I admire the Republicans. The way they stare down the truth about Donald J. Trump in order to rise to his well-deserved defense. Never have I admired a group more for their honesty, sincerity and highly admirable blind loyalty.
How could anyone in their right mind, not admire the way the Republicans threw caution to the wind and their reelections to fate by defending Donald Trump against the interests and purview of the United States Constitution? Their bravery and staunch resolution amidst a damning flood of news reports and credible testimony is unparalleled in the annals of misdirected blind loyalty. Especially in light of how much that testimony undermines Trump’s discredited defense and their quickly vanishing integrity.
Good show, guys! America will never forget your service and sacrifice.
Yesterday, about twenty of the Republicans I admire most signaled their frustration over the impossible task of defending the President by bursting en masse into a closed-door meeting of the House Intelligence Committee. For me, it matters not that these Republicans have no logical or reasonable defense of Trump’s crimes; just like them, I’m outraged that Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee would interrogate witnesses behind closed doors and allow a clear story of Trump’s transgressions to emerge.
Lastly, why would we lose any sleep over the security of Ukraine, or its people? Or the dubious fate of those pesky Kurds? Why should I care if Russia or Turkey invades or kills off these troublesome sects and shithole countries? The Kurds may have been Obama’s allies, but they’re not mine.
As you can tell from my words, I will support Trump and continue to kiss his ass and his ring no matter how many people he shoots on Fifth Avenue.
It’s a kindness to Donald Trump to view his extortion of Ukraine as a quid pro quo.Too much of Trump’s thuglike behavior, not to mention Ukraine’s existential angst, is omitted with that descriptor.
Quid pro quo ordinarily implies both parties enjoy a parity of gain, while the deal being offered by Trump and Trumper—Donny and Rudy—was Ukraine’s very survival. A survival only put in jeopardy to make the country’s leaders more malleable to digging up dirt on the Bidens.
This is where things get funny. Donny and Rudy split up. Rudy to Europe where amongst other places, he ended up visiting Kiev in Ukraine.
Meanwhile back in Washington, Donny was playing a chess game of sorts, directing a rumor campaign against the ambassador to Ukraine, who apparently was too straitlaced to countenance the strong-arm tactics Trump and Trumper were planning to deploy.
Cut back to Rudy. As part of his plan against the ambassador, he arranged for two associates (natives of Eastern Europe) to donate Russian oligarch money to a Republican Congressman from Texas, who coincidentally soon complained to the State Department about the straitlaced ambassador.
Only a clown could laugh his way through the mess created by Trump and Trumper. Two-handed, they virtually helped destroy America’s reputation as an honest broker and loyal friend on the world stage. Ukraine is our friend and strategic ally; why else would we give them $ 391 million?
What have we just said to Ukraine and the rest of the world with the President’s self-serving behavior?
“This is how America honors our agreements with friends.”
It goes beyond sanity to weigh the potential gains against potential losses Trump and Trumper risked with their stupid, conspiracy-addled games.
One has to ask, “What did they think they had to gain?” And then the most important question of all, “At what price?”
Yeah, sure, they might have dug up valuable dirt to use against Joe Biden. Valuable only should he manage to outrun his age, his son’s ugly business dealings, his foot-in-the-mouth tendency or the dozen other candidates running against him.
And at what price, Mr. President?
Impeachment is the fog horn that alerts the nation to one of its most perilous dangers. It’s not only America’s stature and reputation they imperiled with their selfish, childish behavior, but the integrity of the Office of the Presidency will forever be damaged in some ineffable way.
All to help Trump and Trumper hold onto the White House so they can continue to spread their lovable antics and zaniness around the world for four more years? God help us, no!
But back to my question.
Quid pro quo? Does that convey the fear felt by an entire population living under the threat and shadow of the Soviet Army? I think not.
Mario Puzo would know it for what it was. In the Mafia jungle he wrote about, the fear of death or destruction was the ultimate weapon. The ultimate bargaining chip.
