No Smoke From That Gun

Good morning! Yesterday we received confirmation that the Mueller report confirmed that no, the President of the US was not actively conspiring with a foreign power to subvert his own election. So if that is your bar for presidential conduct, a winner is you!

(hint: avoid Fox News and similar 'news' outlets today, the panegyrics already published approach the level of Pravda during the Moscow Show Trials)

Meanwhile, everything moves to the next stage. Unlike the previous stage, where because of the era we live in, none of us were actually sure my first paragraph was true - and just consider that a moment - we have a really good idea of what comes next. Let me be kind and summarize this for you.

• The full report is released, under duress and due to Congressional subpoena. It details a staggering level of crimes that the special counsel could not indict the President for because, by DoJ statute, he can't.
• The Congress on a party-line vote immediately votes on and passes articles of impeachment against Trump (much like Clinton in '98).
• The Senate on a party-line vote declines to convict Trump after the pro-forma trial (much like Clinton in '99)
• The Election! Whee!

The real scandal isn't that Mueller didn't come up with a smoking gun that would have made Louise Mensch swoon, it is that we accept as normal conduct that would have made Warren Harding demur "you know, this might be a bit much". Need I remind everyone that this weekend's Trump reaction took place at his private golf resort, which he travels to almost every weekend at great public expense, which he sells access to and thus sells access to himself and his administration, and advertises this regularly without shame. It's not like a whole lot of detective work is required here to find my_crimes.txt.

For what needs to happen, I'll defer to Pete Buttigieg, who is currently #3 in Democratic polling (behind Biden and Sanders) despite being very young, gay, and saddled with a last name that begins with "Butt". Primarily because of statements like these:

I think a lot of folks are waiting for some piece of evidence to come along that finally proves once and for all that he's not a good guy. And what they forget is that there are a lot of people where I live, and maybe a lot of people around here too, who, knowing that he's not a good guy, walked into the voting booth and voted to burn the house down because of some very deep issues that motivated them to send a message. Some of which I think we should give no quarter to, like racism, but others of which deserve to be taken seriously.

We really need a full accounting of what happened. It may well be the case that the only appropriate response is impeachment, but to me the most decisive way to put an end to Trumpism is for it to be defeated massively at the ballot box.