Tuesday 10 December 2019

The Impeachment articles, Yay! The Impeachment articles, Booh!

Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey, Doc
and Schifty at podium
So, I have to mark here the historic happening: for only the third time in American history, an American president is about to be formally impeached, after the House of Reps, via Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her acolytes, announced this evening (HK time) the Two Articles of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump, president of the United States.
I wonder if I can report this in with the “cruel neutrality” of my favourite blogger, Ann Althouse? That is, can I manage to do so without any confirmation bias?

Let’s see...

a.  Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler and others have all said that the “facts are uncontested”. That is not true, for they are contested by half the Congress, for a start. And by commentators and the broad masses of the American people, where about half the population contests the “facts”.  The only uncontested facts are the words in the July 29 transcript of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president, because they are in the public record as an official transcript.
Thereafter it’s all mind-reading, because they are talking about Trump’s intent. It is as easy to imagine his intent was to uncover corruption in the 2016 election (Reps) as it is to imagine intent to “get dirt” (Schiff’s words) for the 2020 election (Dems). I mean, that’s a fact.
Reading anyone’s mind, let alone one as scattered as the Donald's, is always impossible, “problematic” as they say. Think you know what motivates someone? No, you don’t. Or if you do, it’s only a lucky guess. Another guess, of mine: that’s why they broadened out the first article to “Abuse of power”, not just to the alleged “bribe”.  The second article, “obstruction of Congress” again seems a bit of a catch all.

b.  Pelosi, et. al. also say “the impeachment is not political,  it’s our duty to the Constitution”. However, it is nothing but political.
There is not one Democrat that doesn’t support impeachment and there is not one Republican who does.
This is in contrast to both the previous impeachments, which had some cross party agreement. Thus, the Trump impeachment is 100% political.
We know where it will end. It has to go to the Senate for a trial. And there it will die, because there can’t be the two-thirds vote to have Trump step down.

c.  Meantime, the polls show that impeachment is not working for the Dems as Trump’s numbers, even in the battleground states, are up.

So, one wonders.

It does appear, even to one as non-conformationally biased, that they had it in for Trump from the moment he won the election. They have seen him as an interloper, a blow-in, a blow-hard, not fit for office, etc, etc.  and called for impeachment the moment he took the oath.

And that’s a fact... Contest it if you will, but do it in November 2020.

ADDED: Don Lemon melts down at what’s really a pretty funny meme.... and has only spread it further.  And it’s still pretty funny.... isn’t it??  And Lemon melting down is also pretty funny....

LATER: at first I thought Scott Adams was exaggerating when he described it, but he wasn’t!