He’s a Scorpio.
Anyone who ever watched old Perry Mason TV shows or Law & Order or To Kill a Mockingbird knows that all trials have evidence. And witnesses. And a judge. The travesty today in the senate lacked evidence, witnesses, but not a judge. Roberts did what he was assigned, kept the decorum, asked the senator questions, introduced who would speak – PTA type stuff.
But what was he feeling throughout a sham trial in which no evidence was presented and witnesses were denied? Was he embarrassed? Apparently not. He took that last vote with a relatively expressionless face. Oh so sorry the senate voted, we don’t want witnesses.
With Bolton’s two revelations today – from his upcoming book – why hasn’t be gone on some news shows, and vomited what he knows? C’mon, dude, you have your pick. Get in front of a mike. But I suspect these revelations are his tease – to publicize his book and to drive trump nuts.
Bolton is a Scorpio. He’s playing a Scorpio game and that means he intends to get even with trump. But first, those book sales.
The pre-orders for his book on Amazon have multiplied. And the book won’t be out until March 17. I won’t be buying it. Bolton lacked courage in the way he handled this. When he was subpoenaed by the house, he went to the courts and asked them to rule on if he could testify in spite of trump’s orders not to. But he claimed he was willing to testify before the senate if he was called. And on the day of a crucial vote, two excerpts from his book were leaked/released that were damning for trump’ defense. Trump’s lawyers mentioned it only at the end of their defense and trump himself tweeted, of course, that Bolton was lying.
So Bolton, who should have done the honorable thing by going on any news channel, did the expedient thing, tossed out a few tantalizing nuggets to sell books.
Our government isn’t just broken. It’s a total mess, chaotic. Pat Cipollone, trump’s attorney in the senate trial, was supposedly in the room when trump made that call to the Ukraine. That’s from Bolton’s book. And if it’s true, how is it legal for Cipollone to be a witness AND the defense attorney?
On Tuesday, Feb 4, trump will give the state of the union speech. This will the night before the senate will acquit him. The next nine months until the election wall feature trump at his wildest and most unpredictable and, most of the time, as just batshit crazy.
Welcome to America, home of the coward, the easily intimidated, the soulless autocrats. C’mon, Bolton. Step up to the plate apart from pushing your book. Tell us. Speak publicly. Defy that Scorpio penchant for secrecy. Become a hero.
Continued from below because it’s getting hard to read down there…
It looks like you’re finally starting to catch on to what the Dem party is doing to Bernie. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much BS going on inside that party (and the other one) it will make your head spin when you learn the rest. Start digging. That’s what I did, and it’s how I came to distrust them all so much.
On the libertarian thing, you’re confusing libertarianism (small-l) with the (capital-L) Libertarian party. They are not the same thing. Thomas Jefferson was a libertarian. Not a Libertarian. Get it? You know Tom, right? The guy who wrote the Declaration Of Independence?
And your detective work is…shall we say…lacking? The IP address you think you tied to me actually belongs to the ISP my company uses, and we’re a reseller of internet connectivity so there are at least 300,000 people who would map to that same IP address. Some things aren’t as simple as you think they are.
So I ask again, are you this rude too all your readers, or is it just me? Are you this hard to get along with in real life too? I hope not, for the sake of your family.
mackenzie, Trish. Rob isn’t being rude. He’s telling you what he thinks and believes, just as you are. I happen to agree with you about Bernie. Heard it this morning, journalists talking about how we’re “not ready” for his “radical” ideas. My response to that is that he was disenfranchised in 2016 by the DNC and he scares the establishment. My sense is that we need someone like that to beat trump.
The whole system is rigged. No outsiders allowed. Bernie is an outsider. Trump is an outsider. Both of them threaten the status quo, both of them threaten the ability of the establishment to continue the charade and maintain their power. There is only one party. The whole Dem/Repub thing is a sham. Both sides pretend to fight each other, but none of it is real. They’re all on the same side, and they’re all lying to us. No matter what you think of Trump, he’s the first step in ending this nonsense. Whoever is next – maybe Bernie – will be the next step. We need to take our country back. Not from Trump – that’s what they want you to think – we need to take our country back from them.
Trump and bernie are at opposite sides of the spectrum. I was born in Venezuela, grew up under a dictatorship, and right now, we’re at the edge of a dictatorship, all the hallmarks are there. I doubt the same thing would happen under bernie. I also feel, on another level, that trump is the country’s payback. For the countries we’ve invaded, the wars we have perpetrated, for things the IMF did to Argentina, Chile, for what we did to afghanistan, Iraq, for the way this country treated slaves and indigenous people. Trump reveals all our hatreds, all our divisions. Two months after Obama opened up Cuba for regular American tourists, we booked a trip. It had been on my bucket list for years and I was certain trump would close it off again once he was inaugurated. He did so several months later. Why? Canadians and Europeans have been traveling there for decades.
Anyway, just some of my thoughts. My hope is that as a country, we learn whatever it is we’re supposed to learn and move into something far better.
