"Morning Papers"

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Donald J. Trump is deathly afraid of... 

"NEVER TRUMPERS!"

It is an oppositional BRAND of the INDIVIDUAL.

February 21, 2019
By Douglas Perry

...It’s true, (click here) Republicans love Trump. They love him as much or more than they’ve loved any president since the party’s founding in 1854.

But there’s more to consider here. The GOP holds the White House and the U.S. Senate, but if current trends continue, it soon might be struggling to maintain its major-party status. Registered Republican voters in the country are on the verge of being overtaken by independent voters, according to data from July 2018. Registered Democrats, meanwhile, outnumber Republicans nationwide by some 12 million.

Part of what’s happening is that younger, urban Americans are trending dramatically toward the Democrats or independent status. Added to that: many old-school conservatives -- particularly Baby Boomers and Gen Xers drawn to the Republican Party in their youth by leaders such as William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp -- have simply walked away from the Grand Old Party.

The latter are the NeverTrumpers Mair says have failed in their efforts to oppose Donald Trump. But as Mair herself acknowledged, she’s looking at the situation from the inside. The trees might be at least partially blocking her view of the forest.

“I think what most of these analyses of ‘Is NeverTrump dead?’ miss is that it was never really a collective political movement, but rather an individual moral decision,” Patrick Chovanec, a one-time policy aide for former GOP House Speaker John Boehner, tweeted this week....

"Good Night, Moon"

The first quarter

7.2 day old moon

47.5 percent

October 15, 2019
By Marina Koren

Ten years ago (click here), a rocket slammed into the moon.

The impact sent a plume of lunar material from the moon’s south pole flying out into space. For a few minutes, the spacecraft that had unleashed the rocket coasted through the mist, its instruments absorbing as much data as they could. Amid the molecules of methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and other compounds, the spacecraft detected something wonderfully familiar: water....

The USA is experiencing the strengthening of the climate crisis. It is time to do something, not simply stand by and hope for the best.

"DO SOMETHING"

One of the reasons California is maintaining moisture in March and April is snowmelt. This graph is from a commercial ski resort. They like to prove through scientific measure the snow is good at the resort.

How much snow did Northstar California (click here) get this ski season and over the last several seasons? Check out the ski resort historical snowfall using the graph, Northstar California snow stats—such as Total Snowfall, Max Base Depth, Biggest Snowfall, Total Snowfall Days and Average Base Depth—or the calendar below that shows daily snowfall data for the current ski season. To see how much snow Northstar California got last ski season or any ski season dating back to 2009/2010, click the corresponding tab. Click Compare at the top left to see a season-over-season comparison of Northstar California snowfall. In addition to snow history, you can also view the mountain's Base Depth by selecting it from the dropdown....

Precipitation (click here) in California is highly variable year-to-year and understanding this variability is critical to water resource management and policy....

The figure to the left is from the article with the link above. The figure clearly shows two-thirds of California has undergone a change in precipitation from 1951 to 1999. That is nearly fifty years. The change is not a good change. The rainfall in California over the fifty years before the severity of the climate crisis became apparent decreases up to 100 percent. That means Southern California has no rainfall while northern California saw rainfall decrease by 80 percent.  The area that is seeing 80 percent less precipitation is where the Diablo winds have been working on the moisture content and making the state dry. The rainfall has to be put back and it will not happen naturally.

NASA has a film loop of the Diablo winds. NASA can track changes today and in the future.

November 2, 2019

By Elizabeth Howell

...NASA's new animation (click here) visualizes data captured between Oct. 20 and Oct. 28, showing strong gusts in yellow and weak winds in purple. This data comes from the Goddard Earth Observing System Model 5 (GEOS-5), a weather model that NASA is experimenting with to better understand weather around the world. This model takes in data from 30 sources, such as satellites, ships, aircraft and buoys....

It has a really pretty pink flower.

Same website as before, just bring focus to it.

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Shrub
Leaf: Green
Autumn Foliage: yes
Fruit: Black
Size Class: 1-3 ft.

Bloom Color: White , Pink
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul

Native Habitat: Dry or moist, open woods; thickets; clearings

Water Use: Low
Light Requirement: Sun , Part Shade , Shade
Soil Moisture: Dry , Moist , Wet
CaCO3 Tolerance: Low
Soil Description: Sandy or rocky, acid soils.
Conditions Comments: A good ground cover for thin, rocky woods.

Use Wildlife: Fruits and twigs are used by many forms of wildlife.

