On July 27, 2016 Donald Trump asked the Russians to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. The infamous comment by Mr. Trump was “I will tell you this: Russia if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” he said. What is forgotten was the blatant appeal preceding his plea that belies his campaign mouthpieces and sycophants assertion that he was just joking, “By the way, if they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails,” Trump said. “I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 (sic) emails that she lost and deleted. Because you’d see some beauties there,” said Mr. Trump. Shortly thereafter the Clinton email farce was unleashed.
Just a few days ago, without being dumb enough to overtly stroke Vladimir Putin, Rand Paul repeated Trump’s tactic. This time he asked the “press” to reveal the name of the ‘Ukraine call whistleblower.’“We know the name of the whistleblower. Do your job and print his name,” said the Kentucky Republican Senator, to the press. Heeding the call, the Russian government-controlled media is outing the whistleblower by publishing the alleged name. Even more frightening was a statement from Karen Shakhnazarova frequently used Russian TV pundit and film executive, “When they say that Trump is weakening the United States—yes, he is. And that’s why we love him.”
What is happening America?
The diluting of patriotism, by the Republican party that has told me all my adolescent and adult life that I was an American hating liberal, is sobering. The pattern of acceptance by the flag-wavers, and disparagers of kneeling is more than stunning, it is sad. Currently, we now know the President of the United States inarguably attempted to extort a foreign leader in hopes that he [Zelensky] would create dirt and issue a public statement saying an investigation is underway. The Republicans after weeks of denying the “quid pro quo (extortion) are now admitting it, but the new tactic is that “it does not rise to the level of impeachment.” Acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, went so far as to say, we do it all the time, “get over it.”
Republicans are saying now that the President did not violate any laws and that impeachment is not called for. The Framers of the Constitution included the Impeachment clause because they were smart enough to include a recall provision, to guard against an imperial monarchy. At the time of the writing of the Constitution, a federal penal code did not exist. So, the Framers wanted a guarantee that something could be done in case of presidential treachery. James Madison argued at the Constitutional Convention that it was “indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the chief magistrate.”
For anyone who doubts incapacity or negligence, the definition of perfidy is—deceitfulness or untrustworthy. Case closed.
Vote in 2020 for Change.