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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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https://apple.news/APEuOPHP2TWqeUTR_h8QypA

So the Republican speaker of the house has decided to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s business dealings with hunter. I have serious doubts that this will go very far as democrats still control the senate. This looks like an attempt to stir up the base for re-election season.

I personally see this as a big distraction as we have a lot of very serious problems that need to be addressed. BRICs, Taiwan, Ukraine, inflation, and

While this is terrible because of the polarisation which it will do nothing to calm down, part of me is going "Good. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

Because they've been throwing everything they can think of at Trump for years, and that means that if the accusations of fraud around the alleged election fraud is correct, it's been subsumed under the tide of "But he wasn't supposed to win, there must be some way we can get him for that!" suits and impeachments and the rest of it.

So what might be a genuine solid case of attempting to interfere with the results of a presidential election has been churned into the muck of partisanship, and that makes me angry. There's little to no way to unwrap it from the whole mess of "throw enough mud to see if some of it will stick" and the hysteria about coups, fascism, and dictatorship (I've read one online pronouncement that 'Trump has said when he gets into power he is going to kill Biden, he's literally plotting an assassination!') which means that a grave charge about something that affects a democracy is now just one more stick in the bundle.

See how you like the frivolous, time-wasting, 'there must be some way we can get him' impeachment when it's your guy on the line.

I guess we're officially in the era of every US president henceforth being impeached by the other side.

That era started in the early '90s. Every president in the last thirty years has had at least an impeachment attempt. This is nothing new, this is chapter and verse, US modern politics.

Honestly each one deserves one (with Clinton the least deserving).

  1. GWB was a war criminal who sanctioned torture.

  2. Obama murdered US citizen teenagers and illegally entered into a war with Libya.

  3. The first impeachment was largely BS (yes Trump was politically motivated but he also smelled obvious corruption and there is nothing wrong with trying to find corruption even if some of your motive is to harm your political opponent) but I do think his dereliction of duty on Jan 6 was impeachable.

  4. Where to start with Joe. We could start with his unprecedented attack on the First Amendment (numerous examples including siccing the FBI on parents for going to school board meetings, the case the Fifth Cir just decided, using extreme force against anti abortion activists). Or his blatant disregard of the SCOTUS opinion on the renter moratorium that he restarted purely for political reasons after the court said in effect this is illegal but since the government said it will end we will allow an orderly end. Or his disrespect of separation of powers as shown in the student loan fiasco. Or of course his relatively obvious bribery. He is corrupt and probably exhibits the most disregard for the constitution of any president in my lifetime.