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“You break it, you own it.”

Colin Powell

“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.”

Senior US Advisor in Afghanistan

They were spread throughout the plane, perhaps a dozen of them. Before the stewardess started with the safety directions she gave them a shout out and everybody clapped. When the Captain came on to advise about the trip’s time, he also recognized them, again a round of applause. They all seemed like babies, hardly prepared for what awaited them. Yet all seemed excited to go. Parris Island beckoned.

Since 2001, when America set its sites on the Taliban after 9/11, 775,000 troops have rotated through Afghanistan. Our involvement has stretched so long, the first sons are now deploying to where their fathers’ boots also hit the ground. Think about that. I remember, as a college student, being dumbfounded how America could have been bogged down in Vietnam for so long. Our stay in Afghanistan has been near twice as long.

Many argue that the folly of invading Iraq doomed quick and enduring success in Afghanistan. The recent trove of classified material gathered by the Washington Post doesn’t support their thesis. Instead, like the Soviets before us, America’s military appears to have entered a quagmire from day one, with time and American casualties it produced the only certain measurements of failure our political and military leaders would spare no effort to sanitize and misrepresent.

It ended up being a flight from hades, Earlier in the day an American Eagle plane, the exact same model we were now on, made an emergency landing at Reagan National due to black smoke in the cabin. Between that incident and miserable weather, an operation that tests passenger patience under optimal conditions never recovered. American Eagle flight 4580 from Portland, Maine was a mere 20 minutes out from DC when our captain came on from the flight deck and notified us we were in a circling pattern because of “weather delays.” He didn’t sound particularly hopeful.

Incredibly, when he came on several minutes later he broke the news that, due to fuel considerations, if we couldn’t land within 15 minutes we would be forced to divert to Norfolk! Suddenly, a late dinner became an overnight stay three hours from home!! Needless to say, the boys heading to boot camp were not going to make their connection, and how they digested the news was very interesting and encouraging to witness. There was humor and a certain degree of fatalism as they discussed their options. One youngster demonstrated outstanding leadership skills as he went through the situations and viable options as he saw it. One could imagine them as a unit, on patrol, mapping out how to react to an enemy encounter. What was great to see was how alert and focused all were, with no agitation whatsoever; they were addressing a curveball with humor and comradeship.

If Iraq was defined by hubris, the decision making behind the US invasion of Afghanistan was impulsive and visceral. The mandate was to get even, come what may. The fact most of the 9/11 cabal were Saudis was ignored. And while perhaps no regime in the world needed to change more than the Taliban, long-range planning, which should have benefitted greatly from the lessons Soviet mistakes provided, really never seemed to be a priority. As Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general and planning “czar” within both the Bush and Obama administrations admitted: “we didn’t know what we were doing.” Yet and still, it hardly mattered; as Toby Keith bellowed, it was time to put a boot in their ass, nuff said.

Eighteen years later we remain an isolated and clueless occupier, still trying to figure out how to declare victory and leave. For our trouble we’re more than $1 trillion poorer and have lost more than 2300 of our soldiers, not to mention more than 20,000 wounded. The primary goals that framed the mission remain elusive and largely unmet. While it’s true Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist training haven, nobody is confident it won’t again become one once the remaining 13,000 Americans still in country leave. It’s government remains corrupt and primed to be toppled by the Taliban soon after a US withdrawal. Opium continues to be grown and exported at levels few would argue reflect successful US efforts at intervention.

Now the stunning collection of classified material the Post had to fight tooth and nail to obtain paints a picture of Vietnam 2.0, where spin doctors up and down the chain of command worked tirelessly at painting rosy scenarios none actually believed. There is no other way to put it: successive US administrations lied continuously to cover up failed operations in Afghanistan, without pause or concern. Hundreds of candid interviews, carried out with the promise they were off-the-record, clarify 18-years of aimless policy that never really got past the original motivation… to punish the Taliban for providing a staging area for Bin Laden.

Mercifully, Baltimore’s BWI airport agreed to allow us to divert there. Inconvenient sure, but hardly the burden of heading to Norfolk. The descent was nothing short of harrowing, the commuter plane relentlessly tossed around by the elements. The recruits joked nervously that bad luck might spare them the unpleasant chore of explaining to their DIs why they were late to camp.

While we waited on the tarmac for a gate assignment, I was struck by how not one of these kids seemed at all preoccupied by the the immense life-change they were about to face. As they discussed pursuing plan B or C to make it down to South Carolina, there was order and calm, with ideas offered and assessed. The leader who emerged earlier acted as a clearinghouse for different approaches. I counseled that sitting around BWI waiting for hours to fly 30 miles made no sense at all. My suggestion was they let the American representative know the importance of getting out quickly and book something from BWI, on another carrier if necessary. After all, this was our national security we were talking about. American helped matters by announcing before we deplaned that nothing was getting into Reagan for the next couple hours and vouchers for ground transportation to DC would be issued.

After almost two decades in Afghanistan we appear no closer to the requisites for declaring mission accomplished. Worse, it’s clear, like Vietnam, those essentials were never possible. Create a strong central government determined to resist corruption? It was never going to happen, particularly with millions of unaudited American dollars flowing through the system. As one US official put it: “petty corruption is like skin cancer… corruption within the ministries, higher level, is like colon cancer….. kleptocracy, however, is like brain cancer; it’s fatal.”

And of course for the US to withdraw, Afghan forces have to be able to defeat the Taliban insurgents on their own. Year in and year out they have not improved. Incompetent, unmotivated and “rife with deserters” has been the common assessment since the start. Afghan security forces have suffered more than 60,000 fatalities, a shocking number that US officials deem “unsustainable.” We leave and the Taliban returns; that’s an article of faith. It is a testament to our failure that our hapless President isn’t necessarily wrong about “cutting a deal” with the Taliban, unthinkable in 2001. Other than permanent occupation, few other options exist.

As I left the gate, beelining for what would be a crowded Uber stand, the future Marines were circled around the airline representative, earnestly yet respectfully pressing their situation. Walking away, I was more heartened and hopeful about America’s future than when I began the day’s journey. These young men would give their best and complain little while doing it. They were splendid in every way, our greatest resource. Who could possibly look them in the eye and tell them they have signed on to, not just a failed mission, but a folly that was doomed from the beginning? Who could be so heartless to do that? Who could be so cruel not to? The hell of it! BC

“You’ve got to live for yourself, for yourself and nobody else!”

Blues Magoos

When I was a 9-year old enjoying a Rockwellian midwest upbringing in Evanston, Ill, one of my best friends was a neighbor named Alan Kornfeld. Together we shared a love of baseball, both playing and worshiping Ernie Banks and his Chicago Cubs. Also, Alan had a full drum set in his basement that may have been his older brother’s; near 50 years clouds my recollection on the matter. What I am clear about is how well Alan could play and how futile my half-hearted attempts at learning were.

Dog day afternoons of summer were often spent in the Kornfeld basement, me watching Alan play along very competently to “Wipe Out” or, better yet, a Beatles classic or some other 45 he poached from his brother’s off-limits collection. After several songs Alan would take a break and give me a chance with the sticks, which I never took advantage of, instead struggling to even master very basic snare/cymbal combinations. Alan wasn’t a patient teacher, and usually after a couple of failed forays at rhythm, he would be looking to get the sticks back, refreshed and ready to challenge himself. I never could get the hang of it, much to my disappointment because drumming seemed to me a very cool activity.

