OCTOBER 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Right-Wing Smear Network. Congressional Republicans afraid to come out and say that Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable behavior aren’t only afraid of Trump himself. They’re also living in fear of a smear network in the right-wing media, social media, and blogosphere, ready to respond to any hint of criticism of Trump with everything from insults to outright lies.

Every Republican to offer so much as a whiff of criticism of Trump has faced this onslaught, The Washington Post reports. Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted that “If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme.” Romney was then accused of having ties to Burisma, the company that former Vice President Joe Biden’s son was associated with. The ties? One of his mid-level 2012 campaign advisers joined Burisma’s board in 2017. Rush Limbaugh also piled on with false claims that Romney had consulted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sen. Chuck Grassley spoke up for whistleblowers, an issue he’s known to care about. Gateway Pundit saw this as a desertion: “So much for the Republican leaders in the Senate defending President Trump against the continuation of the attempted coup.” Sen. Ben Sasse and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were accused, respectively, of “stabbing [Trump] in the back” and being a “spineless sellout.”

Any Republican tempted to step out of line even an inch has gotten the message: We’ll come for you next. That’s why if Republicans do start breaking with Trump, it’s likely to start with a group, for safety in numbers. But even those who retain some shred of decency or concern for the Constitution or democracy may simply be too weak and scared to stand against the bulk of their party, which is now consumed by the drive for power over all else.

2. Faith and Freedom Coalition Founder Ralph Reed. Reed, one of Donald Trump’s most prominent Christian supporters, will argue in a book due out next April that American evangelicals “have a moral obligation to enthusiastically back” the president.

Reed became a loyal foot soldier for Trump immediately after he nabbed the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 — commanding hordes of white evangelical voters from his perch on the candidate’s religious advisory board to trust that the New York businessman would grow the economy, defend religious freedom and dismantle federal protections for abortion, if elected.

According to the book's description, obtained by POLITICO, the original title for the book was “Render to God and Trump,” a reference to the well-known biblical verse, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The message from Jesus in Matthew 22 has been used in contemporary politics to justify obedience to government — or in the case of Reed’s book, to Trump.

Regnery Publishing confirmed the book’s existence, but said the title is “For God and Country: The Christian case for Trump.” The publisher declined to comment on the reason for the title change.

In his book, Reed will “persuasively” argue evangelicals have a duty to defend the incumbent Republican leader against “the stridently anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and pro-abortion agenda of the progressive left,” according to the description.

He will also rebut claims by religious and nonreligious critics that white evangelical Protestants “revealed themselves to be political prostitutes and hypocrites” by overwhelmingly backing Trump, a twice-divorced, admitted philanderer, in 2016.

Reed, who once said Trump’s comments about women in the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape were low on his “hierarchy of concerns,” belongs to an informal group of evangelical leaders — including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress and Paula White — who have become some of the president’s most devoted fans and vocal defenders since he took office. They have cast his foray into politics as divinely inspired; equated him to biblical figures such as Esther, an Old Testament heroine; and frequently cited Scripture to rationalize his most controversial policies — actions that other religious scholars and leaders have found particularly cringeworthy.

For his part, Trump has inspired loyalty among his white evangelical base by positioning himself as a warrior against the secular culture they fear.

“Part of the reason why many religious leaders support Trump is because he is great on life, religious freedom, judges, Israel, taxes, conscience protections, fetal issues and also because Hillary Clinton and his would-be opponents next year are so awful on all of the above,” a senior administration official said.

Trump” great on life?” Victims of Trump-inspired, white-nationalist mass killings, separated families at the border, residents of Puerto Rico, anyone who has suffered from the extreme storm and fire consequences of global warming, folks denied health care, and, most recently, Kurds in Northern Syria might beg to differ.

3. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. Donald Trump is taking all his impeachment marbles and going home to the residence where he can stew, rage tweet, and gorge on conspiracy theories in peace without being bothered by that coequal branch of government known as Congress or, for that matter, the U.S. Constitution.

In a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chairs of three key committees, White House counsel Pat Cipollone makes a purely political argument devoid of any reasonable legal rationale that rejects the House impeachment inquiry as fundamentally "illegitimate" and declares Trump the ultimate unimpeachable, unindictable, uninvestigatable sovereign. In short, the Executive Branch won’t be giving congressional investigators a GD thing.

In the first of three sections, Cipollone argues that the House inquiry is "Constitutionally Invalid" because Congress has violated "due process," which is something Trump isn't actually entitled to in the context of impeachment. In fact, the Constitution states the House "shall have the sole Power to Impeach." The House decides that process, not the president.

Just to give a window into how bananas the argument is, here's what Cipollone wrote in the opening of the letter.

“You have denied the President the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony, to have access to evidence, to have counsel present, and many other basic rights guaranteed to all Americans. You have conducted your proceedings in secret. You have violated civil liberties and the separation of powers by threatening Executive Branch officials, claiming that you will seek to punish those who exercise fundamental constitutional rights and prerogatives. All of this violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent.”

Yeah, that's all bonkers, folks. Trump isn't guaranteed any of that stuff. In fact, House impeachment is a fact gathering process designed to inform the body as to whether to charge the president. The trial-type stuff that Cipollone cites above is only minimally applicable to what the Senate does, which is where a president is tried for what the House decides to charge him with, if it charges at all.

Moving on. In the second section, Cipollone dismisses the House inquiry for seeking to "Reverse the Election of 2016."

"The effort to impeach President Trump—without regard to any evidence of his actions in office—is a naked political strategy that began the day he was inaugurated, and perhaps even before," writes Cipollone. Actually, the whole point of impeachment is evidence gathering, thus the word "inquiry."

