Update no.935

Update from the Sunland

No.935

9.12.19 – 15.12.19

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            Navy did it!  The final score was 31-7, ending a three-game winning streak for Army.  Beautiful game!  They really looked sharp.  Quarterback Midshipman First Class Malcolm Perry did a magnificent job leading the team.  Excellent performance all the way around, if you ask me.  Army put on a good show, just not good enough this year.  Navy goes onto the Liberty Bowl, where they will play Kansas State in Memphis on Tuesday, the 31^st of December.  Go Navy!  Beat Army!

            Fortunately, I finished the first draft of my next book before the events of the last three weeks.  The impeachment hearings and the voluminous reading material noted below have seriously disrupted my productivity.  Thus, I confess that I have not yet completed reading the whole of both reports.  I have read the Executive Summary and Conclusions & Recommendations sections, as well as spot detailed reading of some meaty sections.  More to follow!

            The follow-up news items:

-- The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary held an agonizing hearing on Monday.  We heard the presentation of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) findings of fact in their impeachment investigation [924 & sub].  The HPSCI messengers delivering the findings were Majority Counsel Daniel Sachs Goldman, JD, and Minority Counsel Stephen R. Castor, JD.  This was the “pound the table and yell like hell” session for the Minority; not one Republican defended the BIC, i.e., his conduct was perfect, as the BIC declared.  The emotional and dramatic demeanor of the Minority stood in stark contrast to the calm, even conduct of the Majority.

            On Tuesday, 10.December.2019, the House Majority introduced a resolution that specified the articles of impeachment to be voted on perhaps next week in the House of Representatives.

1.     Abuse of Power

2.     Obstruction of Congress.

The draft resolution specifying the articles of impeachment is too voluminous to reprint in this humble forum.  Those who might wish to read the actual words, they can be seen at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6572303-Articles-of-Impeachment.html

Only four presidents in the history of this Grand Republic have reached this stage—three in my lifetime alone.  So history shall record.

            On Friday, after two days of tortuous hearings, the House Judiciary Committee voted along strict tribal lines, 23-17, to advance the articles of impeachment as H.Res.755 to the full House for passage.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky publicly declared that the Senate trial was preordained before arrival, but he conceded they would go through the motions.

            The BIC’s tribe keeps chanting about the impeachment process seeking to undo the votes of 63M American citizens in the 2016 election [actually, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, 304 electors from 31 states].  Great headline and sound bite stuff, but not truthful or accurate.  There is only one person who has brought all this on—the BIC and only the BIC; his conduct, no one else’s behavior, just his.  Do not be distracted by such fallacious arguments.  We, the People, had our vote on 8.November.2016.  We will have our vote again on 3.November.2020.  The impeachment process is completely and entirely about the BIC’s conduct in office—nothing else; he has (or should be) disqualified and removed from office.  Despite the avalanche of obfuscation, subterfuge, distractions, sleight of hand, misdirection, and misinformation, the issue before the House of Representatives and We, the People, remains—the BIC’s conduct, nothing else, full stop.

            George Orwell wrote in his dystopian and perhaps prophetic novel 1984, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.  It was their final, most essential command.” [8.June.1949]  The BIC publicly proclaims to his adoring audience, “What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.” [25.July.2018] The words are different; the meaning is identical.  Caveat emptor!

            One senator actually tried to argue that the threshold of impeachment and especially for conviction and concomitant removal from office is those crimes punishable by death, i.e., treason—nothing else; that is about as high of a bar that can exist.  What is implied in the senator’s opinion is the president is above the law, can break any law he wishes, and he will remain immune from prosecution.  The journalist questioning the senator sought to learn the basis for such a claim.  The senator clumsily avoided any form of a responsive answer.  Does anyone want to guess which tribe the senator is affiliated with?  I wonder how he will feel when a president of another party does the same thing as the BIC?

            The first report was from the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, titled: “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report” and dated: 4 December 2019.   In Chairman Adam Schiff’s Preface statement, he accurately and appropriately quoted Benjamin Franklin to conclude.  When Franklin was asked upon departing the Constitutional Convention, “What have we got?  A Republic or a Monarchy?”  He responded simply, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”  That is exactly the point.  This Grand Republic is as fragile as we fail to defend the essential principles upon which the republic is based.

