I conclude that Trump is definitely crazy, out of his tiny mind and needs psychiatric help. He still doesn’t think that he did anything wrong … He sees himself as a victim and is seriously anti-empathetic as well being intellectually challenged, stupid in other words. He’s a very dumb man who thinks that he’s smart … I guess Trump wasn’t particularly pleased with what Vindman had to tell the House, and showed his vindictive streak by terminating both of the brothers … It appears that the president sees himself as a don, ordering a hit on an opponent and doesn’t seem at all bothered by this self-perception…
Love to Learn, Learn to Love.
Let’s face it. Trump is a liar who wouldn’t know the truth if he tripped over it. So when John Bolton, a fascist himself by the way … Bernie Sanders is the man, the best candidate by far but a veritable threat to the establishment including to the main stream corporate media. Thus we should take what we hear on CNN, NBC, CBS and not to forget about FOX … It is much easier for Schiff to present the Democrat side of things because the truth supports his efforts … the counsel for the president is just floundering, lying, covering up and double-talking simply in order to muddy the waters because … Alan Dershowitz’s argument, however, so far, takes the cake … To quote my good friend and Bialik High School alumnus B. Glen Rotchin …
Donald Trump, the present occupant of the White House, has been known to lie, mislead and generally subvert the truth by basically attempting to misguide his audience in an effort to spin what are pretty well indisputable facts into a set of circumstances more favourable to him … “Many presidents … some good, some bad, … you have a good one now, … and they’re trying to impeach the son-of-a-bitch … “ … Now the process has ended up in the Senate, for the trial of the president and a vote to determine whether or not he should be removed from office. This ain’t likely to happen … Events are unfolding daily. Lev Parnas, a man indicted on two criminal counts, has decided to spill the beans on the goings on related to Ukraine … And now for something completely different, the prestigious New York Times newspaper has just broken with tradition and endorsed not one, but two Democratic Party nominees for president – none other than lying Elizabeth Warren and wishing-washy corporate shill, Amy Klobichar. WTF! What about Senator Bernie Sanders … Oh, I forgot, Sanders is a “socialist” which is something which that newspaper and other members of the elite view as an assault on capitalism which it is …
Further, an educated population would be able to see Trump and people of his ilk for what these people are – self-serving and as dishonest as the day is long …
Now it’s time for another of those JuicyLessons from Canadian Jerry, or CJ for short.
Donald Trump, the present occupant of the White House, has been known to lie, mislead and generally subvert the truth by basically attempting to misguide his audience in an effort to spin what are pretty well indisputable facts into a set of circumstances more favourable to him.
To that end, he has said some ridiculously stupid things but what he said a few days ago was something special, and not in a good way. While entertaining the Louisiana State Tigers, who won the national collegiate football championship by defeating Clemson last Monday, 13th January, 2020, Trump had this to say:
“Many presidents … some good, some bad, … you have a good one now, … and they’re trying to impeach the son-of-a-bitch … “
“Trying”to impeach?? Come off it, Trump. You have already been impeached whether you like it or not and we should not and will not let you get away with your feeble attempts to spin the situation into something less negative for you. You got yourself into your troubles regardless of the high degree of probability that you will blame others for that sooner than later.
The fact that he called himself a son of a bitch is notable for three reasons, briefly discussed here in no particular order:
Firstly, his use of such language should be frowned upon considering the pomp and circumstance surrounding yesterday’s event; secondly, and not for the first time, the Amerikan president is speaking of himself in the third person which is a reflection of the narcissism which pervades the totality of his personality; and last but by no means least, the guy, deep down, seems to have a very low opinion of himself. Do you need or want a president who hates himself? The guy’s a complete and total fuck up, like it or not.
Now the process has ended up in the Senate, for the trial of the president and a vote to determine whether or not he should be removed from office. This ain’t likely to happen for two reasons: First, the Republicans hold a majority of Senate seats (53-47*)and most of these Republicans are not likely to want the president removed. Second, it takes an absolute (two-thirds) majority of sixty-seven (67) votes to remove Trump from his position as chief executive, the president in other words, which is means that if all forty-seven (47) Democratic* Senators vote to rid the country of this scourge of Trump, it would require an additional twenty (20) Republicans to turn coat. Given the fact that it is doubtful that even the four Republicans required to get the fifty-one (51) vote majority necessary to call witnesses is itself highly unlikely (regardless of statements from Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney, three Republicans, suggesting that they’re open to the having witnesses testify at the trial stage), it becomes sheer fantasy to assume that sixty-seven votes to get rid of Trump will ever happen, not in a million years.