Conspicuous Flowers: yes
Attracts: Birds

Description: Propagation by seed is possible.

Seed Collection: Fruits may be stripped from branches by hand or with a 

blueberry rake. Extract seeds by macerating the berries in water.

Seed Treatment: Untreated seeds are slow to germinate. Warm stratification 

for 30 days followed by incubation with cold temperature has enhanced 

germination.
Commercially Avail: yes

Gaylussacia (baccata) propagation protocol (breeding and/or growing) (click here)

This article is from Canada.

I. Are "Hot" Because (click here)

Are in contact with a relatively hot surface (deserts to the east

Are sinking to sea level and therefore are warmed compressionally.

Air that is warm to begin with is further warmed by compression.

The wind patterns are not likely to change soon. The Diablo winds are on the east side of the Rocky Mountains/Sierras or whatever rock formation is accompanying this pattern, but, the Diablo winds do the damage on the west side of the mountains. The lower chart shows the dynamics of the wind.

Attempting to change the Great Basin is fruitless. However, if the hot, dry winds out of the Great Basin meet up with high moisture in California, it will not result in continually rising wind speeds. Lower wind speeds will lower the evaporation of the moisture content in California. The change must come from the west side of the mountains, not the east.

New York State huckleberry is the Gaylussacia baccata, or black huckleberry.

This is one of New York's huckleberry bushes. See the cedar in the background.

Black Huckleberry (click here)

Ericaceae (Heath Family)

Synonym(s): Decachaena baccata


USDA Symbol: GABA

USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N), SPM (N)

A much-branched, stiff, colony-forming shrub, 1-2 ft. tall, with white, tubular flowers in axillary panicles on the previous season growth. Purplish-black, edible berries follow. The small, oval leaves turn shades of orange and crimson in the fall. An upright-branching shrub with small leaves and blue-black berries.

The berries on this shrub make is a valuable plant for wildlife.

What is the chance of altering the MOISTURE rate in California to avert fires?

I am trying to understand the dynamics of wind and low moisture content in California to move the state away from any kind of fire season. Fire is not at all necessary for the forests and vineyards of California. If the moisture content of the ground and air can be altered, it might fend off some fire. This is simply me trying to place some kind of scientific application to the state to alter the danger of fire. This is not tested. This is just from my reading.

I ran across this article in my reading. This diagram is from that article. It is an extremely interesting diagram to me. The blue bars are the number of fire events. The blue dotted line is the MOISTURE content of the fuel that ignites into a fire.

I have stated before, many times on this blog, the best protection a forest has from fire is HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT. In the film below about the Redwood National Forest, it is very, very easy to see moisture content that keeps this forest healthy and wet. Every morning, as the sun comes up the Redwoods, bring a MIST to the area where they stand. That mist is produced by "evapotranspiration" of the tree leaves themselves. The roots bring the water to the trunk of the tree and then through a siphoning PRESSURE due to evaporation of water at the leaves, the water is carried to all the limbs, twigs and leaves of the tree.

I don't care if California only waters every lawn and drip trickles water to the vineyards, the MOISTURE of the ground and air have to meet the same level as March and April. If March and April FENDS OFF fire, then a moisture content of equal measure the rest of the year will provide the same results.

THIS CAN BE REPRODUCED IN A LAB TO DISCOVER IT'S EFFECTIVENESS, but, I already know it will work. The application of water to maintain high levels of moisture is vital to end these deadly fires. Moisture such as seen with the redwoods below produces its own rain. Rainforests produce their own high water vapor content. Brazil's forest fires are man-made, the rainforests are not capable of allowing the fire to start.

This will work and it will work better and better with every moist year that follows the initial first year.

Build desalination plants and plenty of them. I don't think there is another way. Hot dry ground and hot dry air will only beget the same year after year.

The critical issue for the Bay Area is that Diablo Winds are most frequent during the fall and in particular October when the fuel moisture content is lowest (See Figure 1 below).

As we enter the fall (click here) in northern California, one thing is one everyone’s mind. Are we going to have Diablo winds like we did in 2017? Next week marks the one-year anniversary of the deadly Wine Country Fires. Three of the Wine Country Fires (Tubbs, Redwood Valley, and Atlas) as well as the Tunnel Fire (Oakland Hills) of 1991, rank in the top twenty of California’s deadliest wildfires (CalFire, 2017). All four of those fires, with the addition of the Nuns Fire (2017) are also ranked in the top twenty most destructive fires (CalFire, 2018) in California's history.  The Tubbs Fire alone burned over 36,000 acres and caused 22 fatalities. These fires were driven by extreme winds known as Diablo Winds....