This video lays it out the American political conundrum in a pretty even-handed manner, I think. Michael Douglas.
https://vimeo.com/377465757
Is that the best you can do, make personal attacks, Mackenzie. Kind of pathetic. How about saying something positive about something. Oh, you did. you like T.J.
Jefferson was one of several founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Ironic, of course, since he was a slave holder. Odd that you overlooked that point since you are so tough on all the politicians in office today. Jefferson gets a pass because he had libertarian ideas…for white males only?
Is it not painfully clear to you yet this this whole thing has been a show? Not just the impeachment thing, I mean the entirety of our government, both Democrats and Republicans. They are all lying to us. The Democrats pretend to fight the “racist, fascist, lying Republicans”, while the Republicans pretend to fight the “socialist, communist, lying Democrats”. The reality is that both sides know they’re full of shit. This isn’t about protecting democracy, this is about protecting POWER, and making sure that those who have it get to keep it. Politics is the art of bullshit, rhetoric, and sophistry – they have no interest in fixing problems or making the country better, nor could they even if they wanted to. From their perspective, all they need to do is to find voters who are unhappy enough to channel their frustration into becoming an engine of their power, or manufacture that unhappiness when and where they can, because that’s what will fuel their re-election campaigns. All of them. Democrats and Republicans. This isn’t about Donald Trump at all – both sides are using him as a battering ram to rally the folks on their side to vote for them so they can “continue the fight”. Democrats have it easy, because they can display their hatred for Donald Trump openly, and their followers rally behind them. It’s harder for Republicans, because they have to pretend to support him publicly to keep the support of their voters, while working behind the scenes to undermine and weaken him without him or their voters becoming aware of it.
The whole witness thing with John Bolton is a perfect example of all this is action:
The Democrats didn’t really want witnesses. Their job was to convince the public that they wanted witnesses, and they did so by pretending to fight the Republicans, all the while knowing that if they got what they “wanted”, Adam Schiff and the whistleblower would have been the first ones called to testify – and neither of them could testify under oath without contradicting the other. Not to mention what it would do to Joe Biden’s campaign if he and Hunter were called to testify and didn’t have good answers to the (rather difficult, to be honest) questions they would have been asked. But pretending to fight for witnesses while knowing full well that it wasn’t going to happen, gave them exactly what they wanted: the appearance of fighting for truth and justice without the risk of actually getting what they were pretending to fight for. It was all about the optics. The Democrats just had to fight the Republicans and their “lying support of an illegitimate president” to keep the support of their voters.
Meanwhile the Republicans hid behind the notion of “protecting the office of the President” by ensuring that private conversations between the President and his closest advisers stay private, for the good of this and all future presidents. Neither side knew what information John Bolton had to offer, and nothing he could have said would really have mattered anyway. It was all about the optics. The Republicans just had to fight the Democrats and their “sham impeachment scheme” to keep the support of their voters.
It was all a show. Both sides. Just a way to rally support to one side or the other and keep those in power in power, and hopefully get that outsider Donald Trump OUT of power so they can resume business a usual. Remember, fixing the county and making it better for all is not in the best interest of ANY of them. Getting re-elected is, and rallying voters behind their “cause” is how they do that. You are being lied to. We all are being lied to. Vote every single one of them out of office in November.
I think the Democrats did indeed want witnesses, that everyone is not corrupt, although the Republicans make that call a difficult one. Adam Schiff is an honorable man and the Republicans have heard plenty from him and would never call him to the stand so he can talk some more. As for the whistleblower, everything that he/she said has been proven…and more, much more.
If you don’t like either side, as you apparently don’t,McKenzie, then go for Bernie, the last honest man standing among them, if you believe everyone in Congress is corrupt. The mainstream Dems dislike Bernie as much as the Republicans, the Never Trumpers don’t like him at all, nor do the former Republicans who hope Biden beats Trump.
Bernie is a lot like Trump, as an outsider, – a longtime socialist senator recently posing as a Dem because third party politics don’t work here. But Bernie doesn’t have the baggage of the lying corrupt Trump, who was the unindicted co-conspirator in the same trial in New York that sent his lawyer Michael Cohen to prison.
Bernie has the same values now as he did 30 years ago, and even earlier when he was a mayor in Vermont. He just might sweep right on through the primaries and throw the Democratic Party mainstream into a tizzy. Last time, they did everything they could to block him and favor Hillary. This time they’re going to have a much harder time doing that.
Still don’t believe the whole system is rigged against us? Look what just happened in Iowa. This “delay” in announcing the results because of “inconsistencies”? What they really mean by “inconsistencies” is that the guy they’ve been trying to keep from winning (Bernie) accidentally won, and they need time to figure out a way to make that unhappen. Same as when Trump accidentally won the general in 2016. The DNC is as corrupt as the GOP. They’re all in this together. There aren’t really two parties. It’s all pretend.
You have to see it.
It’s a conspiracy of incompetence in Iowa. The Russians don’t need to mess up our elections. We can do it ourselves. Actually, builds the drama, though. Mayor Pete clobbered Warren and Biden and was close to Bernie, if election gossip from Iowa is true. We’ll find out soon.