I remember asking my mom what she thought Santa would say to a drum set for XMas; her response was immediate and certain, leaving not a speck of daylight for hope. At least I held on to the Mel Stottlemeyer model mitt I received instead for decades…. what are you going to do? My parents were loving and generous, but not masochists!

Anyway, flash forward seven or eight years to my high school days in Maryland – the family having relocated from idyllic Evanston to the then DC suburban outpost of Potomac, where extreme culture shock and the teen angst it afforded made drug use a forgone conclusion. The silver lining was live music, which went hand in hand with pot smoking and inebriation, became a priority. In neighboring Bethesda, no band was more beloved than The Nighthawks, a lunch pail blues group that loved to play for hours without any fluff or gimmicks. Nothing but the blues!

During summertime, the Nighthawks always booked a number of dates at beach clubs up and down the Delmarva coastline. Throughout my college years summers were spent in Ocean City, MD, and the season was not complete without at least a couple of Nighthawks shows. While most of the limelight went to front man Mark Wenner and lead guitarist Jimmy Thackeray, I focused much of my attention on the drummer, Pete Ragusa, whose rock solid percussion work set just the right tempo, so necessary to allow for extended guitar riffs or charismatic harmonica solos. Perhaps it dates back to my Alan Kornfeld envy, or a close college buddy who could also pound the skins with effortless authority, but there is a wonderful feeling of satisfaction one gets viewing superb drummers as they nonchalantly anchor their band’s offerings. In the early 80s, in resort hot spots like the Electric Circus or the Bottle and Cork, Pete Ragusa fully embodied such blue collar professionalism.

Trump, his wretched core, and perhaps most significantly, Fox/AM relentlessly label critics as “elites” out of touch with the basic sensibilities of flyover American patriots. To deride the grievance narrative of Trumpism is to admit benefitting from the underhanded doings of “the swamp” “our President” is draining one kept promise at a time. Hollywood, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Ivy League “safe zones”, sanctuary cities and the like, these are the outliers obstructing the MAGA agenda “real” rock-ribbed America supposedly embraces…. oh, and prays for.

This week, several academics laid out the case for impeaching Trump to the House Judiciary Committee. It was not a difficult task. Yet and still, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, always game to besmirch opponents by targeting them as worthy recipients of one MAGA gripe or another, shamelessly gulped from the “elitist” well. Attacking Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan, who gave short shrift to comical GOP presumptions about Trump’s intentions, Conway went low and exuded phony baloney self-righteousness, her usual deflection MO:

“She’s the star witness, she didn’t educate us. She spent her life lecturing people, she hobnobs with the elite…… I took out six figures worth of student loans to put myself through law school and college with my single mother working her tail off to supplement that. I resent someone like that looking down on half of America. She sounds like Hillary Clinton with the ‘deplorables.'”

All of which circles back to Pete Ragusa and the question of what our citizenry looks and sounds like after three long years of a Fox/AM Presidency. I was psyched he accepted my friend request a couple years ago. As a fan I thought it cool FB rendered a true local blues legend like him so accessible, and welcomed his posts across my news feed. Like the straight shooter I always perceived him to be, Ragusa is direct with his thoughts, often focusing on a preoccupation many share. When not employing memes to convey his feelings, Ragusa gets right to the point without mincing words:

“F**k Trump…. F**k the Republican Party!”

“F**k Trump and f**k the spineless little minions … who further his bullshit ideas of governing a nation he spits on.”

Get the picture? Ragusa, the antithesis of MAGA’s straw man “elite,” calls things as he sees them. The visceral tone he employs matches his level of concern at a situation he recognizes as critical. He refuses to ignore it, and isn’t much concerned whether people hold his vigilance against him or not. In other words, none of this is normal and he’s not going to carry on like it is. Perhaps the one word that best encompasses his approach is patriotic.

The battle for America’s soul and well being as a democratic concern continues apace. Compelling articles of impeachment based on acts the President and his chief of staff admitted to, and for good measure were fully validated by sworn testimony of most of the principles involved, have only convinced his Hill lackeys they need to talk faster and lie with more certainty. Keep throwing pasta at the wall and go with what sticks longest.

But throughout America, on the coasts or where my father liked to call “the hustings,” lines have been drawn that now fully dictate, not just how to react to facts, but disastrously what the facts are and who can and can’t be trusted to present them. One side addles our future with a shared belief that their champion, despite preferring to simply call critics names and attack their motivations instead of offering evidence to refute their claims, is the victim of continuous persecution by dark ever-expanding forces. His gibberish, dutifully sanitized and repackaged by sycophants, is always enough to assuage any doubts they have.

Fox/AM has tirelessly spun a mythology of the wretched core as a dynamic group distinguished by shared common sensibilities and stoicism they alone have held onto as the rest of the country has abandoned what made it great. Blue collar, hard working, plain spoken patriots defending our future by appreciating our glorious past…. MAGA in a nutshell.

Trumpism relies on projection, whether it’s claiming the frailties it suffers are actually what define its opponents, or taking credit for the strengths and accomplishments it had not a thing to do with. The sophistry of Hannity or Rush doesn’t change reality, it only aims to distort it, constantly repeating the same fictions. This is never more true than their relentless efforts to draw a salt-of-the-earth caricature of the prototypical Trump supporter, while defaming opponents as out of touch with the nation’s rank and file.

All of this is now on display at perhaps the most critical crossroads in our history, when freinds and neighbors are faced with choosing sides, considering what they desire in a fellow traveler. Of course, it should be an easy decision. But allow me to help if you’re uncertain. You want direct and stoic and accountable, a portrait of citizens we can take heart in; the last place you want to look is at a Trump rally or deplorable FB thread. Give me a Pete Ragusa any day! BC

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

Thomas Aquinas

In many ways, perhaps even in its most important aspects, America is a religion. And like any other theological discipline, for the exercise to be fulfilling and meet its lofty expectations, adherents must always mix a great deal of patience with an abiding faith that all is possible.

If US democracy rests upon and is perpetuated by religious components like, for example, being constantly informed by its bible – the Constitution – then it seems logical the practice of its tenets must be guided by the devout citizenship they require. To consistently offer less makes one more secular and not guided as much by the preoccupations more rigorous practitioners entertain and act upon. I suppose at some point enough of a dearth of care or concern amounts to blasphemous abandonment of the entire enterprise. Yet and still, through it all there must exist faith… good faith.

Faith can be lost in any number of ways and in all proportions. One can be a Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman and, after discovering the father you adore is capable of infidelity, lose all hope about what the future holds with one crushing disappointment. Germany required a disastrous war and a draconian peace to reach the abyss all the world would regret. Or perhaps it’s a thousand cuts that does the job instead of a single epiphany, a Watergate here, a Monica Lewinsky there. Maybe days and nights on end of Rush and Bill O’Reilly. Who knows?

Either way, without faith one becomes rudderless and begins to also lose hope. If hope is merely the promise of a better day, losing faith means a growing belief that day won’t come. Bad faith is when one couldn’t care less if it doesn’t. Millions of Americans now feel this way about their government and its institutions. Worse, they empower one of the principle custodians of our national life, the Republican Party, who now abjectly fails to lead them to a better place, instead consciously opting to wallow within their mire. This is an existential crisis to our church of democracy.

