Rep. Maxine Waters quoted Maya Angelou when she spoke in favor of President Trump’s impeachment before the House of Representatives today. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” Waters intoned. She continued: “This day was not inevitable, but it was predictable, because this president has shown himself time and time again to believe that he is above the law. He has no respect for our Constitution or our democracy.”
In a bright yellow blazer—not exactly somber attire—Waters decried Trump’s alleged high crimes, saying it is “shameful” that her colleagues across the aisle are “willing to turn a blind eye to hard facts.”
“Yes, I called for Trump’s impeachment early,” Waters said. “This is our country. Our foremothers and forefathers shed their blood to build and defend this democracy. I refuse to have it undermined.”
She ended her speech to a round of applause from Democrats, who—like me—were probably eager for a reprieve from Republicans droning on all day and comparing President Trump’s plight to that of... Jesus.
Former Democratic darling Beto O’Rourke has done two things since dropping out of the 2020 presidential race: One, he made himself useful and two, he grew a beard.
O’Rourke is busy knocking on doors with Democratic candidates running for Texas state legislature in the hopes of bringing on a blue wave to the state’s House of Representatives. He shared some photos of himself with candidates like Eliz Markowitz and Sima Ladjevardian on his Instagram, where he’s seen sporting a very burly beard. But this beard doesn’t necessarily indicate that he’s washed. It’s not necessarily a depression beard! Whether O’Rourke still has clout in Texas is debatable (my Texan colleague, Esther Wang, says his clout is gone), but he’s still out and about campaigning for people instead of fading into quiet Texan obscurity, so he must think he’s still got it.
Anyway, the beard... is not bad. It’s not a bad beard.
- The Democratic debates are back on, baby. [LA Times]
- It looks like Pete Buttigieg failed to mention a bunch of financial supporters from that list of bundlers his campaign released last week. [Politico]
- Here’s Elizabeth Warren’s plan for a Green New Deal. [Buzzfeed]
- The Senate has paved a pathway to citizenship for Liberians facing deportation. [Star Tribune]
- You can slide into Bernie Sanders’s DMs:
- Donald Glover and Andrew Yang have a collab. Yes, really:
DISCUSSION
Maxine’s statement is the perfect rebuttal to the Republican talking point that “some of the Democrats started talking impeachment the day Trump was elected!”
Well, duh. When a habitual grifter and criminal who either personally or his businesses have been found guilty of fraud and other crimes numerous times is elected president, the question wasn’t “IF” he will commit crimes, but “WHEN” and “HOW MANY” criminal acts will he commit. So of course a large number of Democrats who could put two and two together had the foresight to predict the inevitable impeachment.
What’s the old Scorpion and the Frog fable? Hello President Scorpion.