To save democracy, we need more women like Sen. Dianne Feinstein moving in on Trump’s extremism like a bitch.
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On Tuesday, January 9, 2018, Senator Dianne Feinstein watched Oprah’s Golden Globes speech for the fourth time, took one last swig of English Breakfast tea from her favorite limited edition Hallmark mug and said, “You know what, fuck it. Larry?” Larry is the Feinstein headquarters tech wizard. “Larry, do the thing where you write a letter to everyone through the computer.” And with that charmingly vague command, the testimony of Glenn Simpson, co-founder of the research firm Fusion GPS, dropped like a Beyoncé visual album. Well, not really, the lyrics are 312 pages and the audio is 10 hours long so it’s actually more like James Taylor’s later stuff … if James Taylor’s later stuff was more about the current President of the United States’ secret ties to the Kremlin and less about sweet, gentle pigs.
Yes it is Kremlin in the City, and the city is Washington, D.C. And unlike its prequel, Caroline in the City, we aren’t dealing with mid-90s Manhattan cartoonists with quirky outlooks on life, we’re dealing with real-life cartoon villains who kill people for money and power. Ack!
If I had to summarize the 312-page transcript in two words, they’d be: Grey Gardens. Not because the transcript is a masterful window into the disheveled intimacy and ache of what it is to be human, but because the Maysles brothers’ initial, broad assignment to make a documentary about the Bouvier family is much like Investigator Christopher Steele’s initial, broad assignment to look into Trump’s business dealings in Russia. No one knew they were going to find two reclusive women and a bunch of raccoons eating cat food paté on a cracker, scream-singing show tunes at each other. No one knew they would find Donald Trump’s wrinkly orange scrotum, balls-deep in a Russian karakurt spider web of organized crime and political espionage. No one set out to ruin anyone, they just followed the crazy and reported it.
Fusion GPS has a strong background and understanding of Russian money laundering, how the Russian tax system works, Cypriot banking mechanisms and the, um, organized crime our twisted president is allegedly (do I have to say allegedly?) super mixed up in. Also, Christopher Steele was trained as the lead Russianist in MI6 to spot disinformation so I trust him and I don’t trust men! Simpson testified that Fusion GPS wasn’t even going to go to the FBI with information about Trump being compromised, it was Steele who felt it was his ethical obligation as an investigator to report his alarming discoveries. You know how when you’re walking down the street and you notice an old lady is on fire, you scream, “OH NO HOLY SHIT THAT OLD LADY’S ON FIRE!” and you pour your useless, tiny water bottle on her, shakily unravel a neighbor’s hose, and call the Fire Department? That’s what Steele was trying to do. Steele goes to Rome, gets debriefed by the FBI, and finds out in the debriefing that the FBI, in September 2016, has a “voluntary” source inside the Trump campaign. This alleged source was not a source connected to Steele and it wasn’t Sneaky George Papadopoulos either. The New York Times then reports that the FBI found nothing going on between Trump and Russia why why why I don’t understand and the whole thing turned into what Simpson calls, “a real Halloween special,” which is a nice way of saying a perfect shitstorm. I mean this James Taylor album is BANANAS. Simpson and Steele aren’t even sure Comey KNEW about the Trump-Russia allegations! Carter Page lost a bunch of money with the Russians and has apparently been an espionage suspect for YEARS! Paul Manafort’s notes from the Super Chill Trump-Russia Mixer on June 9, 2016 at Trump Tower basically say, “RNC loves Russia and Russia loves us back. It’s mutual, we’re financially entwined, and we’re in love. Xoxo”!
What the fuuuuuuuuuuck?????