So what’s your solution, Mackenzie? Don’t just be a malcontent, what kind of revolution do you want to see?
My solution is to vote every single one of them out of office. Dems, Repubs, all of them. I’m an independent with strong libertarian streak (but the Libertarian party contains too many wackos, so that’s not an option for me either) – basically I just want the government to stay out of my life and leave me alone. I don’t trust them to do the right thing, and I don’t trust them to do it right even if they wanted to do the right thing. Hell, if this Iowa thing really is just incompetence (and I still don’t think it is), then they can’t even get that right, so why should I trust them to run the healthcare system or any other government program?
I didn’t vote for Trump, but I understand why he got elected – he’s the result of decades of abuse by both parties. He’s what happens when people get sick of being lied to by their government and choose somebody – anybody – who isn’t one of them. He wasn’t the best choice by far, but the next one will be better, and the next one after that. We need enough people to get fed up enough to vote all of them out and start over. From the president and congress on down to the local dog catcher. That’s the kind of revolution I want to see. Since you asked.
A Libertarian? Get rid of social security and Medicare, right? So you like living in the only Western Country where you can lose your home and money if you get sick? You like that insurance companies can tell you that they won’t cover you because of pre-existing conditions? I mean why should they? They are about profit, not your health. If you can’t get insurance or can’t afford it, then just die, right? It’s all about me, not we, right?
Kick the bums out, and replace them with who? A bunch of old white conservatives perhaps, who will tow the Trump line? Your solution is no solution.
WTF? Did you read what I wrote? Or were you responding to someone else?
You’re basically saying government and society sucks. None of that we stuff, it’s all about me, the call of the Libertarian.
Can you point to where I said anything like that? I said the government is lying to us. I said nothing about society. I said I’m an independent with a strong libertarian slant (note the lowercase L, which is different from the (capital-L) Libertarian party. I said I want the government to leave me alone and stop lying to me. You made the rest up. Apparently I hit a nerve that made you read stuff I didn’t write. Or something.
Are you this rude to all of your readers, or just the ones who make you think about stuff you don’t like to think about?
I simply pointed out the standard beliefs of Libertarians. If you’re going to associate yourself with the libertarian mentality, then you better accept what it mean in terms of social policies. As far as abuse, you’re projecting, Mackenzie. You’re the one whose comments have resulted in nine complaints on ABUSE IPDB, not me. Take a look for yourself, bro. That’s your IP address.
https://www.abuseipdb.com/check/199.249.230.47
Mckenzie, you’re right about the lying from all factions of govt. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz pretty much strangled Bernie.The same thing seems to be happening now. Check out shadow Inc. the company that created the app used in Iowa. Revealing.
We could use a few heros, but it just seems like America is really gone these days. I no longer have any faith at all that we have anything like a democracy any more, and Trump and company, our resident self styled Mafioso Dictator and family seem to be settling in for the long run, kind of like cancer. I guess I can hope that he’s not re-elected next year, but tyrannies don’t play by the rules, and the last election demonstrated two things: elections could be rigged, and a great percentage of the population can be easily manipulated. I think on how much our “president” admires Putin – the KBG man who was the last elected president of Russia’s brief democracy. Once he got in, that was it. No more democracy.
I hear you, Lauren. We’re in the same place.
You know, I have some Moon Landing stamps that I love, because I’m old enough to remember when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon (great film was made recently about him called “First Man”). For all the problems, and Vietnam, I was proud to be an American – the Peace Corps, the Kennedys, the access to excellent and inexpensive higher education for all (in California, especially), Civil Rights and Martin Luthor King, the arising of the new Feminism and so many incredible women writers and activists, the Environmental movement, the new spiritual paradigms and Consciousness studies…………..America, when I was young, was an incredible place to be, a place of innovation, creativity, hope. Maybe not for all, but there was a faith that things were changing into a more just world. America was a famous place for its great universities, its amazing science and technology, the artists and intellectuals and scholars who came here to learn and add to that cultural mix.
Now………..where Kennedy and FDR and Eisenhower sat, we have Trump, reality show star famous for his casinos and bankruptcies and fraudulent schemes. Where Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama sat, we have a former Russian sex worker who can barely speak English. We have nepotism and open corruption, sexual harrassment and misogyny. We have a red faced pouting barely coherant uneducated tyrant not much different than Hitler, except he lacks the intelligence of Hitler, although I feel he is easily just as sociopathic, given the chance. Suddenly journalism is “fake”, science is “fake”, artists and intellectuals are “dangerous un christian liberals”, education is given over to money making propagandists, the environment is being gleefully destroyed with no limits on those who exploit it…………..did I miss anything?
Did you ever see this brilliant clip, which was circulating around the time of Trump’s election?
https://youtu.be/nKrV_waE-Fs
I cry for the America that I grew up with. I do not know if it can ever come back in honor again. I will vote, and hope that my vote actually has any value. I am sorry to sound so grim.
Wow, Lauren. You always articulate this whole mess so well! I’m off to check out that link.