Congrats to Representative, soon to be Speaker, Jinkins. A good liberal will make an excellent speaker. I am excited to see what her Speakership brings. It has been a long time, probably too long, since the Las Speaker election. Also, definitely read the article if for nothing else, the sine die joke.

Good. The state House will finally investigate Matt Shea. It was a long time coming. We knew about the chat logs months ago. We knew about the genocide fantasy even earlier. That asshole really has to go.

Dear Senator Cantwell,

I am writing because I hope that you will join Senator Murray and all of the House Democrats from Washington in support of an impeachment investigation. While I realize that the House is the body that impeaches the President, support from the Senate is important. The President has committed many high crimes in the open and, as seen in the Mueller report, behind closed doors. Congress has an obligation to hold him responsible to the extent possible.

Thank You,

Carl Ballard

I support impeachment. The President has committed many high crimes. From welcoming election interference to obstruction of justice to emoluments violations to putting children in cages, you barely scratch the surface of his many and varied crimes. All that said, I find much of the commentary in favor of impeachment to make some logical leaps. It’s like:

Impeachment

???

Removal

Or

Impeachment hearings

???

Real oversight

But the Senate isn’t going to remove him. It needs 2/3 of the Senate, so almost 20 Republicans if all Democrats support removal. I don’t think they would even have a trial (McConnell’s super power is not doing things), but smarter people than me say he would have to. And the Trump administration would certainly obstruct an impeachment investigation as much as any other oversight.

This isn’t a reason not to impeach him: If anything it’s more of a reason. The House of Representatives should be on the record that what he did was impeachable. I just hope we know what comes next.

This Mueller testimony is really something:

Democrat: [Reads from the report] Is this accurate?

Mueller: Yes

Democrat: Is that bad?

Mueller: I refer you to the report.

Republican: How come a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton wasn’t central to your report?

Mueller: ????

Republican: I don’t see anything in this report about what a bitch she is.

Mueller: That’s outside the scope of my testimony.

Hello. Let’s stop calling racist people, racist chants, racist tweets, and other things “racially charged” or “racial”? Can we stop pretending groping or unwanted kissing, especially but not exclusively in the workplace, is just “incidents”? Euphemisms help us get through conversations that we don’t really want to have. But for journalists and for HR people, these conversations need to be clear.

Your ballot should be arriving soon, Washingtonians. Local elections matter a great deal. This year city and county races are on the ballot. They will decide many quality of life issues.

Last night I saw Seattle Shakespeare’s outdoor showing of Twelfth Night. It was pretty fantastic. I had been to one of their performances a few years ago, and my recollection was that it was pretty small. This time around was quite a bit larger. My one complaint is that there was quite a bit of noise: if next time they could change the flight pattern of airplanes, that would be better.

Look who is running again. Carolyn Long lost her race in the last cycle. It’s still a long shot like last time. If you’re able, they could use some money or someone to knock on doors or do data entry. It’s a long way to go between now and election day, but she could use your help.

I already wrote this post once, but WordPress ate it (it’s definitely WordPress, and not me not saving it).

Anyway, we need to bring back the thorn. Ot þorn. We don’t need Latin speaking scribes or French speaking rulers to tell us what letters we get to use. Just þink about it. We still make a th sound in English, but it isn’t quite t-h. An actual letter is better.

Þat said, the boat has sailed on æ.

I don’t think that getting out of the Iran deal, without a plan going forward, is working out. I can’t wait for the news that they’re 6 months from building a bomb like we heard throughout the Bush and Obama years until the deal was adopted.

It’s the last post before the military parade. A lot of people have talked about why tanks in the streets are bad from a creeping (or at this point sprinting) fascism perspective and what they might do to the infrastructure.

But one thing I would like to add is that we’re still at war in Afghanistan. Maybe finish the war before you declare victory?

The President just said, on a whim,

I have got to say hi to ol’ Kim

Not much would happen

Between these crap men

But once more we legitimized him.

Happy probably the best game of the Women’s World Cup day. USA and France are the 2 best teams. Let’s hope there are some questionable VAR calls. Who doesn’t love waiting 5 minutes only to be disappointed with some ticky tac technicality. Seriously though, super excited.