Blumenthal getting swabbed
“I don’t know what
other option we have” – Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy
The Blumenthal quip most often repeated during the U.S.
Senator’s long 46 year reign in Connecticut’s Democrat Party politics was and
is: “There is no more dangerous spot in Connecticut politics as that between Blumenthal
and a television camera.” His appearances are, shall we say, frequent, and he
has in the past joked that he could be counted upon to appear at garage door openings,
provided television cameras were present.
Blumenthal began his political career in the State House of
Representatives, where he toiled for two years before moving on to the State
Senate for four years. He served as Connecticut’s Attorney General for twenty years and then
moved on to the U.S. Senate, where he has served, so far, for ten, a long
career unmarred by any useful service in Connecticut’s now ailing private
marketplace. Connecticut’s junior Senator, Chris Murphy, is attempting to close
the gap, appearance wise, between himself and Blumenthal, with varying degrees
of success.
The two senators, both Democrats, appeared recently at
Hartford Hospital to inveigh against soon to be departed President Donald
Trump, and to call for his impeachment, yet again.
Impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors occurs in two
steps: first, an arraignment before the U.S. House of Representatives, and then
a trial of House charges in the U.S. Senate. The only punishment for
impeachment is removal from office. It would seem in present circumstances -- Trump is due to leave office in little more than a week -- that impeachment would be redundant. It would, however, provide the sort of
media spectacle that has been for 46 years Blumenthal’s delight and mainstay.
Trump is due to leave office on January 20, and the nonsense
concerning his supposed refusal to leave on that date was dealt a death blow
when he announced that he would not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s
swearing-in ceremony. One cannot attend or refuse to attend the inauguration ceremony
of a president-elect if one has it in mind to resist – by what means, neither
Blumenthal nor Murphy has specified – leaving office. On January 20, President
Trump will no longer be president, and the turnover in the presidential office
will have been accomplished without irreparable damage to the republic. The
chatter about “insurrection” should be regarded as Twitter click bait. Trump
recently has been booted off Twitter, but Blumenthal, an honored guest of the
company still is permitted his frequently tendentious tweets.
Both Blumenthal and Murphy knew all this before they stepped
before the television cameras at Hartford Hospital on January 8.
And yet the two senators, according to a front page, top of
the fold story in the Hartford Courant, “Dems Ramp Up Impeachment,” were
breathlessly “Urging a peaceful transition of power, according to a story written
by reporter Eliza Fawcett.
Murphy, Blumenthal’s Tonto, is quoted in the piece. “The President,” Murphy asserts without evidence, “is absolutely engaged in an
attempt to try to stop this peaceful transition from happening… It is important
to remember how specific the President’s intent was on Wednesday. He called
people to the Capitol on a specific day — the day that the Electoral College
was being certified — and then told them all to march on the Capitol,” but not,
be it noted, to march into the Capitol.
A small portion of the massive crowd summoned to the Capitol
certainly did interrupt the business of legislators, then in the process of
certifying an electoral count, and it has been suggested that the call to march
on the Capitol was, in some sense, an insurrectional call by Republicans to
disturb the business of the legislature, which a bunch of idiots in the crowd
proceeded to do, with disastrous consequences to Trump, who later denounced
their actions.
Most reporters are, or should be, familiar with the post
hoc, proper hoc fallacy, which holds that sequence is not
causality. In any sequence – b follows a – we cannot assume that a has caused b.
Courts are especially mindful of the fallacy, but politicians make full use of
it in heaping mounds of rhetorical dirt upon their opponents.
It has been suggested by Trump’s opponents, who are legion,
that he should be forced from office through impeachment or an artful use of
the 25th amendment. That amendment provides for the removal of a president who
has been physically impaired from executing his or her presidential
responsibilities, and it requires the participation of the Vice President and
other cabinet officers to begin a procedure, sometimes temporary, that may be
revoked when a medical danger has passed. Democrats should hold the useful
amendment in abeyance should President-elect Biden be inconvenienced by a third
brain aneurism, at which point president-elect in waiting Kamala Harris
will be able to assume, one hopes temporarily, the awesome temporary powers of
the presidency.
Murphy wondered at
Hartford Hospital what Democrats could do under such circumstance other than
forcing the president from office immediately?
Here’s an idea:
Murphy and Blumenthal could both grow up, stop campaigning for a few minutes
and WAIT for the president to leave office IN TEN DAYS during a peaceful
transition of power. In this way, president-elect Biden can redeem his pledge
to unify the country, the anti-Trump media can take a breather, and grownups in
the country can go back to the business of shoveling tax money into a black hole – the
national debt is now cresting at about $27 trillion -- part of which finances politicians-for-life
such as Blumenthal, infected with political infantilism, who make too frequent appearances
at garage door openings.
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