Mad Dog No More

In Defense of Marie Yovanovich, God Bless Her

I'm writing to recommend the "Opening Statement of Marie Yovanovitch." She started in Foreign Service in 1986 under Ronald Reagan. That's four Republican and two Democratic presidents. She was fired by President Trump to serve the interests of Rudy Guiliani's two recently indicted associates. From her statement, "Individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Guiliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy." She was stymieing the ambitions of Russia in Ukraine, as well. It's a disgrace she isn't still.

Russia is run by Vladimir Putin. He has robbed, with his partners, that economy blind. Elections are a sham. There's no succession and Putin will serve as long as he lives. We hear Trump talking of not stepping down at the end of his presidency, so he seems openly envious of the situation extant in a failed state like Russia. The media there exists only to spread lies and propaganda approved by the government. Mr. Trump says he welcomes the help of foreigners in his campaigns. From Ms. Yovanovitch, "The harm will come when bad actors in countries beyond Ukraine see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system. In such circumstances, the only interests that will be served are those of our strategic adversaries, like Russia, that spread chaos and attack the institutions and norms that the U.S. helped create and which we have benefited from." Yovanovitch, George Kent, Fiona Hill and Michael McKinley are all patriots and defenders of democracy. They care deeply about this country and Ukraine both of which continue to be under attack from Russia.  

In Defense of Chairman Schiff, God Bless Him

Responding to Rep. Stefanik's campaign to get Rep. Schiff replaced as chair of the Intelligence Committee. Regarding the whistleblower complaint she says, "(Schiff) manipulated this information and played partisan political games." What exactly does that mean? Does it mean he helped write it, as the president claims? There's a word he used recently that I probably can't repeat in this forum. Concerning the paraphrase of the president's call, Schiff's first sentence reads: "Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates." Clearly he wasn't quoting. Another question for our congresswoman, given the opportunity, would be if there was anything in the chairman's statement that was inaccurate. It seemed to properly convey the gist of the call.

Ukraine is in a war against Russian revanchism with over 13,000 killed. President Trump needs a more believable explanation than "concern over corruption" for holding up aid to them. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, helped install that corruption. Despite the cyber disinformation efforts of Russia there, they have elected a president dedicated to "draining the swamp," for real. Electorally, their resistance may have been better than ours. It's recently come to light that the president told the two Russian officials he met, the day after firing James Comey, that he was unconcerned about their interference in our elections. Has Rep. Stefanik commented on that? I know she says she's committed to protecting our elections. That seems more important than Rep. Schiff's attempts at parody.

I See You've Got a Brand-New Leopard-Skin Tinfoil Hat

We could've seen our congresswoman was going full Trump with the juvenile nickname she defamed Tedra Cobb with. Wednesday, she retweeted Kevin McCarthy's comment, "Chairman Schiff just got caught orchestrating with the whistleblower before the complaint was ever filed. Democrats have rigged this process from the start," in response to a NY Times article. Ms. Stefanik's tweet read, "I'm glad that the question I asked last week has been answered. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I'm extremely concerned with our Chairman's increasingly reckless behavior." We recently learned the president told two Russian officials, in the Oval Office, he didn't care about their interference in our election. That something a Republican politician would've at least called "reckless behavior" in the past. Not today.

The president's comment on the NYT article was, "(Schiff) knew long before and helped write it, too." So, he's accusing Mr. Schiff of helping write the complaint. From the NYT, "The CIA officer approached a House Intelligence Committee aide with his concerns about Mr. Trump only after he had had a colleague first convey them to the CIA's top lawyer. Concerned about how that initial avenue was unfolding, the officer then approached the House aide." Quoting Mr. Schiff's spokesman, "At no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance."

Schiff's parody of the president's call was wrong, but it was clearly parody. The scurrilous charges against him are not and display the same conspiratorial thinking and dishonesty that led the president to send Rudy Guiliani to Ukraine in the first place.

Another Deplorable Letter

Saturday, I took a walk down Warren Street to experience the Trump Followers. I only imbibed a short while. Regular readers know my politics, but if I was a Republican it wouldn't please me to have these folks as representative of my party. Speaking of representatives, that includes ours. I saw several Stefanik banners. One wonders if she's proud of this support. It's hard to say since we hear so little from her. In the brief time, I heard several profanities and some nonsense about Michelle Obama being a man projected from a bullhorn. Is this another case of we didn't think we needed a law against it? So much of that in the Trump era.  This likely makes Saratoga a more attractive destination on a sunny, late summer Saturday.

I've heard the response of the Followers and it's "what about the protesters arrested at our congresswoman's office." Agree with them or not, they were arrested at a taxpayer supported facility because they disagreed with our government's treatment of people fleeing economic hardship. "Petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances" and all. The folks that take pride in being deplorable are out there to praise Trump and trash the people on his enemies list. Such is the hollowness of the Republican Party. It now stands for Trump, the wall, ad hominem attacks on his opponents and nothing more. Like or loathe Liz Warren's and AOC's ideas, at least there's something to discuss. Spare me the socialist epithet unless you can explain how billions to Midwest farmers is not and how trade wars jibe with free market principles.  

Deplorables of Northern NY

Link

Seeman said he took issue with comments made in the group’s mission statement that its members feel “bullied” by the left. He does not believe progressive groups have been bullies.

Joe Seeman is referring to this comment from a David Vanscoy.

Link

The group was started by a “small group of patriots who are tired of being bullied into silence by the progressive left,” according to its mission statement.

David Vanscoy, founding member of the organization, said in an email the group was started also in response to the calls for impeachment. Nearly 500 people have followed the Facebook page in over a month.

“We are excited and eager to show our local communities that it’s OK, and your right, to stand up and push back on the lunacy the progressive left, backed by the media, tries to ram down our throats,” he said.

I'm happy to report that, having walked around a bit at the rally, no progressives were there bullying any of them and no one tried to ram lunacy down their throats. That would've been a relief because they were absolutely not being bullied into silence.

Great Letters That Are Not Mine

I'd love to take credit for either of them, though.

John Busteed

Apparently he had the same reaction to Hunter Sartwell's line about Elise Stefanik representing the Republican Party that I did.

Earlier this week, Hunter Sartwell stated that Rep. Elise Stefanik represented Republican values. I agree that she does. I spoke with the congresswoman’s office on Thursday (July 25) and Friday (July 26) to see if they had a statement on President Trump’s “Send Her Back” racist chant. Her office said they had no opinion on that. Though they did point out that they vehemently opposed the “Squad.” So it would appear that she supports Trump’s overt racism, a Republican value.

Catherine Fay Roberts 

Thank you, Ms. Roberts for the fractured fairy tale about Elise's brother.

Pinocchio writes to Congresswoman Stefanik, his secret sister, from an Adirondack safe-house. He is safe in the north. She will never sell him for pulpwood. She doesn't like to go there. People ask her questions. They put her on the spot. She prefers to lecture empty seats in the House of Representatives. She can read her script, look important, and be on C-Span!

Northern NY is about as rightwing as Alabama and Elise Stefanik will likely be re-elected. No sense in her being too comfortable, though.