monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

.....during this time that the Republicans are wiping their asses with the constitution and rule of law.

Republicans are wiping their asses with the constitution and rule of law.

Mine is the higher pitched white voice.

You ok, dude?

You’re taking flip to a whole other level.

Actually they're not that great, oralloy. We used to have them in my state because holding a statewide vote was considered "too expensive". They're confusing and can last a long time. They sometimes feature blatant intimidation. Over the years we found less and less participation and it was easy for one faction to dominate the event.

If all the states ran caucuses it might be different. In this case, however, it has nothing to do with the mechanisms of democracy and is, instead, an artifice to allow Iowa to go first (since New Hampshire thinks it deserves to have the first primary) and bask in the attention for fifteen minutes.

So you know the person(s) who wrote the code for the malfunctioning application and can vouch for their left-leaning ideology?

Subpoena Bolton
For starters: One of the House committees should immediately invite former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, and if he refuses, subpoena him.

Bolton's forthcoming book will report that Trump privately linked nearly $400 million in frozen military aid to Ukraine directly to his demand for sham investigations validating lies about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election that absolve Russia of that crime and smearing potential 2020 foe Joe Biden.

Bolton's book will also report that as early as last May, Trump instructed Bolton to press the Ukrainian president to work with personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on the scheme to extort those announcements from Ukraine.

Learning more about both these episodes -- which Senate Republicans refused to do -- will further illuminate the scope, reach and inner workings of this whole scheme. Bolton can almost certainly detail other episodes implicated with it.

This matters because this scheme is still in operation today. Republicans have been running ads in Iowa that echo the fabricated narrative of Biden corruption in Ukraine. Giuliani has been meeting with former Ukrainian officials to further validate that narrative.

And Trump's attorney general, William Barr, is still pursuing a "review" of the origins of the Russia investigation that appear designed to discredit that investigation -- and its conclusion that Russia sabotaged the 2016 election to help Trump -- just as Trump wants.

What this all means is that post-acquittal, Trump will simply keep up his smearing of Biden with disinformation, including with "evidence" fabricated by Giuliani with the help of foreign officials, as well as his ongoing whitewashing of Russia's 2016 attack on our political system.

A maximal picture of Trump's willingness to corrupt the government in service of this whole effort will better equip the American people to evaluate the disinformation and lies we'll continue seeing on all these fronts. Testimony from Bolton about Trump's orchestration of this scheme will focus public attention on it as it continues.

I am of the opinion that voting should be as easy and as cost-free as possible both for the voters and for the State. It's not just a matter of who cares and who doesn't. Some people have the means to spare one day of work every 4 years, others do not, especially when their boss may not be supportive of their political engagement.

Our newspapers may be overtly political, but broadcasters are subject to different regulations. They have to be seen to be objective and impartial.

As of right now, I count Eight Congress persons who will not attend the SOTU address.
I think it would be a good thing if no Democrats showed up to legitimize it.

The BBC is an endless rain of lies and bad journalism.

I think not. Republicans would take it as licence to do the same forever.

Like they need license from anyone to flout rules, laws, mores or traditions.

No, I think a large empty space where Democrats would be seated is a perfect response

to the Republicans' absence from duty during the impeachment process,

and this so-called president's absence of character, judgement or substance on all fronts.

We need to be a little less dedicated to dotting 'i's and crossing 't's during this time that the Republicans are wiping their asses with the constitution and rule of law.

milliioptwhgichth end u peace in the world