IN HIS OWN WORDS

Ambassador Gordon Soundland

Ambassador Gordon Sondland gave his testimony yesterday in the House Impeachment Inquiry. I don’t know much about the ambassador but I do know it takes guts to just sit ion those hearings under the lights and cross-examined by two hostile sides.

Regarding the inquiry, the words: we all need to convince us were spoken by Sondland, “Quid pro quo” the trigger that makes the statement, the President of the United States engaged in unsavory, illegal, behavior. ‘EVERYONE’ knew there was a quid pro quo, what else do we need? He then went on to name not only POTUS, VP Pence, White House gatekeeper Chief of Staff Mulvaney, Secretary of State Pompeo, and of course, Attorney General Barr along with Trump's private attorney Giuliani.

So, we have gone this far and I wonder what more there is to convince the highly partisan Republican Trump supporters. Can it be any plainer than where we are now, situated with the players, the documentation and admission of both the President and chief of staff in their own words? Does this not convince the American people who have already been told of the tales of the White House staff trying to reign in Trump's erratic responses?

The Republicans state that since Trump took office there has been this movement to remove the man from office. Why is that? Because early on he was dangerous, his relations with Russia’s Putin, North Korean strongman Kim Jung Un and other dictators, the Helsinki meeting between POTUS and Putin that went undocumented and to this day we know nothing about. The long parade of constant turnover in his cabinet, the Mueller Report that sent so many in his campaign to jail, the sleazy foul-mouthed and immoral consideration of women, all lead the majority of Americans, and it was a majority that voted against him only points out why. Collusion, obstruction, it is all self-evident for the last three years, and the obstructers of Justice, by the far the biggest culprits are: the Republican Party.
 

AND IT’S ALL BOLDFACE, TOO!

I have been watching the Impeachment hearings conducted by the US House of Representatives and I am astounded by the amount of politics being displayed by the Republican Committee members. Legal staff and representatives on the committee demonstrate what seems to be the modus operandi-denial of the facts.

I could understand there being skepticism in some of the testimony, some hard questioning to get to the facts and even outrage by some of the charges. What I can’t come to grips with is the unwillingness to face the facts head-on asking questions that are meaningful and insightful.

We need to establish based on unbiased professional servants of the Republic the facts as they interpret them and their opinions. To simply look to dispute anything beforehand belies the fact that the Republicans are even interested in the truth.

There have been thousands and thousands of documentation and testimony, hours upon hours of sworn in real-time testimony to support the accusations, and yet the Republicans have ignored the facts as they refuse to ask questions that could help me and others determine if POTUS deserves to be put on trial. They make claims of wasted time and paper, they state it is all “Second-hand” accounts and that no one can say they were there. Yet the accounts by the recent testimony of two individuals who overheard the President discuss the Joe Biden affair he wished to orchestrate, in regard to crafting facts out of nothing and the board membership of former Vice President of the US Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, on the Board of Director’s of Burisma the oil company operating in Ukraine.

If you wish to disprove what seems to be fact as the Republican committee members should be doing, instead, they skirt the issue and fail miserably to convince even themselves of POTUS innocence.

According to the rules of both the US Senate and US House of Representatives, committee hearings may be held behind closed doors when or if they involve matters that could endanger the following: national security, harm an ongoing investigation, cause a deep invasion of an individual's privacy, and a variety of other situations along those lines. Yet all I hear is that the Republicans object to the initially closed-door hearings conducted by the Judiciary Committee for the inquest for an impeachment trial for POTUS. WHEN YOU GIVE THEM WHAT THEY ASKED FOR, THEY SCREAM EVEN LOUDER!

How much more are they willing to compromise their integrity, disavow their duty to protect and defend the Constitution from the flagrant disregard of our basis as a democracy and the model it is to the world?

Minority chair, David Nunez

Will Americans themselves wake up to the facts that are pounding our senses and screaming out for attention and rid themselves of the likes of Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, and minority chair David Nunez?

Majority chair, Adam Schiff

Meanwhile, the Democrats under Rep. Adam Schiff, MAJORITY chair of the committee in this inquiry has conducted himself with class and self-control, leading and facilitating in spite of Republican attempts to lead it to a circus atmosphere.

IT SURE FEELS DIFFERENT

Way back in the 1950s there were many newspapers that operated in NYC, of them was the NY Daily News, the NY Daily Mirror, and the NY Times.

Generally speaking, you followed your baseball team by who favored it in the sports reporting. Often I would hear people say: The NY News… oh that’s a Dodger paper, or the Times a Yankee paper, etc.

This morning as I perused through the sports pages of the NY News I noticed two lead stories with women reporters. I thought how strange the realization is, women reporting from inside the locker room, women with solid reporting credentials and meaningful opinions. The best thing is they are interesting and informative, way to go ladies.

In the old days you had guys like Dick Young, Marty Appel, and Red Smith as the deans of NYC sports reporting, they wrote books and interesting articles for magazines, they had real prejudices and opinions that people accepted as gospel. Today the landscape has changed. If you go back to the early days of big money football when there was this new awareness of the NFL and Sunday Night Football on TV, there was even a woman whose last named was George if I remember correctly for a short while.

