Do-Nothing Democrats?

If there's one thing that Trump's good at (other than shameless self-promotion) it's sticking insulting nicknames on people. It may sound childish, and it is, but when you're dealing with followers with such a low average IQ, then you'd better keep it simple. One of his recurring insults is to refer to the Democrats as the "Do-Nothing Democrats". This is demonstrably false.  The legislation passed by either house of Congress is public record. There have been hundreds of bills passed by the House of Representatives and sent over to the Senate this year. Most of them are moldering in Mitch McConnell's office, likely never to see a Senate vote. The Senate under McConnell, especially now that the opposition party holds a majority in the House, is nothing but a confirmation mill, existing primarily to fill the over one hundred judicial vacancies left over from the Obama presidency. Vacancies that existed because McConnell's plan as Senate Majority Leader  was very simple: obstruct Obama.

During the impeachment inquiry, the term "Do-Nothing Democrats" got a lot more use. The Democrats were accused of abandoning their job, governing, instead focusing exclusively on impeachment. Even McConnell, who wouldn't recognize hypocrisy if it were tattooed on his face, threw the slur around regularly. 

But impeachment wasn't the only thing the House was doing. Legislation continued to be drafted and voted on. Committees continued to meet. Negotiations with the Republicans and with the White House on various matters didn't stop. In fact, two omnibus spending bills, which required months of behind-the-scenes horse trading, were voted on and passed by both the House and the Senate. Also passed was NAFTA 2.0, which Trump likes to call USMCA, as if it's a completely different trade agreement. Trump had been harping about this for months, accusing Speaker Pelosi of sitting on it because she hated American workers, all the while knowing that she and the House leadership were negotiating with his trade representatives about revisions. 

Then, when the House passed it, with the changes that they asked for, Trump couldn't bear to give them any credit, suggesting that Pelosi didn't understand the agreement and only passed it to make it look like they were getting something done. What's sad is not that he pulls these maneuvers, but that so many people fall for it.

Make no mistake about it, the Democrats can walk and chew gum at the same time

Really? The CIRCLE game?

Cadets at the Army-Navy annual football game were recorded flashing a symbol that has become associated with "white power". Most of us would recognize the hand symbol on the right as the "okay" gesture and as such, pretty harmless. But in 2017, hoaxers on the website 4chan, as part of one of their juvenile plans to "trigger the liberals", started falsely claiming that the position of the fingers corresponded to the letters "W" and "P" (image on left). Their goal, was to instigate an overreaction in the media and among liberals in general to the innocuous use of the "okay" symbol.

They succeeded all too well. Actual white supremacists started using the symbol un-ironically to identify themselves to like-minded individuals.

But the use of the gesture to mean "okay" has not gone away. Then there's the "circle game". It's something that I had never heard of until the proliferation of usage of the symbol by racists. Apparently you make a circle with your thumb and forefinger and hold it by your crotch and when someone looks, you punch them. Sure.

But despite the origins as a hoax, the "okay" gesture as a symbol of white supremacy and racism has taken hold. In most cases, when not used as the traditional indication of "okay", the orientation of the hand is not as shown in the upper right, but more like how it appears to the left, or horizontally displayed.

What we are left with is a symbol that racists can use to signal their racism, but at the same time, provide plausible deniability of racist intent if challenged.

Like at the Army-Navy game.

Notwithstanding the football game being a "fun" event, these cadets were in uniform and representing the armed forces of the United States.

There is absolutely no reason for them to be signalling that something was "okay", so we default to dubious explanation that they were playing the "circle game".

I'm going to rule this "explanation" as bullshit.

The plausible deniability becomes less plausible when you consider that the right has effectively co-opted the sign and anyone using it is either using it because they are a white supremacist, or they think it's humorous to "trigger the snowflakes" by pretending to be a white supremacist. The various excuses are analogous to displaying a swastika and claiming that you're actually honoring ancient Hindu traditions or you think an SS uniform makes a cool Halloween costume.

Yes, I think it's a safe bet to conclude that those future military officers were either white supremacists or thought it was clever to openly display a white supremacist symbol.  Or were too damn stupid to see that

Circle game? I think not.

Why Impeachment Wasn't a Waste of Time

One of the honest questions that people have asked in the wake of this, the third impeachment of a president in our history, is "If the Senate will not convict, what was the point?". It's a good question. In the world of criminal prosecution, often we hear of a District Attorney declining to prosecute someone who has been arrested. If there's no chance that the accused will be convicted, why go through the time and expense of a trial? What this scenario doesn't take into account is that the decision to not prosecute is usually made due to lack of evidence. Despite what the Trumpublicans are saying, there is  a lot of evidence. I can't think of a scenario where a criminal trial is taken off the table due to the lack of impartiality on the part of either the judge or the jurors, so the analogy comparing a Senate impeachment to a courtroom is not very strong.

Since Trump was elected there has been talk about impeachable offenses. There have even been a few frivolous motions by individual Democratic House members to impeach Trump for various reasons. Not, as the Republicans would have you believe, because the Democrats didn't accept the results of the election. It was Trump, not Clinton, who suggested that he would not accept the results if he lost. Not because the Democrats were orchestrating a coup.1 Ever since Trump took office, he has continually flouted rules and norms and acted as if the law did not apply to him. There have been a parade of actions that theoretically could have warranted impeachment, like violations of the emoluments clause, where foreign governments and domestic allies spend their money at Trump properties in order to gain favor with him. Trump himself pushes these properties, most recently his decision (later rescinded) to hold the 2020 G-7 conference at one of them. His behavior during the Mueller investigation certainly suggested  reasons for impeachment. While Mueller's team could not conclusively prove that there was a conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in Russia's election interference, it was established that the campaign was happy to accept assistance. Throughout the investigation Trump actively sought to undermine it. Incidents of obstruction of justice took place on an almost daily basis as Trump first fired the man overseeing the initial FBI investigation and regularly threatening to fire Mueller, and to fire Jeff Sessions for not firing Mueller. There is no doubt that Trump paid off two women with whom he had affairs, arguably because it would affect the election if they came forward.

Despite the Republican moaning about the impeachment being partisan payback for losing the 2016 election, Democratic support for impeachment was almost nonexistent until the Ukraine phone call. Democratic leadership knew that the litany of complaints about Trump were not solid enough to actually begin impeachment proceedings. Even after the Democrats won back a House majority in the 2018 mid-terms, it took an egregious flouting of the law for there to be overwhelming Democratic backing for impeachment.

So why, knowing that the Senate would almost certainly vote to acquit,  did the House proceed with an impeachment inquiry? Why, knowing that Trump would remain in office after impeachment, did they go through all the time and trouble of impeachment?

Because it was their Constitutional duty.

It is the responsibility of the House of Representatives to hold the President accountable when he runs off the rails; it is not their responsibility to only exercise that responsibility when the Senate is willing to do their Constitutional duty.

The phone call with the Ukrainian President and all of the skulduggery surrounding it, was only the latest and most blatant example of a pattern of lawlessness and authoritarianism that Trump has engaged in since before he was elected. Trump has acted with impunity, aided and abetted by his allies and enablers in his administration and in Congress. He has placed his loyalists in positions of authority, the better to shield him from consequences of his behavior, most infamously Attorney General William Barr, who has acted , not as the United States Attorney General, but as Trump's personal lawyer and protector. Republican Senators and House members, fearful that Trump's base would turn against them, defend him no matter what. Allowing this latest and most obvious violation to go unanswered would send a terrible message to the segment of the electorate not enamored by Trump: that Trump really is above the law.

