If you have followed this blog at all, or if you know me, you will no doubt realize that I watched the entire James Comey testimony today.
In fact, I also watched the pre-event coverage, the ongoing coverage, the follow up coverage. And as I listened and watched, I clicked back and forth between Twitter and Facebook.
I am a very nimble multi-tasking lefty Nonni political junkie.
But as the evening comes on, and I sit here trying to put it into some perspective, I’m left with a few questions and a few impressions that I’m not seeing on the (cough, cough) “Main stream media”.
My first “Huh” moment came when I realized that the freakin’ RUSSIANS attacked our national election. And this is NOT what we’re talking about!!!! As we used to say back when I was a Soviet Studies major “што такое???”
As in, “What the hell???”
I mean, we have been informed that the country that has been our key adversary since 1945 has attacked the very fabric of our democracy, attempting to influence our election and weaken our self-determination.
And we’re spending our time fighting about what the words “I hope” really mean????
UM. Who’s on top of the whole “we-have-to-protect-our-electoral-process” problem?
And my second thought is this one. We just heard the former FBI director state in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the President of the United States is a big, fat liar.
In what universe would this NOT be a huge, outrageous, earth shattering revelation?
Well, in this one. In the world where the vast majority of Americans know that the President lies every damn day. Where the entire Republican Party simply accepts that he lies and doesn’t really object to that fact.
The. President. Was. Called. A. Liar. On. National. TV.
And that’s not the headline????
что за черт?
And finally, I am left with this question.
What in God’s name are we supposed to tell our children when they ask about America, and about our democratic system? How are we supposed to explain to them that the Russian could mess up our election, that our President could be widely known to be a liar, and that our government is completely wrapped up in pointing fingers instead of circling the wagons and trying to get the DAMN RUSSIANS out of our elections.
Sigh.
This overwhelmed Nonni doesn’t even know where to begin with this crap.
(Featured image by Thierry Ehermann via Flickr.)
Empty Nest, Full Life 
Watching from Ireland I too asked all those same questions. America is definitely not having it’s finest hour.
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We apologize, truly, the rest of the world, which remains civilized.
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We have relatives and close friends in Western Europe, and we just can’t explain it to them, because we don’t understand it ourselves.
All we can do is apologize to the world. 😪
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You said it so well!
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I so desperately wanted to watch the hearings today! I’ve been trying to catch up on all of the news since the second I got home from work (actually, as soon as I got into the car and turned on NPR). I get the impression that all of the news people are bored by today’s news, because they heard about it yesterday in the pre-hearing notes and it’s, like, so yesterday.
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No, NOOOO! I read the entire statement yesterday, but was absolutely glued to the testimony today. Look for the coverage on YouTube. Pop some popcorn, and watch a master at work. Still…..who is dealing with the real questions!!??
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The MSM outside of the US is as incredulous as you are. In fact, most people outside of the US are finding it difficult to fathom what’s going on over your way. It sounds as if the media outside of the US is giving more information about what’s going on than the media inside of it. That in itself is very worrying.
Believe me, the rest of the world sees him for what he is, and our thoughts are with you all. x
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I am so upset to know that there are still 34% of people here who support him. I think that Fox News is one of the biggest reasons for this. I wish there was something to be done about them.
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It’s not just Fox News (or as I call them, “Faux News”), it’s also AM right-wing talk radio, Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, and so many other news options, whether TV, print, radio, or the Internet.
OTOH, if these people were not already receptive to the right-winger garbage, all those media outlets wouldn’t have any effect on them.
These people are scared. They are, for the most part, doing less well economically than their parents did, and that they came to expect as their birthright. But when their jobs started disappearing, they got even more panicky. They were willing to listen to someone who told them that “the brown people” and the overseas people were “taking their jobs.”
Never mind that most of those jobs were actually lost to automation and robots, and it’s only going to continue that way.
Add to that the simmering racism that has always been here. For the most part that racism has been hidden (at least in public) but the election of a Black President started to cause some of them to crawl out from under their racist rock, and then the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump seems to have totally “released the Kraken” of racism, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBT, misogyny, and so forth.
Let’s face it, we are still to a great extent hairless plains apes, afraid of anybody who does not look like, act like, believe like, even smell like us, and wanting to off them. We need to get beyond this and realize that we are all human beings together.
Okay, I’m stepping down from my soap-box now. It may be time for a cocktail. {{Sigh}}
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But it was such a well expressed and well thought out soapbox. Or perhaps I only think so because I agree. sigh back at you.
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I watched the entire shebang from my home in London and I thought it was rather careless to allow John McCain to go to the bar before the hearing. 🙂
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Hahaha! Is that what you thought? Brilliant! My one thought was, Good God, he’s having a stroke….!
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Yep. Poor old John really put the ‘sham’ in shambolic during that little passage of play didn’t he? 🙂
I have to say that the Twitter responses from your compatriots last night was utterly superb in its wit and lampoonery (if that is actually a word) I spent a good hour chuckling along with my American cousins and even added a ‘wry’ observation of my own at one point 🙂
God bless the sense of humour that resides in the good people of The U-nite-ed States of Murica! 😀
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You are not alone. We are just as confused… pained… and frustrated. You would think we could say “This could not happen here!” but sadly, now we can say it did and it does. I have a feeling nothing will be done, because so far hope has not proven much.
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We do have a constitution. It guarantees the first amendment free speech. If we are willing to only allow one party’s view and completely abolish the other party’s view because, after all, they have that one station that we really don’t like, that is much scarier than anything I can think of….oh wait….that IS how they live in Russia.
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Really?
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