Active Shooter by Nancy OhanianABC News released the new poll by Ipsos yesterday and there was nothing in it that should surprise anyone. Most Americans know Trump is a treasonous scumbag and they expect treasonous scumbaggery from him. Or-- in more pollstery lingo: nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Señor Trumpanzee's encouragement of a foreign leader to investigate Trump's political rival and his family is a serious problem, but only 17% said they were surprised by the fake and illegitimate "president's" actions.Also not surprising-- only 32% of Republican voters think this is serious. Last week, NPR released a poll showing that the number of people who think a formal impeachment inquiry is necessary rose sharply. Among registered voters, Trump's job approval was 45%, while 51% disapproved. Among independents, approval is 44% and disapproval 52%. Among adults, 18 years and older, 49% approve of the decision to start the impeachment inquiry and 46% disapprove. (93% of Republicans do not want an impeachment inquiry. Interestingly, if Trump were to defect to Russia, 93% of Republicans would accept whatever excuses Fox and Hate Talk Radio made up to excuse it.)Are you watching the just-released Netflix series, The Politician? Episode 5, "The Voter," features Russell Posner as Elliot Beachman (the voter). His interest in the election is pretty much less than nothing. If you don't blink, you will see him in this clip shoving a pesky pollster down a flight of steps (2:22-2:23). I found it scary in this poll and in others like it that around 18% of adults don't know enough about Mitch McConnell to have an opinion about whether he's doing a good job or not-- including 20% of Republicans!-- and that 8% of adults don't know enough about Nancy Pelosi to have an opinion about whether she's doing a good job or not. Even greater numbers of people don't know who Chuck Schumer is. And almost no one knows who Kevin McCarthy is.Meanwhile a CBS News poll shows that "more than half of Americans-- and an overwhelming number of Democrats-- say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry" into Señor T.I live in Los Feliz, an L.A. neighborhood northeast of Hollywood, part of the 28th congressional district-- along with Burbank, Glendale, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Silverklake, Atwater, Echo Park, La Cañada Flintridge, Sunland-Tujunga and La Crescenta-- represented by Adam Schiff. When Trump declared war on Adam Schiff-- who Pelosi has tasked with leading the impeachment investigation rather than the less controllable Jerry Nadler-- was he declaring war on my neighborhood? [Trump's a fool; he should be happy that the Intelligence Committee is handling impeachment rather than the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee includes some of the sharpest minds in the House dedicated to destroying him-- Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Joe Neguse-- while the Intelligence Committee is mostly a home to timid moderates with far less of an instinct to move in for the kill.]So far Trump's war against Schiff is just a Twitter war. Everyone in my neighborhood is hoping Trump keeps his war against Schiff on Twitter and doesn't act against the people who live in the district. It is worth noting, however, that Trump only got 22.3% of the vote in CA-28. And last year Schiff was reelected 196,662 (78.4%) to 54,272 (21.6%). If a Republican qualifies for the general election ballot next year-- likely but not guaranteed with Democrats Maebe A. Girl and Akinyemi Agbed also running, as well as 2 Republicans and possibly a third (crazy far-right second-rate actor Randy Quaid)-- it is likely to be crackpot and failed GOP Attorney General candidate Eric Early, who was badly defeated in the 2018 primary. Early has turned himself into a typical all-in Trump nut and there is a buzz in the district that Trump will bring his circus to the Greek Theater in Griffith Park, which is in the very center of Schiff's district-- and walking distance from my house. Trump, a clown who has referred to Schiff as Schitt, didn't appreciate Schiff's humor:
“Rep. Adam Schiff fraudulently read to Congress, with millions of people watching, a version of my conversation with the President of Ukraine that doesn’t exist,” Trump wrote online. “He was supposedly reading the exact transcribed version of the call, but he completely changed the words to make it... sound horrible, and me sound guilty.”At Thursday’s Intelligence panel hearing, featuring testimony by Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, Schiff offered an exaggerated version of the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.That conversation, during which Trump urged Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, is the main focus of the impeachment probe into the president’s conduct.“Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates,” Schiff said, before launching into his dramatic rendition of the call’s subtext.“I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though, and I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good,” Schiff, channeling Trump, told the committee. “I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it.”The chairman’s monologue drew quick scorn from conservative commentators, as well as Trump’s campaign staff and Capitol Hill allies, and Schiff sought to clarify his remarks later in the hearing.“My summary of the president’s call was meant to be at least part in parody. The fact that that’s not clear is a separate problem in and of itself,” he said, adding: “My point is, that’s the message that the Ukraine president was receiving, in not so many words.”But Trump refused to accept that explanation Friday, twice calling for Schiff’s resignation and claiming that he “lied to Congress and attempted to defraud the American Public.”The attacks came after Trump, tweeting just after 7 a.m., accused CNN of purposefully misreporting his derisive-- and curiously phrased-- nickname for his Democratic foil.“To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!” Trump wrote in his message, which incorrectly spelled the word “describing” and confused two punctuation marks.The hosts of Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, were also irritated by Schiff's statement Thursday, devoting a brief segment to knocking him in the opening minutes of their broadcast.“If you are the chairman of a committee, and you’re trying to get credibility for your latest impeachment push, why would you start in the fiction section of the library?” asked co-host Brian Kilmeade.Later in the program, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow likened the performance to a “Saturday Night Live routine,” while White House spokesman Hogan Gidley mocked it as “some type of crazy cosplay convention” where Schiff was “dressing up like a congressman reading fantasy.”
