By Rex Huppke
Chicago Tribune |
Nov 01, 2019 | 5:00 AM
As another week of impeachment and striking teachers and wildfires comes to a close, I call to the nearest exorcist, “Say there, can you cast out these news demons inside me?” And as he begins the process, I stare blankly at the past seven days and mumble: “What the (BLEEP) just happened?”
Dems formalize impeachment, Republicans embrace dishonesty
After weeks of wildly inaccurate raging against the congressional impeachment inquiry “process,” Republicans got what they asked for: a House vote that formally authorized the inquiry and set up guidelines for upcoming public testimony.
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House Republicans responded by voting against the very thing they had stomped their feet and held their breath over, insisting the whole impeachment business was an unconstitutional hoax-sham concocted by George Soros-funded witches intending to overthrow the government, coup-style, and turn all Americans vegan, or something to that effect.
Not a single Republican voted in favor of the resolution.
So they hollered like someone stole their Super PAC money because the initial impeachment testimony was, appropriately and as it would be in a grand jury investigation, done behind closed doors. And then they hollered like someone stole the (maybe Russian) campaign money they got from the National Rifle Association because the next rounds of testimony will be public.
It was excellent foreshadowing of what’s to come as the impeachment inquiry moves into its public-facing phase, allowing Americans to hear testimony from longtime public servants and decorated military personnel who will be under oath, and compare their words with the rambling, conspiratorial blather of President Donald Trump and his Fox-News-addled legion of goons.
Regardless of what kind of Trump-ego-soothing nonsense House Republicans regurgitate, the facts at the center of the impeachment inquiry remain: It appears Trump took close to $400 million in congressionally approved military aid (i.e., taxpayer money) intended to help Ukraine fight off Russian attacks and used it to leverage the Ukrainian president to gin up dirt that might help Trump in the upcoming election.
That’s it in a nutshell. Either Republicans think it’s OK for a president to do something like that or they recognize it’s a violation of the president’s oath of office. And if they’re so confident the president did nothing wrong, why oppose an inquiry that might prove them right and make Democrats look mean and overzealous?
The Democrats, who have already amassed jaw-dropping evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing, drew a clear line and said the right side of history is on one side and the wrong side of history is on the other. Republicans darn near tripped over themselves getting to the wrong side.
Free tip for Republicans!
I’m just a liberal wacko hellbent on destroying America, or whatever, but here’s a quick thought to the few conservatives who have yet to sell their souls for a box of Trump steaks and a place in infamy:
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If you bounce the con man presently in the Oval Office, your party could still put together something like a Nikki Haley/Mitt Romney president/vice-president ticket. And with Fox News maintaining its jet-engine-decibel-level fearmongering about Democrats and socialism and such, that pair would have a serious chance of winning.
Don’t say I never did anything for you.
Teachers strike ends thanks to outlawed concept of “compromise”
In this age of intense polarization, the word “compromise” is heard only among wandering minstrels and misanthropes.
But somehow, some way, the Chicago Teachers Union and the city of Chicago managed to end a teachers strike that lasted 11 school days by — it’s difficult for me to even type the word — compromising.
The teachers got a pay increase, though they would’ve liked a larger one. They saw caps put on class sizes and got funding to have a social worker and a nurse in every school.
The teachers wanted all 11 days that were missed to be added on to the school year. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said no, so the two sides agreed Thursday to make up five missed days.
And with that, the city’s longest teachers strike since 1987 ended.
Ugly stuff, this compromise. I hope there weren’t any other politicians paying attention. It could really impede their ability to only settle for getting everything they want.
The feds LOVE charging Illinois Democrats with crimes!
State Rep. Luis Arroyo joined the Illinois Democrats’ “Charged-With-A-Federal-Crime Brigade” this week as a sprawling public corruption investigation continued to sprawl.
Arroyo, an assistant majority leader, was charged Monday with one count of federal program bribery. Prosecutors say he offered a state senator a $2,500-a-month kickback in exchange for the senator supporting gambling-related legislation that would help one of Arroyo’s lobbying clients.
Turns out the state senator was wearing a wire. Oopsie!
Arroyo joined state Sen. Thomas Cullerton and Chicago Ald. Edward Burke as the third elected official to be charged in an investigation that presumably has other Democratic lawmakers sweating like a door-to-door meat salesman in a house full of bears.
Wildfires threaten Reagan museum, trickle-down jokes abound
Wildfires devastated swaths of California this week, part of a deadly ongoing problem that, if you believe in science, involves higher temperatures and drier conditions stemming from climate change. If you don’t believe in science and think climate change is a hoax, the California fires can be blamed on insufficient leaf raking, as noted forestry expert and United States President Donald Trump has claimed.
Regardless, the fires approached peak irony as they surrounded the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California. The fires were beaten back not by capitalism but by government-paid firefighters and a government-funded program that uses goats to keep the potentially flammable vegetation surrounding the library at bay.
Fortunately, the building’s trickle-down fire suppression devices did not need to be activated.
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