, and Republicans are determined to carry this unfounded rumor to the bitter end.

It doesn't matter than many more persons have since come forward verifying the whistleblower's account of the infamous "perfect call," or that Trump and Mulvaney admitted to the extortion racket themselves, Republicans continue to insist that Trump did nothing wrong in pressuring Ukraine to re-open an investigation against the Bidens in exchange for military aid.

The odd thing is that Trump held up the Congressional-approved aid for months, waiting to see what he could get out of Ukraine. His sidekick Rudy thought he had a hot lead, only to now find himself under investigation for rubbing shoulders with the wrong guys. Republican Congressmen should be outraged the President overstepped their authority on the matter, which they initially were, but now seem to be in full complicity with the President's actions. Not a single GOP representative voted for the formal impeachment inquiry, and Senator Lindsey Graham actually tried to block the impeachment inquiry, but was shot down by a federal judge.

All the Republicans have managed to do is call even more attention to the impeachment that threatens to lay out a very compelling case against Donald J. Trump. The Senate may not uphold the impeachment, but voters very well may do so next year, as the majority of Americans favor the inquiry.

How this support breaks down along state lines remains to be seen. As long as the electoral college is still in place, Donald J. Trump has a fighting chance to win another term. However, this does not bode well for incumbent Republican Congresspersons, especially Senators in so-called "purple states," which may very well swing Democrat this time around. Some of the anticipated casualties include Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Martha McSally of Arizona, who is currently filling John McCain's seat. This is why most Republican Senators are laying low, unlike Lindsey Antebellum, who figures that his home state South Carolina won't vote Democratic in a million years, despite his meager approval ratings.

As for Trump, he is making it all about himself, laughingly claiming once again that no president has had it tougher than he has in the White House. You would think this endless whining would turn his base off. They voted for him thinking they finally had a tough guy in the Oval Office. Instead, they have the ultimate drama queen, turning Washington into a perpetual reality show, topping the television ratings.

The key for Democrats is to not let themselves get sidetracked by all the distractions. They have to stay focused, do their best to stay unruffled like Sgt. Joe Friday. "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

TripplerNovember 1, 2019 at 10:55 PM
I am not entirely sure that Trump's offer of $ in return for damaging "evidence" against an opponent constitutes a "high crime and misdemeanor" that will result in a conviction in the Senate. On that basis alone I am not convinced this inquiry will be productive as one might hope in order to rid the USA and world of the menace that is Trump. But a number of conspirators in the Trump regime have found their sorry butts in prison for their crimes. And it makes me wonder how Trump could escape prosecution for his role in their crimes. If some linkage could be found between his conduct and theirs, this would be more than sufficient to meet the high crimes and misdemeanors criteria set in the Constitution. Let us hope this will be found by Congress and soon.
James FergusonNovember 2, 2019 at 2:15 PM
The Senate wouldn't convict either way, which is why I'm surprised the Republicans are making such a fuss, unless there is some truly damning testimony that emerged behind closed doors. It's not just the phone call, but all the lead up that resulted in that "perfect call" plus the attempts by the State Dept. and DOJ to cover it up. I think this is what is really damning but the Republicans choose to look the other way.

Dispatches from Vilnius

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