            The report presents the evidence and findings in two major sections:

I. The President's Misconduct: The President Conditioned a White House Meeting and Military Aid to Ukraine on a Public Announcement of Investigations Beneficial to his Reelection Campaign, and

II. The President's Obstruction of the House of Representatives' Impeachment Inquiry: The President Obstructed the Impeachment Inquiry by Instructing Witnesses and Agencies to Ignore Subpoenas for Documents and Testimony.

Having listened to and watched all of the testimony before HPSCI, the case is clear.  The report documents the testimony before the HPSCI [931, 932], which I need not to repeat or regurgitate.  Let it suffice to say, I read the HPSCI report and found it consistent with the testimony I heard earlier.  The report is very well documented with the actual evidence.  It is not hearsay and innuendo as some people scream at us.

            I will note here that I dove into the law to establish exactly the instrument of allocation at issue in this matter.  It took me a while, but here it is—Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 [PL 116-006; 133 Stat. 13; 15.2.2019] [893], specifically Division F, Title VII, § 7046 (b) [133 Stat. 358] that allocated not less than US$445.7M of assistance to Ukraine.  The bill was passed by a strong bipartisan majority and signed into law by the president on 15.February.2019.  Five months later, the BIC attempted to use these congressionally mandated funds for his personal political gain.  Among the many aspects of tragedy in this sordid affair, if the BIC had used his personal money to go dig up dirt in Ukraine against his perceived principal political rival, he would not be in this predicament.  But no, he did not make that choice.  Instead, he chose to use his office, the nation’s standing, and congressionally allocated funding, in an attempt to coerce another sovereign nation at war defending its territory to do his dirty work.

            The U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) finally released its report of findings regarding their investigation into the FBI’s opening of the potential collusion/collaboration with Russian interference leading up to the 2016 election.  The Report was released on Monday.  The title of the report is “Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.”  Four specific members of the BIC’s election campaign were the subjects at the focus of the investigation: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn.  The candidate was NOT a subject of the investigation.  The very first sentence speaks volumes.

The Department of Justice (Department) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) undertook this review to examine certain actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department during an FBI investigation opened on July 31, 2016, known as "Crossfire Hurricane," into whether individuals associated with the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign were coordinating, wittingly or unwittingly, with the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Whoever selected the code name for the investigation was brilliant in anticipating the firestorm likely to be created by the knowledge of the investigation’s existence alone.  It is important to note here that of the four subjects of the investigation: two are in prison, one pleaded guilty and is awaiting punishment, and the fourth remains the object of an active criminal investigation by federal and state prosecutors.  That track record puts an exclamation point on this topic.

            Please note the date when the investigation was opened (in blue).  The first FISA warrant was not issued until 21.October.2016.  The investigators satisfied the judge’s review with sufficient hard evidence to justify the warrant.

            Surprisingly, after all this testimony over the last three years, I learned a few new things in the OIG report.

            Christopher David Steele is a British former intelligence officer with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1987 until his retirement in 2009.  He ran the Russia desk at MI6 headquarters in London between 2006 and 2009.  In 2009, he co-founded Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based private intelligence firm.  What is new, Steele was introduced to the FBI in 2010.  In 2013, he was certified by the FBI as a qualified intelligence source.  In June 2016, Steele and his consulting firm were hired by Fusion GPS to look into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign and process.  The resulting accumulation of information was reported in what has become known as the ”Steele Dossier.”  Steele provided a dozen of his progressive reports to the FBI between July and October 2016.  This is important in that the BIC, his sycophants, and Republican operatives have incessantly bombarded us in their effort to saturate our capacity to absorb information to the effect that their claim was the Steele Dossier was a Clinton and DNC instigated hit job.  The OIG report clearly establishes all those claims were false if not outright fraudulent.

            The OIG delineated 17 errors, mostly of omission, with respect to the four FISA surveillance applications.  The OIG stated:

While we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents who assisted OI in preparing the applications, or the agents and supervisors who performed the Woods Procedures, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.