The Ukrainian phone call, no matter what Trump and his sycophantic followers may say, was only perfect in that it was a perfect example of corruption. To put it in perspective, the phone call took place one day after the Mueller testified before Congress to discuss his report, where Trump escaped the judgement that he had colluded with a foreign government to interfere with the election by a technicality. His response, after being cleared of conspiracy because he only passively accepted foreign assistance, was to actively solicit foreign interference. How could the House of Representatives let this stand?

One of the arguments that I have heard is that impeachment is a waste of time and the House of Representatives should spend their time doing what they were elected to do: legislating. This ignores the fact that other business besides impeachment has been taking place. Two omnibus budget bills were passed after extensive negotiations among House Democrats, Senate Republicans and the White House. Trump has been regularly bragging about and taking credit for bills that he has signed, ignoring the fact that these bills came from Congress, including the House of Representatives. Trump has criticized Speaker Pelosi for supposedly sitting on NAFTA 2.0, which he has dubbed USMCA, even though the Democrats have been in negotiations with the White House for months over changes to the agreement. And even though Trump has dubbed the opposition the "Do-Nothing Democrats", they have passed hundreds of bills that are now on hold in the Senate due to McConnell's obstruction. The House Democrats can evidently walk and chew gum at the same time.

The Senate is going to have a trial and they're going to acquit. There's no way that 20 Republican Senators are going to vote to convict. Trump will still be the president. But, the Democrats have sent a message that as far as they're concerned, no one is above the law. This is an important message to send to the electorate as we move into the 2020 primaries in a few months. According to the website FiveThirtyEight's aggregate of various polls,  the support for removal is very close, 47.5% for and 46.1% against. But among Democrats, the support for removal is 83%! Even among Independents, support is 42.4%. These are the people that need to be convinced that the Democrats in Congress are doing their job and who will need to be persuaded to vote for a Democrat for president in November 2020.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives did their job, they did their Constitutional duty, even if the Senate Republicans refuse to do theirs.



1 The Republicans have been able to dig up one quote by an attorney who wrote "#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #Impeachment will follow" - where it is obvious from the context that he is talking about eventual impeachment - this was in response to the firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates

Representative Democracy

Democracy means "rule by the people". Are we a democracy? Are we ruled "by the people"? Kinda sorta. Democracy is a continuum. On one end is what we call "direct democracy". This is a polity where any decision that affects all the people is voted upon by all the people, and those decisions are then implemented by all of the people.  In a direct democracy there would be no leaders, and no government either. As you can imagine, this would only be workable in a small community of like-minded individuals. Most communities that we think of as democracies are representative democracies. There are various types of representative democracies. Some elect a few administrators who then appoint officials to carry out their mandates.  Others elect virtually everyone who has a public function. In the United States, the legislature, which makes the laws, is chosen by people in various districts based on either population or state boundaries. The whole country votes for the chief executive, the president, who executes the laws and oversees the administrative duties of government. The executive and the legislature together appoint judges who interpret the law and mediate disputes between the executive and the legislative branches. Citizens theoretically vote for candidates who they believe will best represent their interests. They trust that, once elected, their candidate will prove to be what they thought he was.

What elected officials aren't elected to do is to take a poll every time a decision needs to be made in order to do what the majority says that they should do. That's direct democracy, not representative democracy.

This surprises many people who believe that a representative is required to do what the majority of people in her district or state want. What the members of Congress are required to do is support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. If what the folks back home want is at odds with the oath that was taken, the a member of Congress must defer to supporting and defending the Constitution. There is also the expectation that the member will act in an ethical and moral manner and support acts that are in accordance with that foundation. An educated voter will know what the moral foundation of a candidate is before casting a vote and should have a good idea how he will act once in office. Of course, a candidate may lie about her intentions, or succumb to special interests' campaign donations. The remedy is the next election.

The motivation for writing this article came from a video I saw of an angry crowd that was yelling at their member of Congress who was attempting to explain her reasons for voting to impeach Trump. She was a Democrat who represented a district that had voted for Trump in 2016. Twitter was full of angry denunciations (which was their right) and threats to vote her out of office in 2020 (also their right). A common thread throughout many of the tweets was the demand that she vote the way her district wanted to vote. This, as I have already stated, betrays a lack of understanding of the role of an elected representative.

I don't know why this district flipped from voting for Trump to electing a Democrat in 2018, but by electing a Democrat, the voters of this district should have known that they were not electing a Trump enabler. Many Democrats who ran for office in Trump districts vowed to work with the Republicans, but that requires some compromise on the part of the Republicans, compromise that has not materialized. The voters of this district should have known that a Democrat would look at the evidence and not mindlessly support Trump and McConnell. If they wanted a Trump apologist, there was probably one running against her. Obviously, the majority of the voters in that district didn't want more of the Trump Train Wreck.

On the other hand, a member of Congress from New Jersey, convinced that he would not be re-elected if he voted to impeach Trump, met with Trump at the White House and announced, not only that he would be voting "no" on impeachment, but that he would be switching parties. No word on what his constituents think, but most of his staff just resigned.

In both of these cases, the Representatives did what they thought was either right, or maybe just what they thought was expedient, but it was their decision. The voters in their districts can decide in 2020 whether or not they want them to stay on.

Are Politicians REALLY All Crooked?

There have always been disagreements among Americans about what this country should be. Immigration, social programs, foreign relations - every possible subject has been a source of impassioned argument. The main parties have taken differing positions over the decades as well, often switching back and forth between extremes. Regarding Democracy itself, or if you prefer, government in the form of a representative, constitutional republic, was for a long time, more talk than walk. Initially only white landowners could vote. Native tribes and descendants of Africans weren't even considered people according to the law. Once some of these hurdles were jumped and all adults theoretically had a say in government, there were still many laws that were designed to disenfranchise black citizens, beatings and lynchings took place when the laws weren't restrictive enough. In many big cities, political machines had votes bought and paid for. But by the last half of the twentieth century we had convinced ourselves that we really were a democracy and that "one person, one vote" was a reality, not a pipe dream.

Unlike in past eras when the "wrong" people were simply not allowed to vote, or votes were coerced or purchased by the local political parties, today we have the illusion that we live in a Democracy.  (and anyone who "corrects me with "no, it's a Republic" gets a smack in the head) The form of democracy is there. People aren't, by law prevented from voting due to their gender or race; the majority theoretically gets to elect representatives to carry out their will; those elected representatives get to carry out their political agenda while their term lasts.

However, one of our two main political parties has made it their mission to subvert democracy. I'm talking about the Republican Party. There was a period of time when the Democrats and the Republicans, while opposed on many fronts, could work together, or at least achieve workable consensus on important issues. There was once such a thing as compromise, whereby one side would give a little to get something that they wanted, where the other party wasn't viewed as the enemy. The beginnings of this attitude on the part of the modern Republican party appeared during Bill Clinton's presidency when Newt Gingrich orchestrated a Republican electoral takeover of the House of Representatives. It didn't come to a head, however, until President Barack Obama was elected. Obama enjoyed a Democratic majority in the House and a veto-proof majority in the Senate. But at the time, Senator Mitch McConnell, who was the Senate Minority Leader, publicly stated that his main goal was to deny Obama a second term. Part of this plan was to block everything that Obama tried to accomplish, no matter what it was.