Cipollone continues, suggesting House Democrats have embraced impeachment because they were doomed in 2020. "The Founders, however, did not create the extraordinary mechanism of impeachment so it could be used by a political party that feared for its prospects against the sitting President in the next election. The decision as to who will be elected President in 2020 should rest with the people of the United States, exactly where the Constitution places it," he writes.

Besides the fact that Trump is despised by a solid majority of Americans and losing in every hypothetical matchup with Democrats’ top-tier candidates, Cipollone may want to inform Trump that 2020 is supposed to be decided by Americans because Trump is pretty sure that it's supposed to be decided by Ukraine, China, Russia, and any other foreign entity willing to rig the election on his behalf.

Cipollone then attempts in the third section to turn the tables on House Democrats’ handling of the inquiry, including Rep. Adam Schiff's parody of Trump's call during a hearing and their claim that Schiff's office acted improperly when the whistleblower sought informal guidance on how to properly move forward with filing a complaint.

At base, there are so many bogus claims in this letter that it's almost difficult to wrap one’s mind around. One problem is the White House seems to have literally zero grasp of what the Constitution even says about the impeachment process and the differing functions of the House and the Senate regarding removal of a president.

But the upshot of this letter (along with other actions taken by the administration) is that Trump is now effectively acting as a king. According to the administration's arguments, Trump can't be indicted, he also can't be investigated for his crimes, and now he can't be impeached either. In sum:

The reason why a sitting President can't be indicted is because the Constitution expressly creates an alternative, political process for presidential misconduct, and that alternative process is seen by the Trump Administration as too political and entirely illegitimate.

Cipollone, charged with protecting the Office of the President, has penned a piece of political propaganda designed to enrage Trump's base at how unfairly he's being treated using specious legal jargon that in fact bears no resemblance to the basic pillars of the U.S. justice system.

As Kellyanne Conway’s husband George tweeted, "I cannot fathom how any self-respecting member of the bar could affix his name to this letter.  It’s pure hackery, and it disgraces the profession."

In other words: It’s classic Trump.

4. Congresswoman Liz Cheney. On Fox News in October, Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming and the daughter of the massing heap of discarded organs and tissue that used to be Dick Cheney, blamed Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria on — you guessed it! — Democrats for — you win again! — having the temerity to hold Donald Trump accountable for his numerous crimes.

As reported in Newsweek, Cheney said:

"I also want to say that the impeachment proceedings that are going on and what the Democrats are doing themselves to try to weaken this president is part of this,” she argued.

“It was not an accident that the Turks chose this moment to roll across the border," she claimed. "And I think the Democrats have got to pay very careful attention to the damage that they're doing with the impeachment proceedings."

Trump made the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria after speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by phone last Sunday. A source from the president's National Security Council told Newsweek that the president got "rolled" by Erdoğan during the call.

That last bit is pretty stunning, though to be honest I would have been only slightly more surprised if Newsweek had reported that Trump got “rolls” from the call, because I have no doubt he’d betray our strategically vital alliances for a lukewarm box of Cinnabon. Especially if they included an extra frosting packet on the side.

It’s one thing for Republicans to dodge, deflect, and dump deuces all-across the media landscape, but blaming Democrats for virtually every disaster from Middle East quagmires to horrific fires, obscene budget deficits, and mass shootings, you name it, wow!

5. President Trump. I know I’ve said I would no longer include Trump absurdities the monthly IGGY, but sometimes I just can’t help it.

Donald Trump's betrayal of Syrian Kurds has been blasted by horrified Republican allies, with even forever-toadies Lindsay Graham and Liz Cheney, as well as the usually simpering Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, and Susan Collins condemning Trump's act. Such criticism is to be expected from such well-credentialed hawks. But it’s not Trump’s indifference to the harmful consequences of his impulsive decision that warrants an IGGY nomination—after all, Trump’s instinct to disengage from Syria and Afghanistan deserves a serious national discussion—it’s his display of both pre-school historical ignorance and his frank indifference to the fate of the Kurds in northeast Syria. This asshole lacks even a Planck unit of humanity.

First, his kindergarten sense of history:

“The Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand, they’re fighting for their land. And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn’t help us in the Second World War, they didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example. They mentioned names of different battles. But they’re there to help us with their land. And that’s a different thing. In addition to that we have spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay.”

What is his obsession with foreign and military aid? It’s not like the funds are being taken directly out of his Extra Crispy chicken skin budget.

And they didn’t help us with Normandy? Well, never mind then. They’re assholes. They were conspicuously absent at Bunker Hill, too. Don’t even get me started on Fort Sumter. (They in fact did help the allies in WWII, first as part of a counter-offensive to the Nazi-backed Iraqi coup of 1941, and later some served in Albania, Italy and Greece.)

Trump also indicated he's not worried about ISIS fighters escaping northern Syria because if they do, they'll just end up in Europe, and who gives a shit about them. Europe isn’t America, in case you hadn’t noticed. Those poncy-wig-wearing fancy-cheese-eaters are getting what they deserve because they didn’t bend the knee to His Majesty.

Trump suggests he has no problem with Erdogan being "tough" on the Kurds, but he indicates he would have a problem if he "does it unfairly." So, if the Kurds get slaughtered, it’s OK, as long as the slaughter is done “fairly.” (I suppose that means they get a 20-second head start.) In his words:

“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over....the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!” (Sound familiar?)

From "great and unmatched wisdom" to a threat to "obliterate the Economy of Turkey" ... it is impossible to even respond to that. Forget about impeaching this guy. Can someone just tackle him and lock him in a zoo paddock? He’s a walking, talking human rights crisis.

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And the winner is . . . .

Since I’m committed to no longer awarding Donald Trump yet another IGGY, which he rightly deserves this month, I choose Liz Cheney as this month’s IGGY winner. No doubt she will blame her IGGY on the Democrats.