“Make him an offer he can’t refuse,” was the refrain and it was totally undeniable.
Nor is she someone who instinctively lies to undo every mess, crime or idiotic blunder she uncontrollably creates. Nor will she employ sycophants to kiss her backside and carry out her instructions, especially when those orders directly threaten the welfare and security of the United States.
Elizabeth Warren will not destroy the integrity of governmental institutions and agencies, nor nominate people who will strangle and defenestrate the very agencies they were hired to run. She will never nominate William Barr, Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney nor Rudy Giuliani to hold positions (real or shadow) in our government. Not even when their prison terms come to an end.
Elizabeth Warren will never hold back congressionally authorized military aid to extort and corrupt defenseless nations. Nor will she insult our friends by calling them “shithole” countries. And when the United States intelligence agencies provide insights and guidance, she will not castigate and belittle their efforts. Nor will she take the word of foreign dictators over U.S. government agencies.
Elizabeth Warren believes in man-made global warming and won’t let a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires continue to cook the planet to their own satisfaction.
But that’s not all!
Elizabeth Warren won’t turn her back on United States allies. Especially those who have given thousands of lives to advance U.S. security. Nor will she turn her back on traditional allies who have walked with us through storm and strife. She will not weaken our most important alliances—not NATO, nor those with our partners at our borders.
And speaking of borders, Elizabeth Warren will not demonize our neighbors nor give domestic terrorists and white nationalists undeserved recognition and acceptance.
Elizabeth Warren will never enact tax reforms that pretend to help the middle class and actually put millions into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. Tax reforms that decimate our treasury and eliminate any chance we have as a nation to raise up those among us who are struggling.
Elizabeth Warren believes health care is a right not a privilege. She believes in a government that cares enough about its people to provide universal health care—like the majority of industrialized nations—and protect them from instantaneous poverty from medical catastrophes.
Elizabeth Warren has no need to deconstruct all accomplishments of Barack Obama, nor to wipe out or misconstrue all record of his accomplishments.
Most important of all, Elizabeth Warren believes governments exist to serve and benefit the welfare of their people rather than the avarice of those in charge. She will not reveal strange inclinations, crude behaviors nor a sudden affinity for dictators and tyrants once she takes office. Nor will she interfere with the honest functioning of all government departments and agencies.
Lastly, Elizabeth Warren will not be subject to foreign influence or extortion. She owns no hotels, in Turkey or anywhere else, has no ambition to build a tower in Moscow, nor will she reap millions from foreign countries wishing to court her good favor.
Elizabeth Warren has two children, neither of whom will show up on the government payroll. In her lifetime, for 70 long years, she has never been accused of rape or sexual assault; has never been unfaithful in either of her marriages, and never grabbed any strangers by their sexual organs.
Not even when she was doing her best imitation of Donald J. Trump.
There are probably 5 or 6 democratic candidates who would make good presidents. Good, just good, not great. After Trump that would be child’s play, appearing to be a good president.
However, there were not many on last night’s debate stage who strike me as potentially great.
Roll that idea around in your head, a great president. We haven’t seen one in a long time. Not in my lifetime. We’ve had a number of good presidents. Presidents who followed laws and traditions. Presidents who honored the dictates and courtesies of democracy. Presidents who labored to help the downtrodden and fight against the rule of despots in countries near and far.
In my mind, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last Great President of the United States of America. A president who came along when America needed greatness and bold ideas. When you start from the fundamental belief that government exists to serve the needs of its populace, you stick your finger in the face of anyone who starts shrieking “Socialism!” as if there were bugs in their bed.
If F.D.R was a socialist he was a pretty strange looking socialist. More effete intellectual than socialist firebrand, more concerned citizen than self-enriching politician, F.D.R. came from a privileged background, the kind that believed their duty was to lean over to help those lower on the social and economic ladders. Noblesse oblige in all its glory, especially when showered down upon impoverished masses with hollow dustbowl futures.