The Senate has a rule called the filibuster, which is a procedure whereby a member can delay a vote by simply talking...for a long, long time. The filibuster can be ended by a 3/5 vote, called cloture, that ends debate. In the Senate, 3/5 has been 60 members, the number of Democratic Senators that Obama started with. The Democrats lost that filibuster-proof majority when Scott Brown, a Republican, was elected in 2009 to fill the seat vacated when Ted Kennedy died. This allowed McConnell and the Republicans to effectively block everything that Obama wanted to do. Obama's signature achievement, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA - or simply ACA), was only possible because, at the time, the Republicans had no mechanism for obstruction. And not only was it legislation that was being blocked, but judicial appointments. Starting in 2010 McConnell mounted a campaign to, in many cases, deny Obama the ability to appoint federal judges by mounting filibusters. This went on until Senate Majority Leader at the time Harry Reid changed the filibuster rule as it applied to federal judges, eliminating the need for minority buy-in. This however, was only a brief respite, since the Republicans gained the Senate majority after the 2014 elections and resumed their obstruction of federal judgeship appointments. At the time this did not apply to Supreme Court appointments, but McConnell got around that by refusing to even consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia.

In case you were wondering if Trump was lying about appointing a record number of federal judges: this is one of the rare cases where he was not lying. McConnell's obstruction prevented president Obama from appointing many judges during his last two years. Technically, the president's constitutional authority to appoint federal judges is tied to "the advice and consent" of the Senate, but historically, very seldom is this "consent" withheld.

But McConnell is only the most visible of the Republicans who labor to overturn "the will of the people". Here are a few examples of Republicans ignoring what the people voted for:

• Wisconsin voters elected a Democrat as governor. Before he could take office, the Republican legislature voted to strip the governor of many of his powers
• North Carolina did the same thing
• The Democratic North Carolina governor vetoed a budget that the legislature with a Republican majority submitted, but they didn't have enough votes to override. They waited until the entire Democratic caucus was at a 9-11 memorial and voted to  override the veto, since the 2/3 override threshold wasn't 2/3 of the entire legislature, but 2/3 of those present
• Several states, including my own state of Nebraska, voted to expand Medicaid coverage. The Republican governor has instructed state agencies to delay implementation and to throw up roadblocks to prevent people from actually utilizing it
• The same Nebraska governor, when faced with Republican legislators (in a ostensibly non-partisan legislature) who did not vote with him, he bankrolled primary challenges to those "disloyal" Republicans. 
• Lincoln Nebraska Republicans bankrolled a ballot initiative to term limit a Democratic mayor who had already announced that he was running for another term
• In Maine, South Dakota, Nevada and Oklahoma citizen ballot initiatives were overturned by the Republican governors and the legislatures
• In Florida, a ballot initiative restored voting rights to convicted felons who had served their sentences. The Republican governor and legislature instituted roadblocks that would prevent most from actually being able to vote (this was overturned by the courts)
• Let's not forget voter suppression laws. They require identification, and then close DMV's and other places where ID can be secured. 

And all of this brings us to the current impeachment process. Let's stipulate that there can be legitimate differences of opinion regarding whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office. (I don't really believe that, but stick with me) One would expect both Republicans and Democrats to listen to the evidence and make their decisions based on the evidence. But was it happening is that the House Republicans have made no pretense of listening to the evidence, but their "defense" is shouting irrelevant nonsense. The other day McConnell stated in a television interview that he would be coordinating with the White House during the probable upcoming Senate trial. Other top Republican Senators have also stated that they have already made up their minds. While the Democrats have agonized over the last almost three years over whether Trump's increasingly long list of impeachable actions is in fact impeachable, the Republicans have had no similar crisis of the soul. 

The difference is that Democrats, no matter what you think of their actual policies, naively believe that you have to play fair, that you have to respect the will of the people. When they lose, they do a lot of naval gazing and try to figure out how they failed, usually blaming themselves, then try like hell to get back in power...by way of the next election. Republicans, on the other hand, will do whatever is necessary to put their policies in place and maintain their positions of power. It doesn't matter what the voters say or do, it doesn't matter what the law says, it doesn't matter what's ethical, they will ignore it all to stay in office and get their vision implemented. This goes a long way to explaining why Republicans, who used to be all about family and God and fiscal responsibility and solid foreign alliances and free trade have hitched their wagons to Trump, who is none of those things. Trump, they have discovered, can deliver voters, many of whom don't care about the Republican agenda, so they put up with him in order to put conservative judges on the bench and cut taxes for the rich. 

So, when you dismissively say that all politicians are corrupt and that there's no difference between the two parties, take a look at what the Republicans are doing and get back to me when you've taken the blinders off. 

Inspector General's Report

One of Trump's go-to arguments about the Mueller Investigation and its predecessor investigation overseen by the FBI and its director, James Comey, was that it was a politically motivated hit job. It was either ordered by President Obama or the so-called Deep State, depending on the day of the week. He and his supporters assert that there was no legal reason to start the investigation and that his campaign had been "spied upon". He characterized the investigations as unconstitutional and treasonous.
According to his circuitous reasoning, the whole investigation was predicated on the "Steele Dossier" (which it wasn't) which turned out to be unreliable (it was) so therefore the whole investigation was illegal. Anyone other than a brainwashed Trump Cultist could see that there were ample reasons to at least investigate. U.S. Intelligence agencies had determined that Russia was interfering with and attempting to influence our election; several members of Trump's campaign, including family members, had an inordinate amount of unexplained contact with Russians; Wikileaks was releasing emails and other documents that had been stolen by Russians; Trump was publicly praising Wikileaks and publicly asking Russia to find Clinton's supposedly missing emails; Trump fired the guy who was overseeing the investigation, Director James Comey and bragged to visiting Russian diplomats that firing Comey took the pressure off him. None of this proved anything, but just what we the public knew was certainly grounds to look into it!

Mueller eventually concluded that the evidence did not support a charge of conspiracy, or that the campaign had actively coordinated with Russia, while acknowledging that the Trump campaign was happy to passively accept the help. They also neglected to notify the FBI of attempts by Russians to coordinate with Trump staffers (including Don Junior). In my view they were saved by laziness.

Once it was clear that Mueller's report contained no "smocking" gun, Trump falsely claimed to have been exonerated (even though the report specifically stated that it did not exonerate him) he continued to attack the investigatory team, threatening to charge them with treason and to "investigate the investigators". Two investigations eventually were started. The first was the investigation that just concluded, by the Justice Department Inspector General authorized by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Internal investigations are what inspector generals of cabinet departments do. Possibly worried that the independent Inspector General might reach conclusions that he and Trump did not like, current Attorney General Barr authorized another investigation. Barr has made statements in line with Trump's paranoid rantings, seemingly concluding that the original investigation was tainted before either investigation was completed.

But enough background.