Birds will feed on these fruits regardless of the fat content.

This is the second time berries have come up in discussion, so I want to bring a new concept into the picture. 

There are quality issues with berries in the forest. Some are high quality and some are low quality. 

The high quality berries usually produce fruit in late summer and fall. They are considered high quality because of their fat (lipid) content, about 20% lipid per unit weight. They contain large seeds as well. Anyone can see why this fruit would be considered a high quality food for wildlife. It provides fat, which is considered a long term source of energy. 

The high quality berries are Spicebush, Flowering and grey stemmed dogwoods, Southern Magnolia, Southern Arrowroot, Sassafras, Virginia Creeper and Black Tupelo (Black Gum). These fruits/berries are red or violet.

The low quality berries have a lower fat (lipid) content about 10% lipid by weight. That doesn't mean they are bad for wildlife, quite the contrary. The low quality fruit or berries are hawthorns, sumacs, Choke cherries, greenbrier, Mountain ash, roses, Mapleleaf Viburnum, Fox Grape, Poison ivy, hollies sush as Winterberry, Red Cedar and Common Juniper. 

While fire season is SOP in California, the extent these fires have waged their inferno is unusual.

Fire is fire. In the case in California, it is the viciousness of the winds this year. It is the wind that is the enemy, not the fire. The fires are raging because of climate.

"Great Basin Geology" (click here) It is a highly seismic area.

October 28, 2019
By Doyle Rice

Just as southern California (click here) has its notorious Santa Ana winds, northern California's most infamous winds are known as "Diablo" winds. These are the winds that are fueling the Kincade Fire, now raging in California's wine country. 

But what are they? 

Like Santa Ana winds, Diablo winds originate hundreds of miles inland in the desert regions of the Great Basin, according to the Los Angeles Times. There, circulation of air around a strong area of surface high atmospheric pressure flows over the Sierra Nevada, heading toward lower pressure at sea level.

The resulting flow from high pressure inland to lower pressure off the California coast is warmed and dried by compressional heating as the air sinks from the Great Basin, which is 4,000 to 5,000 feet in elevation, down to sea level, according to meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services....

Pathetic little bushes aren't they? No, no, not the green ones, the red ones. Those are the huckleberry bushes. They grow in places where obviously the green ones don't. 

The red leaves in the autumn color. They probably, at some point, slit the rock in order to reach sunlight. 

Interesting, isn't it? The power of the sun never seems to be modified even as Earth-based fauna. Chlorophyll and photosynthesis. Try putting that in a bomb instead of poor little nuclear material. 

Indeed. Chlorophyll, photosynthesis and sunshine can split rock. So, very cool.

Yes, you can pick fruit in New York State parks, according to NYCRR, Part 190:

190.0 Introduction.

(a) Except as otherwise provided, (click here) the provisions of this Part shall apply to all persons entering upon or using State lands under the department's jurisdiction that are administered by the Division of Lands and Forests, the Division of Operations, or both, including but not limited to such lands as unique areas, State forests, reforestation areas, multiple use areas, forest preserve, conservation areas, natural resource management areas, preserves, campgrounds and environmentally sensitive lands, and to those rights owned and managed by the State as conservation easements as defined in section 190.12 of this Part....

No person shall deface, remove, destroy or otherwise injure in any manner whatsoever any tree, flower, shrub, fern, fungi or other plant organisms…found or growing on State land, except for personal consumption….”

Huckleberry bushes look so much like highbush blueberries, it’s hard to tell them apart.

This berry rake is on Etsy (click here). There are cheaper varieties sold for $19.99 plus S&H. It is my guess the cheaper plastic handheld rakes don't hold up as well. The berries, even though ripe, will give anyone a fight. The pickers protect the user from all the scratches that go along with fighting the twigs off to reach the berries.

You can actually buy something called a berry rake, that pulls down the berries, gently, from the shrub and deposits them in a bucket.  There are a couple models available from Amazon.com.  But, I don’t know. That seems like an unfair advantage over the bear, and if it’s not done right, you can damage the bush.

Speaking of bears, huckleberries (and blueberries) are a favorite food.  You might find yourself sharing the patch with a black bear.  But your bigger worry would be…

Snakes.  Huckleberries grow abundantly on dry, rocky soil, places beloved by snakes; in dry area, huckleberries may attract the field mice that snakes feed on.  Watch out for snakes in these parts (especially if you’re going to the famed berry patches of the ‘Gunks or Kingston County).

