In which I change my name to Nancy-David and introduce Cindy the Attack Orchid.
Well, I can’t find my hideously expensive under-eye serum but I also can’t put this live broadcast thing off any longer, or my coach-in-a-box—who’s more like a coach who’s a box—will cover me with glossy, stiff peaks of meringue and throw the resulting tragedy under a broiler until I turn into a zombie Baked Alaska. No, that is nothing like Sarah Palin, thanks for checking.
Today’s live broadcast, through a weird intersection of coincidence, synchronicity and serenfuckery, is about creating awareness for my BOOK LAUNCH. And I need to ask you a big favour.
Here’s the thing: If after I’m done you are more aware of my book launch, or—and this is slightly more challenging, so try to focus—if you are suddenly acutely aware of my book and/or my impending book launch after having been completely unaware of it previously, then that will be my success metric. Are you getting this down?
I’ve just gone all hot and red, which is what happens when I throw around jargon-y buzz words like “metric,” or “success.” I realize I should have saved the moment for the live broadcast. That’s me, mister “esprit de l’escalier!”
You’ll see from the video that I decided to change my name to “Nancy-David.” This is in honor of Nancy Pelosi, of course, because frankly she is becoming more and more like an uber-emotional, high-maintenance drag queen every day. Ripping up the SOTU address? WTF?!
You’re too small for that gesture, Nancy. Try it with the cork-soled platform clogs and the ratted-out hair-hopper hair next time, you GILF-y Jezebel, you little “I pray for Trump” firecracker, you’ll get a better response. You’re welcome.
Trump said it was bogus that Nancy said she’s praying for him, and for once I sort of agree with him. You take what you can get! She’s praying for him, perhaps, but definitely about him, and even Anton Lavey would run screaming out of the room were he to overhear.
The thing about Catholics, especially the Italian variety, is they’ve never repudiated the whole pagan thing, so you can go right ahead and mentally dress la vedova Nancy in heavy black lisle stockings, black kerchief and steaming-hot little black dress.
Steaming hot, I hasten to add, not because of its plunging neckline or slit up the side but because it’s fashioned from the coarse wool of a Sicilian goat by a bunch of moustached nonnas under a gnarled pine tree as they weep over their husbands’ thinly-sliced remains. It’s steaming hot because Nonna Nancy’s California leather-belt skin is streaming with the sour sweat of vendetta.
It turns out that doing the right thing was not a right thing. It’s a good feeling to be right, of course, but how can you be right in a system as fucked-up as is the US currently? Think of this: the Senate used to be appointed, not elected, as Canada’s still is, and the intent was to provide non-partisan checks and balances on the power of the executive branch.
What do we have now? Two partisan branches of government, and what an unholy mess it is when the two branches are of different political opinion. The House of Reps is hog-tied with its righteousness because the second branch, the Senate, is standing by, not with non-partisan dignity and oversight, but with more rope and shackles. This makes absolutely no sense, but there it is.
Nancy was smart enough to realize that public opinion needed to favor impeachment, but once she forged ahead she was trapped.
Because she was not smart enough to realize that doing the right thing was suicide if it had no hope of being ratified and concluded by the Senate. The impeachment hearings were a noble endeavour, unavoidable, but it was the Mount Everest of empty gestures.
The Senate “trial” was a sham: A smug, nasty, even cruel, slap-down, two weeks of taunting by entitled, ignorant bullies; a shocking, defiant and near-unanimous breach of trust by out-of-control and power-hungry Republicans who conducted a trial minus evidence and witnesses.
Have you ever wondered why some cases are tried before a judge, and some have a judge and jury? There is no need for a jury trial if the facts of a case are not in dispute. The sole purpose of a trial is to examine evidence and establish the facts of a case.
A trial without evidence and witnesses is not a trial at all.
The result is a breakdown of any pretence of lawfulness and Trump completely validated in his belief that he can do, literally, anything. The President, with utter contempt for the judiciary, commutes and second-guesses the sentences for his criminal pals and interferes with what is supposed to be arms-length justice; the Attorney General does what he’s told. Care for a banana, Republican?
Welcome to post-democracy America, and don’t be surprised. Be afraid.
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