In most instances, the agents and supervisors told us that they either did not know or recall why the information was not shared with OI, that the failure to do so may have been an oversight, that they did not recognize at the time the relevance of the information to the FISA application, or that they did not believe the missing information to be significant. 

The OIG makes no judgment on whether any one or combination of the 17 errors would have or might have altered the judgment of the FISA Court in approving the warrants.  As a footnote, the Attorney General decided to publicly place far more weight on those omissions to the BIC’s benefit.

            Regardless of the BIC’s oft-claimed assertion the USG (the Obama Administration) inserted spies in his 2016 election campaign, the OIG stated:

After the opening of the investigation, we found no evidence that the FBI placed any CHSs [Confidential Human Sources] or UCEs [UnderCover Employees] within the Trump campaign or tasked any CHSs or UCEs to report on the Trump campaign. Finally, we also found no documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivations influenced the FBI's decision to use CHSs or UCEs to interact with Trump campaign officials in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. [emphasis mine]

As the last sentence clearly states, there were no spies, governmental or otherwise, inside the BIC’s election campaign.  The BIC’s subsequent public statements to the contrary are categorically and patently false—the BIC is lying folks!  But, that is not a news flash, is it?

            As is life is for all of these days, the BIC felt compelled to weigh in with a tweet of his infinite and inviolate wisdom.

I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!

4:16 AM - 10 Dec 2019

Please note his words . . . the report “given to me,” rather than the report I read.  I’ve read a chunk of the report and I do believe Director Wray was spot-on correct, and the BIC was painfully and dreadfully wrong.  Hey, we have reason to be thankful; the BIC is consistent—disparage, reject, dismiss, marginalize, et al, anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.  Except for his praise of the men & women of the FBI, his words sound strikingly like the Russian dictator Putin.  Ol’ Vlad has to be dancing a happy jig in his extravagant Kremlin office, except he is savvy and skilled enough not to gloat.  Sadly, the person who wrote the above public words is the man elected by We, the People, to represent all of us and this Grand Republic.  The BIC has stood to the mark and been found wanting.

            In the arena of symbolism, on the day the BIC became the fourth president in history to face impeachment and his articles of impeachment were publicly disclosed (H.Res.755), the House Majority announced passage of the USMCA trade pact, and more significantly, the BIC met in the White House Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov . . . the Russians, not our allies in the Ukraine—Russia!  The message came through loud and clear, Mister President.  Your loyalties are in plain view.

            On Wednesday, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Evan Horowitz testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the OIG Report noted above.  He testified under oath to the details contained in the report.  What was different and unique was the Majority focus and singular obsession with the 17 errors made by three separate Crossfire Hurricane teams in the FISA applications against Carter Page.  The Republicans chose to paint those errors, which the IG characterized as largely administrative in nature.  He further testified that the errors may not have altered the outcome, but they definitely colored the retrospective examination.  Director Wray agreed and began corrective action as soon as he read the report.  When asked if he would have submitted the applications, Horowitz responded, “Not in that form.”  Per the IG’s testimony, those 17 FBI errors tainted the whole of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  Having read and listened to the IG’s testimony, I would agree.  The Crossfire Hurricane agents’ and lawyers’ administrative omissions may well contribute substantively to the BIC getting away with his crimes in office and his conduct unbecoming to the Office of the President.

            Later Wednesday evening, the House Judiciary Committee held an internal public meeting to make speeches about the articles of impeachment.  If anyone needed a display, a demonstration, of the consequences of tribalism in a representative democracy, listen to and watch this meeting of the Judiciary Committee.  My congratulations go to the Republican Minority members in holding so solidly to their devotion to their tribe over principles and substance of this Grand Republic.  The Minority members unanimously declared by their votes that the BIC’s conduct in office is acceptable to them—reasonable performance.  None of them, not a one, attempted to defend the BIC’s conduct; it is OK and acceptable to them.

