Does Trump Lose his Pension and Benefits if he is Impeached

The short answer? I don't think he does. I saw a meme going around that talked about it still being good to impeach Trump because it would strip him of his pension and remove the secret service protection. I got excited, because that piece of crap who has been working so hard to destroy our country doesn't deserve any more of our tax money and he certainly doesn't deserve the protection of any of our service folks. But, unfortunately, I think he gets to keep those things. The reason to impeach him at all seems to be to prevent him from ever holding office again. And while that's not as exciting, it's definitely worth it to prevent scum like that from tarnishing this country with his lies, greed, and hatred again.

Here's the meme that motivated my search for hope that Trump could be deprived of more tax money and the service of people he doesn't deserve. It gave me hope. But the claims are hard to find support for. The first article I found is a Reuters article that talks about how the proceedings would go which is interesting but didn't help. The second article I found is an article on Mother Jones that seems to suggest that Trump would definitely lose his pension, his protection, and his ability to hold future office, but I don't see a citation for its source of information. Still an interesting read on what effects it might have for Trump. The third thing I read is about the impeachment of Bill Clinton in what must be an archive article from september of 1998. It supports the Mother Jones article based on a constitutional scholar named John Labovitz.

The last thing I read is the Wikipedia Article about Impeachment in the United States. It's a dry read, but it's just facts... no opinions. It addresses some of the things the Mother Jones Article mentioned, but there's a pretty specific line in the article in the section called "Result of conviction" that says...

Conviction does not extend to further punishment, for example, loss of pension.

So, there seem to be people out there that think Trump could lose his perks, but in reading the wikipedia article, it would seem that the most Trump stands to lose is his ability to hold office again. And that's only if the senate verifies the impeachment and then also pushes for the extra limitation he can't hold office again. That's definitely worth it, but honestly, I genuinely hope Donald gets cut off from the tax-paid benefits he would get. He doesn't deserve them even remotely.

I'll re-focus my internet searches on how likely he'll be thrown in jail for the tax evasion, sexual-assault charges, and the gross negligence that lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of United States citizens in this pandemic. I'm still hopeful for that.

Star Wars Episode 8, Review 17

Trying again to explain why Star Wars Episode 8 is appalling

I've written a fair amount about why I hate episode 8. Much of the writing is re-hash of my own previous posts. This will probably include some of that too, and that also means spoilers. If you haven't seen this stuff yet, and would like to keep the surprises, please don't read this essay. But anyway, I keep writing more because I keep seeing posts and essays about how people really like episode 8. I understand people can have their own opinion, but it seems so clear to me that Rian Johnson has frivolously damaged the story and setting. He has offended me greatly, and I don't understand why anyone who is a fan of Star Wars wouldn't also be offended greatly. So, here we go again.

Subverting expectation

Rian Johnson went into this saying he was intent on subverting expectation. As if that was a laudable goal. Why the fuck would you subvert expectation in a Star Wars movie?! They're designed after action serials... lighthearted... fun... engaging. All you have to do is come up with some story/content that is new and that doesn't break suspension of disbelief for the setting, and use the same framework as the original trilogy. Make it feel like Star Wars and all the fans that loved the original trilogy should love it too. No one was asking for Star Wars to be turned into a giant mess that ruins the characters from the original trilogy. If you want to write scripts that draw an audience in and then WHOA! I wasn't expecting that! That's an impressive subversion of my expectations! Go for it. But Star Wars is pre-existing and there's a lot to it. Trying for some numerous set of mini-twists that surprise the viewer in Star Wars is not the right choice. This was a stupid choice for episode 8.

Killing Luke's character and then killing the character

Luke Skywalker is the person who never gave up on his father. His father is Darth Vader. Darth Vader killed a lot of people. Darth Vader subjugated a lot of people. Darth Vader was a really bad guy, by all accounts. He was evil. Luke went to save his father though. He risked his life and walked right into the lion den to save Anakin Skywalker. But for some reason, the vague sense that his nephew Ben is going to do dark things is enough to make Luke consider killing Ben in his sleep. What the fuck? That makes zero sense for the character. But Rian Johnson thought it might be fun to destroy the character of Luke. So we get the stupid back story of Kylo Ren from Luke Skywalker being nothing like Luke Skywalker. I hate this part of Episode 8 more than any other part.

But it gets worse. For some reason, Luke dies at the end of Episode 8. Not only is Luke barely in Episode 7, but he's broken in Episode 8, and he dies at the end, so he can only be a Force ghost in Episode 9. It's offensive.

Leia? She was in this movie?

