Why We’re Watching
Reading time – 3:36; Viewing time – 4:44 . . .
The Watergate story is an epic one of a petty political crime, dogged investigation, political intrigue, Congressional courage and cowardice and a foolish obstruction of justice that brought down a paranoid president and sent his underlings to prison. It threatened the stability of our country as few things have and the impeachment hearings themselves were riveting political theater. Nothing since then has captured our national attention in that way. Until now.
James Comey, the fired former FBI Director, former Assistant Attorney General and consistent non-supplicant to President Trump will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow. He will be free to speak about anything that isn’t classified or part of an ongoing investigation, so we are expecting him to refute Trump’s claims about Comey’s alleged comments to the president over whether Trump was under investigation in connection with Russian hacking. Further, we’ll be looking for Comey’s testimony pertaining to implications of obstruction of justice by this president. We are poised to watch like we haven’t been since 1974, because this, too, is nothing if not riveting political theater.
But all of that matters far more than the value of the entertainment spectacle, because:
- This president has offended our dearest and longest term allies, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, France, and more, isolating and weakening those countries and our own. Who do you suppose will benefit from the erosion of our strength? It might be Russia.
- This president has undermined NATO, our strongest military alliance and bulwark against an aggressive Russia. I reiterate the question about who benefits from the erosion of our strength.
- This president has lauded despicable dictators and political strongmen in the Philippines, Turkey, China, the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, and, of course, Russia.
- This president has announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, leaving world leadership of this entire issue to China and ensuring higher energy prices which will benefit Russia.
- This president has rallied middle east leaders against Qatar, where we have our largest military presence in the region, threatening our ability to keep our forces there, which would benefit Iran and, of course, Russia.
- This president began investigating the removal of Obama era sanctions against Russia over its invasion of the Ukraine and the Crimea and for meddling in our election, this even before this president took office. The sanctions removal Trump sought would be without conditions or anything favoring the U.S. and benefiting only Russia.
- This president has named as heads of departments of government people who are expressly opposed to even the existence of the departments they lead and they have already begun neutering their organizations and endangering America and Americans.
- This president has refused to staff the departments of the executive branch of government so that we are woefully unprepared to ensure our government will work. Over 1,000 positions remain unfilled.
In his less than 140 days in office this president has consistently acted to strengthen Russia’s influence. At the same time, this president has done much to weaken the United States, seemingly in line with the desires of his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who is a self-described Leninist and wants, ” . . . to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump’s motives are suspect in the extreme.
The Comey testimony and that of our intelligence officials are more than riveting political theater; they are critical to the safety and security of America. That’s why we’re watching.
Finally, you made it this far, so give yourself a treat by watching this video of artist Joe Everson as he paints and sings the National Anthem at a Toledo Walleye hockey game last October. This, I promise, will give you goose bumps.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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