*Note that the Senate is presently composed of fifty-three (53) Republicans (G.O.P), forty-five (45) Democrats, and two Independents who are part of the Democratic voting block.
Events are unfolding daily. Lev Parnas, a man indicted on two criminal counts, has decided to spill the beans on the goings on related to Ukraine. According to this guy, who seemed credible to me by the way, Trump knew everything that was going on. Parnas’s boss, Rudy Guiliani, is also, COHENcidentally Trump’s personal attorney, and the person who gave Parnas to go ahead to tell Ukrainian President Zelinsky that unless he publicly announced, within twenty-for hours, that the Ukraine government would be launching an investigation into the Bidens, that the over $300 million in American security aid would not be forthcoming, nor would Vice-President Mike sixPENCE be attending Zelinsky’s inauguration ceremony.
Since no such announcement was made, Pence, citing a scheduling problem, did not attend the ceremony and the military assistance was withheld for a while. The only reason that this congressionally-sanctioned military assistance was finally released was because a whistle blower, with seemingly intimate knowledge of the goings-on, had become known to exist which forced Trump’s hand.
I’m sure Trump would rather that Parnas had not come forward because of the latter’s contention that Trump knew everything, that he was indeed trying, through his intermediaries, Giuliani, and through Rudy, Lev Parnas, to pressure Zelinsky to do his bidding related to investigating the Bidens, not in the interest of seeking out and eliminating as far as possible, corruption in the Ukrainian government as Trump and his sycophants are claiming, but in an effort to get some kind of dirt on Joe Biden, perceived by Trump to be his most significant foe in terms of presidential election upcoming next November. In other words, Trump was operating in his own interests, attempting to get foreign interference in the American election, rather than in the national security interests of the United States and in the process was in fact compromising U.S. national security, or so goes the argument. Trump’s claim that he doesn’t know Parnas simply doesn’t come close to holding water.
Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani’s former associate who stands at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, has threatened to release a new photo of himself with Donald Trump every time the president denies knowing him.
And now for something completely different, the prestigious New York Times newspaper has just broken with tradition and endorsed not one, but two Democratic Party nominees for president – none other than lying Elizabeth Warren and wishing-washy corporate shill, Amy Klobichar. WTF! What about Senator Bernie Sanders?
Oh, I forgot, Sanders is a “socialist” which is something which that newspaper and other members of the elite view as an assault on capitalism which it is. Sanders supports, and has supported for at least the past three decades, Medicare for all, a policy which will force the wealthy in society to pay additional taxes to support it; even some in the upper bourgeoisie (middle class) will see their taxes increased to pay for Medicare as well as for free post-secondary education, the latter another plank in Sanders’ platform.
So what? Far be it from me or from anyone else for that matter to argue that people in the upper socio-economic echelons have enough money and can thus afford to pay additional tax to support policies which would probably help those that need it most – the impoverished and desperate in American society – so I won’t.
What I will say is the following: the elite, those who have benefited the most from the sweat of the working class (proletariat) obviously feel threatened in a circumstance where a university education is available to any and all who desire it since this would doubtlessly lead to a more educated population asking certain questions which the privileged would not want to hear. For higher education specifically, and education in general, give people a certain perspective which the uneducated lack, a perspective which might cause people to question why there is such an unequal distribution of wealth and, consequently power, not only in American society, but in certain other western nations as well, Canada 🇨🇦, for example. More significantly, the question about how to redress such inequality would arise, which is a direct threat to the status of those in power.
Further, a formally-educated population would become cognizant of the fact that there is more that draws us together than that which drives a wedge amongst us. This would certainly cause people to understand the following: the people who pull the strings love to see people fight with each other rather than focussing their energies on confronting the elite, itself, who, in my humble opinion, is the real enemy of the people. Educating people would also go far in eliminating the racism which is prevalent in the contemporary U.S.A.
In addition, an educated population would be able to see Trump and people of his ilk for what these people are – self-serving and as dishonest as the day is long.
Enough said … for now.
Now for something relatively short and not so sweet to finish off today’s JuicyLesson (JL) for all you Dennis Shapavolov tennis fans.
This morning I saw the lowlights of Shapovalov’s first round loss to a dude from Hungary whom I’d never even heard of prior to these incidents in the Australian Tennis Open. Shapo, seeded thirteenth, made over fifty unforced errors in his four set loss to unseeded Marton Fucsovics …
There is no doubt that there is overwhelming division in societies of the West – mass shootings, stabbings, the venom which blankets contemporary social media, terrorism both imported and domestic, hate speech and hate crimes. There are a multitude of questions surrounding this serious crisis such as: Why is this stuff happening right now? Were/Are the characteristics associated with, and driving this hate and division always within people or are hate and division relatively new social, cultural and political phenomena? Regardless of the answer to the previous query, what or who has created the psychological environment which has been conducive to fostering mass murder, terror and hate speech and activity all of which thrive on racist thought?