Spending a lot of time in hospitals, medical centers and rehabilitation places, whenever someone says the doctor will come by and explain it to me and I envision a male doctor, about early sixties, with graying temples, a white coat, and a stethoscope hanging around his neck, instead, a young woman, usually from the western regions of Asia such as Pakistan or India appears. It doesn’t matter what the gender is; only the expertise, and they are most capable as doctors.

I guess what is happening is women are becoming part of the whole picture, moiré influential, and may start dominating the day-to-day events on a global scale.

MAKING THINGS MATCH

The hearings continue this week in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee under chairman Adam Shiff, and I keep wondering what it is like to be under this constant pressure by the press, Congress and the American Public and the constant new revelations must make for a difficult night’s sleep for POTUS.

It seems like not only American politics are at issue, so is the NFL with Colin Keapernick and the demands to get a contract by him and the alleged collusion that may or may not exist by the various owners of the NFL clubs. The locale for the tryout or audition and grounds to conduct them make every party culpable in one way or another.

Speaking of the NFL, that nasty incident of helmet smashing by Myles Garrett on the head of his opponent (reference in Steelers-Browns recent game) should be dealt with in severe punitive measured response. The sport is violent enough so it is not necessary or needed. It reminds me of the incident with the San Francisco Giant’s Juan Marichal and the Los Angeles Dodger’s Johnny Roseboro. Marichal clubbed Roseboro with his baseball bat causing 14 stitches, and although Marichal did nothing for his batting average and his reputation took a hit.


I noticed that Don Trump junior was interviewed by a fellow named Levine on Fox News and he compared himself to Hunter Biden and how each has attained their value. He questioned how Hunter Biden could possibly be on the Board of Directors of a Ukrainian oil company without speaking the language, having no experience and a number of other qualifiers needed. My question to him is what are he and Ivanka doing getting involved in government business with their qualifications? Reminds me of my cousin Louie, the family considered him brilliant and a future politician, he ran for 3rd-grade class president… three times!

Being present in a medical facility for the last two and a half years makes me appreciate the dedication of the staff and the fact that their color, place of birth, and religion really don’t matter, but their gentleness and loving concern for those in need does seem to matter greatly. Prejudice has worn itself out, old concepts manufactured and fueled by white bias has run its course. If you are dying and a doctor comes along and saves your life, you won’t reject that doctor based on color, place of origin or color. A good chance is that that doctor may not be white or from this country, and may speak with a heavy accent. The only thing you need to know then is: “THANK GOD!”

POLDARK and DCI BANKS

Sometimes I like to share things with my readers, both of you. I have watched TV all my life and although my son is heavily involved in it, what I do watch is little and boring. I watch the MSNBC, FOX NEWS, and CNN highly partisan broadcasts that spew certain points of view and then sports.

When it comes to English programming, I watch and enjoy everything they seem to produce, they are masters. They should be credited with the invention of TV because they do TV so well and make it worthwhile.

Over the years I have followed Mr. Bean, starring Rowan Atkinson, Keeping Up Appearances with Patricia Routledge and other shows that truly amuse me. Lately, with a new TV system I have the joy to watch two new programs since I no longer have the well-played and produced Downton Abbey, a masterpiece, they are DCI Banks with Stephen Tompkinson and Poldark with Aidan Turner.

Television should be something that lightens our minds, feeds us mentally and rewards us for paying attention with great scripts, acting and art direction, not mindless flippancy and little worthy dialogue. It is one thing to wait for TV programming and another wanting it immediately. British TV makes you want and then holds you down like an elephant sitting on your chest so you won’t move because you are so engrossed in the production.

I would recommend both DCI and Poldark if you can find them.

FOX NEWS FARE AND BALANCED

I try to get all points of view in politics. Being an independent voter, no party affiliations, I can very easily watch CNN, FOX NEWS, or MSNBC without feeling any disloyalty to anyone. All these stations are heavily biased and that is OK because all I get extreme points of view and can make up my mind.

I have been paying a lot of attention to FOX NEWS lately to see how they spin the news and the troubles of POTUS.
 Rather than “Fair and balanced” as they claim, FOX NEWS is handing me a fare that is unbalanced in favor of the defense of POTUS. The trouble I find is they don’t discuss the crimes and lies the so-called President makes, but rather the way the Democrats are running the hearings. FOX NEWS skirts, dances, and ignores the truths.

 I listen to the talking heads on most of these shows and I am appalled that they skirt the truths and instead play on semantics, silly comparisons that miss their marks and lose their way. Mike Wallace and Shepard Smith who see the truth and react to it and there are people like Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson who are not relevant to the truth. One is on the shelf and the other is not relevant to the truth.

As I follow all this I am dismayed by the attitude of the Republicans who seem to rely on the ‘say-so’s’ of the network for what they think is their survival.

