"It's All Over" [View all]

[H2O Man]

I just got back home, and saw a film clip of Trump saying “it's all over” as a result of Sondland's testimony. Then I saw a couple friends here had posted photos of the curious notes that Trump was reading from. The combination of these reminded me of when Nixon began to melt under the pressure of the Watergate investigations. (Note: I have been thinking about comparisons since reading an important OP by PCIntern, which is linked below.)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212704911

In both cases, the televised hearings and the reporting about them were/are roller-coaster rides : it was/is delightful to see the cesspools of corruption exposed, frustrating to hear the republicans defending that corruption, and a bit unnerving to witness a president melting down and becoming a threat to national security.

Last week's testimony from Bill Taylor and George Kent was powerful. But, at least in my opinion, Marie Yovanovitch was even stronger in exposing just how underhanded this administration is. I find her to be high among the very good witnesses from the Watergate hearings. This week's witnesses continue to document how criminal Trump & Friends are. And this fellow Sondland is something else. He apparently is intelligent, yet he has an uncanny ability to come across a tad clownish.

Perhaps the witness I am most interested in hearing testifies tomorrow. Fiona Hill will add a lot of evidence about the Trump administration's ultimately failed operation in Ukraine.

I agreed with the OP linked above, because I was alive, awake, and aware when the Watergate crimes were being investigated. More, in recent times, I've watched the films of both the Senate Select Committee and the House hearings on Watergate. The republicans today are as similar to those of the Watergate era, as the dandelions of 2019 are to those of 1974.. However, as the Rolling Stones noted, dandelions don't tell no lies, dandelions will make you wise – clearly proving dandelions are a higher life form than republicans.

What is different – and essential for our understanding of why this may appear different – is that Newton Leroy Gingrich's “Contract on America” purposely broke the House's ability to function. That was a large part of the republican agenda, as this would promote the imperial presidency that Newton, Bill Barr, and others haters-of-the-Constitution advocate. I'd also add that televised news 24/7 and the internet have increased the pace of our exposure to corrupt republican blathering.

The Democrats in the House were solid during Watergate, and they are today. I'd like to say that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney was intense today. I believe that Sondland learned not to mess with him today. I, for one, will show my appreciation for him with a campaign contribution

Finally, about comparisons between Nixon and Trump …..an interesting but difficult topic. One of my favorite songs was Neil Young's “Ohio.” My generation saw it as Neil's indictment of Nixon. Yet weeks before the republican national convention of 1976, Neil first performed “Campaigner,” that took a different position on Nixon. He referenced Nixon's being hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism that nearly killed him shortly before he left office, Nixon's years of campaigning, and even claimed that Nixon had “soul.”

Trump recently made a strange trip to the hospital. But he does not have a soul. He has none of the few good qualities that Nixon had. But he has all of Nixon's creepy qualities. None.

I'll finish by saying that, after watching Gym Jordan and Devin Nunes, I am convinced that we have to work very hard on the 2020 elections. We need to bring the republican obstructionists' political careers to the same guillotine that Trump's presidency is heading towards.



PS: We Okay, Boomers had some mighty fine music.