Happy Holidays!

Hanukkah begins tomorrow. Recently I have given some deference to people who want me to say Merry Christmas. It seems only fitting to give the same deference to people who are observing Hanukkah, particularly in these troubled times. We may not be of the same faith, but we are of the same family – the family of human kind. Happy Hanukkah!

And, “Happy Holidays!” to all.  Let us come together to celebrate each other as a family.

What Happened to Lindsey Graham?

I happened to be on a college campus the other day and overheard two undergraduates discussing Lindsey Graham. With the brashness of youth they stated their conjecture about him in terms generally favored by low brow Trump chumps, which is to say that some of you may be offended:

“Lindsey Graham has lost more than his mind,” one student said. “He has now become Trump's eunuch.”

“Oh, I know,” the other agreed. “And since becoming a eunuch poor Lindsey is finding it much easier to stick his head up his ass!”

 

Echo The Sounds Of Defiance!  The Republican defiance of law and reason is the result of a disgraceful intellectual and moral bankruptcy that lets the cowards justify in their own minds their refusal to honor the oath they took to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States because the threat is coming from a President who is a member of their Republican Party!

The GOP Offers Projection Not Protection

The Republicans are still at it, and it is not pretty, logical or real. As in previous hearings, they began their defense of the indefensible by trying to throw sand in the gears. The absurd points of order, motions and calls for roll call votes they are using to delay and drag out the hearings only emphasizes the fact that there is no defense for the impeachable offenses Trump has and is committing. The Republicans are also screaming witch hunt and calling the impeachment proceedings a partisan attempt to avoid having to run against Trump in 2020. They apparently have not read the polls showing the leading Democratic Party candidates beating Trump and the recent elections showing suburban women leaving the Republican Party in droves. Their counsel at the hearings, Paul Taylor, even invoked Watergate, deceptively claiming that, unlike now, the impeachment of Nixon was bipartisan. Sorry Mr. Taylor but Republicans then as now denied everything Nixon did and called the Senate Hearings and later the impeachment hearings partisan shams designed to overthrow a duly elected President, and they did so even though the evidence against Nixon was overwhelming! The impeachment of Richard Nixon became bipartisan only after the smoking gun tape made any further defense so untenable that Republicans could not even claim it was a bad joke! So when the Republicans call this impeachment process partisan what they really mean is that they refuse to protect this country and its constitution from a lawless, incompetent and corrupt Republican president. Contrary to what Republicans want you to believe most Democrats are not gleeful over the thought of impeaching Donald Trump. What most of us feel is relief over the fact that our legislators are finally keeping their oath to defend and protect the constitution! And we hope that will make a difference even though we know it is highly unlikely that the Republicans in the senate will display anything other than the moral and intellectual bankruptcy that prevents them from defending the constitution in accordance with the oath of office they took.

The Republicans also claim the Democrats are ignoring the facts. Talk about projection! Do those idiots think we cannot read or that we have lost the life experiences and common sense that tell us what someone with immense power means when he says: “I would like you to do us a favor though.” And what about all the testimony from Sondland, and the conversation where Trump is overheard asking Sondland if Zelenski was going to do the investigation. Not to mention Mulvaney admitting that Trump did demand a quid pro quo of Zelenski or all of Rudy Giuliani's absurd statements and confessions. Just look at the Intelligence Committee's Report and the evidence it cites. The evidence is overwhelming! It is not the Democrats who are ignoring facts it is the Republicans.

The experts the Democrats called to testify did a good job. They were Constitutional Law Professors Pamela Karlan of Stanford, Noah Feldman of Harvard, and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina. As someone who has spent a good part of his life studying history, I really enjoyed their testimony about our founding fathers debating the need for impeachment and about the reasons they (the framers of the constitution) gave for making impeachment a part the Constitution. Obviously impeachment was not meant to be the means for removing an unpopular president; rather is was meant to be used to remove a president who commits crimes, abuses his power, or otherwise puts his self interest ahead of the interests of this country to the detriment of this country. All of the witnesses pointed out that the evidence submitted to congress was more than sufficient to prove that Trump engaged in the criminal and/or corrupt acts alleged in the intelligence committee's report, including but not limited to Bribery, and Obstruction of Justice, as well as Contempt and Obstruction of Congress. Judging by their warnings the crimes our founding fathers would have found most odious are Trump's attempts to get foreign powers to interfere in our elections. But all of the crimes and corrupt acts cited in the Intelligence Committee's report are serious, and are precisely what impeachment was designed to remedy. Furthermore as these very knowledgeable professors pointed out, the need to impeach Trump is urgent because a large part of his corrupt and/or criminal activity involves subverting the upcoming 2020 elections! Which means that Trump is a clear and present danger to our very democracy!

By contrast the Republican expert witness, Constitutional Law Professor Jonathon Turley of George Washington Law School, said impeachment is premature. He inaccurately maintained that there was not enough evidence to prove Trump's criminal and corrupt activity at this point, and Turley insisted that congress should wait for the courts to decide whether people defying congressional subpoenas have to comply with those subpoenas. My question to Mr. Turley is: “ what do you do when the Attorney General, who heads the department that enforces Congressional subpoenas, is a soggy diaper who covers the ass of a corrupt president and hauls his water, and therefore will not enforce any subpoenas the president does not want enforced!" If Mr. Turley was a prosecutor people like Al Capone would never go to trial because of the vast and ever increasing number of rocks Mr. Turley would insist on turning over before bringing any charges against the would be defendant!

What do Mr. Turley and the other soiled diapers covering Trump's ass not understand or think we are too stupid to understand about the urgent need to stop an ongoing effort to subvert the election of 2020?

Repub-Speak

Alright, boys and girls, I know you have a dictionary or consult one online occasionally, but many words do not mean what you think they mean -- at least not as used by Republicans. An obvious example of this is, “Democrat Party.” There is no such thing as a Democrat Party; it is the Democratic Party. The list of words and terms below is partial and is meant to help you follow the impeachment hearings, the trial in the senate, and what could be called debates if you are inclined to dignify the arguments of the side that has no valid facts or evidence.

Coup, also known as a coup d'etat, is defined as: "[t]he sudden overthrow of a government, differing from a revolution by being carried out by a small group of people who replace only the leading figures.”

In Repub-Speak coup is defined as the impeachment and attempted removal from office of a POTUS who is also the leader of the Republican Party, regardless of how lawless, incompetent, compromised, and/or dangerous to this country and its laws that POTUS may be!

Impeachment: Is set forth in the constitution.  It is similar to a grand jury in that the House of Representatives prepares articles (one could say the charges) that are presented in a trial with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court serving as the presiding judge and all of the Senators serving as the jury.

In Repub-Speak impeachment is a coup d'etat unless it is the impeachment of a Democratic President – preferably over some sexual transgression because descriptions of salacious behavior are so much fun.

Deep State: Apologists for Donald Trump like to babble about the deep state as part of their drain the swamp scenario and as part of the false claim that Trump is being persecuted by the triple digit IQ crowd. According to Wikipedia:

Deep State "... [c]onspiracy theorists believe that there is 'a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process',[11] or consider the deep state to encompass corruption prevalent among career politicians and civil servants.[12]” (Emphases added)

The deep state theory is particularly helpful to Donald Trump at this time because it is non-elected, career civil servants who are now showing their commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States by obeying the lawful subpoenas from Congress and honestly testifying about what has been described as Trump's dirt for aid scheme in regard to the Ukraine. Unfortunately for Trump and the apologists trying the use the deep state conspiracy theory to discredit all witnesses in the impeachment hearings, the Civil Servants who have testified, at no small risk to themselves and their careers, have also displayed a dedication and an ethical code that tells us the Civil Service Act is serving us well. I might add here that Trump's Romneyesque approach to draining the swamp seems to assume that the swamp will drain itself in disgust if he keeps crapping in it. How many of the people close to Trump have been indicted, and/or pled guilty to committing crimes, or have been convicted of committing crimes? A corrupt president will appoint corrupt people to important positions, thereby creating the swampy conditions the right wing dumb asses say they object too and the Civil Service Act was designed to prevent to the extent that it can be prevented without forbidding presidents from appointing their cabinets and other members of their administrations.


