Impeachment
The House of Representatives has finally reached the point where it seems necessary to consider impeachment of the President. As I write this, the Congressional committees still don't know what is in the "whistleblower memo," but that fact itself is evidence that the White House is trying to obstruct the inquiry -- the memo was written more than a month ago and is required by law to be given to Congress. It may describe more benign or worse behaviors than those that have been leaked to the press regarding the request to the Ukrainian president to influence our US election. But the memo is just the tip of the iceberg; the list of already-known impeachable offenses Trump has committed is long.
We elected a criminal in a fair or at least normal election. The President's behavior has been an embarrassment and many have thought the Democrats' response was overly timid. This period in our history has revealed some weaknesses in our system of checks and balances; I hope the next few years, at least after the next election, comprise a time of rebuilding, and that the Congress addresses some of the vulnerabilities that have been exposed.
It will take a long time to un-do the damage that has already been done.
As the walls close in on Trump we can expect to see him struggle. It could get wild. He's filled the executive branch with sycophants whose loyalty is to him personally and not the Constitution or the people. They are getting rich from their government positions and will try to keep the money flowing as long as they can. I doubt they will turn on him but they might abandon him when the flames begin licking at their own feet. Trump Republicans have filled the courts with sympathetic judges, and we can expect some ... inexplicable ... rulings to come out in the heat of this process.
Prosecutors have respected a questionable DOJ rule that says that Presidents can't be indicted while in office. This is a good motivation for him to try to stay in office as long as he can -- dying while President is probably the only thing that can keep him out of prison. So he is going to fight for re-election by hook or by crook, and he is going to fight impeachment as hard as he can. Hold on to your horses.
We elected a criminal in a fair or at least normal election. The President's behavior has been an embarrassment and many have thought the Democrats' response was overly timid. This period in our history has revealed some weaknesses in our system of checks and balances; I hope the next few years, at least after the next election, comprise a time of rebuilding, and that the Congress addresses some of the vulnerabilities that have been exposed.
It will take a long time to un-do the damage that has already been done.
As the walls close in on Trump we can expect to see him struggle. It could get wild. He's filled the executive branch with sycophants whose loyalty is to him personally and not the Constitution or the people. They are getting rich from their government positions and will try to keep the money flowing as long as they can. I doubt they will turn on him but they might abandon him when the flames begin licking at their own feet. Trump Republicans have filled the courts with sympathetic judges, and we can expect some ... inexplicable ... rulings to come out in the heat of this process.
Prosecutors have respected a questionable DOJ rule that says that Presidents can't be indicted while in office. This is a good motivation for him to try to stay in office as long as he can -- dying while President is probably the only thing that can keep him out of prison. So he is going to fight for re-election by hook or by crook, and he is going to fight impeachment as hard as he can. Hold on to your horses.
posted by JimK at 9:22 AM
156 Comments:
Here's the transcript of the conversation between the Rump and Zelensky
President Rump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Guiliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it.... It sounds horrible to me.
Hunter Biden served for nearly five years on the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private gas company, whose owner came under scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment. Hunter Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing in the investigation. As vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the investigation into Burisma was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
"The President's behavior has been an embarrassment"
yes, it has but that applies to most Presidents
"and many have thought the Democrats' response was overly timid."
oh yeah
they've been quiet as a church mouse
"This period in our history has revealed some weaknesses in our system of checks and balances;"
yes, no President should ever again be able to use the intelligence agencies to spy on and harass his opponents like Obama did
"I hope the next few years, at least after the next election, comprise a time of rebuilding,"
rebuilding the courts is ongoing
"and that the Congress addresses some of the vulnerabilities that have been exposed."
yes, that FISA court needs an overall and sleazeballs like Hunter Biden shouldn't be using their father's position to enrich themselves by peddling influence in other countries
"It will take a long time to un-do the damage that has already been done."
that's was the problem of electing someone like Obama
"As the walls close in on Trump we can expect to see him struggle. It could get wild."
we all know: he loves this kind of thing
"The House of Representatives has finally reached the point where it seems necessary to consider impeachment of the President."
translation of this BS euphemism: the Dems have finally decided they can politically get away with trying to overturn the 2016 election by impeachment
they're worng
"As I write this, the Congressional committees still don't know what is in the "whistleblower memo," but that fact itself is evidence that the White House is trying to obstruct the inquiry --"
every President has had disagreements with Congress about what to share - the "whistleblower memo" is based on hearsay without direct knowledge
"the memo was written more than a month ago and is required by law to be given to Congress"
that will be determined by the Supreme Court
"It may describe more benign or worse behaviors than those that have been leaked to the press regarding the request to the Ukrainian president to influence our US election. But the memo is just the tip of the iceberg; the list of already-known impeachable offenses Trump has committed is long."
then, why didn't they impeach him long ago?
it's because there is no feasible case
the House will impeach on a bunch of made up charges (paying your mistress is a campaign contribution! LOL)
then, the Senate will acquit and Trump will have double protection when he gets out o office in January 2025
meanwhile, by this time next year, Dems' traditional constituents among racial minorities will join their traditional constituents among Midwest blue collar workers in realizing they've been duped for years and Trump has given them economic opportunity
"We elected a criminal in a fair or at least normal election."
Stop the presses! TTf has realized 2016 was a fair or at least normal election.
It's a big step toward acknowledging reality. Your doctor can probably cut back on your meds now.
"He's filled the executive branch with sycophants whose loyalty is to him personally and not the Constitution or the people."
as opposed to who?
several of his appointees ran against him for President
"They are getting rich from their government positions and will try to keep the money flowing as long as they can."
most were richer before they got there
"Trump Republicans have filled the courts with sympathetic judges, and we can expect some ... inexplicable ... rulings to come out in the heat of this process."
nice you have that excuse in your back pocket
you're going to need it
"Prosecutors have respected a questionable DOJ rule that says that Presidents can't be indicted while in office. This is a good motivation for him to try to stay in office as long as he can -- dying while President is probably the only thing that can keep him out of prison. So he is going to fight for re-election by hook or by crook, and he is going to fight impeachment as hard as he can. Hold on to your horses."
there is no chance he will be removed from office
if the House impeaches, it will be a hollow gesture that will distract from their case in the presidential campaign
I’m not impressed with far-left Democrats claiming they were leaders on impeachment by seeking President Trump’s ouster two years ago. It would have been foolhardy until now to progress to impeachment.
A fact pattern as complicated as the Trump campaign’s solicitation of Russian help and Trump’s attempt to cover it up was destined to lose the public’s attention. It took special counsel Robert S. Mueller III 22 months and 448 pages to explain it. Moreover, in that set of circumstances the Trump-appointed attorney general could get his hands on it first, massage the facts and then instruct executive branch witnesses not to cooperate. Congress did not have the right facts nor the right powers to dislodge the truth in a compelling fashion. The public remained staunchly opposed to impeachment for Russia-related issues.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can read the polls and knows her members. Moreover, she knows a thing or two about public sentiment and how to sway it. Holding off on impeachment until the Ukraine scandal popped up gave her several advantages.
First, the Ukraine scenario is simple and went to the heart of Trump’s powers as commander in chief. (Ironically it was another case of collusion, but a simpler and more obvious one.) It was perfectly teed up for moderate members with expertise on intelligence matters to reach the conclusion, however grudgingly, that they could no longer trust Trump with the nation’s security.
Second, no one can doubt that Pelosi resisted the siren calls from the base to charge up the hill on impeachment. She has been measured, and she demanded from the get-go we follow the facts. Here, the facts were coming from the president’s own lips and from his attorney’s. A prosecutor couldn’t ask for a better case. She has been telling everyone who cared to listen that Trump is self-impeaching, meaning that it was only a matter of time before Trump provided incontrovertible evidence of his abuse of power. She was right on that score.
And that brings us to the third and critical distinction that underscores Pelosi’s wisdom in waiting for an incident like Ukraine. Here, Congress will do the investigating from the start. It can accept “no” for an answer from the administration in response to demands for documents and witness testimony, and then use that as the basis to pursue impeachment for obstruction of Congress. It need not take time looking for other players’ criminality. A short investigation under Congress’s control with short deadlines on a limited number of facts, aided by constant leaking to the media, is far more manageable than waiting years for Mueller and then fighting endlessly over compelling testimony to describe what was in the report that Americans refused to read.
A skilled leader doesn’t go plunging into the abyss of impeachment without her party, the public and a concise narrative all lined up. She learns from past errors (e.g., don’t rush to court to compel testimony, a process that takes months, and don’t let members conduct factual inquiries at hearings) and adjusts her strategy accordingly. One can see just how skillful Pelosi has been by the lack of a coherent response from Republicans. By picking the right fight at the right time — and withstanding outside pressure to act precipitously — Pelosi has positioned her members to make the best possible case against Trump while defending their majority. In retrospect, it certainly is fortunate her members didn’t push her out of the way in favor of a novice leader.
Adam Schiff
Verified account
@RepAdamSchiff
We have been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so.
We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week.
11:29 AM - 24 Sep 2019
"One can see just how skillful Pelosi has been"
LOL
reminds me of pre-congressional hearing Mueller
he was methodical, he had it all planned out, he provided a road map to impeachment, the innscrutable and wise master will take down Trump, yada, yada .....
then, he bumbled into Congress mumbling incoherently, drooling on the floor, fighting to keep his eyes open
and, of course, there was that genius clap Pelosi did to show when didn't like Trump
truth: she knows impeachment is bad for the Dems but she couldn't control her caucus
in the Oval Office, Trump cackles with delight
Pocahontas leads the polls and the Dems are going to impeach Trump for trying to find out the truth about the influence peddling of the Biden family
times are sweet at the White House
maybe Comrade Elizabeth Warren will make Hunter Biden her VP candidate
ROFL!!!!
All smiles! Donald and Melania Trump pose with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and wife Olena Zelenskaya ahead of a dinner on Tuesday night.
Just a few weeks after he was cleared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of colluding with a foreign power to fix the 2016 Election, he called the leader of another foreign power asking him to investigate his main presidential rival Joe Biden for the 2020 Election?
Has he lost his mind????
On any level, this was spectacularly ill-advised and brazen behavior.
And this is no longer ambiguous Washington rumor, it’s cold hard fact confirmed in Donald Trump’s own words, released in an official document from the White House.
Any impartial non-partisan observer who reads that transcript would conclude it’s at very least, highly inappropriate.
Frankly, it’s absolutely shocking that President Trump would be so reckless so soon after the Mueller probe ended.
He must have known it would become public, and spark the very firestorm that is now erupting over it.
BUT, and it’s a very significant ‘but’, it wasn’t a crime.
The Justice Department concluded unequivocally that there was no criminal case to answer.
And the main reason is that it failed to establish the main charge – namely, that President Trump deliberately withdrew substantial aid to Ukraine unless they did his bidding on the investigation into Joe Biden.
So there was no ‘quid pro quo’.
Yes, Trump is heard saying ‘I’d like you to do us a favor’, and yes, he had withheld the aid just days before the call.
But there is no damning irrefutable connection proven between these two things in what has so far been published – no ‘smoking gun’.
And without it, we’re left with Trump asking the leader of Ukraine to investigate what he claims is possible - though vehemently denied - corruption in that country involving Biden’s son Hunter.
Many will think this is a not entirely unreasonable request given that Biden Sr was Vice-President at the time his son was being paid $50,000 a month to advise a dodgy Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings, without, say his critics, any proper experience to do so.
As Vice-President, Joe Biden led US diplomatic efforts to protect Ukraine’s fledgling democracy and root out corruption after mass protests ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych.
Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden sat, had links to Yanukovych that prompted corruption probes and caused the Obama White House to panic about a potentially damaging conflict of interest.
The stench of suspicion surrounding Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine seems a legitimate issue of concern if his father wants to be President. The bottom line is this: Hunter was only valuable to Burisma because his dad was Vice-President, so what did he do for them?
The transcript reveals that Trump also asked President Zelensky to look into whether he could find Hillary Clinton’s infamous missing email server, which he said he’d been told might have ended up in Ukraine.
Again, many, particularly among Trump’s base, will think that’s not an outrageous request given how central it was to a criminal investigation that may have affected the 2016 Election.
Yet outraged Democrats think all this is deadly serious presidential misconduct, have decided to risk dying on this Ukraine hill, and are now moving to impeach the President.
And by doing so, they’re making a terrible political mistake that may well cause them to end up.. dying on this hill.
Impeachment is a very rare thing in America.
Only two Presidents, both Dems, have ever been impeached.
global warming alarmists, you suggest we spend 1.5 trillion a year based on your dubious theories
how dare you?!?!?!?!!?
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/09/a-climate-modeller-spills-the-beans/
For months, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned itchy Democrats against the perils of impeachment. She should have stuck to her guns.
In surrendering to the radicals and the noisy drumbeat of their media handmaidens, Pelosi established a formal investigative process involving the top legislative committees.
Yet she did something else, too, something far more monumental: She effectively committed House Dems to impeaching President Trump.
Because of what she said and did, if the House doesn’t go all the way, it will be a political disaster. Either failing to take a vote on articles of impeachment, or failing to get enough votes among her majority to pass any articles, would be seen as a political exoneration for Trump, likely leading to his re-election.
If all that weren’t risky enough, consider another scenario. If House Dems do impeach Trump on grounds that much of the public sees as flimsy and concocted, they could win the battle and lose the war. Indeed, no matter what the House does, there is a next-to-zero chance the GOP controlled Senate would convict the president absent clear and convincing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Pelosi knew all that since January, when she became Speaker, which is why she kept resisting the impeachers. But her surrender proved again that her party can’t quit 2016. Like generals fighting the last war, she and they are now committed to taking their sore-loser grievances to 2020 voters.
Dems apparently assume the country hates Trump as much as they do. President Hillary Clinton had no comment on the strategy.
They also are demonstrating they didn’t learn the lessons of the Robert Mueller probe. They assumed for two years the special counsel would get the goods that would drive Trump from office. We know how that worked out, yet here they go again.
Although Pelosi stopped short of creating a select panel and reportedly has no plans to call for a formal House vote, the Speaker’s claims that Trump “seriously violated the Constitution” and “betrayed the oath of office” in a conversation with Ukraine’s president leave her no wiggle room. If she believes those charges, how can she not advocate for the president’s removal?
And if she advocates for it, she must deliver it, or she can no longer be the leader.
We should know a lot more by Wednesday thanks to Trump’s promise to release an unredacted transcript of the phone call. It’s safe to assume he and his lawyers think he did nothing wrong, or they wouldn’t release it.
Dems might agree, which is why they have moved the goalposts and now also demand the complaint from a so-called whistleblower that initially set Washington’s hair on fire. Reports that the complainer had no direct access to the call raises questions of credibility.
Pelosi may think she went only halfway Tuesday and could eventually back down on impeachment if the Ukraine issue fizzles, but that’s wishful thinking. Anything less than a public flogging of Trump will not satisfy the far left of her own party, including the 150 or so House members who already demanded impeachment before the Ukraine issue appeared.
Meanwhile, Pelosi’s endorsement also pushes the presidential candidates toward the impeachment path, whether they like it or not. None of them can possibly be against it, nor can they be wishy-washy about it.
Bet that within days, there will be virtually unanimous support among the White House wannabes. Anything less will be disqualifying among the loud left.
In short, Pelosi just changed everything. The next election is now about impeachment.
If you think America is polarized today, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Pelosi caved in because of the mounting pressure within her party and because the New York Times, the Washington Post and a handful of television gasbags demanded that she act over what the president reportedly said in the July conversation with Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump admits he asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over whether the then-vice president took any action to protect his son from a corruption probe.
Hunter Biden was being paid $50,000 a month by an energy company that was at one time the focus of a corruption inquiry. Reports have said Biden used his VP position to demand that the inquiry be dropped and the prosecutor involved fired, or America would withhold aid.
Ironically, a full examination of the facts could make Biden the first casualty of the impeachment jihad. He is already a weak front-runner and even if he did nothing legally wrong in dealing with Ukraine, the fact that his son was enriching himself by free-riding on the coattails of his father’s job won’t sit well with progressive voters, many of whom already dislike and distrust Biden.
Put it this way: Would Hunter Biden have gotten that job if his father were not vice president? Ditto for a sweetheart investment deal Hunter Biden got from the Chinese government. On at least one occasion, he reportedly flew with his father on Air Force Two to China to seal a lucrative agreement there.
That doesn’t pass the smell test and Biden could get knocked down and even out as events unfold.
Count that possibility as another sign that, based on what we know, Pelosi is making a high-risk, low-reward bet.
On the morning when Donald Trump released a “transcript” absolutely riddled with attempts to extort an ally into doing political favors from manufacturing dirt on a political opponent to fleshing out a Pizzagate-related conspiracy theory, the White House followed up by sending out its talking points for defending Trump’s statements. But someone at the White House pressed the wrong button. Rather than routing these talking points to Republican senators, someone at the White House sent the day’s instructions to the Democratic side of the aisle. Every Democratic representative ended up with a copy, including one sent straight to Nancy Pelosi’s office.
And to make things absolutely perfect, the White House then sent out a “recall” asking that Democrats give their talking points back. No one should take this as a sign that everyone at the White House is currently running in circles, screaming, randomly pulling levers, and desperately searching for the nearest exit. But it would be a good time to make sure there’s a safety cap over that big red button.
What are those talking points? Well, Trump never uses the word “promise.” Zelensky mentions Giuliani first. And Trump doesn’t actually say “Biden” eight times. And … really, that’s pretty much it. The rest of the document is just a series of claims about the “deep state.” There are no other points.
The talking points do claim that Trump never mentions military aid as part of his discussion with Zelensky, so there’s “no quid pro quo.” Except ...
"Zelensky: I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United· States for defense purposes.
Trump : I would like you to do us a favor though ...
Quid? Meet, Pro Quo.
