Applause

They wanted to know why she was even there testifying, since she wasn’t even our ambassador when the infamous phone call was made on July 25^th.  I can answer that:  because she was part of a story of which the phone call was only one incident half way through a much longer story.

Marie Yovanovich taught us what true diplomatic work is.  Her description of how she approached her job and why diplomacy is important in the furtherance of the policies of the United States was inspiring.  It also showed all of us how important diplomacy is to the security of our country when done properly. ‘ Masha’s’ quiet sincerity, innocence and competence shone through the haze of corruption and misdirection being spewed across the hearing room by the Republicans on the committee every time they opened their mouths.

And then, as if on cue, the ‘bully’ weighed in from afar with his fetid attack on her while she was actually testifying!  His claims of not being interested enough to even watch the hearings were shattered in that one clarifying moment.  She was dangerous to him.

This is a story about a conspiracy that started many months before that infamous phone call in July.  When the cabal of Trump, Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, Perry, Lutsenko, et. al. began planning the corruption of the Ukrainian government in the interest of using a foreign government to enhance Trump’s run in the 2020 US elections, it was even before the outcome of the Mueller probe.  They started spreading lies about Ukraine’s purported role meddling in the 2016 elections in the US, while working with known corrupt Ukrainian politicians/state prosecutors to spread conspiracy theories about Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. 

Since Yovanovich was actually working to clean up the corruption that Ukraine was suffering from, she was in the way of this nefarious backchannel plan.  The only option was to get rid of her, which is why Giuliani and his henchman were in Ukraine in the first place.  So, they initiated the smear campaign and engineered her removal just prior to the elections when the new Ukrainian President arrived on the scene. 

All Zelenskiyy wanted was to assure the United States’ continued military support in his dealing with a ‘hot war’ with the Russians on his eastern front.  After Yovanovich was gone, Giuliani and his cronies had an open field to manage and misdirect Zelenskiyy’s attention and create the conditions for the July 25^th phone call.  You know the rest of the story.

As I listened to the Republican’s insidious attempts to misdirect and interrupt her testimony, and watched Ambassador Yovanovich during the hearing; heard her recounting the events leading up to her dismissal, I was overcome with anger.  That all of these creeps would devalue this incredibly competent and loyal patriot and undermine her efforts while sabotaging the mission of our democracy is a crime.  That they were operating in my name as an American is despicable!

This tawdry story is being revealed piece by piece, and we are learning just how corrupt our own government has become at the hands of perhaps the most detestable person to ever set foot in the White House.  If we are unable to rid ourselves of his degenerate presence in 2020, there will be no redemption for the US.

If he survives a vote in the Senate to remove him, and somehow wins the next election, he will be unbridled.  The damage done thus far will be insignificant compared to what will ensue for the next four years.  Our precious America that we all grew up believing in will be over.  Even if he loses, the struggle to get him out of the White House will be monumental since he will claim the election was rigged and unfair.  Unless he is beaten soundly, the country is in for an excruciating effort to rid ourselves of him and his minions.

Perhaps the most welcome moment of yesterday's hearing was when Yovanovich's testimony ended and she was showered with an unsolicited standing ovation.  That applause, for a moment anyway, shattered the lies and said more than any spoken word.

Keeping the Truth in View

We can get lost in the weeds on all these impeachment distractions that we are hearing from those who can’t seem to find any real defenses for the actual alleged crimes.  Just listening to all the Republican’s harping on the ‘process’ that apparently was just fine for them during the Benghazi hearings; and the rules that they promulgated when they were the party in majority, and now for convenience sake are apparently invalid, is exhausting.  Now they want to call witnesses that have nothing to do with the actual alleged crime.  After complaining bitterly that the initial inquiry was held in secret (with Republican members of each committee present during the depositions), they now think that public hearings shouldn’t be held.  Good grief—the hypocrisy is stunning.

If you cut away all the bullshit and positioning, the fact is that a crime was committed here by the President of the United States.  He and his minions bribed and extorted a foreign government by withholding appropriated military aid in exchange for their announcing a bogus investigation into the President’s chief rival for his re-election in 2020.  The real crime is the abuse of power for personal gain at the expense of our country’s national security.  Plain and simple.

All those who make excuses for it, who rationalize that ‘everyone does it’, who now say that his offenses don’t rise to the level of impeachment are manipulating the facts for retention of their own power—again, at the expense of our national security.  They should be ashamed of themselves. 

Just watch Lindsey Graham twist in the wind, changing his reasons for making excuses for Trump’s actions with each revelation of new facts.  And after whining that the depositions were done in secret, he declares that he will not even read the transcripts now that they are released to the public.  What a creep and what a hypocrite!

Trump will no doubt be impeached by the House, and then the senators who piously proclaim that the whole process is a ‘sham’, will be faced with going on record by serving as jurors in the trial of the accused.  Each senator’s verdict will cement their legacy and hypocrisy for history to record.