Firstly, let’s agree that the hate was already there, buried, but there for sure. It took the present occupant of the White House, the moron-in-chief, with his hate-filled, racist speeches at rallies and his tweets to unleash it for all to witness. Hitler unleashed the hate against Jews, blaming us for Germany’s problems in the period between World War I and World War II. Trump has substituted Mexicans and other brown-skinned peoples for the German and other European Jews during the inter-war period (1919 to 1939).
Another question arises and that is the following: Is it better to bring all the shit to the fore or for it to remain buried beneath the surface? I believe that it’s better for it to emerge now, given that it was there to begin with, rather than allowing it to fester and grow with time, only to emerge at some later date, driven by another impetus like that provided by the hate and division spewed by the moron-in-chief.
Why, you may ask. With the big reveal, everything is out in the open and only those going through life with closed eyes and ears can argue that the big hate is only a figment of one’s imagination. Thus we know what faces us and we must begin to take action to confront and hopefully eradicate it as soon as possible, not while the moron-in-chief is in the Oval Office however.
Once Trump has been replaced by a progressive Democrat or Independent, we can begin the healing process. A much better educational system than that existing in the United States of Amerika is necessary to accomplish that goal. Education, higher education, gives one perspective to help us make enlightened decisions and judgements rather than ones based on ignorance and hate.
It won’t be easy, it won’t happen overnight. The rich love to see people in society fighting with each other rather than focusing on them, who are the real enemies of the people. I am talking about the filthy rich, the two hundred or so families in Amerika who control the politicians and other decision-makers. When they say jump, politicians ask how high. I am not arguing that it’s a sin to accumulate wealth. What is sinful is the high degree of concentration of wealth in fewer hands so that the middle and working classes struggle to make ends meet, while the owners and managers live lives of wealth and luxury. The fact that Amazon and Walmart workers barely earn a living wage while the owners of these companies and others like them go along their jewel-encrusted way, increasing their already enormous wealth daily, at the expense of their workers on the one hand, whose labour they exploit to the max, and consumers who often pay high prices for goods and services. Those two economic elements when coupled together allow for the upper socio-economic to earn maximum profit at our expense as workers and consumers.
This seems an undeniable fact of life but it would seem that there are a surprising number of others don’t quite see it, understand it and acknowledge that they are being exploited, taken advantage of. Either that, or they do realize how the alienation the system has foisted – “foistered” in the words of this ridiculous president, I kid you not; he actually said it twice, failing miserably to correct himself after getting it wrong the first time and trying to correct himself the second time, unsuccessfully – foisted on them has deadened their spirits and increased their desperation as they struggle to put food on the table, a roof over their families’ heads and clothes on their backs and all this is okay with them because they see a kindred spirit and a saviour in Donald John Trump, someone, according to them who speaks his mind and says what they, his supporters are thinking.
Education along with college and university level reading lists can help educate the ignorant, the so-called by Hillary Clinton “basket of deplorables” so as to gain some degree of perspective and understanding so that they can begin to ask themselves some serious questions: Why is Medicare a good thing? How can college/university education help one understand what is really going on in a society which claims to be the richest on the globe, and yet sees enormous poverty, homelessness and where many fight just to survive while a wealthy few have more money than they know what to do with?
Along with other factors which I have so far failed to identify, a better educational system will allow a shift to the left to occur among a significant slice of the U.S. population, and once realization and a consequent awakening happens, things are bound to change. No longer will socialism be regarded as evil but will be seen instead as a way of giving more people a fighting chance to improve their situations rather than desperately spinning their wheels as is the case in contemporary western civilization.
However, this process will not take hold overnight. No sir. It’ll take generations, my friend. Three generations, a minimum of seventy years, which is the necessary amount of time for a new set of values be taught and learned.
One more thing, however, must be added here. Another four years of Trump will be very dangerous for civilization as we know it, and DNC centrism will serve to make Trump’s re-election a reality. Horrible thought.
Peace out.
A timely JuicyLesson from Canadian Jerry.
For those who are interested, here is the full text of the letter written to Nancy Pelosi by President Donald John Trump. Thoughts? All I can say is that I doubt he even read it himself and probably didn’t write it either; instead, he dictated it to someone else. After all, it is a full five pages and a bit. Trump has simply given his side of the story again, repeating the same lies and half-truths about such things as the Mueller Report, the FBI and, of course, the now famous “perfect” phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. He also touts his so-called accomplishments including massive de-regulation, the Space Force, and the lie about the construction of that ridiculous southern border wall.