The Justice Department's Inspector General's report, although identifying a long list of problems with how the investigation was conducted, nonetheless concluded that the Russia investigation was not politically motivated and had an adequate legal basis. Furthermore, no political bias was present in the way it was carried out. Most of the problems that were identified fell within standard FBI procedure; Director Wray is looking at making procedural changes to ensure similar problems do not occur in the future. The biggest issue is the way FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) were obtained. The report indicates that important details were omitted from the warrant applications and in one case an email was altered to omit exculpatory information.

added note:
After rereading the executive summary, the problems identified by the Inspector General can be summarized as follows:

• The application to the FISA court for surveillance of Carter Page was based in part on the "Steele Dossier"
• The application represented Steele, and by extension, his reporting, as reliable, even though Steele himself expressed reservation about at least one of his sources
• The application omitted exculpatory statements by Carter Page
• After Steele provided Mother Jones with information from his report, his status as an official source with the FBI was terminated, but he continued to unofficially provide information to the FBI through Bruce Ohr
• There was a possible perception of conflict of interest in that Bruce Ohr's wife had worked for Fusion GPS, which had hired Michael Steele

Despite allegations that the FISA application neglected to mention that Steele had been hired to do opposition research on Trump by the DNC, the applications contained a footnote to that effect. 

With one exception (an investigator altering an email to delete exculpatory information) the issues identified were mainly procedural, i.e. the investigators were not acting outside of FBI/DOJ procedures, but that the policies and procedures should be tightened up and better oversight of investigations should be included in these changes. 

To reiterate, the Inspector General report debunks the Trumpist conspiracy theory that the Russia investigation was a "Witch Hunt" initiated by Trump's enemies, either the Obama Administration, or some imaginary "Deep State", including twelve, or sixteen, or seventeen "angry Democrats".

How Stupid Do You Have to Be to Think Trump's Actions Aren't Impeachable?

I don't often call people stupid on social media. I make an exception for Donnie Two Scoops, the Dotard-in-Chief, but usually I attempt to keep it civil. But damn, how stupid are you people? I understand that you don't want to believe that your guy is guilty, I understand that you don't want to admit that the mess that the rest of us have been predicting as finally come to pass, I understand that admitting that you're wrong is difficult. I get it; but c'mon!

Take the time to actually read the transcripts of the witness testimony, listen to the testimony for 30 minutes or so, not just the sound bites. Think logically and rationally and look at the big picture. Put the pieces together. Rep. Jim Jordan and the rest of the Republicans don't want you to put it all together. They don't want you to see the pattern, they don't want you to see that the whole atmosphere was corrupted by a president who didn't care about foreign policy except how it personally benefited him.

The phone record of the July 25th call was bad enough. Despite Trump claiming that it was "perfect" we have a foreign leader obviously sucking up to Trump, praising him and claiming to have learned from his example. This is without question the leader of a smaller, weaker nation, a nation that needs the support of the United States, trying to get in the good graces of  a head of state who can help him against Russia. Just before Trump starts talking, Zelensky thanks Trump for selling Ukraine military equipment. Trump...now pay attention to what comes next...mentions how Ukraine hasn't done much to help the United States and asks that "you do us a favor though" and brings up (1) a debunked conspiracy theory about the DNC server (which isn't missing) being hidden in Ukraine and (2) asks that Ukraine open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Zelensky then immediately agrees to do this. At the time, although not mentioned in the phone call, Trump was withholding Congressionally allocated military aid to Ukraine and was stalling on a White House visit by Zelensky. If it's not clear enough to you, Zelensky desperately needs the military aid to defend his country and desperately wants the White House visit to bolster his reputation and show Russia that Trump has his back. He is very much a little guy who needs something badly from the big guy. Trump also needs something. He had just heard that former Vice President Joe Biden was running for president in 2020 and most polls showed that he could beat Trump. Ukraine opening an investigation into Biden would almost certainly hurt him as the primaries approached. Before the investigations could start, Zelensky needed to appoint a new chief prosecutor. Two months go by...and the whistle-blower's complaint makes its way to Congress.

The Trumpublicans want you to believe that none of this matters because the investigations didn't happen, the aid was released and there hasn't been a White House meeting. Think! When was the aid released? Two days after Congress received the complaint. Why didn't the investigation happen? Zelensky hadn't appointed his new prosecutor yet. Why no White House meeting? Because no investigation had happened. After mid-September none of the things discussed in the phone call or behind the scenes came to pass...not because Trump hadn't asked for them or that Zelensky hadn't agreed to do Trump's bidding...but because they got caught!

If that wasn't enough, we've had a parade of witnesses from various corners of the diplomatic corps testifying that, at Trump's direction, ambassadors, envoys and sundry State Department personnel were coordinating with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer to turn the State Department and diplomatic corps into an arm of the Trump campaign. Literally everyone who had any connection to Ukraine was aware of what was going on. Some went to their superiors and were told to shut up. Others tried in their own way to get things back on track. But everybody knew that the direction from the president was to put personal whims ahead of United States national interests.

Trumpublicans have been attempting to remove things out of their larger context. Witnesses who were several layers of bureaucracy removed from the White House were asked if they had ever spoken with the president. When they responded that they hadn't, the questioner acted as if it was a big "gotcha" that proved that there was nothing wrong going on. In addition to  the argument that since no investigation had taken place there was no "quid pro quo" (ignoring the fact that soliciting a bribe is the problem, and that problem doesn't disappear when the bribe doesn't materialize) they are now claiming that the witnesses are a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats who are trying to set foreign policy that is the purview of the president. While it is broadly true that the president is responsible for setting foreign policy, Congress is a partner in that responsibility. It is not true that a president can "do whatever he wants". He cannot turn government officials into his personal employees; they work for the United States government, they are not personal servants of the chief executive.

The various witnesses saw different parts of Trump's scheme. A few, like Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, were privy to Trump's thinking and his goals. Most were following orders that were passed down the chain of command. Just about all were disturbed at the role Giuliani played, sometimes working with the diplomats, sometimes without their knowledge, often at cross-purposes. More than a few of these witnesses, like Ambassador Sondland,  are Trump appointees (who he no says he "barely knows" and derides as not being true Trumpists), most are career diplomats who have served loyally in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Despite Gym Jordan's fast talking, yelling, interrupting and insulting witnesses (and reporters), despite Trump's tweets that it's a hoax, and that the Democrats are "human scum", out to get him, despite the "see no evil" stance of most Republicans, it is obvious that Trump abused the power of the office and engaged in what amounts to extortion and bribery. And if you refuse to see it, then I guess we know just how stupid you have to be to believe that Trump is innocent.

Throwing Bullshit Against the Wall to See What Sticks

Let's take a minute to look at some of the items that the Republicans, notably Jim Jordan, use to defend Trump in the impeachment inquiry.

The military aid was eventually released...BEFORE the deadline
The deadline in question is the end of the fiscal year, September 30th. Close to $400 in military aid was allocated by Congress in a budget approved by Trump. When Congressional leaders, including Republicans,  realized that a freeze had been put on the funds, they asked for an explanation from the administration, and received none. The funds were released two days after Congress was notified about the whistle-blower complaint.

The military aid was held up due to concerns about corruption in Ukraine
There have been concerns in the last few years about corruption in Ukraine. The military aid, however, had been approved after the Defense Department Undersecretary for Policy, in May 2019, certified that Ukraine had made progress toward eliminating corruption. No new information has come out about renewed concerns about Ukrainian corruption.