US Rep Brendan Boyle✔
@RepBrendanBoyle
I would like to thank @WhiteHouse for sending me their talking points on how best to spin the disastrous Trump/Zelensky call in Trump’s favor. However, I will not be using their spin and will instead stick with the truth.
But thanks though.
11:59 AM - Sep 25, 2019
Anytime President Donald Trump is speaking on live television, he's prone to say something that riles up Twitter. Wednesday's joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was no exception.
When Zelensky asked for support in ending the Russian occupation of Crimea, Trump reminded him, "If you remember, you lost Crimea different a during administration not during the Trump administration."
At one point, Trump postulated that Hillary Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails could be hiding out in Ukraine.
Speaking about Ukraine, Trump said, "It's a country, I think, with tremendous potential."
To which Zelensky responded, "Yes, I know it. Because I am from that country."
Then when it was time to wrap up, Trump ended by saying: "Nancy Pelosi, as far as I'm concerned, unfortunately she's no longer Speaker of the House. Thank you everybody."
Last I checked, Nancy Pelosi was still Speaker of the House.
Rump must have been looking in the mirror to the future when he will no longer be PUSA.
Donald Trump held a press conference of sorts in New York City. He did what he does, saying everyone else should be impeached, not him. After gaslighting away a bit about how Joe and Hunter Biden are the people who should be investigated concerning the Ukraine, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace broke in to shut off the methane coming out of Trump’s mouth.
"Donald Trump held a press conference of sorts in New York City. He did what he does, saying everyone else should be impeached, not him. After gaslighting away a bit about how Joe and Hunter Biden are the people who should be investigated concerning the Ukraine, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace broke in to shut off the methane coming out of Trump’s mouth."
It’s refreshing to have Trump’s only power, his complete lack of shame, morality, and conscience, muzzled—even if it was only for a few minutes. Trump, of course was responding to the long-awaited announcement that the legislative branch of our government will uphold its sworn oath to both check and balance what has always been a garbage fire of corruption and illegality in the Trump White House.
With the Ukraine investigation, Trump once again is trying to get out of a hole his stupid mouth has put him in. He stands accused of what he has always been accused of: breaking laws due to his pathetic need to try and rig everything (including golf!), all in the hopes of convincing the world and himself that he isn’t one of the largest cosmic wastes of space the universe has ever seen.
https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2019/09/26/trump-threatens-that-the-stock-market-will-crash-if-he-is-impeached/23820981/
"Donald Trump held a press conference of sorts in New York City. He did what he does, saying everyone else should be impeached, not him. After gaslighting away a bit about how Joe and Hunter Biden are the people who should be investigated concerning the Ukraine, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace broke in to shut off the methane coming out of Trump’s mouth."
so glad you posted this twice
first your attempt to pass this off as your own words and, then, the original post you forgot to delete
LOL!!
what do you think the voters will ultimately be more concerned with?:
Hunter Biden selling his influence while his Dad was VP, or Trump asking authorities in the jurisdiction to investigate?
"He stands accused of what he has always been accused of: breaking laws due to his pathetic need to try and rig everything"
that sounds serious!
Could you be kind enough to tell us what law he broke?
Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and the Democrats appear bound and determined to ensure that he remains in that position for another four years.
That’s the bottom-line takeaway from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to open a formal “impeachment inquiry.” Donald Trump is not going to be removed from office. There is no shortcut to overturning the 2016 election. This is just the latest in a long line of increasingly weak attempts by House Democrats to discredit the president, and the inevitable futility of this effort is crucial to understanding the Democrats’ true motivations.
There’s practically zero chance that they are actually going to impeach the president over this Ukraine nonsense. It’s just too silly, especially considering that we already had to go through 2 ½ years of Russiagate, only to find out that there was never any “there” there.
Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership are huffing and puffing, but this house is even sturdier than the others that they likewise failed to blow down. They choke back crocodile tears while accusing Trump of violating the law, betraying the Constitution, and undermining national security, yet they can’t explain how his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does any of those things.
They can’t name the law that President Trump supposedly violated. They can’t point to the part of the Constitution they think is injured. They can’t explain how American national security was threatened. They just keep repeating the same carefully rehearsed talking points over and over again. It would sound like a broken record even if the same Democrats hadn’t said the exact same things about non-existent “collusion” throughout the Russiagate hoax.
Adam Schiff is the only Democrat on Capitol Hill who’s even trying to give some shape to the flailing accusations that his colleagues trotted out before they even saw the transcript that supposedly supported them. Schiff’s solution is to behave like a downright lunatic, crafting a bizarre mobster movie fantasy with President Trump playing the role of an international Don Corleone shaking down helpless foreign leaders. Seriously. Look at his tweets.
What’s the “offer Zelensky can’t refuse”? That he should work with Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate hacking in the 2016 American election, which may have taken place in Ukraine — which is exactly what Senate Democrats asked Zelensky’s predecessor to do just last year?
The left is staking a good part of its argument on the fact that President Trump also mentioned the undisputed fact that Joe Biden bragged about explicitly threatening to cut off $1 billion in aid to Ukraine if former President Petro Poroshenko didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s energy firm, but that perfectly reasonable request doesn’t change a thing.
You see, when Democrats ask Ukrainians to do something they think will hurt President Trump, they consider it a fulfillment of their patriotic duty. When President Trump asks Ukrainians to do the exact same thing, the Democrats call it unconstitutional, illegal, impeachable, and even compare it to Mafia tactics.
Democrats can’t possibly believe this is a legitimate scandal, especially now that the president has voluntarily released the full, unredacted transcript of the call, allowing the American people to judge for themselves. Impeachment is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and it’s difficult to imagine that Nancy Pelosi would be so foolish as to hold an actual impeachment vote by the full House on such a ridiculous pretext.
Even if she manages to walk the tightrope of holding an “impeachment inquiry” without launching actual impeachment proceedings, Pelosi is going to seriously damage her party’s presidential nominee next year. It’s almost as though she wants President Trump to remain in the White House through 2024.
A defiant President Trump said during a press conference in New York Wednesday that he wants "full transparency" not only over the "so-called whistleblower" allegations leveled against him, but also "from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China."
Trump additionally demanded "transparency from Democrats who went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new president ... to do things that they wanted under the form of political threat. They threatened him if he didn't do things -- now that's what they're accusing me of, but I didn't do it."
The move signaled that the White House would seek to turn the tables against Democrats who have initiated an impeachment inquiry, following the whistleblower's complaint that Trump had improperly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden. Zelensky, speaking across from Trump just an hour earlier, told reporters he did not feel "pushed" at all in his conversations with the president.
Earlier in the day, the White House released a transcript of Trump's July call with Zelensky, showing Trump sought a review of Biden family dealings in the country. But the transcript also did not demonstrate that Trump leveraged military aid to Ukraine to obtain a "promise" on a Biden investigation, as a widely cited report in The lying Washington Post had claimed.
At the press conference, Trump specifically called attention to a little-discussed CNN report from May, which described how Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy pushed Ukraine’s top prosecutor not to close four investigations perceived as critical to then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe -- and, by Democrats' current logic, seemingly implied that their support for U.S. aid to Ukraine was at stake.
"The Democrats have done what they're accusing me of doing," Trump said.
Rump's secret server in the White House
Hillary Clinton couldn’t get away from the issue of a private email server in the 2016 election. Donald Trump said it was “bigger than Watergate” and she deserved to go to jail for it.
Now, Trump has been caught using a secret computer system ― a private server, if you will ― to hide his election interference attempts.
“Republicans have made it very clear that secret servers are a criminal offense,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who served on the Clinton campaign. “Will they apply the same rules to Trump that they apply to everyone else?”
An explosive letter from an unnamed intelligence official was released Thursday detailing attempts by the White House to cover up Trump’s wrongdoing.
On more than one occasion, White House officials put transcripts of Trump’s conversations into a “standalone computer system” that was meant for storing sensitive and classified intelligence information.
Officials were abusing that system, the letter says. They used it to protect politically sensitive conversations, rather than national security secrets. It’s the place they put the transcript of Trump’s conversation with the president of Ukraine when he asked for foreign help in going after former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Hiding this transcript was deliberate. According to the whistleblower’s letter, White House officials said they were “directed” by White House lawyers to move it there, away from the regular computer system that holds other call transcripts that are distributed to Cabinet-level officials.
Clinton was not the first government official to use a personal email address for government work. But the issue dogged her relentlessly, pushed on by Trump and his conservative allies.
There’s no evidence that Clinton set up this system to deliberately hide wrongdoing. But according to the whistleblower, Trump’s White House used its second system for exactly those reasons.
"...II. Efforts to restrict access to records related to the call
In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to "lock down" all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced—as is customary—by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.
• White House officials told me that they were "directed" by White-House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials.
3
UNCLASSIFIED
• Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.
I do not know whether similar measures were taken to restrict access to other records of the call, such as contemporaneous handwritten notes taken by those who listened in..."
The inspector general who vetted the explosive whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump emphasized that the complaint was not compromised by the whistleblower’s political leanings.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump, his political allies and the conservative media from attempting to paint the whistleblower’s motives and accusations as purely partisan.
“They think I may have had a ‘dicey’ conversation with a certain foreign leader based on a ‘highly partisan’ whistleblowers statement,” Trump tweeted on Sept. 20, later telling reporters, “I don’t know the identity of the whistleblower, I just hear it’s a partisan person, meaning it comes out from another party, but I don’t have any idea.”
On Thursday, Trump reportedly groused that the whistleblower was basically “a spy” who would have been dealt with differently “in the old days,” the New York Times reported.
The whistleblower’s complaint, a copy of which Congress released Thursday, levels the disturbing claim that the president asked Ukraine for dirt on political rival Joe Biden and that the White House sought to “lock down” all records of the phone call during which this transpired.
The identity of the whistleblower remains known to very few. One of the handful of people to know their name is the inspector general of the intelligence community who first received the complaint.
In an August letter revealing the complaint to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, the inspector general noted that the whistleblower seemed to have personal politics opposing Trump, but said the “arguable” bias didn’t undermine the credibility of the complaint.
“Although the ICIG’s preliminary review identified some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate, such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible.’”
The inspector general didn’t specify the scope of the review nor what those indications of bias were. And whistleblowers’ political leanings — in any direction — are not proof that they are exaggerating or fabricating their claims. Independent reporting and a summary of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president made public this week have corroborated much of the whistleblower’s complaint.
Trump’s supporters, though, are seizing on the whistleblower’s supposed bias to dismiss the entire complaint out of hand...
Maguire said he believed the whistleblower “acted in good faith” in an unprecedented situation and followed the rules in place for calling out “urgent and important” misconduct.
“I believe the whistleblower followed the steps every step of the way,” Maguire said.
The formal complaint from an anti-Trump “whistleblower” alleging various crimes by President Donald Trump is riddled with third-hand gossip and outright falsehoods. The document was declassified by Trump Wednesday evening and released to the public Thursday morning. The complaint, which was delivered to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, follows the same template used in the infamous and debunked Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier.
Rather than provide direct evidence that was witnessed or obtained firsthand by the complainant, the document instead combines gossip from various anonymous individuals, public media reports, and blatant misstatements of fact and law in service of a narrative that is directly contradicted by underlying facts. A footnote in the document even boasts about its use of “ample open-source information.”
Contrary to news reports asserting that the complaint included volumes of information incriminating Trump, it is instead based entirely on the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and various public media reports.
“I was not a direct witness to most of the events” characterized in the document, the complainant confesses on the first page. Instead, the complainant notes, the document is based on conversations with “more than half a dozen U.S. officials.” Those officials are not named, and their positions are not identified anywhere in the letter.
The complainant begins by falsely characterizing a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, the transcript of which was released by the White House on Wednesday.
Trump made a “specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike,” the complainant alleges. A review of the transcript of the call shows that while Trump mentioned Crowdstrike once during the call, he never made such a request about locating and turning over multiple servers to the U.S.
The complainant also falsely alleges that Trump told Zelensky that he should keep the current prosecutor general at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, in his current position in the country.
“The President also praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested that Mr. Zelensky might want to keep him in his position,” the complainant alleges, based on gossip he says he heard from unnamed White House officials.
Trump made no such suggestion to Zelensky, according to the transcript of the phone call. While Trump did say that it was “unfair” that a prosecutor who was “very good” was “shut down,” it’s not clear that Trump was even referring to Lutsenko, as a previous prosecutor named Viktor Shokin was fired after he opened investigations into a Ukrainian energy company that placed Hunter Biden, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, on its board.
Trump directly references Shokin later in the conversation.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump said.
In 2018, Joe Biden bragged on camera that his threats to withhold a billion dollars in loan guarantees from Ukraine directly led to Shokin’s firing.
The complainant then alleges, without evidence, that efforts to secure the records of the call to prevent unauthorized access to classified information are themselves proof of corruption.
The transcript was “loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature,” the complainant claims. “One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”
The complainant provides zero evidence beyond the opinion of an anonymous official that phone conversations between world leaders do not contain “anything remotely sensitive.” Trump formally declassified the transcript of the phone call, which had previously been classified as “SECRET/NOFORN,” meaning the information could not be shared with uncleared U.S. individuals or any foreign nationals, earlier this week.
In a footnote, the complainant even alleges that the mere classification of phone calls between world leaders was itself a corrupt act.
Following the section on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, the complainant then devotes several pages to summaries of various news articles as proof of the underlying allegations in the complaint. The complainant quotes George Stephanopoulos (an ABC News employee who previously served in President Bill Clinton’s White House), The Hill, Bloomberg News, Politico, Fox News, the New York Times, and even Twitter.
The document itself is riddled not with evidence directly viewed by the complainant, but repeated references to what anonymous officials allegedly told the complainant: “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials,” “officials have informed me,” “officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me,” “the White House officials who told me this information,” “I was told by White House officials,” “the officials I spoke with,” “I was told that a State Department official,” “I learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “One White House official described this act,” “Based on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me,” “I also learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “The U.S. officials characterized this meeting,” “multiple U.S. officials told me,” “I learned from U.S. officials,” “I also learned from a U.S. official,” “several U.S. officials told me,” “I heard from multiple U.S. officials,” and “multiple U.S. officials told me.”
A review of the entire complaint shows it is not so much an example of whistle-blowing, an act that can only be done by the individual holding the whistle, but an elaborate gossipy game of telephone between unnamed individuals whose motives and credibility are impossible to ascertain.
In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found in its review of the complaint from the anonymous official that the intelligence community inspector general found “indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.”
“The complaint does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community,” the DOJ legal opinion noted. “Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.”
DOJ officials determined that the complaint was statutorily deficient since the president is an independent constitutional officer who is not subordinate to unelected intelligence agency bureaucrats. The DOJ opinion also determined that the complaint, which was based almost entirely on hearsay, was not “urgent” as required by statute and therefore not required to be submitted to congressional intelligence committees
Last month, Dems declared a recession and Trump ended it in 24 hours.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, they were going to impeach Brett Kavanaugh.
You get the sense Dems are nervous and desperate.
Sequels are rarely better than the original.
If we have learned anything over the last six days, as the feeding frenzy over the whistleblower has overtaken official Washington, it is this: Democrats want to impeach President Trump and they do not care if the facts support their cause.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally got with the program and announced she would support an impeachment inquiry. She has resisted impeachment for months as her caucus has grown restless. She was considering the House Democratic majority. I thought she was disciplined and strategic.
She got ahead of the facts and now she is trapped.
As the transcript of the July phone call between Mr. Trump and the Ukrainian president was released Wednesday morning, several key claims made by Democrats and their media allies unraveled.
There was no “quid pro quo.” We were promised that Mr. Trump was explicit. The transcript shows no evidence of that.
The president did not mention defense aid even once. We were promised that Mr. Trump withheld defensive foreign aid as a bribe to secure an investigation of the Bidens. He did not mention the subject of defensive aid once during the call.
The only investigation that Mr. Trump brought up himself, unprompted, was an investigation into foreign meddling in the 2016 election, as it related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee email server. Democrats used to care deeply about this subject.
The Ukrainian president was the first to mention Mr. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and he asked that Mr. Giuliani travel to Ukraine.
Despite news reports that Mr. Trump urged an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and his son Hunter as many as eight times on the call, the transcript shows he mentioned them only once. The Ukrainian president specifically said Wednesday he did not feel pressured by Mr. Trump.
This is far too thin for the extreme constitutional remedy of impeachment.
When the public is against the party pushing impeachment, pushing forward with this drastic step is bad politics. Republicans learned this painful lesson in the 1990s.
Democrats have now committed themselves to this extreme step, and they have set themselves up to fail their rabid base or pursue a path the public opposes.
It appears Democrats learned nothing from the Russia collusion hoax.
After more than two years of Democrats’ hyperventilating, Mr. Trump was cleared of collusion and conspiracy. Democrats and their media allies overhyped their claims and won Pulitzer Prizes along the way. But they failed in their objective, and soon we will learn more about the origins of the Russia collusion hoax and FISA warrant abuses.
I will make a prediction.
In the end, the Ukraine investigation and resulting impeachment inquiry will be far worse for Mr. Biden than it will be for Mr. Trump.
Will the former vice president’s calls to Ukraine be released? How many trips did he make there? With whom did he meet? How did his son, with zero experience in Ukraine or energy, secure a $50,000 a month contract with a Ukrainian natural gas company and a highly lucrative contract for his bank?
These questions deserve answers.
The whistleblower complaint has now been provided to the House and Senate Intelligence committees. The Intelligence Community Inspector General said the whistleblower had “partisan bias” in his or her background. We have also learned that the whistleblower never even heard the phone call directly.
Almost everything Democrats have said about this story is probably false.
Soon we will hear from acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire in his testimony before Congress. He will provide additional answers and context.
Instead of overhyping this story, Democrats should have been more careful and measured. But they could not help themselves.
Instead, their hatred of Mr. Trump led to them getting out on a limb. That limb was just sawed off.
