Impeachment protesters, Code Pink celebrate after Dems take over House

Video mostly Kremlin Annex music and speakers, plus a look inside the very crowded Busboys and Poets event

On the 3ed of January, the GOP formally lost the House to Nancy Pelosi, with former speaker Paul Ryan "slinking away on his belly" as jubilant "Kremlin Annex" protesters put it at the nightly Impeachment rally. Shortly before that rally began, Code Pink held a welcoming at BusBoys and Poets for some of the most progressive members of the House in front of a capacity crowd.

All of this was against a backdrop of overflowing trash cans and people having to shit in park woods due to the government shutdown. Fortunately, this shutdown also means ICE and CPB, the killers of migrant children, are no longer being paid and their morale should begin to decline shortly. They will not be paid on time, if ever, for shooting tear gas, pepper spray, and plastic shotgun pellets at migrants on the border on New Years Eve. Hopefully the only pay they will ever receive for gassing women and children is the rocks thrown back at them in return.

While liberals and the Democratic Party celebrate Nancy Pelosi's ascendency to Speaker of the House, many have mixed memories of her from 2007. That year, with Democrats taking over both the House and the Senate. Nancy Pelosi had an opportunity to promote impeachment of George W Bush for lying the United States into war with Iraq and instead seemed to take all available measures to keep impeachment "off the table." The Democrats refused even to deny George W Bush money to continue the Iraq War, while antiwar protesters shut down the Hart Senate Office building in protest.

It can be argued that a repeat of that performance is a defense against Christian Dominionist theocrat (as in "Christian ISIS") Michael Pence taking the White House. On the other hand, Michael Pence could not take the White House unless a House vote to impeach was followed by a Senate vote to remove Trump from office. Not only that, Michael Pence apparently was also involved in Russiagate. That means it would be possible to impeach Trump and Pence together and remove them both. It would be in Nancy Pelosi's interest to promote that, as the removal of both the President and the Vice President catapults the Speaker of the House into the White House, 3ed in line of succession.

The GOP can no doubt prevent a 2/3 vote in the Senate to remove both Trump and Pence and install Pelosi in their place. On the other hand, if Articles of Impeachment pass the House but Trump remains in office, his influence in Mexico, Turkey, with anyone in the US Congress, with anyone in state and local government, and with voters in 2020 will all be severely reduced. This, passing articles of impeachment against both Trump and Pence together cannot harm Nancy Pelosi's interests. It will mobilize her base like nothing else, and those who oppose it would mostly be limited to those already in Trump's camp anyway.