YESTERDAY SEEMED LIKE YESTERDAY ALL OVER AGAIN.

Getting older is no way to grow as you ache, forget, and need to know where all the toilets are. You wish you were young again and could do the things you did once, smell the smells that made you happy, got a full night’s sleep, and eat the things that helped define who you are today.

The last thing: “eat the things that helped define who you are” is perhaps the only thing left besides old faded black and white photos you still have somewhere in a worn shoebox.

So, what do you do to capture all that? Think back to the days when the one thing you took for granted then, is your passion today, food.

And what better way to remember Mom, wearing her apron stirring the pot, causing aromas that leave you paralyzed today if by chance you do smell them, the creation of my favorite dish, Pasta Fagioli!

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the supermarket and got all the ingredients that make my stomach growl and my nose sing and my mind leave me while my mouth waters, I got the ‘fixins’ for my favorite dish!

Once things got going, I went out to get the mail and when I opened the door to re-enter my house, there it was! Aroma! Sweet memories and flashbacks that gave me backlash! It was 1950 all over again! I could hear Mom’s soft singing to herself, filling her cooking with joy, the sweet songs of love that transcended from her heart to her lips to her hand and into the pot. That was her first ingredient to go into the pot. It took me back to aunts and uncles, places and special days all spent once upon a time!

I used to sit at the kitchen table and watch her slice an onion or a piece of bread and look at her hands, soft, kind hands that did her cooking so lovingly. On her ring finger was her wedding band, and I would remember that Dad was soon coming home. His climbing the two flights of stairs, whistling, a fedora cocked to one side, brown wing-tipped shoes and the Journal American folded under his arms so we kids could read the funnies before Mom filled our plates and stomachs.

It is funny how much this plays out as I seek memories that seem to trigger even more! It took me back to Grandma’s house and her cooking, her attacking the gas stove, tossing her ingredients without fancy measuring devices or fancy pots and pans, hers were worn, well worn and she flung, tossed and cut over the pots and pans. It was magic, her slippers flopping as she patrolled her kitchen.

Dad was another story. He taught me to spice things up once in a while. Sometimes Mom would make pigs skin and knuckles with cabbage. We, as children hated it but the smells that emanated from the kitchen didn’t square with our hatred and so we tried it. After all, our stomachs told us we were hungry, besides, there was a great looking loaf of Italian bread waiting to be eaten with it, and Dad would take out a jar of vinegar peppers and slice some in my dish, give me a little glass of wine and I was king. Mom would protest me getting wine and dad would say: “You know… in Italy, they give the children a little wine!” Giving me the wine was like giving the fox the keys to the hen house.

But all these memories, from one dish of pasta fagioli!

EARLY MORNING GREETINGS

Every morning, seven days a week I walk into the Medford Multicare Center in Medford, NY. As I enter, I go to the main desk and sign in. At the desk is a wonderful gentleman who greets me and calls me “sir”. I don’t mind his calling me sir or anything else that is friendly because it is the start of my day. Tomorrow I will ask him to call me Joe instead of sir.

As I stroll down the hall and past the nurse’s station, sitting behind the station counter a gray hair lady greets me in her 60s who smiles at me as I say “Good Morning”, and she replies in kind. The lady is an administrator of some kind.

Plowing straight ahead I passed the aids working on the floor and then the nurse who is almost a sentinel as she works her computer outside my daughter Ellen’s room. All give me a smile and a ‘Hello’.

Then I pull in my breath and hold it as I pass the door and enter my daughter’s room and cast my eyes on her bed looking for signs of any kind. Usually, the signs of disarray are present and the look of agony crosses her face. Looking at me she punches her head and then grimaces and looking into my eyes seeks to know why I don’t do something. This is the usual hardest greeting of the morning. I look at her throat, her tree of life that holds an overnight feeding and medications. All this erases the joy of morning and morning greetings from others. 

I will try to make some sense of my day. I will try to do what I can for her first, second and thereafter. Everything else will be secondary for she comes first. I will try to avoid her face that screams silently in agony and penetrates my core knowing she is hurting and there is nothing I can do about it.

REMAKING THE DEAN’S LIST

We are currently amid impeachment hearings from the US House of Representatives over the alleged misconduct of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. It brings back memories of the same occurrence for former president Richard M. Nixon and the Watergate hearings, only this time it is the Ukrainian hearings, as I like to call them. 

Way back in the early 1970s, the impossible had occurred, the President of the United States was under pressure for his obstruction of justice in the break-in of the DNC Watergate headquarters, all very illegal. The “Plumbers” no longer referred to just pipes.

At my office in Lawrence G. Chait & Co.

Nixon on the behest of his biggest supporters from the Republican sides of the aisles of Congress resigned when he saw it was indeed over and would be faced with removal from office. In those days the Republican Party was still a vital part of our governance and played a significant role in saving the nation from the agony of removing him through a lengthy trial. They were men of principle and honor, not like today.

