Disinformation Central, may I take your order?

Who would have thought that the White House and the Republican Party would become Disinformation Central for Vladimir Putin? It’s quite remarkable and truly horrifying. Fiona Hill tried to warn Nunes and Jim Jordan about propagating Russian disinformation conspiracy theories during the impeachment investigation hearing. Perhaps she thought they could be shame them into stopping. She thought she was addressing fellow patriots, like herself. She didn’t consider that their ears were plugged. She was talking to power hungry politicians who will do anything to keep their seats. Whether it’s for the power perks, or they’ve fallen victim to Russian disinformation themselves, or they are mesmerized by the PiedPiperPresident or they’ve been convinced that their “way of life” will disappear if they don’t do anything and everything to preserve it. GOP questioners ignored Hill, trying to lure her into their propaganda. But standing pat with aggressive repartee, Hill drove them to distraction and finally to dribble out of the hearing room. Hill proved to be a nut they couldn’t crack. Unfortunately, she couldn’t crack them either; they simply moved their travesty to other arenas.

At the time, reports had not surfaced that Devin Nunes was himself involved in developing Russian style disinformation and therefore couldn’t be dissuaded. He was a sower, not a harvester. All along he pretended to be an impartial committee investigator trying to get to the truth, which he said several times. Well, impartial is an obvious pretense since he has staked his reputation on being the brightest bulb defending his idol. Well, the second brightest, since Jim Jordan was shifted to the dais to lead the charge. These are the people about whom the media is asking if they can be convinced. Obviously, people who are part of the conspiracy, colluding if you will, can’t be. 

The public’s perception of the dishonesty of politicians has taken a quantum leap into the stratosphere that cries out for trashing the current system of big money politics and corporate lobbying. We have a democracy of corporations, not the people. And Agent Orange, who always goes big, has spread the stench of corruption beyond Washington to the rest of the globe. That is what he delivered for the promise that he would drain the swamp. His swamp is Democrats, not the fat cats that his voters thought he meant.   

In the meantime, Agent Orange is schmoozing GOP Senators in weekly White House luncheons, jury tampering par excellence. And he’s entertaining GOP Congress(wo)men at Camp David, where they are being overwhelmed by the majesty of the invitation itself. They’re bowling and skeet shooting. They’re dazzled by the RealityTVPresident’s face to face drop-ins and some are spending the night in beds where famous figures of history have slept. The RealityTVPresident is just dropping in because Camp David accommodations are too modest and gold free for his taste.

In concert, the Trump/FoxNews conservative media amalgam is 24/7 elaborating KGB talking points across the airwaves and social media. The party has figured out that they don’t need Ukraine anymore. They have the president and his posse using the government itself to spread tall tales of both Biden corruption and Ukrainian, rather than Russian, interference in the 2016 election. Now they can cast DJT as a hero who overcame a conspiracy by Democrats mediated through Ukraine to elect Hillary Clinton. Putin is off the hook and the Donald has rewritten history, as he often does, to turn a black mark into a victory. He wants us to believe that he knew he would win the presidency rather than advertising his brand globally to enhance his income, as Michael Cohen testified to Congress. He wants us to forget that photo of his bewildered face when Fox announced that he had won the election. And Melania’s fury over the result that left her pouting at Trump Tower for 6 months before taking up her duties as first lady. We will probably never know what rewards she reaped for her compliance. Perhaps one was fast tracking her parents citizenship oaths.

Republicans are now gearing up for their own extravaganza in the Senate, despite the fact that the articles of impeachment haven’t even been drawn up or the impeachment vote taken. They’re planning a side circus of Senate investigations into Burisma and Joe Biden. What 45 could not accomplish by diplomatic extortion he can now move to government’s center stage, the halls of Congress. Who will be gathering the information for their committees? The FBI and US intelligence agencies? Or Rudy Giuliani and corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutors and oligarchs? The KGB?

Putin has progressed from having the president of the United States parroting his propaganda in a press conference to now having the government of his archenemy spewing his disinformation on a daily basis in lock step with the domestic conservative media. Not only did he get away with what can only be called an act of war against the US, he was rewarded for his bad acts with a partnership with the party that received his leg up. It must feel to Putin that the world is his oyster now.

Any Republican who might consider taking their straw out of the party kool aid has seen what happens to the few who have dared to try. Any misstep is punished by banishment from the fold. The fantasy that impeachment must be bipartisan is just that; the Republican who questions the party claptrap will no longer represent the party. The lack of bipartisan support is an important part of GOP strategy to cast impeachment as a conspiracy of the Democrats. 