Wisteblower is defined by Wikipedia as “... a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within a private or public organization.”

The person who blew the whistle on Trump linking a visit to the white house and military aid to the Ukraine with a publicly announced investigation of Burisma and the Bidens did so anonymously but in full accordance with the whistleblower protection acts. The Republicans said the Whistleblower's allegations were not based on direct evidence, that they were unreliable hearsay, and should not even be considered. But in defiance of Trump's repeated denials, Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and what could be called the President's special envoy to the Ukraine, has described that linkage as a quid pro quo. Furthermore, Mr. Holmes testified that he heard Trump asking if President Zelensky agreed to investigate Biden.

Investigations: We all know what investigation means in normal usage, but as used in furtherance of political objectives (usually with the goal of digging up dirt that can be used against your opponent) investigation does not necessarily mean an attempt to uncover hidden or unknown facts. As Fiona Hill testified and our intelligence agencies have confirmed, Vladimir Putin and Russia have put out a false conspiracy theory that contends that it was the Ukraine that interfered with our 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. And a lousy job they did of it. So lousy, in fact, that no one with an IQ above eighty can believe that they even tried because the did not. This whole theory about Ukrainian interference in our election is utter nonsense propagated by Russia to deflect and draw attention away from the fact that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Putin's man ho, Donald Trump, and they are at this very moment trying to interfere with the election of 2020. Yet here we have Reublicans such as Diaper Devin Nunez screaming for the investigation of Ukrainian interferance in the 2016 election!

Burisma Holdings Limited is a holding company for a group of energy exploration and production companies based in Kyiv, Ukraine. It is a company with an unsavory reputation for corruption. But when Republicans talk about Burisma and corruption they are inferring that Joe Biden is part of the corruption because his son Hunter took a position on the board of Burisma after the corruption of that company was exposed. No one is arguing that Hunter Biden did not show bad judgment in taking that position. We all agree that, as the son of Vice President Biden, Hunter should have avoided even the appearance of creating a conflict of interest for his father. There is, however, absolutely no evidence that Hunter's position at Burisma had any influence on Joe Biden's actions let along any corrupt influence. Furthermore the falsity of the equivalencey the Republicans are implying between this and Trump trying to extort the aid of the Ukraine in furtherance of Trump's personal political goals is patently obvious.

Missing witnesses: The Republicans falsely claim they have not been allowed to call any witnesses. This is untrue; Messrs Morrison and Volker were witnesses the Republicans requested. Witnesses the Republicans claim they want to call are Hunter Biden and the whistleblower. They want to call Hunter Biden so they can send the hearings down a rabbit hole of false equivilancies and irrelevant distractions, and they want the whistleblower (who according to Republicans has nothing but hearsay to offer) in order to draw attention away from the real evidence by challenging what they insist is the source of the information that started the impeachment process. In lodging their complaints about not being able to call Hunter Biden and the whistleblower the Republicans are demonstrating the hypocrisy that has become a trademark of the twenty-first century Republican Party. Why won't Trump allow Mulvaney, Bolton, Pompeo, et al to testify, and why is the Trump administration fighting all requests and subpoenas for relevant documents, emails, etc.?

Impeachment And The Consatitution

Last week a right wing relative accused me of disparaging the political opinions of conservatives in general and him in particular. By conservatives he meant far right reactionaries, and I had to admit that he was right about my reaction to them. I simply cannot hide my disdain for the wacky conspiracy theories and total denials of all facts that are inconvenient to them. But in an effort to assuage his ruffled feelings, I apologized. He went into a right wing rant anyhow. The rant included telling me that Justin Trudeau is the bastard son of Fidel Castro, and he concluded by telling me to read the Constitution. At the risk of stating the obvious, he confirmed my worst suspicions about his political opinions. He also ignored a fact he was well aware of, which is that I can teach a class on the constitution. I responded by reminding him of that, and I added, “what are you going to do next, tell a professor of constitutional law to read Marbury v. Madison?”

After this encounter I could not help wondering why he told me to read the constitution when he knew about my education. I think the answer is that he could not help himself. Telling people to read the constitution has become a knee jerk reaction of the reactionaries who are no longer satisfied with waving the flag in your face. At first blush there appears to be a danger to them in using the constitution this way because people who know what the constitution says and have studied the debates and compromises that made it what it is are going to point out things that will refute some of the simplistic twaddle the right wing depends on to validate its ideology. Ah but never fear, the right wing is insulated from all inconvenient facts by their alternative universe; they have poisoned all the wells outside of that universe, and they simply deny any and all facts that do not comport with their beliefs. A perfect example of this is their lack of any reaction to Donald Trump calling the emoluments clause of the constitution "phony." The only thing I can conclude from this failure to defend the constitution from a lawless president is that it is the time and customs of the founders of our country that the right wing cherishes rather than the ideals and work product of our founders. In particular they (the reactionaries) want to go back to a time when white males had all of the privileges and ruled with impunity, and without admitting that that is what want they know that white male primacy is what our founding fathers intended. Fortunately, our founding fathers were wise enough to realize that their great work was imperfect, and they provided a mechanism for changing the Constitution as well as a way for us to remove a lawless, and/or incompetent president from office.

The best way to celebrate the good works of our founding fathers is not to enshrine the flaws in our constitution caused by the need to compromise on difficult issues such as slavery, but to change and perfect the constitution as we have done in the past -- so that it reflects the ideals of a free and democratic society, which includes racial, ethnic, and gender equality. It stands to reason that we must also protect our constitution and the rights it guarantees, including the sanctity of our elections and the checks and balances achieved by the separation of powers among the three branches of our government. One of the greatest fears of our founding fathers was that a President would try to usurp the powers granted to the other branches of government and defy the will of the electorate. Hence we see historical references to Republicans accusing Federalists of wanting to shape the American government to resemble the British monarchy.

In speaking of a well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper 65:

“... The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In Paper 66 he added: “... And it may, perhaps, with no less reason be contended, that the powers relating to impeachments are, as before intimated, an essential check in the hands of that body [meaning congress] upon the encroachments of the executive.” Thus we know that abuse of power is an impeachable crime!

Among the charges brought against Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon is obstruction of Congress, which is in and of itself an impeachable offense and an abuse of power when used to defy lawful subpoenas or suppress the testimony of witnesses called by congress or the courts. Even if you set aside the Mueller Report and the evidence set forth therein, it is obvious that Donald Trump is guilty of obstructing congress in its duty to provide oversight of the executive branch, and an article of impeachment must be drawn up for obstructing congress in order to protect the oversight our constitution provides. Many of Trump's apologists are absurdly claiming that the summary of his now infamous call to Volodymyr Zelensky does not show that a publicly announced investigation digging up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden as well as an investigation of whether it was Ukrainians rather than Russia that hacked the DNC in 2016 were preconditions for the arms Zelensky needed in order to protect his country from the aggression of the Russians. Anyone with an IQ above eighty who has read that summary knows better because the summary shows precisely that Quid Pro Quo! Furthermore, at the risk of sounding like a prosecutor, the House Intelligence committee will produce witnesses who will testify to that quid pro quo. We know this because many of those witnesses have given such testimony in depositions and the opening statements of those witnesses have been made public.

So what will this mean when Republicans switch to defending Trump by saying so what, these offenses do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. Oh really? Extorting a foreign country to interfere in our elections by providing, perhaps even inventing, dirt on a presidential candidate would set the powdered wigs of our founding fathers on fire! It is exactly the sort of thing they feared most! It is a large part of why they provided impeachment and removal from office as a remedy. Trump is the most dangerous and lawless president ever. Move over Nixon, Trump should be the poster boy for impeachment.

