Not necessarily worse, not necessarily better, merely … different.

So, Dan, how’s that “New Democracy” coming along?

As for the quotes- they are there for you to read- the president himself admitted that his earlier denial was a lie.

Trump sent Giuliani to get dirt on a political rival from the Ukraine- this had previously been established by documentary, and witness testimony- as well as the words of Giuliani himself- and now the president himself.

The quid-pro-quo was clear as well- not just on the phone call, but in the testimony of the witnesses and co-conspirators, and the acting chief of staff.

The republicans just once again blocked legislation to attempt to prevent foreign meddling in our election- its not that they don’t believe foreign meddling is a danger, it is because they are COUNTING on it.

You are a broken man, Dan- the pretzels you must twist into to avoid admitting the obvious just make you look silly and pathetic.

You know your desperate refuge in semantics isn’t going to convince anyone, you know your contortions to find some loophole will not impress us… so we return to the question of ‘WHY’- Why do you doggedly play so dumb and obtuse?

You KNOW these arguments you make are insulting to anyone that has the capability of rational critical thinking. You don’t toss them out to convince anyone that they are true.
But we both know that isn’t your goal.
You humiliate yourself like this in a desperate attempt to convince us that you truly BELIEVE all this is fine, that you don’t see the danger and tragedy that is looming. Because the alternative would be to admit the truth, that you see it all unfolding as clearly as we do, but you just don’t care. That you would rather let it all happen while you silently play dumb, than admit that the party that you have sworn fealty to actually was the threat to democracy we always warned you it was.

It is out of cowardice and stubborn pride you do this- that and the desire that we not see what you have let yourself become.

You’ll find “Crimes and Misdemeanors” listed among Woody Allen’s comedies, but not a whole lot in Congress.

Realize that the U. S. Congress has never actually adopted a fixed definition for “high crimes and misdemeanors” other than what is stated in Section 4 of Article 2 of the United States Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

The above in mind, it might be assumed that “high crimes” would include anything that might be considered detrimental to the nation’s overall security. On the other-hand, would “misdemeanors” be a stack of unpaid parking tickets … jaywalking … littering?

A rather broad spectrum left to the limited imagination of any governing body. About time they found a writer.

As for your quotes, work on ‘em.

After the president’s acquittal of impeachment charges in the U.S. Senate, Trump fired both Vindman, as well as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. Both men had testified against Trump during the impeachment hearings.

“Vindman was a guy that when we took him out of the building, the building applauded,” Trump said of Vindman’s dismissal. “Many of the people in the building started applauding.”

“I’m not a fan of Vindman,” Trump added. “I don’t think I’ve ever met him, by the way. Just so you understand, many of these people I’ve never met. But I’m not a fan of Vindman, no question about it.”

Vindman was the leading expert on Ukraine at the NSC before being ousted by the Trump administration in a move many observers believed was retribution for his testimony.

After Vindman’s dismissal, his attorney David Pressman said in a February statement, “There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it in the White House. LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.”

Trump contradicts past denials, admits sending Giuliani to Ukraine

Emboldened after his impeachment acquittal, President Donald Trump now openly admits to sending his attorney Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to find damaging information about his political opponents, even though he strongly denied it during the impeachment inquiry.

The reversal came Thursday in a podcast interview Trump did with journalist Geraldo Rivera, who asked, “Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?” Trump responded, “No, not at all,” and praised Giuliani’s role as a “crime fighter.”
“Here’s my choice: I deal with the Comeys of the world, or I deal with Rudy,” Trump said, referring to former FBI Director James Comey. Trump explained that he has “a very bad taste” of the US intelligence community, because of the Russia investigation, so he turned to Giuliani.
“So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.”
Trump had previously denied that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine. Asked in November if he directed Giuliani to “do anything” in Ukraine, Trump said, “No, I didn’t direct him,” but went on to call Giuliani a “great corruption fighter.” Giuliani says he’s exposing legitimate corruption in Ukraine, even though his claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden have been widely debunked.
In the new interview, Trump defended the decision to “use” Giuliani, even though US diplomats previously testified that Giuliani had undermined long-standing US policy toward Ukraine.

John Kelly Finally Lets Loose on Trump

Vindman was rightly disturbed by Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July, Kelly suggested: Having seen something “questionable,” Vindman properly notified his superiors, Kelly said. Vindman, who specialized in Ukraine policy at the National Security Council at the time, was among multiple U.S. officials who listened in on the call. When subpoenaed by Congress in the House impeachment hearings, Vindman complied and told the truth, Kelly said.

“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly told the audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”

Although Trump has long insisted that his call to Zelensky was “perfect,” Kelly made clear that Trump indeed conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s help digging up dirt on the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

That amounted to a momentous change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine—one that Vindman was right to flag, because other federal agencies needed to know about the shift, Kelly said.

“Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against … the Russians,” Kelly said. “And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed. And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.”

When Vindman heard the president tell Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was tantamount to hearing “an illegal order,” Kelly said. “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’”

There is a systematic dismantling of our democracy and our justice system by one political party, and one party only.

You have made the choices you have because its more comforting, easier, to simply adopt the role of cynic and proclaim “Both sides are corrupt!” – when the alternative is to admit the truth in front of you- the fact that the party you have consistently aligned yourself with is using every means possible to make sure the last election we had is the LAST election we have.

I do not seek ‘followers’ here, Dan- I do not write these musings and rants to convince or convert you, nor do I hope to rally those that agree with me. I don’t say these things because I feel it will somehow lessen the very grave harm and injury being inflicted on innocents by this administration.

Is it for posterity? A way to record that some of us saw the tragedy approaching and tried to sound the alarm long before trump?
That’s a cute thought… but really I suspect all the millions of keystrokes recorded on this platform will, in 30 years time, have long since succumbed to entropy… at best they will be only preserved on a obsolete thumb-drive at the bottom of a forgotten cardboard box.

I think my goal is more immediate than that, and far less lofty and noble.

I write these things to let you, and those like you, know that some of us see through your carefully constructed self deception- we know you, at some point, made a conscious- or at least semi-conscious – decision to choose the fiction over the facts. You surrendered to lies when you realized that admitting the truth would admitting that you had been a fool… and with that act of cowardice you condemned us all- innocent and guilty alike.

I write because I know there will come a time, far too late for it to make difference to anything other than your conscience, when things have gone far too far for even you to stomach- you will look at what you helped breathe into being with years of propagandizing, followed by years of cynical apathy – and in that moment you will maybe- just maybe- remember you were warned.

You will no doubt vehemently deny this, and rail against my conceit for claiming I know whats in your heart- as you have over and over, over the years. Or perhaps you will dismiss all this as the hyperbolic, over-the-top, melodramatic rantings of some egotistical elitist liberal… 8^)

And yet…you feel it necessary to again and again try to convince us of the honesty of your self-contradicting fiction you have created to console yourself.

That is how I know that at least part of you suspects, or at least fears, that I am right.

Good night Dan… you will find some comfort in the darkness, I am sure… but in the end you will remember those that raged against the dying of the light… perhaps not fondly, but you will know they were in the right.

Earplugs in, I took my time with this one.

Trump has McCarthyism, a term which Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, himself employed redefining that dark term to mean “the fight for America,” down pretty good and no doubt shares McCarthy’s definition, but this by no means declares the end of the world. An era perhaps, but we shall endure. You see, that was simply the way McCarthy was, as were Mussolini, Hitler and Hirohito’s entire family. …And now Trump. Warped, demented, socially ignored … until the big break.

These people hunger for power, for the grand position, to be idolized, these over everything else. They will trample even across the dead and dying bodies of their own friends and families to achieve this godly goal. These people arise, they flare to life … and they vanish. They all vanish, simply because they will not be tolerated. Americans do try to keep with the Founders’ Plan, instituting new rules and regulations for each and every glitch, each of which will be fought at every turn, every administration, every political party … and as they should to test their root strength.

Tolerance. That is what the nation is, so learn to live with it. America is not a Nation of Freedoms, nor has it ever been. This is a Nation of Tolerances. You can do whatever you want … until what you do starts to bug the other guy. Not everyone is like you, or even likes you, and so conflicting personalities will need to compromise, just so they can again tolerate each other’s existence.

According to OUR Bill of Rights, our greatest wrong-doers must be watched, not avoided. They must be heard, but not idealized. They must be permitted, not restrained. Fight them we must, and fight them we shall, but within the accepted laws of humanity. If they cannot curb their own peculiarities, they must then be cast out, purged from our Nation of Tolerances, whether through incarceration or deportation (the death penalty is fading from our courts, and vigilante-justice is neither just nor legal).

…And you still have to wait for the actual commission of a crime before you act.

What you seem to seek here on these shouting pages are followers of your own committed character. I applaud your performance of righteous indignation and your obvious focus on your goal of political cleansing, but please try not to mock those who fall by the wayside, for without them you would have no path, leave no wake. I do wish you well in your coming battles for, should you achieve your end-goal for a single political party election, your battles will become many, as they will become bloody. You may shout some of your enemy down, but bear in mind you have not changed them at all. Enemies they were and enemies they shall remain.

…Or maybe you’ll find you’ve been cast out, and Trump is just one of many Roads to a New Democracy… Not necessarily worse, not necessarily better, merely … different.

History will have to tell and already writes, even as we sit here and type.