January 28, 2020: Shaken Not Stirred, Knocking On The Senate' s Door, Dead Silence

“Mama, put impeachment in the ground
we won't use it anymore

that long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like knocking on the Senate's door
Knock, knock, knocking on the Senate's door
Knock, knock, knocking on the Senate's door”

       ----Parody of Bob Dylan's “Knocking on Heaven's Door”.

Former National Security advisor John Bolton's about-to-be published accounts of the inner working of the maladministration of our Caesar Disgustus has sent shivers down what is left of the Republican spine. Senator Collins, among others, has reportedly said that she is 'shaken' by the revelations. Shaken but not stirred.

No, there is no call to action. Instead the White House defense team is now claiming with a straight face that not only did the president not violate any law, but that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense.

The Democrats, ever able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, are losing this argument. Instead of pointing out that the president*(I) did indeed violate the law, they continue to focus on the quid pro quo of aid for dirt. The country doesn't give a damn about pressuring foreign countries to fabricate dirt on political opponents. The violations of political norms are what this guy was elected to do.

Instead the Democrats should be pointing out that withholding duly appropriated funds is a violation of the 1974 sequester act, passed in the wake of Watergate, which prohibits a president from sequestering or withholding funds that have been appropriated by congress. Caesar Disgustus has done this on at least two occasions: both with Ukraine and the sequestering of appropriations for the Department of Defense to spend on his god-damned Mexican wall. Moreover, he has violated a 1924 law requiring the production of his tax returns to duly authorized congressional committees. The argument that the country has no interest in his financial statements is laughable on its face, especially now that Bolton's book also is reportedly about to reveal special favors he has granted various authoritarian regimes—Turkey and China in this instance—both of which he has deep financial connection and obligation. The same can be said of Putin's Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel and others. In any case, the argument that Disgustus has violated no law is laughable.

Secondly, the administration is arguing with a straight face that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. Normally, this argument would get you thrown out of any law school in the nation, but the courts and the government has been stacked with graduates of Yale and Harvard and, therefore, novel interpretations of constitutional law have increasingly gained currency. The ignorance, indeed willful ignorance, of this proposition is breathtaking, as even a cursory reading of Hamilton and The Federalist Papers demonstrates. Indeed, the American Revolution was fought precisely about abuses of power.  Any sane reading of the Declaration of Independence reveals that what follows an assertion of the rights of man is nothing but a long list of abuses of power.  But this is what happens when one of Harvard's own, best known for defending O.J. Simpson and regularly appearing on Faux News to defend our Disgustus, is now a central player in a presidential impeachment proceeding.  Disgustus does nothing but make a mockery of every occasion.  

At the end of yesterday's session, the president's* defense team implored the Congress and the nation to bury this proceeding and end impeachment altogether; a subtle recognition that if the Senate acquits our national disgrace, he will inevitably be impeached again.  

And so, as Bolton knocks on the Senate's door, Moscow Mitch and Leningrad Lindsay hold their caucus to dead silence.

Shaken but not stirred.

An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Convict and Imprison.