Another critical manner our political system resembles a religious narrative is the binary choice it offers between good and evil, heaven and hell. Winston Churchill addressed this lack of options succinctly when he averred democracy was the worst system he knew of, except all of the others. Whatever warts pluralist government suffers, the alternative is blight. Many a national story reflects the difficulty of getting back to the light once its flock has wandered too far over to the dark side. The purgatory of authoritarianism can be long indeed. Atonement for the sins a mob can bestow is not so simple, redemption can take generations.

In the mid-60s England elected socialist Harold Wilson as Prime Minister and many believed he would destroy the nation. The Crown on Netflix is about as good as historical drama gets, and season three devotes an entire episode to what is aptly titled “coup”. While some liberties with the actual record are taken, the episode couldn’t be more instructive to our current situation.

Wilson’s Labor Government faces economic crisis as trade imbalances and deficits force a devaluation of the pound. After being sacked by Wilson as Chief of Defence, Royal family member Lord Mountbatten is wooed by a cabal of bankers plotting to overthrow Wilson and asked to head an emergency cabinet. Mountbatten, ever the preparer, plunges into study of history’s long list of government overthrows, concluding the most critical element to success is public legitimacy, which only Queen Elizabeth can provide.

When the Queen is informed of the plot there is never a doubt as to her position; the scene in which she takes her uncle to task seems tailor made as a foil to our predicament right now. Mountbatten beseeches her to appreciate the incompetence and danger Wilson’s government poses. The Queen is having none of it and declares her obligation is firmly to the democratic process, as bad as Wilson may be, there is an electoral remedy around the corner. And so the coup is strangled in its crib.

No doubt many a present-day Trump normalist will take heart in the show’s conclusions, which reinforce the viewpoint that patience and faith in our system is all that is required. Better days will surely be delivered by the American electorate. Until then, keep the faith. The church of democracy will sustain itself. Sadly, it’s become easy to doubt such hope precisely because it fails to take into account how damaged near half our congregation has become, how close so many are to disqualifying themselves from US democracy’s essential prerequisites.

While it’s surely true Trump offers incompetent corruption like we’ve never seen it; the fouling of his followers’ beliefs is what really accents his menace. Trump is Fox/AM’s Howard Beal, its minister of hopeless anger, of dystopian cynicism. Harold Wilson believed in his form of government, and the process that would elevate or ruin him, so did the Royal Sovereign. What does Trump believe in? A question with less than inadequate answers, previously unthinkable for an American President. Trumpism’s false prophecy is the delusion that “nothing,” defined as undoing the tyranny of progress, beats whatever we’ve done before and will suffice for what we’ve yet to do.

That’s the heart of it. That’s what faithless looks like, what hopeless faithlessness embodies. When millions can no longer believe in a system’s ability to promise better days, and don’t care to even consider the premise as history, current event or future aspiration, they turn to idols instead. Despair is hope’s greatest challenger and mankind’s gravest threat. With it the dark side beckons; it’s beckoning now…. from an East Wing couch, in between Fox and Friends and rounds of golf. BC

”And when you lose control, you reap the harvest you have sown.”

Pink Floyd

In 2010 a bloc of US voters steeped in grievance and confident, after two years of constant exhortations by Fox/AM that their hatred of America’s first black President was based on his bigotry not theirs, ushered in a wave of new dead-ender lawmakers. The Tea Party claimed to be guided by deep rooted, common sense principles dating back to American Independence. In fact, they were the first incarnation of a new American nihilism, devoted almost exclusively to tribal animosity and viscerally opposed to bipartisanship. Forget Paine or Jefferson, this group took its cues from Limbaugh and Beck. The GOP class of 2010 was a doozy, and surely haunts us today.

Eighty-four freshman entered the House chamber in January of 2011, About one in three GOP House members was green as grass. Mick Mulvaney was one, Mike Pompeo another. But as notable as these reactionary rookies of 2011 were, more important were the Fox/AM veterans, heretofore insignificant back benchers, whose stature was elevated as they suddenly gained seniority. Overnight, Palinite show horses like Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Tom Price and Kevin McCarthy were moved up the ladder as Republicans took back House control. Suddenly they were old hands, with dozens of political neophytes, many elevated by extremist campaign themes, looking to them for help learning the ropes, and fully willing to follow their lead regarding legislation. Moreover, their committee seats moved several positions closer to the center of the dais, ensuring more than just five-minute time blocks at the end of the line for inane ramblings; they would no longer be ignored. After all, aimless talk was their specialty.

In 2015 the Freedom Caucus was christened. Its creation reflected an ominous surge by those less interested in working at the hard job of governing than simply complaining in front of cameras and blocking legislation they weren’t certain would be embraced by the extremists at home. Jordan would state the group’s aim was to be “more cohesive, more agile and more active,” code words for the club’s corrosive hyper-partisanship.

The Heritage Foundation had by now lurched hard right and, along with the Republican Study Committee on the Hill, became a sweat shop for what passed as the intellectual underpinnings for a full range of far right positions on issues from minority “dependence” on welfare to the “hoax” of climate change to the wonders of supply side economics. What developed was a loop between Fox/AM, corporate lobbyists, right wing academics and the GOP to produce talk tracks all would repeat ceaselessly. Truth and inconvenient facts were. as a rule, avoided.

By 2015 the GOP leadership realized it should have been more careful what it wished for. While its full embrace of the Tea Party had regained it majority status, it was clear the bloc they now relied on to govern as a party had little interest in actually governing. The constituents Tea Party do-nothings answered to took their cues not from Speaker of the House John Boehner, or even the more obtusely partisan Mitch McConnell in the Senate; no, they had learned their civics at Mark Levin’s knee, and constructive compromise had become a synonym for RINO.

The primary difference between Boehner and the new Freedom Caucus would become the defining foundation of Donald Trump’s wretched core of support. Both Boehner and the nihilists were united in giving corporations, particularly those of the energy sector galvanized against global Climate Change initiatives, everything they wanted. Both were deficit hypocrites, who never met a farm or oil subsidy they didn’t love or a tax cut that wasn’t heaven blessed. But where Boehner used culture war grievance as a political tool to advance his primary agenda, the Fox/AMers owed it their existence. Boehner was fine with lip service to tropes, Jim Jordan and Tom Price walked the walk, regardless of consequence to the national interest or the groups they constantly marginalized; it was their ugly mission statement. After Boehner was forced out by those who viewed him as much an opponent as Obama himself, he provided a frank assessment of the Freedom Caucus:

“They can’t tell you what they’re for. They can tell you everything they’re against. They’re anarchists. They want total chaos. Tear it all down and start over. That’s where their mindset is.”

Paul Ryan, who would make the professional mistake of his life by deciding to replace Boehner, received the same treatment despite his close connection to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and his budget purity bona fides. When he was similarly driven from office, Ryan appeared shell-shocked; wasn’t I just yesterday the party’s future?! What the hell happened? What occurred was, again, nihilist jackals bayed against governance, equating any effort to solve problems or even express a party position on issues as heresy. In the end, both Boehner and Ryan were faced with either working with Democrats or allowing manufactured crises like the debt ceiling or extended government shutdowns to define their legacy.

