not over it . election 2020

140,000 new cases reported in US today, 11.11.20

What a Difference Two Years Makes ... or Not

Two years ago, today, I posted:

Are all the president’s loved-ones accounted for? Surely there must be a stress-induced explanation for what he did, and failed to do, standing next to Vladimir Putin today in Helsinki....

The gag was an implication that the Russians must have kidnapped a member of the president's family as leverage. How else to explain the events reported, also two years ago today, by the BBC in a summary of the strange behavior of the President of the United States at a summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.

In addition to the 12 indicted Russians mentioned briefly in the July 16, 2018 BBC story, the Mueller Investigation would go on to secure confessions or trial convictions against eight US citizens (plus federal charges against another dozen Russian individuals and entities.

Later, after reading the redacted report of that investigation, I concluded that, were I seated on a grand jury presented with the volume and specificity of the evidence in the report, I would be compelled to vote for indictment in most, if not all, the instances the report detailed.

Roger Stone, whose sentence was commuted last week — was prosecuted and convicted by a jury of seven felony crimes. Commuted - not pardoned - Roger Stone remains a convicted felon who will do no jail time or reparation for his offenses.

Today, the American president continues taking the side of Vladimir Putin against the investigative findings of the US Intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and the president continues taking the side of confessed and convicted criminals working against US interests in and in parallel with his administration.

Other than that, I imagine the president's first instinct every day is to put America first; unless it isn't.

why are you surprised?

[Brought up from the vault — May 04, 2020 — in the final months of president 47’s first administration when he seemed pretty whiney that people didn’t take his every word at face value. In the history, poetry, novelist, and playwright trades, some practioners might use a word like *foreshadowing* to describe how what happened in those years relates to what’s happening in these years.]

Seriously: Why are you surprised? 

Didn’t you set the rules of engagement?

When you set the dial to
historic
unprecedented
like nobody's ever seen
biggest
greatest
perfect
best
...
but then deliver less[?]

Why are you surprised
that people want an explanation?


When you double down
dehumanize questioners
with insults and juvenile namecalling
when you
kill the messenger
change the subject
play the victim
...
Why are you surprised
when the questions
pull focus to
your honesty
your integrity
your wit and wisdom
your essential grip on reality?

Why, honestly, having set the rules of engagement, are you surprised by any of this?

Super Bowl Canceled by Refs

Senators: Give the President a Fair Trial

Call Witnesses . Require Documents . Deliberate. 

"…give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years." — Donald Trump

From time to time, Salvador Rizzo, reporter for The Fact Checker, delivers a detailed analysis of false or misleading claims made by American political figures from both parties.

I think Rizzo's accounting of Donald Trump's December 18, 2019 rally in Michigan is especially noteworthy because,

A) in his two-hour speech, Mr. Trump made 179 assertions of fact, of which 120 ... two out of three ... were found to be false, mostly false, or unsupported by known evidence, and,

B) one of the most troubling moments in the speech came in a statement that is mostly accurate. 

Donald Trump told the crowd in Michigan:

I see a woman, Carolyn Maloney. I was with her. Her first race, I helped her. She was always so nice. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I made lots of contributions over the years. You know in New York, it’s like, purely Democrat, especially Manhattan. So, what happens? I make lots of contributions for years and years and years. ... ‘I raise my hand to impeach.’ Well, give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years. Let her pay me back all the money.

Mr. Rizzo found confirmation from Federal Election Commission records that Donald Trump did, from 1993 to 2009, contribute $4,000 to Representative Maloney's campaigns — though his first donation was apparently after she was already in Congress, not during her first race.

Most important, to me, is the fact that Mr. Trump regarded those political donations as payments. He asserts that he was buying something from a Member of Congress ... that his $4,000, disbursed over 16 years, were payments to Representative Maloney.

As it turns out, he appears to believe he was buying a "no" vote on articles of impeachment:

"Well, give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years. Let her pay me back all the money.”

What a bizarre and simplemindedly corrupt understanding of citizenship and governance.

Mr. Trump's boyish misjudgment in this matter dates from 1993, when he was just a 47 years-old with a dream and staggering debt.

But he asked for his money back last month, the day he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives at age 73.

There is, as far as I can imagine, no good reason for a president of the United States of America to think as little of representative democracy as this man does. We will be well shed of him ... the sooner the better.

So we can put you down as a ‘yes’ then...

Among the very best lines of the week, I thought, was Congressman Schiff saying that President Trump repeating "No quid pro quo" over and over again is his "I am not a crook" defense.

Ambassador Sondland put that to bed explicitly in his opening testimony on Wednesday November 20, 2019.

“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’,” Sondland said. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.” It got better — meaning worse, from there.

On Hearsay, On the White House Driveway

 A Press Gaggle Joined in Progress

...and this ... what? — "reporter?" ... "analyst?" ... "subject matter expert? ... I don't know folks ... This person we never heard of claims that it "rained" ... but she was a thousand miles away at the time of the alleged "precipitation." A thousand miles away … maybe more.

All she has to go on, really, is secondhand sources who — she says — say it rained. So you'll ask her, "Did you get wet when it rained?" and she will have to say, "No, I did not get wet when it rained," which — doesn't that ... honestly — she doesn't know, folks ... she doesn't KNOW! It's all second-hand... She doesn't know.

So, we have to ask, "What is her interest in pushing this rain story?" What does she have to gain — what's in it for her? Her defenders say, "But she has people and measuring devices on the ground where the rainfall occurred." To which we have to ask, "Why?" Why would she have people in a place she doesn't live? Why does she need so-called "measuring devices" more than a thousand miles away? What is she up to? Something, that I can tell you. I don't know….

And she says -- get this -- she says "It rained there overnight" ...  "overnight?" I don't know, I was asleep, but I'm told it was completely dry outside. We have a thing called "Street lights," OK? And I have "people" of my own, and they tell me it not rain overnight. If you looked out your window when she says it was raining, know what you would have seen? Nothing. Street lights illuminating beautiful dry pavement ... dry sidewalks, dry everything.

"Oh, but she's a 'Meteorologist' they say. A "Meteorologist" ... I don't know if she has any firsthand knowledge about meteors, but she sure as hell doesn't know anything about rain, that I can tell you.

So, you tell me. Do you suppose it could be raining and not raining at the same time? I don't think so.

Another — and no one wants to talk about this — there's a story that she's trying to make it rain … maybe even actually making it rain in something called "local showers" ... I've — have you heard of local showers? I don't know, folks. What we have is a nasty woman getting rich while other people get wet — if we can believe her story ... which, by the way is all based on secondhand sources... It's all secondhand. We're going to be looking into that, that I can tell you. We're looking at a lot things, so we'll see what happens. But this whole -- I call it a "fake weather" thing — is just sad. I'll be releasing a detailed report on it in about four weeks ... three, maybe four, weeks.

OK, thanks everyone. You can all shout questions at my back while I walk away.