It’s been a huge day into the investigation of Resident Donald Trump and the Republican Reich over their attempt to coerce a foreign leader to fabricate evidence to assist Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and to hide Russia’s role in the Republican election theft of 2016.  The proof of that attempt has become so damning in the last 24 hours, that Trump is now asking for multiple countries to investigate Joe Biden in public!  The idea is to bluff that it must be OK if he does it blatantly.

On Thursday night, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives released a set of text messages they have received in their investigation of the State Department and its involvement in the Ukraine scandal…

…Here are 7 key details from the texts:

1. Ukraine feared it would be used as an “instrument” in American “domestic, reelection politics.”

Top U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor comes out the cleanest from the texts of the State employees, showing the most consistent concern for the wellbeing of Ukraine. In one exchange, he wrote on July 21 to United States Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland — a top donor to Trump — that Ukrainian “President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics.”…

Sondland replies “Absolutely,” but quickly pivots back to getting a conversation started between Trump and Zelensky. This shows that even before Trump’s infamous July 25 call with Ukraine, the country’s government feared it would be used for the president’s reelection campaign. This is exactly what Democrats accuse Trump of doing when he told Zelensky to open an investigation into Joe Biden, a potential 2020 opponent. It’s the whole reason the House’s impeachment inquiry has been reinvigorated.

But it gets worse.

… 2. An explicit quid pro quo

Former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker — who recently resigned after his involvement in the scandal was revealed — sends one of the most jaw-dropping single messages in the bunch. He lays out an explicit quid pro quo in a text to Ukrainian official Andrey Yermak on July 25, the same day as Trump’s call:

Kurt Volker: Good lunch – thanks.  Heard from the White House—assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / “get to the bottom of what happened” in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.  Good luck! See you tomorrow- kurt

This is a bombshell. It shows the White House set up a clear offer of an official U.S. government action — a visit to the White House — in exchange for Ukraine’s delivering investigations of the president’s political rivals. (In addition to the investigation of Biden and his son Hunter’s company Burisma, Trump has asked Zelensky to investigate conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and collusion between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton…

Inserted from <Alternet>

I shared two of seven. Click through for the other five.  I recommend it in the strongest possible terms.

Here is a complete transcript of the Ukraine texts.

Lawrence O’Donnell did an amazing job covering this last night, and he devoted three segments of his show to it.

Lawrence: The Smoking Guns Keep Coming On President Donald Trump And Ukraine

 

I hope that all those strikes mean he’s out!

Rpt: Top U.S. Diplomat In Ukraine Texted It Would Be “Crazy” To Withhold Aid

 

That’s enough witnesses’ with damning evidence against the Tangerine Traitor for the House Intelligence Committee, that Shifty had better Shift into high gear to put Trump in a cell.

Texts Between Diplomats On Ukraine Situation Released

 

I doubt that Bill Taylor will have his job for long, if he still has it now. He should be rehired, when possible, and deserves our thanks for his integrity.

I trust this is only the beginning of this story.

RESIST!!

I have a backlog of topics I feel are worthy of sharing. But the Orange Pustule currently occupying staining our Oval Office, through his actions and Tweets, inspires so many creative people that I have to keep updating literally down to the last hour.

Like today –  just this morning I came across a song set to “O Danny Boy” on Daily Kos that inspired my change in mid-stream.  I’ve collected a few poems, Limericks and songs along the way, so I thought I’d put them all together for today’s “Let’s Get Lyrical!”

[NOTE: If not directly shown as a Tweet, the attributions are the Links in the intro.  And feel free to share some of yours in the Comments.  And yes, I’m posting this very early.  My neuropathy pain woke me at 2:15 AM, and it’s bad enough to prevent me from going back to sleep.  So like the saying goes, I made lemonade.]

We’ll start out with a poem in a Jim Carrey Tweet:

Let’s all drink a toast to the new king of lies,
and the minions who help him while democracy dies,
and our kids who’ll be taught that the wicked are wise
because Potus was Jack from ‘Lord of The Flies’.
How much poison are you willing to swallow?! pic.twitter.com/CvS6Wze9jm

— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) April 24, 2019

 

And a delightful Limerick addressing those Talibangelical christianists who maintain that Trump is the “Chosen One”

They say Trump was hand-picked by God

If so I must question and prod

And what about Jack

LBJ and Barack

Did Bill C get the Almighty’s nod?

 

And some background dealing with our current *Resident’s lack of character and the Trumpkin cultists who support him.

Of course he cheats on taxes

(and golf and marriage too) —

he promised he would show them to us;

What’s a con to do?!

 

Breaking trust comes easily

for Don “John Baron” Trump

— to those who still believe him, yo:

Why are you such a chump?!

 

Moving on to our current efforts to rid our country of this cancer:

This bag of wind, this sack of bile,

This fetid mound, a sick orange pile

Of lying, cheating excrement,

This enemy of government.

 

This walking crisis of the soul,

This incoherent tweeting troll,

This moral, ethical disease,

This swamp of decomposing sleaze.

 

This NOTHINGBURGER with big hair,

This witless peddler of despair,

This dictatorial buffoon

Must be removed … and VERY soon!

 

And to explain to our fellow citizens why we need to take action

It's not because he's nasty
It's not because he's mean
It's not because he's racist
Or incredibly obscene

It's because he's broken laws
That the people say IMPEACH
We all must insist on this because
WE PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH. #ImpeachDonaldTrump

— BrooklynDad_Defiant Savage! (@mmpadellan) April 22, 2019

 

And closing with the song I came across this morning (in which I exercised my own poetic license with one word).

“O Donny Boy”

O Donny boy, the press, the press are calling

From state to state, across the country wide:

The jig is up, and all your crimes are showing.

You must resign, or in prison you’ll abide.

 

Our nation hates your lying and your treasons,

And children dying alone in filthy cells,

And people shot by Nazis who adore you

O Donny boy, you need to rot in jail.

 

And when you go, take all your cronies with you!

Take Pence and Mitch, and all your party, too.

Take Rush and Sean, and all the Fox “News” liars,

And drag your sons and daughter down with you.

 

And I shall laugh, when Democrats elected

Make Wall Street pay, and solar power the call,

When hate and fear and bigotry’s rejected,

When medicine and schooling’s free to all.