Are We Capable?

precarious times

     I've been replaying the moment I stood next to a USGS scientist staring down into the caldera of the most active volcano in history when the earth shook and a jet engine sound rattled our ears as a noxious cloud of black sulfur gas enveloped us. The gas piston tremor created a strong earth quake. Mother Earth was not terra firma. In that moment I realized this planet of ours is alive, still forming, unpredictable, eruptive and that our human certainties are not so certain and there are forces more powerful at work.

    Our ordered, legally defined and constitutional way of public life is being shaken now and assaulted by forces including a noxious self inflicted ignorance.

     The people's House impeaches the US President, Britain votes again as Brexit undermines stability, Iranians die as they protest a regime, Hong Kong unravels, allies make joke and laugh at president Trump, dictators and strongmen are  on the rise, nationalism once again creeps virus like back onto the world stage and meanness trumps cooperation time and time again.

impeachment is hard

     It is the right thing to impeach Donald Trump. There are many more reasons he should be removed, but the case against him as outlined in the hearings is undeniable. He abused power, he misused the office, he has obstructed justice and the constitutional process. 

    Those who say it is only politics are wrong. Impeachment is about now and the future. 

    If Trump is not impeached, it sends a destructive memo to all future Presidents. Those who say it undoes the will of the people seem to miss that is exactly what Trump did when he attempted to withhold funds that were approved by the congress, representing the people's will.

    The founders wrote in the impeachment process because they wanted future generations to have the power to protect our system by removing a despot, would be dictator, criminal or crackpot. If this president is not impeached it is a signal that his abuses, his invitation to foreign powers to meddle in our elections by money or subversion, or manipulation, could be repeated by future presidents.

    He is not being impeached because he lies dozens of times every day. He is not being impeached because he has and continues to act like a traitor. He is not being impeached because he advances Putin's agenda on the world stage and behaves as though he is the Russian's stooge. He is not being impeached because he has tried to dismantle the State Department, or denigrated our federal law enforcement, or undermines our intelligence agencies, or demeans the federal judiciary, or because he is trying to make money for his family business while president. He is not being impeached because he meets privately with a Russian spymaster and gives away secrets. He's not being impeached because he betrayed allies and allowed their slaughter. He's not being impeached because he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. He's not being impeached because most of his campaign staff are now in prison as federal prisoners. 

    Instead he is being impeached because he is a clear and present danger to our way of government, our constitutional system, and because he seeks to overthrow the balance of power between three separate branches of government. He is being impeached because he is not above the law.

an age of ignorance

    That it is unlikely he will be convicted in a Senate trial does indeed speak to how his cultish influence has destroyed a once proud Republican party. It speaks volumes about the cowardice and self interest so evident in most Republicans on the Hill. But it speaks more loudly about how ignorant we have allowed ourselves to become.

    I've written here about my concern about our failure to teach civics, government and the lessons of US history. We are living at the junction of that failure and the rise of a defiant ignorance fed by bias, manipulation and brainwashing.

    Several recent studies have reported that a decline in newspaper readership leads to more corruption, greater polarization and a decline in voting. We are there. 

    So much talk is about "motivating the base." Isn't that a variation of a kind of mob rule? Where is there intelligent discussion or civil debate? We've devolved and we've done it to ourselves as we fail to teach, and then feed the worst instincts by tribalized and echo chamber news channels. One of them, the one founded by a sexual predator, spends most of the day engaged in Russian disinformation, brainwashing and Trump worship.

    Even at that, millions get their "news" and opinion shaping info from social media platforms infected with manipulation and persuasion programs, run by all number of nefarious players, including foreign and hostile powers.

    When you see Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, John Kennedy, Lindsey Graham and company actually speaking Russian disinformation your head wants to explode. Reagan, HW Bush, Eisenhower and Nixon must be spinning.  

    I guess there is a reason he's called Moscow Mitch. When you compare what the Republican Party used to stand for on the Soviet Union, national security and intelligence and you hear the words and see the actions of Trump and his synchophants, it should be clearly obvious why impeachment is important to our survival. Giuliani is off trying to trump up more fabricated dirt, even as this president is being impeached. If they are not stopped, where in the world will they take us and what will they try to do?

    43% of self identified Trump Republicans believe he is right to ignore the Constitution and obstruct Congress. Folks, that's the kind of blind loyalty the world saw in Germany in the late 30's. It's in the history books.

     If we did a better job of teaching history, if our graduates knew the difference between a Governor and a US Senator, or could identify the three branches of government, Nunes would be looking for a job, Jim Jordan would still be hanging out in the locker room watching his fellow coach masturbate in the shower with his wrestling team, and Trump would still be calling New York radio stations posing as John Miller to talk about how sexually active "his boss Donald Trump is."

Bill Barr would be selling tupperware and Moscow Mitch would spend all day on the liars bench drinking from a brown paper sack. 

    An educated and informed electorate has a way to deal with hustlers, idiots and liars. We are not a well informed electorate and there is more blind faith than due diligence and more opinions than facts. The ground is shaking, and a loud noxious presence is apparent. The certainties are not.

why build a statue of trump and mitch and company

       With apology to those who are deserving statesmen and women and genuine heroes. Still, even for them, nature is what it is. And me thinks nature would love a chance to speak to the trump gang.

        Back to the Irish trail, soon. Thanks for indulging another historic US moment.

         See you down the trail.

    

A Moment Please-I Beg Your Indulgence

Reflections from the US

      I beg your indulgence for this brief break from the series of reports from Scotland and Ireland. A post on the historical and mystical County Meath is forthcoming. 

      The historic US Constitutional drama that played out on screens this week requires this old journalist, who covered the two previous impeachments in my life time, to offer some observations, unsolicited though they are. 