A Spine For Congress

We have all received them frequently, those communications from our members of congress urging us to send them money to help them get reelected. While I would encourage everyone to support public servants who fairly and ably represent their constituents, it is painfully obvious that many members of congress are in dire need of something other than money and votes. Please send Nancy Pelosi and the blue dog Democrats calcium and vitamin D supplements with instructions on how to use those supplements and an expressed wish that the supplements will help those congress members grow the backbones they need to defend our constitution from a corrupt, lawless, compromised president. The latest revelations about Trump soliciting (even implicitly extorting) the aid of the President of the Ukraine in Trump's efforts to smear Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidate for President, is far more overt and therefore worse than Trump welcoming Russia's aid during the election of 2016. Furthermore Trump's obstruction and illegal defiance of congress in this latest scandal is far more blatant. The law is absolutely clear and unequivocal:

“Once the relevant inspector general makes such a determination that the complaint credibly raises an urgent concern, he forwards it to the head of the agency – in this case, the DNI. The law then requires the DNI (or the relevant agency head) to forward the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees, along with any comments he wishes to make about the complaint, within seven days.”

If it was not evident before, it should be now. Donald Trump Must Be Impeached to Protect the legitimacy of our elections, our government from the corrupting influence a foreign Power, and the separation of powers enumerated in or constitution! There comes a time when doing the right thing is far more important than anything else. This is such a time! We are a nation of laws or we are not, that is our choice. 

Chaotic Obstruction

The hearing in which Cory Lewandowski testified got off to a chaotic start. There was supposed to be three witnesses, but Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter obeyed the orders of the white house and ignored the subpoena's from the House Judiciary Committee. The justification they used for not appearing was a spurious white house claim that all communications with the president are privileged. The chairman of the Judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, quickly rejected this absurd claim of absolute immunity from lawful subpoenas demanding appearances to testify, but the stone wall of Trump's obstruction remains in tact until the courts rule otherwise. And it gets worse. The white house also instructed Lewandowski not to answer any questions about his conversations with the president. Thus we had Lewandowski constantly repeating: “The white house has directed me not to disclose the subject of any discussions.”

The Republicans, however, were not content to leave bad enough alone. Oh, hell no! They raised absurd points of order, moved to adjourn the hearings, and demanded roll call votes to eat up as much time as possible. Then when Republican members of the judiciary committee had their turn to ask questions they did what they have been doing for years; they simply ignored the real issues and babbled absurdities about the deep state, angry Democrats out to get Trump, and witch hunts. Many of those Republicans, including Doug Collins and tail gunner Jim Jordan, sounded as if Michell Bachmann had taught them history and they had received their law degrees from Dumb F. U. One of the things I actually found amusing was the misguided Republican efforts to paint Lewandowski as the victim by saying that he has already testified many times in many proceedings to exactly the questions being posed by the Democrats. And yet here we had Lewandowski insisting that he needed the Democrats to read to him relevant portions of the Mueller Report in order to refresh his memory! The most charitable thing we can conclude from that is that poor Lewandowski cannot read, at least not out loud, and that he is probably suffering from a form of dementia brought on by a consciousness of guilt. Be that as it may, the chaos and the Republican clowns were off putting.

By the time of the first break in the hearing the media pundits, most of whom ignored the babbling Republican buffoonery, were talking about how bad this looked for the Democrats. I am always amazed by how impressed the pundits seem to be with the slithering evasions of uncooperative witnesses. Just because the slime you are trying to hold up for scrutiny keeps slipping through your fingers it does not mean observers will not recognize the slime as slime. In the case of public hearings, however, the pundits have a point. It is not just the observers, the people watching the hearings that you must impress it is also the larger audience that gets its information or misinformation from sound bites of the testimony. I might add here that the coverage of this hearing really sucked. MSNBC cut away for its normal programing just when the questioning was beginning to produce results, and CSPAN cut away to show what was happening on the house floor. CSPAN said that CSPN3 was covering the remainder of the hearing, but I'll be damned if I could find CSPN3 on any of my menus.

That evening CSPAN redeemed itself. Too many people were unable to watch the part of Lewandowski's testimony that was televised live because the hearing took place during normal working hours. But some time between six or six thirty P. M. (Pacific cost time) I discovered that CSPAN was rerunning Lewandowski's testimony in its entirety. This actually made the hearing available to a much larger audience than the live hearing was. It is a good thing too because the part of the hearing not aired live was the questioning by outside counsel Barry Berke, and he really pinned Lewandowski down.

When Jerry Nadler announced that he was recognizing outside counsel Barry Berke as the last person to question Lewandowski on behalf of the Democrats the Republicans went absolutely crazy. Doug Collins raised a point of order and, ignoring all the precedents to the contrary, he declared that Mr. Berke could not ask any questions because Mr. Berke was not a senator or a member of the staff. When that point of order was overruled Mr. Collins appealed the ruling and argued that Mr. Berke could not ask questions because this was not an impeachment hearing. This was quickly followed by a motion to table the appeal, and the motion to table was passed by a roll call vote. Other Republicans then brought equally absurd points of order and spurious parliamentary inquiries, all of which Nadler overruled. The Republicans then responded by moving to adjourn the hearing, and that motion was defeated by another roll call vote.

It was obvious that the Republicans were caught off guard and were in a panic at the prospect of the outside counsel questioning Lewandowski for a half hour. As it turned out the fears of the Republicans were justified. Much of the questioning thus far had revolved around the speech quoted below:

“I know that I recused myself from certain things having to do with specific areas. But our POTUS ... is being treated very unfairly. He shouldn't have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel b/c he hasn't done anything wrong. I was on the campaign w/ him for nine months, there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact b/c I was there. He didn't do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history. … Now a group of people want to subvert the Constitution of the United States. I am going to meet with the Special Prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the Special Prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections.”

Lewandowski had transcribed that speech as it was dictated by Trump. Trump then told Lewandowski to give the transcript to Sessions while instructing Sessions to publicly deliver it as though it was a speech Sessions had written. In answering questions about the transcript Lewandowski said that he had transcribed quite a few things Trump had dictated, and that not delivering the speech to Sessions as Trump had instructed him to do did not show consciousness of guilt because Lewandowski did not think it would be illegal to deliver the speech to Sessions. All of that testimony confirmed what was in the Mueller Report except for the part about Lewandowski transcribing Trump's dictation on more than one occasion. Furthermore, Lewandowski was doing his best to limit his answers to confirmations of what was in the Mueller Report much as Mueller had done.

Now came Mr. Berke, and it quickly became evident that he was not going to let Lewandowski restrict his testimony to what was in the Mueller Report or to hide behind the white house instruction not to disclose the “subject of any discussions.” Berke played videotapes of Lewandowski lying in television interviews about what he did in regard to Sessions and the investigation of Russia's interference. In an interview with Ari Melber on MSNBC Lewandowski said: I do not remember Trump “ever asking me to get involved with Jeff Sessions or the Department Of Justice in any way, shape or form ever.”

Playing that part of the MSNBC interview put Lewandowski between a rock and a hard place. He had to admit that he lied to Mueller or that he was lying during the interview shown. The closest Lewandowski came to admitting that he had lied during this interview and others shown by Berke was when Lewandowski said he had no obligation to tell the news media the truth. He added that he always told the truth when under oath, as if that somehow made him credible. And then things got much worse for Mr. Lewandowski.

When Berke asked if one of the reasons Lewandowski had agreed to deliver to Jeff Sessions the speech Trump dictated was because he, Lewandowski, thought Trump was considering bringing him into the white house at the level of Jared Kushner Lewandowski tried to stonewall by saying he could not reveal the subject of any discussions. But Mr. Berke was armed and ready for that. He produced a copy of Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency, which featured many conversations with the President. As Salon put it: “One of the anecdotes [in Let Trump Be Trump] has Trump suggesting to Lewandowski that he might join the administration at the level of Jared Kushner to run the Russia 2016 election interference investigation.”