One method occasionally used to excuse or explain President Donald Trump's behavior is an appeal to the president's lack of formal political experience. After fired FBI chief James Comey testified back in 2017, for example, Paul Ryan, who was at the time the speaker of the House, said Trump is "new at this" and "not steeped in the ongoing protocols."
It is no doubt true that Trump's background and temperament mean that he lacks a detailed understanding of the rules and protocols that govern the office he holds. Many of his actions can be viewed in that light. But in the case of Trump's July call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, details of which have sparked a formal impeachment inquiry in the House, Trump and his defenders can't reasonably claim he didn't know that what he was doing would look bad.
First, the call, in which the president repeatedly pressed Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, came after nearly two years of investigation into allegations of Russian collusion during the 2016 campaign. The key question in that investigation was whether Trump worked with a foreign country in order to swing the election. If nothing else, Trump should have learned that attempting to work with a foreign nation in a way that could advance his own political fortunes would be problematic.
Yet that is exactly what the whistleblower complaint about the Ukraine call says that Trump did.
The complaint opens by alleging that the still-anonymous author, who worked in the U.S. intelligence community, has received "information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election." The report goes on to describe not only how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden, but how "multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call" were concerned that Trump used most of the call to "advance his personal interests."
The president reportedly requested that Zelenskiy pursue the Biden investigation with the help of Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. According to the report, the White House officials who heard the call and relayed this information were "deeply disturbed by what transpired" and discussed what to do about the likelihood that "they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain."
One might reasonably argue that this is all secondhand and anonymous and that it should be corroborated by those unnamed officials. But it also conforms to much of what we already know from other sources. A reconstruction of the phone call released by the White House this week confirms that Trump pressed the Biden issue during the conversation, following a request by Zelenskiy for Javelin missiles, implying an understood quid pro quo deal.
And there should be no doubt that that Giuliani was pursuing a politically motivated investigation in Ukraine, because Giuliani has repeatedly admitted this himself.
In May, for example, Giuliani denied that his actions were illegal but said this about his Ukraine dealings: "Somebody could say it's improper. And this isn't foreign policy—I'm asking them to do an investigation that they're doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I'm going to give them reasons why they shouldn't stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government."
This quote establishes that Giuliani—who, again, is not a government official, and thus not conducting ordinary diplomacy—was pursuing an investigation in Ukraine for the president's personal benefit ("that information will be very, very helpful to my client").
It also offers another reason why Trump can't claim innocence through inexperience: Even then, Giuliani, who was working closely on the Ukraine matter for Trump, understood that what he was doing could be viewed as improper. If the president's lawyer and pointman on a project knows it's shady, the president should too.
If the whistleblower's report is accurate, there is good reason to believe that loyalists within the Trump White House also understood that Trump's behavior on the July call was improper, because they tried to shield it from scrutiny.
According to the report, White House officials were "'directed' by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored" for sharing and other use within the administration. Instead, the records were to be stored in a more secretive and compartmentalized system designed for classified information. One White House official, the report says, described this as an "abuse" of the more secretive system, because the Ukraine call records did not belong there.
The clear implication is that the call records were understood to be damaging, and thus were hidden from scrutiny. (Trump also personally ordered the delay of nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in advance of the call, possibly in violation of the constitutional separation of powers, and refused to provide an explanation.)
Essentially, the report describes a cover-up. And you don't cover up records of activity unless you understand that activity was wrong.
The whistleblower's account remains anonymous and uncorroborated. We need more firsthand, on-the-record information. But if the document is accurate, it strongly suggests that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong and didn't want others to find out.
Finally, even if ignorance ends up being part of Trump's explanation, it's damning in a different way. An ignorance defense at this juncture would amount to an admission that the best case for Trump is that after more than two years as president, he still has no idea what he's doing.
"Essentially, the report describes a cover-up. And you don't cover up records of activity unless you understand that activity was wrong."
the type of ignorant statement TTF is known for
anything you'd like to keep secret that isn't illegal?
"The whistleblower's account remains anonymous and uncorroborated. We need more firsthand, on-the-record information."
you should have told your friends in Congress
because they've made assumptions that make an ass of you and them
"But if the document is accurate, it strongly suggests that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong and didn't want others to find out."
the latter could be true without the former
"Finally, even if ignorance ends up being part of Trump's explanation, it's damning in a different way."
he doesn't need an explanation
to ask a government with jurisdiction to investigate corruption is a perfectly valid thing to do, even if the suspected perpetrator is the son of someone who may run against you for President
sorry, you have no case
it's like deja vu, all over again
Precedents abound in a country whose first presidential election took place 230 years ago, that has seen 41 presidential contests between two political parties founded 187 and 165 years ago. Three of our 44 presidents have faced impeachment proceedings -- Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton -- and now it seems Donald Trump will be the fourth.
Democrats have been itching to oust Trump from office since the 9 p.m. Eastern hour on election night nearly three years ago, when it became clear he had been elected. High law enforcement and intelligence officials started trying to keep him from the White House starting months earlier and for three years pushed the theory that he and his campaign were acting in collusion with Russia, even though they had little evidence aside from a dossier full of Russia-supplied hearsay, whose lurid claims were never verified.
Collusiongate finally collapsed, in the words of New York Times editor Dean Baquet, "the day Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand," when "our readers who want Donald Trump to go away" realized that wasn't going to happen.
So, now, weeks before the promised release of inspector general reports on law enforcement misconduct, we hear that a whistleblower had been told Trump abused his powers in a telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump announced he would release the transcript, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Democratic-majority House was officially considering impeachment.
The transcript released Wednesday doesn't read exactly as the still-anonymous whistleblower had claimed. Trump asked the newly installed Ukrainian president to investigate 2016 anti-Trump efforts there. Democrats claimed Trump offered a quid pro quo by suggesting he'd released U.S. aid he'd been holding up. But Trump said nothing about that. Given the American president's broad powers, any request the president makes of a foreign government could be called a threat.
Trump also mentioned Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, who had a $50,000-a-month contract with a Ukraine firm. And he adverted to the elder Biden's public boast that as vice president, he threatened to deny Ukraine $1 billion in aid if the government didn't fire the prosecutor investigating the firm.
On Collusiongate, Democrats followed the Nixon precedent, allowing a special prosecutor and congressional committees to conduct long investigations, with numerous leaks to sympathetic media. That produced evidence that made impeachment certain, and Nixon resigned. But Collusiongate didn't follow precedent.
Now Democrats seem to be following the Andrew Johnson precedent. Johnson's Republican critics hated him for obstructing equal rights for free blacks and for his vitriolic and scurrilous oratory. Proceedings began on Feb. 24, 1868. The House voted for impeachment on March 3, and on May 16, the Senate voted 35-19 against him, 1 vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to remove him from office.
So, Democrats' course is, as my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York puts it: "Move fast. Don't withhold judgment. And don't wait for the results of a long, ponderous investigation." Pelosi seems primed to push for a quick vote as soon as 218 yeas are in sight. But in the 53-47 Republican Senate, absent new facts or changed public opinion, there are far fewer votes for removal than in 1868.
Current polling shows voters oppose impeachment by nearly 2-1 margins, similar to when Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998. Both parties thought impeachment would help them politically. Clinton's job approval rose sharply, but his personal ratings slumped badly. The former helped keep him in office, while the latter hobbled his chosen successor, Al Gore, two years later.
Speaker Newt Gingrich forecast big Republican gains, but they actually lost four seats in November 1998, and Gingrich lost his speakership. But Republicans held onto their House majority that year and in the next three congressional elections.
Those largely positive results reflect late 1990s contentment and the fact that both parties had intellectually serious arguments in line with their values. Republicans argued that Clinton's lies in a federal court proceeding violated his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Democrats argued that his offense was only a personal matter unrelated to his official duties.
Donald Trump's support has remained impervious to charges of personal or professional misconduct, just as his detractors remain impervious to claims that his policies have been successful. What could hurt Democrats in times of discontent, when impeachment is unpopular, is their opportunism in seizing on any excuse to vent their rage. The Ukrainian phone call is much smaller potatoes than collusion with Russia would have been.
But Democrats "who want Donald Trump to go away" just couldn't wait to let voters make that choice. They risk four more years of angry frustration.
USA Today: Trump criticizes Pelosi amid impeachment firestorm, saying she's 'no longer the speaker of the House'
We can all see how stupid and arrogant he is.
Speaker Pelosi has been telling everyone who cared to listen that Rump is self-impeaching, meaning that it was only a matter of time before Trump provided incontrovertible evidence of his abuse of power.
And now we know how he temporarily covered up that evidence of his abuse of power too.
Rump has turned out to be so deplorably Nixonian.
Pelosi has probably doomed the country to four more years of Donald Trump
There is plenty of hypocrisy to go with all of their hype. But what about the hype?
As Aaron Rodgers would say, “R-E-L-A-X.” The world is not going to end in 12 years.
Remember all of the times former Vice President Al Gore predicted doom and gloom? “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslaw] Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years,” said Mr. Gore on Dec. 14, 2009. But it did not happen. In 2014 and 2015, there was more arctic sea ice than in the previous years. Mr. Gore was as wrong as he is a hypocrite.
Around the time Mr. Gore won an Oscar for the best documentary feature, the Associated Press reported that Mr. Gore’s mansion in Nashville used more than 12 times the average amount of energy for a home in that area. That was his own inconvenient truth.
A decade later and Mr. Gore was still a hypocrite. He told Jake Tapper on CNN, “I live a carbon-free lifestyle, to the maximum extent possible.”
An analysis by the National Center for Public Policy Research at the time found that Mr. Gore’s mansion used more electricity in one month than the average family uses in 34 months. It noted that just the electricity used to heat the pool could power six homes for a year.
All of this after he installed new “green” updates. Ironically, the report says that Mr. Gore’s home used more electricity in 2016 than it did in 2007.
Mr. Gore claims to “live a carbon-free lifestyle, to the maximum extent possible,” really come from purchasing “carbon offsets” for the carbon dioxide related to the home. The report says that he pays $432 a month into a Green Power Switch program that helps fund renewable energy projects.
Carbon offsets are really a way for rich liberals to claim that they are helping fight climate change without changing their lifestyle. It is the modern-day selling of indulgences. The elites can pay the “high church of climate change activism” for the benefit of being forgiven for their sins of having a large carbon footprint while the masses have to change their lifestyles — all while still getting stuck with the bill.
Worst of all, there are many politicians who want to do things that will cripple our economy when the biggest threat actually comes from countries like China. A report in Power Engineering claims that China would add “290 GW of new coal-fired capacity this year — that is more than 10 percent higher than the entire U.S. existing coal-fired generation fleet of about 261 GW.”
There are many better solutions to preserving our natural resources that do not put America at a competitive disadvantage for little or no global impact:
Plant more trees. A 25 percent increase in the forested areas throughout the world has the potential to cut the atmospheric carbon pool by about 25 percent, according to a study released earlier this year.
Use more nuclear energy. Unlike fossil fuel-fired power plants, nuclear reactors do not produce air pollution or carbon dioxide while operating. Plus, nuclear power plants already generate nearly 20 percent of the electricity in the United States and they operate over 90 percent of the time versus hydroelectric systems (under 40 percent), wind turbines (less than 35 percent) or solar (about 25 percent).
Conserve energy. One of the best ways to be green is to make green or save green. In other words, if you can make money or save money, it is truly sustainable - both economically as well as environmentally.
These ideas could be part of a Green Real Deal instead of the so-called Green New Deal. As reported, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff exposed the fraud saying that “the interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.”
Saikat Chakrabarti went on to say to the governor of Washington, “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” In a weird sort of way, Ms. Chakrabarti did more to expose the hypocrisy of the Green New Deal than anyone on the right.
Think about that the next time you see a climate change protest on the news.
Trump has brutally gone after the whistleblower in a series of tweets. He questioned his or her loyalty, asking, “Is he on our Country’s side”? He called this member of the intelligence community “highly partisan” and suggested this person was part of a conspiracy mounted against Trump by Democrats and the media. In a tweet citing a Fox News analyst, Trump accused the whistleblower of spying on him by secretly listening to his conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Trump was suggesting the whistleblower had committed a criminal act.) In another tweet citing another right-wing commentator, Trump essentially said the whistleblower was part of a cabal mounting a malicious and seditious effort against him. And Trump retweeted a conservative activist who claimed that the intelligence community’s inspector general had concluded the whistleblower had a “political bias” against Trump. (The IG found “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate” but nevertheless determined that the whistleblower was credible.)
That is, before the whistleblower’s complaint was released on Thursday morning, Trump had mounted a robust smear campaign against this unknown person, pronouncing him or her a rat-fink and a traitor who was out to get Trump—a person whose complaint could not be taken seriously.
At the Maguire hearing, the acting DNI was asked about the whistleblower—whose identity remained a secret. Is the whistleblower a “political hack,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee queried. Maguire replied, “I believer the whistleblower is acting in good faith.” Schiff followed up: “You don’t have any reason to accuse them of disloyalty to our country?” Maguire provided an unequivocal response: “Absolutely not…I think the whistleblower did the right thing.”
In other words, there was no basis for Trump’s denunciations of the whistleblower.
Later in the hearing, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) returned to this subject. She asked Maguire, “Do you believe the whistleblower was spying…on the president?” Maguire answered, “I believe the whistleblower complied with the law and did everything they thought, he or she thought was responsible under the Intelligence Community Whistleblowers Protection Act.” Referring to one of Trump’s tweets, Speier continued: “Do you believe the whistleblower is on our country’s side?” Maguire replied, “I believe that the whistleblower and all employees who come forward to the [intelligence community] IG to raise concerns of fraud, waste, and abuse are doing what they perceive to be the right thing.” That was a careful answer, but surely no endorsement of Trump’s claim that the whistleblower was engaged in treasonous action.
Speier then asked Maguire if Trump had asked him to share the identity of the whistleblower. “I can tell you emphatically no,” he said. And had anyone else in the White House or Justice Department done so? “No,” he said.
So if Trump and the White House did not know the whistleblower’s identity, how could Trump question this person’s loyalty, blast him or her as a partisan plotter, and accuse the whistleblower of spying? You know the answer: Trump doesn’t need facts to mount a smear campaign. (Did Roy Cohn?) Trump concocts phony conspiracies and misleading narratives all the time. (Remember birtherism?) When caught in a misdeed, his first instinct is to attack and vilify, the truth be damned.
the "whistleblower" lied, in several respects
Right.
And Donald Rump is a virgin.
As Tropical Storm Karen withers away, Hurricane Lorenzo has become “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the tropical central Atlantic,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
Now packing 140 mph winds, Lorenzo became a Category 4 storm Thursday farther east than any other previous storm on record, save for Julia in 2010. While far from any populous land masses at the moment, Lorenzo could be having an impact on the Azores in less than a week’s time — all the while marking a potentially ominous climate signal.
The Category 4’s sprawling cloud shield spans more than 1,000 miles — roughly the distance from Washington, D.C., to Miami; including its outflow, it would be large enough to cover the entire East Coast beneath overcast.
Lorenzo had the makings of a top-tier storm from the start. The National Hurricane Center delineated it as an area to watch, with a “likely” chance of development, even while it was still a mere tropical wave over the African continent.
Lorenzo quickly bloomed immediately after exiting the African coast for the tropical Atlantic Ocean, becoming a tropical storm around lunchtime Monday. Its rate of strengthening has been notable.
At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Lorenzo was declared the fifth Atlantic hurricane of the 2019 season. A day later, the National Hurricane Center announced that it had “rapidly [strengthened] into a major hurricane.” By Thursday midmorning, Lorenzo was a Category 4, its winds having jumped from 85 mph to 130 mph in 24 hours.
Lorenzo is enormous. Its hurricane-force winds extend up to 45 miles from the center, with tropical storm-force winds reaching out 265 miles. The storm would be large enough to bring tropical storm-force winds to a region as large as the distance between the Delmarva Peninsula and Toronto.
Lorenzo’s central air pressure was lower than that of any other hurricane on record this far east. It also became the strongest hurricane east of 45 degrees west longitude on record. Lorenzo is very much out of bounds.
It’s also only the 10th major hurricane on record east of the 40 degrees west marker. Five of those have occurred in the past decade... Each of the past four Atlantic hurricane seasons has featured at least one Category 5...
Lorenzo '19 is a record setter
Dorian '19 was a record setter
Michael '18 was a record setter
Ophelia '17 was a record setter
Irma '17 was a record setter
Harvey '17 was a record setter
There's something happening here. What it is, is exactly clear.
actually, something isn't happening here
what it is, is exactly clear
there were no hurricanes to hit the US East Coast for more than a decade after Katrina
the most placid period in history
but, normality is returning
some hurricanes are normal
it's why Miami's football is called the Hurricanes
Moron:
"there were no hurricanes to hit the US East Coast for more than a decade after Katrina"
Facts:
Hurricane Katrina: 2005
Hurricane Sandy: 2012, pummels NY and NJ
NY and NJ are on the East Coast of the US
2012 - 2005 = 7
1 decade = 10 years
7 < 10
Let me guess, you were home-schooled on math and geography.
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy)[1][2] was the deadliest and most destructive, as well as the strongest, hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. Inflicting nearly $70 billion (2012 USD) in damage, it was the second-costliest hurricane on record in the United States until surpassed by Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017. The eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba.[3] While it was a Category 2 hurricane off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spanning 900 miles (1,400 km)).[4][5][6] At least 233 people were killed along the path of the storm in eight countries.[7][8]
Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 26, Sandy moved through the Bahamas.[9] On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved west-northwest (the "left turn" or "left hook") and then[10] moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.[3][11] Sandy continued drifting inland for another few days while gradually weakening, until it was absorbed by another approaching extratropical storm on November 2.[3][12]
In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York. Its storm surge hit New York City on October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city.[13][14] Damage in the United States amounted to $65 billion (2012 USD).[15] In Canada, two were killed in Ontario, and the storm caused an estimated $100 million (2012 CAD) in damage throughout Ontario and Quebec.[16]
"normality is returning"
Sure, if you think six "record setter" Atlantic storms in three years, 2017, 2018, and 2019, is "normality."