The media seems to expect that retiring law makers like Senators Lamar Alexander and Congressman Will Hurt will suddenly grow a pair and honor their oath of allegiance to the Constitution. But Hurt at least wants a future in GOP politics, so must believe that he needs to keep his options open should the spasm of Trumpism resolve. What’s in Alexander’s mind is anyone’s guest, unless he’s looking for income as a consultant or corporate board member. He’s old enough to retire to the hills of Tennessee, drink Jack Daniels and shoot rabbits. (Spoiler alert, Jack Daniels is now owned by the Japanese beer company Asahi).

Democratic and anti-Trump voters should wake up to the fact that we are in a fight for our republican form of government, an opposition bit that conservatives have squarely in their teeth. Moderation may not be capable of winning that fight. Yes change is hard, change is scary. But the change has already happened to the detriment of everyone, except the 1%. Baby boomers quietly watched it happen and reacted with fear that more change will occur. They’re hoping they can keep adjusting to the Devil they know rather than taking a chance on something out of left field. We can’t nibble around the edges of this rotten core and hope to survive. We need to cut that core out before it ravages the whole fruit. Baby boomers must summon the courage of their by-gone movement days to demand change because the consequences now are even more dire than they were then.

What are we to think? We are watching the republic founded on “government of the people, by the people and for the people” being flushed down the toilet. Without a plunger, we probably can’t get it back. A Civil War was fought to maintain it, but that was among the people themselves. Many Republicans argue that Trump voters knew who he was and how he acted, so they asked for this. Likely they had no idea of the extent of 45’s depravity, but Trumpophants appear to have solidly accepted it in the wake of the good they believe he has wrought. As Rick Perry put it, Trump is a gift from God. It’s those mysterious ways at work.

In reality, this is a war against a foreign enemy and we’re losing. Republicans accuse Democrats of attempting a government coup when it is they who are perpetrating a coup for a foreign government. Steve Scalise likes to characterize the impeachment inquiry as a Russian show trial. He should understand that most Russian “enemies of the state” don’t get a trial; they disappear from alleys and die in torture chambers or labor camps or by assassination even on foreign soil. The Soviets produced show trials for propaganda purposes and the Senate impeachment circus is likely to take its lead from those rather than past American impeachments. 

The GOP may like the look now, but Russian dictatorial oligarchy is a dangerous form of government. One guy at the top controls what everyone else gets and what everyone else can say. It thrives on bribery and corruption. It’s punctuated by jailed state enemies and assassinations for those who step out of line. Banishment from a political party doesn’t hold a candle to that. The GOP seems to be happy enough to give away their freedom to the PiedPiperPresident whose interests are purely self-aggrandizement. But will they be as happy when Putin’s plan to reshape the world in supplicant oligarchical regimes leaves them with the short end of the stick, begging for their share. What will they do when they become the nig*@rs begging for the freedom they so easily gave away?

November 25, 1955 A ban on racially segregated buses and waiting rooms passes but is not enforced until 1961, after the Freedom Riders win Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s support. (Equal Justice Initiative calendar)

NO QUID PRO QUO ! !

Why would anyone take seriously a recent presidential comment that the president would consider testifying before the House impeachment investigation? Seriously? Double Talkin’ Don is the last person anyone should believe. When a person lies several times a day, not just spin or suggestion, but tells actual falsehoods, is there any reason to believe a single word they say. It is impossible to dissect truth from the fibs. He don’t know truth from fiction.

A few hours later, his tease morphed to one where he would submit written answers to questions, much as he did for the Mueller investigation. As Mueller reported, that didn’t go well.  But there is no way in hell that the RealityTVPresident would even do that. 

45 could never acknowledge that an impeachment inquiry is anything other than a witch hunt; to testify is to fold, to admit that he is wrong about his 3 year old theme song is unimaginable. The Donald is never wrong. So now he says he’s looking forward to an impeachment trial even as the House has yet to draft the articles of impeachment. But that’s because his crack Senate Hallelujah chorus is revving up to put on bygone era Miss Universe level pageantry. What 45 could not accomplish by his diplomatic extortion end run he can now move to government’s center stage, the halls of Congress just as voting in the Democratic primaries kicks off.

