Killing the Lead Story

If there is one thing unusual about this past week it’s rare to find a pre-superbowl week where there has been so little mention of the Super Bowl.   It’s the lead story that’s gotten buried.  We had the impeachment hearings and the ongoing Kobe Bryant saga that never lets up.  There was a car chase preempting regular news.  The Carona virus has more victims but there are fewer deaths than with Saars and definitely fewer than your garden variety flu this winter.  The first person to person transfer in America occurred when a wife came back from China in Chicago and gave it to her husband.  We have the academy awards coming up a week from Sunday.  This also has hogged news space that would otherwise go to Superbowl coverage because never have the Academy Awards been close to being this early.  Usually they are only announcing the nominees this early.  Then we have another democratic debate on Friday February seventh, though I don't know who is in that one yet.   The prediction of a dryer new year has come to fruition.  All of last December's rain is a thing of the past. 

Paul called about twenty after ten this morning.  I told him about the Dentist and trying to get approval and he tooth extraction looming and Dr Levy and also the closet saga and the toilet paper dispenser saga.  Paul offered for me to go get a haircut with him this afternoon and perhaps this morning, which I turned down for lack of time.  I went out for a cigarette and then came back to shave.  Lunch wasn’t too late.  We had two enchiladas and white rice and green beans.  But we didn’t have either Picante sauce or guacamole.  Paul showed up just after eleven thirty and we had birthday cake for dessert.  The housekeeper showed up just before eleven.  I returned and took a dump in the bathroom and when I came out, she was gone.  Paul had gotten into a lengthly conversation with Patty about Patty’s church background growing up.  Everyone said how much alike we looked.  Paul shook hands with Tanya and Larry.   I went with Paul down to Chapman and the barber shop.  This was a big place with three barbers doing business and more waiting.  Then the Vietnamese lady showed up and we used the far left chair.  Originally she said that she was trying to cut my hair too long and the waviness of the hair prevented her from getting the look she wanted so I said “cut it shorter”.  It turned out pretty good.  Then it was Paul’s turn and I went out to the parking lot toward the street to smoke.  You don’t find many smokers these days.  They were working on the asphalt.  Paul had texted Tim about taking the records on Saturday.  Tim called on the way home. (down Gilbert)  Tim is still in South Carolina and won’t be back here till late Sunday night.  We won’t b e able to transfer the records on Saturday.  Paul isn’t sure he can do it a week later because he works till three that day.  He dropped me off and I turned on Gary and Shannon.  I went for snacks at two and got amberosia with nothing to drink.  I also made instant coffee.   Paul and I talked about the impeachment hearings.  I didn’t know Paul had so many pre-set news stations that got preempted with the hearings.  Other than that, the conversation did not get political. 

The future is shaping up.  Today is Wednesday January 29, 2020 and they went back to their schedule of preempting the soap opera but then going to Kelly Clarkson at two on KNBC.   Today was question asking day for Justice Roberts starting just after twn our time.  They gave themselves sixteen hours for these questions sessions.  That means today and tomorrow.   On Friday that means they will have the long awaited vote to exclude witnesses, which the democrats will go along with because they don’t want witnesses either.  They want to wrap up the impeachment thing so they can get back to last minute campaigning in Iowa because the Iowa caucus is Monday.  It’s getting closer all the time.  I think Trump’s state of the union address is Tuesday evening.  For the super bowl Trump is running a one minute ad that will be seen by millions.  Two issues came up today that I find alarming.  It seems beyond dispute now that President Obama didn’t give “lethal aid” to Ukraine even though congress had approved it.  I need to talk to President Obama about that.  That fact along kind of completely takes the wind out of their sails as far as “denying Ukraine needed military security”.   It doesn’t make the Republicans so bad.  The other charge is related to that one.  There seems to be strong evidence that Ukraine didn’t even find out aid had been interrupt till August 28^th of last year when a political magazine ran an article that started an E mail fire storm.  Most of the questions were just repeating stuff we already knew.  Toward the end of the session I saw, Camille Harris and others asked a question for Justice Roberts that asked if the Trump administration barred publication of the new manuscript of John Boulton on the grounds the manuscript contains classified information.  It seems that the book isn’t Kosher for publication and that it indeed does contain classified material that needs to be redacted, possibly drastically. 

Senator Ross of Kansas, who was a good Republican in 1868 had at the last minute changed his mind and voted not to impeach President Andrew Johnson- - was bribed with a hundred thousand dollars, which was a lot more money back then than it is now.  Back then you could buy a nice house with just a few thousand dollars.   I am slow to believe everything I’ve Supposedly known for fifty years is a lie and a concealment.  I’m reserving judgement.  However it’s a more “satisfying” theory for the democrats right now that say that abuse of power IS grounds for impeachment.   Of course on a recent posting we let slip that maybe in New Testament times that Governor Pilate was bribed by Joseph of Arithmea, a rich man, to get the body of Jesus or whoever was crucified that day before he was actually dead.  The trouble with this is that it's not just the resurrection we worship.  In fact the resurrection is almost incidental to basic theology.  The important thing is that Jesus went to heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father and he was given "all power"..    This is code speak for the Church alias the Pope was given "all power" over this present world.   It's almost less important whether Jesus actually survived crucifixion but rather that he announced his death ahead of time "according to scripture" and that his ministry is the final Word of God, which precludes any other prophets for the ensuing two thousand years.  All revelation of God stopped two thousand years ago and all power is in Rome, where Jesus personally said it would reside by saying that Peter was the Rock and also legend that says St Peter went to Rome and became the first Pope.   