2019 isn't over yet.
"Facts:
Hurricane Katrina: 2005
Hurricane Sandy: 2012, pummels NY and NJ
NY and NJ are on the East Coast of the US
2012 - 2005 = 7
1 decade = 10 years
7 < 10
Let me guess, you were home-schooled on math and geography."
Sandy never hit the US as a hurricane, a fact of which you are clearly aware
every you needed to learn was taught to you in kindergarten but you failed to learn: don't argue by lying
the period after Katrina was the longest period that no hurricane hit the eastern seaboard
after Katrina, global warming alarmists assured us that we would see more and stronger hurricanes moving forward
why?
the science was settled
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trump lackey, GOP FEC Commissioner Caroline Hunt, took the unprecedented step of suppressing the FEC’s weekly Digest because Weintraub most recently included a “Draft Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals".
Ellen L Weintraub✔
@EllenLWeintraub· 17h
1/
Funny story. The @FEC puts out a "Weekly Digest" of everything we do, an immensely helpful public resource. Check it out, and subscribe, here:https://www.fec.gov/updates/?update_type=weekly-digest …
Latest updates - FEC.gov
Find what you need to know about the federal campaign finance process. Explore legal resources, campaign finance data, help for candidates and committees, and more.
fec.gov
Ellen L Weintraub✔
@EllenLWeintraub
2/
This week, I published a “Draft Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals" on the http://fec.gov web site:https://www.fec.gov/documents/1796/mtgdoc_19-41-A.pdf …
Ellen L Weintraub✔
@EllenLWeintraub · 17h
Replying to @EllenLWeintraub @FEC
3/
GOP FEC Commissioner Caroline Hunter took the altogether unprecedented step of objecting to its being added to the Digest and blocked publication of the whole Digest as a result.
Ellen L Weintraub✔
@EllenLWeintraub
4/
I always thought these anti-regulatory people liked the First Amendment well enough. I guess they think it's just for corporations.
I'm not fond of anyone trying to suppress my speech.
7:03 PM - Sep 27, 2019
DRAFT
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION
11 CFR Part 110
[NOTICE 2019-XX]
Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals
AGENCY: FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION.
ACTION: Notice of Interpretive Rule
SUMMARY: The Federal Election Commission is summarizing its interpretation of the prohibition on foreign national contributions, donations, expenditures, and disbursements in connection with a federal, state, or local election, as well as the prohibition on soliciting, accepting, or receiving a contribution from a foreign national, under the Federal Election Campaign Act and Commission regulations.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Federal Election Campaign Act, 52 U.S.C. 30101-45 (the “Act”), and Commission regulations prohibit any “foreign national” from directly or indirectly making a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement, in connection with a federal, state, or local election. 52 U.S.C. 30121(a)(1); 11 CFR § 110.20(b), (c), (e), (f).1 The Act’s definition of “foreign national” includes an individual who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as well as a “foreign principal” as defined at 22 U.S.C. 611(b), which, in turn, includes “a government of a foreign country and a foreign political party” and “a partnership, association, corporation, organization, or other combination of persons organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.” 52 U.S.C. 30121(b); 22 U.S.C. 611(b); see also 11 CFR § 110.20(a)(3); Factual and Legal Analysis, Matter Under Review (MUR) 4583 (Devendra Singh and the Embassy of India) (finding reason to believe that Indian Embassy as well as embassy official knowingly and willfully violated Act’s ban on foreign national contributions)...
Continues at https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/mtgdoc_19-41-A.pdf
The biggest mystery in this whole Ukraine impeachment circus is did the Trump set it up or did the Warren camp do it?
They are both helped tremendously by the elimination of Joe Biden's viability as a candidate.
And though Warren would never admit, it virtually guarantees Trump's re-election.
Washington scandals are moving at a record pace. It was only a week ago that The New York Times launched its unfair hit piece on Brett Kavanaugh. This is the Trump-era news cycle. Scandals that used to go on for months now seem to end in hours. Nothing illustrates this better than the bizarre Ukraine story we're all living through. A week ago, no one had even heard of it. Then we were on the brink of impeachment because of it, and now it seems it may be over already.
The same angry news anchors who brought you Stormy Daniels and the Russia hoax now want you to know Big Orange's days in the White House are over. Why? Because Donald Trump, they say, threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless Ukraine did something bad to Joe Biden and his family. Supposedly, Trump was finished.
Once again, the mob turned out to be wrong. The administration released a transcript of the president's phone call with the Ukrainian head of state, and it says none of the things the news anchors claimed it would. Read it for yourself. It's online. Try to find the extortion in there. There isn't any. Trump never even mentions military aid. There's certainly something unseemly about a president asking a foreign government to investigate an American citizen, but it's not illegal, and it's not all that different from three Democratic senators' writing a letter to Ukraine just last year demanding investigations into Trump.
Now that the call turns out to be nothing like what the media told us it would be, some on the left have started a conspiracy theory that the transcript can't be real; it must be doctored. These conspiracies aren't confined to weird corners of the internet. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff have already questioned the trustworthiness of the transcript, despite the fact that there's no evidence of wrongdoing. Numerous career national security officials -- many not fans of our president -- have access to the original call and would have to be in on any conspiracy.
What's driving all this insanity? Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, has been more honest about it than most. Green admitted it straight up: "I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get reelected."
Lots of Democrats, including many of today's party leaders, stood up when Bill Clinton was impeached to give impassioned speeches about the perils of taking away the American people's choice. Here's today's impeachment ringleader, Rep. Jerry Nadler, in 1998:
"The impeachment of a president is an undoing of a national election. And one of the reasons we all feel so angry about what they are doing is that they are ripping asunder our votes. They are telling us that our votes don't count."
And here's Nancy Pelosi in 1998 on the hatred behind the Clinton impeachment push:
"Today, the Republican majority is not judging the president with fairness but impeaching him with a vengeance ... We are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton. And until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer."
Sadly, Nadler and Pelosi were right in 1998. Republicans should not have impeached Clinton, and they paid the price. Democrats today hate Trump. It's not about justice or truth. What they care about is winning the 2020 presidential election. Democratic leaders have decided that impeaching Trump is essential if they're going to win next year. So they're staking everything on this bizarre, flimsy scandal that the rest of us can barely understand.
Personal attacks on Trump have proven ineffective. If calling him a racist or a traitor actually worked, Hillary Clinton would be running for reelection right about now. That's not going to work. If you want to beat Trump, make a case on the issues. He won on the issues. So make a countercase. But the geniuses can't figure that out.
In the end, the loser in this impeachment nonsense is likely to be Biden, who, you will recall, is the apparent front-runner. He's supposed to be the safe choice, the guy who's going to reenergize the Obama coalition and win back the White House. Yet Democrats have now in effect demanded that we spend the next six months talking about Biden and his son's alleged corruption. That's what's at the core of this Ukraine story.
The issues aren't really complicated. Why in the world would a Ukrainian company pay Hunter Biden $50,000 a month? We still haven't heard an answer. If we're talking about Ukraine and impeachment, we're talking about Biden's alleged corruption. That can't help his campaign for president. In fact, it's likely to tank it. It looks like sabotage, really. They must have gamed this up. Or maybe Democrats have just become so obsessed with destroying Trump that they're accidentally destroying themselves.
Facts:
"In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York."
Moron:
"the period after Katrina was the longest period that no hurricane hit the eastern seaboard"
What part of Florida to Maine isn't the eastern seaboard?
Moron:
"Sandy never hit the US as a hurricane, a fact of which you are clearly aware."
Riiiiight... that was just cotton candy that was battering the coast and ripping shingles and siding off of houses here in Maryland... and, incidentally, flooding my crawlspace - and I'm not anywhere near the shore.
Facts:
"Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy)[1][2] was the deadliest and most destructive, as well as the strongest, hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. Inflicting nearly $70 billion (2012 USD) in damage, it was the second-costliest hurricane on record in the United States until surpassed by Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017."
Moron:
"after Katrina, global warming alarmists assured us that we would see more and stronger hurricanes moving forward"
Apparently you've never met Harvey or Maria. Or were you confused about 2017 actually being AFTER 2012?
Facts:
"...On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved west-northwest (the "left turn" or "left hook") and then[10] moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds."
So what the moron is arguing is that although Hurricane Sandy (the second-costliest hurricane on record in the United States until surpassed by Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017) and
became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spanning 900 miles, affecting 24 out of 50 American states (48%), killed at least 233 people in 8 countries, including Canada of all places, that since the eyewall was a "post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds" when it finally went over land and ripped NJ and NY a new a-hole with its storm surge and hurricane force winds, it wasn't actually a "hurricane that hit the eastern seaboard."
I bet if you were in a car accident and the other driver came out complaining you hit his car, you'd argue "No I didn't. Stop lying. It was the car that I happened to be driving that hit your car."
It is a artificial pedantic distinction without a meaningful difference.
Hurricane Sandy got up 900 miles wide, hitting states up and down the entire east coast. Just because the eyewall was downgraded by the time it made landfall doesn't mean the rest of Hurricane Sandy didn't hit the coast with tropical and hurricane force winds, storm surges, torrential rains, coastal flooding, and $70 billion in damages.
Talk about Orwellian.
"stood up when Bill Clinton was impeached to give impassioned speeches about the perils of taking away the American people's choice."
Rump WASN'T the people's choice - that was the fault of the electoral college.
Rump's White House used a secret server meant for state secrets to hide Rump's personal secrets, all of which was kept from Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigators.
2012 Hurricane Isaac https://www.weather.gov/mob/isaac
2008 Hurricane Ike https://www.weather.gov/mob/ike
2008 Hurricane Gustav https://www.weather.gov/mob/gustav
"It is a artificial pedantic distinction without a meaningful difference"
ah, well, it's the truth
Sandy did not hit the US as a hurricane
I guess your position is that it was just as bad as one
but you could have just said that and not lied
even if did cause a great deal of damage, it's still plain that the alarmists claims after Katrina were completely wrong
which is funny, since the science was settled
"Rump WASN'T the people's choice - that was the fault of the electoral college"
actually, he was
if you take away California, the majority of Americans voted for Trump
our system was cleverly designed by the founding fathers to prevent one populous pocket from dominating the rest of the country
too bad you're not clever
"Obstruction of Justice said...
Rump's White House used a secret server meant for state secrets to hide Rump's personal secrets, all of which was kept from Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigators"
Trump complied with every subpoena issued by Mueller
there is a constitutional protection from state compulsion of self-incrimination
so, Trump had no obligation to help Mueller find things he didn't know
not that there was anything to know
a story on the front page of the Post says there is a new issue uniting Dems and Repubs across the land
they all agree that impeaching Trump is inappropriate
which makes TTF a fringe blog, by definition
congratulations!
"Sandy did not hit the US as a hurricane"
Sandy hammered the east coast of the US for days as a hurricane.
You cling to the ridiculous notion that since the eyewall didn't make land as an official "hurricane," even though it still had hurricane speed winds, it never "hit" the eastern seaboard.
Hurricane Sandy got up to 900 miles wide. What do you think was hitting the east coast all that time?
Bird farts?
Skittles?
God's tears?
It's no wonder Republicans thing anyone who has more than a high-school education is an "elite."
You are EPICALLY wrong and yet still can't see past your own stupidity. No wonder Republican politicians have such an easy time fooling you with their propaganda.
"Sandy hammered the east coast of the US for days as a hurricane.
You cling to the ridiculous notion that since the eyewall didn't make land as an official "hurricane," even though it still had hurricane speed winds, it never "hit" the eastern seaboard."
just using meteorological terms correctly
I will agree that Sandy was a bad storm that goes a great deal of damage
that's mainly because it's path took it so close to NYC
but no one thinks the path was determined by global warming
still, one storm off the coast on ten years is nothing like the alarmists predicted after Katrina
alas, You are EPICALLY wrong and yet still can't see past your own stupidity. No wonder liberal fringe lunatics have such an easy time fooling you with their propaganda.
"It's no wonder Republicans thing anyone who has more than a high-school education is an "elite.""
I think that anyone who can't spell "think" is a moron
Release of the transcript of President Trump’s call with Ukraine’s new president makes one thing clear — the Democrats are focusing on the wrong guy. They’re trying to use this episode to impeach Mr. Trump. What the conversation shows, though, is that Mr. Trump was enlisting help to do exactly what he had promised to do, drain the swamp. The culprit on whom to focus is Vice President Biden.
The transcript certainly confirms that Mr. Biden was mentioned by Mr. Trump in his call with Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. And that Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, was also mentioned. This shows up on the fourth page of the five-page transcript, after the two presidents were talking about how America gives more support to Ukraine than do the Europeans.
The President brought up that the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine had been “shut down.” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to speak with Attorney General Barr and Mayor Giuliani. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”
Vice President Biden, Mr. Trump added, “went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”
The bragging by Mr. Biden to which Mr. Trump was referring was about the state prosecutor looking into, among other things, Hunter Biden. The bragging happened at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018. The former vice president was on a stage with CFR’s president, Richard Haass. The video of it is on Youtube.com. Mr. Biden is talking one of his visits to Kiev.
“I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee,” Mr. Biden said.
“I had gotten,” he added, “a commitment from [President] Poroshenko and from [Prime Minister] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘you have no authority. You’re not the president.’”
“The president said — I said, call him,” Mr. Biden replied, evoking, the CFR transcript notes, laughter.
“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
It will be argued that the prosecutor Mr. Biden was concerned about — Victor Shokin — deserved to be fired. And that it wasn’t just Mr. Biden who wanted him canned. Nonetheless, Mr. Biden threatened to hold up aid to get a prosecutor fired while his family might have come under scrutiny. The Monday Times reported that “no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor’s dismissal.”
All the more reason, in our view, for Mr. Trump to have pressed for an investigation. The Democrats will need an electron microscope to find in the Trump-Zelensky phone call particles of either a quid or a pro or a quo that compare to the Uluru of a quid pro quo in the Biden-Poroshenko palaver. How are Speaker Pelosi and her Democratic caucus going to make a federal case out of Mr. Trump without sacrificing Mr. Biden?
Not that her left wing cares. What we take from the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call is that Mrs. Pelosi caved to her left wing too soon. At the moment, it looks like the first fallout is that Mr. Biden may be too damaged to be the nominee in 2020. So when Mr. Trump is nominated by the GOP, the chances wax that we’ll see a race between him and Senator Warren.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"if you take away California, the majority of Americans voted for Trump"
Yes, that's another ridiculous and meaningless talking point unimaginative Republicans like to throw out there. But once again, their problems with math cloud their thinking.
From May 2018:
https://www.businessinsider.com/california-economy-ranks-5th-in-the-world-beating-the-uk-2018-5
Here is how the 15 largest world economies look if you also include US states (in bold) as separate entities:
1. United States $19.391 trillion
2. China $12.015 trillion
3. Japan $4.872 trillion
4. Germany $3.685 trillion
5. California $2.747 trillion
6. United Kingdom $2.625 trillion
7. India $2.611 trillion
8. France $2.584 trillion
9. Brazil $2.055 trillion
10. Italy $1.938 trillion
11. Texas $1.696 trillion
12. Canada $1.652 trillion
13. New York $1.547 trillion
14. South Korea $1.538 trillion
15. Russia $1.527 trillion
"According to the Associated Press, California's boom has been especially pronounced because of its thriving tech, entertainment and agricultural industries.
The difference is even more stark in light of the respective economies' populations: Britain has around 66 million inhabitants, compared to California's 40 million."
But those weren't the final numbers for 2018:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
But since you're into playing hypothetical games and want to discard 4.3 million California voters, let's consider the 77,000 voters in PA, MI, and WI that put Rump over the Hump in 2016:
State GDP (millions of dollars)
CA 3,018,337
MI 537,087
PA 803,307
WI 342,470
---------------
3 state total: 1,682,864
So combined, these 3 states only made 55.75% of California's GDP in 2018.
But I'm sure you'll complain that's not a fair comparison since California has a lot more people. Fine, let's look at the 2010 US census data from:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population
California: 39,865,590 people
MI, PA, & WI: 28,511,862 total people combined.
That makes the per capita GDP of
California: $75,712.84
MI, PA, & WI: $59,023.29
So Californians contribute over 28% more GDP per capita than those three states combined.
If you're going to throw voters out of the country, you should keep the ones making more tax revenue - new aircraft carriers don't pay for themselves. Not to mention, kicking out the nation's single largest GDP generator would just be STUPID.
Hillary won over millions more voters than Trump. Trump took the electoral college because he won over more dirt.
"just using meteorological terms correctly"
Really? Then show me where it defines where a hurricane "hits" as ONLY the place where the eye wall comes ashore, AND it still has to be classified as a full hurricane when it does so.
Surely, you must have looked up this definition very carefully somewhere to have such a narrow definition, and to make sure you were "correct."
I'm betting you can't, and it's just another definition you pulled out of your, um, flood region.
BTW, since we're on the topic of "correctly," maybe you could learn how to use a period, correctly.
"but no one thinks the path was determined by global warming"
I don't recall anyone saying it was. Try to pay attention.
"still, one storm off the coast on ten years is nothing like the alarmists predicted after Katrina"
Since you consider everything but global warming denialism as "alarmist," that's really not a surprise.
President Donald Trump dragged Vice President Mike Pence’s name into his growing Ukraine scandal on Wednesday.
The White House released a summary of a conversation in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. But Trump said he was not the only one to speak to Zelensky.
“I think you should ask for Vice President Pence’s conversation because he had a couple of conversations also,” Trump said.
Trump also said he and Pence would both be exonerated, and called the vice president’s conversations with Ukraine “perfect.”
