The difference between the 1950s and the 1960s was "Night and Day". For me, the day was the 1960s. But, that also could be that I was 12 in 1960 and 21 in 1970 too.
But, I wasn't happy at all in some ways in the 1950s. Why? Because I sort of felt more like a slave more than anything else. However, in the 1960s I started to spread my wings and fly like an Eagle.
And this was great in some ways and not so great in other ways.
The good part is that I didn't have to go to the Viet Nam war and die. The good part is that girls liked me a lot especially after age 15 but this I found also more confusing in some ways than anything else.
Why Confusing? Because getting a lot of attention from females can be really good or really bad or both. But, mostly it isn't neutral.
Anyway, that is a completely different story. We are now talking about the 1960s. What changed?
The Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Then the Cuban Nuclear Missile Crisis where we all just about died in nukes in the U.S. and Cuba and Russia. That was kind of scary. Then President Kennedy was assassinated by likely Russia and the Mafia working together. Then our government covered it all up because they didn't want a nuclear war with Russia. Then khrushchev lost power in Russia soon after Kennedy was assassinated. (I don't think this was any coincidence by the way) because I believe khrushchev paid the Mafia and helped them assassinate both Kennedy and Oswald so there could be no witnesses left that anyone could find.
Then the American people totally lost faith in the U.S. government and this lack of faith remains to this day. Trust in government went from about 75% when Kennedy was president to about 11% trust today after they lied to us all about Kennedy. Because no one believed what we were told about the assassinations of Kennedy and his brother and Martin Luther King. At the very least the head of the FBI likely had something to do with Martin Luther King's assassination.
Next, when Kennedy died he left some soldiers in Viet Nam and then LBJ added to them which only created the worst mess we had seen since the Korean War in the early 1950s.
For me personally, the Viet Nam war was physically okay just for me because I wasn't drafted and neither was my cousin who became a Lawyer and worked in the Vista program in Los Angeles which was a lot then like the Peace Core only inside the U.S. So, neither of us had to fight in the Viet Nam War which we are grateful for.
But, my best high school Friend got a jet engine certificate at Glendale College in Los Angeles County and joined the Air Force so he wouldn't have to be drafted as an infantryman and die over there like 50,000 American boys did with more my age born in 1948 than any other age.
He was sent to Thailand to repair jet engines on fighters and bigger planes during the war. He wasn't the same when he returned from there just like most guys that went over there were never the same as they were when they left. You mostly couldn't recognize them when they came back they had changed so much.
I helped bury my friend in Bakersfield in 2011 when he had a military funeral from being a veteran of the Viet Nam war in the Air Force. So, he is now buried in a military Cemetery in Bakersfield. I couldn't speak most of the day I was so upset about what happened to him. It is my belief that he got early senile dementia from what happened to him in the Viet Nam war while serving in Thailand.
Before he left we were surfers and he raced his cars like 56 Chevy's and Fords. I also helped him work on his 1940 Ford Coupe and other cars he put slicks on and hopped up the engines too for street racing. He was a great car mechanic for creating race cars and we also raced across the desert in his Converted VW with the front and rear fenders off and bigger tires which changed it into a dune buggy.
This was all possible then because we were working after school a lot then from about age 10 or 12 and could afford to buy our own cars and motorcycles because then cars and motorcycles cost about 1/5 or less compared to minimum wage than now in the 1960s. Minimum wage was around a dollar an hour and gas was about 17 cents a gallon some places in 1969. A used car might be 400 to 800 dollars. For example, when I was 16 I bought an 8 year old 1956 Ford Station wagon as my surf wagon for 800 dollars. In fact a brand new VW Bug was only 800 dollars back then. Even in 1968 when I was programming computers I paid only $3500 for a brand new 1968 Camaro then when I was 20. Working in computers I was making 3 to 5 times the minimum wage then at age 20. If you were capable then you could do almost anything good with your life. The same is not true now though here in the U.S. But, it is still true in Canada.
'Take her out': Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired
Trump apparently heard discussing firing Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
A recording obtained by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.
The recording appears to contradict statements by Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.
"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."
On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the president. The recording was made by Fruman, according to sources familiar with the tape.
"Every president in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his Administration," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.