Wouldn't that be special? Berke's revelation of that aecdote certainly had old Lew squirming. Seat rumba anyone?  And were you lying in your book, Mr. Lewandowski?

There was much more to the hearing and to Mr. Berke's masterful questioning than I have recounted here. It showed beyond any reasonable doubt why we must Impeach Trump. And yet the pundits are still wringing their hands over the fact that Mr. Berke did not get to question Lewandowski until the tail end of the hearing. The pundits have a point. Many people, like me, were not able to see Mr. Berke question Mr. Lewandowski live, but the sound bites form it are Glorious!

Roiling Mental Mush

Trump's greatest aspiration is to relieve himself of the burden of having to answer to anyone other than Vladimir Putin. Facts are not Trump's friends. Since his incompetence and corruption cannot withstand the glare of responsible scrutiny, Trump and his sycophants want us to believe that the press is the enemy of the people and that every source of information Trump cannot control is phony and/or fake. This is not surprising.  The first victim of any would be tyrant is the truth. Reality must be what the great leader says it is. Thus we have Trump's alternate universe of roiling mental mush that is probably as incomprehensible to him as it is to us.  And that is frightening.

I was recently asked what I thought of the Inspector General's decision not to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for leaking confidential information regarding meetings in which Trump indicated that he wanted Comey to go easy on Michael Flynn. What am I supposed to think? What is anyone supposed to think when we have an attorney general who is acting like a soggy diaper covering Trump's ass and hauling his water. Indeed the scathing rebuke of Comey in the inspector general's report seems like an ironically Comneyesque compromise with a president who is demanding that all his critics be prosecuted on Trumped up charges amounting to nothing more sinister than contempt of Tyrant? Making matters worse is the fact that Moscow Mitch is helping Trump gain control of the courts as well as the justice department. And no, I am not over stating my case (at least, not by much. Does the name Merrick Garland mean anything to you?)

I think the thing that troubles me the most is that I know I am one of Trump's victims, we all are. I am so afraid of the very real danger Trump poses to our democracy, our decency, and our most cherished traditions that my own rage is threatening to turn my brains to roiling mush. I am also very frustrated. The cruelty of Trump's fascist tactics are beyond dispute. Not being content with separating asylum seekers from their innocent children and holding those children in overcrowded, unsanitary facilities without proper medical care or supervision – not to mention the terrible conditions of the facilities where the adults are incarcerated, the Trump administration is now ripping very ill children out of their hospital beds and deporting them to countries where those children cannot get the treatments they so desperately need. The bottom line is that Trump is sending those children to their death or to a life of needless suffering. What is next, death camps? And what about Trump raiding the disaster relief funds in order to protect us from his straw dogs and bogey men, i.e. those brown asylum seekers at our southern border? Why aren't people outraged by this cruelty? Why aren't they protesting and demanding the impeachment of this lawless, incompetent, and callous despot?  Have we lost our souls as a people? Do we no longer have a moral compass?


“And then they came for me.” I am taking this personal and so should you.  Damn it! Enough is enough! End this embarrassing and despicable national nightmare, or at least have the gumption to try!  

Putin's Trump And Moscow Mitch

“Putin's Trump and Moscow Mitch do not work for America!” That Democratic (and democratic) war cry is inspired by Joe Scarborough calling Mitch McConnell, "Moscow Mitch." Ah, what the hell. Let's act like Republicans and try to have it both ways.  If someone asks Joe Biden what he thinks of Trump's nickname for him Biden should laugh, then he should say: “You would think that someone who has spent the better part of sixty years practicing middle school insults could come up with something better than sleepy Joe, wouldn't you?"

One last thing.  On the subject of impeachment. Do the right thing. It will please your friends and confound your critics. The Democrats must keep their oath to defend the constitution. If Trump has committed impeachable offenses, and he has, he must be impeached. Furthermore, the political cost for doing the right thing is not what the timid seem to think it is. As The Hill has reported:

“Professor [Allan Lichtman] who has correctly predicted 9 presidential elections says Trump will win in 2020 unless Democrats impeach.”

While I am not prepared to go as far as Professor Lichtman has, I will say that Democrats need to draw a strong distinction between their party (the party of patriots) and a Republican Party that now places its own partisan interests ahead of the best interests of this country. Donald Trump is a lawless president who is a clear and present threat to this country, its security, its institutions, and its democracy. Democrats must impeach him regardless of whether his morally bankrupt party prevents his removal from office! It is the right thing to do, and it draws a strong contrast between the Parties!

Trier Of Facts

I am so damn sick of media pundits demanding drama and babbling about the political eye wash they euphemistically call optics. The reaction to Mueller's testimony during the hearing conducted by the Judiciary Committee is a perfect example of what I am complaining about. Long before Mueller agreed to testify he gave a press conference in which he indicated that his report was his testimony, and virtually everyone who has worked with Mueller said we should take him at his word – that he will not answer questions outside of the report and that it is highly unlikely that he will expand upon or explain the statements in his report. No matter, the pundits said. They said his testimony will be the movie everyone watches rather than reading the book. Yet when Mueller did precisely what he said he would do all the pundits went into panic mode. No drama, they wailed; his testimony lacks the optics needed to persuade the people! Silly me, I should have expected the pants wetting and hand wringing. I should have expected the pundits to quote Democrats as saying the hearing was a disaster. I should have but I did not. So I found myself actually saying: “wring out your undies, look at the facts presented, watch the next hearing, and wait to see how the public reacts.

I will grant you that I did not get out of bed at five in the morning* to see the beginning of that hearing, but what I did see set forth the evidence of Trump's obstruction of justice rather well. This did not even come close to being a disaster. Bear in mind that courtroom testimony rarely produces the drama or “optics” the pundits seemed to demanding, and yet jurors still weigh the evidence and they still render verdicts based upon the facts. While there were no surprises in the testimony for anyone familiar with the report, that does not mean the testimony did not have an impact on people learning about Trump's obstruction for the first time.

The next hearing, conducted by the Intelligence Committee, was masterful. Adam Schiff knocked it out of the park. Rather than trying to get Mueller to state legal conclusions about conspiracy or collusion Schiff concentrated on questions of ethics, patriotism, and national security.  Mueller relaxed a bit and became more responsive.  He expressed his concern over Russia's interference in our elections and expressed his fear that it could become our new normal.  Perhaps the most dramatic and unexpected response from Mueller came when chairman Schiff asked if knowingly accepting help from a foreign power to win an election was unethical? To which Mueller relied, “Yes. And a crime.”

I think the Rolling Stone really shows the full impact of the hearings in an article that presents a list of statements Mueller affirmed as accurate. Those statements are absolutely damning to Trump. These hearings are a beginning rather than an end, but time is of the essence. The impeachment process must begin soon!  The sooner the better.

*Who cares if people on the west coast have to get up in middle of the fricking night to watch the hearings. The west coast is already blue! 

Internecine War?

During the mid-term elections of 2018 a surprisingly large number of Democratic candidates said they would not vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house. To what can we attribute this opposition to Nancy Pelosi within her own party? Could it be that the Republican Party's unrelenting efforts to vilify Ms. Pelosi were that effective. There is probably some truth in that contention, particularly in districts where Democratic candidates were trying to win over independents and the misnamed Trump Democrats, but that vilification does not explain why some liberal candidates also said they would not vote for Pelosi as speaker of the house. The opposition of freshmen representatives to Speaker Pelosi is not explained by ideology either because Speaker Pelosi has some impressive liberal bonafides. So what is going on here? Is it simply a matter of young Turks saying thanks for your service but it is our turn now; give us the reins and get out of our the way?

In regard to what is now being called the squad (Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Taib, and Ayanna Pressley) the Washington Post reports Nancy Pelosi as saying:

“Their ability to work together — or refusal to — will have major implications for Democrats as they seek to oust President Trump and retain their majority in next year’s election. Pelosi knows that fate of her majority rests with the moderate Democrats who captured Republican-held seats in last year’s midterm elections.”