Critics of the administration are now envisioning a scenario in which both Trump and Pence end up impeached. While it would take an unlikely sequence of events for that to happen, the reaction caused #PresidentPelosi to trend Wednesday night and Thursday morning, given that the speaker of the House would be next in the line of succession:
Full Frontal
✔
@FullFrontalSamB
America: Where a woman can be president but only if two men get impeached first.
47.3K
8:22 PM - Sep 25, 2019
Jennifer Rubin
✔
@JRubinBlogger
Replying to @RonaldKlain @RadioFreeTom
Suit up, President Pelosi!
Franklin Leonard
✔
@franklinleonard
If this ends with President Pelosi, I may never stop laughing. https://twitter.com/JoshDorner
Amee Vanderpool
@girlsreallyrule
I can't think of anything more fitting than Trump's presidency being taken away and turned over to a woman after he stole it from one. #PresidentPelosi
Nancy Sinatra
✔
@NancySinatra
Replying to @chrislhayes
He did say @SpeakerPelosi wouldn't be Speaker anymore, maybe because she will be President Pelosi.
8,638
6:52 PM - Sep 25, 2019
SeanKentComedy
✔
@seankent
Hahahah. Mike Pence really thought if he sold out all his morals for Trump that Donny wouldn’t throw him under the bus first chance he got.
"Really? Then show me where it defines where a hurricane "hits" as ONLY the place where the eye wall comes ashore, AND it still has to be classified as a full hurricane when it does so.
Surely, you must have looked up this definition very carefully somewhere to have such a narrow definition, and to make sure you were "correct."
I'm betting you can't, and it's just another definition you pulled out of your, um, flood region."
this is fascinating
some guy trying to argue that the hurricane record over the last decade and a half are the result of global warming
and he's reduced to arguing whether some borderline event technically qualifies as a hurricane
it's clear that the alarmists who predicted hurricanes in both greater quantity and intensity in the aftermath of Katrina were dead wrong
so, why should we rely on anything else they say?
""but no one thinks the path was determined by global warming"
I don't recall anyone saying it was. Try to pay attention."
not saying anyone did
Try to pay attention
Sandy didn't cause so much damage because of its intensity but because of the location it hit
which wasn't a result of global warming so Sandy is irrelevant to the global warming discussion
"President Donald Trump dragged Vice President Mike Pence’s name into his growing Ukraine scandal on Wednesday"
there is no "growing" scandal
everything that happened has been disclosed
the whistle blower misinterpreted a few statements, probably intentionally
"The White House released a summary of a conversation in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. But Trump said he was not the only one to speak to Zelensky."
the investigation of Hunter Biden preceded Trump's presidency
Biden offered quid pro quo to pressure Ukraine to drop it
as part of a larger conversation, that didn't seem to have Biden as a focus, Trump mentioned that Ukraine should resume the investigation
which would be informative to all Americans, who wonder what, exactly, was the Ukraine government paying Hunter 50K a month for, if not things that only his father could secure
"Critics of the administration are now envisioning a scenario in which both Trump and Pence end up impeached. While it would take an unlikely sequence of events for that to happen,"
yes, it would
so why are you bringing it up?
Biden is in greater political trouble
and it's based on an unlikely sequence of events
his political viability is gone
which is great news for Trump
the Senate won't convict Trump or Pence without an impeachable offense
"and he's reduced to arguing whether some borderline event technically qualifies as a hurricane"
So the answer is no, you don't have any validation for your ridiculously narrow definition.
Just as I thought.
"Sandy didn't cause so much damage because of its intensity but because of the location it hit
which wasn't a result of global warming so Sandy is irrelevant to the global warming discussion"
Since you have the attention span of a rabid tsetse fly who has just chugged a gallon of Red Bull, let me remind you where this conversation started:
"there were no hurricanes to hit the US East Coast for more than a decade after Katrina
the most placid period in history
but, normality is returning
some hurricanes are normal
it's why Miami's football is called the Hurricanes"
My response didn't say anything about global warming. It simply pointed out the facts - you know the date of Hurricane Sandy, which, despite the fact that it reached a record 900 miles wide and killed at least 147 people starting from the Caribbean, moving up the US east coast and into Canada, you somehow think it's "the most placid period in history."
"Sandy didn't cause so much damage because of its intensity but because of the location it hit
which wasn't a result of global warming so Sandy is irrelevant to the global warming discussion"
I didn't bring up global warming, you did; so I agree it's irrelevant to the discussion. You brought it up as a distraction because you failed so miserably at making your point.
"still, one storm off the coast on ten years is nothing like the alarmists predicted after Katrina"
Yes, you keep bringing up these global alarmists, and Al Gore. Why don't you actually post something that one of these "alarmist" actually said back around Hurricane Katrina. It would be nice to see what you're actually referring to once so we can see what your sources are, whether they're actually alarmist or not, or whether you're just making up straw-man arguments so you can get some attention from liberals.
"still, one storm off the coast on ten years is nothing like the alarmists predicted after Katrina"
Limit yourself to 10 years and ignore the 6 record breaker hurricanes in the past three years that have hit the US.
How do you stand to look at that bullshitter in the mirror?
Trump's staff should know by now that he's never been one to let facts get in the way of his lies.
Trump has a religion all his own - he gets to believe whatever he wants, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. A true man of Faith.
WASHINGTON — President Trump was repeatedly warned by his own staff that the Ukraine conspiracy theory that he and his lawyer were pursuing was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine this summer to investigate his Democratic rivals, a former top adviser said on Sunday.
Thomas P. Bossert, who served as Mr. Trump’s first homeland security adviser, said he told the president there was no basis to the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election and did so on behalf of the Democrats. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Bossert said he was “deeply disturbed” that Mr. Trump nonetheless tried to get Ukraine’s president to produce damaging information about Democrats.
Mr. Bossert’s comments, on the ABC program “This Week” and in a subsequent telephone interview, underscored the danger to the president as the House moves ahead with an inquiry into whether he abused his power for political gain. Other former aides to Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he refused to accept reassurances about Ukraine no matter how many times it was explained to him, instead subscribing to an unsubstantiated narrative that has now brought him to the brink of impeachment.
The latest revelations came as the impeachment inquiry rushed ahead at a brisk pace. The House chairman taking the lead said that the whistle-blower who brought the matter to light would testify soon and that a subpoena for documents would be issued early this week to Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer who spearheaded the effort to find dirt on Democrats in Ukraine. In a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, lawyers for the whistle-blower requested stepped-up efforts to ensure his safety, citing “serious concerns we have regarding our client’s personal safety.”
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews
9:11 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Adam Kinzinger✔
@RepKinzinger
I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realDonaldTrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178477539653771264 …
9:59 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Brian Schatz✔
@brianschatz
This is just a reprehensible way to talk and people could get hurt. This isn’t about partisan teams anymore - it’s clear now he will allow the Republican Party to eat itself and will tear the country apart if he thinks it gives him an advantage of any kind. https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1178492512811585536 …
Sam Stein✔
@samstein
Call me quaint but it just seems a bit ominous to have a president quote tweeting someone warning about civil war
10:39 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Chris Murphy✔
@ChrisMurphyCT
Hey @brianschatz - question:
The President just said that if Congress impeaches him, his suppporters will rise up in armed insurrection. “Civil War”, he says.
So tomorrow will Senate Republicans
a. support impeachment inquiry; or
b. condemn him in strong unequivocal terms
10:45 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Jeff Tiedrich
@itsJeffTiedrich
if Obama had ever openly called for a civil war, Fox News would have totally lost their collective minds. Hannity would have shit red-hot cinder blocks. the incandescent furor from the wingnut outrage-industrial complex would have torn a fucking hole in the space/time continuum
10:34 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Katie Mack✔
@AstroKatie
Any president who would prefer civil war to being removed from office does not love their country and is certainly not serving it
10:51 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Michelangelo Signorile✔
@MSignorile
And Democrats:
Isn’t promoting Civil War another article of impeachment?
I think so.
10:54 PM - Sep 29, 2019
Charles Johnson✔
@Green_Footballs
So far this weekend, Donald Trump has called for executing whistleblowers and members of Congress, and threatened a new civil war if the impeachment process continues.
That’s the president* doing this. Does anyone see a problem with that?
9:31 PM - Sep 29, 2019
A friend of mine’s third-grade daughter came home from school a few weeks ago with tears streaming down her cheeks. “My teacher say we only have 10 years before the oceans rise, and we are under water,” she moaned. “Are we all going to die?”
That’s a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of a 9-year-old.
Gloomy stories of the coming apocolypse have become commonplace in schools, textbooks, churches, movies and even children’s bedtime stories. The Wicked Witch of the West and Darth Vader have been replaced by the oil companies and auto company CEOs.
This over-the-top campaign of doom is clearly affecting the psyche of the young. We saw an example just last week, when Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish girl, gained international publicity by passionately telling a United Nations panel that “we are at the beginning of a mass extinction with entire ecosystems collapsing” and “we have only eight-and-a-half years left.”
This poor girl, who some are saying triumphantly is the voice of her generation, sounded terribly frightened. Who filled her head with these morose beliefs that the end is near?
Then there is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the 29-year-old voice of the millennials in Congress whose message is that the baby boomers have ruined the planet for her generation. She says we have 10 years left to head off planetary destruction. We have apparently returned full circle to the early days of humankind when life on Earth was described by Hobbes as “nasty, brutish and short.”
The only difference is that even the Neanderthals had more than eight-and-a-half years of survival in front of them.
Of course there are major challenges for the younger generations as there has been in every age since man appeared on the planet. My parents had to overcome polio, the Great Depression and Nazi Germany. When I was a kid we had to practice bomb drills in school because of fear of Soviets dropping nuclear bombs that would wipe out whole cities.
But to fill the young with false fears of “mass extinction” and so on is to ignore the true state of the planet. It isn’t dying. The young should be celebrating what every objective measure shows; they are living at the greatest moment in the history of the globe.
For those under the age of 30, listen up: You will live longer, healthier lives with more material wealth than any previous generation. You will inherit a world with less poverty, less disease, more leisure time, less pollution, and more material wealth, less discrimination, and more opportunity to achieve your dreams and aspirations than any other generation — except for that of your children’s and grandchildren’s.
You are not inheriting a severely injured planet but one in which a storehouse of thousand of years of accumulated human knowledge make you capable of combatting almost any conceivable problem or catastrophe.
The whole history of modern times is for human ingenuity, innovation and technological know-how to combat the challenges that mankind confronts. If you think global warming is a challenge, thank God you don’t have to deal with small pox, typhoid, tuberculosis, polio or the plague. The black death in Europe killed about one of every four residents. Now that is an apocolypse.
What the young lack today is perspective.
AOC thinks she has problems? It wasn’t so long ago that as many as one in 10 women died while giving birth.
I always marvel that the woe is me refrain from the young today is often recited as they tap on their $600 iPhones (charged with the electric power that they want to do away with) and they carry around their carmel lattes from Starbucks. I tell my kids that without fossil fuels, they may not have the power for their computer games. That gives them pause.
As for the trends on toxic air pollution, cities from London to Pittsburgh to Mexico City to Los Angeles as recently as a century ago were filled with dark and dangerous clouds of smog that choked the lungs and prevented the sun from shining. These pollution levels have fallen by 50, 70 and even 90 percent.
Children are now taught that cars are evil polluters and that the combustible engine needs to be abolished. Really? When Henry Ford started rolling his Model Ts off the assembly lines 100 years ago, he was heralded as the greatest environmental savior in the history of the planet. Why? Because cars replaced horses — which dropped many tons of smelly toxic manure into the city streets. Imagine the deplorable conditions of Los Angelese today if you had 3 million people riding around on horses.
It is sadly ironic that the greens who want to save the planet are also the one’s that turn to the intellectual dead end of socialism and statism to fix things.
The young like to recite the “scientific consensus that climate change will be catastrophic. Maybe. But 30 years ago scientists warned of overpopulation, food shortages, energy scarcity and even mass starvation. All of these scares were combatted through innovation and progress.
Bad things happen. Sometime in the next centuries an asteroid could plunge into the planet or some new version of the plague will afflict us, or the big earthquake could devastate California, causing millions of deaths. Who knows?
What we do know is that as we grow richer and wiser, we will be better equipped with the resources and the brainpower to deal with catastrophes than any previous generation since the dawning of time.
Our responsibility as parents, teachers, clergy and lawmakers is to teach the children how to solve problems effectively, not to preach the end of the world.
America’s millennials will inherit from my generation some $100 trillion of wealth — a bigger treasure chest of knowledge and resources than all of the other generations that have gone before, combined. How about some gratitude?
If the planet continues to warm and the oceans rise, you have the creativity, brainpower and the tool chest to figure out the solution. I don’t know what that will be, but I do know that the solution isn’t moving us backward in time to the pre-industrial and pre-energy age — when life was pretty rotten.
I’m an optimist and a realist. This next generation will figure it out. They will save the planet from extinction. And the really good news is there is a lot more than eight-and-a-half years to come up with the right solutions.
Republican senators scrambling to protect President Trump from a formal impeachment inquiry are attacking the credibility of the whistleblower who filed a complaint.
GOP lawmakers are asserting the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge of the actions detailed in the complaint and question whether the person had a political agenda.
“It doesn’t come from a person with personal knowledge. It’s like I heard these people say this, and now I’m reporting it. I think that is pretty bizarre,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“Secondly, after a certain point, it doesn’t just allege facts, it really is kind of a dossier or political diatribe, so I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Having said that, we are in the process of talking to the director of national intelligence and the inspector general.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has had a reputation for protecting whistleblowers, said the one at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry didn’t necessarily deserve protections.
“If they are not really a whistle blower, they don’t get the protection,” he said.
The remarks from Grassley, Cornyn and other senators echo arguments coming from Trump, but stand in stark contrast to the testimony last week from acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who said the whistleblower acted in good faith.
“I think the whistleblower did the right thing,” Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee.
But Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said reading the whistleblower’s complaint “makes me more suspicious about how all this happened.”
“I want to know who was the person that went to the whistleblower,” he said.
=========
If BrownNose Graham actually read the whistleblower's complaint, he'd know there was not one person who went to the whistleblower, a CIA agent, but "multiple U.S. Government officials" who complained to him about the President's misconduct.
The second sentence in the complaint reads:
"...In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."...
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf
And today we have more headlines about wannabe dictator RumpStench's latest moves:
Trump suggests Schiff be arrested for treason for exaggeration call with Ukraine
Trump demands to meet whistleblower, warns of 'Big Consequences'
President Trump did something stupid when he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden for corruption.
Democrats did something even stupider.
By jumping so eagerly on the impeachment bandwagon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues have taken Biden, Democrats' most credible candidate, out of contention. The former vice president’s campaign was already on the downslope, but widespread speculation about his possible abuse of office will only accelerate his demise.
Almost certainly, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., will become the new frontrunner, and will win the Democratic nomination. And, almost certainly, she will lose.
There is no disputing that Hunter Biden accepted a lucrative job in Ukraine at a time when his father, who was vice president at the time, became the point person for the U.S. in that notoriously corrupt country. That he allowed his son to do so demonstrates extreme bad judgement on the part of Joe Biden. That he pushed the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor reputed to be investigating his son’s employer smells bad.
Most Americans will not read beyond the headlines. What they have learned, courtesy of the newest attacks on President Trump, is that good old Joe Biden, the likeable and loyal Obama sidekick who somehow has not secured the former president’s endorsement, cannot be trusted.
Voters will experience a whiff of déjà vu, remembering that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s clan also profited mightily from her position in the Obama administration. They may recall that, according to The New York Times, "While the State Department was involved in securing a uranium mining deal with Russia, investors in the company involved in the deal, Uranium One, gave millions to the Clinton Foundation."
The NYT report added, "Shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock."
Voters rejected Clinton for many reasons in 2016, but one of the most enduring throughout her run was that people didn’t trust her. On the cusp of the Democratic nomination, a CNN poll found that 68 percent of the country didn’t think she was "honest and trustworthy." Despite being awarded innumerable "Pinocchios" on the campaign trail, Trump’s score on that front was much better than Hillary's.
Joe Biden is not Hillary, of course. He is more popular, but as he has campaigned, his star has fallen. In two recent polls, according to RealClearPolitics, Warren has grabbed the lead nationally, and in Iowa, Biden’s position has fallen precipitously; he is now clearly in second place. Moreover, a recent Quinnipiac poll shows, Biden's personal favorability rating among registered voters split 45-45 percent, down from last December, when his favorability was 53-33.
Assuming that Warren’s surge continues, and that she becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee, most analysts reckon she will have to pivot to the political middle to win the voters lost to Democrats in 2016. That includes blue-collar workers in crucial states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, who defected to Trump.
Almost certainly, Elizabeth Warren will become the new frontrunner, and will win the Democratic nomination. And, almost certainly, she will lose.
So when Warren promises to ban fracking, voters in gas-rich Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus shale boom has added tens of thousands of jobs, will wonder, is this good for me? When she advocates "Medicare-for-all," United Automobile Workers in Michigan will ask, why do I have to give up my hard-won Cadillac health benefits? When she argues for decriminalizing illegal immigration and vows to give federal benefits to people in the country illegally, Americans will complain — what about us?
Warren is determined to eliminate the Electoral College, so that New York and California will run the country. She wants to break up big farms and also big tech, undermining two of our most productive and competitive industries, legalize marijuana, ban assault weapons and allow abortions up to the moment of birth.
She also wants to punish our most successful entrepreneurs and inventors by confiscating their wealth, which will drive many out of the country. Though she’s eager to take more money out of the hands of our private citizens in order to build up the powerful state, she is determined to slash defense spending.
There are many people who will agree with some of these policies, but the majority of Americans will stumble on issues like open borders or limitless abortion. And, as she is asked how we will pay for all her grandiose plans, it will occur to some that their taxes will go up.
Indeed, when pressed by Stephen Colbert on whether she’ll hike middle-class taxes, she danced around the question. It will come up again.