Horrifyingly under-used. It's also offensive. Her most exciting moment was using the Force to survive being blown out into space. The main plot she would have fit in this movie was as the teacher of Poe on leadership. But instead, Leia is injurred from her jaunt in space and spends most of the movie in a medical bay. To make things worse here, the purple-haired stand-in for Leia is arrogant and foolish. Poe doesn't know this woman who just took over for Leia. And she's keeping secrets for some reason. If you're about to die as a group of a few hundred people that have to rely on each other to survive, why keep secrets? In case there's a spy that's doing what? Sending messages to the imperial fleet? To what end? They are already tracking you through hyperspace. What more information do the bad guys need? If that spy was dedicated enough to be trying to screw over the rebels in a way that would get everyone including the spy killed, why aren't they just taking a blaster to major power systems on the big ship? And these rebels have been fighting for a while, maybe they have other good ideas that could be tried. Maybe someone will realize they have a hyperspace capable shuttle that could be taken to try to get help... or to start ferrying people off the big ship. Casino world? What the fuck?

I'm digressing. We have a purple-haired lady with no currency in trust or loyalty that is bossing Poe around and keeping secrets from him. When Leia finally explains to Poe what's going on, he has his epiphany and feels bad for not listening to the purple-haired lady. But this is stupid. It seems to be a lesson saying: "do what you're told by authority figures and never think for yourself". The brief moment at the beginning of the movie where Leia points out that Poe got a bunch of his fellows killed to take down one ship was so much better a lesson in leadership than the stupid purple-farce. If they had skipped the purple-haird lady in the first place, and let Carrie Fisher play the part of the experienced rebel leader, I bet things could have gone a whole lot better. No stupid casino sub-plot. No stupid half-baked attempt at disabling the sensor that only ends up ruining things for the rebels. And Poe gets to see Leia asking her people for ideas... gets to see that the leader is dumb if they don't rely on their people. We lost so much potential time with Carrie Fisher in her last role before she passed. I'm super pissed off at Rian Johnson for this one.

Finn and Rose

I'll start this section by saying the actors did fine jobs with what they were given. I have zero malice for them, and I even support the idea of them being used in replacement movies for the bad sequels we were given. Heck, I even like the character of Finn, and Rose was fun too until her effort to stop Finn from killing himself to save everyone... by causing a high speed crash that should have killed them both. And then made it worse by saying that they would win with love... while the gun is about to blow apart their friends. Sweet baby jebus on a stick that's a stupid scene. But I jumped ahead to the end for them. Let me start over...

The two meet, and it's actually a funny meeting. Rose zaps Finn for trying to run away. But then we get this stupid plan to disable a thing on the main badguy ship so they don't realize it's not working and switch to another ship... okay... this is already a stupid macguffin. If all the big ships have the capability, why wouldn't they ALL be using their fancy new sensors to make sure a fluke of some kind on the one ship doesn't make them lose the Rebels again? Redundancy is super useful in critical systems. You don't set up redendancy, and then only use one solution hoping it doesn't fail. What a stupid...

You know what, I'm backing up another step. The big ship at the beginning with the huge guns that destroys the rebel base and then has to charge up to fire again on the fleeing rebel ships? Think about that for a moment. Why wasn't the first shot at the fleeing rebel ships? The base isn't going anywhere and might have useful information like communications records that reveal the existance of another base or whatever. Information. But they blew up the information, and let the rebels escape. Rian Johnson is an idiot.

Alright back to Finn and Rose. They go to a casino city on some world or another because some suave guy there can help them break codes so they can sneak onto the big imperial ship to disable the sensor. Hijinks ensue that includes freeing some mistreated animals that will likely be captured again momentarily, and a really blunt message about how business doesn't care about morality. A fine message, but what am I watching again? Oh right... lighthearted Star Wars where I feel tense about whether the good guys will make it and then cheer when the good guys win. And it's the middle episode of the trilogy, so the bad guys are supposed to be winning, but what's happening again? Code breaker that betrays them, so we can see BB-8 piloting an AT-ST with the head ripped off? And Phasma can be under-used too? Why did anyone think the casino/codebreaker/break-in/escape story line would work? It's a side story about a main character failing that takes up way too much of the movie. Seriously. Finn... a main character from Episode 7 is a bumbling idiot the WHOLE time... except when he tries to stop the big gun from killing his friends, and they don't even let him do that.

Rey and Kylo talk... and Luke is ruined.

Rey and Kylo's part in this movie is pointless enough that I don't even have a strong feeling about it, except where it ruins the character of Luke Skywalker. Luke starts out the movie as a bitter wasted man, and then admits he was a disgusting man too... for considering killing his nephew while the nephew slept. This is simply wrong. It's a stupid story, and for all that destruction of good story, all we get in return is Kylo Ren? Ugh. The actor again did fine with what he was given, but why do I care about this character at all? But this weak shallow character has the honor of being the one that ends Han Solo and has Luke's character torn apart to explain him? Ugh. Whatever. I'm so annoyed that anyone likes this offensive bullshit.