As it rapidly became clear Trump’s candidacy was gaining traction, House nihilists jumped on board. While GOP Senators struggled with allegiances to colleagues and political sensibilities they fully understood Trump ran directly against, the Duncan Hunters (CA) and Chris Collins (NY), both coincidently -or maybe not – now facing criminal corruption charges, didn’t hesitate. By the time Sean Hannity was in the bag, most all of the Freedom Caucus was well on its way. Sure, some still had competitive general elections that required a bit more muted support of Trump, but when he actually won, all were ready to become MAGA apostles. The rest is ruinous history.

In retrospect it is tragically comical any hopes the GOP could be relied on to check Trump’s worst inclinations were ever entertained. Any meaningful audit taken of the 2016 House GOP never supported such optimism. While Trump opponents cheered 2018’s romp by Democrats as they took back House control, fact is it finished the job the Tea Party started back in 2010. The Republican Party has been completely purged. Forget moderates, there now is virtually no Republican member of Congress who doesn’t consider bipartisan a political slur.

The announced retirements of isolated outliers like Will Hurd and Peter King complete the extinction event. The GOP House Caucus is now wholly a Fox/AM creation, prepared to follow Trump down whatever drain he circles. Anybody who doubts that need only look at the President’s long list of retweets echoing the “sham” of impeachment and the “lies” of House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff – McCarthy, Scalise, Nunes, Jordon, Meadows, Collins, etc. ….there are no exceptions left.

The shameful unity on nationally televised display by House Intelligence Committee Republicans should come as no surprise to anyone paying close attention to the party’s devolution over the last decade. One of the more ironic political talking points of this generation is the GOP trope that America simply wants Congress to “just get back to the business of government carrying out the people’s business.” That’s an activity few if any who now constitute the House Republican caucus ever had any interest in trying. Defending a nihilist President against a continuous stream of facts that clarify his guilt has always been far more up their alley. Perhaps the clearest shade of ruin. BC

Perhaps no concept is more central to understanding the former Soviet system of totalitarianism than the apparatchik. The parallel deployment of party overseers to keep an eye on every facet of government activity defined what evolved in Russia beginning with the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Both the clear line in the sand between civil servant necessary to make the trains run on time and party politicos there to make certain nothing counterrevolutionary went unnoticed, and the unspoken understanding apparatchiks generally had the final word, was the steroid required to distinguish Soviet despotism from run-of-the-mill authoritarians.

Indeed, throughout the Cold War the good faith and bipartisan confidence succeeding Presidential administrations afforded to careerists who constituted American bureaucracy provided the unarguable contrast of democracy’s superiority to what diplomat and historian George Kennan labeled the Kremlin’s “jealous preoccupations.” In fact our ability to vanquish the exceptions to this rule, most notably McCarthyism, have only strengthened our appreciation for it. Many now understand old Joe McCarthy could learn a few things from Donald Trump about baselessly attacking career public servants. What’s playing out in the House’s impeachment inquiry is a struggle to turn back a principle tenant of our first Fox/AM Presidency: that government is inherently incompetent and corrupt, requiring a political class to “drain the swamp” and ensure MAGA priorities are carried out despite the fact many contradict the mission statements of the departments they now infect.

Taylor, Kent, Yovanovitch, Vindman, Morrison all have testified to how jarringly irregular the Trump scheme to extort Ukrainian cooperation against Joe Biden was. From the moment EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland clumsily inserted himself into the policy stream Kyivgate has fully embodied Trumpism’s seditious war against the professional class US governance has always nurtured and depended on. These impeachment hearings clarify what anyone paying attention ascertained near three years ago, a Trump Presidency can only be a clash between the nihilist rabidity that propelled his candidacy and the steady competence of careerists with a job to do.

Sondland was merely a Soviet-style apparatchik, a prototype of what a Fox/AM Presidency seeks to deploy throughout US society, not only at the federal but state and local levels as well. From his first incursions into US-Ukraine relations Sondland made sure everyone with skin in the game knew he was a Trumpie, with direct authorization from the man himself to bend whatever continuity existed to White House whims. However things had been done, whatever best practices and communication flows had been established, would not be recognized if they became obstacles to White House objectives. As Taylor made clear, once Sondland got involved there became two US policies which almost immediately forced a choice of allegiance on the professionals, as they were now forced to participate in what they knew wasn’t either normal or appropriate. Guiliani was watching.

GOP House Intelligence Committee members last week found themselves in the unenviable position of either attacking the credibility of exemplary public servants or tacitly accepting the obvious: an open and shut case of impeachable extortion against a foreign country for the purpose of corrupting the 2020 US Presidential election. This dilemma was heightened still further when, as she was testifying, the POTUS actually tweeted out an attack against the ambassador he fired without cause. What to do?

The pasta they decided stuck most to the wall was to argue it is a President’s prerogative to be preoccupied with disloyalty, domestic or foreign. Executive intrigue eclipsing pesky things like the national interest is not for career foreign service officers to consider. Stick to your pay grade. Indeed, Republican Counsel Stephen Castor spent much of his time fleshing out conspiracy narratives in an effort to somehow create empathy for Trump’s grievance and paranoia of Ukraine as one of his original haters. Witnessing both Taylor and Kent struggle to follow along felt surreal and clarified the chasm between institutional competence and Fox/AM chaos, rationality and the fantasy martyrdom Trump always seeks to embrace when attacking institutions tasked with checking his recklessness.

The race to the bottom by Fox personalities is always neck and neck; lately the leader is Greg Gutfeld. Caustically nasty and utterly inane, to feel anything more substantive than a pressing desire to get back however many minutes of life one just wasted watching the shrill imp’s tired routine, requires checking even trace thoughtfulness at the remote. Yet and still, Gutfeld’s toxicity toward Marie Yovanovitch this weekend was illuminating, and perfectly illustrated this President’s reign of ugly vindictiveness. “Boo hoo,” Gutfeld taunted referring to the former ambassador’s testimony. The entitled snowflake had it coming… good for Trump. It’s us against them, and we know which one she is. Good riddance. You’re fired!

Any hesitation believing Gutfeld’s venom didn’t reflect the President’s thinking to the last wretched syllable wouldn’t survive a glance at his Twitter feed, where he proudly retweeted Rush Limbaugh’s take on Trump versus careerists. Rushbo gushed he had never supported Trump more than during last week’s proceedings:

“You elected Donald Trump to drain the Swamp, well, dismissing people like Yovanovitch is what that looks like. Dismissing people like Kent..and Taylor, dismissing everybody involved from the Obama holdover days trying to undermine Trump, getting rid of those people, dismissing them, this is what it looks like. It was never going to be claen (sic) they were never going to sit by idly and just let Trump do this!”

The articles of impeachment against Trump practically write themselves, and like his idiotic real time attack against Yovanovitch exemplified, he is far too unhinged to sweat adding to the list as he goes. But underwriting everything the Democrats do must be a clear understanding what’s most endangered by this atrocious Presidency…. the competence and integrity of US government institutions reflected in the ability of qualified careerists to do their jobs, free of apparatchiks looking for disloyalty to MAGA’s nihilism.