This quote is a strong clue in regard to answering the questions I posed above, but before I try to explain that I should inform you of where I am coming from. I am an old progressive who has become increasingly frustrated with a Democratic Party that has allowed itself to be pulled farther and farther to the right and away from its base as it struggles to compromise with an opposition party that has become more and more nihilistic and has absolutely no interest in compromise. Meanwhile the wealth gap continues to increase by leaps and bounds, leaving threatened members of the middle class to ask if and when they will be put on the endangered species list and become eligible for some protection from the rapaciousness of the wealthiest one percent. Needless to say that I am just one of a multitude of people now complaining about the miasma of corruption and greed, and the increasing political and economic power being amassed by an oligopoly that wants it all.

Nancy Pelosi is the epitome of the established leadership, and she is taking some heat for how that leadership is perceived.  From where I sit it is perfectly understandable if a younger generation thinks we have failed them, and that the old way of doing things is not working. There is a sense of urgency, and it is not just liberals who feel that way; it is also the Trump chumps, and even many people who call themselves independents because they seldom pay enough attention to know the differences between the parties. But the impatience and anxiety of liberals in general and younger liberals in particular does not mean there is an unbridgeable gap between generations or ideologies in the Democratic Party. Which is to say that contrary to the desire and belief of Republicans there is no internecine war within the Democratic Party at this time. As the Washington Post pointed out, the squad has not tried to form an organized opposition group like the freedom caucus, nor has it called Pelosi out for setting aside liberal priorities such as Medicare for all. The problem for Democrats is that the dispute between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in ongoing. We need a reconciliation between Pelosi and the squad, and we need a party that is not so afraid of losing elections that it will not do what is right for this country!

To Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership let me say: Do not be timid or afraid of your constituents.  Do not pander to their fears or their worst instincts. Have the courage to sell a positive, progressive agenda that will make a real difference in the lives of people who are not billionaires. Sell the hope, the dreams, and the realistic aspirations that make America so dynamic and great.  Do not tell the young to wait.  Invite everyone to move boldly forward as the party of great ideas and great deeds.  And when the Republicans shout socialism remind the voters that Republicans still call Social Security, Medicare, The Affordable Care Act, the Minimum Wage, and Unemployment Insurance "socialistic" programs.  Furthermore do not shy away from pointing out the moral depravity of the Trump Administration and the Party that refuses to condemn that depravity! Demanding human decency is a duty we all share!

Electability

What does electability mean? Electability is defined as,”capable of being elected (as to public office).” But that definition leaves a lot to be desired. Capable does not tell us anything about probability. It does not tell us what makes one candidate more likely to be elected than another candidate. It does not answer the question of what the voters want.  Polls asking questions about issues do not tell us what the voters want either because the Republicans gained control of both the house and the senate even when all of the polls showed that a majority of the voters disagreed with Republicans on most of the issues. Yet here we have a large number of pundits insisting that we think about electability and guard against going too far to the left. But what is too far left and who should define that for us. Obviously the people who most want to define far left are people on the far right. Then there are the so called moderates who are far too inclined to let the far right right define what is far left and then wring their hands over people accepting that definition.

What should now be obvious to everyone in this age of Trump is the undisputed fact that normal has failed. Moderation did not prevent globalization from turning blue collar workers into economic road kill. So now angry, destructive, and ignorant are the rule rather than the exception. The question is what are we going to do about it? I will submit to you that we cannot give these angry people more of the same. We cannot tell them we will take a bipartisan approach to governing when everyone knows we cannot achieve that because of the intractability of a Republican Party that appeals to its nihilistic base by obstructing everything positive and by threatening to blow up the government? In other words, candidates running as unifiers who say they will work across the aisle strain credulity regardless of how much people say they want to end the gridlock in Washington. The bottom line is that in an era of extremes moderates are too wishy washy and timid to bring about the bold changes we need to make.

The best advice I have heard given to prospective candidates is to be yourself. It is now time for the Democratic Party to be itself. Franklin Roosevelt made the Democratic Party the party that comes up with bold solutions and fixes seemingly impossible problems. Yes I know people are frightened by change, but when you are drowning you know you cannot stay where you are even if the idea of moving scares you.  And too many people are under water right now, both figuratively and literally. The problems we face are greatly exacerbated by a corrupt, incompetent, and compromised President, but he is not the root cause of those problems. Thus while we must remove him from office in order to deal with our problems, his removal alone will not solve those problems. Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are correct when they talk about the need to make big systemic changes. It is going to take a bold and sustained effort to save the middle class and keep good, hard working people from becoming homeless and hungry. Of course the Republicans will scream socialism and will froth at the mouth over the alleged destruction of capitalism. It is also certain that the Republicans will be aided and abetted by pundits who are already asking Bernie, Elizabeth and others if they are capitalists.

When John Hickenlooper was first asked if he was a capitalist he refused to answer, saying he did not like labels. I remember thinking at the time that I agreed with him about labels but that his answer was going to bite him in the butt. My answer to that question would have been: “It depends on how you define capitalism. If you mean the sort of social Darwinism that destroys competition in the market place, exploits workers, and charges what the market will bear for shoddy and often unsafe products my answer is no. If you mean a capitalistic system that has regulations protecting and promoting fair competition, labor, and consumers my answer is yes.” But I have to say that Bernie also had a good reply to that question. He said: "Do I not consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street's greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't." Now that is how you answer the Capitalism question. To put it in sound bite form you can say, “I am a capitalist by any reasonable definition of the term.”

I should add here that any progressive candidate other then Bernie, who openly calls himself a socialist, can also turn accusations of socialism against Republicans. Remember they called both Roosevelts socialists even though Teddy was a Republican. They also called Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and virtually every labor leader a socialist. Furthermore what Republicans oppose as socialistic programs are such things as Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment insurance, the Minimum Wage, and every other progressive program benefiting anyone who is not a billionaire. As an aside I have to say I admire Bernie's courage for calling himself a socialist and defending the label by pointing out that socialism as he uses it does not mean nationalizing everything.


If you are wondering whether I would vote for a moderate Democrat if one is nominated the answer is yes. I would vote for anyone other than Trump, but I really believe it would be a mistake to nominate a moderate. You cannot excite the base by running as Republican lite, and most of the democrats who did well in the mid-term elections did not run as Republican lite. Sorry Joe, but if the moderates had not failed we would not have President Donald Trump. We have to be who we are at our best. We have to think big. We have to be bold and kick ass for the good of this country and its citizens!

Stand Up For The Constitution!

On March 9, 2009 I wrote and posted a piece entitled, “Obama v. The Dixiecans,” in which I said in part:

“Rather than helping to cure the economic malaise, the Republicans have dusted off their credo from the days of the Great Depression: 'If you can’t sit at the head of the table, piss in the soup!' The obstructionist tactics they employed at that time helped President Franklin Roosevelt get elected to four consecutive terms. And what did the Republicans learn from that? Well, they introduced the Constitutional Amendment that now prevents any President from getting elected to more than two terms.”

The post from which the excerpt quoted above was taken was born out of anger and frustration over the fact that there were too many people, including Barack Obama, who were ignoring all of the evidence and acting as if the latest iteration of the far right Republicans who had gained control of the Republican Party could actually be persuaded to accept the responsibility the loyal opposition has to put the vital interests of this great country ahead of partisan political interests. Predictably all of President Obama's reasonable efforts to reach comprises with Speaker Boehner were in vain. Thus we experienced two government shut downs and a refusal to raise the debt ceiling that resulted in a downgrading of America's credit rating. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Mitch McConnell was misusing the filibuster to block as much legislation as possible and to prevent the confirmation of as many judges and cabinet members as possible. Indeed Mitch McConnell's stated goal was to make Barack Obama “a one term President.”