            In 1995, we witnessed the power of social outrage to defeat overwhelming, hard, technical evidence in the acquittal of O.J. Simpson in the brutal murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.  In 2019, we witness the power of tribalism to overcome substantial testimonial and documentary evidence of the BIC’s criminal conduct and conduct unbecoming of the Office of the President.  And so it goes.

            The British people voted in their general election on Thursday.  The Conservative Party achieved significant gains; 326 seats needed for an outright majority.

            Party                            Seat     vote portion

Conservative Party                 365      43.6%

Boris Johnson

Labour Party                           203      32.2%

Jeremy Corbyn

Scottish National Party             48        3.9%

Nicola Sturgeon

Liberal Democrats                    11      11.5%

Jo Swinson

Democratic Unionist Party         8        0.8%

Arlene Foster

Sinn Féin                                     7        0.6%

Mary Lou McDonald

Plaid Cymru                                4        0.5%

Adam Price

Green Party                                 1        2.7%

Jonathan Bartley & Siân Berry Am

Brexit Party                                 0        2.0%

Nigel Farage

UK Independence Party              0        0.1%

Patricia Mountain

Other parties                               3        2.1%

            TIME magazine announced their 2019 Person of the Year—climate activist, Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg of Sweden.  The next day, the Bully In Chief (BIC) tweeted:

So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!

Donald J. Trump added,

https://twitter.com/RealRomaDowney/status/1204822160470093824

Roma DowneyVerified account @RealRomaDowney

Congrats @GretaThunberg https://twitter.com/time/status/1204743717132914688 …

4:22 AM - 12 Dec 2019

The BIC just count not stand it that the TIME editorial staff chose a 16-year-old female, over him.  He missed, again!  To put this in perspective, the BIC had some group develop a fake TIME cover with himself on it for display at his fake gold plated properties with his licensed name on them.  Well, the TIME staff chose well.  Just when we think the BIC cannot get any lower class, he proves us wrong.  You know, if the BIC was still just a self-proclaimed businessman who has repeatedly declared bankruptcy to stiff those who tried to work with him, we could marginalize and ignore him; but, we cannot.  He is the duly elected President of the United States of America; he is NOT a private citizen.  This disgusting episode is yet one more item of the gargantuan list of his conduct unbecoming the Office of the President.

            In an odd juxtaposition, the First Lady’s anti-cyber-bullying, “Be Best” campaign has remained silent regarding the 73-year-old BIC’s cyber-bullying of a 16-year-old girl.  When queried by CNN reporter Kate Bennett about the incident, the spokesperson for Melanija Knavs responded, “It is no secret that the President and First Lady often communicate differently — as most married couples do.”  She cannot call him out because he would throw her away too, like he does anyone and everyone who disagrees with him or condemns his conduct.

            After all, the BIC thinks he possesses the divine right of kings, including sovereign immunity—the king can do no wrong.  Well, he may think he is king, or a dictator, even as his tribe in the Senate persists in protecting him, but he is NOT a king!  I have faith in this Grand Republic that the bill will eventually come due for the Bully-In-Chief.

            Who’da thunk it!  I had visions of spending my retirement writing the books that excited me.  Instead, I am spending endless hours listening to congressional testimony, reading voluminous documents, and researching the basis of various elements.  I need to get back to my writing rather than this nauseating and disgusting episode in American history.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.934:

Comment to the Blog:

“We openly and publicly debate many issues.  Not calmly or rationally, but openly and publicly.

“I enjoyed Pelosi's response to the question about ‘hate’ for the Chump.  Whether or not it's an accurate statement of her feelings, it's at least dignified and clear.

“If Brexit comes up for another vote, perhaps they can be presented with a clear plan to vote on, not ‘we'll do it somehow or other.’”

My response to the Blog:

            Are you referring to the specific ‘you’ or general ‘you’?  If the latter, I don’t know how I can agree.  Watching & listening to the entire impeachment hearing today (presentation of the Intelligence Committee findings) was painful and nauseating in the extreme.  The Minority worked mightily to make it about everything other than the BIC’s conduct. There was very little debate.

            My feelings and opinion precisely.  I was impressed—strength with respect.

