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I hope these people who profess to be Christians and the faux family value moral guardians understand how history is going to treat them in books.

It won’t be pretty. The Nixon era was marked by a unanimous Supreme Court decision of 8-0 which struck down Nixon’s assertion of executive privilege on the tapes. Republicans in both the House and Senate acted with honor and responsibility when the moment arrived.

In the Clinton Senate trial at the end enough Republicans regained their sanity to not remove Bill Clinton.

There is a history of bipartisan sanity in these impeachment hearings….even with some Republicans who decided not to remove Andrew Johnson in 1968.

53-47 with 71% of the American people wanting a real trial would leave a historic stain on the Constitution.

Trump’s Dream Team….don’t make me laugh. Ken Starr should be in prison and Alan Dershowitz is merely a legend in his own mind not even regarded as a valid constitutional scholar. The only dreams these guys could put together are those of the wet variety….. as in Russian hookers peeing on their idiotic client.

Jon Meacham talks of America’s better angels in his haunting narrative ‘The Soul of America’. Some of these better angels need to migrate towards the burning wreckage previously called the Republican Party.

Just so we’re clear if there was any doubt of the existence of something still standing called the Grand Old Party that was extinguished during the first day/night of an event which won’t resemble anything vaguely resembling a real trial.

There is no drama as to if Donald Trump will be convicted by the likes Little Marco Rubio, Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Sissy Boy Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, or even Mitt Romney for that matter.

The only positive the Dems will glean from these proceedings is Bernie Sanders will be locked up for a week or so and won’t be able to further damage his party’s chances for the White House for a brief period of time. Maybe the strategy moving forward for the Dems is to keep Bernie locked up until Iowa is in the books.

But there will be no trial.

What there will be is a sequence of bullshit which will be overseen by Mitch McConnell to mitigate as much damage as possible to Donald Trump’s senators who are up for re-election in 2016.

The margin of 53-47 can’t be a shock for the simple reason that since Day 1 of Donald Trump’s presidency there hasn’t been one viable sign other than John McCain that there was a GOP member of the United States Senate who would openly challenge Donald Trump in public on anything.

With John McCain’s passing evidently the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and perhaps Bush 41 decided it no longer existed.

That political party no longer stands. It is officially dead and it died when on the last amendment of the night proposed by the Dems which would have allowed GOP appointed Chief Justice John Roberts to decide on witnesses and evidence allowed… it was voted down by a straight party vote.

What does it say when the Dems have more confidence in John Roberts than the Trump Zombies?

Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court by George W. Bush who will go down in history as the last president of the GOP as we knew it.

What is left standing is a new party with a new abbreviation…. as in POT. Party of Trump if you will.

This is a party which has no party presidential primaries. No presidential party debates. No other party member allowed to question the legitimacy of party ideology outside of the inner circle of the Chief Grifter.

Call me cynical if you must, but this is the way I see it as I sit with eyes a glaze at what I just witnessed. That being, the official death of one of America’s two major parties for the time being.

Evidently every Party of Trump senator is terrified of Donald Trump and what he could do them in a party primary if they ever cross him on anything whether it be pussy grabbing, interfering with an election, or obliterating the Constitution.

This party is to Trump what the system in Russia is to Putin. Laugh at me and tell me I’m wrong. I hope and pray I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am because this was the chance for all the Never Trumpers in the U.S. Senate to have their moment of inner courage and conviction.

Sadly…all fifty-three slithered into the D.C. early morning darkness as the genuine political cowards they have truly become during the past three and a half years.

GOP…rest in peace.

If you read my blog here and there you’ll observe I didn’t see Russell Westbrook’s exit from Oklahoma City as a cataclysmic event as far the level of NBA basketball which would be played this season.

Russell was good for Oklahoma City given the nature of Kevin Durant’s departure. So I’ll try to always keep that in mind this season and beyond. I will write though…as a hoops fan it’s been a great deal of fun to watch this new Thunder team which in essence plays three point guards together in Chris Paul, Shai-GA, and Dennis Schroder. Throw in the silky smooth shooting stroke of Danilo Gallinari and when they’re all in sink this Thunder team is a little bit sneaky good.

Maybe not Washington Nats winning it all good, but still sneaky good as long as Sam Presti keeps the above four together this season.

You couldn’t have scripted a better evening of basketball for the Thunder to close out Martin Luther Day if you’re a Thunder fan. On the road, the Thunder fought back from a fifteen point fourth period deficit to beat the Houston Rockets by a 112-107 count.

On a night when the Thunder didn’t have Steven Adams, Nerlens Noel, or Terrance Ferguson the Thunder simply sucked it up and found a way against Westbrook’s new team in Houston.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t per se have a vintage night scoring the ball with 13 points but on 10 shots attempted, but it didn’t matter as CP3, Big Gallo, and Dennis Schroder combined for 76 points to cover his back.