I was so angry that I wrote another post entitled, “Kick Harry Reid.” Why was Harry Reid not fighting back? Why was he letting the Republicans pervert the filibuster into the tool of an unprincipled, and obstructionist minority that was conflating partisan concerns with legitimate interests? As I warned at that time: “it is downright delusional to think that the filibuster will be available in the future when the Democrats might want to prevent the Republicans from doing something outrageous. The Republicans have no qualms about changing any rule that seems inconvenient to them.” Unfortunately I was far too prescient. Harry Reid finally used the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster in regard to the confirmation of cabinet members and judges, but he preserved the filibuster in regard to supreme court justices in the mistaken belief that Republicans would also want to preserve the filibuster in order to keep some balance on the court. Do I need to remind you that Mitch McConnell would not even hold a confirmation hearing for anyone Obama appointed to the Supreme court, or that he, McConnell, did away with the filibuster in order to appoint far right reactionaries to the highest court in the land?

To those of you who are foolish enough to think anything has changed let me remind you that Mitch McConnell is now calling himself the grim reaper of the “Democratic socialist agenda,” which apparently includes Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, the Affordable Care Act, and every safety net or piece of progressive legislation passed or proposed during or after Roosevelt's New Deal. The really distressing part of that is that McConnell is actually representative of the Republican party today. The reason why I am saying this is because there are too many Democratic candidates who are naively talking about being unifiers who can work with members of a party that is is so unprincipled and full of hate that it has become, to use the vernacular, bat shit crazy! Come on people, it is not Just Trump who is a grave threat to our Constitution and our most cherished traditions it is also what is left of the Republican Party.

What is clearly needed now is not a conciliator but a warrior, a leader who will stand up for the constitution and the people of this nation. Do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not advocating the sort of negative campaign Republicans use to rile their base. We need a positive agenda. We need a candidate proposing bold policies and legislation to rest control of this country from an oligopoly that is quickly turning into an oligarchy and is using its power to tighten its death grip on the economic well being of an imperiled middle class. We need a persuasive leader who can convince us that we can buck the odds stacked against us by such powerful economic forces, and that we can restore the American dream! But how can we believe such a leader when his or her party does not even have the backbone to stand up and defend our constitution from the grave threat posed to it by a lawless President and by the soggy diapers who are covering his butt and hauling his water? If we do not do the right thing now no one will believe that we will have the courage to fight the good fight and do what is necessary to advance any positive agenda.

So to Nancy Pelosi and other timid Democrats in Congress here is what I have to say:  Stop acting like Republicans who are cowering in fear of the vicious Trump Chumps. Do the right thing. Start impeachment proceedings now! Start public hearings to determine the charges that will be included in the articles of impeachment and make a strong case for including those charges in the articles of impeachment. Let Republican members of the Senate risk their careers by cowering in fear of the Trump chumps and refusing to convict Trump. The impeachment of Trump will not be analogous to the impeachment of Bill Clinton because the nefarious acts Trump has and still is committing rival the acts that caused Richard Nixon to resign in disgrace. The fact that Trump is so obviously corrupt, incompetent and compromised by a foreign power means that he poses a clear and present danger to this country. That danger is very real, and it is not something any real patriot can ignore! You have thought about the risks involved in impeaching Trump; now it is time to think about all of the risks involved in not impeaching Trump!

There They Go Again!

Back in 2016 I made a diary entry at Daily Kos in which I wrote that:

“As a Vietnam era vet I know too well what it is like to lose many of my friends in a needless war. As we celebrate them for their bravery and selfless dedication to this country, we should also honor them by asking ourselves how we can prevent other young men and women from paying the ultimate price for our folly.”

I then went on to list some of the lies used as an excuse for getting us into wars. Many of the classic examples of those lies involve alleged attacks on ships. Who can forget, “Remember the Maine!” Then there was our outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania, and the alleged attack on an American ship that resulted in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions and the Vietnam War.

Now we are approaching another Memorial day, and as Ronald Reagan would say: “There they go again!" Donald Trump is acting suspiciously like he is looking for an excuse to start a war with Iran. In addition to sending a large fleet to the Middle East and rumors that Trump is also going to send a large ground force there, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.SA. officials said two Saudi oil tankers and vessels from Norway and the U..A.E. were damaged, and that Iran is likely behind the attacks on those ships.

Be skeptical, my friends! Trump is dangerous. He is the master of distraction, and he is showing signs of desperation about what congress and the American people might find out about him. He is responding in part by stepping up his appeal to feelings of victimization and the fear and loathing those feelings engender in his base supporters. We cannot let him get way with it. The threatened exposure of Trump's corrupt behavior by the Mueller report and congressional hearings must not be hidden behind the smoke screen of another needless war. Good people must not be forced to sacrifice their lives to hide Trump's criminal acts or to fulfill his fantasies about being the great leader. It is time for all people of good conscience to stand up. “My country right or wrong.” be damned! The true patriot strives to make his or her country better. Let the diapers covering Trumps ass know that you will hold them accountable for any and all deaths caused by an avoidable armed conflict.

MSNBC just reported that Trump has denied the reports that he is thinking of sending a large ground force to the Middle East. Still the initial report and this latest accusation about attacks on ships are chilling, as is the erratic behavior of a president who lies about everything and seems to know no restraint. 

Putin Up With Trump

Vladimir Putin is up with Trump, and he has good reason to be.  After their last conversation Trump promptly announced that he wants to establish a friendlier and closer trade relationship with Russia. What is all too apparent to me is that during their last conversation Putin must have called in a debt, and that Trump has renewed his efforts to repay that debt by trying to remove the sanctions that were imposed on Russia in response to Putin killing dissidents, invading the Ukraine, launching cyber attacks against us, and interfering with our elections. All of which serves as strong evidence that Trump has been compromised and is not working in the best interest of the United States. Thus while Putin is up with Trump, every patriotic American should be against Trump for what he is doing to this country and to our cherished rule of law.

When I was inducted into the army so many years ago I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all threats foreign and domestic. As a veteran I still take that oath very seriously. Members of the federal government, such as the heads of departments and agencies, congress members, senators, and the president and his cabinet, also took that oath. Yet here we have the attorney general, and the secretary of the treasury violating the separation of powers stated in the constitution by defying lawful requests and subpoena's from a congress that is trying to perform the oversight responsibilities assigned to it by the constitution.  This defiance of congress on the part of Barr and Mnuchin is made particularly egregious and unconscionable by the fact that congress is trying to serve as a check and balance to a corrupt, incompetent, and compromised president, Donald J. Trump.  Furthermore, we have Republican senators, such as Lindsey Graham, violating their oath of office by refusing to acknowledge that Trump should be held accountable for his criminal acts. The Majority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, -- yes that Mitch McConnell, the one who destroyed senate rules and traditions and delegitimized the supreme court -- further disgraced himself with a babbling defense of Donald Trump that was reminiscent of Richard Nixon during the height of the Watergate hearings. McConnell actually said the Mueller investigation found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of Trump and that the Democrats in Congress were now trying to overturn a legitimate election. McConnell then went on to say, "case closed;" it is time to put the Mueller report behind us.  Mitch McConnell is a bald faced, unpatriotic liar!  In his report Mueller strongly inferred that there is not enough evidence to charge Trump with conspiring with the Russians because Trump's efforts to obstruct justice were successful! Mueller then went on to state some ten acts of obstruction of justice committed by Trump. So compelling are the acts of obstruction listed in the Mueller report that over 450 former federal prosecutors, comprised of both Democrats and Republicans, have signed a letter that says, “Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not president.”

No one is above the law! If anyone, particularly a president or others governing this nation are ever elevated above the law then the law, in this nation of laws, will cease to exist, and we will lose our bulwark against tyranny. Beware my fellow citizens! The obstruction of justice and stonewalling now taking place are incredibly dangerous to our constitution and our democracy. This is not the time to be timid. Donald Trump must be impeached. I know the Republican senators will not convict Trump, but Elizabeth Warren is correct in saying that we must do what is right! We must grab the attention of the media and the public. Impeachment hearings will carry more weight with the public and the courts than mere fact finding hearings will. That added weight will help to educate the public and enlist more of our fellow citizens in defense of the Constitution. The Republican senators who continue to act as diapers covering Trump's ass will then be hung out on the line dirty so that everyone can see the crap! Which is to say that a large number of those senators who will refuse to convict Trump will do so at their political peril! Furthermore impeachment will serve notice on those who are aiding and abetting Trump that he and they will be tried for their crimes when Trump leaves office regardless of whether he leaves office as a result of impeachment or the election of 2020!

