Month: December 2019

Drama For Nothing

The impeachment soap opera continues.

The House has impeached Trump but now, they’re not sure whether or not they’re going to send the article of impeachment to the Senate because they feel they won’t get a “fair’ trial.

Which is another way of saying that they know the Senate is not going to remove Trump and they want to keep the “impeached” talking point going through November of 2020.

In other words, all of yesterday’s sturm and drang was for nothing.

This is the third day in a row that I’ve written about impeachment.  Unless Pelosi is actually going to send the articles to the Senate, I’m done talking about it.  If the House Democrats really are just going to sit on this, then this performative drama has been an insult to not only everyone who thinks the President should be removed but also to everyone who thinks he deserves acquittal.

This is not the way to run an impeachment.

Who Would Have Guessed Impeachment Could Be So Boring?

Today, the House is impeaching the President and never has the process felt more tedious.

6 hours of speeches, none of which are going to move the needle on impeachment.  More than 6 hours of breathless coverage from CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and all the other news channels.  The more excited they get in Washington, the less anyone seems to care about it in the rest of the country.

Supposedly, we’ll get to the vote sometime this evening and it’s a foregone conclusion that the Trump will be impeached, on party lines.  It will then eventually make its way to the Senate, where Trump will be acquitted.  Never has a “somber moment” in American history felt more pointless.

Why I Haven’t Said Anything About The Biggest Story In America Right Now

I haven’t said anything about impeachment because I think this whole thing is a waste of time.  20 Republicans are not going to join the Democrats in voting to remove the president.  It’s not going to happen.  (And, considering that Joe Manchin and Doug Jones are in the Senate, it would probably be more of a case of needing 21 or 22 Republicans to vote to remove.)

If you want to get rid of Trump, concentrate on nominating a candidate who doesn’t turn off voters outside of New York and California.  Nominate a candidate who will actually campaign instead of taking the election for granted.

If anything, all of this impeachment nonsense appears to just be making Trump a stronger candidate in 2020.  The Democrats are worrying so much about keeping the online left happy that they’re setting themselves up for second Trump term.

Congress Is Set To Ban The Sale Of Tobacco To Anyone Under 21

The Nanny State strikes again!

Congress set to ban sale of tobacco to anyone under 21: reports

Did America elect Michael Bloomberg president while I was in the UK?  From what I can tell, the people who are enthused about this are the same people who thought New York’s soda ban was a good idea.

Banning the sale of tobacco to anyone under 21 isn’t going to make people smoke less.  It’ll just create a while new market demographic for those who sell cigarettes illegally.  Prohibition makes for a good soundbite but it’s rarely effective as an actual policy.

My main question is the obvious one: How are we going to tell an 18 year-old kid that he can die for his country but he can’t legally buy a pack of cigarettes?

 

Bernie And Cenk

From The Hill:

Sanders Revokes Congressional Endorsement For Young Turks Founder Cenk Uygur

When I first saw that headline, I thought that it made Bernie Sanders sound weak.  I thought to myself, “If you’re going to be stupid enough to endorse an asshole like Cenk Uygur, at least have the guts to stick with it.”

Reading the article, though, Sanders didn’t so much unendorse Cenk as he merely acknowledged that many of his supports had expressed concerns about himself.  Cenk Uygur, himself, gave Sanders an out by announcing that he would not be accepting any endorsement from anyone during his congressional campaign.  Cenk says that he doesn’t want to be obligated to anyone when he reaches Congress, though a more believable reason would be that Cenk knows that he’s not going to get many endorsements and that many of those who have endorsed him are now probably having second thoughts.  If people are currently upset about Cenk’s comments about sex, just wait until they discover his comments about the Armenian genocide.  Cenk’s rejecting them before they can reject him.

One of the positive things about Cenk Uygur’s decision to run for Congress has been the discovery that the progressive grassroots apparently think as little of Cenk as the rest of us do.  (For all the attention that the Young Turks receives, it’s always seemed that the majority of its fans were other members of the media.)

One final note: My favorite Cenk Uygur story was that, when Al Jazeera took over Current TV in 2013, Cenk was the only Current TV host to express any interest in becoming a part of Al Jazeera America.  Al Jazeera, at that point desperately trying to establish themselves as a legitimate American news channel, turned him down.

When not even Al Jazeera wants you…

A Good Night For The UK, A Great Day For Me

I’ve been in London, visiting family and friends, since Monday.  When I first got here, it seemed like there was a feeling of doom over the entire city.  My family was worried that, despite polls showing a slim (if tightening) Conservative lead, Corbyn would somehow end up as PM.  Meanwhile, the Corbynistas, of which there are many in London, seemed to be increasingly convinced that, even if Corbyn didn’t score an outright victory, a hung parliament would force Johnson out of power.

Well, it turns out that, as usual, the rumors of Boris Johnson’s demise were greatly exaggerated.  Last night, the Tories not only won the election but they did so in such decisive fashion that the election results can only be interpreted as a rejection of Jeremy Cobyn and the anti-Semites that he has allowed to surround him.  The Conservaties now have 364 seats.  Labour has only 203, which is actually an improvement on the exit poll were predicted that Labour would end up with only 191.  The SNP wiped Labour out in Scotland.

I was up until five in the morning, watching the results.  I didn’t go to sleep until the Tories had their majority.  When I went to sleep, I was feeling very good.  This afternoon, walking around London and seeing dejected and miserable Corbyn supporters bemoaning the loss of the election, I felt great.  Boris Johnson may or may not be a good PM.  I have my doubts about him but he’s not Jeremy Corbyn and for that reason, I am thankful for his victory.

I’ll be returning home to America tomorrow.  I wonder if the Democrats will learn any lessons from Corbyn’s collapse.  I doubt it.

I’m Going To The UK Next Week. Hopefully, It Won’t Be For The Last Time.

I’m going to be in the UK for a few days next week, visiting family.  I will be there on the 12th when the general election is held and, while it looks like the Tories will remain in control of the government, there’s still a part of me that’s nervous that the polls will be wrong or that the Tories will underperform and we will somehow end up with Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn.

(When you have someone like Corbyn in a position to potentially take power, there’s no way that you can’t be nervous, regardless of what the polls may say.)

If you’re wondering why so many people, including members of my own family, have declared that they will leave the UK if Corbyn ever moves into 10 Downing Street, I would suggest reading the Jewish Labour Movement EHRC report, which details not only the antisemitism that is currently infecting the Labour Party but also Corbyn’s weak response to battling it.  When Corbyn was first became leader, I think a lot of us assumed that he was just an old Marxist who lacked the backbone to stand up to the fringes of his party.  Now, after four years of his leadership, it’s become apparent that Corbyn is as much a part of the fringe as the crazies who post memes about the Rothschilds on Facebook.

I’m looking forward to being in the UK next week.  Hopefully, it won’t be for that last time.

 

It’s Been a Day and A Half Since Kamala Harris Was A Presidential Candidate

Kamala Harris dropped out of the presidential race yesterday.  When she first declared, I thought she would probably be the Democratic nominee.  How wrong I was.

Why did Harris’s campaign fall apart so dramatically?  There’s been a lot of speculation but I personally think her campaigm was pretty much finished the minute Tulsi Gabbard attacked her during the July debate.  If you can’t handle debating Tulsi Gabbard, how are you going to handle running against Trump?  Harris was one of those candidates who did fine as long as she was dealing with a sympathetic audience and in control of the conversation.  But, much like Warren, she struggled whenever she was asked any tough questions about her proposals.

I guess it’s time to admit that Joe Biden, as strange and senile as he appears to be, is probably going to be the Democratic nominee.