During the height of the Watergate scandal, the Spiro Agnew crush, and the making of so many stars in Congress the Congressional probe about President Nixon peculiarly touched me. The national media was abuzz about the Watergate scandal, the constant reports and the all-day coverage of events as they unfolded during the hearings on TV. Every day was a new revelation, every day brought something new to the table to be made aware to the general public.

 

I won an award for my graphics at Lawrence G. Chait & Co.

The chairman of my company, Lawrence G. "Larry" Chait (June 27, 1917 – July 18, 1997) was an American advertising executive who was a pioneer in mail order and direct marketing. He was chairman of Lawrence G. Chait & Co., Inc, President of the Direct Marketing Club of New York, and his political activities landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents, the enemies list, A.K.A. the Dean’s List. His company was a small but influential advertising agency in New York City and he was an influential man, coming from the field of journalism, working for a major media company at one time, and that influence ranged over to politics, and the attention of Richard Milhous Nixon. The Chairman was a somewhat wealthy man and made contributions to the Democratic Party. During this time of political infighting and the unhinging of the Presidency under Nixon, it was not a good thing to do as far as Republicans were concerned. My politics were of a conservative bent in those days, without affiliation to any party, and I still feel that way.

Arriving at my office one morning, I notice as I pass the desks of the support staff, little buttons on each desk. I don’t think much of it since there was always a promotional item hanging around for one client or another. When I got into my office, there on my desk was this same button. It was about 2 ½ inches across and had a hangman’s noose on it, Across the button in big letters was the words: “I"M ON THE DEAN’S LIST”!

Finding it on my desk gave me the creeps. Why? Because I knew what it meant, and I was guilty by association, and I didn’t like the whole idea for myself. I had a little kid at home and just married and didn’t want anything to do with this that might touch even so slightly on my wife’s reputation.

There seemed to be a certain pride among the office personnel how we were all on the “Dean’s List’. I was confused and wondered why. I hate politics, always have and hate politicians in particular, so this whole idea was abhorrent to me. Then I figured it out, my boss was on the Dean’s List, not the staff or anyone else! I was starting to get a little giddy; life away from Bellport, NY was getting complicated!

SUFFERING

We, in this earthly life, will suffer at some point or another. We will suffer the pain of emotional splints as well as physical. Pain is a given and no one is immune to it. Every time I see a newborn baby I realize the sadness of that young life, portend of suffering.

In my lifetime I have felt all the insidious kinds of pain that gripped me by my soul, rend my heart and crush my spirit. I feel the vise of despair and the fear of falling into a deep abyss.

As a child I had a severe case of mumps, so severe it ruined my hearing. This was during the epidemic of mumps in the early 1950s. I lied in bed with both cheeks so swollen that I was in great pain and at one point was having hallucinations of my Dad standing on a red ball shouting out at me.

That episode so affected me that I great difficulty in school. The constant abuse of my teachers because I missed so much in the classroom, my trembling fear of the consequences of both the punitive repercussions in the classroom, the humiliation that would be heaped upon me and by the fear of my parents and their swift vengeance created a very frightened child.
 I was considered stupid, designated to a human junk pile so laden with humiliation I became reticent to speak and started to lie to make myself seem better than I thought I was. Yet, in those times people didn’t have the psychological tools or understanding we have today.

Learning on the streets of Brooklyn that I needed to take care of myself, soon I developed some confidence that protected me emotionally and physically. I refused to let anyone bully me and never backed away from a fight.

When I moved away from Brooklyn and attended school I was tested for the first time by a hearing test that revealed my hearing loss, something my parents were unaware of. Suddenly I had an excuse for being stupid they thought. It is funny how tags stick long after they are disproven.

I had to work even harder than the other students, often getting a seat up close to the teacher or professor or instructor in the classroom. But something clicked and I realized I was as smart and in some cases smarter than those around me. I was no longer afraid to speak out, voice my opinion and say what was on my mind.

As I entered college I no longer had the fear that I wasn’t college material and fought the cold sense of failure, reaching the Dean’s List. In that time I was in college, I suffered physically in a car accident as a passenger. My right foot suffered compound fractures and I was in a full leg cast for over 9 months.

After college, I was lucky to find someone who is understanding and non-judgmental. She loved me for who and what I was and made my life worthwhile. We had four children and even then I started on a whole new plain of suffering. My first child was born with developmental problems both mentally and physically from Angleman’s Syndrome and so we suffered as a family to give her a life worthwhile. My siblings had children and theirs were perfect in their eyes while mine was not.

My second child came along and was a perfect son, never disappointing himself or us. But he drove himself too hard to make up for his older sister’s issues and it took him into a depression.

In 1979 my second child came along and soon we discovered he was like his older sister, with the same problems. This time we would suffer more horribly than the last time, for he succumbed to his issues at the age of 21 months. It was a cold barren January that year in 1981 as we laid him to rest under the snows of a wintry week. As I turned to head back to the car from the graveside I looked at how perfect the snow lay on the ground, a slight sheet of ice allowing it to shimmer and I realized how imperfect my life was.

