Tag Archives: Rudy Giuliani

TRUMP AND TRUMPER TAGTEAM THE UKRAINE

It’s a kindness to Donald Trump to view his extortion of Ukraine as a quid pro quo.Too much of Trump’s thuglike behavior, not to mention Ukraine’s existential angst, is omitted with that descriptor. 

Quid pro quo ordinarily implies both parties enjoy a parity of gain, while the deal being offered by Trump and Trumper—Donny and Rudy—was Ukraine’s very survival. A survival only put in jeopardy to make the country’s leaders more malleable to digging up dirt on the Bidens.

This is where things get funny. Donny and Rudy split up. Rudy to Europe where amongst other places, he ended up visiting Kiev in Ukraine. 

Centerpiece of the U.S.A.’s
“Shadow Diplomacy,”‘ manufactured in Kiev and controlled by Trump sidekick,
Rudy Giuliani

Meanwhile back in Washington, Donny was playing a chess game of sorts, directing a rumor campaign against the ambassador to Ukraine, who apparently was too straitlaced to countenance the strong-arm tactics Trump and Trumper were planning to deploy.

Cut back to Rudy. As part of his plan against the ambassador, he arranged for two associates (natives of Eastern Europe) to donate Russian oligarch money to a Republican Congressman from Texas, who coincidentally soon complained to the State Department about the straitlaced ambassador.

Only a clown could laugh his way through the mess created by Trump and Trumper. Two-handed, they virtually helped destroy America’s reputation as an honest broker and loyal friend on the world stage. Ukraine is our friend and strategic ally; why else would we give them $ 391 million?

The Bidens

What have we just said to Ukraine and the rest of the world with the President’s self-serving behavior?

“This is how America honors our agreements with friends.”

It goes beyond sanity to weigh the potential gains against potential losses Trump and Trumper risked with their stupid, conspiracy-addled games.

One has to ask, “What did they think they had to gain?” And then the most important question of all, “At what price?”

Yeah, sure, they might have dug up valuable dirt to use against Joe Biden. Valuable only should he manage to outrun his age, his son’s ugly business dealings, his foot-in-the-mouth tendency or the dozen other candidates running against him.

And at what price, Mr. President?

Dumb and Dumber, too, Giuliani’s associates arrested at the airport.

Impeachment is the fog horn that alerts the nation to one of its most perilous dangers. It’s not only America’s stature and reputation they imperiled with their selfish, childish behavior, but the integrity of the Office of the Presidency will forever be damaged in some ineffable way.

All to help Trump and Trumper hold onto the White House so they can continue to spread their lovable antics and zaniness around the world for four more years? God help us, no!

But back to my question.

Quid pro quo? Does that convey the fear felt by an entire population living under the threat and shadow of the Soviet Army? I think not.

Mario Puzo would know it for what it was. In the Mafia jungle he wrote about, the fear of death or destruction was the ultimate weapon. The ultimate bargaining chip. 

“Make him an offer he can’t refuse,” was the refrain and it was totally undeniable. 

Nobody wants to die. 

Nobody wants their loved ones to die.

Not even Trump and Trumper.

ONE NATION UNDER TRUMP

America The (Once) Beautiful

Has there ever been a time in our history when the moral fabric that undergirds America’s laws and behavior has been so shredded that it represents an immediate threat to the republic’s survival?

If not, then that time has arrived. 

Today.

Under President Donald J. Trump.

The Existential Threat himself.

Trump is not merely a rogue president, or a half-demented billionaire run amuck with the playground toys of the presidency. He is a clear and present danger whose actions and words repeatedly challenge the principles of justice, ethics and humanity this country was founded upon. 

Under Trump, America is no longer one nation indivisible, but one nation totally divided. Under Trump, neighbor is encouraged to hate and fear neighbor, branches of the government no longer work together, and the Truth has become so twisted and tormented it is most often unrecognizable.

Can’t help but wonder what
they’re plotting…?

Under Trump there is no transparency or honoring of tradition to explain any of his aberrant behavior. Should we be surprised that the same man who colluded with Russia, a de facto enemy, to steal the 2016 election, is the very President who used military aid to extort the Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival? A Ukraine so weak and under threat by Russia that its very existence could hang in the balance?

Under Trump, Republicans appear to have abandoned their values, their commitment to national security and their ability to recognize or speak the truth. 

Under Trump, none of the ordinary safeguards of the two-party political system appear to be in place. Rather than serve the nation that pays their salaries, Trump’s political sycophants give their allegiance to Trump in the same way Mafia soldiers serve their Don. 

The Great Seal of Ukraine
(Not a shithole country!)

In light of the events of the last two days, it is sadly obvious that the Departments of State and Justice have become rogue arms of our government. Where one appears to have dived head first into the attempt to bully the Ukraine at the expense of our National Security, the other is totally focused on protecting a President whose every word and deed seems to defy our laws and Constitution.

And now both departments have drawn their wagons in a circle around the White House.

Hang on, Nelly!

