Grumpy Old Man

My Facebook profile claims that I blog at www. prairiepondering.com. My personal email signature
includes a link to the Prairie Pondering URL. Yet if you visit this site, you will see that since August, 2016, I have only "pondered" four times. Not much of a blogger.

A few years ago, I posted regularly. I stopped doing so when writing made me increasingly angry and frustrated about the state of the country and the world. I was less frustrated if I avoided the focus that writing requires. I chose to seethe in private rather than rant in Prairie Pondering.

I think the time has come to stop being so unengaged. Repeating Big Lies to numb meaningful debate only succeeds if the falsehoods go unchallenged. I am still angry; I am still frustrated. But that is the new norm among American liberals as the decade ends.

The House of Representatives passed two Articles of Impeachment yesterday. I watched/listened to the debates as background noise at the office, dismayed that the Republicans were allowed to defend Trump by unabashedly droning on with half truths and outright falsehoods without consequence. However, the willingness of recently elected House Democrats from pro-Trump districts to vote their conscience regardless of the political consequences spurred me to return to Prairie Pondering. My public display of conscience is considerably less consequential but every little bit helps.

Watching the impeachment proceedings, I wished that I had the power to interject my responses to various claims as they were being made, putting them on the screen as thought balloons. Here's a few samples:

GOP:
Do nothing Democrats should quit wasting time on impeachment and do their jobs.
SLS:
The House of Representatives has passed 400 bills, 279 on a bi-partisan basis, that Mitch McConnell will not allow to be voted on in the Senate.

GOP:
House Democrats conducted an inquisition in secret in locked rooms in the basement of the Capitol without affording the president the due process guaranteed by the Constitution.
SLS: 
Closed door examinations were conducted in front of both Democratic and Republican Representatives and transcripts of testimony were released. None of the Republicans present claimed that the testimony of the witnesses was misreported. Targets of an investigation are not typically allowed to confront accusers before charges are brought. The presence of Republican House members in the investigations with an ability to ask questions of witnesses prevented the target from being railroaded.

GOP:
Democrats have wasted millions of dollars with bogus investigations of the president.
SLS: 
Robert Mueller's prosecution of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort resulted in recoveries in excess of the cost of his investigation. 

GOP:
Trump released the funds being withheld from Ukraine voluntarily, without receiving any commitment to investigate Joe Biden.
SLS: 
The funds were withheld until the public disclosure of the existence of the Whistleblower complaint suggesting improper conduct by the president forced the president to abandon his extortion scheme.

GOP:
The transcript of the president's July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian president was "perfect".
SLS:
It depends on what your definition of "though" is and witnesses who were on the call testified that there were material omissions from the "transcript", excised to support the president's narrative.

GOP:
Democrats are proceeding with impeachment in reliance on anonymous whistleblowers and hearsay. There is no direct evidence of wrong-doing by the president.
SLS:
"Chutzpah" is defined as (a) killing both parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan, and (b) instructing witnesses with direct knowledge of the events giving rise to impeachment charges not to testify and refusing to turn over relevant documents subpoenaed by Congress, and then ranting and raving that Democrats are proceeding with impeachment in reliance on anonymous whistleblowers and hearsay and that there is no direct evidence of wrong-doing by the president.

Thanks for indulging me. I'll return to Prairie Pondering from time to time. Some of you may not like what I have to say. We have much in common because I don't like to have to say it.