Some Housekeeping at the End of the Teens

I have been blogging since 2004, which is fifteen years. I have been contributing to the Jon Swift Roundup since  2010 which is ten years now. I had originally met “Batocchio” when he was substituting for Mike Finnegan at “Mike’s Blog Roundup” on Crooks and Liars, which has been a fan and promoter of my blogging  for more than a decade now (going back to 2007) and past Mike’s retirement a few years ago. [Most recently, HERE]

Batocchio, who has taken on this thankless task explains:

This tradition was started by the late Jon Swift/Al Weisel, who left behind some excellent satire, but was also a nice guy and a strong supporter of small blogs. As usual, I’ll quote Lance Mannion, who nicely explains:

Our late and much missed comrade in blogging, journalist and writer Al Weisel, revered and admired across the bandwidth as the “reasonable conservative” blogger Modest Jon Swift, was a champion of the lesser known and little known bloggers working tirelessly in the shadows . . .One of his projects was a year-end Blogger Round Up. Al/Jon asked bloggers far and wide, famous and in- and not at all, to submit a link to their favorite post of the past twelve months and then he sorted, compiled, blurbed, hyperlinked and posted them on his popular blog. His round-ups presented readers with a huge banquet table of links to work many of has had missed the first time around and brought those bloggers traffic and, more important, new readers they wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

It may not have been the most heroic endeavor, but it was kind and generous and a lot of us owe our continued presence in the blogging biz to Al.

I received my first invitation in 2o1o, thusly:

If, Mitch, this is a POLITICAL process …

UPDATED BELOW

Then, one ought to applaud the political pragmatism of this potential strategy:

Some House Democrats push Pelosi to withhold impeachment articles, delay Senate trial
Mike DeBonis / Washington Post

—  A group of House Democrats is pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders to withhold the articles of impeachment against President Trump that are expected to emerge on Wednesday, potentially delaying a Senate trial for months.

Indeed, given the current GOP sneering and open incitements to scuttle the process altogether (Sen. Majority leader Mitch “Merrick Garland, Who’s That?” McConnell has sighed openly that this is a “political process” — meaning, evidently, that the Machiavelli Rules apply exclusively) it is the only policy that makes sense.

Murdering the Rule of Law

December 16: Birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, of Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick.

We begin with William Webster, former US Federal Judge and FBI Director under Carter and Reagan:

I Headed the F.B.I. and C.I.A. There’s a Dire Threat to the Country I Love.
William Webster / New York Times

… The country can ill afford to have a chief law enforcement officer dispute the Justice Department’s own independent inspector general’s report and claim that an F.B.I. investigation was based on “a completely bogus narrative.” In fact, the report conclusively found that the evidence to initiate the Russia investigation was unassailable.

… Calling F.B.I. professionals “scum,” as the president did, is a slur against people who risk their lives to keep us safe. Mr. Barr’s charges of bias within the F.B.I., made without providing any evidence and in direct dispute of the findings of the nonpartisan inspector general, risk inflicting enduring damage on this critically important institution.

That is a 96-year-old “by-the-book” civil servant of unimpeachable credentials (pun intended) screaming his disgust at the slurring of the machinery of Justice by Messrs. Barr and Trump.

SCOTUS sells US out

 Pete Williams / NBC News:

Supreme Court agrees to consider whether Trump’s tax records should be released  —  By granting review of these cases now, the justices made it possible for them to be heard during the current court term.  —  WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear President Donald Trump’s appeal …

The Supreme Court waited a day so as not to plop this jurisprudential turd on the American table.

USA TODAY Comes Out For Impeachment

There it is, just hot off the pixel presses:

USA TODAY’s Editorial Board: Impeach President Trump

The president’s Ukraine shakedown and stonewalling are too serious for the House to ignore: Our view  —  “Put your own narrow interests ahead of the nation’s, flout the law, violate the trust given to you by the American people and recklessly disregard the oath of office, and you risk losing your job.”

USA TODAY’s Editorial Board wrote those words two decades ago when it endorsed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Now, in graver circumstances with America’s system of checks and balances at stake, they apply to another president facing impeachment, Republican Donald Trump.…

Some highlights:

A Nation of Men and Not of Laws

Here is the full transcript of AG Billy Barr’s rejection of the Inspector General’s report that the FBI had done nothing wrong in opening an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election (warning, he uses his own “facts”):

Trump’s Tendential Temper Tantrum

You have to read it to believe it:

Trump calls Trudeau ‘two-faced’, cancels press conference and leaves Nato summit early after video of world leaders making fun of him
Jon Sharman / The Independent

Donald Trump has reacted furiously to footage of world leaders apparently making fun of him, calling Justin Trudeau “two-faced” then cancelling a press conference and cutting short his attendance at a Nato summit….

I really don’t care what you think about Donald Trump — whether you believe him to be the Antichrist or the Second Coming — this behavior is unacceptable by ANY human being occupying the White House.

Captain Combover and the Coefficient of Fiction

Barr doesn’t accept key inspector general finding about FBI’s Russia investigation

Washington Post —  Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information …

Future president John Adams concluded his defense of the Boston Massacre soldiers thusly: