Another great read, this time by David Frum about Trump’s lawbreaking to retaliate against the person identified as reporting his past lawbreaking.  Must read.

Trump ordered the hold on aid to Ukraine less than two hours after the fateful July 25th call with Zelensky.  The email was revealed over the weekend, part of a Freedom of Information Act  lawsuit judgement issued late last week.  The lawsuit had been filed by the Center for Public Integrity.

The email came from OMB official Michael Duffy and was to the DoD, ordering the halt on the funds.  Chuck Schumer has Duffy on the the witness list that the WH and Mitch McConnell is blocking.  Shumer’s list is short but telling.  He wants to hear from Duffy, Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, and Mulvaney aide Robert Blair.

Witnesses for innocent people are always allowed to testify.  These aren’t.  Draw your own conclusions.

Yesterday I talked about how Trumpists flocked to their latest article of faith that Trump isn’t really impeached because the House hasn’t transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate.  There is no basis in law or fact for that belief, but it’s there anyway, virally spreading throughout Trumpland.  During our Trumpist infestation we experienced yesterday that was the recurring theme.  These trends often start as a joke or a hoax, sometimes on satire sites, but quickly morph into viral proliferation by those who desperately cling to anything that supports their predisposed beliefs.  Here’s the Google trend line for searches this week on “Trump not impeached”:

And, as you would imagine, the regions that have the most searches are the red states.  There’s new viral rumor now growing in Trumpland and that is, now that Trump is impeached, he’s automatically eligible to run 2 more times.  That is REALLY stupid, and is completely unsupported both in the Constitution including the 22nd Amendment.  It started as a “joke” in October, but really took off this week, spreading across right wing pages by Trumpists.  Here’s the Google trend line for “Trump can run for third time”:

This kind of proliferation is what makes brainwashing so nefarious.  Many of the Trumpists’ comments during our infestation yesterday were repeating absolute nonsense, Russian propaganda, boasting, taunting, and personal insults.  None of the dozens of comments we received were based in any kind of fact; all taunted; none were even reasonable.

With rampant propaganda proliferated over social media facts or truth no longer matter.  Worse, Trump’s Twitter account amplifies these lies.  Every time he tweets one of his insults, childish taunts, threats, or lies,  it goes out to millions or users, retweeted thousands of times.  In the hands of an immoral politician like Trump, social media is weaponized for the dark side.  You can see it, but can also measure it.  Here’s the search terms “Burisma” and “Hunter Biden”:

These trends follow Trump’s twitter feed and those who support him.  Nobody ever even heard of Burisma, and few were even aware of Hunter Biden until Trump, Giuliani, and the Noise Machine started repeating it.  And, they almost got away with it; were it not for the whistleblower, Ukraine would have announced an investigation of the fabricated Russian story that Ukraine was the bad actor in 2016, and Biden’s chance to become the Democratic presidential nominee would have been destroyed.

Integrity matters, but evil can easily run over integrity because brainwashing works really well.  And THAT threatens our republic more than any outside force.

We know the conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and his henchman, Rudy Giuliani is nonsensical.  Every intelligence agency says it’s nonsensical.  During House impeachment hearings, former US intelligence officer and Russian specialist implored Republican congressmen to stop repeating Russian propaganda that it was Ukraine, not Russia, who interfered in the 2016 election.  The entire story is bullshit, and we KNOW it’s bullshit.

Ever wonder where the story came from and why Trump repeats it ad nauseam?  Well, the Washington Post dropped the bombshell this week that Putin himself planted the story in a private meeting during the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg, when he began publicly repeating the story.  The meeting, and the subsequent meeting in Helsinki had NO US OFFICIALS PRESENT and there are no notes of the meetings.  We all knew it was stupid for Trump to meet with Putin alone, now we’re beginning to understand the depth of that stupidity.  The Post used interviews with former WH officials to confirm the story.

Let’s recap.  Trump withheld Congressionally appropriated funds to Ukraine to extort the announcement of an “investigation” into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election using the fabricated story that Joe Biden and his son hunter were somehow involved in Ukrainian corruption.  When caught, he immediately released the funds and claimed what dozens of people saw didn’t really happen.  Then he defied all subpoenas for documents, ordered current and former officials to not testify, and repeatedly lied to the public about what is really going on.  The narrative he uses on a daily basis likely came directly from Putin, a former KGB officer.

Christ on a Crutch.  This is about as bad as it gets while Trumpists scream there is no evidence, no wrongdoing, and all of this is just made up by Democrats.  Sheesh.

This morning we’re experiencing an infestation of Trumpists who apparently don’t like our new MAGA hat design.  We’re fumigating the Salon right now.  The comments are the usual, with childish name calling, baseless boasting, and the occasional threat of violence because they disagree with us.  One of the recurring themes of these comments was “Trump isn’t impeached because Pelosi hasn’t sent the articles to the Senate”.  This talking point started in the last day or so, fueled by Harvard law professor Noah Feldman (yes, the same Noah Feldman who testified in favor of impeachment a couple of weeks ago) making the argument that Trump’s not impeached until the Senate gets the articles.  Almost every other legal scholar disagrees, including Jonathan Turley, the only legal expert to testify against impeaching Trump during the House investigation.  Even Feldman admitted that the issue is more “symbolic than practical”.  The Constitution says that the House has the “sole power to impeach”.  It doesn’t say anything about it having to go to the Senate to be an impeachment.  The Senate has the “sole power” to hold the trial.  I wouldn’t count on McConnell doing anything legal or Constitutional.  After all, he sat on Obama’s SCOTUS nominee for a year, never holding one single hearing or even meeting the nominee.

That doesn’t matter to Trumpists and the talking point has taken off in the echo chamber, as most RW bullshit does, proliferating on websites, and, of course, Fox Noise.  Like all other of their memes and silly arguments their false indignation has nothing to do with the law, Constitution, or even basic morals, but all about tribe.  Their spray painted, bad combed over cheesy reality television star is not a felon who pays bribes to porn stars and extorts foreign leaders for self gain, he’s “a real person”, “salt of the earth”, and even…wait for it…”sent by God.”  Statements that make normal people slack jawed are articles of faith for Teabaggers-cum-Trumpists.  It’s weird, but very consistent.

Anyhoo, back to fumigating.

Here’s our new Salon design for 2020…A MAGA cap with the iconic Number 3 standing for Trump’s position in the line of impeached presidents, and on the back, George Conway’s now trending hashtag #impotus.

Nice, eh?