Tag Archives: Ukraine

national news

Graham exhibits remarkable duplicity once more

Lindsey Graham may run out of ways to pi** me off, although it’s looking like he has a bottomless supply of duplicitous positions he can exploit.

The South Carolina Republican U.S. senator once said that Donald Trump was unfit for the presidency, that he is a shameless liar and that he was everything this side of being the Son of Satan. Now he is one of the president’s — yep, the same Donald Trump — most ardent Senate boosters.

He also said in 2016 that Joe Biden is the “nicest man God ever created.” He said that if you can’t admire Biden that “you’ve got a problem.” Biden, he said, “is the nicest man I’ve ever met in politics.”

What’s he saying now about the former vice president, who might challenge Donald Trump in 2020? Graham wants the Senate Judiciary Committee that he now chairs to examine whether Biden committed any crimes in Ukraine, or whether his son, Hunter, broke any laws while being paid by a natural gas company in Ukraine.

So, Graham wants to find dirt on the “nicest man” in the known universe? Is that what I understand?

The Bidens — father and son — have become the chief diversionary targets of Republicans seeking to shift the attention away from the president’s soliciting political favors from Ukraine; Trump asked Ukraine to look into the Bidens in exchange for the release of weapons the Ukrainians purchased to help in their fight against rebels backed by Russia. Ukrainian prosecutors, incidentally, have said the Bidens have done nothing illegal.

Can you say “quid pro quo,” which is fancy term for, oh, bribery or extortion?

I am left now to wonder which Graham view of Biden is the truth. The version he talked about in 2016 or the one he is tossing out there in defense of the individual he once derided as unfit for office?

I’ll go with the latter view, which confirms what I suspect about Sen. Graham, which is that he is utterly lacking in principle.

national news

Immigrant patriots get slimed by House GOP members

What do Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill and Marie Yovanovitch have in common?

Two things: They all are naturalized U.S. citizens and they all have been smeared and slimed by congressional Republicans who have questioned their loyalty to the country they chose to call their home. Moreover, they all have chosen to serve their country with distinction, valor and heroism.

They all testified over the past two weeks before the House Intelligence Committee, which conducted its inquiry hearings into whether to impeach Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.

First up was Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who Trump recalled earlier this year, citing his prerogative as president to do what he did. He smeared the decorated envoy prior to removing her and then afterward, even while she was testifying to the House panel about what she saw and heard regarding Trump’s asking the Ukrainian government for a personal political favor.

Then we heard from Lt. Col. Vindman, a Ukrainian immigrant who came to this country with his family when he was a toddler. The National Security Council adviser joined the Army and has served for two decades as an infantry officer, receiving the Purple Heart after he wounded in battle in Iraq. GOP lawmakers and their friends in the conservative media have questioned Vindman’s loyalty to the country, suggesting he was secretly more loyal to his native Ukraine than to the nation he has served heroically.

Finally, we had Fiona Hill, the British immigrant and former NSC adviser who testified this week about her concern over whether the nation was sacrificing national security for the sake of a “political errand” being run by European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland on behalf of the presidents of the United States and Ukraine. She, too, has been dismissed in some circles because she is, um, an immigrant.

These people all represent the best of this great nation. They are proud patriots who love this country deeply and have stepped forward to serve with the highest honor imaginable. They represent millions of Americans who are themselves immigrants or the direct descendants of immigrants who chose to venture many thousands of miles to build new lives.

That their loyalty would be questioned at any level by anyone is shameful on its face.

national news

POTUS becomes Russian disinformation mouthpiece … unbelievable!

It wasn’t enough that Donald Trump stood next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and said he believed Putin’s denial of Russian interference in our 2016 electoral system.

Oh, no. Nor was it enough that he denigrated our intelligence network’s assertion that the Russians did what was alleged.

Now he has adopted the Russian lyric that Ukraine played a major role in the 2016 election hack. He is helping the Russia propaganda machine spread the lie that the U.S. intelligence experts have debunked.

The director of national intelligence, the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Treasury Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff … they all say the same thing. The Russians did it!

And yet the president of the United States continues to double down on the lie being pushed by the Russians and endorsed by congressional Republicans who are dissing Ukraine as part of their strategy to defend the president against the impeachment wave that is swelling in the House of Representatives.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing an astonishing act of political malfeasance by the president.

He is defending the Russian strongman/president yet again critics here at home who view the Russians as an existential threat to the integrity of our electoral system. The Russians have embarked on a campaign to do to the 2020 election what they did in 2016.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller III told us this past summer that the Russians are mobilizing their election interference machine at this moment. He endorsed fully the intelligence community’s assessment that the Russians pose the threat to our democratic electoral system.

Donald Trump took an oath to protect our system against such an outright attack. He has forsaken that oath for personal political gain.

Shameful.

national news

Discussion and debate over Trump crimes has become futile

It is crystal clear to me that we have crossed a line as this saga over Donald Trump’s conduct as president of the United States is playing out.

The line defines the terms over which both sides can debate and discuss the merits of the argument over whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

I believe he has committed multiple impeachable offenses. I believe he deserves to be kicked out of office. However … I am not going to have a vote in either of those decisions, other than being able to vote for or against the elected representatives who will make that decision ostensibly on my behalf.

