Pensacola Shooting and Impeachment Rolls On

Pensacola Shooting

Sometime in the mid-nineties, we took the kids on a trip to Florida which of course, included a visit to Disneyland!  I recall waiting in line at one of the rides (“40,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” I believe) and the people right next to us in line whom we talked to during the wait turned out to be a group of Saudi Air Force personnel who were in the United States being trained to fly American planes.  So, this has been going on for years.  I am sure the recent Pensacola shooter, a Saudi Air Force trainee, was appropriately checked out before coming to this country, but when hundreds, if not thousands, come here for such training, someone with problems (and all “shooters” in this age of gun violence seem to have some sort of problems which motivate them) is certain to slip through occasionally.

 JL

The Sad Thing About Impeachment

The Senate hearings, once the House passes Bills of Impeachment regarding Donald J. Trump, will be controlled by the Republicans.  Their re-election chances depend on Trump supporters so do not expect fairness in whatever happens in the Senate.  Almost all Republican Senators will vote “not to convict,” even though in their hearts, for the good of their Party, they would be glad to get rid of him.  But they will not vote their hearts, nor vote as Americans, but as Trumpublicans.

Despite the solid, factual revelations which came out of the House Intellligence Committee's hearing, Trumpublicans seem to accept the fact that the testimony of State Department Russian and Ukranian expert Fiona Hill, the incriminating comments of Gordon Sonderling as well as Ambassador Taylor's revelations and those of several State Department officials are all part of what the President calls a "big hoax."  Only Trumpublicans are dumb enough, and un-American enough, putting Party before country and Constitution, to believe that, but that seems to be the case.

The House’s Bill of Impeachment, like a “grand jury’s” indictment, is no more than a charge.  That the President boycotted the House hearings and ordered those in the Executive Branch to do likewise, cannot be taken as an admission of guilt although Trump and his supporters would have been hard put to contradict the facts which the hearings developed.  Guilt will depend on what the Senate does, and that is the venue where the President will make his stand.

There are undeniable facts which the Republicans in the Senate will latch on to, such as the fact that Joe Biden’s son did indeed hold a seat on the Board of an Ukrainian gas company.  Out of this fact, half-truths, suppositions, suspicions and outright lies will be woven and voiced.  Even if unsubstantiated and unproven, they would be enough for Republicans to use as a basis for standing behind the President.  Also, the historically corrupt nature of Ukrainian politics will be brought up as well as the entirely disproven “Crowdstrike” conspiracy, originated by the Russians, which is still believed by many Republican comrades who prefer to believe Putin’s intelligence services rather than our own.  Republicans will attack Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi too, whose positions are based on proven truths, with their own unproven lies.  That's what we can expect from the Senate.

(The other day, Joe Biden told a questioner at an Iowa town meeting, that “He was a damn liar.”  The poor fellow then claimed the lies he was spouting about Biden and his son he got from MSNBC.   Obviously, and Joe Biden pointed this out, this was not the case.  But somewhere in the web of right-wing misinformation, the gentlemen had indeed been given the idea that even MSNBC confirmed the lies about Biden’s son. Those swimming in a sea of right wing misinformation are difficult to convince of the truth and there are tens of millions of American voters in that category.  Similarly, the reporter ... formerly with Fox, now with Sinclair ... who implied that Nancy Pelosi "hated" the President, was nourished by such information, which, incidenentally, his past and present employers were and are in the business of spreading.) 

Sadly, in addition the letting the President off, the confusion coming out of the Senate hearings will cause many Americans to buy into G.O.P. lies as we enter the 2020 election year.  How to deal with this, without taking their eyes off of the real issues, domestic and foreign, involved in that election, in addition to defeating Donald Trump, is a challenge the Democratic Party must face. 
JL