Sham

Vladimir Putin recently commented that America's time as a dominant world power has come to an end. Reluctantly, I have to agree--and the painful thing is that we did it to ourselves. A country that insists on the application of the rule of law to the common citizen while excusing and wealthy and powerful from the same cannot long endure. 

We have now a virtual mountain of evidence showing that the President of the United States, our highest citizen, worked in a purposeful and premeditated manner against the long-standing laws and values of the nation for nothing other than his own political interests. Impeachment has never in our history been more clearly justified, and yet our lawmakers, or half of them anyway, are no longer interested in the rule of law or in the values and procedures of the American democracy. President Trump will walk free, acquitted not by evidence for his innocence (there is none) but by the sheer absence of personal integrity in our elected representatives. 

It is indeed, as the Republicans say, a sham--for there is no intent on their part to hear evidence and judge with honesty and impartiality for the good of the nation. The nation itself is made a sham, a glaring refutation of its own ideals, and so yes, Putin is right, its time, its former place in the world, has come to an end.