The People

      Over the past few years some of the more adamant folks in coffee deck conversations run toward the old cliche about politically biased civil service employees and a "deep state" conspiracy. I've countered by observing that in my reporting career some of the most impressive people have been civil service employees. At local, state and federal levels I've seen a commitment to public service and sense of mission. I've seen a non partisan, non political devotion to getting the job done for the benefit of the common good.

      All of this is especially so in law enforcement, national security and intelligence. These are fellow citizens doing an incredibly difficult job at wages well below the value and skill evinced and demanded. 

      The world saw that this week. The contrast between federal employees in the national security apparatus, including the military and those of the US political culture, the members of the House, was staggering especially so in specific cases. The career foreign service and security experts had a grasp of real politic, national security and international relations. A few were frankly impressive and dazzling beyond expectation.
       They were calm, quick thinking, intelligent professionals. Some members of the house displayed a commensurate understanding, others were merely political actors, shallow and in a couple of cases stupid.*  

The Process 

       I would suggest widening the scope of the articles of impeachment, either with specific charges or with a preamble.

       This Ukrainian play and the President's attempt to engage a foreign nation to participate in our election process needs to be put in the context of this administration's explicit tumble to the Russian priorities and preferences. To be considered:

     -The private meeting in the White House with the Russian spy master shortly after the election

     -The private meetings with Putin, without a US interpreter

     -The televised Helsinki repudiation and degrading of the US intelligence community and the siding with Putin over the issue of Russian intervention in the 2016 election

     -The continued attempt to break old alliances and to weaken NATO

     -The unilateral and unadvised decision to withdraw troops, betraying the Kurdish allies, and paving the way for the for Russian dominance in Syria.

     -The attempt to withhold Congressionally approved military aid to an ally under attack and at war with Russia

     -His continued insistence the Russians were not involved in the 2016 election, despite findings to the contrary by all intelligence agencies in the US, the House and the Senate and foreign investigations as well finding that Russia was involved.

     -The true findings of the Mueller investigation, not the spin he and his Attorney General have spun.

     The painful truth is Russian has been strengthened by the Trump administration. To repeat what I have observed before Trump is either a Russian agent or Russian stooge. He is probably too ignorant to know the difference.

     We Were Warned

    It is important to remember this story reported in August of 2016.

      Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”  New York Times 

         You should link to that story Here or to the text of the letter and the list of senior Republicans who signed it at this link.
       The people who signed the letter made the case he was unfit and unqualified and lacked the character. The world has seen the truth of their prophesy for the last  3 years.

       That 2016 Republican warning and the spiderweb of his dangerous behavior should be read to the Republican members of the Senate, until they acknowledge their once proud party has been pimped out to the Russians by, in the vernacular,  Putin's little bitch. 

Why It Matters

      There are greater goods than partisan advantage and there have been periods in our history when our political culture behaved as though they understood that. That is not so now.

      The Impeachment is not about "undoing" the 2016 election. Everyone who says that is merely mouthing a Putin trope. The sad fact is those who say that have their heads in a Fox News or Trump silo and don't comprehend the nature of their brainwashing and the extent to which it does exactly what Putin wants-to undermine our faith in our democratic republic. 

      It is true that the majority of American voters voted against Trump, by the millions, but his team, many of whom are now imprisoned and who had ties to Russian efforts, figured a way to win the electoral college. So he moved into the White House against the wishes of the majority of the nation. Still he is the President and must be held accountable. Here he is, complicit in undermining the security of the nation he is supposed to lead and contributing to the death of our allies. 

     He must be held accountable, not only because of his traitorous and criminal behavior, but because if he gets away with it, we have moved the lines on so many aspects of our constitutional government and expectation, that we will only hasten the call of our own demise. 

     No President, regardless of party, should be permitted to do what he has done, and be so reckless with our security. No President should openly or secretly ask foreign powers to engage in our electoral system. 

     Once the Republican party was staunch in their advocacy of national security, and tough in their opposition to the Russian (then USSR) threat. Now they need to look beyond their ability to make court appointments, or pass more tax breaks for the wealthy and consider what matters in the frame of history and what matters to the health of our equal branches of government.

      Those real Republicans who signed that August 2016 warning letter had it right. Those who now call themselves Republicans need to look in a mirror and decide are they people of principle or are they members of the Trumpist cult? Do they really believe the man who is Donald Trump could even sit in the same room with Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush George W. Bush, Gerry Ford and yes even Richard Nixon. Flawed as he was, Nixon did an honorable thing in the face of his impeachment. He did not want to further fracture the nation.

      Are those who call themselves Republicans in alignment with the constitutional values of this Republic or are they merely whores, working for an unfit and unqualified and disgusting Russian stooge?

    Who do you trust Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, Paul Manafort, William Barr, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, or those stalwart civil servants who endured endless hours of questioning, challenges, excoriation and belittling but who displayed what it is to be a citizen and a patriot.

     Can you even imagine Donald Trump being put into a chair and examined as such?  This nation is much, much better than that. Our Presidency deserves much, much better. We should be able to expect much better out of Republicans, if any still exist.

    *Devin Nunes embarrasses even himself. I liked what California political strategist Mike Murphy said about Nunes' side kick Jim Jordan, "...he was so wild I expected him to pull out the sock puppets."

     I wonder how Congressman Jordan would receive a full scale investigation of his knowledge or role in aberrant sexual behavior on his watch as an Ohio wrestling coach. Check the history of this incident for yourself and then ask yourself, if a guy like Jordan is a point man for the House Republican defense of a man like Donald Trump what has the party come to?

    The US deserve much, much, much better.

    Ok, getting off the soapbox and getting back on the road through Ireland and Scotland.  Sorry for the intrusion.

   See you down the trail.