To testify, even in the form of written answers is to open himself up to charges of perjury, just as Rudi insisted about the Mueller Report, it’s a nefarious perjury trap. It is only a trap if his tangle of lies is so knotted that he can’t keep the strands straight. He can’t do it even for a couple of minutes in front of Marine I. More importantly, the RealityTVPresident honestly doesn’t understand that he has done something wrong. This is the modus operandi he has used in every aspect of his career. He’s authored ghost written books about it. He’s surrounded himself with immoral characters who operate just like he does, tiptoeing back and forth across the boundaries of the law into illegality. 

45 has taken this same bravado into government, publically refashioning laws to fit Stephen Miller’s policies that are later enjoined in court. He’s got a fix for that too. In Mitch’s relentless march to conservatize the judiciary above its current level of 40% new appointees, his gift to the LawlessPresident has been filling in appellate judges up to SCOTUS. They will have their favorable rulings, completely out of step with what Americans want but reinforcing the power of the elite as SCOTUS has done throughout its history. It’s simply a matter of reinterpreting the law and reshaping legal precedents in ways reminiscent of Republican pretzel making in defense of the BullyPresident.

With increasing numbers of administration officials testifying, Agent Orange found an alternative solution to random tweets, rally quips and helicopter statements. Trump/FoxNews stepped up its campaign to get its viewers not to watch, ironic since it was broadcasting the hearings itself. Did the political win out over the commercial? The RealityTVPresident staged alternative viewing to the hearings, like a cabinet praise feast during Ambassador Sondland’s revealing testimony. Sondland put the president, Mike Pompeo, VP Mike Pence and Mick Mulvaney squarely in the crosshairs, causing a 5 alarm alert that elicited a STAT response from the whole administration. During the break for lunch, GOP Trumpophants scrambled to come out firing on all cylinders when the hearings resumed. 

The GOP Hallelujah chorus asked that the flood of tweets and responses from administration officials be read into the record. Pence, Giuliani, Perry, Mulvaney all called Sondland a liar. Trump made his definitive denial to the press on the White House lawn, basically, that “Sondland said I said no quid pro quo and I meant it! No quid pro quo” he boomed, reading from a pad of boldly printed black Sharpie block caps. A little strange for an infamous extemporaneous speaker, this need for a script to recount a significant memory? He was so nonplussed by the testimony which he claimed he wasn’t watching that he couldn’t come up with any original tweets during the afternoon; he just retweeted the same words. 

Then GOP parrots zeroed in on Sondland’s use of the words “conclusions” and “assumptions” that the foreign aid was linked to Ukrainian investigations to try to extricate government officials from what Fiona Hill would later call “a domestic political errand”, the plot to strong arm Selensky to announce an investigation into Biden’s son. The GOP are expert at splitting hairs, at isolating a word from its meaning and context, and stringing it into an elaborate necklace of falsehoods. They rely heavily on the denials of a known liar whose word can never be trusted. 

Sondheim was claiming there was a quid pro quo; the president said specifically that there was not. Never mind, that this was just after the aid was released and 45 had already dropped into cover-up mode after news of the whistleblower report was surfacing. Who ya gonna believe, ask Republicans, this guy who bought an ambassadorship, has unreliable recollections without notes and has changed his testimony twice now, or our venerated PiedPiperPresident who can do no wrong? Isn’t “there reasonable doubt” (a term applied in a criminal court case, not in the few procedures associated with impeachment)? They operate on the principle that if no one said bribery or extortion out loud, then it didn’t happen. 

But that’s not how bribery and extortion work. No one with a gun stuck in his back is going to say that their action is conditioned on the presence of a gun. They can’t say if they don’t go along, they won’t get their military aid and the leverage of unconditional US support in negotiations with Russia. They can’t say that the fate of their tiny country is stuck between two global powers. They say whatever they hope will keep them in the good graces of the gunman.

Nunes continued to work the Democrat conspiracy angle. He’s got a narrative that Democrat accusations have changed from quid pro quo to extortion to bribery. Actually, it was the Republicans and Trump who talked up quid pro quo, taking refuge in a legal definition of a crime which they hoped they could parlay into an argument that impeachment requires a crime. Of course, there is no such restriction. Democrats realized that talking about quid pro quo was leaving the public yawning, so they switched to extortion, which is after all synonymous with quid pro quo except in English. Apparently Nunes believes that “the American people”, actually Trumpophants and hangers-on are too stupid to understand that or even Google the definitions. 