More important, it will become obvious as she campaigns on higher taxes and increased regulations, that Warren will undo the good that has occurred under President Trump. People who have seen the income gap between rich and poor narrow and job opportunities multiply for all workers, will decide they are better off today that they were four years ago, and decide there is risk in turning our entire economy upside down. They will be right.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters will not be moved by the most recent charges. They have become inured to the constant attacks; consequently, the Republican-led Senate will not throw him out of office. Not even close.
Warren will try, but ultimately fail, to shift ground. She is an uncompromising zealot, who totally believes her rants about corporations being corrupt and greedy, and about everything in the United States being rigged. That’s why she claimed to have Native American ancestry; she knew that the lie would help her get a job in this rigged system.
The major issue for political pundits regarding 2019 is whether Donald Trump’s presidency will survive the year leading into the 2020 elections. Their focus is on the likelihood as to whether Trump will be impeached by the House of Representatives and then removed by the U.S. Senate.
Trump will not be removed from office by the Constitutional impeachment and removal process.
Instead, the self-professed supreme dealmaker will use his presidency as a bargaining chip with federal and state authorities in 2019, agreeing to leave office in exchange for the relevant authorities not pursuing criminal charges against him, his children or the Trump Organization.
Trump will be impeached by the House of Representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors, specifically his involvement in directing his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to commit a felony by making illegal in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign and concealing them. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has already obtained Cohen’s guilty plea to this conduct. Democrats now control the House of Representatives, and the votes will be there for the needed impeachment majority.
In order for the Senate to remove Trump from office, however, there must be a vote of at least two thirds of the senators affirming the House-passed Articles of Impeachment. That would require a defection against Trump of at least 20 Republican senators.
That is highly unlikely, regardless of how compelling the impeachment case may be. All but five of the 53 GOP senators represent solid Republican Red states. Their incumbency will not be threatened by their vote against removal of the president. Each such senator runs a serious risk, however, of a pro-Trump primary election challenge if he or she supports the removal of Trump from office.
The legal danger to Trump is developing more in the office of the attorney general of New York State, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In response to a lawsuit from the attorney general of New York State, Donald Trump agreed to shut down the Trump Foundation. The lawsuit alleged “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation –- including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more."
The lawsuit implicates all three Trump children as well, seeking to bar them, as well as their father, from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofits.
It is now clear that the investigations of Donald Trump are now focused on possible criminal conduct of the Trump children, as well. Donald Trump Jr. has reportedly told confidants that he expects to be indicted by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III for actions taken by him during the campaign as well.
Having succeeded in obtaining Cohen’s guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York can now investigate whether there is any evidence of other involvement of the Trump Organization in criminal activity, including money laundering crimes, tax evasion or bribes from foreign officials or governments, which are illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Such evidence could lead to indictment of the Trump Organization itself and seizure of assets derived from such criminal activity.
Aside from all the legal nightmares facing Trump and his presidency, it appears virtually impossible for Trump to be reelected in 2020. The economy appears headed for a severe recession, as evidenced by the recent plunge in the stock market, which appears on pace for its worst December since the Great Depression.
There are only two years left in Trump’s presidential term. With his approval ratings in an abysmal state, and the forthcoming recession making it near impossible for Trump to stage a political recovery, it appears most likely that he will use the continuation of his presidency as a bargaining chip.
Accordingly, before the end of 2019, Donald Trump will resign from the office of the presidency: He will do this pursuant to a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, the incoming President Mike Pence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the New York Attorney General’s Office, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Here’s my prediction for a possible Trump departure:
Trump resigns, to then be pardoned by Pence. In turn, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the New York State Attorney General will refrain from filing any charges against Trump and his family members and agree that there will be no forfeiture of Trump Organization assets.
We will know by this time in 2020 how accurate this scenario turns out to be.
"We will know by this time in 2020 how accurate this scenario turns out to be."
it already appears out of date
when was it written?
New Year's Day
clearly wrong
"Republican senators scrambling to protect President Trump from a formal impeachment inquiry"
any time anyone expresses disagreement with liberals, TTF says they're "scrambling"
it's part of their delusion that they are winning
truth is, Trump's behavior doesn't warrant impeachment
nothing he did was illegal
you might still say he deserves impeachment because his actions, while legal, are detrimental to his office
the problem with that view is that Trump has behaved exactly as he promised to when he was elected
that's why he denies nothing
so, the only acceptable remedy is for the voters to not re-elect him
impeachment, on grounds of nothing illegal or having betrayed a commitment to voters, with a sure acquittal by the Senate, is, once again, Dems putting their own interests above the interests of the country
"any time anyone expresses disagreement with liberals, TTF says they're "scrambling""
And do tell, dear TROLL, what does Rump do when anyone expresses disagreement with him?
He tweets about them during his morning dump.
He says people should be locked up without trials.
He says people whoi disagaree with him should be arrested for TREASON.
He says people who disagree with him are trying to start a CIVIL WAR.
Q. Who said: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?"
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/01/23/trump_i_could_stand_in_the_middle_of_fifth_avenue_and_shoot_somebody_and_i_wouldnt_lose_any_voters.html
It wasn't a liberal. It was your pussy grabbing white supremacist con man thug, the head of the GOP.
when your only responses is "you too"
face it, that's a confession
no one is "scrambling"
everyone knows the Dem impeachment overreach will seal their fate
and secure the Supreme Court for protectors of the Constitution
for a generation
Who had "Civil War fetishizing by the executive branch" on their 2019 bingo card? Because that's where we find ourselves this Monday after President Donald Trump spent the weekend (per usual) watching TV and tweeting furiously.
"If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal," Trump tweeted on Sunday night, quoting what Pastor Robert Jeffress said on Fox News. (Update: it turns out that Trump's tweet misquoted Jeffress, adding the "which they will never be" parenthetical and taking out "I'm afraid" before "it will cause a Civil War.")
This followed Trump tweets accusing Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) of treason and fraud and saying Democrats were trying to "destabilize" America.
'While the Civil War tweet is getting more attention, the Schiff tweet may be a bigger deal. The president accusing a member of Congress of treason for something they said on the House or Senate floor is unconstitutional. "Trump's tweet is by itself arguably impeachable," suggested political science professor Jacob Levy.
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump · 19h
Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress......
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....
6:53 PM - Sep 29, 2019'
The relevant part of the U.S. Constitution is known as the speech and debate clause. It says:
"For any Speech or Debate in either House, [members of Congress] shall not be questioned in any other Place."
This clause "serves various purposes: principally to protect the independence and integrity of the legislative branch by protecting against executive or judicial intrusions into the protected legislative sphere," notes Todd Garvey of the Congressional Research Service.
"Paul Musgrave✔
@profmusgrave
A president of the United States accusing a member of Congress of treason is literally unconstitutional and presumptively impeachable. Imagine this was happening in another country—it would signify a massive breakdown. You’d expect someone to fix it. And if not, you’d worry a lot https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1178442762284404736 …
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....
7:20 PM - Sep 29, 2019"
The number of House Republicans forgoing reelection bids next year grew to 20 on Monday, as Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, announced plans to retire and Rep. Chris Collins resigned ahead of an expected guilty plea on insider-trading charges.
Two years ago, I stood in the Senate chamber and said, “There are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.”
In my case, I had not supported the president’s election. One year into his presidency, I knew that I could not support his reelection. While I had hoped that I could still run for reelection to the Senate in 2018 as someone who would help to provide a check on the president’s worst impulses, it soon became apparent that this was not what Republican primary voters in my state were looking for. Whatever reservations they might have had when they voted for President Donald Trump, one year into his presidency they wanted a senator who was all in.
But I already had seen too much. Traveling overseas I witnessed the damage being done to our standing in the world as a result of President Trump’s fondness for authoritarians and his scorn for allies. His hostility toward security alliances and trade agreements had placed our long-term security and our economy at risk. His adoption of the tyrant’s phrase “enemy of the people” put journalists in even greater peril, all over the world. His resentment toward refugees and profane description of certain countries were destroying generations of goodwill.
At home, I was convinced that his repeated disparagement of the judiciary, antagonism toward Congress and casual disregard for the truth were damaging our democratic institutions, and his persistent crudeness to his political opponents and cruelty toward vanquished foes were degrading our political culture. I knew that to have a chance of winning reelection, I would need to support policies I could not support and condone behavior I could not condone.
Now, two years later, it is my former Republican Senate colleagues who have a decision to make. Or, as I see it, two decisions to make. The first is difficult; the second is easy.
We have learned from a whistleblower that the president has abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign government to go after a political opponent. A rough transcript of the telephone call has removed all ambiguity about the president’s intent. In light of these revelations, the House of Representatives has launched an impeachment inquiry and will likely be forwarding to the Senate at least one article of impeachment.
Compelling arguments will be made on both sides of the impeachment question. With what we now know, the president’s actions warrant impeachment. The Constitution, of course, does not require it, and although Article II, Section 4 is clear about remedies for abuse of office, I have grave reservations about impeachment. I fear that, given the profound division in the country, an impeachment proceeding at such a toxic moment might actually benefit a president who thrives on chaos. Disunion is the oxygen of this presidency. He is the maestro of a brand of discord that benefits only him and ravages everything else. So although impeachment now seems inevitable, I fear it all the same. I understand others who might have similar reservations. The decision to impeach or not is a difficult one indeed.
Now for the easy decision. If the House decides against filing articles of impeachment, or the Senate fails to convict, Senate Republicans will have to decide whether, given what we now know about the president’s actions and behavior, to support his reelection. Obviously, the answer is no.
I am not oblivious to the consequences that might accompany that decision. In fact, I am living those consequences. I would have preferred to represent the citizens of Arizona for another term in the Senate. But not at the cost of supporting this man. A man who has, now more than ever, proved to be so manifestly undeserving of the highest office that we have.
At this point, the president’s conduct in office should not surprise us. But truly devastating has been our tolerance of that conduct. Our embrace of it. From the ordeal of this presidency, perhaps the most horrible — and lasting — effect on our democracy will be that at some point we simply stopped being shocked. And in that, we have failed not just as stewards of the institutions to which we have been entrusted but also as citizens. We have failed one another, and we have failed ourselves.
Let us stop failing now, while there is still time.
My fellow Republicans, it is time to risk your careers in favor of your principles. Whether you believe the president deserves impeachment, you know he does not deserve reelection.
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews
9:11 PM - Sep 29, 2019
The Cheeto Benito will never lead his obsequious sycophants in a Civil War to success because... bone spurs.
In the last week since the accusations made against President Trump as a result of his July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began to be discussed, a lot has happened. Both the rough transcript of the call and the “whistleblower complaint” that supposedly resulted from it have been released, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has formally commenced impeachment proceedings against the president.
Both the transcript and the complaint are now required reading for anyone claiming to be politically informed. They raise a number of questions about the conversation and the unidentified “whistleblower,” but they manifestly do not demonstrate that Trump should be impeached.
Remember the running gag on Seinfeld that the whole show was about “nothing”? This is going to be a “Seinfeld impeachment”: it, too, is about nothing.
Rush Limbaugh was precise last week in describing the desperation and hysteria now besetting the Dems because no matter how hard they try, they’ve been unable to reverse the results of the 2016 election.
First, there was the Obama-CIA-FBI spy-op on Trump’s campaign and him personally, an enormous abuse of power that was comprised of conspiracy and other criminal conduct. That resulted in the two-year Mueller investigation that came up empty.
Now there’s the “whistleblower complaint” about Trump’s conversation with Zelensky in which Trump is alleged to have suborned Zelensky in an attempt to — in Hillary Clinton’s terms — “buy” yet another government’s interference in a U.S. election.
Even people who should know better — such as Peggy Noonan and Chris Wallace — are saying that the transcript and the complaint are a sufficient basis to conclude that Trump’s conversation with Zelensky constituted impeachable conduct. It’s unfashionable to do so, but let’s stick to the facts and the law.
In the conversation, Trump asked Zelensky to commence (or recommence) two investigations. The first is in aid of the ongoing Barr-Durham investigation into the abuses of power by the CIA and FBI in conducting the spy-op against Trump and his 2016 campaign:
"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people … The server, they say, Ukraine has it."
CrowdStrike is a cloud-based internet security firm that the DNC hired to investigate how hackers — later identified as Russian security agents — had stolen DNC and Clinton emails. Some of the computer servers from which the Russians operated to intercept the emails were (are?) believed to be located in Ukraine.
Trump went on, but before he did he indicated that he was switching subjects:
"The other thing. There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me."
In 2018, Joe Biden bragged publicly that he told the Ukrainian government that unless a prosecutor who was investigating, among other things, the gas company Burisma, was fired, he would have withheld $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine. At the time, Biden’s son, Hunter, was a member of the board of directors of Burisma. Hunter Biden was hired without any expertise in Burisma’s business.
In the first instance, Trump was asking for Ukrainian help in investigating the background of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation — the spy-op that the CIA and FBI mounted against his campaign. That investigation is being conducted here by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham. Trump’s request is for Ukrainian help in that investigation.
That request is not only unimpeachable conduct, but it’s also specifically permitted by a U.S.-Ukraine treaty signed during the Clinton administration.
It’s called the “Treaty with Ukraine on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters,” signed in 1999 and ratified by the Senate in 2000. It requires that when a crime is committed in one country and evidence or witnesses related to the crime are in the other, the nation in which the crime was committed can request the other nation to investigate, find evidence and witnesses, and provide access to them to the nation in which the crime was committed.
The abuses of power by the CIA and FBI amount to violations of several U.S. criminal statutes, including the false statement statute (18 U.S. Code Section 1001) and the conspiring to act under the color of law to deprive Trump of his legal right to run for president (18 U.S. Code Section 242).
It’s so obvious that this request by Trump was legal and appropriate that only political hacks such as Pelosi and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Adam Schiff could miss that fact.
In the second instance, Trump asked Zelensky to look into Biden’s action in demanding the prosecutor’s firing in exchange for receiving $1 billion in aid. That, too, is a crime for which Biden could still be liable to prosecution. Here again, there’s nothing wrong or inappropriate under the treaty about Trump’s request. Just because someone is your political opponent doesn’t mean he’s exempt from prosecution (at least unless the opponent’s name is Clinton).
Trump’s request regarding Biden’s admitted misconduct does seem politically aimed. But there’s nothing in the treaty that excludes evidence of a crime because it may be of political benefit to anyone.
The problem, if there is one, is Trump’s using the names of Barr and Rudy Giuliani, one of his personal lawyers, interchangeably. Then again, there’s no requirement that the president pick a diplomat to perform a diplomatic mission, and there’s no ban on him using his own lawyer to do so.
Now, please, consider the “whistleblower” complaint.
If you read it you know that it is entirely based on hearsay. The complainant has zero direct knowledge of the facts and repeatedly makes allegations based only on information received from others.
The whole purpose of the laws protecting whistleblowers in federal agencies is to enable someone who has direct knowledge of facts that constitute a violation of law or regulation — and who doesn’t trust his superiors to do anything about them — to go around the chain of command to the inspector general and possibly Congress to report wrongdoing.
The fact that Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general (IC-IG), accepted the complaint at all indicates he has a personal bias in favor of action against Trump. The complaint, which alleges actions by people outside the intelligence community — Trump and White House staff — is entirely outside his jurisdiction. Moreover, the IC-IG — shortly before the complaint was lodged — reportedly removed the requirement for personal, direct knowledge from the form on which whistleblower complaints are made.
The fact that the IC-IG labeled the complaint “credible and urgent” proves that the IC-IG did so in willful evasion of the law describing his jurisdiction. Atkinson wanted Congress to create, as Pelosi and Schiff have, an uproar when the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel told the acting Director of National Intelligence that, because the president and the White House are not part of the intelligence community, he should not turn the complaint over to Congress because the law did not require him to do so.
From these facts we have to infer that Atkinson may have either collaborated with the so-called whistleblower or was directed to so by someone higher within the CIA, such as CIA Director Gina Haspel. The IG-IC is supposedly working directly for the Director of National Intelligence. The acting DNI, Vice Admiral Joe Maguire (U.S. Navy, Retired) is someone entirely trustworthy and not at all political. (He demonstrated that last week in a HPSCI hearing chaired by Schiff.)
Haspel, who is former CIA director John Brennan’s protégé, is comprehensively untrustworthy.
When you read the complaint — please do — you will see that it reads like a carefully prepared legal brief. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the “whistleblower” (who may have been a CIA employee stationed at the White House) had a lot of help crafting it.
Remember, please, the help Sen. Dianne Feinstein gave to Christine Blasey-Ford, the person who alleged sexual misconduct by Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearings. Feinstein reportedly found lawyers for Blasey-Ford and her staff helped prepare Blasey-Ford’s testimony.
We don’t know if Schiff and his staff helped the whistleblower prepare his (her? their?) complaint, but it’s entirely likely.
There’s one allegation in the complaint that is based on something other than the facts shown in the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call. It is that the transcript of the call was placed into a standalone computer system managed directly by the National Security Council (NSC) reserved for codeword-level intelligence information.
That action was, according to the complaint, a possible abuse of the system and not the first time under the Trump administration such transcripts or recordings were placed into that system “solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information.”
That allegation was enough for Schiff and other Democrats on his committee to insist that it was a “cover-up” to conceal that conversation in the White House system.
Baloney. As you will see in reading the transcript, Zelensky said some very unkind things (but true) about German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in regard to their failure to give more aid to Ukraine. This is precisely the kind of information that would embarrass Zelensky and cause Ukraine political damage. It’s exactly the kind of information that should be concealed from the public and other governments.
We don’t know how many presidential conversations former president Obama had that were put into that NSC system or some other such system to ensure they’d be concealed. Trump should find out and tell the world how many there were, when they happened, and who was on the line.
The allegations in the whistleblower complaint and the facts shown by the transcript are nothing. There’s nothing in either document to indicate Trump committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution sets as the criteria for impeachment.
