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.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Thursday, September 19, 2019
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:
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!
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.
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!
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