It is significant and important to note that Trump’s de-regulatory activities have done little good and have caused definite harm to our physical environment, among other things. His mention of the economic progress made during his administration is misleading to say the least in the sense that there is an argument to be made that he inherited a recovering economy from his predecessor, President Barack Obama. In addition, he makes no mention of the trade war with China, which he started, and which has most definitely injured American farms and farmers as well as causing price increases in consumer goods dependent on American imports from China.
Bribery is written all over the transcript of aforementioned phone call between Trump and Zelinsky; so much for Trump’s claim in the letter that he has not committed “high crimes and misdemeanours”. The fact that bribery is not mentioned as an Article of Impeachment is probably a mistake. However, there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the president of the United States has abused his power and obstructed Congress in its effort to exercise its duty of oversight.
His now infamous statement in the transcript about doing “us a favour though” is clear evidence of abuse of power in the sense that Trump placed his own interests in terms of his chances for re-election next year ahead of American national security concerns. In this regard, Trump’s stating that the “us” here means the nation and not himself is complete bullshit, an obvious attempt to explain away the true intent of this statement which was to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
Further, his failure to respond positively to Congressional subpoenaing of documents as well as his refusal to allow members of his administration to testify in Congressional committee, again in defiance of Congressional subpoenas, most certainly represents obstruction, the second impeachment article.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/17/us/politics/
Read Trump’s Letter to Pelosi
Protesting Impeachment
DEC. 17, 2019
President Trump sent a letter on Tuesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressing his “most powerful protest” against the impeachment process. The House is expected to vote on two articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump on Wednesday.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
December 17, 2019
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme — yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!
Your first claim, “Abuse of Power,” is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination. You know that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine. I then had a second conversation that has been misquoted, mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented. Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect. I said to President Zelensky: “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign. I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America’s interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.
You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense — it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.
You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this because Biden bragged about it on video. Biden openly stated: “I said, “I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars’…I looked at them and said: “I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.” Even Joe Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it “looked bad.” Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did.
President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure. He further emphasized that it was a “good phone call,” that “I don’t feel pressure,” and explicitly stressed that “nobody pushed me.” The Ukrainian Foreign Minister stated very clearly: “I have never seen a direct link between investigations and security assistance.” He also said there was “No Pressure.” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a supporter of Ukraine who met privately with President Zelensky, has said: “At no time during this meeting…was there any mention by Zelensky or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure to do anything in return for the military aid.” Many meetings have been held between representatives of Ukraine and our country. Never once did Ukraine complain about pressure being applied — not once! Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: “No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on.”
The second claim, so-called “Obstruction of Congress,” is preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation’s history. Under that standard, every American president would have been impeached many times over. As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley warned when addressing Congressional Democrats: “I can’t emphasize this enough…if you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the President for doing.”
Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it! You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy!
Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for two and a half years,” long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine. Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office, the Washington Post …
published a story headlined, “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.” Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, “I’m going to fight every day until he’s impeached.” House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country’s best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports) — who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office, “We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf****r.” Representative Al Green said in May, “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.” Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine. As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!
Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.
You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new jobs; the lowest-ever unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; a completely reformed VA with Choice and Accountability for our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices; historic tax and regulation cuts; the elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new branch of the United States Military since 1947, the Space Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal justice reform; a defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of the world’s number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the replacement of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal with the wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One trade deal with China; massive new trade deals with Japan and South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord; becoming the world’s top energy producer; recognition of Israel’s capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of Catch-and-Release, and the building of the Southern Border Wall — and that is just the beginning, there is so much more. You cannot defend your extreme policies — open borders, mass migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and constant partisan obstruction of both common sense and common good.
There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you will ever give me a chance to do so.
After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again.
There are not many people who could have taken the punishment inflicted during this period of time, and yet done so much for the success of America and its citizens. But instead of putting our country first, you have decided to disgrace our country still further. You completely failed with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so you decided to take the next hoax that came along, the phone call with Ukraine — even though it was a perfect call. And by the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides of the conversation.
You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.
Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians — a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other. You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy. Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade-you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person. All of this was motivated by personal political calculation. Your Speakership and your party are held hostage by your most deranged and radical representatives of the far left. Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger — this is what is driving impeachment. Look at Congressman Nadler’s challenger. Look at yourself and others. Do not take our country down with your party.
