This one came as no shocked to me.  Dwayne Bohac, a Republican state representative hailing from northwest Houston announced his retirement today.

In 2018, Bohac won by 72 votes out of about 50,000.

Bohac will best be remembered when a couple of sessions ago, he sponsored the Merry Christmas bill because his son’s school wished Happy Holidays instead. It got national attention but nothing else.

All the rest of Houston went blue in 2018, so Bohac chickened out.

That makes me smile.

It’s out. It sucks.

The newly released transcript of President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president shows that the president repeatedly pushed the Ukrainian government to investigate potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.

During his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the president brought up how much aid the United States delivers to his country and then started pressing him to work with personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and with Attorney General Bill Barr to look into allegations against Biden.

Bingo. Yahtzee.  Mother may I.

That right there is Treason with a capital I Need To Go To Jail.

Okay, what we need right now is for the four living ex-presidents to stand together and say he needs to go.  And take Rudy Guiliani and Bill Barr with him.

Update: Bill Barr went running to The Hill, saying, “What? Me worry?”

“The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine – on this or any other matter.  The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine – on this or any other subject. Nor has the Attorney General discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani,” Department of Justice Spokesperson Kerri Kupec said.

Yeah, right.

So it starts.  Two nights ago the right-wingers were all aflutter, excitedly posting that everyone should be sure to watch Hannity because he was going to drop the bomb on Biden and his son, Hunter, even predicting that Biden’s campaign was “cooked” and over.  What was the “bomb”?  The same old warmed over bullshit that Hannity always peddles.  Take whatever Trump is doing, turn it upside down, change the names and label it a Democratic scandal.  Never mind that the only sane person at Fox Noise, Shephard Smith, inoculated against their viewers earlier in the day telling his viewers that “this is not about Biden, it’s about the phone call.” How correct he was.

When news broke last week that there was a whistleblower complaint against Trump about this conduct in a call with Ukrainian president Zelensky, Trump hitman Rudy Giuliani went into full meltdown, shouting about some fictional corruption of Joe Biden.  That narrative the fell apart when news broke that Trump had ordered the freeze of some $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to put maximum pressure on Zelensky to force him to investigate the Bidens.  So, to be clear, Trump used the full power of the US government to damage his US political opponent.  When caught, his cronies have desperately tried to flip the story around that Trump wasn’t really trying to get Ukraine to open a fake investigation on Biden, but really trying to get Ukraine to clean up its own corruption (which coincidently happened to suddenly include Biden and his son Hunter).  It’s nonsense, but as we’ve discussed, totally predictable.

Then Nancy Pelosi happened.  Yesterday afternoon, in a serious speech to the nation, Pelosi announced the beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump.  The shift in politics was seismic.  To pile on Trump, word then got out that he had called Pelosi yesterday morning wanting to “work something out” about the whistleblower report that she’s demanding.  It’s reported that she told him that his people should follow the law.  That call to Pelosi was the tell that Trump has figured out that he’s screwed the pooch.  He’s in real trouble and that fact has finally penetrated the narcissistic fog within which he hides.  You can tell he knows just based on his speech which he barely got through and the remarks he made to the press prior to the speech.  He’s told so many lies that he can’t keep them straight, and is picking up the pace of lying trying to worm out of this one.  To wit:

1. Earlier this week, Trump admitted that he talked to Zelensky about Biden, but his first excuse was that it was to get Ukraine to crack down on corruption (supposedly Biden’s), and said that was why he was withholding the $400 million in military aid.  Yesterday he changed his story, saying he withheld it funding because European countries weren’t paying their fair share.
2. Trump is lying about European countries not paying.  The EU has already provided $16.5 billion in economic support of Ukraine after Russia’s attempt to annex the country.  Additionally, NATO has an active program in place to support Ukraine’s defense efforts.
3. He then said he’s leading in the polls.  That’s a blatant lie since he actually trailed Biden in recent polls by about 15 points nationally and trails Biden in the swing states.  He’s even trailing Warren nationally, even though he’s leading her in some swing states.
4. Then he said that since he’s leading in the polls, the only way “they” can get him is impeachment, which has “never happened before”.  See Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Andrew Johnson.
5. Lastly, Trump said that he put no pressure on Zelensky about Biden, but that Ukraine should clean up its corruption that Biden had supposedly engaged in.  He continues to lie about this even though the prosecutor in Ukraine that replace ousted Viktor Shokin (who actually was corrupt) publicly stated that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe Biden or his son Hunter.

For this tsunami of lies, the Washington Post awarded Trump 4 Pinocchios this morning.  Predictably, the Noise Machine is desperately trying to distract from yesterday’s disaster by whipping up “the Democrats did this,” “Joe Biden did that,” “Trump’s been investigated since he was born,” blah, blah, blah, but you can tell that the entire machine is on its heels, at least at this moment.

Will the system work and end this long national nightmare?  I don’t know yet, but you can feel the seismic shift in  our politics.  I continue to believe that as the cost of Trump goes ever higher, the Repubs will jettison him and throw him to the wolves.  We’re far from that yet, but you can see his iron grip starting to weaken.  Ousting him can’t happen too soon.

And while we’re watching the shiny impeachment announcement, Trump’s minions are rushing to finalize a change to Department of Agriculture rules that will kick 500,000 poor kids off of school lunch programs.  That’s right, Trump says the half a million poor kids are apparently no longer poor enough.

I certainly wish the Congress would hurry up.

Nancy Pelosi just announced a formal impeachment inquiry of the conduct of Donald Trump.  Here we go.  Let’s make some predictions…I would like to hear what others think.

My prediction: This is the beginning of the end for Trump.  As this proceeds and truth comes to light, I believe that the Republicans will FINALLY realize that the jig is up.  In order for them to have any chance at winning 2020, they need Trump out quickly so they can field some other candidate.  The veil will be lifted and everyone will run from him.  Wishful thinking?  I don’t think so.

What do you think?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to put a resolution on the House floor Wednesday to address the Ukraine scandal, amid growing calls to start the impeachment process against President Donald Trump, according to sources.

Right here.

“The guy who says he is calling around the globe to “root out corruption” had a campaign manager who is a felon, a deputy campaign manager who is a felon, a National Security Adviser who is a felon, a foreign policy advisor who is a felon, a personal lawyer who is a felon. But I’m sure he’s super worried about corruption Ukraine!”  Thanks to Deb T for that quote.