No Public Service At The Barr

We cannot accept a redacted version of the Mueller report from William Barr for the same reason that we and our representatives in congress could not accept transcripts of the white house tapes from Richard (expletive deleted) Nixon! William Barr is Donald Trump's attorney general, and the people who describe him, Barr, as someone who will protect the integrity of the justice department are dead wrong. Barr is not serving this nation or its people; instead he has chosen to disgrace himself and the justice department by serving Donald J. Trump.

Many critics have accurately described the unsolicited and absurd letter letter Barr sent to the justice department as an audition letter for the job of attorney general. Barr proved those critics right on May 24, 2019 by putting out another letter in which he said that Mueller did not find Trump guilty of any criminal conspiracy with the Russians, and that while the Mueller report “does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” But in a fit of partisan chicanery, Mr. Barr then added that he, as the attorney general, determined that Trump was not guilty of obstructing justice. In other words, Barr's May 24 letter to congress and the American people was consistent with the absurd theory he advanced in his audition letter, to wit: that a sitting president cannot be guilty of obstructing justice. Needless to say that this pleased Trump to no end. Of course Trump being Trump he had to go beyond Barr's inaccurate characterizations of Mueller's report. Indeed, Trump used Barr's letter to proclaim himself totally vindicated, adding that he hoped the full report would be made public because it “exonerates” him. The Republican diapers on the house intelligence committee followed suit by using the Barr summary to accuse the committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, of making false accusations against Trump, and demanding Schiff's resignation as chairman of the intelligence committee (see previous post, "Schifting Diapers").

Ah but not so fast! For the first time there are actually leaks that seem to be coming, at least indirectly, from the Mueller Team. According to those leaks certain members of the Mueller team are angry about Barr's mischaracterizations of their work. It was even reported that some members of Mueller's staff are saying the report is not favorable to Trump! Furthermore, the Democrats in congress are intent on conducting real hearings and investigations of Trump, his campaign staff, and his administration. Those Democrats are demanding Trump's tax returns and the full, unredacted Mueller report, including all of the supporting evidence and grand jury testimony. This has put Trump into a bit of a panic. He is now back to calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt by angry Democrats who are also using their majority in the house of representatives to conduct another witch hunt of Trump. Unfortunately for Trump, there is a tell here. He is using the strange cadence of speech he adopts when he is scared, and I am finding that fear far too tempting. It makes me want to say that the whoopee dance Trump was performing over the Barr summary has turned into a pee pee dance. But I do not want to act like a Republican, and I do not enough evidence to accuse Trump of wetting his pants. So no puddle, no crotch grabbing, no pants wetting accusation. I'll just have to content myself by saying that Trump is back to performing his "no collusion" song and dance!

Fortunately, the danger Trump fears is not just a product of his paranoia. We Democrats will not give up. One way or another the truth is going to come out, and you can safely bet that it will stink a lot worse than wet pants! You can also bet that Barr's name will live in infamy right beside the names of John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst. You have to wonder why anyone would disgrace himself in such a obvious manner?

Schiffting Diapers

The diapers covering Tump's ass arrived at the house intelligence Committee hearing packing a load of hypocrisy and lies. They raged at Representative Schiff in well practiced fits of faux indignation, accusing Mr. Schiff of making false accusations against the President and calling for Schiff to resign as chairman of the house intelligence committee. In doing so they were parroting the out of tune trumpet blasts of their lier in chief, Donald Trump. And as anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to what the Republicans have been doing during the last ten years will tell you, they were accusing the Democrats and particularly Mr. Schiff of acting like Republicans.

It is almost unbelievable that anyone could falsely accuse Mr. Schiff of lying and call for his resignation while diaper Devin Nunez is still a member of that committee. You may remember that Devin Nunez was the chairman of the intelligence committee who had supported candidate Donald Trump and was forced to recuse himself from investigations of Trump because Nunez demonstrated that he would rather function as a diaper covering Trump's ass than perform the duties of the committee he chaired. Furthermore, Diaper Devin continued to interfere with the investigation of Trump even after he was supposedly recused. He did this by going after the FBI and others who were investigating Trump, accusing them of being biased and conducting a witch hunt of Trump (not unlike the one diaper Devin was still conducting of Hillary Clinton).

The hypocrisy and incredible stupidity of the charade conducted by Republican members of the intelligence committee was a clear indication that they, Trump's soiled diapers, were in need of some adjusting. So Adam Schiff valiantly tried to administer a shift to them by presenting them with the truth. As Lydia O'Conner reported in the Huffington Post:

“Schiff reiterated all the evidence connecting President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign with Russia after all nine Republicans on the House intelligence committee announced that they’d all signed a letter calling on him to resign as the head of the panel.

You might say that’s all okay,” Schiff said of the evidence he listed. “You might say that’s just what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s okay. I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic, and yes, I think it’s corrupt.”

In arguing his case Mr Schiff wisely ignored the Barr summery that the Republicans were blowing way out of proportion and questions about the accuracy of that summary. Instead Schiff simply said he trusted Mr. Mueller and he would not refute Mueller's conclusions. But, Schiff added, while the evidence may not rise to a level that would support a criminal charge of conspiracy, it definitely supports a determination that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And that this collusion and Trumps' fawning over Putin raises a serious concern about whether Trump has been compromised. In fact, Mr. Schiff said the question of whether Trump has been compromised by Russia is one of the things the Intelligence committee must investigate!


I urge everyone to read or better yet to go to one of the television news cites such MSNBC or CNN and listen to Mr. Schiff's reply to the Republicans who call for his resignation. It is bound be considered a classic by future historians who quote it!  

Unsatisfying As It May Be

To say that the Mueller Report as summarized by Attorney General Barr is not very satisfying to anyone who wants to know the truth would be understating the situation. Regardless of the feckless gloating by right wing buffoons, however, Mueller did not say Trump was innocent. At best, it can be said that Mueller did not find definitive evidence that Trump conspired with the Russians in regard to the election. In regard to obstruction of justice, Barr even said that although the Mueller report “does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” According to Barr Mueller left it to Barr and the Justice Department to determine whether the evidence Mueller provided is enough to conclude that Trump committed a crime, and that he (Barr) concluded that Trump did not commit the crime of obstruction of justice because there was no underlying crime! Which is to say there was no obstruction because there was no conspiracy Trump needed to conceal. The problem is that if Trump was not trying to hide something, why did he lie about his contacts and dealings with Russians? Why did so many of the people involved in the Trump campaign, including Jeff Sessions, lie about their contacts with Russians? And why does Trump still act like Putin's man ho?

There is obviously more here than meets the eye. This goes beyond mere smoke; this is the paint on the walls blistering from the heat! But the first thing we must remember is that Mueller's assigned task was narrow, and he, Mueller, handed off many matters to be investigated by other DOJ offices and state courts. We should also bear in mind that even the question of coordination between Trump and Russia during the election is not necessarily closed.  There is also a very strong possibility that Trump is guilty of even greater crimes that have yet to be discovered.  That was certainly true of Nixon during the Watergate scandal. In his book Chasing Shadows, University of Virginia Press, 2014, Ken Hughes wrote that President Nixon covered up and obstructed the investigation of the Watergate break in because he was afraid that the investigation would uncover a plethora of other crimes, which included Nixon's interference with peace talks that would have ended the Vietnam War prior to the election that put Nixon in the white house. In other words the acts that caused the downfall of Richard Nixon did not involve his personal and prior knowledge of the break in at the Watergate, nor did all of the impeachable offenses brought against him rise to the level that our legal system defines as crimes. I find it hard to believe that anyone can look at the evidence against Trump and conclude that his matter, this investigation of Trump should now end.  There are simply too many questions (some of which involve our national security) that demand answers!  

