I haven't been either as
hopeful or as apprehensive about the fate of the U.S. and humanity since votes
were being cast on 11-8-16. The wild and distressing ups and downs of the
roller coaster of events and revelations have grown steeper by the day. In the
morning one is fortified by new polls showing skyrocketing support for
impeachment; later in the day one is deflated by the likelihood that the Senate
will deny the undeniable and enable the Bottomless Pit of Evil to stand for
re-election.
The shadow of
Nostradamus keeps darkening my spirit like a passing black cloud blotting out
the sunlight of hope – did he really envision a civilization-destroying world
war wherein Russia and the U.S. are partners in crime? I wonder if the
BPOE will survive politically, thus empowered by his GOP fellow travelers in
corruption to fulfill his mission to carry out Vladimir's Putin's program of
destabilizing the liberal-democratic world order that has deterred, neutralized
and punished international aggression for over 70 years.
Rachel Maddow has spent
the last two nights diligently arraying evidence that the rump crime
organization (a.k.a. the Cabinet members and the appointed accomplices carrying
out their policies) has been mobilizing the two highest operatives in the
Executive branch to carry out a plan to dissolve the two key charges against
Russia that caused the U.S. to impose sanctions on Russia. On one charge,
Barr and Pompeo are bumbling around Europe trying to extract foreign intel that
would cast doubt on the American Intelligence Community's unequivocal and
unanimous conclusion that the Russian government committed cybercrimes to
interfere with the 2016 election on rump's behalf. On the other charge,
the Crimean invasion, the BPOE has been pressuring Ukrainian President Zelesny
to "make a deal" with Putin to settle the "dispute". Dispute, my tuchus: the criminal Russian
invasion of Crimea resulted in sanctions four years ago, including expulsion
from the G-8.
What Rachel has not yet
come out and said is that this large-scale two-pronged initiative is far too
planful, coordinated and sustained to have been conceived by rump or his
henchmen. The plot to undo the sanctions by undoing the transgressions
which undergird the sanctions appears to me to have been conveyed from the
mouth of Putin to the ear of the BPOE during those several private
conversations stowed away in the code-word security information system and
those in-person chats, such as the famous one after which the “president”
literally tore up the interpreter's notes.
One more point Rachel
made in her timeline summary: the money sucked from the military budget for the
wall (with or without alligators and snakes as the case may be) is being
withdrawn in significant part from Congress’s budgeting and Pentagon plans for Europe-sited
military base infrastructure and operation. Is there any possibility that
weakening our defense commitment to NATO allies is part of the same plot as
withholding $400 million in Ukrainian military support and pressing for a
settlement between Ukrainian victim and Russian aggressor?
Why, yes there is!
Finally, for the sake of
wringing every drop of meaning from the phone-call evidence indicating rump's
intent to provide relief to his Muscovite master, it's important to point out
that, just before he pressed Zelesny to investigate the Bidens, the first
"favor" the BPOE asked of Zelesny in exchange for releasing the $400
million was that he "look into" something called Crowdstrike.
This ask was invoking an alt-right conspiracy theory the gist of which is that
Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC and others to interfere with the 2016
election.
That is, not only was he
extorting Zelesny to provide oppo research on Biden for rump's own (criminal)
political advantage, he was using the same call to advance his plot to reverse
the sanctions put in place to punish Russia for screwing with our democratic
process.
By the way, just in case
you missed the news, rump told Putin's Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak in the Oval Office the day
after the Comey firing that he took no exception to Russia's election
interference, especially since the U.S. has done the same thing. Not only is
this a traitorous act, but the revelation that he said that confirms that he
has no doubt about the identity of the 2016 perpetrator.
Not only the
Constitution, democracy and the rule of law are at stake now, but our very
national sovereignty.
So, having been tracked
for years as a nebulous disorganized cloud cluster meandering weakly and aimlessly
across the open sea, the whistle-blower blew the cover off the traitorous
Ukraine phone call and pumped powerful and coherent energy into the impeachment
storm overnight. It made a precipitous landfall and, departing from the pattern
of its literal counterpart, the storm continues to strengthen.
As far as the possible outcomes
of impeachment and trial, it will take a new level of civic intelligence among
the American people to get Repubicans to do the right thing.
Well-educated citizens will immediately grasp the gravity and depravity of
holding an entire nation (Ukraine) hostage to extract help in tarring a
political opponent, but for too many it is an abstract, gray area whose
seriousness as a nuclear attack on democracy they just don't get.
Tribal fealty supersedes
the Constitution for the Fox lot, always will, but there are people outside the
cult bubble who can be moved by evidence -- as reflected in the fact that the
poll numbers of those favoring an impeachment inquiry have jumped up to 55%
since the phone call contents became public.
We need more
whistle-blowers to solidify and broaden the charges of abuse of power and
obstruction of justice. On a hopeful note in that connection, this
afternoon the State Dept. Inspector General briefed Congressional staff on
"urgently important documents". The documents turned out to be
a package of conspiracy theories slipped into SecState Pompeo’s pocket by Rudy
Giuliani and forwarded to the IG for investigation. The import of this episode, which occurred in
the spring of this year, was to discredit the ambassador (who was withdrawn
from her post) and anyone else who would stand in the way of suborning the
Ukrainian president into creating dirt on Joe Biden.
In the last two days
Susan Rice and Elizabeth Drew have written excellent NYT op-eds on these
topics. Rice reviews the historical Ukraine extortion timeline and
explains the nature of the impeachable offenses the facts imply. Drew focuses on the House inquiry process and substance, and she makes a case for a
strategy that is most likely in her judgment -- based on her assiduous,
award-winning reporting on the two impeachments in the 20th century -- to bring
Repubicans to vote for removal. Twenty Repubican senators would have to join every Democratic and Independent senator in voting for conviction in order for impeachment in the House to lead to rump's removal from office.