Another child came along and I was determined not to make him take the place of his deceased brother, but to grow and be his own man. I was suffering the loss and did not want that to ruin my newest child’s life. I thought God takes and God gives and realizes now that he takes happiness and gives me suffering.

Then another horrible chapter began one summer day in California as I was happily expecting the news that I was a grandfather for the second time. My oldest son called to tell me my daughter-in-law was in labor. That was followed up with the call that she had passed while delivering my beautiful grandson. Every time I see my grandchildren I see two motherless children. But they have an amazing dad, I am and always proud to call him my son, now he is, more importantly, my grandchildren’s daddy. My heart aches for him and those children.

About two years ago my oldest child with all her problems fell one morning and broke her right leg between the kneecap and the ankle. Being disabled and unable to talk she suffered for a while as she lay in her room before someone discovered her. They put on an external fixate to keep he knitting bone in place while it healed. Then after it healed the surgeon put in a permanent metal rod. We as her parents lived on the edge as she healed. But it wasn’t over by long shot.

A few months later she fell once again, this time striking her head against the kitchen counter in her group home, causing a brain bleed. This rocked me emotionally and I wanted to just check out of this life once and for all. The only reason I didn’t was that too many people needed me at this point. Suffering through the hospitalization once again took its toll on me.

To bring you up to date Dear Reader, she fell once more and partially broke her hip causing major pain and then pneumonia. While she suffered in the hospital she was given a c-scan and one Sunday morning the nurse hit me with the news: my daughter who suffered so much was about to suffer more. She had colon cancer and was operated on May 10th, my mom’s birthday, but somehow I knew this fact would be to her benefit and it was. The surgeon told us cancer had not spread to other parts of her hospital and that she would not need chemotherapy!

It is now November of 2019 and she has not been in her home in over 9 months. She contracted pneumonia and a tracheotomy was performed and so she suffers. There is a terrible bedsore that causes her constant excruciating pain that was the size of a hand that grew on her butt, exposing the bone and it will never go away.

Every day we look for signs of relief that I know will never come. Instead, I see her whiter in pain and it tears me apart that I can’t do anything for her. But my wife and I will be there for her until our or her end comes.

1979-1981

my beautiful daughter

college

my oldest son and his late wife

BIDEN THEIR TIME

Rep. Peter King

I find it interesting how Representative Peter King from New York and Long Island has decided to leave the seat that he has held so ably for so many years. Rep. Peter King is serving as the U.S. Representative for New York's 2nd congressional district since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, King is currently in his 14th term in Congress, having served since 1993.
Several Republican senators are leaving the Senate, choosing not to run again. All this makes me wonder why. Although I didn’t agree with Rep. King, I also did agree with him. He is one of the voices of reason to weight the arguments that help me decide as a voter. He has always served his office well and that I will miss.

There is cancer growing in Congress that seems to be causing many an otherwise decent politician to abandon their office and years if good service because they are in a no-win situation, their constituency is supporting Trump and their moral compass is pointing the other way. Rather than pour money and time into a re-election campaign knowing they will not get the full support of those they should be representing if they support impeachment.

The shameful way the Republican Party is behaving in the process of impeachment is cause for these retiring members of Congress to disassociate themselves with their lost party. No longer can the Republican Party take the high road in any coherent way as they obfuscate, hinder, and obstruct the process, one which is meant to police and govern the officeholders particularly in high office.

If you listen to reports, read testimonies and consider statements made by credible, some non-partisan voices from career public servants, you can’t help be listen to what is being said and not know that this is all legitimate concerns and honest acknowledgment that something is illegal by the POTUS’ actions with the Ukrainian, his attempt to further his interest politically by his quid pro quo of the Congressional monies award to the Ukrainian government for their defense against our common enemy, Russia.

In their efforts to deflect from the POTUS place in this whole scandal they look to direct the focus from Donald Trump the politician to Hunter Biden, the son of a Democratic former Vice President. Biden has been investigated enough times that we can be assured that his time on the Board of Directors of Burisma, a

corrupt oil company in Ukraine is clear of any scandal.
 

Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden has worked as a lobbyist and has served on boards of directors, and his business dealings have raised eyebrows and headlines. According to The New York Times, Hunter Biden was on the board “of one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies.” Politifact concluded in their article exploring the issue that “Experts agree that Hunter Biden’s acceptance of the position created a conflict of interest for his father, (the Vice President).”

In May 2019 the New York Times reported that dealing with Ukraine was something Joe Biden “enthusiastically embraced” as President Barack Obama’s vice president, “browbeating Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt government to clean up its act.” 

The Times added that Joe Biden, in 2016, “threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.” The prosecutor’s name was Viktor Shokin. What transpired was in the interest of the U.S., and not political gain.

The prosecutor was voted out. The Times reported that Hunter Biden “had a stake in the outcome,” because, at the time, he was a board member for “an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch” who had been a target of the fired prosecutor.