If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative resources to exposing the full truth concerning the FBI’s horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 election — including the use of spies against my campaign, the submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the concealment of exculpatory evidence in order to frame the innocent. The FBI has great and honorable people, but the leadership was inept and corrupt. I would think that you would personally be appalled by these revelations, because in your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you tied the impeachment effort directly to the completely discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that “all roads lead to Putin,” when you know that is an abject lie. I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.
Any member of Congress who votes in support of impeachment — against every shred of truth, fact, evidence, and legal principle — is showing how deeply they revile the voters and how truly they detest America’s Constitutional order. Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.
Worse still, I have been deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam right up until the present. I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made. Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to us. In other words, once the phone call was made public, your whole plot blew up, but that didn’t stop you from continuing.
More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.
You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan — it is not. You said it was very divisive — it certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible — and it will only get worse!
This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth. You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever been before. History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade. Your legacy will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.
Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the American People that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly. No intelligent person believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There is no reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.
I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.
There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.
cc:
United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
Peace out.
12/17/2019
Just watching Donnie at a news conference with the president of Finland. Same old talking points. Called the impeachment inquiry investigation a hoax, “a big fraud on the American people” as the moron-in-chief put it … Things are getting really interesting. Just last night the president tweeted that he had decided to scrap his plan to host the 2022 G-7 conference at the Trump property in Doral, Florida, close to Miami … Trump’s decision to abandon America’s Kurdish allies by withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria has left the Kurds, who have fought side-by-side with the United States troops in the war against ISIS, to fend for themselves … We haven’t even mentioned Ukrainian President Zelensky or Trump’s attorney, Rudolph (the bug eyed, empty-headed) Giuliani … Isn’t it a crime not to comply with subpoenas issued by a theoretically co-equal branch of government, the Congress ? And if so, why isn’t someone being locked up left now?
A great conversation. A beautiful conversation. A totally appropriate conversation. It doesn’t matter what I brought up. It was totally appropriate”… The I.G. believes that what the whistleblower had said at the end of July was credible and that the phone conversation should be revealed to Congress, but he has been over-ruled by the D.N.I. (Department of National Intelligence) as well as by the D.O.J. (Dept. of Justice)… As the American president, Trump does have the right to say what he wants to anyone, including world leaders, provided what he says is designed to serve the United States’ national security and interest, rather than his own personal interests … The president’s counsel, another idiot, Rudy Giuliani, admitted in a conversation with Chris Cuomo of CNN, that he did bring up Biden’s son with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, after at first denying that he had done so … I couldn’t believe he would actually do it, but he did. Trump decided for some reason to release an unredacted transcript of the phone call with the Ukrainian president … There was no quid pro quo, literally “this for that”, i.e. “I give you military aid, you do my bidding” type of thing. If there had been such a thing unearthed in the transcript, that would be a whole other thing, according to Republican Mitt Romney … The whistleblower’s complaint, for lack of a better word, has just been released to Congress. The question now becomes where do we go from here? What happens now?
It’s hard to believe what’s going on here. Trump’s corrupt, dishonest and totally ignorant approach has been pretty well acknowledged to be a fact of life. Instead of doing something, anything to hold him accountable, politicians and others are simply sitting around and contemplating their navels or running for president … Just to clarify, there is speculation involved but only on the degree of damage the moron-in-chief will cause, not on the fact that the above-mentioned results are America’s present reality. Anyone who can’t see this is either stupid, willfully ignorant, or dependent on Trump and his administration, either directly or indirectly … The guy has a 38% approval rating as of this writing, but I continue to be shocked, angered and find it very hard to believe the base ignorance of his base who think that Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the greatest president in U.S. history … How long can we allow this bum, this racist fool, this misogynistic, sexist, ignorant pig, to run the American government? … Trump is a true narcissist who believes that he knows everything, more than the generals, for example; “I am the least racist person in the world” …. Trump is really running a criminal organization, not a government administration by any stretch of the imagination. He’s sleazy, a slime ball, an oily, greasy, bottom feeding, nutcase and some people better stand up to him before Dorian makes land in Alabama, and the sooner, the better.
Today, the moron-in-chief says that Melania has grown to know Kim very well. Fact is she had never even met the thug. The WH spin is that the moron-in-chief shares his dealings with Kim and others with his wife and that is how he was able to lie that Melania knows Kim quite well. This is just bullshit and the spin doesn’t matter because (a) his base doesn’t care about his lies, and (b) people who oppose the moron-in-chief don’t believe a word of what he says anyway.
John Kasich said in a back-and-forth on CNN, that Americans cannot allow this type of shit to become the new normal. I got sad news for him: it’s too late.