U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas are up for re-election in 2020. How I cast my vote in the election next year well might depend exclusively on how they vote on Trump’s impeachment and Senate trial. They’re both Republicans; they both have defended the president against the onslaught of the evidence.

Do you get my drift here?

But I am going to continue to speak out through this blog, which I distribute on various social media platforms. I likely won’t seek to change anyone’s mind. I realize at this point in this drama that folks’ minds are made up, they have dug in, they won’t be swayed to change by those on the other side of the great divide.

As I told a High Plains Blogger critic who challenged my lack of discussion on this impeachment matter, I already suffer from high blood pressure; I take a mild medicine to curb it. I do not need to t have my BP spike over angry exchanges.

I am not enjoying this process as it is.

national news

Corruption, Mr. President? That really concerns you?

Donald J. Trump’s proclaimed interest in rooting out government corruption around the world rings about as hollow as anything the president has declared since he entered the political world.

Trump has asserted that corruption in Ukraine was at the root of his concern over former Vice President Joe Biden’s business concerns and those of his son, Hunter. It was corruption that prompted the president to ask the Ukrainian president for help in investigating the Bidens before he would release money for weapons that Congress had appropriated for use by Ukraine in its struggle against Russia-backed rebel forces.

Oh … really?

Let’s take a quick look at some indisputable facts.

  • Russia is among the most corrupt nations on Earth. Strongman Vladimir Putin orders the killing of those who oppose him. He runs the nation with an iron fist. Organized crime has run rampant ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Where is Donald Trump’s outrage there? Once again, why hasn’t the president condemned the Russians for their blatant and malicious attack on our electoral system in 2016 and their effort to do the same thing, or maybe worse, in 2020?
  •  Turkey also is corrupt. It also is run by a strongman. It has slaughtered Kurds along its border with Syria and Iraq; and the Kurds have been allied with the United States in the never-ending struggle to put down the Islamic State.
  •  North Korea is the world’s pariah state. It is a chief sponsor of international terrorism. Kim Jong Un orders the murder of opponents. His government allows mass starvation of North Koreans. Has the U.S. president ever tied his “love affair” with Kim Jong Un with demands to bolster human rights?

All of this just touches the outlines of corruption in governments on every continent on Earth. Why has the president remained silent on the issue … until now?

It’s more than just a wild coincidence, it seems to me, that Donald Trump’s interest in “Ukrainian corruption” just happens to involve business dealings concerning a potential political rival; that would be Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Donald Trump is no more interested in curbing corruption than he is in apologizing for defaming his fellow Americans.

He is a disgrace.

national news

Will he resign or stay … and get pummeled?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly wants to serve in the U.S. Senate. How does he do that if he is serving in the Donald Trump administration? Obviously, he cannot.

He also is being dragged feet first into the impeachment inquiry sausage grinder that has cranked up in the House of Representatives.

Pompeo hails from Kansas. He once served in the House from that state. Sen. Pat Roberts is retiring at the end of 2020. Pompeo wants to succeed him.

Does he stay on at State or does he enter the campaign from Kansas? He ought to run for the Senate. I don’t believe he needs to be elected from that state, given that I believe he has disserved his fellow diplomats at State. How? By not standing behind one of his more stellar ambassadors, Marie Yovanovitch, who has been smeared by Donald Trump, who fired her from her post as ambassador to Ukraine.

The impeachment inquiry is getting messy for Pompeo. He now has been revealed to have been in on that phone call Trump made to Ukraine’s president in which he asked for a favor in return for weapons sent to Ukraine to use against rebels backed by Russia.

Yahoo.com reported that Pompeo wants out, that he wants to run for the Senate. The State Department denies it … naturally!

Since the denial comes from the Trump administration, I cannot accept it at face value.

I tend to believe the reports that Donald Trump is going to look for the third secretary of state who is willing to endure the misery the president seems all too willing to inflict on those he selects to serve.

media news

This impeachment debate is getting personal … and graphic

I just performed a rare — for me, at least — social media act.

I severed a social media relationship based on something this individual posted. I don’t like admitting it, but I am doing so now.

Here’s my side of the story.

The impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s conduct as president has drawn some amazing commentary on both sides of the great divide among Americans. It has stormed onto social media in ways I did not expect.

This evening on Facebook, I got a message from someone I know — although not well — that made me wretch. It contained an encrypted picture that had a note that it contained a graphic image; I had to click on a link to view it, so I did.

It turned my stomach. It showed a terrible image of what was described as a U.S. envoy being tortured; juxtaposed with that image was a picture of former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch with a caption that said she had her “feelings hurt” by Donald Trump.

I put the encryption back on the picture and then “unfriended” the person who posted it from my Facebook network.

Yes, this is the kind of anger that the Donald Trump Era of Politics has brought us. I do not like it. Not in the least.

Although I have to say that the debate over Donald Trump’s fitness to serve as president and the inquiry into whether he should be impeached is revealing a lot about people I thought I knew. I am finding that some of my many acquaintances harbor some pretty nasty tendencies, such as the picture that one of those individuals posted on a social media platform.

