And those who had lied for hire;
the perverts, the perverters of language . . . 
     Ezra Pound "Canto XIV"

Hey, Lindsey and Tom, I’ve read Emmanuel Kant, and you’re no Emmanuel Kant (Though You Might Qualify as Lindsey and Tom Cant)

Dig these arguments.

Argument 1

Lindsey Graham:  There’s no quid pro quo because Trump didn’t explicitly say, “Hey, man, unless you dig up some dirt on Hunter Biden, we’re not going to sell you any more weapons.”[1]

No, Trump said after President Zelensky mentioned purchasing more Javelin missiles from the US, “Hey, man, we’ve done a lot for you, you not so much for us.  I need a favor.  Dig up some dirt on Hunter Biden.”

See, it can’t be a quid pro quo unless it’s spelled out explicitly.  He needed to say “no dirt on Biden, no weapons.”

We’ll just ignore that soliciting a foreign national to aid in an election is against the law.  Gotta have an explicit quid pro quo.  No explicit quid pro quo, impeachment a no go.

Argument 2

Tom Cornyn: The Whistleblower wasn’t present during the call.  It’s second and third hand information, which automatically renders his claims invalid.

Of course, Linda Tripp wasn’t present when Monica Lewinski performed fellatio on President Clinton, but as the poet says, “But that was in another [century], and besides the wench is dead.”

Shall I lower myself to make an argument by analogy?  The hearsay argument is like the rumors about this year’s Folly Gras celebration on beautiful Folly Beach, SC.  People there described a drunken shitshow.  I mentioned it some off-island friends, but they dismissed my account as secondhand and therefore not credible, even though scores of eye-witnesses agreed on what transpired.

But wait, back to DC.   Hey, Tom, it seems to me like the transcript memo was pretty damned accurate.  Also, there might be a witness or two who might corroborate?

You’re gaslighting, my man.  You’re from Texas, right?  Remember the Alamo.

Non-Readers

Here’s a partial list of Republican Senators who haven’t bothered to read the nine-page eloquently clear whistleblower complaint:

Mitt Romney

Martha McSally

Lisa Murkowski

Rob Portman

Tim Scott (who had started reading but hadn’t finished it yet)[2]

Todd Young

Mike Baun

Makes you wonder if they’ve ever read the Constitution.  Most Pocket Constitutions consist of 34 pages, and the prose isn’t nearly as accessible.

Anyway, this scandal pales compared to the fact that Hillary stored her emails on a secret server.

Oh Wait, But There Is a Super Duper Private Server Where the Administration Hides Trump’s Conversations with Foreign Leaders

 From Carol E Lee of NBC News:

The whistleblower, whose complaint is at the heart of calls for an impeachment inquiry into Trump, also asserted that White House officials have misused the classified system multiple times to bury “politically sensitive” information detailed in records of the president’s interactions with world leaders. Former and current intelligence officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that, if true, such misuse should spark an investigation into the potential mishandling of a classified system.

Oh, by the way, Tom, the validity of this story about the secret server has been corroborated, which brings to mind that old saw that “it’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.”

We shouldn’t Tax Obliterated Attention Spans with These Damning Extra Added Complications

Although named in Trump’s call as a potential intermediary in digging up dirt on Biden’s son, Attorney General William Barr hasn’t recused himself, and he gets to decide who gets prosecuted.

World Leader Zalensky bragged in the call that he stays at Trump Hotels in New York, which brings to mind that constitutional bagatelle, the Emoluments Clause.

Oh, yeah, and Trump’s suggestion that it would be smart like in the good ol’ days to execute whoever leaked to the whistleblower, which sounds somewhat like witnesses tampering.

Anyway, I’m about to hit 500 words, so I better quit in the off chance my junior senator Tim Scott stumbles across this little piece of debased liberal propaganda.

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[1] “Any more weapons in your war against my BFF Vladimir.”

[2] Boooor-ing