Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
@ impeachment folks, February 19th 2017 is your last day to get this shit done and still break William Henry Harrison’s record for shortest presidential term
If we’re going to impeach Trump though, we need to impeach Pence as well while we’re at it because THAT’S who gets the presidency if Trump is impeached.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m in agreement with you and I support what you’re saying, but it is also important to note that impeaching both Trump and Pence would leave us with President Paul Ryan, which wouldn’t be all that different from President Mike Pence. The fact that the line of succession is, at the moment, five republicans deep, should not deter us from the fact that it’s absolutely necessary that Donald Trump be immediately impeached, convicted, removed from office in disgrace, and legally barred from holding any future public post as quickly as possible. Pence and Ryan are both absolutely vile, wretched, pathetic excuses for human beings, but they would be doing a lot less damage if their Nazi Figurehead Boss didn’t have a death grip on the world’s largest mouthpiece. I agree that both Trump and Pence should be removed from office as quickly and as disgracefully as possible (through legal channels, of course) but given the choice between Trump and Pence, I’d say Pence is about 1% less unspeakably evil (although still unspeakably evil) and I’d trade an arm and a leg to choose Pence over Trump at this point.
It’s been pointed out that, venal as Pence is, he doesn’t have the popularity, or, more accurately, the NOTORIETY, to BEGIN to get away with the shit that Trump has been pushing for the last two weeks.
This fascist movement is like every other: it’s deeply invested in the Myth of the Strong Leader, and even if removing Lord Dampnut from office were merely a symbolic act (instead of taking the baseball bat away from the petulant, unpredictable child in the throes of a constant tantrum), that symbolic act will be immensely powerful against the fascist myth-complex.
The other thing people forget is that if Trump gts impeached, then a line is drawn. Pence knows that if he goes THAT far, he gets removed from office too. The rest of the Executive Branch knows not to support him. The Rule of Law is re-established. “Don’t Impeach Trump because Pence is just as bad” completely misses the point of Impeachment, which is to establish that the other two branches of the government have the power to reign in a runaway Executive.
Pence would still be bad, but he could not be nearly AS bad because Congress would have set a standard and demonstrated they’ll hold a President to it.
Impeach Trump, and you put the Fear of the People in Pence.
And honestly, who do you people think is behind a lot of Trump’s choices anyway?
Do you think it’s a coincidence that the populist rabble rouser has made universally ultra-conservative choices for every appointment?
Pence, Bannon, and people like him are already running things. They’re already handling whatever Trump doesn’t feel like handling.
If we impeach Trump, we strip away the populist mask and shine the spotlight directly on Pence. It will still be bad, but at least we’ll be looking in the right direction for the cause.
The Reuters news agency this week recognized the challenges of
covering Donald Trump’s presidency by comparing it to authoritarian
regimes like Egypt, Yemen and China.
“It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists ‘among
the most dishonest human beings on earth’ or that his chief strategist
dubs the media ‘the opposition party’,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve
Adler wrote in a message to staff
on Tuesday. “It’s hardly surprising that the air is thick with
questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration.”
He cited the organization’s work in “Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt,
Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia” as an example of how
to report on the Trump administration.
Adler said that reporters could use experience learned in “nations in
which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal
prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our
journalists.”
Among other advice, the news agency pointed out that reporters should
“[g]ive up on hand-outs and worry less about official access.”
“They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has
been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have
are sources,” the memo said. “Get out into the country and learn more
about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and
how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us.”
The letter encouraged reporters to “never be intimidated” by the administration.
“Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day
frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we
can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We
need to do that in the U.S., too,” the message to reporters said. “Don’t
take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity
for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places
around the world and to lead by example – and therefore to provide the
freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of
any news organization anywhere.”
“Donald Trump is a sad, little man, who is a constant and unending embarrassment to this nation. He doesn’t have the intellectual capacity for the job he has, as evidenced by his many business failures, bankruptcies, and ongoing lawsuits. With every passing day his already anemic popularity will continue to dwindle as he leaves pundits wondering if a 0-percent approval rating is even possible. He may very well destroy the United States, and history will remember him as a small-fingered fraud that no one liked.”
Trump on Tuesday asked a prominent anti-vaxxer to lead a commission on vaccine safety.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Bobby Kennedy, said he agreed
to lead the commission, which will seek to ensure there is “scientific
integrity in the vaccine process for efficacy and safety effects,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy believes vaccines have led to a rise in autism, a claim that’s been debunked by doctors and scientists.
Kennedy told reporters Tuesday that Trump “has some doubts about the current vaccine policies.” Read more
50+ million are going to lose healthcare and then they’re going to weaken herd-immunity and create a spike in illness we haven’t seen in decades.
Oh my god
I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts right now but
as an autistic woman, I am begging my allistic (non-autistic) friends and their followers to read this and pass it on. this isn’t anything new, we’ve been dealing with antivaxxers for years, but I’m terrified seeing that monster act like my neurotype makes me a walking bubonic plague. the world already thinks I shouldn’t exist as it is. this cannot be allowed to stand.