Yea, snakes. The trick to know with snakes is that they pick up vibration very accurately. I was doing a survey on some land in New Jersey; at one point I turned around and there about 15 feet from me was this "Milk Snake (click here)." I mean to tell you, it had me dead on. It was looking me right in the eye. It had to climb up the bush a bit to look me straight in the eye. Amazing. I just backed up and walked to a path that lead to the Jeep. I decided I had made enough noise and took lunch.

We don’t know why, but you can’t just dig up the wild plants and put them in your garden for your own berry harvest.  They won’t grow that way.

You can’t buy a gigundo bag of them at Costco for $10.00.  These babies are wild, man.

This is an incredible picture captured in California. The tree with a large diameter is burning from the inside out. The fire is noted to be inside the trunk, first seen at the base and further noted at the top of the trunk on the left side. The trunk is about to explode.

The photographer is not safe. The fire is raining down and noted to be surrounding him/her on the ground.

I realize it is important to catch exceptional pictures, but, please don't reward a photographer this decided to find something unique to sell in the photo. That photographer is lucky to be alive. A Go-Pro is a far better idea than a human being standing in a firestorm. The next danger might be another person, a young person, mimicking the daring event.

November 3, 2019
By Maria L. LaGanga

Healdsburg - The things that set California apart, (click here) for better or worse, were all there last Sunday afternoon: terrifying flames, wine country glamour and a rescue straight out of Hollywood. Captured via smartphone. Of course.

As John Viszlay and Dominic Foppoli watched, horrified, the Kincade fire crested the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains and headed straight for their adjoining vineyards. Winds gusted. Smoke swirled. At any moment, they realized, everything they’d worked for would be lost.

“We came within a couple hundred yards of the fire hitting and destroying our winery,” said Foppoli, who is also the mayor of nearby Windsor. It would have been a disaster, “if it wasn’t for a perfectly timed Hollywood scene, where the skies parted and a 747 supertanker … shows up out of the sky and blasts the fire.”...

It is time to move on to the shrubs of the Northern Pine Oak Forest

Bearberry
Huckleberry
Inkberry
Broom Crowberry
Lowbush
Blueberry 
Sheep Laurel (Lambkill)
Wild raisin

It's Sunday Night

Caption to the picture. "Sanders is hot."

Who knew? What do I know about some passions?

Toby Keith - Huckleberry (video with lyrics - click here for official website of artist - thank you))

John McDonnell talks NHS privatisation and Heathrow expansion under Labo...

The Brits love their public financed health service. They see privatization as corruption and a danger to the people. I agree. I also believe the UK is an excellent example of how a public health care service actually works within a government economy based in capitalism. This is not socialism. It is a country ensuring its people are well, happy and productive.

As a matter of fact, the business climate in the UK far exceeds that of the USA and it isn't because of taxes. We know the taxes there are lower than the USA, the Republicans scream about it all the time.

The health care contract of the people is with the government and requires no portability. There are no costs to employers in providing health care to their people. The people have a consistent ability to insure their health even if they lose their jobs or become ill.

Basically, government issues health care provides a higher standard of living.

The argument by Republicans about government-issued health care is that Americans will lose their doctors. Why? They going to evaporate? Seriously. I want Americans to tell me they can actually choose their own doctor. Go ahead, tell anyone you have the very same doctor that you had ten or twenty years ago. I dare you.

I want to point out that "In-network" or "Out of network" is the insurance company choosing the doctor for the American subscriber. Go ahead argue that one.

Does any Middle Class American actually pay more for health care insurance to be sure they have the same doctor? No. They choose health care insurance to minimize the cost of health care, therefore, the idea a government-issued health care system is going to remove any American's doctor from their care is nonsense. As a matter of fact, there is a greater chance an American can have the same doctor from cradle to grave is greater under a government-issued health care plan. An employer cannot change health care insurers either. The degree of CONSISTENCY and CONTINUITY of care is far greater with a government issued health care than any private company can guarantee. The entire "fear based" Republican "talking points" is straight out of Halloween and has nothing to do with reality.

28 September 2018
By Alex Therrien

Life expectancy (click here) in the UK has stopped improving for the first time since 1982, when figures began.