Sadly, I have grown to actually despise the moron-in-chief: the sound of his voice, that fucking face, his ill-tailored and ill-fitting suits, his penguin-like stance, his being short on brains and long on ties, the toilet paper attached to his shoe, his complete lack of any semblance of both integrity and sense of humour, his useless trade war, his not showing up at a G-7 climate change round table and then lying about why he wasn’t there – he said that his meeting with India’s Modi and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, went on too long when in fact both leaders – Modi and Merkel – were shown to be at said round table – his selling the presidency and using it to do business in the hopes that he can make some scratch, his disgustingly sexist lifestyle and so on.
It is beyond me that people can be as ignorant, woefully uninformed, so undignified, believing anything that the moron-in-chief spews at them and labelling anything that doesn’t cast their leader in a positive light as fake.
I saw one of the deplorables being interviewed and being confronted with the fact that Trump had said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and “still not lose any voters”. She argued that he never had said that and when told that there was video of his statement, she proceeded to call that “fake”. It was enough to make me feel like puking, actually. Ignorance pervades the American population more than I thought possible in this day and age, and this uninformed and completely unenlightened orientation can be seen as a partial result of the poor shape of the American educational system as a whole.
In whose interests is a poorly educated populace? In the interests of the “one percents”. I use that term as a means of “saving words and time” and I mean that, unlike when the moron-in-chief rationalized his calling Tim Cook, “Tim Apple”. As some have said we all make mistakes and misspeak at times. Why not just admit that you made a mistake rather than lying about it as Trump did? By trying to mislead people with his lies, he turned a non-event into a news story. What a foolish man he is, stupid as the day is long. Left?
Back to corporate greed, the “one percent”. It is in their interests to see people divided and fighting with each other rather than confronting their real enemies, that same “one percent”. A poorly educated and desperate citizenry are just too uninformed to be able to see the truth and too uneducated to gain the perspective that comes with education starting in high school and proceeding through college and university and as I understand it, there is a difference between those two terms. Colleges do not offer degrees beyond the Bachelors’ level, while universities offer MA’s, MBA’s, MSc’s as well as courses of study leading to professions like medicine.
Steve Sack / Minneapolis Star Tribune
Supporters of the moron-in-chief, for the most part, are part and parcel of what Hillary Clinton classified as a “basket of deplorables” and that’s putting it mildly. There is no chance that his base will ever think or say ill of him so don’t waste your energy trying to reason with them. You’re wasting your breath and you have much better things to do with your precious time.
An updated previously posted JL from Canadian Jerry / 🇨🇦 j
This guy’s name is Andy Zee and he’s really got it going on. In this twelve minute interview with Cenk Igyur from the Young Turks (TYT), he talks revolution, really and truly. For more information, check out Andy Zee; Revolution Books; and Refusefascism.org. People have asked me what can be done. Well, here’s something to think about. This guy must know that he’s putting his life on the line by saying some of this stuff, and rest assured, if things looked like they were coming to a head, he and people like him would be in the sights of representatives of the “powers that be”. Things are getting ridiculous. It may be time to fight the power that be.
Seriously, folks.
Surely William Barr knew that the Mueller Report would eventually be available for all the world to see. Why then would he cover certain details up unless his arrogance allowed him to somehow draw the conclusion that people would either be unwilling or unable to decipher things for themselves?
An example that comes to mind is the interaction between the moron-in-chief and now no longer WH counsel, McGhan, which apparently involved the latter being told by the former to get Mueller fired and telling him over the phone to have the then AG, Jeff Sessions, do the dirty. Somehow this obvious attempt by the moron-in-chief got lost in the shuffle and was not even alluded to or mentioned in Barr’s four-page summary of the Report. As a matter of fact, by refusing to do the moron-in-chief’s bidding in this case, McGhan may have saved the moron-in-chief’s presidency. To pursue this issue a bit further, it seems that this “endeavour” by the moron-in-chief, to some, is tantamount to actually committing the offence – either it is or it isn’t. It can’t be both.
It’s really hard to believe what’s going on in the United States what with a totally reprehensible and completely immoral character in charge of the executive branch of the American government. This moron, whom I call mic – moron-in-chief – recently stated that we should get rid of the judges, whose task it is to interpret the law.
Wouldn’t that be nice, eh? No third branch of government and certainly less of a check on presidential power. The mic would love this. What’s next, get rid of the legislature too. That would leave only the executive with the mic-in-chief at its apex bring free to do what he wants with no legislative or judicial restraint on his power. Wouldn’t that be nice.