And now, 74 years after the death of F.D.R., I survey the debate stage and search for the one candidate strong enough, committed enough, and human enough to wear the mantle that F.D.R. so brilliantly modeled. A candidate strong enough in her beliefs to shrug off all the naysayers that will come at her. And there will be many. But, most important, a candidate strong enough to beat the wind out of a corrupt, noxious and bloated gasbag!
DEAR JOURNALISM STUDENT, you are entering the final phase of your journalism education. Up till now we’ve taught you the basics of investigative reporting, ie. tracking down leads, vetting your sources, verifying tips; but now, before you graduate, you need to learn some of the key signs that indicate the theft of a United States primary election.
Obviously, this lesson arises from the controversial events of 2016, when the entire American mainstream media failed to expose Hillary Clinton’s theft of the Democratic nomination. Historians have now come to agree Hillary’s race against Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination was a complete bag job facilitated by Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, a majority of state Democratic parties and dozens of party sycophants looking for government jobs. As to whether the mainstream media purposely ignored all signs of election fraud to ensure Hillary’s nomination or was just enveloped in an unexplainable fog of journalistic incompetence still remains a subject for debate.
The theft of the 2016 Democratic nomination was not pretty. It was so clumsy and ham-fisted it appeared to be executed by desperate clowns wearing party masks and balloon-sized gloves. There was no subtlety, no artful subterfuge, no attempt to smooth out the rougher edges. Vote tallies were hacked and changed in full view of TV cameras, so that millions watched as Bernie’s numbers climbed steadily to the bottom while Hillary’s totals rose to magical heights. Voting stations were eliminated, relocated or basically hidden, making it almost impossible for voters—especially Bernie voters—to actually find a place where they could vote. Other Bernie supporters had their party registrations mysteriously changed, their names purged from voter rolls, or were given provisional ballots that would never be counted. A few of the more hapless Berners were reportedly kidnapped or run over on their way to vote.
Given the blatant and pervasive nature of Hillary’s election fraud, it is surprising America’s top journalists weren’t able to expose Hillary’s brazen theft, by far the biggest news story of that year. But you can learn from their mistakes by watching diligently for these familiar signs of a stolen primary.
LESSON 1: LOOK FOR THE PLAN.
It takes a well-constructed plan to steal a primary contest or a national election. And it takes people. People, ideally, who are part of a network—a network like the Democratic Party, which has 50 separate state parties and more than enough manpower to staff a full-scale assault on an American election. Prior to the 2016 primaries, we now know, Hillary’s campaign set up special relationships with 33 state Democratic parties. The program was named “The Hillary Victory Fund” and was basically a money-laundering scheme to allow Hillary to fundraise from donors who had already contributed the legal limit to her campaign.
LESSON 2: FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The Hillary Victory Fund was also a cheap way for Hillary to purchase the loyalty of local parties as well as a national network of conspirators to help steal the nomination. Millions in donations were promised to the local Democratic parties. Millions donated by Hillary’s maxed-out donors, but quickly vacuumed out of state party coffers and shipped back to Hillary’s campaign, all but a meager 1% of the swag which the state parties were allowed to keep. So it was, in fact, a cheap way to access the people Hillary would need for the theft of the nomination. People to transform a highly disliked candidate into the next President of the United States. People to eliminate voting stations in key districts; people to flip electronic votes; people to purge voters from voting lists; people to switch voters’ registered party affiliations; people to shred Bernie supporter ballots; people to arrange shortages of ballots at key voting stations; people to spread misinformation about voting dates and polling locations; people to troll the internet and raise havoc with pro-Bernie sites; people to infiltrate Bernie’s campaign apparatus.
And people to stand-in-place for the legions of Hillary supporters who consistently failed to show up at Hillary’s rallies.
