It’s been a slow week for American politics

Grit went Brit this week.

We’ve been so busy with the recent collapse of the UK government that US news seemed to have been swept well under the rug. This is fine by me - no news is good news as far as America is concerned. There’s the odd morsel - Ivanka Trump’s emails; Nancy Pelosi being the controversial Speaker of the House frontrunner; Ocasio-Cortez dunking on people on Twitter. Otherwise, the radar has been quiet. Well, hey, more time to watch Maybot run act_human.exe - it’s impervious to satire because it couldn’t get more ridiculous!

Alas, this is not (yet) a column about UK news. Fuck you! I’m gonna analyze the shit out of a big pile of nothing for half a page.

So. Ivanka’s emails. Surprise! She’s been using a private server for her government business. And yeah, obviously, she’s in government strictly by way of nepotism, she has no qualifications, etc etc. That’s not the funny bit.

The funny bit is that this is exactly what Trump was shouting “Lock her up!” about - Clinton’s emails on a private server. Hypocrisy - who would’ve thought? And then she has the nerve to claim that she didn’t know this was against policy. Fuck off. I say drag her in front of the House and make her testify for four hours. Now that would give me something to talk about. In the meantime, the Trumps are hypocrites and this should be a shocker to nobody.

If this, in fact, was a shocker to you, I would recommend a consult with a proctologist - they may be able to locate your head.

Okay, that’s one done and dusted. Next up: Pelosi. Well, turns out there aren’t any good challengers for the gavel.This is gonna play out exactly like I don’t want. It’s not the worst - she’s a competent politician, and fairly liberal. I mean, she’s occupied the post before. Chuck Schumer is objectively worse. And, to be fair to her, one of the reasons she’s so poorly liked is because she’s not winning in districts that went for Trump; she’s the boogeyman, the archetypical Limousine Liberal, come on high from the ivory tower to to tell everyone to knock the racism off. What a bother!

Well, if Pelosi actually adopts leftist policies, instead of clinging to the neolib fantasies of yesteryear, she has a fighting chance of being decent, on a raw ideological level. She’s also done the job before; we can be assured of her base competence.

As FiveThirtyEight points out, arguments about her legislative competency are overblown. It turns out - even back in the early Obama years - she never really had that much to do with Dem performance in the House. Standard polling fare - incumbent president approval rating, economic performance, and the like - had more to do with electoral wins than Pelosi as a figure.

For a brief moment, she was challenged by Martha Fudge. Nobody can take a name like that seriously, though. She dropped out Tuesday after Pelosi offered her a position in Her House. Who would’ve seen a thing like that coming in politics?

Ah, whatever. We’ll work with what we got. And we got someone great in Ocasio-Cortez - best Twitter feed in the House. And I guess a few gaffes. Who cares? I also love watching columnists mansplain how the economy works to her; she did a fucking degree in it, then went to work in a bar, because that’s what it’s like to graduate from college nowadays. Sorry, boomers - if you fucked up the economy that badly, you don’t get to be condescending about economics.

Here’s a good one. Trump’s been ducking an interview with Mueller for a year or so now, because obviously Trump will perjure himself the moment he opens his mouth. This is what Trump’s lawyers know, what onlookers know, and what Mueller knows. Trump’s legal team has been going back-and-forth with the investigatorial team; they eventually settled on written questions (because then Trump can do what his lawyers say). Well, apparently, the answers to Mueller’s questions were submitted last Tuesday, according to Trump. No news what the answers - or even the questions - were. Guess we’ll just have to wait.

So, the probe creaks further on. No new news yet - besides the leaked Assange indictment - probably so the new House can sit, or at the very least, until Whitaker recuses himselfrom the probe or is otherwise incapacitated (DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I’VE CALLED FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN THIS COLUMN? THINK AGAIN, PAL.)

In summary, a boring week. Very little has happened.

SURPRISE, BITCHES. You thought this was only going to be US news? Well, the Grit here is on it. Can’t wait until Arlene Foster decides to pull the plug on May’s life support. Can’t believe they’re stupid enough to not want funky new rules with interacting with the rest of the UK - they could’ve been the link between the EU and the UK, and made mad money in the process. Unfortunately, the party is run by chucklefucks.

Anyways, May is a dead woman walking. My money’s on a dream scenario - that she tries to ram her deal through Parliament, resigns like Cameron did, and we’re left with a new referendum or general election. No matter what, though, she’s pretty fucked.

How’s that for insightful analysis? This is just a gossip column now. Peace out, dudes.