During the conversation, several of the participants can be heard laughing with the president. At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of secretary of state, saying emphatically: "[Mike] Pompeo is the best." But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the president discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine.
Parnas appears to say: "The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," Parnas can be heard telling Trump. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait." (Yovanovitch actually had served in the State Department since the Reagan administration.)
It was not until a year later that Yovanovitch was recalled from her position -- in April 2019. She said the decision was based on "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives" that she was disloyal to Trump.
House investigators have been attempting to document – in part with text messages supplied by Parnas -- an almost year-long effort on the part of Parnas and Giuliani to get Yovanovitch removed from her post. At times, the messages made public by the House Intelligence Committee show Giuliani referencing his repeated efforts to have Yovanovitch recalled from Kyiv, a push that was initially unsuccessful.
"Boy I'm so powerful I can intimidate the entire Ukrainian government," Giuliani messaged Parnas in May 2019. "Please don't tell anyone I can't get the crooked Ambassador fired or I did three times and she's still there."
The identities of others participating in the recorded conversation are unclear. During an early portion of the recording where video can be seen, Donald Trump Jr. appears on the recording posing for pictures with others. Sources say they were attending a larger event happening at the hotel that night for a super PAC that supports the president.
Another clip seen on the recording, according to the sources, is of individuals entering what appears to be a suite at the Trump Hotel for the intimate dinner. The phone that was recording the Trump conversation appears to be placed down on a table with the audio still recording the conversation between the commander-in-chief and other guests, according to the sources. The image of the president does not appear on the video reviewed by ABC News.
In a recent interview with MSNBC, Parnas publicly recounted his memories of the scene at the dinner and said that Trump turned to John [DeStefano], who was his deputy chief of staff at the time, and said "Fire her," he claimed. Sources familiar with the closed-door meeting corroborate that DeStefano was in attendance.
"We all, there was a silence in the room. He responded to him, said Mr. President, we can't do that right now because [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet, that Pompeo is not confirmed yet and we don't have -- this is when [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson was gone, but Pompeo was confirmed, so they go, wait until -- so several conversations he mentioned it again."
However, Pompeo had been confirmed and privately sworn in days earlier.
A copy of the recording is now in the custody of federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District, who declined to comment to ABC News.
Trump’s supporters have maintained that no evidence has been put forward directly linking Trump to any of the alleged impeachable actions. And Trump has maintained that removing Yovanovitch was within his right.
Trump has distanced himself from Parnas, who is under federal indictment in New York in a campaign finance case, and the president’s supporters have questioned his credibility and motives.
"I don't know him," the president said just last week when asked about Parnas. "I don't know Parnas other than I guess I had pictures taken, which I do with thousands of people, including people today that I didn't meet. But I just met him. I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about, don't know where he comes from, know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax."
As ABC News previously reported, Parnas, who cooperated with the House impeachment probe of Trump, began providing materials that were in his custody to congressional investigators late last year.
Just last week, Parnas' attorney transferred more materials after a series of rulings from the judge in his criminal case, granting him permission to share records obtained by the government with House impeachment investigators to comply with a subpoena, including documents seized from Parnas’ home and the complete extraction of Parnas’ iPhone 11 and Samsung phone, seized from him upon his arrest in October 2019.
Joseph A. Bondy, Parnas' attorney, tweeted at the time that the materials were brought to House investigators "despite every stumbling block placed in our path" since his client's arrest.
The records, which were mostly WhatsApp messages, also included 59 pages of emails and handwritten letters that appear to describe Giuliani's attempts to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and an effort to remove Yovanovitch from her post.
One email exchange appears to suggest Parnas and his associates had Yovanovitch "under physical surveillance in Kyiv," according to the committee’s cover letter.
During her congressional testimony, Yovanovitch said she received a call from the State Department that "there were concerns about my security."
Giuliani is a subject of the probe being led by the New York prosecutors, sources said. Parnas' cohort, Fruman was also arrested at the same time and faces similar charges though he is not cooperating with the congressional investigations.
Parnas and Fruman were indicted by the Southern District of New York on charges including conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud, false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records as part of an alleged scheme to circumvent federal campaign finance laws against straw donations and foreign contributions. Both have pleaded not guilty.