Nunes, who believes Democrats are as nefariously down in the conspiracy weeds as his party is, likes to say that Democrats switched to “bribery” because that polled better. Ahha, he says, after each witness, including Sondland, the words bribery or extortion were never uttered by any one involved and “no quid pro quos” flowed continuously through utterances from the PiedPiperPresident. Let’s hope that Nunes is wrong that “the American people” are not smart enough to resist the silly Democrat conspiracy theories that grace his questions and expositions at every session. It’s particularly ironic that Nunes is the “principled” Congressman who chaired the Intelligence committee hearings about Russian interference when Republicans were in the majority. He rushed to bring information to the White House and return with previously undisclosed documents during a break. Back then, the committee was stonewalling the investigation at every turn, with the same sort of rhetoric. He was later charged with an ethics violation by the House. He wouldn’t know integrity if it ran over him; he is a lackey for the forces of evil and seems proud to be. 

Republicans have spent time unlinking the withholding of aid and the denial of a meeting in the White House as chips in the extortion. The meeting is part of normal diplomatic negotiation and withholding aid is well within the presidential remit (although as pointed out before it is not.) In fact, it is another transgression against Congress’ power of the purse. It should be among the articles of impeachment under abuse of power. But Trump knows that if he says it’s normal enough times, a bunch of people are gonna believe him. 

Withholding foreign aid is certainly much worse and significantly more damaging to Ukraine, but withholding a meeting in the White House is not different. In the context of Ukraine, newly elected President Selensky needs that diplomatic high five both domestically and internationally. The 3 amigos delivered the extortion note to Selensky that he must announce an investigation into Biden in exchange for a White House meeting. The fact that he got a meeting, although in New York at the UN, not the White House, which is more politically significant, does not erase the crime because the attempt is also criminal. Similarly, the delivery of the aid without any deliverables from Selensky is simply an indication that Agent Orange failed once again, undone when the threat of disclosure from the whistleblower could not be derailed in the DOJ and found its way to Adam Schmitt and the House Intelligence Committee. The whole story threatened to surface, since those involved, except Trump, knew the activity was illegal and they were trying desperately to cover it up, i.e. obstruct justice. Everything Trump touches turns to shit. 

It should be a shock or at least it used to be, that Turkish dictator Erdowan while committing genocide in Syria, got a White House meeting at the same time that testimony about this corruption was on air. In the meantime, Selensky who is fighting a war against our mutual enemy, the country’s if not Trump’s, and doing the right thing fighting corruption and oligarchs at home can’t get any closer than New York. Putin’s chest is swelling with each cold shoulder.

Donald J Trump as president proved true to the arc of his career which bends, not toward justice, but toward greed.

Admittedly, there is some truth in the Nunes/Jordan dissertations about Democrats have been trying to impeach 45 since his early days. Donald J Trump proved true to the arc of his career which bends, not toward justice, but toward greed. It is not because we can’t believe Hillary lost; we understand it in the context of all that Russian assistance and the Comey backstab. The urgency for impeachment is his current effort to mobilize foreign assistance again in 2020, in addition to the clout of incumbency, the electoral college and voter suppression. 

Trump was running parallel shadow diplomacy with Russia before he was sworn in and Obama left office (e.g. Kushner with Russian embassy; Michael Flynn). Agent Orange surrounded himself with an expanded number of the same kind of shady characters he always has; more were needed to fill in the expanded staffing of the US government. He immediately started sucking taxpayer money out of the government, beginning with inflated costs for his inauguration. He refused to divest himself of his businesses, installed his children in White House positions and trampled all over the emoluments clause. He’s lied; he’s cheated; his campaign had interacted with multiple Russian operatives without reporting the contact to the FBI. The count of men behind bars is 6 and perhaps rising, with Giuliani, Lev and Igor in waiting. And he obstructed justice as recanted in the Mueller Report, deserving of impeachment at that time, but outmaneuvered by William Barr and the Trump/FoxNews et al propaganda machine. He may be the most corrupt president in our history. He threatens to destroy our democracy like no president in the past.

Democrats may have moved from extortion to its synonym bribery because it has fewer letters.  More seriously, it’s because bribery is specifically cited in the Constitution as cause for impeachment and extortion is not. It’s a new fangled synonym for what is an old pursuit. Already, there has been conservative pundit push back that bribery has a strict legal definition. However, the Federalist Papers suggest that the Founding Fathers included bribery as a placeholder for general wrongdoing, certainly with no anticipation of the centuries later federal statute. There is no rational reason why the concept held by Constitutional signers should not be the basis of an impeachment article; that should make SCOTUS originalists happy if they weren’t so biased in favor of Republican rhetoric. Rational is the key word here; it’s in the propaganda wars now.