The Times described Hunter as a “Yale-educated lawyer” who had served on Amtrak’s board and boards for nonprofit organizations but didn’t have experience in Ukraine. He was paid “as much as $50,000 per month” some months for his work for Burisma Holdings, The Times reported. 

The Times claimed that Hunter and his partners “were part of a broad effort by Burisma to bring in well-connected Democrats” during “the period” that the company faced probes in Ukraine and from Obama administration officials.

The newspaper quoted Hunter Biden as saying, “I have had no role whatsoever concerning any investigation of Burisma, or any of its officers. I explicitly limited my role to focus on corporate governance best practices to facilitate Burisma’s desire to expand globally.”

Some allege that Shokin stopped investigating Burisma, countering his narrative that he wanted to pursue the probe. Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), told Radio Free Europe that Shokin “dumped important criminal investigations on corruption associated with [former President Viktor] Yanukovych, including the Burisma case.” Furthermore, “Ukrainian prosecutors and anti-corruption advocates who were pushing for an investigation into the dealings of Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevskiy, said the probe had been dormant long before Biden leveled his demand,” Radio Free Europe reports.

To complicate matters further, Rudolph Giuliani, a non-government employed personal lawyer for Donald Trump was creating backdoor policy investigating and non-issues that POTUS felt needed to be done to take the onus off of the President.

The fact that there was smoke with Hunter Biden I think it should be investigated further, however, not in the same vein as the impeachment, but so should the actions of the President to find dirt where there are conditions of withholding Congressionally approved funds for the defense of an Allie, the Ukrainian nation.

UNCLE FRANK

My college days

There are a few heroes in my life that I still keep close to my heart. One such hero from my past is my Uncle Frank. 
Thanks, Uncle Frank on this special day as we honor our veterans who risked everything. Uncle Frank was the child of immigrant parents from Sicily, hard-working Italians that knew nothing other than hard work and prayer and underlining all that was family. They raised 2 boys and 2 girls, and from that grew a wonderful family and highly intelligent people. They were warm and welcoming people who, like all Italians, loving everything in life.

He was a very quiet man. Never boast, never bragged, just sat quietly and maybe read his newspaper or smoked his pipe. His mind was always working, always thinking and very analytical. His quietness was his trademark. He was a no-nonsense man with a very corny sense of humor. That was the irony: he was also tough, for a man that was always reserved. His trademark was a pencil-thin mustache he kept all his life, and I never saw him without it. 

 As I grew up in Brooklyn, he was a small part of my daily life. He was seen on occasions, a party, a holiday, an occasional weekend, maybe at night once in a great while. He was a devoted husband and father to a single child, and he was my uncle through marriage. He was Uncle Frank to me, and one of the few mentors I had in my young life. 

 He fought in World War II under General George S. Patton, and regaled me in stories about his experiences in the war, as I sat at the kitchen table trapped in my imagination living every step he recounted.

 After the war, he went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and once again told me stories about how during the McCarthy era the government was on alert for communist spies checking waste baskets after hours and the next day the suspected individual was gone!

 My earliest memory was of him going to night school, carrying books and doing homework, bettering himself for a higher-grade level in government work. Perhaps that alone impressed me the most. Whenever I saw him, that most of all stuck out in my mind.

 So years later, as I worked my way through college, the fortunes of life being what they were, I was involved in a terrible car crash, that almost took my life. I had to give up my rented room near the college and recuperate for five months in a cast from a compounded fracture to my leg. Once I was ready to return to school, I was not able to afford to live anywhere, so I was about to give up my dream, when Uncle Frank, and my Aunt Marie, my mom’s sister stepped up and offered me their home, which was near the college. I stayed there for most of the end of my education and got my degree. 

 When he passed on, I had the honor to deliver his eulogy, to tell the world about this wonderful quiet man, a man with a huge heart and a generous spirit. I didn’t have to mention the fact that he also adopted a child, and when he lost his only biological son, how he continued with the same dignity, that later in life helped me get through my similar ordeal.

Back in the day when higher education was a thing one did not necessarily attain if one was from an immigrant family, When I was a young child, Uncle Frank would go off to night school, leaving me with the first impressions of how important education is.

Uncle Frank missed out also. He was a numbers man by nature and utilized his skills by working for the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a clerk. Then World War II began and Uncle Frank joined the army and fought under General George S. Patton. 

As the war progressed Uncle Frank was elevated to Corporal and fought his way through France under Patton’s leadership and by chance saved my Aunt Marie’s cousin without even knowing it.

It seems my aunt and mom’s cousin Danny; my second cousin was fighting in the battle of the Bulge and was wounded and trapped behind German lines. Under siege, Danny’s unit was fighting for their lives and things were chaotic. Crawling from behind enemy lines with shrapnel in his leg he reached US troops under General Patton, Uncle Frank’s Patton. They were sent to relieve Danny’s group! By chance, my uncle found his cousin through marriage while Danny was waiting to be shipped to the States.

At the end of the war, Uncle Frank returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, married my aunt and decided to go to night school to better his grade in his government position, and slowly worked his way up the various grades.