I have lived through two serious presidential crises. The first one involved President Nixon and the Watergate scandal; the second one concerned President Clinton and the White House intern scandal. Nixon was on the way to getting impeached, but he resigned the presidency; the House impeached Clinton but he was acquitted by the Senate at trial.

In neither of those crises do I remember the intensity being exhibited by partisans on both sides of that divide. However, the image I looked at today — yes, I saw the warning, but looked anyway — goes so far beyond the pale that I parted company with someone who I thought was better than that.

I am afraid this tumult is going to damage a lot more relationships.

national news

No one is above the law, including the POTUS

It has been said time and time again, that “no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the United States.”

It’s an article of truth to be sure. Our laws apply to all Americans.

Which brings me to this point: How does the president of the United States, Donald Trump, get away with smearing, defaming and slandering individuals?

The latest example? Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

The former envoy was removed from her embassy post earlier this year by Donald Trump, who has the authority to change ambassadors. That is his call. We all get that.

However, he smeared Yovanovitch while recalling her from her post in Ukraine. The envoy is noted for her diligence and diplomatic skill. She has been honored and decorated over her 33-year career in the foreign service. Then the president calls her “bad news” and blamed her — and this is rich — for what went wrong in Somalia, where she was posted prior to her Ukraine assignment. He made the Somalia reference while Yovanovitch was testifying — in real time — during the congressional impeachment inquiry that is under way on Capitol Hill.

The president offered no evidence of any “bad news” element. Nor has he explained in anything approaching detail why he thinks badly of Yovanovitch.

Is he above the law? Or must he adhere to the same laws as the rest of us? I’ve long believed that presidents of the United States are not deities, nor are they dictators. They are our elected heads of state and government, but they are citizens … just like the rest of us.

I just am baffled by how this individual — the president — gets away with saying the things that fly out of his mouth. He has defamed Marie Yovanovitch’s exemplary reputation.

Don’t such laws that protect citizens against such abuse exist when they regard the president?

national news

Inquiry hearing is producing a mix of anger and frustration

Watching this impeachment inquiry unfold in real time in public view fills me with a combination of anger and frustration.

I have been more or less glued to my TV in the study in our home. Today’s testimony has been just as gripping as it has been on previous days. The “best,” if you want to call it that, may still to come later in the week.

The House’s impeachment inquiry has angered me at multiple levels.

I’ll set forth my own bias up front. I believe Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses. The anger I feel comes from the testimony of witnesses who have said many things: that Trump placed an investigation by a foreign government into Joe Biden as his top priority; that he wasn’t really concerned about Ukrainian “corruption”; that he abused the immense power of his office to obtain a personal political favor from a foreign government; that those who heard him seek that favor thought it was “wrong.”

It infuriates me that the president of the United States would have so little regard for our national security that he would do such a thing.

My anger runs headlong into the frustration I am feeling that other Americans do not share my anger. They are Donald Trump’s “base” of supporters, many of whom have accepted that Trump’s behavior is “wrong,” but that it is not impeachable. This sentiment comes from those who 20 years ago said that a previous president’s lying to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern not only was wrong, but that it was impeachable.

I am not going to excuse the perjury that President Clinton committed while testifying before that earlier grand jury. I merely am expressing my frustration that the nature and context of that untruth somehow measures up to the level of what we are discussing today. That a president who lies about fooling around rises to the level of another president who has been accused of jeopardizing our national security and by seeking a foreign government’s probe into a U.S. citizen.

It might be, too, that my anger and frustration perhaps are born of the same emotion.

Whatever the case, I remain transfixed by what is unfolding. No one should take joy in what we’re seeing. Republicans surely are not kicking up their heels. Neither are Democrats, despite what those on the other side might be thinking or saying.

I’m just hoping I can keep my emotions in check as this impeachment inquiry slogs on.

military news

Lt. Col. Vindman is entitled to wear his uniform whenever he wishes

Simply astonishing.

That’s my first reaction to questions raised today during Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s testimony before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

Vindman sat before the panel in his Army dress blue uniform. It then fell to a Republican member of the committee, Chris Stewart of Utah, to ask why he wore what was “not the uniform of the day.”

Vindman works on the National Security Council. He is an active-duty Army officer. He wears a civilian suit to work … usually. He chose to wear his uniform today, I suppose, because he thought it would be proper for him to wear the attire he is entitled to wear as a commissioned officer.

I want to mention this because other NSC officials have testified before Congress in their military uniform. One is most notable, as Roll Call notes: Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, who sat before Congress during his testimony into the Iran-Contra matter of 1987. Did anyone raise a ruckus then? I do not recall it.

Moreover, other active-duty officers have worn their uniforms while at work in the federal government. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump, being one of them.

Vindman  was in Congress today to testify about what he heard during that infamous phone call with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that has prompted the impeachment inquiry against the president. He said some important things today and made some important assertions.

So, let’s not get sidetracked by something as ridiculous as whether an Army field-grade officer is entitled to wear his dress uniform.

Of course he is!