Daily Archives: 18 November 2019

A Thought on a Tweet

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President Donald Trump, during Friday’s “impeachment” hearing with erstwhile US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, tweeted in his inimitable style a critique of her job performance over the years.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · Nov 15
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.

Some are suggesting that Yovanovitch wouldn’t have known about the tweet had not House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D, CA) read it out to her during her testimony, and so there couldn’t possibly be any intimidation.  Others argue the so what aspect of that; Trump’s tweet would serve to intimidate future witnesses and to intimidate Yovanovitch were she to return for additional testimony.

Especially damning, Yovanovitch testified—under oath—in answer to Schiff’s question about the tweet, that she found it intimidating.

But damning to whom?

Yovanovitch, at the time of her ambassadorship in Ukraine (and elsewhere), was a high-level US Government representative, and she still is by extension from her “plum job” at Georgetown. Her confessing to being intimidated by petty (in several senses) criticism of her job performance tells other governments, including those of our enemies, that our government can easily be pushed around.

That emboldens our enemies to act overtly against our interests, even against us.  It tells our friends and allies that we’ll fold in a crunch, including theirs.

That’s a threat to our national security.

California’s Progressive-Democrats

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They have a homeless problem, and they seem oblivious to it.

Oakland has seen a 47% jump in homelessness—one of the largest surges of any California city, according to a one-night street count released in July. The count, which used federal guidelines, showed Oakland had 4,071 homeless people in 2019, up from 2,761 in 2017. The increase puts the city’s per capita homeless rate higher than neighboring San Francisco and Berkeley and comes at a time when several West Coast cities are struggling with a homeless crisis that’s being driven by rising rents, drug addiction, mental illness and pushback from progressives.

San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Los Angeles—the list goes on—have a severe homeless crisis.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians from California just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.

It’s not just California’s Progressive-Democrat-run cities, either.  San Antonio has one so bad that the State has had to move in and try to clean the streets and under-bridge areas for them.  Seattle is just as bad.  Chicago and New York City have the same thing, although they’re less publicized, and their respective State governments—Progressive-Democrat-run—don’t provide, or even offer, any help.  Baltimore is infamous for its terrible neighborhoods.

This is what those Progressive-Democrats in Congress should be working on instead of their smear sham impeachment election year campaign.  These folks are their constituents, not the lobbyists, pressmen, and reflectors in their DC echo chamber.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians everywhere just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.