On the defensive end, Billy Donovan finally pulled his head out of his ass and reinstated rookie Lu Dort back into the rotation these past two games. Don’t confuse Lu Dort’s value to this team. He isn’t needed to score the ball. He’s needed to shut down the other team’s best guard and infuse his teammates with defensive energy.

I honesty have no idea what transmits through Billy Donovan’s mind at times. I have no idea why Dort was sent back to the G League after in essence he had a part in kick starting the Thunder’s turnaround in December while injecting the fanbase itself with some much needed feel good for those like me who actually enjoy seeing NBA players ‘trying’ on the defensive end.

Dort didn’t just play in this game–he started and played 32 minutes with his primary assignment being to harass James Harden playing the Patrick Beverly role. On the night, Harden scored 29 points on 29 shots attempted and was 1-17 shooting threes. Mission accomplished for Lu Dort. He made Harden work his tail off. He did his job. That’s what role players are paid to do.

Don’t look, but this Thunder team is now 11-10 on the road this season after the 1-7 road record to start the season. In fact, this group seems to play much more focused locked down basketball on the road.

The Thunder are securely the No. 7 seed in the West and it’ s not crazy to write they have a chance to challenge for a couple of spots higher.

I just hope Billy Donovan had a bit of a Lu Dort awakening this week-end. I’m not saying to start Dort or even play him heavy minutes. What I’m saying is play him and use him in an intelligent way as a defensive role player who’s energy is contagious to his teammates.

The Thunder now stand at 25-19 overall and are at Orlando on Wednesday night.

Parra to Dort…why not. If I were Sam Presti I’d get some Baby Shark music playing on the sound system for home games. I mean, if you can steal Seattle’s team why not steal the Washington Nats’ fight song? I’d roll with it. The Trump evangelicals will love it.

I’m taking a break from impeachment as a great day is on tap with the Times’ presidential endorsement plus the NFL conference championship games.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete B, and Joe Biden made this very easy for me. They all have one thing in common, that being, none of them should be the candidate to run against Donald Trump.

Pete B is interesting, but I honestly don’t think America between the coasts is ready for an openly gay POTUS. Plus, I think he needs some experience in a more demanding position than being the mayor of South Bend.

Removing Trump from access to the White House is the primary goal. This isn’t the time to go beyond FDR’s New Deal. Win the damn election and go from there in a deliberate pragmatic manner.

Bernie and Lizbeth should kiss and make up. That nonsense at the end of the last debate would almost make me vote for Trump if they were my only choice. Not really, but almost. Maybe we’ll see them with Rick Perry on Dancing With the Stars this season.

Trump is a different animal and he won the White House running the most ruthless unconventional campaign in American presidential history. Clearly, this explains why ninety per cent of evangelicals adore him. Again…I reiterate, I firmly believe evangelicals pose a more dire threat to America than climate change, Isis, or the debt.

It will take some new ideas and some actual effort which was sorely lacking from Robbie Mook’s disastrous leadership of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. Showing up in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan could you know actually prove helpful in winning the Electoral College.

Newspaper endorsements don’t mean much in our current times. Hillary had almost every major newspaper endorsement and still lost the election despite the Hollywood Access clip.

Our culture has devolved to where Twitter and Facebook are unfortunately where many get their political information. Barack Obama ran two very clever social media campaigns. Maybe David Axelrod could help the Dems again this time around.

Beating Trump will take a tough in your face ticket. Politics isn’t a rainbows and butterflies proposition. It’s a hard ass endeavor which requires a cut-throat mentality at times. I’m not saying it should be that way, but it is when Donald Trump and the descendants of Lee Atwater are the opposition. Winning won’t be pretty. Some blood will be let if the Dems want to win.

Out of the veritable plethora of Dem candidates my final selections are three moving forward for the ticket and in this order as we are two weeks away from Iowa;

1 Mike Bloomberg

2 Michael Bennett

3 Amy Klobuchar

In the NFC Championship Game… I like the 49’ers unless the Packers can break George Kittles’ leg sometime in the first period. Kittles in the new Gronk. Get him out of the game.

On the AFC side the Titans have beaten both New England and Baltimore on the road with the most dominant player in post season being Derrick Henry. Ryan Tannehill’s rebirth is a good story as well. Plus, Vrable is a hard ass disciple of Belichick. I’ll take the Titans.

As I enter the twilight of my life I can say with open candor I’ve witnessed weak pathetic little white men on both sides of the political aisle in my lifetime.

Clearly though as each year has passed not one I can think of measures down to the virtually worthless piece of southern white human debris who goes by the name of Lindsey Graham.

I won’t lower myself to speculate as to or even waste too much human breath from my lungs to chronicle every act of manly cowardice this ‘man’ has put on public display since the rogue grifter Trump assumed the White House.

