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| Facebook image I was informed was "meme logic," which until that instance, I didn't know was a thing. |
[From Newsweek] "I solemnly swear [or affirm, as the case may be] that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of [the person being impeached], now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God."
Mitch McConnell is 'in Literal Violation of His Oath' He Must Take for Impeachment Trail Says Government Professor, Christina Zhao, Newsweek
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States, Amendment XVII
The fix was in on the ratification of the 17th amendment in 1913.
Senators before then were appointed by their state legislatures in the event they might be jurors in a trial of impeachment. This was to ensure they wouldn't make decisions "based on politics" and would be unbiased, considering only the facts as presented by trial lawyers in charges towards the accused.
In recent days, McConnell indicated that he has held discussions with the White House to formulate an impeachment game plan to achieve a favorable outcome for Trump. "Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel," the senator told Fox News host Sean Hannity late last week. "There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this." The Republican also revealed that he will be working in "total coordination with the White House counsel's office and the people representing the president in the well of the Senate." Ibid
The purging of voters in Georgia and Wisconsin...the incessant search for nonexistent **voter fraud*** (mimicked by his mop head doppelganger in the UK), while slow-walking the protection of our elections from foreign interference...rejecting out-of-hand any witnesses that this present darkness of White House has blocked from ANY public testimony...openly stating you're WORKING with the plaintiff (Al Capone could have benefited from such hubris and rigged jury), holding up the "advise and consent" of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court AS IF Moscow Mitch knew he might get an opportunity to appoint two replacements with the NEXT president*...and if he didn't, he'd just stonewall any duties that didn't expand the borders of raw, naked fascist political power. To continue calling them republicans is an insult to actual republicans.
We are distracted by "smart phones" and dumb down apps on them. We're more versed in soundbites and slogans than civics or history. This ignorance is by design, despite a warning by the sage Frank Zappa. Indeed, how WOULD you know if someone's shredding The Constitution through a meat grinder if you DIDN'T know what was in it?
At the dawn of humanity, bartering was used in lieu of money to buy goods. As early man began to rear domestic livestock, one of the earliest forms of barter included cattle, sheep, as well as vegetables and grain.
The first known currency was created by King Alyattes in Lydia, now part of Turkey, in 600BC. The first coin ever minted features a roaring lion.
Coins then evolved into bank notes around 1661 AD. The first credit card was introduced in 1946.
The history of money: from barter to bitcoin, Rebecca Burn-Callander, The Telegraph
HOW would you know you're pockets are being picked by some rich fat cats that are amused they can make us scurry after each other like rats in a maze after the same block of cheese when all we're up in arms about artificial barriers: borders, Melanin, class; money. Concentrating on smaller things that make us "feel good" in the moment doesn't hold power or the powerful accountable for the mess they've made for profit. See Sacha Baron Cohen calling out the "silicon six."
Shiny objects like gold and silver replaced bartering; printed money replaced coins, bank and credit cards making wallets thinner each year. We're well past bartering and into cryptocurrency and legal tax evasion. A few clever assholes found a way to squirrel away more digital shiny objects in offshore accounts, not paying a dime in taxes to their host countries and bribing every elected official that will parrot repetitively a party line that's easy for rubes in red hats to follow. Face it: racism and fear is all they've shoveled out; NOTHING has ever bothered to "trickle down" since Reagan, or paid a single bill, healthcare costs or college. It's time to give up believing the shtick. They sure don't, but they'll use it as long as it works. It will work until it doesn't work, or like Rome we become a mausoleum and interstellar tourist trap for failed planetary systems. A byword. A joke.
Who asked Franklin the question that sparked his witty response? It was Elizabeth Willing Powel, a pivotal woman of the founding era who has been erased from this story. Her erasure not only creates a founding-era political history artificially devoid of women, but it also makes it harder to imagine contemporary women such as Pelosi — or Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — as political leaders.
The first record of the anecdote appears in a 1787 journal kept by one of the delegates to the convention, James McHenry of Maryland. He wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
What we get wrong about Ben Franklin’s ‘a republic, if you can keep it’, Zara Anishanslin, Washington Post
Yes. He is impeached. After the dismal speechifying by his GOP interlocutors and miserable defense of the indefensible. Whether he is removed is up to a dysfunctional senate that has publicly admitted bias and willingness to release a criminal, a move who's only parallel is the outgoing, asshole former Governor Matt Bevin, pardoning a pedophile as his last dick move on the way out, corroborating he never should have been elected in the first place. Speaker Nancy Pelosi delaying sending it to the senate was suggested by Harvard professor and constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe. It was a master stroke. It was also poignant that her opening remarks identified the Russian agent as an existential threat to our republic. Our own republic is threatened from within by republicans that have no semblance of respecting the rule "of the people and by the people," but by our own nauseous version of Russian oligarchs, empowered by the Orwellian "Citizens United." When you have to purge half a million votes to "win" elections, you likely don't have any platform that's amendable to most citizens.
But in the end, will we have a republic, or a crumbling facade on a dung hill? To not speculate on worse-case scenarios is both hubris and naivete. Entropy is the second law of thermodynamics: over time, the system will either increase change - from order to chaos - or remain the same. The second law can be aptly applied to political systems.
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 ESV
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