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.