Paying Attention

I admit that I haven't been paying much attention to national politics recently, immersed as I have been in local politics.  I am running as a local candidate, after all, and most of my attention has been focused there.  But, reading the papers this morning, I am a bit confounded at the news that Speaker Pelosi has decided to move forward on impeaching the President without a formal House vote to do so.

It’s also true, however, that Mrs. Pelosi has no precedent for what she has done, and by eliminating a House vote, she has denied the House minority the opportunity to be heard before Congress begins exercising its most formidable constitutional power short of declaring war: the process of removing an elected president.

I would think that before moving forward, Madam Speaker would first get a feel for the actual vote, but I'm sure that she has vote-counters on her staff.  I would like to know how individual Congress-critters voted.  Still, this sounds like an awfully fascist move on the Speaker's part.  Impeachment by fiat can't be a good idea.

I also see that Mr. Douthat, in another paper, is imploring Republican senators to go along with this farce.

That competition would be the next phase of our fast-forward: With Trump gone, everyone from Haley and Carlson to Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley could jump into an accelerated primary campaign against the unloved Republican “incumbent,” Mike Pence. The result would be, in effect, the 2024 G.O.P. primary four years early — with the possibility of either pre-empting a President Elizabeth Warren or preventing a Trump second term’s likely demolition of the G.O.P…

The thought of a Trump second term scares the living hell out of these people.  Just like the thought of a second Obama term scared the hell out of me.  Yet, we lived through it and I'm sure that the Democrats will live through a Trump second term.  They won't like it, but by-God, they'll get over it, and perhaps not field a candidate in 2024 that isn't bat-shit crazy (which is what the current crop of Democrat wannabees is shaping up to be).

Not one of their smears has taken hold, not one.  And, they are becoming increasingly strident in their demand that something, something, must be done to save the country.  Yet, not many of us out here in flyover country are interested in being saved.  We're simply content to lead our lives ad go about out business.

The Democrats have still not accepted the fact that Donald Trump won the election, fair ad square.  They are simply livid that they failed to resonate with huge chunks of the American people.