Women's life expectancy from birth remains 82.9 years and for men it is 79.2, the figures from the Office for National Statistics, for 2015-17, show....

What is health care about? Why bother with it? Happy living, quality of that life and longevity. That is what health care is all about.

February 18, 2019
By Grace Donnelly

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row, (click here) according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The new average life expectancy for Americans is 78.7 years, which puts the U.S. behind other developed nations and 1.5 years lower than the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average life expectancy of 80.3. The OECD is a group of developed countries that includes Canada, Germany, Mexico, France, Japan, and the U.K....

The longevity in the UK has dropped in some regions of the country, including Scotland. BUT, the longevity of the people of the USA continues to fall. There is an entire segment of Americans, White Men in their 50s, dying far before they should. The USA has a problem providing reassurance about longevity. There simply isn't a predictable quality of life for everyone in the USA.

The health care system is broken and needs to be rebuilt on the understanding every American life is equally as precious.

The money to pay for the NHS comes directly from taxation. The 2008/9 budget roughly equates to a contribution of £1,980 per person in the UK. When the NHS was launched in 1948 it had a budget of £437 million (roughly £9 billion at today's prices). In 2016–17 it was £122.5 billion ($158.48 US)

White the Kushners showed loyalty to Russian oligarchs, former Breitbart Steve Bannow was nothing short of ruthless, amoral and power hungry.

This just put the icing on the cake. The Obamas and Clintons were ridiculed for spending time at Martha's Vineyard on the Kennedy Compound. At least they were in the USA and with peers.

3 November 2019
By Keith Giffith

Kushner and Ivanka Trump spent the Croatia vacation (above) aboard the megayacht of billionaire Democrat donor David Geffen (click here)

A tranche of newly released documents (click here) from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation have revealed that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump took a vacation in Croatia with a mystery 'Russian billionaire' during the 2016 campaign.

Also on the trip was and Rupert Murdoch's former wife Wendi Deng.

According to the notes, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon raised questions about the vacation and found it so dubious that he planned to 'leverage' the meetup with the Russian against Donald's Trump's son-in-law, Jared.

The documents, including 274 pages of Mueller team interview notes, emails and other documents related to the investigation, were released on Saturday in response to a lawsuit from CNN and Buzzfeed.

'Bannon knew Kushner was on vacation off the coast of Croatia with a Russian Billionaire when Bannon took over the campaign,' a summary of an investigative interview with Bannon read.

The summary said that Kushner was with Deng, the Russian billionaire, and the Russian's girlfriend, but it does not name the Russian....

Ivanka (left) went sightseeing in Dubrovnik with Wendi Deng (Murdoch).

Of course, the Russians loved the Trumps to assist with money laundering. That is known. There is no doubt Trump was buying real estate and selling it for hyper-inflated prices to Russians. Trump's status of a billionaire isn't really legitimate. It was accumulated by cheating contractors in bankruptcy proceedings and dealing with underworld characters like the Russian oligarchs.

I doubt Speaker Pelosi will allow much of a delay regarding the impeachment proceedings.

November 1, 2019
By Alexander Nazaryan and Michael Isikoff

Washington — Even as House Democrats on Thursday (click here) ratified an impeachment resolution against President Trump, a federal judge has potentially slowed the brisk pace of the inquiry by declining to rule on whether a key witness needed to testify before the House of Representatives.

Instead, he gave all relevant parties several more weeks to prepare their arguments. That raised the prospect that public hearings on the president’s conduct could drag on into the Christmas holiday season, a scenario many in the Democratic leadership had once hoped to avoid.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sought to make impeachment a quick, tightly controlled affair. On Friday, she told Bloomberg News that she expects public hearings to begin this month, though she added that there is still no fixed timetable and that the case against the president “has to be ironclad.”

The decision in question came in the chambers of Richard Leon, a judge in D.C. federal district court, in a case known as Kupperman v. House of Representatives....

Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Adam Schiff are ready to release transcripts beginning as early as next week. Both Pelosi and Schiff are aware of this case before Judge Richard Leon.

Speaker Pelosi said a very interesting thing.During her speech from the US House floor when speaking to the legislative body she stated, "There will be no more court proceedings." It raises questions about the efficacy of this case before Judge Leon. Will the US House withdraw from the case realizing they are moving forward with or without Kupperman or will the proceedings continue in anticipation of a decision of the case in the next few weeks while other evidence is introduced.