It’s an established fact the White House has no talent pool or even a functioning process to replace the exodus of qualified professionals hightailing it for no other reason than who is now President. A burgeoning class of Trumpie tattletales looking over the shoulders or outright excluding career professionals from policy and its execution portends disaster for the nation’s future as, forget world leader or even adequate provider of basic services, but a going democratic concern as well. House Republicans, in their defense of the President’s wretched Ukrainian scheme, are making clear that’s not a concern to them…. maintaining power, even if it requires the Sovietization of American government is just another consequence of Decision 16’….. get over it. That’s how ruin proceeds and four more years is not sustainable. BC

Mark Twain once said a half-truth is the most cowardly of lies. Never was a group more determined to define themselves by that insight than the Republicans of the House Intelligence Committee yesterday. Were it only so that full throated, 100 percent deceit could somehow be a badge of courage, then they would have more than nullified their abject cowardice by hearing’s end. Throughout the day, within the full spectrum of rank GOP dishonesty was the kind of overt disgrace that always accompanies authoritarian impulse…..kabuki in service to absurdity.

To find more impressive and unimpeachable witnesses than William Taylor and George Kent one would have to take pen to paper with Twain’s talent for creating characters. There was Taylor, the distinguished war hero and consummate diplomat, and Kent, seemingly his younger protege with an encyclopedic grasp on protocol and procedure. Both are trained professionals at saying exactly what they mean to convey, and nobody was in a position to question their veracity.

Devin Nunes went a step further, however, and attacked their motivations. With facts replaced by Hannity fever dreams, Nunes insulted both witnesses, contending they “auditioned” in secret hearings and were part of a “media orchestrated smear campaign” along with other “partisan bureaucrats.” Whatever the truth may be, unless it somehow can be connected with the Steele dossier and Fusion GPS, Nunes isn’t interested. His special gift is clarifying exactly what a lawmaker in full service to or possibly just as compromised as Trump acts like. Look at Nunes’ manic eyes and there always seems to be fear, as if he’s certain they’re coming for him. His opening statement employed Trump’s dependable “hoax” standby, a term even his most servile spin meisters avoid.

Perhaps as recently as just 10 years ago Nunes would have been the committee’s nutty outlier whose five minutes would have come and gone with a bipartisan eye roll; now he’s the ranking member and set the ugly tone for his colleagues to emulate. It’s both ironic and significant Nunes nonsensically charged the committee with auditioning its witness list because that’s exactly what each and every Republican was doing with their time. Whether for Trump or the wretched core back home, it hardly matters; coming up with new shades of lipstick to apply to their pig was the paramount aim of each. And make no mistake, this swine needs whatever edge cosmetics can provide.

The case is open and shut, as both Taylor and Kent’s “hearsay” testimony laid out. The President dispatched Rudy Guiliani and Gordon Sundland to extort a newly elected leader to dig up dirt on a principle domestic political opponent, shocking foreign service professionals they enlisted, who made clear today they had never seen the like before and considered the scheme an outrageous act at odds with US national interests. Moreover, both witnesses testified Vice President Biden’s efforts to press Ukrainian officials to up their anti-corruption game was a legitimate part of established US policy designed to bolster the nation’s law and order institutions, apples and oranges compared to Trump’s quid pro quo duplicity.

Like the entire Mueller saga, GOP questioning starts with a buffet of options that each member selects from. A little “does or doesn’t the Ambassador work at the pleasure of the President?” here, and a little “but you have never even met with the President, right?” there. A bit of “it really all boils down to the call, this piece of paper” here, and a spoonful of “I move that we subpoena the whistleblower” there. Yet and still, nothing they choose contains any meat for their defense. Everything is a side order meant to fill the proceedings with empty carbs, which hopefully will make everyone forget the main course.

The stunning surreality of the Republican counsel using much of his 45-minute time allotment to parse ridiculous internet conspiracy brought to life by, first Sean Hannity, and then his biggest fan, our POTUS, for serious public servants without a notion of what he was talking about, perfectly illustrated the perilous cliff our governance teeters at. It was a tale of two counsels, one focused on facts and timelines, the other on staccato gibberish designed only to elicit a pregnant pause from the witnesses, which could later be sold by Fox/AM as a gotcha exchange, proof of Trump’s noble intentions. And what to make of rabid dog for hire Jim Jordon? It gets increasingly harder to witness his unhinged antics without immediately conjuring Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle… “you talking to me.?!”

To be as fair as one can be navigating a sea of bad faith, Joe Biden has a problem he can’t ignore. Kent in particular was frank and even a bit expansive on the corrupt history of Barisma and its ownership. While making clear Biden’s actions as VP were only informed by established US policy, Kent had no issue agreeing that Barisma was part and parcel of Ukraine’s panoply of bad actors. That Biden’s son was game to take a paycheck from them, and his dad had nothing more to say than “I hope you know what you’re doing” is a legit issue voters should consider. What it’s not is an excuse or justification for Trump’s two-bit extortion racket.

The Republicans today have the same problem they had back in the summer of 2016, their wretched core base wants nothing to do with anything thoughtful or intelligent, experienced or constructive. Before Election Day 2016 they figured a lopsided loss would wipe the slate clean and permit recalibration, perhaps lead their followers for a change. Trump’s impossible victory offered a deal with the devil they were all glad to make: power for raw undisciplined populism, complete with fully erratic and egocentric behavior. Most thought White House handlers could offset the bargain’s worst elements; yesterday’s hearing is yet another appalling confirmation of how wrong they were. Worst of all, though, is the reality, fully clarified every other five-minute interval, that the devil’s agreement has reconfigured its recipients, now they embrace its worst and dutifully attend to the results. Another shade of ruin. BC

The other day I picked up my wife and son from Reagan National and on the way home we decided to stop by The Italian Store, which offers perhaps the best Italian sub anywhere. My son Luke came to the counter with me and I ordered several menu items, which a nice young man began to make. Luke has autism and began to …Er, act autistic, bouncing around with little care as to conventional decorum. My teenaged sandwich maker took notice and asked politely if perhaps Luke had autism. I said yes and he offered a knowing smile. “My older brother has autism he confided, sometimes he acts kind of the same way.” Think about that. Some random kid making me sandwiches had been touched by the condition just as directly as I have. Of all the gin joints…..What are the odds? Sadly, way too good!

So many of the challenges America faces in the coming years are going to call for collective patience and empathy. Start with the disabled community. The autism epidemic ensures an unprecedented influx of adults who will require support and outside intervention their entire lives. When their parents and other family members pass on, so many will be alone and at the mercy of whatever safety nets we have created for them.

And speaking of parents, America is right now welcoming baby boomers into their golden years. With medicine and technology pushing forward life expectancies, the next few decades are going to challenge our children’s tender mercies and literally put our well being in their hands. Seniors without children are going to be alone as they give way to dependence on others. How will they be treated? Many in both of these vulnerable groups will be poor and unable to pay for the assurance of attention and care. Where will it come from? It’s going to require more than our best intentions; there is going to be a financial sacrifice to it, not to mention the collective patience to tolerate those with little left on offer but their faltering efforts to meet society’s expectations.

What about our veterans? After a generation of continuous war and occupation, we now have thousands returning home with an entire range of injuries, PTSD to brain damage. They served bravely and deserve the best care, and many will rely on it the rest of their lives. All agree it isn’t up for discussion, but as the years pass and resources tighten their level of care will surely come down to our collective compassion.

As the nation’s overcrowded prison system releases men sentenced to decades at the height of American justice’s “zero-tolerance” golden days, they, too, will be defenseless and most likely without funds just as their bodies and health begin to fail. Who will advocate for them? What slice of the pie will voters allocate them as they struggle after adulthoods regimented by institutional life? And on and on, the list is long and getting longer. Fact is, the tidal wave of adults at least partly dependent on the better nature of the rest of society will intertwine with every other facet of American life and governance; nobody will be able to ignore them.