I will state this though…if I were a juror in a case where the defendant was charged with chaining up this virtually piece of shit to a tree and then leaving him there…. I as a juror would see that as justifiable human conduct for the better good of the world we all habitat together as one.

Lindsey Graham is why we have birth control in the Union and border states. Someone should have told this to his momma. To this very day… I still wonder in amazement as to why John McCain wasted time on this person. It baffles me still.

And as embarrassed as I am at times to admit I live in Oklahoma and not under legal order to do so, it would shame me even more to admit I live in the sovereign Confederate state of South Carolina.

Neil Young wouldn’t even lower himself to write a song about South Carolina. But if he had — this would have been it.

Can you believe these people? It never stops. The sirens of hypocrisy which at times are heard by some of us at times are never heard by these members of the evangelical right. I’ve come to this conclusion in regards to our country…Isis nor climate change are the greatest threats to the United States–the evangelical right very well could be the primary threat.

It leaves me literally ‘almost’ speechless.

I was never enamored with what Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky did with his dick…so there’s no reason for me feign any interest in that regard now. I voted for 41 and almost voted for Perot…but not because of what Clinton did or didn’t do with Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, or Monica Lewinsky.

I just didn’t think he had the maturity to be president. I guess I was right, but I’ve never held it against Clinton later in life as he with Bush 41 did so many good deeds in life after the White House. In a sense, they both did far greater things after serving in the White House.

But should we have expected anything else from Donald Trump?

You know why Ken Starr ignored the rapes? Because they were perpetrated by program game changer level football players. You know what those players did for Baylor other than winning football games? They helped Ken Star and his regents raise record setting amounts of money never seen before in the coffers of little Baptist Baylor University.

So it makes perfect sense Ken Starr should be a member of Donald Trump’s Dream Legal Team because in the end pond scum begats pond scum.

I was a junior in high school when Peter Rodino made this speech to the House as Chair of the Judiciary Committee. He came by his place in history because the previous chair had been defeated in the congressional mid-terms. Many in his own party doubted if he was ready for an assignment of this historical magnitude. He bristled at the doubters within his party and proved equal to the task while cementing his place in history.

The Dems were in control of both the House and the Senate. Any yet one thing which bears noting is the vote in the House to conduct the impeachment hearings of Nixon was almost unanimous.

Partisanship was blunted by patriotism for the constitution. It was a process which took time…almost two years. But in the end …. FINALLY the GOP members took stock of their responsibility to the constitution.

Now…45 years later-I’m not sure I see this from the House and the Senate. The vote in the House to impeach Trump purely followed party lines. I will be shocked if regardless of the evidence the Senate vote isn’t purely partisan as well.

Out constitution and democracy stands at a crossroads beginning on Tuesday. I don’t think this has escaped John Roberts whereas Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham don’t seem to grasp the gravity of this juncture in American history.

There isn’t just one American Dream for older white men. That isn’t the American Dream. The American Dream consists of 330 million unique individual dream for those who in their own right hope and pray the dream is there to pursue. But not just to sons of rich white men. But to women, to people of all color and religions to individuals who in their hearts aspire the privilege to pursue the American Dream.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s why we fought WWII and won the Cold War. That’s why America has been looked upon as the leader of the free world still eighty-five years later.

Politics and the cash, power, and ego which comes with power can corrupt. It can in places like Ukraine as well as in the United States Senate. I laughed when Lev Parnas was trying to make Rachael Maddow understand about corruption in his homeland.

Dude—where do you think your people learned of such corruption and money grubbing?

Just observe the United States Senate and there you have the template for unfettered greed and corruption which should make every Ukrainian aspire to become a United States Senator.

So we now will set out on this trial of sorts where the people who own Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham lock, stock, and barrel already know how they want it to end.

But for the rest of us…I hope we understand where we are right now. I truly hope all Americans are paying attention to what’s at stake.

I can’t imagine Chief Justice John Roberts has any private admiration for Donald Trump. As recently as 2018 the Chief Justice publicly rebuked Trump for referring to certain federal judges as ‘Obama judges’.

With Roberts his decisions will be based on the Constitution and the law. You know…the two things which Donald Trump tramples on a daily basis in his presidency. He’s a conservative justice, but one for the most part I respect.

If you take the time to study the individual cases of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton you will come to understand the framers of the Constitution did not view impeachment lightly. The Madisonian view was impeachment should not be implemented just because a certain faction of lawmakers don’t like a sitting president.

Rather to impeach it must be proven the law and the Constitution must have been broken to an extent to show the Republic’s ability to govern itself as a true democracy has been damaged or altered from the framer’s intent. Premeditated malice with intent to break the law must be shown. In legalese Latin it’s called mens rea. The knowing premeditated intent to break the law.

Most sons have fathers who teach them how to build a tree house. My father as a trial lawyer never tired of explaining to me the importance of mens rea.