            We’ll see how Thursday’s UK election turns out.  At the moment, it looks like the Conservatives may take a clear majority, which may well give Johnson the leverage he needs to push his version of Brexit.  However, neither party is united with respect to the Brexit task.  I suspect, despite the election, Brexit is far from over or a done deal.

. . . Round two:

“I got hung up in the format of these emails and because I didn't use ‘you.’  I responded to your sentence beginning, ‘We don't debate . . .’ in reference (as I read it) to the United States population in general.  We do indeed debate.  Everything, at length.  Now it occurs to me that you might have referred to our elected representatives.  They debate also, although they don't agree on the questions in contention or the facts about them.  Perhaps you meant someone else.  Watching those proceedings in their entirety is beyond my capabilities.  I'll keep whatever sanity I have intact.

“History seems to turn on odd details sometimes.  In the case of Brexit, the wording of that referendum left the details open enough that voters could believe in whatever style of ‘exit’ they wished for.  That's the central mistake that's come back to haunt them.  Now we see whether the UK voters buy Boris Johnson's trumpery (prior meaning) about the Continent having to play nice because of the UK's importance.  I wish the British well and I hope they recover soon, whichever horse they bet on to carry them through their mistake.”

 . . . my response to round two:

            The beauty and curse of the second-person pronoun “you” is that it is both singular and plural—same word.  Yes, I used the first-person plural pronoun and that was by intention.  Yes, many of us debate the issues in a serious and constructive manner; however, far too many simply curse, demean, disrespect, and otherwise attempt to intimidate anyone and everyone who does not agree with their opinion—the BIC being the commander-in-chief of that segment.  My Inbox being just a minor reflection.  My concern is the disenfranchisement of those in that group.  They are American citizens just as we are.  There are real reasons they are so bloody angry and desperate.  We need to engage them as best we can.  What we witnessed with the 41 members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary on Monday was not a debate of any kind; it was tribal verbal warfare.

            You were much smarter than me.  It was like watching a train wreck; I could not turn away; I got nothing else done.  It was nauseating, disgusting, and a whole bunch of other negative emotions.  I recognize that it was a step that had to be taken to further the process, but it was a stain on the democratic principles upon which this Grand Republic has stood for 231 years against the bloodletting of the Civil War, the destruction of two world wars, the Great Depression, and the debacle of the Vietnam War era.  What we witnessed on Monday is not who we are.

            The referendum simply defined the desired end-state for those who voted, not the path to achieve the outcome; therein lies the rub.  I believe, erroneously or not, that the vote result was not the majority, only the majority of those who chose to vote.  Like you, I wish our British cousins good fortune on their journey.  Either way, I don’t think it really matters at this stage.  They need to get this tragic affair behind them.  Even a “No Deal” Brexit would be better than this festering sore.

 . . . Round three:

“The discussion of ‘you’ confuses me.  I couldn't find it in the original post or my initial comment except in the Sandburg quote.

“In the meantime, today's development is that articles of impeachment have been chosen. ‘Abuse of power’ is so vague as to be useless.  ‘Obstruction of Congress,’ on the other hand, will be debated for generations of legal scholars.  The Democrats have shot themselves (and the country) in the foot again.”

 . . . my response to round three:

            The discussion of semantics is not worth the time.  Closed.

            In a different reflection of the same issue, I am disappointed that the BIC may well get away with his blatant obstruction of justice (a felonious crime), campaign law violations (a felonious crime), ad infinitum.  The bar has been lowered (or raised depending upon one’s perspective) so low that future presidents should be referred to as temporary kings (or queens); perhaps we should drop any reference to the presidency and just call them your majesty.  This is not a criminal prosecution (hopefully that will come later after he is no longer in office).  The Republican-controlled Senate will likely declare nothing wrong here; they will formally lower the bar into the gutter.  What lays ahead for We, the People, is concerning, to say the least.  Yet, I cling to an abiding optimism in the ultimate resilience of this Grand Republic.  I hold onto my faith that we shall ultimately overcome this debacle.

 . . . Round four:

“I wish you and our nation well, but faith in human behavior is not a strong point for me.  I'll continue praying.”

 . . . my response to round four:

 “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.”

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)