The military aid was held up and subsequently released, because we needed to "vet" the new president of Ukraine
Zelensky was elected in April. No explanation of what constituted this "vetting"

Investigations into the Bidens have not happened (yet)
In the infamous  July 25th phone call, Zelensky agreed to start an investigation after Trump asked him to "do us a favor though". Would an investigation, or at least a public announcement that such an investigation was happening, have begun if the whistle-blower complaint not made its way to Congress and subsequently been leaked to the public? Trump's position has been that it's his job to be concerned about rooting out corruption in countries who receive aid from us, and he believes that the Bidens were corrupt. Why is it no longer a priority for Ukraine to start an investigation? Wouldn't a refusal by Zelensky to look into this "corruption" indicate that Ukraine was still a hotbed of corruption? If it's not about scoring points against a political opponent, but a sincere desire to do the right thing, why are we backing off the demand that there be an investigation into the Bidens?

Numerous meetings took place between Zelensky & American officials without linking the aid to investigations
We don't really know what went on in those conversations, except the July 25th call, in which there is a clear implied linkage between aid and investigations. Ambassador Sondland has testified that on September 1st he clearly told Zelensky that aid would be forthcoming after Zelensky (or possibly the top prosecutor) made a public announcement about opening corruption investigations.

This line of defense seems to be that Ukraine got their money without any investigations, so nothing actually happened. The weak point in their argument is that the timing of the release of funds is suspicious. The funds were being held up for reasons that make little sense. Supposedly they were being held up because we thought Ukraine was corrupt, even though Trump's own administration certified that they had made enough progress regarding corruption that they could receive aid. What does make sense is that during this time period Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was fueling Trump's paranoia that Ukraine was out to get him, and pushing conspiracy theories that it was Ukraine, not Russia, who interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of not Trump, but Clinton. In the July phone call, Trump brings up the debunked theory that the DNC server, which was never "missing" was somewhere in Ukraine.

The "witnesses" are peddling nothing but second and third-hand information
Other than Lt. Col. Vindman. All the officials who have first-hand information about what Trump said or did are refusing to testify or are asking the courts to rule.

Trump's defenders hang their hats on narrow and literal statements and ignore the actions of Giuliani that are taking place outside of official channels during these official meetings. Most of the statements and actions by Trump and his subordinates can be explained away, but only if you take them in isolation, instead of as a web, a pattern, that clearly points to a president who formed his opinion about Ukraine based on debunked, tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories, and attempted to use his position to advance his personal, political aims

Day One of Impeachment Public Hearings

In Day One of public testimony in the impeachment inquiry, the interim ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor and another high ranking diplomat, George Kent, talked about the efforts by EU Ambassador Sondland and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to push Ukrainian President Zelensky to open an investigation into Joe & Hunter Biden, or at least publicly announce that he was doing so. Their testimony showed how this inquiry is about much more than the literal words in one phone call, but involves a web of carrot-and-stick pressure tactics. The lever that was being used to discredit Vice President Biden was not just the military aid package, but Zelensky's desire for a White House meeting with Trump. One part of Taylor's testimony that I found particularly revealing was that while he was trying to get the frozen military aid released, the National Security Council was caught up with Trump's efforts to buy Greenland! Neither Taylor nor Kent are claiming to have spoken directly to Trump about what was happening in Ukraine, nor were they expected to provide legal analysis regarding whether Trump's actions were impeachable.

Republicans, as was expected, did not address the facts of the case. They made a great show of asking the witnesses if they were "on the call", which they weren't, which is also irrelevant. (For all the Republican focus on "second and third-hand testimony, you'd think that all those closest to Trump would be tripping over themselves to testify, instead of refusing to testify, or asking the courts to intervene) They were asked whether anything in the phone call was impeachable. They did not answer, as this is not their area of expertise and not the purpose of their testimony. They assailed the patriotism of the witnesses and accused them of being "deep state" operatives out to get Trump, even though Taylor was recruited by the Trump administration to come out of retirement and take the Ukraine posting after the former ambassador was fired for "disloyalty".

Another Republican strategy is to point out that the aid to Ukraine was eventually released, neglecting to mention that it was released only after Congress threatened to take action to release it on their own. Repeated calls for the whistle-blower to testify are also a featured part of the Republicans "strategy".

So far it's evident that the impeachable offense is not merely a phone call where the intent can be (implausibly) explained away, a conversation that exists in some kind of vacuum, but a series of actions by Trump and those loyal to him, make it clear that this more than just the phone call, but an extended effort to solicit foreign help to influence a U.S. election.

Real Americans

Something that you see a lot during times of political polarization or unrest are claims about what a "real" American is, does, believes, stands for. All sides engage is this rhetoric, but my observation is that the right wing pushes it harder. The idea that some of us aren't true Americans.

The truth is that America isn't just one thing, we're the left and the right, the good and the bad.

As a native New Yorker who has lived most of my adult life in Nebraska, I encounter this mindset manifesting a a belief that middle Americans are more authentic than "the coastal elites", and that Californians and New Yorkers are somehow less American than Nebraskans. Most of the time people don't realize that I'm a New Yorker, since after almost 40 years in Nebraska my accent has faded. But I found it profoundly insulting that when Bob Kerrey ran for the Senate seat that was eventually won by Deb Fischer, his time in New York was put forth as prima facie evidence that he was unfit to represent Nebraskans. Kerrey, who was born and raised in Nebraska, served in the Navy SEALs (and it always seems that you can't criticize a veteran unless it's a Democrat), started a business, and served the state as a Governor and Senator, was somehow tainted because he took a job in New York. (One of the reasons I so dislike Dan Whitney aka Larry the Cable Guy is his support of Fischer in 2012, promoting the "Kerrey is a New Yorker and therefore bad" story line)

After the last election, since Clinton support tended to be concentrated more in coastal urban centers than in central rural states, Clinton voters were derided as not real Americans. Football players who take a knee are called not real Americans. Trans people and their supporters are told that they're not real Americans. Democrats and liberals not only aren't real Americans, but hate America and are trying to destroy it according to the right wing. Anyone who opposes Trump hates America. According to Trump and his supporters real Americans live in middle America, not the coasts, they stand for the anthem, believe in "traditional" marriage, are Republicans, and most importunately, support Trump.

There is no "the American people".

So Much Information

Once upon a time "doing your research" was a lot more difficult than it is today. A politician would make a claim, and unless you had personal knowledge of what was claimed, verifying or debunking the claim would take a lot of work. In 2019, however, there's a plethora of information at our fingertips through the magic of Google searches. Unfortunately, a lot of that information is unreliable.

Before Trump co-opted the term, "fake news" referred to information that was deliberately misleading or outright false, presented as real news. Websites were set up exclusively to deceive people, sometimes controlled by Russian Intelligence. These sites still exist and continue to churn out misinformation. Then there are sources that present opinion as facts. It's easy to look at incomplete information and come to a conclusion, then present that conclusion as factual. Oftentimes alternate explanations exist and are ignored.  Major news organizations, in addition to presenting the news, i.e. factual information, devote a large amount of their energy to delivering opinion, commentary, punditry and the like. Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow, to give examples on the right and the left, are prominent examples.

But doing an internet search until you find an opinion that you agree with isn't "doing your research", parroting what your favorite talking head says happened isn't either. It's not true just because Fox News or the New York Times says so.

Fortunately, much of what politicians claim can be independently checked.

