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Truth and Lies About Ukraine
We were repeatedly treated to lies about Ukraine during the first week of the Democrats’ congressional clown show “impeachment inquiry.” The central lie was that Ukraine was a key security partner against Russia for many years. It is a lie that Ukraine has ever been a key security partner and it is a further lie that Ukraine has been the focus of US policy intended to check Russian re-expansion. Everyone knows this, you know this, at least in your gut. Here are the facts, which do not care about anyone’s feelings:
1991: Ukraine votes for and declares independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist States. Ukraine has over 1,000 nuclear warheads, allegedly without the control and arming codes, but with significant technical knowledge in-house. Weeks before the independence vote, President George H.W. Bush delivers an infamous speech in Kiev, written by Russia and Eastern Europe expert Condoleezza Rice, in which he warned about “suicidal nationalism.” William Safire branded this the “Chicken Kiev speech.” Bush feared that small states declaring their independence would provoke the Russian population, destabilizing the supposedly democratizing new Russia.
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Establishment politicians and those invested in business as usual use “Ross Perot” as a bogeyman, a warning not to stray from whatever candidate they shovel up and tell us we must give money, time, and our vote. Except that it was Perot who was the most electable candidate until the skulduggery or head fake or whatever rattled him around his daughter’s personal life. He had taken the lead in the polls but never recovered after showing weakness or indecision for that week or so.
The passing of a president is inherently a political event, overlaid on the private grief of family and friends. How ought we respond, in an age and a society completely suffused with politics? 
An excerpt from my remembrance in the 
President George H.W. Bush’s favorite candy was M&Ms, or so I remember the story. Moreover, he gave them out in “White House”-emblazoned boxes, in lieu of the cigarettes I had been told were once available to reporters in the hallway outside the White House press briefing room. At least that’s my memory of the matter. I’ve still got the box (sans the candies — I ate those at the time). I’ve also still got an official White House folder with the prepared briefing notes, and a paper napkin with the presidential seal on it. I also still have the little American flag I waved from the South Lawn while Marine One landed, and President Bush disembarked.
President George H.W. Bush passed away Friday evening at 10:10 pm CT at the age of 94. Bush family spokesman Jim McGrath posted the 
I first came to her attention after a 1982 event in Minneapolis at which George H.W. Bush, then vice president, delivered a speech I had written. Aboard Air Force II, Barbara Bush came back to speak to the staff. “Who wrote that speech?” she asked.
He called her “Bar.” She called her wrinkles “service stripes.” Her white hair matched her pearls. Like Abigail Adams, she was both 
Let’s look at two pictures side by side and see if we can tell how they’re different. In one panel, we see a famous TV political analyst who apparently had the charming habit of pressing his erect, if clothed, penis against the bodies of young women who worked with and for him. That was Mark Halperin.
WW2 hero and former President of these United States George H.W. Bush is ensnared in a lurid controversy that has shaken the globe, along with a few heinies. Not one but two fair maidens have alleged that the wheelchair-bound 93-year-old tried to cop a feel during group photos.
It seems that the Republican establishment will never learn the lesson of the schoolyard: Act like prey, get treated like prey; Allow a bully to slap a “kick me!” sign on your back, expect his flunkies to line up behind him at the invitation. The Democrats, however, do understand this lesson: both to appease fellow-traveling tyrants and to further their own agenda, they have slapped a “kick me!” sign on America so often that doing so is practically in their party platform. And while the Democrats appease their fellow America haters, the Republicans, while paying lip-service to the dangers of appeasement, insist on “reaching across the aisle” to those same Democrats and slapping a “kick me!” sign on their own backs. The Republicans then they wonder why their base — ungrateful for all their “great work”… work that happens to come with a constant and mocking kick from behind — has abandoned them. Their base understands that a bully emboldened and unchecked seldom stops at just the occasional sadistic kick.
I’m a committed #NeverTrumper but, more importantly, a servant of Christ who believes in treating my neighbor as I would myself. That principle applies especially to contentious times such these on the Center Right. Before I condemn anyone else, I have my own — sometimes laughable — presidential voting history to remind me that I have absolutely no cause to even think about chucking a single stone at anyone here on Ricochet for making a different decision this time around than I have.
Hillary Clinton will be the only Democratic 2016er debating tonight with a realistic shot of being the party’s presidential nominee. 
We learned this week that the Secret Service dawdled for an entire year before fixing a broken security system at the home of former president George H. W. Bush.