Actually, there’s so much hate in the United States – Democrats vs. GOP, Anti-mic vs. Pro-mic and I may be contributing to this hate with use of the term “mic” – that it’s hard to objectively decide what’s fact and what’s fiction, what’s right and what’s wrong. Maybe we should all just sit back, take a deep breath or two, and relax. Personally, I find this difficult to do in the face of that’s all that’s transpired over the last two or so years. There’s sure been a lot of lying going on, with the mic engineering a good part of this.
I happen to count as two real friends plus one FB “friend” who are supporters of the moron-in-chief. Try as I might to get these guys to admit something as obvious as that the mic is a liar, it seems that all they got with which to come back is “Obama … this, Hillary … that, infanticide this, Vince Foster that … “. They don’t have a way of defending the mic so all they do is go back to the past to attack previous people in power specifically and the Democrats in general. In discussions, I have admitted that I wasn’t a supporter of Hillary Clinton because I don’t find her honest or trustworthy but heaven forbid that these guys admit that the mic’s not infallible.
Oh yes, just one more thing. Happy 4/20 which doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it as it did prior to legalization. Social change comes quite slowly. Wait for it.
That’s all I got except to wish everyone who celebrates Happy Easter, Chag Sameach and what remains of Shabbat Shalom.
Trump is claiming that the 4.1% growth in the USA’s GDP for the most recent quarter (3 months) is at the highest level in decades. To be honest, I don’t remember his exact words but he is contending that this 4.1% increase is the largest in a long time … He talks in terms of dollars and cents, winning and losing, but countries are not businesses and should not be administered as such… It’s Trump’s tariff time. It’s just a waste of time… when we buy a good or service from the United States, this is a Canadian import because money is exiting Canada to purchase that import. Alternately, when Americans buy goods and/or services from Canada, the cost of these goods go into the Canadian export column because money is coming into our country … Other countries have reacted to the American imposition of tariffs with tariffs of their own on American exports to their country, like on soybeans which will hurt American farmers just like Harley Davidson …
Just thinking about England while watching a football game on television between Brighton and Hove Albion and Huddersfield, being played in Falmer, Sussex.
Below : American Express Community Stadium in Farmer, Sussex, home pitch of BHA.
That new and beautiful pitch is located in Falmer, equidistant between Brighton on the east and Lewes, very close to Sussex University, where I earned my Masters in International Relations between 1969 and 1972, way back when, around 45 years ago, now.
I used to live in Brighton, first, and then in Hove, a part of my life I enjoy thinking about as my salad days. We had a gas, my girlfriend, Donna and my friend, Lorne, as well as other characters we encountered on our journeys.
Below: Brighton, Sussex, England.
One of the latter was a classic, “Paul” to the straight world, “Sebastian” to his buds and all the Hippies around in those days. He was homeless, relying on his friends, of which there were more of than a few, to provide shelter to this cashless guy, with his copy of the album “Mirror Man “ by Captain Beefheart** under his arm, and his Alsatian (German Shepherd) by his side. Like him, dog carried a dual aperture. She was “Hash” to the freaks and “Tessa” to those with, shall we say, more conventional views, including cops.
Below : Captain Beefheart – Don Glen Vliet – and album cover. Paul was hardly ever without this album under his arm.
Cops couldn’t simply approach Sebastian to search him. They tried once and Hash bit that guy, breaking his arm. To call her off, Mr. Sebastian simply said “Hash”, firmly, from some place deep inside this remarkable gentle man whom I grew to love. When the dog was with Paul, all the time in other words, they had to lay back and he was safe. Never got busted as far as I know.
Actually, one of the highlights of my 1982 visit to England was locating this guy and hanging out. The last time I was in Brighton, in the “summer” of 2013, I wasn’t that lucky. Couldn’t find Sebastian even though I went to check out our old haunts, pubs, mostly, as well as putting an ad in the local “Evening Argus” newspaper. Too fucking bad. Hope he’s still living. Some of my British friends have since died, most from from lung cancer and I am convinced it’s from all that tobacco we used to smoke – chain smoking straights except for me who didn’t smoke straights while stoned – I recall one time, somewhere in the world, when not stoned, I lit up a straight and the person I was with mentioned that he didn’t know that I even smoked cigarettes which I happened to not do when buzzed, for some reason..
That and the fact that we constructed spliffs rather than simple joints, the former containing the tobacco from a single cigarette plus hash of course.
We used to use three skins – cigarette papers, Rizzla, I think, and stick two together on one side with a third skin perpendicular affixed to the other two. Then we used open up an entire smoke by licking the seam, breaking the filter, and pulling it down, along the wet seam, and emptying an entire straight into it. Then the hash and roll, add a filter of at least 1/4 inch wide and voila, an English spliff. Some of us used to put the filter in prior to rolling it up.