When this impeachment attempt fails — as it will — the Dems will try something else before the 2020 election. From a few reports in the Washington Post we can infer that they’re preparing to say Trump is complicit in any interference in the 2020 election by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or the Gambino crime family.
Mark these words: if Trump is reelected next year, the Dems — and their partisans in the intelligence community and the media — will maintain a steady drumbeat of these sorts of charges against him. Their political hysteria won’t allow them to stop.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/hunter-biden-comprehensive-timeline/
Is This Barack Obama's Kenyan Certified Registration of Birth?
Barack Obama's half-brother Malik tweets Kenya birth certificate
14 of Donald Trump's most outrageous 'birther' claims
onspiracy site with White House press credentials revives a debunked birther story
Cyrus Toulabi
@CyrusToulabi · 2h
#REDFLAG: Trump just admitted he's trying to find out the identity of the Whistleblower. https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1178741390735548418 …
Kyle Griffin✔
@kylegriffin1
According to the pool report, Trump just said, "'We're trying to find out' who the whistleblower is."
Cyrus Toulabi
@CyrusToulabi
#WATCH: Trump: "We're trying to find out" who the Whistleblower is.
Outing their identity would be a felony, punishable by up to 3 yrs in prison.
As a matter of fact, his suggestion alone and threatening tweets are witness intimidation. Also impeachable.
3:22 PM - Sep 30, 2019
The office of the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, which reviews whistleblower complaints, debunked a conspiracy theory President Donald Trump pushed Monday saying the rules for whistleblowers had supposedly been changed right before one came forward with explosive information about his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.
Early Monday, Trump tweeted: “WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT?” He then followed up with another tweet: “#FakeWhistleblower.”
The intelligence community’s inspector general said in a statement later Monday that it had processed the whistleblower complaint, which it received Aug. 12, “in accordance with the law.”
It said the disclosure form the whistleblower used was the same one the office has had in place since May 24, 2018. (The inspector general’s office did not refer directly to Trump’s tweets in its statement.)
HuffPost reached out to the White House but did not immediately get a response.
The inspector general’s office reiterated that, after reviewing the complainant’s information and other related information it had gathered, it had found the complaint both “urgent” and “credible.”
Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson reviewed the complaint last month and determined it was “credible” and of “urgent concern.” Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire also found the complaint “credible” and said he believed the whistleblower had “acted in good faith” and “followed the law.” Atkinson and Maguire were both appointed by Trump.
Kyle Griffin✔
@kylegriffin1
Office of the Inspector General of the Intel Community: "The Disclosure of Urgent Concern form the Complainant submitted on August 12, 2019 is the same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24, 2018, which went into effect before Inspector General Atkinson entered on duty."
6:10 PM - Sep 30, 2019
The theory Trump was promoting in his Monday tweets appeared to come from a report in a conservative news outlet, The Federalist, which claimed Friday that the whistleblower complaint form had been suspiciously updated to allow secondhand information when reporting.
(The whistleblower stated in his complaint that he received his information from White House aides and government officials.)
But experts were quick to point out that whistleblowers have always been allowed to report on secondhand information.
The inspector general’s statement Monday echoed that, saying, although their form “requests information” about whether a whistleblower has firsthand knowledge, there is no “requirement” to have such knowledge to file a complaint.
“In fact, by law the Complainant... need not possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern,” the statement read.
It also said the whistleblower, in this case, claimed on the form to have “both first-hand and other information.”
A question about this Ukraine scandal.
It’s a simple question, but a relevant and important one given the current explosive cacophony of Impeachment noise erupting all around Washington.
And it’s a question that will provoke an instant new onslaught of hysteria from all sides.
But one thing’s for certain, it’s a question that needs asking.
It’s not a question about President Trump’s conduct during that now infamous July phone call with Ukranian President Zelensky.
It was a very dumb call to make and Trump is now getting all the savage blowback he deserves for being so reckless.
What the hell was e thinking directly asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his main rival for the 2020 election, so soon after the Mueller report cleared him of colluding with Russians to fix the 2016 election.
Whether it was criminal or impeachable madness remains to be seen, though most impartial observers – yes, there are still a few left of this dying breed – appear to think it wasn’t unless future investigations prove Trump executed a ‘quid-pro-quo’ threat by withholding military aid for Ukraine unless Zelensky agreed to the dirt-digging.
At the moment, that remains speculation not fact.
But, the real question relates to the issue of Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s $50,000-a-month employment with a Ukraine gas company while his father was Vice-President, and despite him having almost zero qualifications for the job.
And in particular, whether Biden Sr intervened to stop an investigation into corruption that might have caused problems for his son.
‘There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,’ Trump said on that Zelensky call, ‘that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.’
It’s true - there IS a lot of talk about it.
Yet the Bidens, and the Democrats, are adamant there’s nothing to see here.
Indeed, they express bafflement and rage that anyone would even seek to raise an eyebrow about it.
Yet there are a few concerns that should be commanding a lot more attention from the mainstream media:
1) What exactly did Joe Biden Do in the Ukraine? President Obama made him his point man there after the overthrow of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in the 2014 revolution. Biden visited Ukraine at least a dozen times over the next two years, ostensibly to help new pro-Western president Petro Poroshenko root out corruption. But what was Biden really doing? We should be told.
2) How and why did Hunter Biden come to land such a lucrative job in the spring of 2014 with Burisma, the largest private gas company in Ukraine? He doesn’t appear to have any real credentials for it other than being the US Vice-President’s son. We should be told.
3) What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma? Who did he meet, what deals did he fix, what influence did he wield and how? How did he earn his $50,000 a month? We should be told.
4) Why did Hunter’s investment firm partner Chris Heinz – former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson – split from him when he joined Burisma because he was reportedly worried about Biden’s poor judgement and how it would look? And did Heinz share those concerns with Joe Biden?
5) What conversations did Biden Sr have with his son about Burisma? He says none, but Hunter previously said they had at least one. Neither answer seems credible given how close they were and what they were doing at the time in Ukraine. ‘Ask the right questions’ snapped Biden Sr when a reporter tried to push him on this last week. This is a perfectly right question to ask. We should be told.
6) Did, crucially, Biden Sr interfere with any investigations into Burisma that were conducted because the owner Mykola Zlochevsky was close to ousted Yanukovych? We know Biden Sr boasted of successfully demanding to have Ukraine’s top prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired if the government wanted $1 billion in U.S. aid. But was another reason that he wanted to protect Hunter from being dragged into any Burisma probe? If that were true then Biden would surely be guilty of exactly the same kind of thing Trump’s been accused of? Biden vehemently denies it, and no hard evidence has yet emerged to prove otherwise. But this is the key charge being leveled by a Trump campaign that ironically calls Biden ‘Quid Pro Joe’. Again, we should be told.
‘Biden doesn’t have to answer for nothing,’ said James Carville, the Democratic strategist and longtime adviser to the Clintons. ‘There’s one story here. The president of the United States tried to sic a foreign government on a political opponent.’
Hmmm.
The last part of that statement is demonstrably true, because Trump’s admitted it - though unless it is proven he deliberately withheld aid until Ukraine did any Biden dirt-digging, no impeachment will be successful in the Republican-majority Senate.
But there’s definitely more than one story here.
And if Joe Biden wants to be President then he’s going to have to stop pretending there isn’t, stop barking ‘ask the right questions!’ at reporters to deter them from doing their jobs, and start answering some difficult questions.
And this all leads me to the real question: what would the same Democrats who say there’s nothing to see here be saying if we swap Hunter Biden’s name for Donald Trump Jr?
We all know the answer.
They’d be screaming blue murder about nepotism, conflict, corruption and collusion.
That’s why it’s time the media stepped up their investigations into the Bidens and Ukraine and put the same heat into those that they’re currently, perfectly correctly, putting into Trump’s phone call.
Because if they do, and they uncover something so dodgy it justifies what Trump said on that phone call or at least provides some mitigation, then it could well decide the next election.
Stupid Brexit flip-flopper
WASHINGTON — President Trump was repeatedly warned by his own staff that the Ukraine conspiracy theory that he and his lawyer were pursuing was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine this summer to investigate his Democratic rivals, a former top adviser said on Sunday.
Thomas P. Bossert, who served as Mr. Trump’s first homeland security adviser, said he told the president there was no basis to the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election and did so on behalf of the Democrats. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Bossert said he was “deeply disturbed” that Mr. Trump nonetheless tried to get Ukraine’s president to produce damaging information about Democrats.
Mr. Bossert’s comments, on the ABC program “This Week” and in a subsequent telephone interview, underscored the danger to the president as the House moves ahead with an inquiry into whether he abused his power for political gain. Other former aides to Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he refused to accept reassurances about Ukraine no matter how many times it was explained to him, instead subscribing to an unsubstantiated narrative that has now brought him to the brink of impeachment.
The latest revelations came as the impeachment inquiry rushed ahead at a brisk pace. The House chairman taking the lead said that the whistle-blower who brought the matter to light would testify soon and that a subpoena for documents would be issued early this week to Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer who spearheaded the effort to find dirt on Democrats in Ukraine. In a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, lawyers for the whistle-blower requested stepped-up efforts to ensure his safety, citing “serious concerns we have regarding our client’s personal safety.”
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s former top law enforcement official says he repeatedly rebuffed demands by President Trump’s personal lawyer to investigate Joe Biden and his son, insisting he had seen no evidence of wrongdoing that he could pursue.
In an interview, Yuri Lutsenko said while he was Ukraine’s prosecutor general he told Rudolph W. Giuliani that he would be happy to cooperate if the FBI or other U.S. authorities began their own investigation of the former vice president and his son Hunter but insisted they had not broken any Ukrainian laws to his knowledge.
Lutsenko, who was fired as prosecutor general last month, said he had urged Giuliani to launch a U.S. inquiry and go to court if he had any evidence but not to use Ukraine to conduct a political vendetta that could affect the U.S. election.
“I said, ‘Let’s put this through prosecutors, not through presidents,’ ” Lutsenko told The Times.
“I told him I could not start an investigation just for the interests of an American official,” he said.
The revelations are at the heart of the House impeachment inquiry into whether Trump improperly delayed congressionally mandated military aid to Ukraine while urging leaders there to help find dirt on his political opponents to boost his 2020 reelection bid.
Lutsenko said he met Giuliani twice in person and had numerous conversations with him on the phone. He described the former New York mayor as obsessed with possible misconduct by Biden or his son Hunter.
Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, and no evidence has emerged to suggest they broke U.S. laws.
The former prosecutor said Giuliani dropped the Biden requests at some point last year but apparently saw a new opportunity with the election in April of Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and political neophyte who defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.
Lutsenko said Giuliani again began contacting him to sound him out about the new president and gauge whether Zelensky might be more cooperative in going after Democrats. But Lutsenko did not keep his job and was fired in August.
The 2016 blue/red map of electoral college wins also overlooks the critical point that Trump simply doesn't want to admit.
I completely agree with everyone who says that geography doesn't equal population.
But this would be a completely different discussion if it were a matter of "We laid out explicitly what we intended to do, put out a platform of our policies, and then openly, honestly, and transparently did exactly what we said we were going to do."
But he ran on a platform of all sorts of things - everything from saying he was absolutely going to protect people's healthcare and "replace Obamacare" with something that was both cheaper and more comprehensive, to building a wall that Mexico would pay for, to giving significant tax cuts to the middle class, to "hiring only the best people" and making the country safer from our enemies - and then not only didn't succeed at any of it, but publicly and transparently didn't even try.
Frankly, Democrats and Independents would still have been opposed to most of the GOP policies, either because some of the policies were clearly pipe dreams or counterproductive.
But the people who SHOULD be up in arms are the Republicans who bought the lies and watched him thumb his nose at everything they were told he was going to do. There shouldn't be a Trump voter in the country who's happy with him, if they actually elected him to do what he said he would. That electoral map should be a map of the people who are outraged that they got burned, not people who should still be supporting him today.
He still thinks impeachment is about popularity, and that past popularity is some permanent measure of future popularity. And since he himself has always shown that he'll burn even the most loyal past supporter if they don't do what he wants today, it's a particularly stupid view to hold onto.
You want a meaningful map? Map the locations of the bazillionaires who paid to have him elected to line their pockets - because those are the ONLY people who have any reason to think he's doing what they elected him for.
US Manufacturing Contracts To Decade Low
MarketWatch reports: Manufacturing contracted for a second consecutive month in September, falling to lowest its level of activity in a decade, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The group’s production manufacturing index slid to 47.8, down from 49.1 percent in August. Any reading below 50 percent indicates contraction. Trade was one of the main factors weighing down manufacturing.
A historian explains why the Republican Party is dead
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery. It has survived in philosophy and leadership over the past 165 years but now it has reached its demise under Donald Trump. While the Republican Party might still exist in name, it has lost all principle, all purpose, and all reason to exist under its present name.
The new revelations about Trump pressuring the Ukraine President to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for corruption now have put the Republican Party on warning. With the movement in the House of Representatives toward impeachment, will any Republicans speak up and condemn what Trump has most recently done, or will they, effectively, go down in disgrace with a President who has never really shown respect for the party and its history?
Today’s Republicans have totally repudiated its great Presidential leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. But it has also repudiated Congressional giants, including William Seward, Charles Sumner, Robert La Follette, Sr, George Norris, Robert Taft, Arthur Vandenberg, Everett Dirksen, Jacob Javits, Barry Goldwater, Clifford Case, Mark Hatfield, Charles Mathias, Charles Percy, and a multitude of other luminaries. It has also ignored the principles and convictions of gubernatorial giants, including Thomas Dewey, Earl Warren, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, William Scranton, and many others.
Under Abraham Lincoln and during Reconstruction, the Republican Party was the party of ending slavery and promoting racial equality. It was the party of responsible government regulation of capitalism in the public interest under the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Under Theodore Roosevelt and even Richard Nixon, the Republican party encouraged responsible environmental and consumer legislation to protect the American people. It was the party of a strong military and promoted national security during the Cold War under Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. It was the party of responsible international alliances and treaties in the years since the Second World War under all Republican Presidents from Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
The Republican Party was far from perfect and at times it contradicted these principle. It encouraged monopoly capitalism in the Gilded Age, the 1920s, and has once again since Ronald Reagan. It has ignored and sometimes encouraged racism and nativism. Richard Nixon employed the “Southern Strategy” and the Watergate tapes recordings demonstrated his anti Semitism and racism. Ronald Reagan allowed the “Religious Right’ to have an undue influence in the 1980s. The Republican Party today pushes to end the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, promotes mass incarceration and tough mandatory minimums, and continues the injustice it has done to racial minorities and the poor. Massive evidence of government corruption under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan previously undermined Republican credibility with the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, respectively. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush engineered massive tax cuts, harming the middle class and the poor, and created a new Gilded Age similar to the late 19th century.
But the party always had healthy internal debates: progressive and conservative Republicans clashed in the early 20th century Progressive Era and the New Deal era; liberal and conservative Republicans in the post World War II period from 1945-1980; and moderate and conservative Republicans in the age of Ronald Reagan and the Bushes. If Republican Presidents did not always offer great leadership, members of Congress and state governors often weighed in on policy. Whenever the Republican Party seemed to have lost its way, challenges came from Republican members of Congress and governors that kept the party viable and respectable. Few felt that the party leaders in Congress and in the states were willing to give up their independence to any President and the party leadership.
But now, that has all changed. All of the principles of the Republican Party have been destroyed in the age of Donald Trump. The Republican leadership in Congress and the states has simply given up any concept of disagreement or resistance, and have accepted Donald Trump as an authoritarian leader with no limits on his executive power. This is true of racial and ethnic discrimination; of overlooking massive violations of civil liberties; of abuse of immigrant children and their families escaping from poverty, violence, and bloodshed in Central America; and of giving over total control of the economy to major corporations without any government regulation. There is no resistance to policies that totally abandon environmental and consumer regulation and fail to protect national security from the threats of foreign nations with authoritarian leaders who flatter our President like Russia, China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. The Republican party now supports undermining international alliances and treaties, alienating such close friends as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India. Additionally, the total abuse of any standard of ethics and morality, including the President’s own scandalous private life is ignored and often denied as reality by the leaders and office holders of his own party.
Months ago Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee and emphasized that Russia interfered in the Presidential Election of 2016; that Donald Trump and his campaign welcomed Russian intervention; and that Donald Trump obstructed justice in the investigation of the campaign. Still the GOP leadership has no issue publicly with Donald Trump. No matter how outrageous his statements, the extent of his lies, or the harm he brings domestically or internationally, almost no Republican defies Trump. Even Trump’s move to oppose free trade, a long held view of the party, moves ahead without much protest. In fact, it seems as if the Republican leadership and office holders are terrified of our President. Even after the El Paso, Dayton, and Odessa-Midland Massacres, there is mostly silence from Republicans.
Donald Trump has promoted so many policies of abuse and corruption, including undermining the contributions of past Republican Presidents, and yet House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and nearly all Republican office holders defend him, or stay silent. Only a few Republicans not in office anymore have spoken up and challenged Trump.
The Republican Party is dead as we knew it, and the question is this: will anyone in that party finally lead a decisive challenge to the abuse of power going on, which threatens the nation and the world at large, or will a new political party emerge, as the Republicans did in the crisis of the 1850s, when they replaced the Whig Party?
It’s Not Tenable to Decide Trump’s Fate at Ballot Box
“This is no longer a tenable position. The president’s bungled bid to coerce Ukraine’s leader into helping the Trump 2020 re-election campaign smear a rival struck ‘decide it at the ballot box’ off the menu of reasonable opinion forever. Mr. Trump’s brazen attempt to cheat his way into a second term stands so scandalously exposed that there can be no assurance of a fair election if he’s allowed to stay in office. Resolving the question of the president’s fitness at the ballot box isn’t really an option, much less the best option, when the question boils down to whether the ballot box will be stuffed.”
“Impeachment is therefore imperative, not only to protect the integrity of next year’s elections but to secure America’s continued democratic existence. If the House does its job, it will fall to Senate Republicans to reveal, in their decision to convict (or not), their preferred flavor of republic: constitutional or banana.”