The GOP since Reagan has held fast to the premise that our politics should be divorced from our better natures. Charity should be in the heart of every individual and not mandated by the state. Public policy should proceed on the maxim our better angels exist and can be counted on. Of course this presumption is at odds with the Hobbesian foundation of conservatism; that mankind is at our core fairly malevolent and, as a guiding rule, in need of structure to impel law and order. But no matter, consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds and all that.

What counts is that for near 40 years Republicans, whether informed by the Reagan Revolution, or HW Bush’s “a thousand points of light,” or W Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” held fast to the notion of compartmentalization of America’s goodness. One could be a John Kasich-like deficit hawk, prepared to make tough-love cuts to social programs, yet willing and able to step in with private largesse to fill the void. If one received a dollar for every time disgraced Fox prime timer Bill O’Reilly averred “we are the most generous people on Earth,” a substantial slush fund could be amassed.

Whatever confidence one could once muster that friends and neighbors who supported otherwise Scroogian political platforms went about life’s routines exhibiting essentially the opposite inclination toward those in need, surely has been decimated. Even the most ardent proponent of the necessity for segmentation of political and private sensibilities must surely be disheartened by what MAGA proponents are willing to, not simply look past, but enthusiastically cheer on. Forget the indifferent callousness of Trumpism’s policy agenda, the ability to abide their champion’s atrocious personal behavior should lead any discerning person to doubt a Republican’s commitment to the least of these on any level.

Education secretary Betsy DeVos smirking at lawmakers as she postured what a hard call cutting funding for Special Olympics was – something no Administration before this one even gave a moment’s consideration to – was a stunner, but quickly passed into the chaos of another news cycle. When Trump openly mocked a Washington Post reporter’s disability on the campaign trail it was rightfully seen as an unthinkable breach of established standards for decency, but it too faded as MAGA partisans shrilly declared our own eyes couldn’t be trusted. Ditto credible recollections of the President’s disdain for poor “shit hole” countries and the refugees they create.

This particular news round up features perhaps the ugliest evidence yet of Trump’s despicable nature. To settle a suit brought against the Trump Foundation a New York judge ordered the President to make good on $2 million worth of fraud his charity perpetrated on those naive enough to believe anything with the Trump name abided legitimacy. Back in January of 2016 Trump made a point of boycotting a GOP debate and holding a veterans fundraiser. Where did the donations go? According to the settlement, which Trump accepted, everywhere but to veterans. From using donations for political purposes to settling civil disputes to, incredibly, actually obtaining a portrait of himself to hang in the bowels of Mar-A-Lago…. no abuse seemed too outrageous.

The White House response? A typical Trump screed, completely ignoring the case itself and lying repeatedly about what the judgement entailed, and of course whining about the Clinton Foundation. By the usual sorry Trump numbers. Regardless, the gist of the suit’s resolution could not be clearer: as recently as 2016 the POTUS was actively scamming disabled veterans out of donations to their welfare. That is a fact.

MAGA sympathizers are flummoxed by what they now label as gratuitous “hate” they receive from “never Trumpers.” For the life of them they can’t understand why the traditional walls between politics and personal relationships are now suddenly being breached. Many a meme now circulates pleading for civility and perspective. Hey, it’s just politics…, quit being sore losers! It’s so unfair to make us suffer for our grievance and resentment. Trump has fully passed down his narcissistic victimhood to wretched core supporters. They deserve nothing but deaf ears.

Nobody sets out to think less of their friends and fellow citizens. What piece of mind can be achieved with the understanding many of your peers lack basic compassion? Yet and still, nasty self-absorption, antonymous to empathy and understanding, is a primary MAGA component. Go to most any Fox/AM thread and you’ll find boastful declarations about looking out for number one at the expense of the more vulnerable. Those in need are fraudsters, reliance a vice to be scorned. Who can take any satisfaction in that? But ignoring it can’t be an option or it becomes normal.

A vile bully, who instinctively mocks any weakness he detects in others, occupies the White House. The notion supporting such a disgrace shouldn’t taint one’s standing with peers seems as dense as Trump himself. As he daily spirals to deeper and deeper depths, the willingness of his supporters to shrug their shoulders, or worse, try to revise the record becomes ever less tolerable. The suggestion it’s just a difference of opinion politics typically creates, part and parcel of democratic life, is no longer simply oblivious, it’s willful ignorance on its best day.

The world we want to see is reflected in our politics; our governance can’t be some hobby or sidelight….. especially now. In the past there was more than enough moral ambiguity within the differences of our two major parties to permit one’s choice exemption from scrutiny as to good faith and best intentions. Now there isn’t. Trump and his customized GOP have obliterated any previous benefit of the doubt. What once could rightly be seen as self-righteous and judgmental intrusion, has become a modicum of civic responsibility, a shred of common decency. The President’s ceaseless preening about the economy aside, it’s the people who depend on us, stupid! BC

At about 5:00 PM on April 12, 1945 President Franklin Roosevelt died. Anyone close to Roosevelt could not have been shocked by the news. In fact, looking at photos of FDR during the last year of his life, including famous images of him with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, one marvels at the collective delusion exhibited toward Roosevelt’s inevitable mortality; the man had simply not been at all well.

Yet and still, on the fateful day he succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage it seems none was more surprised than the man who would succeed him. As all who mattered rushed to the White House to oversee the empowerment of a new POTUS, Truman sat “looking dreadful…. absolutely dazed,” according to biographical accounts. Taking the oath, Truman would later ruminate, he felt the “moon, the stars, and all the planets” had just fallen on his shoulders. Regardless how much previous thought Truman had given to FDR’s demise, it’s clear when the time came he was, at least for a while, a deer in the headlights. And why not? America hadn’t had another President in more than a decade, and the world was at war, a conflict yet to be fully decided by any stretch.

Fortunately, there were good men available to advise Truman and help develop a White House decision making process. Truman, was as well read as any President ever to serve, but he knew what he didn’t know, particularly after being near fully shut out by FDR from inner circle war planning. Luckily there was Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, who Truman recognized for the great statesman he was, and whose advice the new President was not shy to seek and consider.

Later, Truman would appoint Marshall Secretary of State, where he would be responsible for the Marshall Plan, one of the great US foreign policy achievements. Early on, however, it was merely the understanding Marshall and other able advisors were available for counsel that afforded Truman the critical confidence and well being to take on the plethora of momentous challenges he immediately faced. One can only shutter at how different history may have been if Truman had not been up to the task he suddenly inherited, if he had been too insecure and arrogant to cultivate wisdom from the braintrust available to him.

It’s a certainty Donald Trump was at least as startled when he became President as Truman was in the spring of 45’. By all accounts, nobody within the leadership of the Trump campaign, least of all the candidate himself, expected to prevail three years ago. As Election Day neared, Trump rallies were more him hissing about a “rigged system” that would ensure his defeat than any plans for a presidency. Indeed, to hear Trump “campaign” in Decision 2016’s homestretch was to absorb all of the whiney conspiratorial grievance and resentment MAGA had represented from day one. The feeling was it would simply continue as a central part of Fox/AM’s post-election sedition. Nothing is more ironic within the ever expanding slew of Trump outrages than the projection to those considering his overt corruption the “sour grapes” diatribes he was honing to a fine edge before snow fell in hell and he won.

