The latest brouhaha is all about our sleazy President trying to extort dirt on the Biden family from Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine by threatening to withhold military aid needed by them to hold off the incursions by Trump sweetheart, Vladimir Putin and his Russian mercenaries.
Naturally, the first words out of Trump’s fetid mouth were that the whistleblower is a partisan hack and that all the attacks on him are partisan. Is this true? What Trump says is rarely true and in time we’ll find out about the whistleblower but in this one instance it seems that yes, the attacks are partisan, carried out by the Democrats, just as Trump’s defense is partisan, carried out by the Retrumplicans.
It seems to this very biased viewer that the story is real and while admitting to being definitely partisan, let me explain why I feel this way.
In accepting the fact that Trump tried to bully a newly elected President with very little political background, Trump is exhibiting the same behavior he has exhibited all his adult life. This is exactly the way Trump has always done business. It’s exactly the way he has conducted his presidency. No one has to stretch his imagination to envision Trump doing exactly what he’s accused of because he acts like that every day on TV.
Donald Trump is a bully, a punk and a criminal. He always has been and he always will be. Given the choice to do the right thing; Trump will pass and revert to bullying and criminal behavior because that’s who he is. That’s who he was in this case. The smart money goes all the way to the bank on this one.
But what about the whistleblower? Is he or she possibly someone who is partisan? Sure but if one has any knowledge of the workings of the intelligence community it is probably someone who was ordered, as a result of the President’s conversation with Zelensky, to do something that he or she instantly recognized as being illegal and rather than carry out that order and put him or herself in jeopardy this person filed a whistleblower complaint, thereby getting himself out of the middle of what could become a very touchy and criminal situation. It’s called saving your ass.
Of course, the President has retaliated by accusing Biden of everything but apostasy. Needless to say, Trump’s accusations against Biden have come up very short in the proof department. He has, in fact, been able to produce nothing, that shows anyone in the Biden family did anything wrong.
On the other hand, all Trump has to do to put the accusations against him to rest is produce the records of the phone call in question. This would be a simple thing if nothing illegal had been said to the Ukrainian President. The fact that he will not disclose the contents of the call inevitably leads to the conclusion that once again the President is guilty of a criminal act.
In any normal inquisition during any normal presidency this would be absolute proof of Trump’s guilt. In our current criminal administration it’s just another lie to leave on the table.
Then there’s the Crazy Rudy episode. Rudy Giuliani has been all over Europe trying to get dirt on Joe Biden. In his now famous conversation with Chris Cuomo, Rudy actually admitted to this and then tried to dismiss it as inconsequential. Maybe extorting a foreign leader to get dirt on our political opponent is inconsequential in Rudy’s fantasy world, but it’s very important in real life. Once again Trump is putting his own wants over those of the country he has been elected to lead. Once again he is involved in criminal activity to push his own goals instead of the Country’s.
Then on Sunday, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy discussed his trip with Republican Senator Ron Johnson to Ukraine, a trip in which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and went over as much of the matter as he could. Murphy states, unequivocally, that Zelensky told him Rudy Giuliani had approached him to investigate Hunter Biden business interests in Ukraine but that he had refused. In the same conversation Zelensky urged Murphy to look into the reasons why the US aid package had been held up even though Congress had passed it.
Then, a few days after the whistleblower filed his complaint, the aid package, for some unexplained reason, suddenly was released, with an extra $140 million added. It’s interesting how these things just seem to happen for no reason in Trump world. First, the package of aid isn’t released, then, as soon as there’s noise about another Trump crime it is released, with a bonus, usually referred to as quiet money.
There is one more insidious set of events that have to do with this situation that had not, until Murphy, been addressed. During the period when Rudy Giuliani was over in Ukraine trying to sell Zelensky on providing dirt on Biden, a significant number of people, all in a related area, were resigning or getting pushed out of the administration.
6/18- Fiona Hill- Former Russian Advisor
7/7- Marie Yovanovich- Ambassador to Ukraine
7/28-Dan Coats-Dir. National Intelligence
8/4-John Huntsman- Ambassador to Russia
8/8-Sue Gordon- Deputy Director DNI
Why did this mass departure by people, all involved with Eastern Europe, happen? Were all these people pressured by Trump to get dirt on Biden? Why especially did Yovanovich go? The Ukraine didn’t want her to go, but according to Senator Murphy the Trump administration wanted her out. Was it because she wouldn’t help pressure Zelensky on the Biden affair?
When Chuck Todd questioned Republican Senator Pat Toomey, Toomey stated quite clearly that it’s not appropriate for a President to get political help from foreign sources. But then, despite the evidence that Giuliani was over in Ukraine doing just that, despite the obvious delay and then release of the military aid despite Trump himself finally on Sunday, admitting that he talked to Zelensky but refusing to release the contents of the conversation, Toomey refuses to come to a conclusion. This is Retrumplicanism at its most cowardly
******
Four years ago Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin proposed a very soft bill on various aspects of gun control. It failed to get any traction. Since then, these mass shootings have occurred.
Orlando, FL- 49 dead
Sutherland, TX- 26 dead
Las Vegas, NV- 58 dead
Parkland, FL- 17 dead
El Paso, TX- 28 dead
That’s a total of 178 bodies that Toomey admits would not have been saved by the passing of his bill but he and Manchin still want to push it ahead of other, more stringent, bills that are calling for the restriction of machine guns which were the primary cause of these murders.
These two clowns and any number of other weak sisters are too afraid to go for broke in a situation that demands just that kind of action. Guns kill people. People pull the trigger but if you put a knife in the same hands that pulled those triggers the number of 178 would probably be reduced to 5 or six, if any of those incidents would ever have happened.
That’s the reality. If you can’t deal with it shut your mouth and step aside. This writer is absolutely sick of listening to weak sisters in congress whine about the impossibility of getting tough legislation through congress. Lyndon Johnson managed to get some of the toughest legislation ever proposed through a hostile congress.
All we need to get it done is to junk Trump. Waiting for an election may take too long. Maybe impeachment is the only real answer. Maybe the brilliant but stubborn Nancy Pelosi needs a big push to get her off the schneid.