Oh, and despite not getting much training (presumably less than Luke got from Yoda on Dagobah... Rey can effortlessly float a bunch of enormous boulders out of the way for her friends. She's a Mary Sue of ridiculous proportion. But... to be clear... I actually like the character. Just the writing for her progress with the Force is awful. And because Rian Johnson decided to ruin Luke Skywalker, Rey's story is made worse. She could have been such an interesting character. She should have been Luke's daughter like we thought she would be, and Luke is gone because she was hidden from him and he's just looking for his daughter... Jebus... bear with me a moment...

Episode 7 set everything up for failure by being a carbon copy of Episode 4. In thirty years, the Empire hasn't lost any of its power... it still somehow is the major military force in the galaxy, and the New Republic is what? Getting high and hoping the problem will go away while the rebels have to keep doing their underdog thing? Why didn't Episode 6 change anything? Seriously. Thirty years! We have a droid with data that everyone wants stumble into a Force-sensitive person trapped on a desert planet; an unlikely hero that gets caught up in things; a seedy bar with a band; an inherited lightsaber; a super weapon that needs to be destroyed; a rescue from that super weapon; a dark clad evil Force user hunting the good guys down and even butting heads with the politician style military leaders of the military organization... heck... Rey doesn't even know who her parents are... just like Luke. Episode 7 was unfortunate because they didn't write a movie or a history for the thirty intervening years.

I describe all that about Episode 7 because I'm going to admit that Episode 8 had a rough place to start from. There wasn't a lot that could be done from the already messed up point Episode 7 left off on. But, despite me giving it a little slack for the difficult transfer point, Rian Johnson threw out everything he could that Episode 7 tried to provide, and just offered nonsense. It's almost like Rian Johnson realized he had no idea what to do that could be good, so he made up crap that was too obscure, so he could just say he was being artistic and subverting expectations. And then hope people don't figure it out. So, yes... Rey and Kylo are so weak in this episode. Johnson did nothing for them.

Hyperspace jumps can do what?!

Back to the purple-haired lady. Hyperspace travel has been around for thousands of years. Thousands. Think about how fast nuclear technology is progressing in the real world. And if you did that... think about how fast that technology was applied to weapons instead of providing electricity. If jumping a carrier ship toward a fleet of much larger ships can take out the WHOLE FUCKING FLEET... WHY HASN'T ANYONE DONE THAT BEFORE?! It's a serious question. Why isn't there a super missile that has a hyperdrive, that flys toward its target to the right distance and then just jumps to hyperspace at the target? Thousands of years. Super effective. And purple-haired lady is the first person to think of this? This aspect of the movie wrecks the whole setting. Building a Death Star would be so stupid. A huge waste of resources. Everyone has hyperspace technology. When that Death Star is found, one rebel ship flies to it, and launches a huge number of hyperspace missiles at it. Done. No exhaust port needed. No need to attack when it has a shield generated from a nearby moon... just wait until it leaves orbit and nuke... er... hyperspace-missile the hell out of that thing. Rian Johnson wrote himself into a stupid corner when he made the slow chase through space the backbone of his movie. His cast was restricted to where they were for most of the movie. He had to include a hyperspace capable shuttle to let Finn off the ship... and then the escape pods can't be hyperspace capable because that would have ruined his slow chase too. Anyway, large ships would be dumb because they are sitting ducks for these hyperspace missiles. And honestly... in any war... whoever fires first wins. What a stupid cop-out solution Rian Johnson came up with. Moron. Set up the awful story, and then broke the setting to get himself out of it.

Wait... Episode 8 had good parts?

It has some bits I'll accept are good. And I'll give credit. But I'll be clear also. This movie is the worst of the official Star Wars movies. The prequels tried really hard to be the most awful thing possible, but Rian Johnson beat them out. So yeah... here... a few things Episode 8 did well...

• Poe's initial lesson: I already mentioned this. When Poe is excited that he took down a big badguy ship, and Leia points out how many people died instead of running away with them, Poe gets his first lesson in the real cost of military leadership. I like this one. It made me like the character of Poe more. It gave him a growth arc.
• Method of delivery: I despise the destruction of Luke's character, but I like how they told the story. Rey got a tiny piece of the story at a time. We got to see that Kylo didn't know the whole thing and his memory of it was slightly off. We got to see the story in stages that let us consider what might really be going on and were along for the ride of discovery. I'm impressed with how the story of Kylo and Luke was told. But again... the story itself was horrifyingly dumb.
• New Force uses: It's super dumb that Luke dies from the effort, but I enjoyed the illusory projection thing. It was presented well.
• Leia passes the torch to Poe: I liked the scene where Poe gives the idea for what to do next... genuinely takes the leadership role. And when everyone looks to Leia to confirm it, she gets to act like Carrie Fisher for a moment and says something like "What are you looking at me for? Follow him.". I liked it.

That's all I can think of for good parts. And it definitely isn't enough to offset the bad parts. Fuck Rian Johnson.