Let’s take a minute and break down the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Feinstein is the Minority’s Ranking Member and Senator Chuck Grassley is the Majority’s Chairman of the Turds. Right now, depending on who you’re talking to, there are roughly 11 to 13 turds on the committee. There are also two members of the committee that have bad (or maybe very good?) sketch comedy character names. Sheldon Whitehouse and Mike Crapo. People literally have to look them in the face and say, “Senator Whitehouse? Senator Crapo? We’re starting this very real meeting, are you sure you should be here or do you need to change your wig for the next sketch?” Anyway, Sen. Feinstein, in a wild act of resistance, calmly said, “Hey Grassley, eat my assley,” and published the testimony he was trying to hide and discredit. And why was he trying to hide it? Because Grassley is like Lee Radziwill, Jackie O’s sister. Lee Radziwill was the one who hired the Maysles brothers in the first place. She wanted them to make a wholesome documentary about the Bouvier family but when she saw their raw, honest footage of the outcast Edie Beales, she fired them and hid the footage. Chuck is like Lee, he doesn’t want us to see his family like this. Well, sorry Chuck, sorry Lee, this is your family and yes they live with raccoons and cats that piss all over paintings and shit the bed, but you still have to look at them.
Feinstein made a badass, patriotic move by releasing this transcript (and followed right up by calling for Trump’s ouster after he made “shitholes” trend on Twitter in a way everyone expected). She did it to offer some transparency to the American people who are drowning in a sea of fake news and to signify the urgency and importance of the federal investigation into the fishy-fishy smell of the 2016 Presidential Election. And no, it wasn’t a fishy smell because a vagina was finally running for president! How dare you! I’m talkin’ Russian Colludin’ Beluga served on a bed of petulant GOP dastards who don’t know what love is!
A spokesman for Grassley called Feinstein’s bold move “confounding.” Good! It must seem confounding to you, Chuck, because you are a dismal, spineless prick who thinks poor people shouldn’t get to go to the movies. It is confounding in that she’s not just going along with the corrupt, complicit horseshit you continue to promote. Put on your headscarf, Chuck! Start vocalizing, Lindsey Graham, you’re Big Edie and you’re singing “Tea For Two,” ya gutless goldfish!
I’m sure someone can chime in with something I don’t know about Feinstein, making my praise sound misinformed. Like that she penned a cult hit cookbook that is centered around boiling kittens or something. Spare me the “Boiling Kittens with Dianne” lecture because I’ve heard it before. I applaud her choosing to actually DO SOMETHING that might help us not end up in bread lines, trading our cooking pots and shoelaces for mole-people currency: crumpled up, subway-track-snack-pack-Doritos bags.
Who else will DO SOME THINGS? Probably women! Probably definitely Black women! Speaking of smart, powerful Black women, Senator Kamala Harris just became the first Black woman to be appointed to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is wonderful news! I hope she turns the whole operation into an Island of Themyscira situation and truth-lassos every complicit turd on the committee because women have had it! We have no fucks left to giveth! Keep calling us sneaky, lightweight, Pocahontases! Call us shitholes like you’re literally calling countries! Call us shithole cunt-ries! The president’s most RECENT racist comments about Haiti being a “shithole” made Republican Representatives Mia Love and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen FINALLY speak out against him. Love called his comments “unkind” and “elitist.” Yes, Mia, you’re right! Your voting record sucks but welcome to the Resistance! Here’s a gift basket filled with all the hair we’ve yanked out of our heads! Rep. Ros-Lehtinen said, “Language like that shouldn’t be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn’t be heard in the White House.” Yes yes, Ileana! The locker room! I remember the locker room! The locker room is now a bunker and the bunker lockers are covered in piss, Hydrofluoric acid, and swastikas but thank you and welcome! There are free muffins next to the scream jar! We all scream into jars, Ileana, it really helps!
Is our Resisterhood flawed? Sure. Did Little Edie wear a feathery red headdress, her dead mother’s dress and an eyepatch during her post-Grey Gardens cabaret act? Yes. But we’re all Little Edie on that stage, tap dancing our way through cataract surgery. Please for the love of country, pull some more Feinsteins. Wonder Women, unite, grab your truth-lassos and let’s climb our way out of the shit-sink-hole that is Donald Trump’s America before it swallows us.