And now, under Trump, these forces battle to hold onto the levers of power they were never worthy of in the first place. And Trump will never release those levers, no matter what happens.

If he goes down, he’ll try to take all of us with him. Count on it!

And what about us? 

Like children caught in the crossfire, we are left to watch—shocked, frightened and frozen—as the United States government under Trump, undergoes a psychotic breakdown, and attempts, against all rational belief, to turn a lie into the truth, and a country into a nation of dullards too stupid to know the difference.

Under Trump, we are all in danger. 

Especially those of us who don’t know it.

The Liberation of Washington, D.C.

The first sign of the impending liberation came from deep within the bowels of the American Intelligence Community. A whistleblower last August fired off a salvo that will echo till the day of liberation itself when Donald J. Trump, 45th (so-called) President of the United States will board his plane and fly away, never to be seen or heard from again in the nation’s capital. And never again to betray his office and country under the pretense of tending to presidential duties.

The pre-liberation barrage of artillery fire erupted suddenly in the quiet of a sleepy Washington morning. The Hero Of The Day, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, sent word to Congress that a whistleblower complaint judged to be of “urgent concern” by the IG, and verified as “credible” in a limited investigation, had been released to the Director of National Intelligence (as the Whistleblower Act requires) but after its release had apparently dropped off the face of the earth. 

An orange suit in The Donald’s future?

Meanwhile, the Director of National Intelligence, Andrew McGuire, a retired Navy Seal, barely settled and just days into his temporary appointment as DNI, found himself confronting a monumental and seemingly unprecedented dilemma. The nation’s Whistleblower Act required him to forward all whistleblower complaints to Congress within 7 days. However, seeing that the president was the focus of the complaint, McGuire was concerned about violating Executive Privilege and chose to forward it first to the Office of Legal Counsel within the Justice Department. In that moment, inside a Justice Department tightly controlled by William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, the complaint disappeared as if it had never existed.

 Until…

Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his Senate counterpart, Richard Burr, received word of the errant whistleblower’s complaint from the Intelligence IG and all hell broke loose. Suddenly The New York Times and Washington Post began firing news reports in all directions, and it soon became clear that somewhere in the bowels of the Executive Branch there was a bombshell whistleblower complaint and it most likely involved the President himself and his ‘questionable’ pursuit of dirt to bury political rival, Joe Biden. 

Founding members of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

‘Questionable’ because he and his chief henchman, Rudy Giuliani, chose to dig for that dirt in the cold climate of the Ukraine, where they worked a tag team strategy to force Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukraine’s newly elected president, to dig up or manufacture political dirt on Joe Biden. As leverage, The Donald held up payments of congressionally authorized military aid for the Ukraine until Zelensky showed he was willing “to play ball” as the president required.

As so often happens in battle, there were scattered and isolated confrontations and bursts of leaked information. Information so damaging in its reconstruction in news reports that the President had little choice but to release notes detailing his July 25th phone conversation with the Ukraine’s president. Everyone in Washington expected the notes would reveal little or nothing about the shakedown of an ally whose very existence depended on the military aid President Trump had ordered suspended.

Everyone was wrong.

What me worry?

It is not known yet why the forces surrounding and protecting the president chose to release phone call notes as damaging as the ones released to Congress. Notes that mentioned William Barr’s involvement as well as Rudy Giuliani’s. Was this another example of Deep State sabotage? Or just the panicked behavior of villains caught in the act, scattering in panic like cockroaches in the kitchen when the light comes on?

Reality Check: the authorized military aid was intended to assist the Ukraine in fighting off Russian incursions or possible invasion, a real threat since Russian irregulars were still wreaking havoc in the Ukraine’s Eastern territory.

“Thank you, Godfather.”

Yes, assemble the known details and you will quickly realize two shocking facts. First, that Trump’s actions in weakening Zelensky only strengthened Putin’s hand in his quest for conquest, an interesting outcome in light of all the questions about Trump being Putin’s lap dog. And second, Trump was actually willing to put an entire country—almost 44 million people— at risk to pursue his own political purposes! 

Even if they were in opposition to America’s National Security concerns!

It’s safe to say the liberation of Washington D.C. has definitely and irreversibly begun. It commenced when the Democrats won a majority of seats in the House in 2018, thereby ending Republican domination of all branches of government. And it continues as the gears of impeachment are set free to fully digest and act upon all the leads offered by the whistleblower’s complaint.

And leads there are aplenty!

Beginning with the highly classified server on which White House lawyers entombed the highly incriminating transcript of the July 25th phone call. A server on which, the complaint suggests, Trump’s White House staff had hid other damaging and disturbing evidence of Trump’s…what…? His felonies, his deals, his cons, his shakedowns…?

“Don’t look at the man behind the curtain!

Time will tell. And as we wait for the story to unwind, as it happily will, and as The Donald freaks out and lashes out in blind fury, the smell of liberation is in the air. If you lift your nose high above the stench of corruption, dishonesty and flagrant abuse of power, you can smell it. 

And just beyond, another scent…the liberation of America!