There is a great picture of the Trump inner circle looking at television monitors as the impossible was playing out. While all look flabbergasted at what’s unfolding, the winner looks horrified, crestfallen at the cruel karma his hubris had created. Suffice it to say, Truman could not have looked more “dreadful” than our President-elect felt at that moment. Unfortunately for all of us, Trump never enjoyed access to the nation’s best and brightest, and moving into the final year of his term, it couldn’t be clearer this President only feels threatened and aggravated by counsel he makes no effort at all to digest.

All of which brings us to the last man standing in the West Wing with any sort of relationship at all to the purgatory between Trump’s unhinged impulses and the levers of government responsible for somehow translating them to practical policy. Saying Mick Mulvaney is no George Marshall is like saying Boone’s Farm Apple isn’t a Chateau Lafite Rothschild; Marshall would have thought twice about entrusting Mulvaney his sandwich order, but here we are. It’s comical to hear MAGA minions in Congress claim the President is focused on his policy agenda. Anybody with eyes and a twitter feed knows this is nonsense and looming impeachment completely obsesses Trump. To that end, Mulvaney is mobilizing his troops to go to war against House investigators, refusing any and all requests for cooperation.

Mulvaney’s impact on DC bureaucracy is as vast as any in the White House. After all, he currently holds three jobs. In addition to chief-of-staff, Mulvaney also still heads Office of Management and Budget, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all of his concerted efforts to fully destroy the latter notwithstanding. Word now is that Mulvaney loyalists at OMB like Russell Vought will stonewall Democrats as they piece together the mechanics of placing a hold on near a half billion dollars of military aid previously authorized for Ukraine.

Of course, Mulvaney, himself, admitted publicly during a news conference the aid had been held as a lever to pressure the Zelensky government to follow Trump wishes. Mulvaney declared without hesitation such actions were near routine, nothing at all worth a second thought. “Get over it” was the advise he had for reporters at the time. The contortions he subsequently went through to walk his prattle back, amid rumors he had sealed his fate on the way to becoming a former Trump lackey, confirmed chaos in the West Wing about which narrative to follow. Nothing new there.

What is new and increasingly ominous is the incredible idea that Trump may actually shut down the government later this month as part of his continuing tantrum against impeachment. Nobody believes for a second, the President came up with that one by his lonesome…. all roads point to Mulvaney. What better way to get back in Trump’s good graces than come up with out-of-the-box scorched-earth militancy? There is a reason Mulvaney is reviled by most who regret having to share his company; this idea illustrates why. It is at once as servile and gratuitously nasty as imaginable. What’s next? We’ll give San Francisco a little taste of a tactical nuke if Shifty doesn’t back off?

The battle lines in the White House are clearly drawn, the litmus test for loyalty unmistakable: you either cooperate with investigators or you tell them to get bent. As for shutting down the government, that’s always been in Mulvaney’s wheelhouse. As a Freedom Caucus backbencher, then Congressman Mulvaney was perhaps the most reliable yea on the Hill when it came to budgetary gridlock. Now he can furlough government workers just in time for the holidays as a foolproof way of insuring his own job security. What would George Marshall have said?! ….. “Son, are you sure you’re up to this? Last time you got me pastrami instead of corned beef. Maybe you better write it down.” Another ugly tint of ruin! BC

Historians and political scientists are scrambling to provide real-time academic terms and definitions for what currently ails our polity here in America. Those looking for solace search ardently for previous precedents in our national timeline, the better to assure we have faced this before and survived to tell the tale. Yet and still, the further down our current road we travel, the more difficult that task becomes.

Those who talk aimlessly about the prospect of civil war surely don’t appreciate the trials the last one created. And few would dispute that only the protection two oceans afforded at that particular moment in human technological development prevented foreign incursions seeking to capitalize on our cannibalism. Whatever another such conflagration would look like, it’s a sure bet our adversaries are in a better position to manipulate it for their purposes. But, histrionics aside, where do we really stand on the spectrum of national dissolution? After all, whatever our current plight, nobody around DC let it keep them from game 7 and World Series glory…. did they?

“Regime cleavage” is one of those preposterously obscure terms only a poly sci major with nightmares of mid-terms past or present would recognize. In a nutshell it refers to an erosion of respect of/concern for a governmental system’s foundations and established practices by a significant bloc of citizens and leaders who convey their will. Yesterday’s straight party line House vote on the next phase of impeachment fully clarified a GOP within the throes of such inclinations, stridently equating the rule of law with leftist intrigue, and setting forth competing elements that cloud our civic horizon.

The pattern for Republican ingestion of and steady immersion by Trump’s incessant disdain for any sort of established propriety has been predictable and wholly unsatisfactory since the toxic launch of his campaign back in 2015. Now, however, it has metastasized into outright servile homage, where anything other than unquestioned support of his rabid sedition is seen as apostasy. Early on the routine had four main steps: first shock and measured criticism; then deflection of the act by attacking the Democratic response; next creating equivalence for the act and asserting the other side does it as well; finally, forgetting about the whole thing and declaring the American people expect bipartisan solutions to problems “they care about,” not dwelling in the rear view to make political hay out of yesterday’s news.

The ugly saga of Trump’s scheme to extort a newly elected Ukrainian government for the purpose of disabling the Biden presidential campaign now highlights an odious new trajectory to the way Republicans respond to his corruption. Instead of shock there is simply grudging passivity, with both deflection and equivalence almost immediate and reactively prosecuted without reservation. Instead of coping with the burden Trump’s fait accomplis force them to bear, much of the House GOP now sees opportunities to brandish pro-MAGA bonafides with no quarter to the facts that are beyond reasonable doubt. Instead, pressuring Zelensky to do Trump’s dirty work is ennobled as exactly what “this President was elected to do,” another promise kept!

As Trump’s term has deteriorated into one unprecedented nadir after another, GOP lawmakers have actually narrowed their range of options, more comfortable putting themselves into the same corner Trump occupies. Of course, unhinged Trump rhetoric is now business as usual, Trump being Trump. “Inappropriate” or “not how I would have put it” is the most one gets these days up to and including the worst of his rabid gibberish. As for patently impeachable conduct like the Ukrainian affair? It’s no longer the crime but instead how it is investigated… process.

A steady stream of rock solid witnesses, with comparable credibility, continue to come forward to fully validate the President wanted to withhold near a half billion dollars of critical military aid to a former Soviet satellite now again under siege by Russia, yet the House Minority Leader is only interested in “transparency.” When a group of Hannity darlings “stormed” a hearing they whined was “shutting out the American people,” the implication was sinister Dems were secretly kneeling around a cauldron chanting Soros mantras. Last anybody checked every committee in Congress consists of exactly half minus one Republican, but mobs seldom dwell on details.

