The hiatus has to end.

And I am back. And now on the other side of the world, living in a new place – back in the Pacific- and galavanting across multiple time zones every month.

I loved my time in Europe, but the clock of age stops for no one -and eventually for everyone – and I had to make some decisions that involved unwanted change. So when an avenue presented itself to lay some foundations on the other side of the world, I took it. As a result, I have been packing and re-packing and unpacking and re-unpacking for the last two months.

And that’s all I have to say about that for now. Thanks to the unwarranted attacks on this site last spring, a little ambiguity is in order. I still need to publish and I still have my rights to do so.

Plus, it’s been hard for me to work up the energy to write about the current US political situation. How anyone could have watched the blatant criminality and corruption of the last months, by the orange monster and believe in any hope for the future is beyond me. The events of 2019 have been stunning and disgusting, to say the least. The country that I knew, the country that I served, is dying a slow and painful death. It remains to see whether it can yet recover and stand up on its own. Two years ago I believed it would come to its senses. Now? I think the sickness may be terminal. Witness this:

What Giuliani admitted — and then tried to deny he admitted — is that he went to Ukraine in order to get the government in Kiev to investigate a potential scandal involving the Bidens. Once again, Trump was seeking support from a foreign power in order to influence next year’s presidential election. Hey, he got away with it once. Why not twice? All of which casts a whole new and incriminating light on that phone call with the Ukrainian president that an intelligence agent brought to the attention of the authorities via the whistle-blower statute.

Do I believe that Trump is perfectly capable of using his office to lean on a foreign government to expose a political opponent? Well, duh. And do I believe that he and his attorney general will do everything they can to keep this bottled up and away from the congressional oversight it clearly merits and legally requires? Of course they will. And the worst of it is: They have a point.

The trouble in our constitutional system is that a confidential presidential phone conversation with a foreign leader is obviously covered by executive privilege. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the most defensible cases of executive privilege there is. The president must have the ability to speak candidly with foreign leaders, and his conversations should not be available to anyone outside the Executive branch. Separation of powers requires that even the Congress be excluded from the details of this kind of discussion. And yet that discussion may well present a real threat to national security, and constitute an impeachable offense.

What do we do then? The elevation of a despicable, shameless liar and con artist to the presidency has revealed a core weakness in the U.S. Constitution. Its attribution of executive authority to one individual, the president, gives that individual extraordinary control over the entire government. If that individual is a traitor, a crook, or a pathological liar, too bad. You either impeach him … or he wins. You begin to understand why the Roman republic vested this kind of authority in two men, so that if one were corrupt, the other might correct it. We have no such system. We have, in effect, a dictator of sorts, and since Trump has no other way of operating, we have slid — perhaps irrevocably — away from liberal democracy toward an elected form of tyranny. The Founders simply assumed that a figure as depraved as Trump would never win an election.

More to the point, his criminality is backed by a solid majority of his own party. It seems increasingly likely to me that Trump’s “defense” will be to admit he did it, and insist there’s nothing wrong with it. And who believes that the GOP won’t support him on this? Rudy gave Hannity the game plan last night, and from now on, the right-wing media will likely ignore a massive abuse of power and focus on yet another largely incomprehensible conspiracy theory about Biden.

As I’ve said over and over again, the instinctual tyrant never stands still. Each time he survives, he moves the baseline. The corruption, profound now, will only intensify. The abuse of power will grow. Each time we fail to hold the tyrant accountable is an opportunity for him to up the ante yet again. Which is to say there is one obvious remedy for this lawlessness and borderline treason. Impeach!

The author of that quote is right, and the recognition that there is little I can do about this bit of national self – immolation is troubling indeed.

On the other hand, at least I will be watching it from the proper hemisphere. And staggering down the streets of my favorite places while doing so.

Saddle up Sancho, we’ve still got windmills to tilt at!

4 comments

  1. How you could watch the blatant criminality, corruption and dishonesty of Hillary and Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Comey, Mueller, Biden, the other Bidens, Lynch, Holder, the weaponization of the IRS against your enemies in America, the all out attacks on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution all remain a profound mystery to me.
    I get that you and yours hate the orange man with a passion but what exactly has he done that you can prove in court that is illegal since he came to office? So far as I can see a lot of it was nothing more than taking a pen to paper and reversing the scribbles Obama made with a pen on paper.
    Who sent $150 billion to Iran and relaxed the sanctions?
    Who signed a treaty to take effect without the advice and consent of the Senate?
    Who jammed Obamacare down All American throats without a single republican vote for it?
    Who walked guns to the cartels?
    Who sold 20% of the US uranium supply to Russia?
    Who set up a thoroughly illegal server that was essentially nothing but a conduit of TS, SCI and SAP material to China and Russia?

    Who did all that?

    I’m glad to hear that you made it back to where you wanted to be. I’m guessing there was a major change.

    1. Curtis. None of these things are true – or at the least, your telling of the story lacks several facts that provide important context. Especially about the money in Iran, Obamacare, the JCPOA. Some of these are outright lies that have no basis in fact.

      I get it that you don’t think there should be a multi-party system in America and you are quite fine with a one-party, apartheid, state. But there were plenty of decent less corrupt people to give you your shitty judges, your stupid tax cuts and to steal health care away from millions. What you and the rest of the Red Hat wearing scum fail to grasp is that Trump is violating the law, and we should not allow that.

      If for nothing else, because you will have a stroke when President Warren takes your guns.

      To quote a great American, ” And that is why I’m done with you and your ilk. ……..But we come from and live in two different countries.”

      My country is better.

        1. The list is long and not distinguished. Besides to quote a semi-famous Senator who now spends his days sucking Trump’s tiny dick, “A President doesn’t even have to be convicted of a crime to be impeached. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. So, the point I’m trying to make is that you don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role.”

          Certainly, if getting a BJ is out of the bounds of your role, then selling out your country because you can’t win an election on your own merits should be. It’s not the quid pro quo it’s the very fact he asked the question to begin with. And then there is the little matter of the Emoluments Clause……

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