What’s in the news?
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing impeachment proceedings, although whether anything will happen at last remains to be seen.
The lower house passed (45 to 11) an assisted dying bill in Western Australia that will legalise assisted dying. This is my dad’s special project so it’s good news for him. Next the bill goes through the upper house, which is technically a review board and should pass on such a huge majority … only they’re unelected officials who answer to religious yobs, so they may well still shoot it down with no personal repercussions. Remains to be seen.
Greta Thunberg addressed the UN with yet another impassioned plea for adults to do something so she can go back to school and be a kid, and a distressing number of people (including but not limited to Dan Simmons and a few folks I’m having increasing trouble considering worth knowing) decided to rant and rave about how kids should be seen an not heard (which is exactly her point, isn’t it?), and the left is weaponising children (project much?). Oh well.
But President Niinistö has said the same now, so all you dumb pieces of shit can shut the fuck up now, right?
Installation of our solar panels took another step forwards, although the wrong clips came with the installation so the builders have gone to find the right ones.
My parents are doing alright, we’re not getting on each other’s nerves yet.
I am, however, getting absolutely fuck all time to write, so last night I decided not to bother with the second nineteen-part Maladin / Dunnkirk story which isn’t really written at all yet. I’ll just finish what I have an publish that, save the leftover story for later. It spoils the symmetry a bit but oh well. The Interludes can make up the tenth story in the set.
That’s about it for now.
Hatboy's Hatstand 
Not sure what happened with the links there, but I went and fixed them.
I’d rather reply here than in email, if that’s ok, so that it can be a more public dialogue.
So I think you’ve seen it’s gone past “considering”, because it definitely has.
Basically, he’s already committed numerous impeachable acts. Trump fanboys won’t admit it but he has, it’s all over the Mueller report. But this Ukraine bullshit is plain as day, and we have ALL the receipts. The receipts are all public now!
What we have is the phone call transcript, the talking points that show the cover up, the whistleblowers to confirm this who the senate voted UNANIMOUSLY that Trump must let Congress question them, and others confirming that Mick Mulvaney did ask for the Ukraine aid Congress just voted on to be held back for a time. And it was on his orders. The time, was for Trump to make the Mafioso phone call he did.
The timeline is basically this. All numbers are approximate.
Congress voted to give $400 M to Ukraine in aid.
Trump tells Mulvaney to hold it up (keep in mind the normal process here is a veto, not this crap)
Trump calls the president of Ukraine. In that call he says things like (also approximate):
“You haven’t been very good to us. Your economy isn’t going to do very well because of that. You need to do more for us. That situation with Joe Biden’s son was a mess, you need to investigate.” etc. etc.
Further on in the call when the Ukraine President promised to help, Trump said “Your economy is going to be doing much better now”
Trump tells Mulvaney to release the aid
Mulvaney tells the state department to release the aid.
The aid is sent to Ukraine.
Again we have public receipts for all, or almost all, of this. It is treason, it is using his office to further his own political career, bribery, violating the separation of powers by overriding a vote from Congress outside the normal system, and on and on.
On top of everything else.
Oh and 30 Republican senators support impeachment. We needed 18 if all Democrats voted for it.
They must think if they cut this tumor out now, they can win in 2020. They are wrong. Trump being gone will depress the Dem vote a bit, sure, possibly. But Trump was also a huge draw for votes. I think all that will balance out and as long as we keep pushing, some Democrat will be president.
Now I just realized, Pence might pardon Trump. I sure fucking hope he doesn’t. Time for Orange to meet the new black.
Great extra info, just what I hoped for. No time for a full response right now but thanks. I have a lot of apathy-inertia to get past when it comes to shit happening with these straight-up evil people. I know impeachment isn’t resignation or jailing, but it’s step one at least.
Also, credit to Ilya for first letting me know about Simmons (although Facebook and Twitter were howling by midday), and credit to you Aaron for pointing out Simmons’s fuckmuppetry way before it was cool.
correction we need 20 Republican senators.