PURGE BEGINNETH

They fired Alex Vindman. And just to be extra fuckin' dicks, they fired his twin brother too.

From Wonkette on October 29, the day Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman testified before the House impeachment inquiry:

Meet Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. He's a Purple Heart, injured by an IED in Iraq. He's an expert on Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, as his family escaped when he was three years old. He specifically refers to himself as an immigrant in his opening statement. He cares about Ukraine, just as he very obviously loves America. He's a patriot, and like so many public servants, he's happily worked for Republican and Democratic presidents alike, now serving on the National Security Council.

And today he's in Congress to tell what he saw Donald Trump do.

 And oh boy, did he. He heard the Ukraine call, you see, and he testified to what happened there and how disturbing it was. He testified about how he was one of several who immediately took their concerns about what had transpired to White House lawyers, and how he witnessed the record of that "perfect call" being shunted away onto the Bin Laden server, hopefully (for the White House) never to be seen again.

He also told lawmakers why it was so vital to understand why President Zelenskyy said he felt "no pressure" from Trump, why that's simply not true, but doesn't make Zelenskyy a liar, and why it was so fucking gross for Republicans to repeat that line over and over and over again:   

Q.All right. So you did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen. You used the word "demand," it was not proper to demand. Where in the transcript do you believe that the President made a demand to investigate a US citizen?

A.So, Congressman, the power disparity between the President of the United States and the President of Ukraine is vast, and, you know, in the President asking for something, it became -- there was -- in return for a White House meeting, because that's what this was about. This was about getting a White House meeting. It was a demand for him to fulfill his -- fulfill this particular prerequisite in order to get the meeting.

We were pissed about that then, and we are pissed today.

Alex Vindman was fired today from his post at the National Security Council. Just to twist the knife further, they also fired his "kid" brother Yevgeny Vindman, and we put "kid" in quotes because no fewer than 390 times during Vindman's testimony did he mention that he was born nine minutes before his twin brother, therefore he was big brother.

Vindman wasn't supposed to rotate out of his position until July, because he got a prestigious spot at the War College, and that's when he was supposed to go there.

We knew this was coming, not least because Donald Trump is a whining shitbaby who lashes out when he doesn't get his way, and because now that he has been "acquitted" by a jury of his crime-protecting peers in the Senate, he's out for revenge against all who have slighted him by telling the truth about him. We also had a feeling because of the absolutely batshit campaign Trump acolytes like Marsha Blackburn have been waging against Vindman since approximately the second he decided to obey the law and testify before Congress. That campaign went so far as to suggest that Vindman, whose family of Soviet Ukrainian Jews escaped the Soviet Union when he was a tiny little boy, harbored a dual loyalty .

Oh yeah, and a lot of really stupid people thought he was the whistleblower, or that he was the whistleblower's keeper.

Vindictive Vindman is the “whistleblower’s” handler.

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@Sen. Marsha Blackburn) 1574430823.0 

Vindman is being rotated back into the Pentagon for now, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper gave CNN some dumbshit "everything's fine" quote, if you want to read some dumbshit quote like that from some Trump dumbshit like that.

As for us, we will just say this is not fucking normal, and you should be enraged. We might have more thoughts on it next week.

Open thread, we guess, since we forgot to say it on the last post and weren't planning on writing this one, OH WELL HASHTAG THE NEWS.

UPDATE: And nowSondland too. We don't have any affectionate feelings to share about that idiot, but it still should be seen in the context of Trump throwing a temper tantrum and trying to become a dictator. Scary times, y'all.

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