Listen to Year Zero 

For perhaps the first time in his life, the ridiculous torture- and war-monger Marc Thiessen is right about how ridiculous the Trump-Ukraine “scandal” is and how goddamn dumb the Democrats are:

It got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”

So, it’s okay for Democratic senators to encourage Ukraine to investigate Trump, but it’s not okay for the president to allegedly encourage Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden?

—Snip stuff about the Bidens’ obvious corruption—

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that Congress will initiate a formal impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine episode, a move Joe Biden endorsed in a speech, declaring, “It’s time for the Congress to fully investigate the conduct of this president.” Such an investigation will be far more damaging for Biden than the president. It will keep the story of Biden’s conflict of interest in the news through the 2020 election. Millions of Americans will learn the word “Burisma.” Senate Republicans can demand that Hunter Biden testify, and subpoena Obama White House aides such as Hochstein to explain under oath what the vice president knew and when he knew it. …

And the focus will not just be on Ukraine but also how, as The Post reported, “for more than two decades, [Hunter’s] professional work often tracked with his father’s life in politics, from Washington to Ukraine to China.” Trump will use an investigation to paint Joe Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp who used his official position to enrich his son. While Senate Republicans will not remove Trump from office, Democratic primary voters might decide that Biden and his troubles are a distraction they do not need. The irony is the Democrats’ investigation might do more to deny Biden the presidency than Trump.

Update: Just what did Hunter Biden spend all that money on? Coke and whores.

As I said the other day, this is going to end up so bad for the Dems that it might as well be a Roger Stone dirty trick being played on them. Not that I really think it is. But it sure could be: “How do we get the Dems to make Joe Biden’s corruption the next big scandal? I know! Joey, c’mere. You wanna be a whistleblower?”

Update more: The whistleblower report is here. Trump is sure stupid and ham-handed in personally bringing the issue up, and there is a bit more of an implication that the aid was withheld over the Biden case alone, since he claims there was no other previous discussion about suspending it. But it lacks any direct evidence of that.

It still seems nuts to think a president could be removed for such a thing, but again, since all American presidents of our era are war criminals, including this one, like with Bill Clinton in 1998, I’ll support his impeachment on whatever you got, even if it’s a terribly limited hangout. (At least he was clearly guilty of felony perjury before a federal criminal grand jury, one of the impeachment articles.)

But this is never going to work. In fact, the Dems have been trying to cheat and overturn the last election with their Russiagate hoax, their hush money for hoes hoax, and anything they can try to come up with outside of the actual use of presidential power, like killing hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians in an illegal, unauthorized war.

Of course all of the very worst things Trump has done, like with Yemen, have been to continue Obama’s policies in the wars. (Though he’s been worse on Palestine and Iran.)

So instead the Democrats are just going to try to keep nailing him on what amounts to a technicality, and just one year before the next presidential election, contributing to the narrative that this isn’t about what Trump did as much as their determination to find any excuse to unfairly cancel his election.

Update: The “whistleblower” is CIA.