The US House Judiciary Committee may be interested in presenting their case even if the impeachment has already run its course. This is a matter of precedent with the Executive Branch stating it has grounds to stop Kupperman from giving testimony to the US House regarding impeachment. It appears to me while Mr. Kupperman is a human being and not recorded tapes, the verbal testimony falls under the same precedent as with Nixon. I am not a lawyer or a judge.

I was pleased to hear this from the reporting below from FOX News. I thank Judge Andrew Napolitano for addressing the essence of the problems Senate and House Republicans face regarding overwhelming evidence and personal conflicts with loyalty to the party. This is an adjustment they need to face to realize their oath is to the US Constitution and not the president.

In many, many ways this is a trial of the clarity of the oath of office and whether or not those words carry the brevity that they were meant to carry to protect the US Constitution and hence the USA as a country. No one is taking this lightly, even the US House took some time to struggle with these facts. 

November 1, 2019
By Alexandra Hutzler

Fox News' Judge Andrew Napolitano (click here) said that the proof of President Donald Trump's potentially impeachable offenses is largely undisputed and that congressional Republicans have no credible line of defense to protect him.

Napolitano reflected on the ongoing impeachment probe in an editorial published by Fox News on Thursday. The judicial analyst warned Republicans to be "careful what they ask for" going forward because of the overwhelming evidence against the president.

"Their defense of the president has addressed process, not proof," Napolitano wrote. "The proof is largely undisputed, except by the president himself. It consists of admissions, testimony and documents, which show that Trump sought to induce the government of Ukraine to become involved in the 2020 presidential election."

He added that it's a "mouthful of facts to swallow in one bite, but the legal implications are straightforward and profound."...

Trump should not have survived the Special Counsel investigation. He was guilty of abuse of power for self serving priorities then.

What did Ukraine's Anti-corruption Bureau say when it received the "black ledger" back from the presidential offices? It would seem that while Joe Biden was fighting the good fight to remove corruption from Ukraine, the Trump White House inflicted it's own brand of corruption, self-serving priorities of Trump.

Cybersecurity is Guiliani's cover, but, in reality he was working with Trump to undermine the Special Counsel investigation. Guiliani assisted Trump to try to liberate Paul Manafort from his criminal wrongdoings.

This is the first time Trump blackmailed the President of Ukraine, the most recent whistleblower account is the second with a different president. President Poroshenko had to hide the "black ledger" in an office of the president rather than the Anti-Corruption Bureau where they belonged in order to receive his first shipment of Javelin missiles (click here). What is even more peculiar, at least to me, is the missiles are that of Raytheon Corp. and today Espers is Secretary of Defense. Why did he agree to serve? Protecting company patents from Russia?

I think this is modus operandi for Trump. He estranges every leader; except Putin who is all too willing to be Trump's No. 1; to bring pressure to THEIR CHOICES when needing the USA's alliance. And Guiliani is the go-between, sorry, facilitator. This is the second known act for Guiliani in taking on an unelected or appointed role of the "Covert State Department/"Hand Grenade." How many more don't we know about? Guiliani literally blew up any and all appropriate measures by the people serving in this administration and replaced it with blackmail.

October 31, 2019
By David Ignatius

After being (click here) named an “informal” Cybersecurity Advisor to President Trump in January 2017, Giuliani entered into a “cybersecurity” contract with the Ukrainian government — personally enriching himself while appearing to use his position of influence to help advance Ukraine’s foreign policy goals

...Trump survived (click here) his first effort to solicit foreign political help in his appeals to Russia for damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. But soon after Trump was cleared of “collusion” by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, he seemingly went at it again — this time demanding political dirt from Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a condition of delivering military assistance to Kyiv....

...What led to Trump’s first meeting on June 20, 2017, with Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko? Ukraine had hired the lobbying firm BGR Group in January 2017 to foster contact with Trump, but nothing had happened . . . and then the door opened. Why?

On June 7, less than two weeks before Poroshenko’s White House meeting, Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had visited Kyiv to give a speech for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, headed by a prominent Ukrainian oligarch. While Giuliani was there, he also met with Poroshenko and his prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, according a news release issued by the foundation.

Just after Giuliani’s visit, Ukraine’s investigation of the so-called black ledger that listed alleged illicit payments to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was transferred from an anti-corruption bureau, known as NABU , to Poroshenko’s prosecutor general, according to a June 15, 2017, report in the Kyiv Post. The paper quoted Viktor Trepak, former deputy head of the country’s security service, saying: “It is clear for me that somebody gave an order to bury the black ledger.”...