January 24, 2020: Unpatriotic and Servile

 

1/24/20: The impeachment trial continues. Even I can hardly watch. The Democrats produce evidence.

 

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“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” 

President Theodore Roosevelt

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The Republicans insist the evidence isn’t good enough; but they don’t want to produce any evidence themselves. As far as Republicans in the Senate are concerned, asking for new witnesses and fresh documents would be as popular as replacing all their aides with individuals carrying the new coronavirus spreading in China. 

Also, Republicans think the way the Democrats went about piling up the evidence they have was mean. 

Unless a handful of moderate Republican senators agree to call new witnesses and either bolster the case for impeachment, or, alternatively, clear Trump’s name, the trial won’t be a trial at all. Senate Leader Milksop Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP pansies will go down in history – assuming future presidents don’t use the same tricks Trump has to destroy our system of checks and balances and historians can still write freely in another fifty years – for their craven conduct. 

One is reminded of something Teddy Roosevelt said about political dissent: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

 

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ONE MAN who is definitely not taking the pressure of having been implicated during the impeachment trial well is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. When Mary Louise Kelly, a respected reporter for NPR, asks him for an interview, and then asks a series of questions he doesn’t like, Pompeo abruptly ends the meeting. 

Moments later, his spokesperson appears. The Secretary would like to meet with Kelly in private. According to Kelly, when she enters the room, Pompeo screams obscenities and demands that she find Ukraine on a blank map of the world. 

First, can we all agree?

 

There’s no chance in hell that President Trump could find Ukraine on a blank map of the world. I’m not even sure he could find the United States. In fact, I’m not sure he could find his own fat, white ass in a snowstorm. 

CNN describes the confrontation: 

Kelly was brought to Pompeo’s private living room, she continued, “where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about (the) same amount of time as the interview itself had lasted.”

 

Pompeo was displeased about the Ukraine questioning, and asked her, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” Kelly said, adding that “he used the F-word in that sentence and many others.”

 

Pompeo then asked Kelly if she could find Ukraine on a map, she recounted, and when she said that she could, “He called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing.”

 

“I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’” Kelly said. “And then he turned, said he had things to do and I thanked him again for his time and left.”

  

Master’s degree in European studies. 

Naturally, Pompeo claims Kelly is lying, and says it’s another example of the “Fake News” crew, trying to tear down Trump and tarnish his administration. He says Kelly couldn’t find Ukraine. 

Instead, she pointed at Bangladesh. 

To say that this is highly unlikely, is a fabulous understatement. Kelly happens to have a master’s degree in European studies from Cambridge University. On a bad day, she might point at Belarus, instead of Ukraine. It’s impossible to think that anyone with even a one-fingertip grip on current affairs, let alone an advanced degree from a prestigious university, would imagine Ukraine was next door to India. 

Much easier to believe: Pompeo is a liar, and not a very good liar at that.

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IN WORLD NEWS, more “proof” that government regulations are always the main threat to human happiness! 

In China, where sanitation rules are lightly enforced and routinely ignored, a coronavirus is spreading. 

It quickly jumps oceans and borders and spreads to several countries. Australia reports four cases, Malaysia four, France its first. Worldwide, 1,400 are sick, forty-two dead. The outbreak is traced to a seafood market in the city of Wuhan, and all transportation in and out of that city of 11 million is halted. 

The U.S. reports its first case. 

Then a second. (See: 1/27/20.)