One of the major problems with what has been released thus far is that it is Barr's work product rather than Mueller's! We do not know how accurately Barr's letter characterizes the evidence Mueller gathered or any of the conclusions Mueller stated. All we know is that Barr stated his own conclusions. Furthermore in evaluating Barr's conclusions we must bear in mind that Trump fired Attorney General Sessions because he thought Sessions should have protected him,Trump, from Mueller's investigation! And that Trump appointed Barr to Replace Sessions as Attorney General because Barr had sent to the Justice Department an unsolicited letter criticizing Mueller's investigation and stating an absurd definition of obstruction of justice that would make it almost impossible for the president to be charged with obstruction of justice. So in regard to the Mueller investigation and/or Trump's guilt or innocence Attorney General Barr is the turd on the lawn; he is out of place and smells to high heaven! This is why congress has to be provided with the full Mueller report and all of the supporting evidence! It is also why there has to be public hearings with testimony from Mueller, Barr and others. The people of this nation demand and deserve no less than a full disclosure of what has been found thus far, a full investigation of other possible wrong doing, and a credible process!

Simply Disgraceful

What do Republican diapers trying to cover the ass of the most corrupt and incompetent president in our nation's history do when a witness at a congressional hearing is testifying against that president? What do they do when the evidence seems to make the witness's descriptions of the president's indefensible acts all too credible? The answer is that they, the diapers, do not try to defend the president or his actions. In fact they do not even mention the president if they can avoid it; instead they point to the witness and say that the stench you find so objectionable is coming from him. So during the testimony of Micheal Cohen there was not a single congressman who tried to defend Trump from the allegations made by Mr. Cohan. Which is to say that no congressmen denied that Trump committed the criminal acts Mr. Cohan described or offered an exculpatory explanation for any of Trump's actions.

While disparaging the character of a witness offering testimony damaging to your client in an effort to destroy that witness's credibility is a common defense tactic, it is unlikely that any objective observer would deem that to be an adequate defense in the absence of any denial of the allegations that witness is making. “You say the witness is lying? How do you know? What is the evidence? What is the alternative story?  What is the truth? Unfortunately for the Republicans the alternative story is not self evident or credible. Mr. Cohan was testifying under oath and had everything to lose if he lied. Mr. Trump refuses to testify under oath. Furthermore, it is not exactly a state secret that Donald Trump lies about everything all the time. In fact the Washington Post Fact Checker says that “[i]n 759 days, President Trump has made 8,718 false or misleading claims.”

I have one word for the Republican Party and Trump's diapers. And that word is Watergate! The Republican Party defended Richard Nixon right up until the smoking gun was produced, and they did so in spite of the fact that his guilt was evident way before that gun was produced. The election following Nixon's resignation was a disaster for Republicans in spite of the fact that the hard right wing of the party remained loyal to the Republican Party and continued to deny Nixon's guilt. The base Republicans may hide from reality by cowering behind a dense wall of willful ignorance and self deception, but even uninformed independents who occasionally find themselves behind that wall will eventually peek over or around it. What should not be lost on the moral midgets in the Republican Party is that the chumps who think Trump can do no wrong are a minority. While that minority can control many primary elections, it cannot carry many general elections – particularly when independents finally figure out they have been had! Just take a look at the results of the last elections and at the recent polls, all of which show that Trump's disapproval rating is above fifty percent.

The shameless pandering of the Republican Party to Donald Trump demonstrates a complete lack of moral courage, and I would argue a lack of loyalty to this country. I say this because the Republicans are failing to protect and defend the vital interests of this country from Trump and Putin! To put it bluntly, the Republican Party is a disgraceful cluster of immoral demagogues and a serious threat to our democracy!

She Did It!

Who did it? As impossible as it sounds, Ann Coulter did it! If anyone had told me that I would ever agree in whole or even in part with any political comment coming from Ann Coulter I would have said that the odds against that happening are so great it would have to be considered a miracle. But she did it, Ann Coulter actually said something I consider to be irrefutable. She said:

"The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot."

I know, what I have just quoted is an excerpt.  A fuller reading Ms. Coulter's statements reveal that her reasons for objecting to Trump's largely unsuccessful attempts to secure the funding for his vanity wall are still as xenophobic, paranoid, and vicious as ever, and she apparently believes he should shut down the government again!  But that is her problem.  There is no sense in piling absurdity upon absurdity by repeating her full statement because the excerpt I have quoted stands very well on its own. In regard to the common usage of idiot, her characterization of Donald Trump is an accurate assessment of his mental capacity. Trump is indeed a stupid person. He proves it everyday in his rambling, demonstrably untruthful and almost incoherent tweets and speeches. I mean, who else would declare a national emergency that requires the building of a vast border wall, and then in the same speech say, "[but] I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do this."

The Great Shutdown Shot down

There is on this planet an alternate universe where Kellyanne Conwoman's alternative facts serve as bricks that help to make up a vast, dense wall of willful ignorance and self deception. It is a very dark and smelly place this alternate universe – full of right wing bacteria such as Ann Dolt-er Coulter, Insanity Hannity, Witch Doctor Laura, Rush (how low can you go) Limbo, and Loose Knobs Dobbs. It is a world long on beliefs and short on facts, a world in which the only role of the government is that of a villain that must be fought and killed if possible. Thus we had the right wing bacteria threatening to slime Donald Trump in an effort to get him to carry through with his threat to shut down the “evil” government. The civil servants who were deprived of their livelihoods during the shut down do not matter to the bacteria. They (the civil servants) are, after all, government employees – otherwise known as the dreaded deep state! The alleged issue or cause celebre used to justify the shut down was Trump's vanity wall, but we know that that was just an excuse because everyone with an IQ above eighty knows the wall would be impossibly expensive and ineffective. But Trump had promised the xenophobes a big, beautiful wall that Mexico was going to pay for, and he was being held accountable to the extent that he had to look like he was fighting keep at least half of that absurd promise no matter how much harm this war on sanity caused. Fear and loathing never rests. So Trump the bully cringed in fear of the bacteria, and he shut down the government as he said he would.

What we really have here is just another right wing attack on reality. Unfortunately for Trump and the right wing reality has a way of asserting itself at the most inconvenient times. The first dose of reality came when the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and made Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House. They could not have chosen a better leader. The reason the Republicans have spent decades villainizing Nancy Pelosi is because she is very good at what she does. She knows the power of Congress and how to use it, and she cannot be intimidated by a blustering bully such as Trump. She told Donald Trump something his father should have told him a long time ago – she told him NO! She said no to the useless wall which, in light of Trump's cruel acts against refugees seeking sanctuary in this country, has become a symbol for the sort of bigotry and nativism our country has faced and rejected many times in our history. Then Speaker Pelosi delivered the master stroke by denying Trump the invitation he needed in order to deliver his state of the union speech in the house chamber to a joint session of congress. Depriving Trump of an audience! Now that is how you hurt a diva. (Oops! Please pardon my gender confusion. I think it stems from Trump constantly trying to portray himself as the subject a with hunt.)

What it took to end the shut down was a resolute Democratic Party holding its ground, Trump and the Republican Party tanking in the polls, Air Traffic Controllers and TSA employees causing a transportation problem by calling in sick, and nervous Republican Senators that had to answer to wealthy doners who had an interest in getting people, including themselves to the Super Bowl and other places. In other words, it is unlikely that Trump had a choice. He would appear a lot weaker if he waited until his own party ended the shutdown over his whimpering protests. So the Donald caved! And he got absolutely nothing for re-opening the government except for another sliming by the likes of Ann Coulter, et al. That sliming is not exactly a sympathy card for getting shot down, but as I said above, “fear and loathing never rests,” or forgives.