The bribe here is obvious: if you, Selensky announce that you’re going to investigate Biden and Burisma and Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 elections, I will give you a White House meeting. I’m holding up your aid right now, but I’ll throw that in too. New testimony suggests he didn’t have to do an investigation, just announce it. That would provide ThePiedPiperPresident with the kind of corruption charge he wielded so effectively in 2016. Then, it was innuendo without foundation about the Clinton Foundation but that’s Trump’s speciality. Those charges too sprung from a Breitbart sponsored concoction by the same discredited author whose imagination spawned Crowdstrike and Biden/Burisma. In 2020 whataboutism corruption will be more critical to him to counterbalance Democratic campaigning against the obvious corruption around, over, under and throughout 45’s administration. He’s counting on Chief Justice Roberts to protect him from disclosure of his tax returns because a money trail tells a story that is hard to uncover any other way. Exemplary of this approach is the NYTimes series on Fred and Donald Trump’s taxes in the 80s and 90s  and his claim of being self made millionaire.

Another pillar of GOP defense cites Selensky’s statements that there has been no pressure from Trump. But isn’t that how bribery and extortion work. When one is being bribed, they do what is asked and deny that they have been forced to do so. A country as vulnerable as Ukraine can’t afford to antagonize our whimsical chief executive, least they find themselves even further distanced from the US support that they so desperately need. This is further compounded by the insecure communications diplomats appear to be using like Whatsapp and personal cell phones and insecure land lines. Russia has extensive surveillance in Ukraine; they probably heard Sondland’s phone call before US surveillance did. They’ve had a seat at the table for the whole affair and whatever actions have occurred subsequently, even today. This is tremendously damaging to Ukraine and the US and advantageous to Putin’s bargaining position and propaganda machine.

The Republicans keep talking about “the call” and not the conspiracy of which the call is only a part. Mesmerized by their cult leader, they’ve perfected the art of not believing what they see, just as instructed. But can it be true that they honestly believe that a US president should ask foreign governments, or individuals for that matter, to interfere in our elections? Would they be as enthusiastic if President Andrew Yang asked for assistance from Taiwan, an ally even, for assistance with his run in 2020? Ok, it’s impossible to imagine that any Democratic candidate would do that EVER, not even in the distant future. (I probably should add that Clinton and the Steele dossier are not an example of foreign intervention, contrary to GOP talking points). A better example would be that Russia decides to tip the scales for Elizabeth Warren because they think she will be more disruptive of the capitalist economy than her rivals and will precipitate an economic slump. (This is what the Russians might think in this example, not my personal opinion. I’m sure there are conservatives already hawking this craziness though). Conservatives are generally very supportive of maneuvers that help them but demonstrably enraged if Democrats try those same tools.  

The point is that the GOP will be out of power eventually (fingers crossed its 2020) and when they are, their view of presidential powers will change. Ok, in the wake of a 2020 loss, the party will have shattered into Trumpophants and principled Republicans trying to take back their party. The Trumpophants will continue to try to dirty trick their way back into power, but they will only be 30% of the electorate in 3 man races. Ok, this is going down a rabbit hole… 

Back to the point, the RealityTVPresident did the crime! He doubled down by asking China to jump in too. In fact we know China has extensive cyber capability and may already be in Twitter, Facebook ads, Instagram memes. Even without the diplomatic plot now revealed, the crime is attempted bribery and abuse of power. It’s made worse that it was for personal gain, but the request was illegitimate. There are a lot more crimes, including obstruction of justice in both government investigations; the articles of impeachment will tell the tale. But the GOP propaganda machine is powerful and the American electorate appears pretty gullible or at least the 60% of the electorate that typically votes.   

At a break in the hearings, Sondland asked that he be able to catch a plane back to Brussels that afternoon to resume his duties. He’s probably thinking about getting home to start packing. His GOP colleagues were quick to jump on him and his veracity, his audacity to make assumptions that he attributed to Agent Orange when he never said the aid was being withheld. How dare he not take the word of Double Talkin’ Don, a man who is always as good as his word, that there was no quid pro quo. He’s probably bracing for that phone call from 45 that he will have to hold even farther away from his ear or much more likely, a Twitter firing. He tried to thread a needle between homage to the BullyPresident and a loose linked interrupted chain to the White House. He tried to leave as much doubt as he could to avoid perjury charges. That will never wash with Agent Orange; for him you gotta be all in or you’re toast. Or perhaps he can stave off termination with another $1 mill.

November 24, 1865 Mississippi criminalized unemployment, assembly and association with whites for free Black adults, punishable by fines and imprisonment.