In the meantime, what we are learning about Trump’s modus operandi in the Oval Office is frightening.  You can decry the anonymous writer of the new novel, A Warning, but just for a  minute digest the possibility that what he writes is true.  When in the history of this country has there been a description of the Chief Executive that is so appalling and unsettling?  He doesn’t read, has the attention span of a flea, refuses to inform himself of the issues that are critical to the country’s future and is demeaning to his staff. women in general, and attacks anyone who disagrees with him.  He is a horrible human being who does not believe in our Constitution and flaunts the rule of law.  If he is elected to a second term, the United States as we knew it will not survive.

 

The fact that the Republicans in Congress support this behavior is a crime in itself, and my fervent wish is that the electorate will flush as many members as possible down the toilet of electoral defeat next November. 

Watch this week as the Republican’s try to destroy the reputations of patriots who have served their country for decades in some cases and were appointed by the Trump administration.  They can’t even claim they are Democrats, and yet they will be accused of being ‘Never Trumpers’!  The people who will testify are the true patriots.  Let’s hope that the public will be able to discern the truth and see the Trump administration for what it is: a lawless bunch of people who are only interested in  power, money and themselves.

It's Making Me Numb!

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It’s all so tiring, isn’t it?  Just turn on the television and all you see and hear is impeachment, obstruction, vitriol, division, blah blah blah!  I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted by this.  Remember the days when watching the news was actually enjoyable?  You could sit there sipping a scotch or drinking a beer and be entertained by stuff going on in the world that was interesting and far removed from whatever your life was doing at the time.

Now we are constantly subjected to the foul-mouthed sewage that emanates from Trump at every occasion he uses to speak. 

I am tired of seeing the empty brained people positioned behind him at his rallies who moan their agreement with every insult he hurls at the press, the Democrats, war heroes and patriots.  Isn’t it sickening to see the tripe coming from his press secretary who lauds every word of our ‘genius’ President?  I am sick of all the Republican congressmen who somehow can’t even agree that what this man has been doing is worth a positive vote to try to understand what he is doing.  Rules and practices that the Republicans have created and supported when they were in power are suddenly a sham, a witchhunt, Soviet style procedures….their sanctimonious  proclamations make me want to vomit.

Honestly, if this creep is re-elected, I might just have to move.  My country will have lost its mind.  If you look at how in just three years our foreign policy, our institutions, our very way of life has been degraded, it is a tragedy.  The people he has appointed, the judges he and his henchman Mitch McConnell have confirmed to the courts, the standard of civility and  speech that our children are exposed to every day, the turn towards racism, white supremacy, disengagement with the rest of the world that used to depend on the integrity of our ideals is numbing!  I would never have thought that we could be so depleted in such a short period of time.

My perspective on the stability and foundational solidity of our American experiment is shaken.  If you had a chance to read Tom Friedman’s editorial in the Washington Post this past week, it should make you afraid.  In all the years I have been reading Tom’s posts, he has never been so demoralized by the condition and direction of our democracy.  He is warning us that there are people who are ‘breaking America’.  Unless we have a groundswell of patriotism and a real understanding of the jeopardy we are in as a nation, we will shortly find ourselves beyond help.

Review what Trump’s administration has done to our entire regulatory structure.  Measures that our governmental system has implemented over the past 70 years to protect our environment, to protect our monetary and economic system, to protect us against corruption have systematically been altered or removed.  But beyond all that, look at the people who are representing us in the halls of Congress.  Half of them do not believe in the Constitution which they took an oath to defend.  If you support the obstruction of legitimate Congressional efforts to procure documents, or subpoenaed testimony, you do not believe in the Constitution.  Trump and his sycophants reject the separation of powers doctrine and the rule of law.  If you believe Trump can do anything he wants and not be held accountable, you do not believe in the separation of powers and the Constitution.  You therefore do not believe in the foundation of our democracy.  

Look at the Republican party in Congress.  Do all of them support the obstruction of justice and the legitimate oversight responsibility of the people’s representatives?  Apparently so.  They can’t have it both ways.  History will judge them harshly.  Those who rejected lawful, Constitutional actions will be seen as the cause of America’s decline.

And what about us?  What about those of us who wring our hands every day and find it hard to believe what we are witnessing?  What do we do?  The end game of what is happening has two possible outcomes.  Either our country will devolve into a corrupt system where those who support gerrymandering and deny citizens the right to vote will be in control of our government and you can expect more graft, more corruption, illegality and the metamorphosis of the United States of America into the equivalent of a banana republic , or there will somehow be a groundswell of patriotism that will evolve into a cleansing moment for our country where we are able to rid ourselves of the cancerous presence of people who are only concerned with maintaining their power and money at all costs. 

There needs to be a ‘renaissance’ of the American idea.  We need to experience the same ‘revolution’ our founders went through when they conceived of our republic.  Having finally extricated themselves from a monarchy, they knew what the potential dangers were, and brilliantly created a document and a set of behaviors that would guide us through moments like this.  If we reject and forget what they went through in the creation of this country, we are lost.

The Democrats are not maniacal, crazed, unhinged politicians.  They are patriots trying to save our nation from descent into chaos and autocracy.  They want to preserve the Constitution and preserve our democracy.  That is not a political statement, it is simply the truth.  Those who believe otherwise will ultimately be judged harshly by history.