My dad never showed me how to build a tree house. But when he went into a court room it was all business. I’d even say at times he had some Atticus Finch in him in fighting for the little guy.

Did Donald Trump have the premeditated intent to break the law so as to compromise the upcoming election and improve his chances of being re-elected? Based on what any reasonable person observed from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders at the end of the last debate…I would surmise that any action which would enchance either of those people being the nominee would enchance Donald Trump’s odds at being re-elected regardless of Joe Biden’s other warts.

But I’m straying with all of this.

Was there a knowing premeditated action or actions by Trump and his mafia minions to break the law?

I would say yes. But again–we haven’t seen the case presented or defended just yet.

John Roberts is an avid golfer and a pretty salty one. Unlike Trump—he doesn’t cheat and is a stickler for adhering to the rules. He hits balls out of the rough and sand traps. He takes a penalty when his ball goes into the water. All things which Trump doesn’t adhere to during a round of golf.

Unlike our buffoonish POTUS… Roberts has a respect for golf and the law. I can’t imagine in John Roberts’ private thoughts he has much if any admiration for our big fat orange 45th POTUS.

Yikes.

After the Part I deposition of Lev Parnas last night on cable television I’m sitting here wondering who’s the heir apparent face of the GOP and it’s evangelical family values base.

Holy shit.

At least in Watergate there was the minority leader Gerald Ford to fill a plug in presidential succession. But who’s left on the GOP ledge to be president given they all whored themselves to Donald Trump for the tax cuts and the two Supreme Court justices?

I’m going to call James Lankford for the second morning in a row and suggest it be him. That was over the top sarcasm. But I’m still going to do it.

This is where have I have to be careful and reel myself in somewhat. Because like Michelle Obama I’m going to go high while all these white people will be crawling thru Donald Trump’s shit from now till eternity.

Here’s the thing. It’s one thing to say you couldn’t vote for Hillary. I sure didn’t. But for three years I didn’t have my head up my ass and allow this grifter to openly lie to my ‘face’ on a 24/7 basis.

I think more of myself as a human being than this. I KNOW I’M BETTER THAN THIS AND WOULD NEVER CONDONE THIS.

Mitch McConnell has some heavy lifting spinning in front of him this week. But he’ll probably pull it off within his party.

I mean…what is their defense at this point other than claiming complete and utter greed and stupidity?

I just unfortunately read a biography of Melania Trump titled Free Melania. The book begins with Melania getting confused and accidently plagiarizing Michelle Obama in her 2016 GOP convention speech.

It was the only chapter in the book worth reading. But really—I don’t want to be an internet bully and have to rely on Melania Trump’s Be Best advocacy group to protect me from her husband.

I mean, whoa. Really…whoa.

We do need to build a wall, but not for Hispanics. We need to build a wall around a land mass large enough to house the sixty million or so dumbasses who have supported this president for over three years.

I’m okay though. I’ll be okay.

I don’t really need to see the trial, but I wrote all that yesterday already understanding even ‘humans’ like Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, William Barr, Mike Pompeo, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy, and Devin Nunes to name several are entitled to due process in our system before we place them in prison.

Since apparently even Kevin McCarthy best case scenario was at bars drunk with Robert Hyde…who will be the Gerald Ford in this GOP horror show?

Who is left standing in this party apparatus who didn’t sell their soul for tax cuts and two Supreme Court appointments?

That’s the really sad part in all of this. That being, we’ve come to realize the party of Lincoln, TR, and perhaps Eisenhower have devolved into this sad pathetic rendition of something between Jerry Springer Live and the Gong Show.

But here’s what is even sadder the night before at the end of the last debate before Iowa we witnessed a farcical ending to the Democrats’ debate as twin delusional idealists Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were telling each other to fuck off at the conclusion of the debate and who really amongst us thinks Joe and Hunter Biden would hold up during a cross examination my father would have easily nailed in his prime?

Here’s the deal. I’ll be the grownup on the internet. Both parties absolutely suck. They are an acute embarrassment to George Washington and our forefathers. They truly are. This is beyond pathetic.

Maybe this should be like the final episode of Seinfeld where the judge throws Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine in jail to contemplate how it came to be they evolved into humans who would run over the Bubble Boy in the midst of running out of a fire.

I’m sitting here totally calm. Not even slightly ruffled. None of this surprises me. My only question is why it took so long for Lev Parnas to get us here.

I’m assuming of course Michael Bloomberg and Michael Bennett together talked this out in private months ago. They had to know just as I did. Neither party can govern on the national scale. They remind me of my HOA somewhat. They don’t have this in them.

So..in reality it was a good night for the Thunder to get down to the Raptors by thirty points in the second period so as I could watch Rachel Maddow depose Lev Parnas on cable television. Because that’s what we just saw whether Mitch McConnell wants to admit it or not.