The White House has based its entire defense on the transcript it provided to the public of Trump’s July conversation with Zelensky. Despite one nail after the other being driven into the quid pro quo coffin, the President has tweeted again and again the transcript renders all else void and absolves him. But now, as both decorated veteran and National Security Council staffer George Vindman, and another NSC staffer, Tim Morrison, decimate that proposition, a shameless shift is underway toward regime cleavage territory. Who cares if there was a quid pro quo, what’s wrong with doing whatever is necessary to drain the swamp? Why should we give military aid to a pipsqueak who won’t help lock the Bidens up? Add that to what Minority Whip Steve Scalise breathlessly terms “a Soviet-style process” and we get 40 percent or so of the US and their elected officials saying “so he did it, who cares?…. Try and do something about it! The Constitution doesn’t apply to, how did our beloved leader put it, oh yea…. human scum!”

A quick trip to Twitter or Trump’s Facebook page confirms wretched core sensibilities are now at least malleable, at worst outright hostile, toward the Constitution or any previous White House best practices. If the Mueller Report’s meticulous verbiage and open ended conclusions left enough light for a benefit of the doubt, the Ukraine investigation does not. It really is open and shut.

Yesterday not one House Republican voted to even approve the open impeachment inquiry they have ceaselessly claimed the Democrats were resisting. Even Florida Republican Francis Rooney, who was literally forced into retirement after only two terms for casually stating a desire to “get all the facts on the table,” fell back into line. Incredibly, more Democrats (2) voted no than Republicans voted yes. Forget “big tent,” this GOP couldn’t muster a lean-to.

About 160 years ago roughly half of America declared their desire to secede rather than take yes for an answer on slavery. “Do something about it” was their challenge then, just like it’s the seditious wretched core’s now. This is what it’s come to, the manifesto of Trump’s GOP: we back a lazy, unhinged and utterly seditious lunatic, who brazenly breaks the law and engages in conduct the Constitution clearly defines as impeachable. Elections have consequences and you’re just going to have to lump it until 2020. But, by the way, since you have refused to do that with this latest coup attempt, we reserve the right to fully discredit 2020’s results if we don’t like them…. we’re playing under protest. Oh, and also you all are socialists who want to disarm us and teach our kids to be atheists; if you take back the White House all bets are off! The regime cleavage of Trumpism and the $64,000 question…..“What are you going to do about it?!” BC

Between 1936 and 1938 Joseph Stalin moved to fully complete his total hold on Soviet power by purging most every remaining founding member of the Bolshevik party. In a series of farcical show trials, badly tortured and defeated men were paraded in court rooms to confess to crimes that ran the gamut from plotting to assassinate Stalin to mobilizing counterrevolution in service to the Romanov Dynasty. No accusation was too absurd, and the entire sham confirmed for many western observers their worst fears, that Russia was now under the iron grasp of, not only a devout communist, but also brutal autocrat. Many an international comrade saw the spectacle as a tragic crossroads as well, when they realized Marxist ideals had succumbed to individual depravity.

George Kennan, then a young deputy and translator to American Ambassador William Bullitt, would be so affected by the public purges that it would solidify his view of the Soviet system as a grave international threat. The post-war “Long Telegram” he would wire to Truman Administration officials more than a decade later, which provided the foundation for US containment policy until the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in November of 91’, was fully informed by lasting impressions the Moscow show trials had on Kennan.

Authoritarians use a panoply of methods to repress opposition and corrupt government toward their narcissistic whim. Perhaps the underhanded deceit most often employed is the libelous discrediting of critics. Whoever the opponent is, or how lofty their public standing may be, autocratic strategies require whatever is necessary to bring their veracity into question. Rumors, half-truths, innuendo, third-party whispering…. outright lies; nothing is out of bounds if it helps to confuse the issue and cloud the facts. The focus is never on what is being said, but who is saying it and what their motives may be. To actually address the substance of the charges validates them. Far easier to simply destroy the reputation of the person providing the testimony.

Were one to be tasked with making up a resume of distinguished public service, it would be hard to exceed the career of William Taylor. A graduate of West Point, Taylor served in the famed 101st Airborne in Vietnam, where he was decorated for heroism. A subsequent graduate of Harvard’s public affairs program, Taylor served as a staffer for Senator Bill Bradley before moving on to postings ranging from the Department of Energy to the US Ambassador’s office for NATO, Afghanistan to Iraq under Colin Powell. In 2006 Taylor was appointed by W. Bush to be the Ambassador of Ukraine, where, it was later reported, “he took charge of the embassy in a remarkably effective and positive way.” After serving in the Middle East under Obama and eventually becoming the executive vice president of the Institute for Peace, Taylor was called on by Trump in June to head back to Ukraine as interim charge d’affaires, presumably to clean up the mess made when Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch was recalled in May.

Taylor’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee about Trump’s efforts to extort incoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could not have been more damning. If Trump’s own admissions, or the clumsy public confession of inept acting Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney weren’t enough to confirm nefarious intention, certainly Taylor’s meticulously documented timeline of events and his purely professional and non-partisan concerns got the job done. What he verifies in exquisite detail is far more than a phone call, it’s a systematic extortion effort in plain sight, before the incredulous eyes of a top notch foreign service professional.

If Taylor’s testimony indicted the entire scheme that led to Trump’s fateful July phone conversation with Zelensky, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security staffer with his own sparkling life story, convicted the phone call itself. A decorated veteran wounded by an IED in Iraq, Vindman’s family actually escaped the Soviet Union. His is an idealized vision of America and the Constitution he expects to guide its governance. Calling him a patriot is like calling Tom Brady a QB; it doesn’t near hit the mark.

Like Taylor, his testimony reflected a straight arrow shocked at what he was witnessing, appalled at its sleazy brazenness. Trump and his minions have latched on to the “transcript” defense, claiming the written account of the call with Zelensky the White House furnished offers full vindication, case closed. When Judy Woodruff of PBS, an inquisitor nobody would mistake for Perry Mason, had Trump poodle VP Mike Pence on the ropes the other night, he continually fell back to the Alamo of the transcript and its cascading flow of exoneration. But Vindman told House investigators of his dissatisfaction with the furnished account’s veracity, and made clear he thought it incomplete. Game, set, match.

Taylor and Vindman now join Yovanovitch, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strok, Lisa Page, Robert Mueller and his elite team of investigators, and a host of others who all share two main attributes: they dutifully performed their jobs, which required investigating the most corrupt Administration in American history; and they all boasted previously exemplary careers and reputations as public servants. All are now under scurrilous attack by our real incarnation of Buzz Windrip and a host of cowards whose ambitions can only be pursued as servile expendables to his lies and criminality.

The hideous crescendo of the show trials of Stalin’s Great Terror was the persecution of Nikolai Bukharin, an OG Bolshevik present at the creation of the Soviet State and previous right hand to Stalin himself. At his proceedings, the once vibrant Bukharin was a shell as he listlessly heard the state’s prosecutor label him a cross between “a fox and a pig.” Of course Bukharin’s crucifiers got nothing on Trump in the abasing insults department. Speaking of those he has collectively libeled as “never Trumpers,” the leader of the free world declared: “Watch out for them, they are human scum.”

Right now the Attorney General of the US is devoting the full resources of his office to skew and augment puzzle pieces, jamming them into a conspiracy tapestry recklessly created on the fly with no other purpose than to discredit Trump’s investigators. Whether his efforts end up as the desperate gasps of a criminal enterprise cornered by democratic institutions they failed to destroy, or a specific place and time where previously inept miscreants mutated into cogs of an unleashed machinery for repression, it’s no longer crying wolf to equate the well being of those on Trump’s ever expanding enemies list with our prospects as a going concern. A critical juncture. BC