As we gathered around the mausoleum, a small circle of family and friends, the two soldiers who presented the colors for Corporal Frank Corace, the Army men played taps. With the sound of each note, it took me through each note in MY life that impressed upon me, making me pause to recall how lucky I was to have had him in my life.

I guess being Italian-American and the son of Italian immigrants back in those days was tough. We as a race, with all we did do for this world, were still being questioned and not trusted by this great country. But we stood tall, brave, and true and served beyond question as true Americans do.

FREEDOM

Today is the 30th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Built to retain its’ citizens from fleeing East Berlin it became instead a symbol of the repression of a people who paid dearly for being on the wrong side of Freedom.

This got me thinking of what the word ‘Freedom’ means.

· Freedom | Definition of Freedom by Merriam-Webster

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom 

Definition of freedom. 1 : the quality or state of being free: such as. a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence. c. : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous. 

It is not the definition of the word I sought, but the actual state of Freedom. What is it, how does it feel, what does it do to one when he or she is free? Why do men prefer it?

I see we in the United States calling for the protection of our freedoms and there are many, all taken for granted and all accepted without forethought. But if you listen to some of the people who were denied their inalienable right to freedom, they think of it in another light. There was an interview of one of the people who left East Berlin and resettled in West Berlin who spoke of freedom. He said in essence that one who is denied freedom and has never experienced it knows of nothing better, but once he finds it guards it with his life and truly lives it.

Today with all the turmoil of the Trump Administration, the impeachment hearings and the revelations of the various witnesses to the crimes committed by the President it has become imperative that we reconsider all the facts that constitute individual freedom and the freedoms at large in this country. We cannot have POTUS utilizing his office to further his power, wealth, and designs that go beyond the scope of his office and more importantly, the Constitution of the United States. When that happens we have what Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung did to consolidate their powers in defiance of the people. Erosion 0f accountability leads to corruption and the subversion of Freedom.

The Republican Party has lost its cache unless it reverses its position on the president and his defiance of Congress. They have a solemn oath to the U.S. Constitution to uphold, protect and defend it, not politicizing it for the sake of one man who we all know and understand is defying the rules of law and that very constitution. If they don’t, they will be written off as a force in American politics and shamed into the dust bin of history.

COFFEE WITH DAD

There was a candy store across the street from me but down at the corner of Stone Avenue and Hull Street called Sam’s. This corner store had a large candy window were I spent my time trying to select from the many choices it offered for a penny.

As you approached the front door there was a window where you could order from the outside an ice cream cone or pop, cigarettes or cigars if you were an adult or maybe a mellow roll. Under the window outside was a stand that held all the daily papers. In those days there was the NY Daily News, the NY Daily Mirror, the Brooklyn Eagle, the NY Herald Tribune and the Journal American, Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. When you entered the store there was a rack for magazines and comic books on your left and some booths for sitting down for a soda or ice cream.

Every morning before he departed for work, Dad would give me a nickel and I’d go across the street to Sam’s and buy from the outside stand the NY Daily News, bring it home to Dad and sit with him as he read the paper and drank his coffee. Accompanying the coffee was a cigarette that lied in the ashtray as smoke curled lazily upward with a very poetic curly-cued movement as it slowly dissipated into thin air.

It was under those circumstances and conditions that Dad told me so many wonderful stories about his childhood as he slowly thumbed through the newspaper from the back to the front pinching the pages as he turned them. He liked the News because as he said: The News has the best sports pages in the world” His stories that I still keep in my heart and soul are because Dad told them to me.

There was one story that was about a boy named Johnnie. Johnnie sounded and looked like he lives on the streets, coming from an alcoholic father and a mother who passed away long ago. Dad said he always wore this old brown corduroy coat with the buttons missing and an undershirt that was stained and dirty.

Johnnie would come by every so often and stand outside my grandmother's fruit and vegetable store. Dad got to know him and gave him fruit when grandma or grandpa weren’t looking. Johnnie would take the fruit and run away to wherever he stayed and ate it. Dad felt it was better to feed a thief than have him commit a crime.

One day Dad was standing outside the store and Grandpa came over and said: “Stai cercando il tuo giovane amico?” (Are you looking for your little friend?) He then went on to tell my father that grandma had taken him inside into the apartment and was mending his jacket and washing his clothes, that she was giving him some of Dad’s old clothes and feeding him. It turns out that Johnnie's father was a paisano from the other side and was too proud to ask for help, so grandma took it on herself. The fruit stand was situated on a corner and a trolley car would pass turning the corner every once in a while.

Johnnie became a mainstay with the family, Dad taking him to school to make sure he went and helping him after school with his homework.

It was one school morning when Dad’s world was turned upside down. Johnnie was crossing the street to approach the fruit stand while grandma was with a customer and Dad was eating breakfast in the kitchen apartment. Suddenly he heard Grandma screaming, JOHNNIE, while the terrible sound of steel rubbing against itself screeching through the air.