We used to suck this concoction rather than puff on it if we really wanted a strong stone, similar to how chillums. Imagine what that did to the lungs.
Now back to my story :
One time, Paul was crashing at our place, in Hove – we could actually see the English Channel/La Manche – from our living room window as well as from the window of the room which Sebastian was occupying that morning.
So I enter the room, take two steps in the dark, and immediately hear a low-throated growl emanating from Hash, the dog. Fortunately, that’s all it was, rather than something more painful than the fear I felt for the few seconds it took for me to escape from that room and quickly closing it the in my wake. I believe that that huge Alsatian had scented me out, and recognized me as a friend to Master Sebastian. Otherwise my unannounced foray into that dark room would have resulted in something worse than that growl, which I imagine I can still conjure up, exactly, after all these years.
I remember Sebastian, Hash and I going up to London
in a small car with little money and less gas. This is how it was on this trip of around 50 miles/80 km. We’d get to the beginning of a downhill slope or hill, turn off the ignition, and glide down the hill. Upon reaching the “end of the road”, as it were, we would then turn on the engine and use it to get us to the next downhill portion of the motorway. So it was use the engine, turn it off, turn it on and repeat.
One more interesting tidbit is that I purchased a car while over the ocean. It was a 1958 Austin A-35 and you actually had to crank it from outside the front of the car to get it started. That wasn’t the same car as the above-mentioned vehicle Sebastian, Hash, and I used on that incredible “ride” to London.
Below: Stock photo of the A-35. Look very closely and you can see the hole in the bumper, right in the middle, where the crank is attached.
I paid a measly seven quid for it, less than $20 at the time so I wasn’t risking much cash. Don’t remember getting insurance for it. It was fun to use and ran fairly adequately in the few months I owned it. Only problem was the fact that I had to drive on the left side of the road, to which I wasn’t at all used. At times, turning left found me on the wrong side of the median, but I used to drive completely focussed so that I handled those turns a very high percentage of the time. It was black, by the way.
Sebastian was a generous man, who gave what and when he could to his freaky friends who had helped him out. One morning, upon waking up and heading down the 69 stairs to the street – beautiful flat which exhausted the less in shape among us at the time, at least the sixty-nine steps did – and opening the front door, and low and behold, raw fish wrapped in newspaper, a few pounds if it was an ounce. From Paul, – fell off a truck – cod, I believe it was.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say,
Today, Christians attend Church and pray,
So have good days tomorrow and today
May all your cares and worries go away
Just like the Habs’ chances for a playoff foray.
Ok, Ken?
**Legend has it that the Captain, a Frank Zappa-like character. or maybe it’s the other way round – went to live a solitary life in a California desert until he forgot how to speak English. Provided that he relearned it on his return to civilization, I find that very cool.
Below: “That guy…”
Just had a horrible experience with this man. He’s the brother of one of the owners – she and her hubby – and he drove me to the Harley dealership in North Charleston to collect some clothes to take home when I head back to good old Montréal. We also went to a buffet to pick up some Chinese for us although that wasn’t intended at the time. At first I thought I wouldn’t mind spending time with this guy who I’ve know for six years eating at the restaurant but decided, because I knew that, right here, right now, I didn’t want to spend any longer than necessary with the guy, I decided to ask him if it was ok if we put the food in boxes – including food for my hosts – after hmming and hawing and generally being obnoxious, he asked me why I didn’t want to eat at the restaurant and I surprised myself by giving him an honest answer in this context rather than simply making something up – that he was acting obnoxiously and I felt that I wanted to spend as short a time as possible with him at that moment.
Suffice to say, after collecting and paying for the food, things got a lot worse on the 30 or so minute ride from China Buffet to the house where I’m staying. In the end, I was almost physically sick; this was my first conflict since hitting the road in late January. Good and bad. Anyway, on getting back, I simply begged off and have been recovering on my bed. Unfortunately, I’m hungry – all I’ve eaten today and it’s now just after five in the afternoon, is one-half of a left-over Big Mac which means I’m gonna have to head downstairs and interact with this obnoxious man once more; hopefully it’ll be alright. If he starts acting up again I’ll either head back upstairs or clock him. Actually in the car on the way home, I told him that if I was feeling better and it wasn’t raining that I would get out of the car and cab it home. His response: If you were healthier, I’d “beat the crap out of you”. Very nice. What an asshole this guy can be. I apologized for calling him obnoxious, and he, obnoxiously, didn’t accept my apology and when I mentioned that to him, he said that I was “putting words into my (his) mouth”.
Peace and Love