Pressure Mounts to Have John Boulton Testify

I watched the Republican response to impeachment charges today.  When two went off the air at noon I dozed off a little and the soap opera was on.  I changed it to channel four.  The defense team made three major arguments.  First they said that the quid pro quo never happened because the guy, Summerland, I guess, who clamed it was only second hand information, but the guy he claimed to have gotten the information from says it never happened.  There was also the statement that Ukraine never fared so well as it did under Trump, as opposed to the Obama administration.  I don’t agree with any of this but this is what they are saying.  Next they say that Joe Biden was involved in a really shady enterprise along with his son, Hunter, with a thoroughly corrupt energy company.  I want this investigated further because I have my doubts.  But even if all of these alaborate alligations are true, it’s still pretty much a separate issue from the one at hand.  It looks to me like Hunter profited a lot from being on that board from April of 2014 to Octover or something of 2015.  I myself would be open to a witness deal at this point but I don’t think any Republican wants ANY witness or anything that draws attention to the whole impeachment issue.  Finally the argument is advanced that executive privilege has been honored in the courts for over forty years.  They see executive privilege as settled law.  There is another issue that was covered.  They say that it would be a briech of protocol for the senate to do their own investigating of the case.  Because this is the job of the House and they should have done it last fall while they had the chance.  It would fundamentally disturb the balance of government for the senate to get involved calling new witnesses at this point.  Finally we have the issue of the two incidents of new evidence.  One was that April of 2018 dinner where Trump told that guy he says he didn’t know, that he wanted the Ukrainian ambassador fired because according to the other guy,  the ambassador wanted Trump impeached even back then.  And then we come to John Boulton and maybe I should have led with this topic.  Boulton has a new book out and it alledges that Trump told national security secretary that he wanted a quid pro quo with Ukraine and he didn’t want the military ade released till Ukraine promised to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. 

I was sitting out back when I heard Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter crash.  We know now he died at age 41 and Kobe left a wife and - - three daughters (alive).   I later learned the crash was into a mountain near Calabasus and Lost Hills.  There were nine people aboard though originally they thought there was only five.  That would be Kobe, his thirteen year old daughter, Gigi, and a friend of hers and her parent, and the pilot.  But there are four more victims including the Orange Coast College baseball coach.  They went out to this Mamba center in Thousand Oaks, a training center Kobe purchased.   I went to turn on Leo Le Port after lunch and realized that he wasn’t on.  KFI had preempted everything because of Kobe Bryant’s death.   Not only that but channels four and seven had cleared their entire program schedule and devoted the entire afternoon and early evening to Kobe’s death.  It was more than excessive.   They didn’t even tell us the Grammy’s were being carried live on KNXT.  It wasn’t till after six that I turned to that station.  First I had to sit through five minutes of commercials.   The emotions ran high on Kobe’s death.  People talk about the gigantic hole in their lives now, and Kobe was just like a family member and they feel as if they personally knew him.  They talked about his twenty year carrier exclusively with one team, the LA Lakers.  And they talked about his maturing into a family man who is concerned about women’s athletics.   But from my perspective I don’t recall even the most famous people dying getting such wall to wall blanket coverage.  

It was shortly after lunch that I finally got around to writing Dr Levy that letter saying it’s time to move my vynal records of his garage.  I complained of all of the other distractions in my life and I wasn’t sure what the scheduling would be.  It turns out that Dr Levy has free time on the weekends.  Sunday would be out because of the Super Bowl but I guess Saturday would be OK, if Paul can squeeze it into his schedule  to take me before he goes to work and we can get them.  Dr Levy said everything was safe and sound and said to give him a call when I’m ready.  I was able to look up his number because he’s a professional man and it’s listed on the internet.   All of the early entries seemed to be about him.  He’s a clinical psychologist with a PhD.  That makes him sound really smart but he.    does a good job of concealing his intelligence in conversation.   Now he’ll get a bunch of hits if I post this in a blog.  Maybe he can get some new clients, but I think all of his time is booked up already.  I’m glad it won’t be during  the week because between trying to get a haircut and dental appointments that pop up out of the blue, and the impeachment hearings, I’m not sure what I’d be willing to sacrifice to go get my records.   Dr Levy responded to my mailing with a mailing.   I’m glad it was still a good E mail address.  

.   The other day Chris turned sixty-nine.  You know what sixty-nine is associated with.  That’s the only kind of sex you can have now because you’re so old you lack the physical stamina for anything else.  I bet Chris doesn’t think that joke is funny.  In gym class there was this guy with a 69 Union T shirt like Union Oil and he says “Oh, didn’t you hear; they changed the name”.    Life is “inconvenient” now.  My vision is worse and I still haven’t seen an eye doctor about my cateracts I’m sure I have.  It takes longer to recognize people in the halls as they approach me.   For you blog readers my drivers license expired in 2007 and that ought to tell you something.   I have this busted tooth that looks horrible and the dentist won’t fix it without specific prior approval.   Then there is this whole closet thing that Joe and I are sort of getting used to by now.  It’s been a week and a half since the hanger pole collapsed.   So I feel like I’m walking around in a state of complete disorganization.