Dad ran into the store to see what was wrong and saw Grandma cuddling Johnnie who lay on the street not far from the trolley that had run him over. He lived momentarily to recognize Zia Francesca as he called her name then died.

 

THE RISING COST OF WATCHING

One of her better days

I am spending my time in a chair watching my daughter suffer. It is that simple, she is suffering. Every morning I enter her room and seeing the consequences of her being so ill. She is in disarray and angry, she is uncomfortable and sometimes drifts off to sleep for a little while, only to have some staff person take her blood temperature or blood reading oxygen level.

As I sit there is another patient in the bed across the room. She must have been in some catastrophic event and has been hospitalized for months, leaving two children to her husband's care. She is fearful that her husband is cheating on her. He, on the other hand, is home with two little children busy raising them until mom comes home.

There is the constant beeping of the oxygen machine that sends it annoying alarm when the lady does not breathe well. The traffic of the aids moving in and out, the blasting of her TV gets louder as the time flies by.

Meanwhile, I turn my attention to other things to alleviate the stress that is building up in me. I do a Sudoku or crossword puzzle, read the newspaper and type or come up with jokes for Facebook, all worth the while since my attention is diverted somewhat from the agony of my daughter Ellen’s condition.

When she is in her greatest pain, she looks at me and grabs my arm her eyes look into mine and plead, talking to me in a quizzical madness. “What is happening Daddy, why is this happening, please make it stop.

I ask God why he is doing this to the innocent and wonder maybe there isn’t a God. What has he wrought but needless, senseless pain that serves no purpose but agony for an innocent child of his?

As the morning drags on the wearier I become, the more agitated I feel, the more anger and disgust I have for the day and the belief that there is a God of any kind. Tell me the sin that deserves this pain and suffering for the last two years and yes, even a lifetime?

I see on Facebook people posting things about God, about angels and sadly I feel sorry for them for their faith is one of seeking to be spared what I deal with.

My daughter Ellen is 47-years old and so I wonder what the future will be once she is done suffering. I would imagine it to be my turn to suffer as I age and come to the end of life. Maybe the end of life has already occurred for me.

JOE THE FINN

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we always had nicknames for people with style. The names you heard on “The Sopranos” are an outgrowth from the Italian neighborhoods of the 20s and 30s that carried on right into the 50s and 60s and to some degree the 70’s. Although it still happens within families, usually not as much. Italians were notorious for giving out names to supplement, define and create color for all who lived within the confines of Italian-American culture.

 If you happened to be something other than Italian, it usually meant that you would inherit a nickname of your very own by your Italian-American friends and newly adopted family, even if you didn’t have any style. And sure enough, there was one gentleman who was not Italian, had style and frequented my Grandmother's house, Joe “The Finn”, of Finnish heritage.

 Joe “The Finn” was my Dad’s best friend, and he could do anything, as long as someone needed help, Joe was your man. Perhaps his notoriety stems from the fact that he never paid his electric bill but always had electricity running in his apartment. This was because Joe “The Finn” was a genius in worker’s clothes. He devised a way to connect again with the electric company after they shut him down by using a simple copper penny!

Somehow he always knew what was needed and did it. Joe “The Finn” was also a mechanic of sorts, and with his wiry frame, jet black hair and wise-guy attitude, one would find him under my Dad’s or some neighbor’s car getting it back on the road, and all he would ask for was a $1 coin! If you looked under the hood of the car as he worked, there was a Maxwell House coffee can sitting there, wired to whatever needed the wire, and darn if it didn’t work like a clock.

 If there was one thing that troubled Joe “The Finn” it was his family. His wife was rather large in stature and bulk, and his two sons were very skinny and as he would say: “very dopey.” He would wail on how one son or the other did something stupid, never leaving a class without repeating it at least twice, or embarrassing him in some way. Sitting in grandma’s kitchen over a cup of espresso or having dinner, he would regale us in tales of his adventures, his son’s antics or his rather unsympathetic descriptions of his wife’s condition. I don’t believe it was mean so much as comedic, with enactments and facial expressions that made for many an underwear change!

 Joe never knocked he just walked in, sat down and Grandma would pull out another plate whether or not Dad was there, he was family!

 Being how I was quite younger than his two sons. Joe would take out the $1 coin, ask me if this was a quarter or a nickel, and I’d say a dollar and he would give me the dollar and compare me to his kids. Of course, my Dad would get all over me to return the money, I would, and when I got home, I’d find it in my pocket again!

But it was Grandma who made him welcomed Being he was dad’s friend and a good man, grandma wanted him to feel at home and adopted him in her way treating him like a son. There were many sons and daughters in her kitchen that she never gave birth to, but you would never know it. It was important to show your love and be Christian in actions only, giving money, a place to sleep for a night, and getting someone to assist when others needed it.

My suspicion is he resides now in Heaven, maybe wiring St. Peter’s car or the house lights.

Over the years Joe disappeared and we learned rather sadly that he passed from cancer.

Wherever you are Joe, I love you.