LESSON 3: YOU CAN’T HAVE A CONSPIRACY WITHOUT P.O.P. (PLENTY OF PEOPLE)
With all the people involved in a conspiracy of this magnitude, and as clumsily as it was perpetrated, it’s striking that no inkling of the story ever leaked to the press, and that no individual vote-shifting hacker or dirty trickster left enough of a trail for a serious investigative reporter to follow. It was a perfect storm of criminal bravado, mass delusion and journalistic ineptitude.
LESSON 4: WATCH ONLINE FOR TELLTALE SIGNS.
Today, four years later, it’s still shocking to think nobody in 2016’s national media had any idea of the wide-scale election fraud taking place across the primaries. Not even when videos and stories began to spread across the internet revealing clear evidence of vote tampering and voter suppression—Clinton caucus workers purposely miscounting Bernie delegates at the Iowa caucus; electronic vote tallies shifting dramatically, without explanation, in Hillary’s favor; elections being called for Hillary with only 1% of the vote counted; shredder trucks suspiciously parked behind polling stations.
As a journalist at the threshold of your career, you could easily fall prey to the same cloud of ignorance that descended upon the mainstream media in 2016. If an entire generation of reporters, broadcasters, and network anchors could overlook the theft of the 2016 Democratic nomination, there’s a good chance you could as well.
LESSON 5: TAKE NOTE OF CONSISTENT IRREGULARITIES.
The good news is that stealing a presidential election is a messy job; there are too many people doing too many things in too many places to keep it all quiet. If you’re a good reporter, you’ll instinctively know something is going on. You’ll smell it in the air. Your sources will feed you tips. Telltale signs will flash all around you, as they did in 2016. Irregularities will be spotted, inconsistencies seen. And then you, you fledgling journalist, all you have to do is WRITE UP THE F@#CKING STORY!
In 2016, nobody in the press thought of connecting the dots.
But you—as a young, enthusiastic and unsullied journalist—can do a better job if it happens again. A much better job.
A brain-dead monkey couldn’t do any worse.
LESSON 6: PAY ATTENTION TO THE EXIT POLLS.
In 2016, working under a mind-numbing fog of ignorance and professional incompetence, nobody in the national press thought to report on the exit polls which showed anywhere from 6% to 23% deviation from final election results in the various primaries. (In Third World Nations, a deviation of more than 2% is an indicator of election fraud.) Once again, not one reporter had the insight, initiative or journalistic integrity to report any of it in the mainstream press. Although a columnist in the New York Times actually wrote a piece to discredit exit poll discrepancies and explain their worrisome revelations, but that was before leaked DNC emails proved the exit polls knew what they were talking about.
In conclusion, dear journalism student, America’s proud tradition of journalistic excellence was greatly challenged in 2016 and found sadly lacking. As we later learned, it took more than a village to steal an election, and more than a clueless, lazy mainstream media to dig out the story.
Hillary’s Omaha rally. Note how they jammed people tightly together to give a sense of crowdedness to this anemic and ineffectual ‘crowd’ event.
REVIEW QUIZ
A. The Strongest Indicator of a Stolen Democratic Primary is:
The losing candidate’s rallies draw tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters while the winning candidate can’t fill a high school gymnasium.
The Chairwoman of the Nevada state Democratic convention seeks asylum in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
The US Attorney General meets in secret with the husband of the winning candidate who is currently under FBI investigation.
All of the above.
B. Standing in line at an Arizona voting station, how long should you wait before deciding your vote will be ignored, suppressed or flipped to the winning candidate?
1. Two days.
2. Wait, I can’t find my voting station!
3. This is a trick question since Arizona doesn’t allow its citizens to vote for whomever they want.
4. None of the above, except maybe “3.”
C. Why do you believe the American media totally blew it in 2016?
1. They were engulfed by a fog of confusion and incompetence.
2. They were part of nationwide conspiracy to crown Hillary Clinton president.
3. They made a wrong turn leaving Iowa.
4. Most journalism jobs had been taken over by illegal immigrants who couldn’t speak English.
5. Vladimir Putin frightened them off
6. How the hell should I know?
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