A great example occurred this morning. Trump and his sycophants have taken to Twitter to let us know that he received an enthusiastic welcome at a college football game this weekend, and to complain that the "fake news media" wasn't covering it. You may recall that he received a less-than-warm welcome during a World Series game recently, the booing overwhelming any pockets of cheers in the stadium. He also experienced a mixed reception at a UFC bout in New York. But the cheers outnumbered the boos at Saturday's football game. How do I know? I know because, despite the whining about lack of coverage of the enthusiastic greeting, five seconds on Google yielded coverage of the overwhelming cheering for Trump by CNN, USA Today, the Washington Post, CBS and the New York Times. Another five seconds likely would have produced more examples. My point is, that despite all the griping that you wouldn't see coverage of public support for Trump in the mainstream media, a quick check showed ample coverage of public support for Trump in the mainstream media. Yet many Trump supporters won't check the facts for themselves, but will believe unquestioningly what their cult leader says.

Many of Trump's claims can be checked out pretty easily, not by depending on the mainstream media, or the Democrats, but by simply referring to what Trump himself said earlier, either in a tweet or a news conference. many of the figures that he cites can easily be checked using statistics published by the government (the same government of which he is the titular leader).

Which brings us to a timely and arguably much more important group of claims. Trump and his supporters have been inviting us to "read the transcript" (which isn't really a transcript, but a reconstruction based on contemporaneous notes, so I usually call it a "transcript" - in quotes) and has made claims based on what is in the "transcript" and the whistle-blower's complaint, as if what is in these two documents exonerate him. To a certain extent this works. As usual, his supporters don't "do the research" and repeat back what their master tells them.

Read the Complaint, Read the Transcript

Trump called Ukrainian President Zelensky; immediately after Zelensky referred to American military aid, Trump said "I want you to do me a favor though" and asked him to investigate former Vice-President Biden and his son Hunter. At the time Trump had put a hold on Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine.

None of these facts are in serious dispute. 

We found out about the phone call due to a whistle-blower who had heard about this phone call from several officials who were listening in as part of their jobs. Subsequently the White House released a reconstructed transcript from notes taken by those who were listening in. The document released by the White House did not in any way contradict the substance of the whistle-blower's complaint. 

Trump, as well as some of his supporters allege that the complaint was wrong and that it did not agree with the document released by the White House.  He continues to say this, even though both documents are publicly available and do not contradict each other. Read them yourself.

Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, read what he claimed was a parody of the White House document, where he added words that Trump did not say. Despite Schiff making clear that he was not reading the document verbatim, Trump and his supporters claim that the entire impeachment inquiry is based on Schiff's version. It is not. Trump is also claiming that the "transcript" was released after Schiff's bit of bad judgement and "set the record straight". It was not. Schiff had the "transcript" in his hands and it was publicly available before that. No one, including Schiff,  is claiming that Schiff's version is the correct version, or anything other than theatrical exaggeration. 

Trump and his supporters continually call for the whistle-blower's identity, despite the fact that federal law protects his identity if he wants to stay anonymous. 

At least one person who was actually listening in on the call has verified both the whistle-blower's complaint, adding that several things, including specific references to Burisma,  were left out. Top State Department officials confirm that, other than the phone call, there was an effort by Rudy Giuliani, at Trump's request, to push for an investigation into the Bidens. Rudy Giuliani holds no government post, but is merely Trump's personal lawyer. 

Trump and his supports can't seem to make up their minds about the quid pro quo aspect. One day it's "there was no quid pro quo", another day "there was a quid pro quo, but that's business as usual". 

The main defense from Republicans seems to be about process, rather than determining whether the allegations are true (which seems beyond argument) and whether the actions are impeachable.  

After the Mueller Report came out, Trump and his sycophantic supporters hung their hats on the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the available evidence was insufficient for charges of conspiracy. Now we have an admission that Trump himself colluded with a foreign head of state to take action that had no clear objective other than tarring a political opponent. 

There doesn't seem to be any other option other than impeachment. 

There are Lies...and Then There Are More Lies

There are lies and there are exaggerations. There are lies and there is being misinformed. There are lies and there are misstatements. There are lies and there are differences of opinion.

In the Trump administration there are mostly lies, and I'm glad to see that the major media organizations are finally calling his lies what they are: lies. Not misstatements, not errors, lies.

Of course, sometimes they are misstatements, especially when he's on a roll at a rally. It's easy to make an error in that kind of situation. The one time that I can recall a similar error by our previous president was when he referred to "57 states" when he was talking about the 47 states he had visited. Obviously just a slip of the tongue, just as I'm (relatively) sure that Trump understands that Colorado doesn't share a border with Mexico. But with Trump it goes beyond gaffes, it goes beyond misstatements or even exaggeration, he lies about things that can be easily fact checked, sometimes about things that are right in front of us.

Daniel Dale of CNN, famous for documenting Trump's thousands of lies and for popularizing the "sir alerts", use of the word "sir" that often precede a suspect Trump story, related a recurring Trump lie this week. Trump often stirs upon animosity toward the media during his rallies, sometimes accusing them of turning off the cameras during his speech. He couples this with his "observation" that he can see "the red light go off". Except that not only are they not turning off there cameras, but there is no red light. He's lying about something that is happening right in front of us, but that doesn't stop him. Frequently during White House photo ops, usually when he is signing some ultimately meaningless executive order, he has some human props behind him, like uniformed police or construction workers in hard hats. On several occasions he has referred to these men as crying, or in tears, happy that someone was finally doing something for them. Except that video of these events always show stoic faces, or sometimes smiling faces, but never, ever, people crying.

And then there's the recurring story of how he "got" choice for veterans. According to him "they" have been trying for 10 or 15 years (the number is inconsistent) but he finally got it done, because he loves the military. Except that the Veterans' Choice law, co-sponsored by Senators Bernie Sanders and John McCain, was signed into law in 2014 by President Barack Obama.

What's my point? My point is that with so many documented, lies, so many lies out in the open, so many lies about things that can be checked with a 20-second Google search, why would anyone believe anything he says about the things that we can't check?

Facts, Schmacts & The Big Lie

If you've spent any time in internet forums, Twitter or in political discussions on Facebook you've encountered the admonition to "educate yourself" or "do the research" and "don't believe everything you read". While this is sound advice, for many people "research" involves finding the first thing in a Google search that you agree with. For many followers of Donald Trump, "research" involves substantially less effort, it begins and ends with parroting back what Trump or his allies say. Why else would his rallies still feature chants of "lock her up", when there has never been anything close to credible criminal charges? When after two years of obviously partisan Congressional hearings, no suggestion of wrongdoing surfaced? Trump is very much aware of the tendency of his followers to avoid rational thought, so he tells them what the truth is, or ought to be...as he sees it. Trump employs several methods - gaslighting, deflection and ad hominem attacks.

It's debatable whether Trump's use of these logical fallacies is anything like a strategy, or it's merely the defensive flailing of a man who has deceived even himself.

Ad hominem attacks have been part of Trump's playbook from the start of his political life, paired with deflection, one of his standard moves is to distract from what he is being accused of by pointing at someone else as a horrible human being, who "hates America".

In the context of the ongoing impeachment inquiry, gaslighting has been especially prevalent. To refresh your memory, the inquiry was initially spurred by a whistle-blower who alleged that Trump had made improper promises to a foreign head of state. The Increasingly-Misnamed Justice Department and the Acting Director of National Intelligence sat on the complaint until the Intelligence Agencies' Inspector General notified Congress of the complaint. The complaint was made public and it indicated that in a phone call with the President of Ukraine, Trump had asked for a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, be investigated. The White House released a reconstructed transcript of the call, which verified virtually all of the whistle-blower's allegations. Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, verified that he was working on Trump's behalf to get this investigation opened.

What Trump has been doing, on a daily basis, is claiming that the "transcript" debunked the whistle-blower's allegations. This is manifestly untrue. The only possible point of contention is that the threat to continue withholding aid to Ukraine was implied, rather than explicit. To most observers, the implicit threat was obvious and inarguable. Trump has a history of denying his intentions by pointing out that he did not use specific words. An earlier example is when he asked the White House Counsel to remove the Special Counsel, Trump's defense was that he "never said fire".

This is a classic example of gaslighting. Here we have something that is extremely easy to independently fact-check. You don't have to rely on the White House, or the media or Adam Schiff. The complaint and the "transcript" are both available to be read in their entirety, minus a redaction or two for national security purposes. Read both of these documents and no other conclusion can be reached other than that the whistle-blower was accurate in his complaint. Yet Trump continues to say, and his followers believe and repeat, that the whistle-blower got it all wrong. There are other examples involving the timing of each document's release, but the main point can easily be checked, yet Trump pushes an alternate reality that people believe! A related incident is Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney admitting that there was a quid pro quo, with reporters asking follow up questions to verify that that's what he was actually saying and the very next day he denies that he said it, even though he is recorded saying it!

One of the things that a serial liar does is to keep telling the same lie over and over until people believe it, it's even better when it's a "big" lie. Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf wrote that "...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility...[they] would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". Joseph Goebbels added that to deceive properly, the big lie must be continuously repeated.

What's horrifying is not that a man with so rickety a moral foundation as Trump self-servingly and constantly lies, but that he was convinced a substantial minority of Americans that Lies are Truth.

Corruption

Did Hunter Biden accept a position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Bursima when he knew little to nothing of energy or Ukraine? Yes he did. Is it likely that Bursima expected to gain advantage from the fact that Hunter Biden's father was the Vice President of the United States who was also the point man in talks with Ukraine? Sure. Is that illegal? No.

While I hate to use the excuse "everyone does it" (Whataboutism), it is in fact true that everyone does "do it". While I do not believe that a comprehensive list exists of politicians' relatives who hold positions or seats on boards for which they possess no qualifications, my guess is that it would be quite an extensive list.  Whether the practice is ethical or not is a matter of debate and reasonable people might disagree, but what is inarguable is that it's perfectly legal.

The second part of the supposed corruption of the Bidens involves Vice President Biden pushing to remove a Ukrainian prosecutor who some imagine was investigating Bursima and Hunter Biden. The prosecutor in question was pushed out because he wasn't investigating corruption and he wasn't investigating Bursima. The replacement prosecutor did investigate and found no wrongdoing.

The story that Trump and his sycophants are pushing now is that yes, we asked the Ukrainian president to investigate corruption, and yes, this included Joe and Hunter Biden, but only because we were concerned about Ukraine rooting out corruption. This story fails the bullshit test for many reasons.

1. There is no indication that Trump or anyone in his administration cares about corruption in Ukraine or anywhere else
2. The timing, right after Biden announced his candidacy for president and the polls that show him beating Trump, is pretty suspicious
3. The literally dozens of instances of the Trump family benefiting financially from the presidency make the sudden concern with self-dealing and family influence a bit hypocritical

Once again, Trump's lies sound like the lies a toddler tells before he figures out what's plausible or believable and what's not

No, impeachment is NOT "a coup"

Despite the weird assertions by his supporters that he is "the best president ever" or his own proclamations that he has accomplished more than any other president, Trump's presidency has been a shitshow since Day One. He has demonstrated complete ignorance of the process by which things get done in government. And I'm not talking about how periodically the electorate gets all worked up about Washington insiders and wants to elect an outsider to shake things up. No, I'm talking about things like not understanding that Congress is an independent branch of government, not his employees. Like being ignorant of the fact that by law regulatory changes require a process, and can't be changed by fiat. Like being so arrogant as to think that a bureaucracy of thousands can be managed by him alone without relying on career experts. 

But stupidity is not an impeachable offense.

You can't impeach a president because you don't like his policies. You can't impeach a president because he is incompetent. You can't impeach a president because he is a buffoon.

But you can impeach a president for being irredeemably corrupt.

Trump likes to throw the word "corrupt" around. The mainstream news media, which for two years he was content to label "fake", is now "corrupt". Joe Biden is corrupt. Rep. Adam Schiff is corrupt. The late Rep. Elijah Cummings was corrupt. Lately it's been the label of choice for anyone who is has the ability to actually harm him, who dares to bring out the truth. "Corrupt" Trump opposition is in a class beyond "losers", those that get the "corrupt" mud thrown at them are those who Trump is trying to smear so that the truth that they speak will be ignored.

But as many have noticed, Trump is often guilty of projection. He accuses others of what he is doing. Trump's corruption dates to well before he became president. His family engaged in fraudulent practices in order to illegally raise rents in New York and to avoid taxes. Trump himself engaged in serial fraud during his days as a casino operator. Recently documents have surfaced indicating that Trump committed either bank fraud or tax fraud - the value and occupancy of several of his buildings were reported as significantly different on his tax returns and on his loan applications.

Although all of that should have alerted the electorate that he was unfit to be president. None of that is impeachable.

The Mueller Report, while it didn't conclude that there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that the contacts between them did not rise to the level of conspiracy as legally defined, it was overwhelmingly obvious that Trump and his campaign accepted and encouraged assistance from Russia during the 2016 election. The Report did however point out numerous instances of obstruction by Trump and his campaign. Obstruction of justice - exactly what Nixon would have been impeached for if he hadn't resigned first.

Instead of being happy that he dodged the impeachment bullet that the Mueller Report could have been, Trump doubled down on his corruption and brazenly asked for the help of a foreign government in investigating a political opponent. Trump openly did the very thing that was obvious to all in 2016 but couldn't conclusively be proved, he colluded with a foreign power to influence a U.S. election. Although in this case he wasn't the passive recipient of aid initiated by another country, but the instigator of it. When his actions were revealed by a whistle-blower, he released a reconstruction of the conversation that, despite his insistence that it was a "prefect" phone call, verified virtually everything that the whistle-blower alleged. His personal lawyer, who had been bypassing the State Department in dealing with this foreign government, admitted on national television that he had been doing in person what Trump did in his phone call: soliciting foreign help in investigating a political opponent. Virtually every State Department official who has been interviewed clarifies the picture of the president using the power of his office for personal gain. If that's not an impeachable offense, I don't know what is.

And right in the middle of an impeachment inquiry, where the main issue is him putting his own needs ahead of the country's, he announces that a major international summit meeting will take place at one of his own properties!

As the inquiry proceeds headlong toward actual impeachment, Trump and his sycophants alternate between gaslighting ("the whistle-blower got it all wrong") and claiming that, yes, he made that call, and Giuliani had those meetings, but there was nothing wrong with it, because he was rooting out corruption. Throw in some deflection, projection and utter bullshit ("Schiff is corrupt", "no transparency" and "Pelosi is sick", "Deep State!" "It's a coup") and you have the panicked flailing about of a man who knows the bloodhounds are closing in.

Apostrophes and Hyphens: a Liddle Issue

Seldom do I write an article about Trump's bad grammar. After all, there's certainly bigger fish to fry, especially now, than misspellings, random capitalization and weird syntax. There is however, always a "but"...but Donnie made such a big deal about the criticism he received regarding his use of the word Liddle' that I had to weigh in.

Trump was criticizing Re. Adam Schiff on Twitter, referring to him as "Liddle' Adam Schiff", with an apostrophe at the end of the word "Liddle". He was criticized by CNN for misspelling the word "little", although it's evident from his previous use of the spelling that he meant to do it that way. He somehow believes that "liddle" is more insulting than "little". Sure. Okay.

That's when it got weird. Weirder than normal.

Trump, unable to stomach any criticism, shot back on Twitter that he used the word Liddle' not Liddle, emphasizing that there was a hyphen at the end of the word.

No Donnie, that's an apostrophe, not a hyphen.

Even as an apostrophe it makes no sense. There are several reasons to use an apostrophe:

• As a possessive Trump's corruption
• In a contraction to indicate missing letter - "don't" for "do not"
• Similar to a contraction, but to indicate a colloquial usage 'em for them

Very seldom is an apostrophe to be used at the end of a word. A word that ends in "s" that is also a possessive sometimes has an apostrophe after the "s". It can also be used, as in a contraction, if the missing letter is at the end of a word. Trump's nickname for Ted Cruz was "Lyin' Ted"

There's obviously no missing letter at the end of "Liddle", nor is it a possessive. It is incorrect. End of discussion. Not to mention his spelling of "describing" as "discribing" in his tirade over being criticized over his spelling.

This is what he's focused on as impeachment hearings get underway.

Whistle-Blower Part III (Excuses, excuses, excuses)

One of Trump's go-to moves when he is accused of something is to to accuse someone else, often his accusers, of exactly what he is being accused of. How many times have we heard "Obama did something worse", or "What about the Clinton's"? And it's no surprise that he's trotting this move out in the face of the upcoming impeachment inquiry.

Despite the questionable wisdom of the Vice President's son taking a position as a consultant in a Ukrainian company while the Vice President was the point man in an effort to curb corruption in the Ukrainian government, neither Vice President Biden nor his son Hunter have done anything to cause the Ukrainian government to press charges or to further investigate Hunter Biden or Bursima, the company on whose board that he served. The main argument by Trump and his sycophants when confronted with Trump's efforts to use a foreign government to further his personal agenda is point the finger back at Vice President Biden. "What about Biden?" they shriek, "What he did is worse!" There's also a letter from three Democratic Senators urging Ukrainian prosecutors to continue their investigation into Paul Manafort when they were being pressured by the Trump administration to drop their investigation. The disjointed logic seems to be "This thing that I did is okay because 'the other side' did it, but it's bad that 'the other' side did it" (Logic is not a strong suit with Trumpists)

If Vice President Biden used his position to protect his son, then why is it just coming up now, instead of when he was still in office and the opposition party controlled both houses of Congress? Why would Vice President Biden push to have Ukraine dump their incompetent and corrupt chief prosecutor who wasn't investigating Bursima or his son and see him replaced with a new chief prosecutor who did investigate Bursima and Hunter Biden.

Trump is also investing prime Twitter time suggesting that the whistle-blower, and those who passed on details of the call, are traitors, and cannot be believed because they have a partisan bias.

Media reports about the call and the complaint are labelled "fake news", even though they generally are reporting what Trump and his representatives have either said in public, or released in the "transcript" (actually a reconstruction of the call by note-takers). Representative Adam Schiff is being called upon to resign for "lying to Congress" because in a question to the Acting Director of National Intelligence he read what he thought Trump's conversation implied, rather than the literal text, even though he clearly said that he was relaying the "essence" of the call to a room full of people who had read (or at least had access to) the text itself.

The facts are not in dispute. Trump and his team of yes-men and faithful cult followers believe that what the facts say does not constitute a problem.

Whether there was an explicit linkage between aid to Ukraine and opening an investigation into Bursima and the Bidens is really irrelevant. Donald Trump asked a foreign government to take action that had no national security or economic interest, but benefited him personally, specifically to cast a shadow on a potential election opponent....

...again.

Impeach the son of a bitch. 

Whistle-Blower, Part II

Now that the whistle-blower's complaint has been made public, as well as notes from the actual conversation, provided by The White House, we know slightly more than we knew before. We know that the whistle-blower learned of the contents of the call Trump made to Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, not first hand, by listening to the conversation, but second-hand, from other government officials. We know that the complaint alleges that the notes from the call were archived, not in the ordinary fashion whereby records of calls like this are made, but in a secure, possibly classified location, and that other calls were hidden away in this manner in the past. We know that early in the call Trump made a point of reminding Zelensky that the United States provides Ukraine with large amounts of aid, and that Ukraine does not reciprocate. He followed this up immediately by asking for a favor. Literally. He used the word "favor", asking Zelensky to "look into" the "missing server", mentioning Crowdstrike (the firm that forensically examined the DNC server back in 2016). He then asked Zelensky to "look into" the "very bad" things that Joe Biden did when he was Vice-President and his son was on the board of Bursima, a Ukrainian company. Trump insists that it was a "nice" call and that he did not pressure Zelensky in any way. Zelensky, sitting next to Trump at the U.N. also said he did not feel pressured.

It's worth noting that Trump often uses this elliptical way of speaking when asking people to do things. Former White House Counsel McGahn testified, as did others, that he was asked to communicate to Attorney General Sessions that he wanted Special Counsel Mueller "gone". Trump later tried to deny this by insisting that he "never said fire", incredibly claiming that absence of that one word indicated that he didn't want to fire Mueller. Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen verified that Trump implies, speaks in code, communicating his meaning without actually saying the words. Some have compared this to organized crime shakedown language: "Nice country you have there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it". Trump is not denying saying any of the things that are in the notes from the conversation, what he is denying is an explicit quid pro quo (i.e. I'll do this for you, if you do that for me). In my view, only a moron, or someone who is willing to defend Trump's actions at any cost, can look at the proximity of the statements that he makes and see anything other than Trump attempting to use the power of the presidency of the United States in order to open a criminal corruption investigation into a political rival. Trump denies that what he said was "pressure", but who knows how this man, who mangles the English language on a daily basis, defines the word?

Much is being made by Trump apologists of a supposed bias on the part of the whistle-blower. Everyone has biases, explicit or implicit, but that doesn't necessarily determine our actions in all situations. Keep in mind that Trump has labelled anyone who has had any connection to the Obama administration, even non-political career officials who happened to be working at a government agency during the Obama years, as "working for Obama. Even Republicans or members of his team who dare stand up to him, or even mildly criticize him, are attacked and ridiculed. All of this with only a select few even knowing who the whistle-blower is. Supposedly the whistle-blower's attorney has worked for Democrats; hardly surprising given that a lawyer connected to Republicans might be afraid of retribution from Trump.

Don't forget that the suggestions that Ukraine "look into" Joe Biden weren't just in the phone call, but Rudy Giuliani, who is not a government official, but is Trump's personal lawyer, has made several trips to meet with Ukrainian officials to convince them to investigate Biden. And admitted it in public.

Take the time to read the text of the whistle-blower's complaint and the notes from Trump's phone call, and tell me with a straight face that Trump isn't using his position for personal gain or that he actually cares about corruption in Ukraine or anywhere else. Even Pinocchio would have a hard time with that.