"Oh shut up Piers said...
Stupid Brexit flip-flopper"
this epitomizes the thought process of TTF
"President Trump was repeatedly warned by his own staff that the Ukraine conspiracy theory that he and his lawyer were pursuing was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine this summer to investigate his Democratic rivals, a former top adviser said on Sunday."
ah well, you never know what a disgruntled former "top" adviser might say
"Thomas P. Bossert, who served as Mr. Trump’s first homeland security adviser, said he told the president there was no basis to the theory"
maybe other advisers told him otherwise
"Other former aides to Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he refused to accept reassurances about Ukraine no matter how many times it was explained to him, instead subscribing to an unsubstantiated narrative that has now brought him to the brink of impeachment."
we have a treaty with Ukraine that the President can ask Ukraine to investigate criminal matters
what has brought Trump to "the brink of impeachment" is that the Dems have been looking for a way to overturn the 2016 election and they have zeroed in on Trump asking Ukraine to investigate why the son of a vice president of the US was being paid 50,000 a month by Ukraine, saying Trump had political motivations to ask for this inquiry
but there is no law against political motivations
"The latest revelations came as the impeachment inquiry rushed ahead at a brisk pace. The House chairman taking the lead said that the whistle-blower who brought the matter to light would testify soon"
that's truly fascinating
but his statement has already been released and Trump has released a transcript of the call
there's not much left to say
"In a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, lawyers for the whistle-blower requested stepped-up efforts to ensure his safety, citing “serious concerns we have regarding our client’s personal safety.”"
such people always say that
he'll probably set up a gofundme page and raise millions, like Cristine Blasey Ford, another liar
"Ukraine’s former top law enforcement official says he repeatedly rebuffed demands by President Trump’s personal lawyer to investigate Joe Biden and his son, insisting he had seen no evidence of wrongdoing that he could pursue."
sounds like the pressure wasn't too heavy
"Lutsenko, who was fired as prosecutor general last month,"
ah well, you never know what a disgruntled former prosecutor general might say
what does the current one say?
"Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, and no evidence has emerged to suggest they broke U.S. laws."
Joe Biden has admitted to, while serving as vice president, pressuring Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating his son
his son was being paid 50,000 a month by Ukraine and no one can explain why
"The former prosecutor said Giuliani dropped the Biden requests at some point last year but apparently saw a new opportunity with the election in April of Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and political neophyte who defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko."
so, there was a new government and he tried again
so what?
the fact that the previous government declined the request would indicate there was no undue pressure, it was simply a lawful request
"But the people who SHOULD be up in arms are the Republicans who bought the lies and watched him thumb his nose at everything they were told he was going to do. There shouldn't be a Trump voter in the country who's happy with him, if they actually elected him to do what he said he would. That electoral map should be a map of the people who are outraged that they got burned, not people who should still be supporting him today."
this is a complaint made about every President
the way to express this grievance is to not vote to re-elect the individual
truth is, Trump has attempted to fulfill his campaign promises more than most Presidents
he has cut taxes, reduced unemployment at all levels but especially among lower income citizens, and nominated Supreme Court justices who will preserve the Constitution
"He still thinks impeachment is about popularity,"
everyone, including Trump, knows impeachment is about Dems who are afraid he will be re-elected
"US Manufacturing Contracts To Decade Low"
unemployment at all levels but especially among lower income citizens is at historic lows
"The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery."
and, in that tradition, has continued to advocate for the less powerful, producing the lowest unemployment in history for such citizens, and fighting the epidemic of abortion and pushing for school choice for inner cities
"Mr. Trump’s brazen attempt to cheat his way into a second term"
keep in mind that Barack Obama probably was re-elected because his IRS prevented the formation of Tea Party groups that opposed him
his re-election was very narrow and his harassment of such groups probably was the difference
Impeachment is about to make everything worse. If our politics seems overheated, our institutions beleaguered and our public debate degraded, just wait until we are in the midst of the impeachment debate.
Dems have had an impeachment itch they have been desperate to scratch ever since President Trump took office. For them, Ukraine is equal parts a genuine outrage and an excuse, the release valve for three years of fear and loathing.
Rather than conduct himself as if he is aware that a hysterical opposition is eager to impeach him as soon as it finds a reason, Trump has embraced constant provocation. He has shown little interest in distinguishing between himself and the high office he holds. Though we need to learn more, there is clearly an impropriety in his handling of Ukraine.
If he had only urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cooperate with Attorney General Bill Barr on the probe related to the beginnings of the 2016 Russian investigation, it would be completely appropriate (the president reportedly pushed other countries to cooperate, as well). Or, if the story only involved Rudy Giuliani poking around in Ukraine under his own power to find damaging information on the Bidens, it would be standard hard-ball politics. It is the intersection of the latter with Trump’s official capacity as president that is inappropriate.
Enough to impeach and remove him? Presidential-level diplomacy always involves horse-trading, and this surely isn’t the first time a president has prodded an ally to do him a favor in his political interest. The risk of Trump’s heavy-handed request — an aid package to Ukraine was being held up — was that the Ukrainians would have felt compelled to manufacture dirt on the Bidens. That didn’t happen, and the aid, thanks to congressional pressure, was released in short order.
So far as we know, Ukraine lacks the hallmarks of other presidential scandals. There has been no coverup. Trying to keep a transcript of a presidential call from leaking in the absence of any congressional or criminal investigation doesn’t qualify. And once the controversy became public, the White House rapidly released key documents.
Nor is there any violation of law. Trump’s ask of Zelensky wasn’t extortion or a campaign-finance violation under any rational interpretation of our statues. If it were, practically every president in our history would have had criminal exposure.
Unless there is a thermonuclear revelation, impeachment will be an exercise in futility, inevitably ending with Trump’s Senate acquittal. There is tsk-tsking in the press and among Democrats about Republicans holding the line. But GOP senators, by and large, are going to end up where their voters are.
You can’t expect Republicans to be told, falsely, for two and half years straight that some conspiracy with the Russians was going to be uncovered imminently and then accept at face value a five-alarm interpretation of Ukraine.
Democrats can point to the precedent of the Clinton impeachment. Then again, if Trump had flagrantly and repeatedly perjured himself, he would have been impeached long ago. The lesson from the 1990s is, yes, you can impeach in the absence of any real hope of convicting in the Senate, but it’s a lot of trouble to go through for basically a censure vote.
If Trump were for some reason actually removed on anything like the current universe of possible evidence, it would create a crisis of legitimacy at the heart of our government. Think of what Britain is going through with Brexit, only worse. Tens of millions of Trump voters would feel cheated and disenfranchised, and the roiling populism that Trump tapped into would grow stronger, not dissipate.
Congress has shown before that it’s possible to conduct a big, news-dominating investigation without impeachment proceedings; it’s what it did during the Iran-Contra hearings in President Ronald Reagan’s second term. But impeachment is the verdict that Dems have always wanted, and any offense will do.
With House Democrats barreling toward impeaching President Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is continuing to stave off a full House vote authorizing a formal inquiry – a step Republicans argue not only insulates vulnerable Democrats running in red districts but shuts down the GOP’s ability to wage a legal offensive of its own.
House Democrats who support Trump’s impeachment have more than enough votes to follow through, with 223 now backing his ouster compared to just 12 holdouts, several tallies show.
So far, however, Pelosi has declined to hold a vote on moving forward with the inquiry, and her aides make a point of saying it’s not required.
“There is no requirement under the Constitution, House Rules or House precedent that the House has to take a vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne said in a statement.
“For several decades, impeachment investigations have frequently been conducted without a full vote,” Etienne added.
But Republicans are quick to point out that in the only presidential impeachment investigations to have taken place over the last four decades – those against Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon — the House voted on the inquiry, thus authorizing the Judiciary Committee to investigate.
This time, that committee is not driving the train. Instead, when the House is in recess the next two weeks, members of two panels -- House Intelligence, Oversight and Government Reform, and Foreign Affairs -- plan to hold hearings and interviews on impeachment.
Holding a formal vote on impeachment, conservative legal experts say, would allow Republicans to subpoena documents and witnesses and investigate all the revelations surrounding the whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine, as well the roles of Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukrainian corruption allegations.
“Republicans would have the opportunity to get information from all sources and get it on the table,” Cleta Mitchell, a conservative political law attorney, said. “The process they are proceeding under through their committee attorney means they are the only ones who have the rights to gather information.”
Rep. Doug Collins, who serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, argued Monday that if Pelosi were proceeding in a serious and “somber” manner, as she has claimed, she would bring the impeachment inquiry up for a floor vote.
“Formal impeachment would actually afford due process and ensure both sides are heard,” Collins tweeted Monday.
The Georgia lawmaker, one of Trump’s strongest allies in Congress, accused Pelosi of abusing her power by failing to hold that formal.
“It’s not America when you can simply ramrod a hearing without allowing the person who is being accused or the minority to have more rights. … This is just not fair and the American people will see through this,” he predicted.
Van Spakovsky said he suspects Pelosi didn’t hold a vote because she is trying to strike a balance between satisfying “radical” members of her own caucus who have wanted to impeach Trump “since the first day he became president” and trying to avoid forcing Democrats in districts that backed him in 2016 from voting in favor of an impeachment investigation.
“By not holding a vote, she gets the best of both worlds,” he said
Boring as usual.
It will be very interesting to learn what State Department Inspector General, who requested an "urgent" meeting on Capitol Hill, will brief Congress about today.
“People say, ‘You changed your mind.’ I didn’t change my mind,” says Nancy Pelosi. This is true. Democrats have been impeaching President Trump since day one.
To impeach does not just mean our constitutional process to remove a president for high crimes and misdemeanors, or, in this case, Democrats kowtowing to a radical base to jam through proceedings before their case falls apart. To impeach also means “to cast doubt on."
And that is exactly what Democrats and their allies in the media have done since Nov. 9, 2016. Accepting the fact they all got it so wrong would require painful self-reflection. It is much easier to divert, disparage, and discredit. Otherwise the American people would not learn their lesson. Millions of “deplorables” could get the wrong idea that the swamp is supposed to work for them.
When Ms. Pelosi says the “facts changed the situation,” she is really saying that now the Democrats have finally settled on an excuse to satisfy their mission. Russia was so 2016, 2017, 2018, and, well, 2019 (up until about July 24). Now it would be Ukraine! But let us not delude ourselves that Democrats are interested in the facts. If Ms. Pelosi were, she would not have come out in favor of impeachment without having seen a shred of evidence — the transcript of the phone call with Ukraine, or even the so-called whistleblower’s complaint, who, with the help of Democrat attorneys, came up with accusations based on no firsthand knowledge but anonymous gossip. If Democrats were concerned with facts, Adam Schiff would not have had to create fake dialogue during his melodramatic hearing. Clearly the real thing — no quid pro quo since the “favor” was about getting to the bottom of election meddling in 2016, not 2020 — is not getting the job done. Otherwise The New York Times and The Washington Post would not have had to slice and dice the transcript on their front pages. All the news that fits the narrative, and “Democracy dies in darkness,” as they say.
It has never been about evidence, or actual wrongdoing. Democrats and the media will settle for salacious smears, conspiracy theories, and baseless anonymous claims from the resistance — both inside and outside government — as long as wrongdoing is perceived. Journalistic norms, our core institutions are just collateral damage in the never-ending pursuit to make Donald Trump’s presidency illegitimate. It did not matter how many times a cloud would be lifted, i.e. the wild accusations designed to harm his administration all fell apart. The object was creating the cloud in the first place. An air of doubt that President Trump’s historic victory was somehow not on the level. That would mean voters did not reject liberalism and a corrupt political establishment at the ballot box. That would let the establishment off the hook.
This unrelenting campaign of lie/leak/spin/repeat comes from the same people who, while still unable to grapple with the results of the last presidential election, are casting doubt that President Trump will accept the results of the next one.
Here is a history lesson. In 2016, millions of Americans stepped out of line and voted against the politically correct, and the politically connected. We wanted our voices heard, common sense restored in Washington, and leaders who would place the interests of Americans first, within and outside of our borders. We were tired of being forced to live by the rules of self-righteous elites that they themselves never follow. We were tired of empty promises, our jobs going overseas, all while politicians used their power to enrich themselves.
But those are difficult realities that require actual change. And that is what voters are finally getting with Donald Trump: a man of his word. It is a record of accomplishment and promise-keeping hard to contend with.
It is easier for Democrats to project and try to damage President Trump politically by putting an asterisk next to his name where one does not belong. Otherwise, Democrats would have to listen to the American people. They may have refused to get the message the first time. But do not worry: We will be heard loud and clear again next November.
Well you will never get that with a thug like Rump.
Common sense will be restored when next Democratic president gets elected and sets to cleaning up the GOP's mess yet again.
"So far as we know, Ukraine lacks the hallmarks of other presidential scandals. There has been no coverup. Trying to keep a transcript of a presidential call from leaking in the absence of any congressional or criminal investigation doesn’t qualify."
And if you hide your "stash" before the cops find it, maybe you didn't actually commit a crime.
Republican logic is infallible.
ROFLMAO
"An air of doubt that President Trump’s historic victory was somehow not on the level."
Does anyone else find it ironic that Rump was the face of the "birtherism" conspiracy trying to smear Obama's historic victory, claiming it was somehow not on the level?
And what was "historic" about it? Rump certainly wasn't the first rich white guy to lose the popular vote and still get into office because of the electoral college.
Oh, I forgot, he's the first Orange candidate.
"Common sense will be restored when next Democratic president gets elected and sets to cleaning up the GOP's mess yet again."
mess?
our economy is the envy of the world and Trump has made sure all citizens, even those on the lower rungs, who are generally ignored by Dems, share in the prosperity
now that Dems have kindly opened the pandora's jar of the Biden family sleaze, it's apparent a socialist will be nominated who has zero chance to win
"And if you hide your "stash" before the cops find it, maybe you didn't actually commit a crime.
Republican logic is infallible.
ROFLMAO"
phone calls between the President and other world leaders are usually classified by default
after the latest Dems adventure in irresponsibility, Trump turned the tables on them and quickly released everything
shoots down the usual Dem tactic: "can't prove the crime but there's obstruction and cover-up"
LOL
"And what was "historic" about it? Rump certainly wasn't the first rich white guy to lose the popular vote and still get into office because of the electoral college."
well, among other things, he revealed how racist the Dem mainstream is
here's a detailed account of the biggest political scandal in history, the Obama use of the intelligence agencies o our country to try and elect Hillary Clinton:
https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/24/a-detailed-account-of-americas-greatest-political-scandal/
"can't prove the crime but there's obstruction and cover-up"
Said Ken Starr, after not finding anything to charge Clinton with after investigating Whitewater.
I noticed the article above didn't have a single peep to say about the half a trillion dollar ExxonMobil deal that got blocked by sanctions.
The “Russian hack news … is delegitimizing,” explained former George W. Bush speech writer David Frum in a recent article. The conservative Frum was famous for authoring Bush’s controversial “axis of evil” speech about the danger posed by Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.
But it appears our democracy and our children have a new axis to worry about: Putin, Trump, and ExxonMobil, whose CEO Rex Tillerson — an extreme Russophile and long-time director of a US-Russian oil company — is Trump’s puzzling choice for Secretary of State.
I say “puzzling” because the long-serving Exxon employee (from age 23!) has no qualifications to be secretary of state — other than a history negotiating major oil deals with countries like Putin’s Russia, which in any sane world would actually disqualify him or at least force a recusal from all State Department dealings with Russia.
But that puzzle disappears if we follow the famous dictum from the Watergate era for uncovering a tangled web of covert campaign acts: “Follow the money.” And perhaps another puzzle is also solved: Why did Putin take such a “fearful risk,” as Frum put it, to “mount a clandestine espionage and disinformation campaign on behalf” of Trump and against Clinton, “when Putin had every reason to expect that he probably would end up facing a President Clinton,” and a tremendous backlash.
You can certainly make a plausible case, as U.S. intelligence agencies do in their bombshell new report, that Putin had plenty of motivation to interfere. He wanted to undermine the legitimacy of U.S. elections and a Clinton Presidency, he blamed Secretary Clinton for “inciting mass protests against his regime,” and he was angry with the U.S. for the Panama Papers leaks. Those leaks showed a $2 billion trail of offshore accounts and deals that traced back to Putin and his cabal of kleptocrats, who, among other things, were getting rich “trading shares in Rosneft,” Russia’s state-owned (i.e. Putin run) oil monopoly.
But a half trillion dollars to line their pockets and prop up the Russian economy offers a more tangible motivation for team Putin to get Trump elected. And it was Tillerson who had made the $500 billion oil deal with Putin that got blocked by sanctions.
Blocking the deal did not just “put Exxon at risk,” as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2014. It was “expected to change the historical trajectory of Russia.”
The top priority for Putin and the kleptocrats who benefit from his rule is enriching the Kremlin’s coffers and their own, which have been hurt by the sanctions. And Trump’s election already appears to have delivered $11 billion to the Kremlin through sale of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft, “confounding expectations that the Kremlin’s standoff with the West would scare off major investors,” as Fortune has reported in a must-read piece.
Kleptocracy — and interfering with our election — pays.
So that’s why it matters so much what Trump and his cabinet do in response to the overwhelming evidence that Putin did clandestinely interfere in the election. Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin writes that if Trump doesn’t aggressively go after Putin, including working with “Congress to pass a stiff sanctions package,” and instead “sticks with Putin, he’ll have proved Putin and Trump’s critics right — he really is a patsy for Putin.”
Indeed, if Trump and Tillerson instead end the sanctions that are blocking the Exxon-Rossneft deal, it is going to look suspiciously like a half trillion dollar quid pro quo for Putin’s help getting elected.
Frum writes of Putin’s clandestine interference: “It’s hard to imagine a crisis of presidential legitimacy more extreme than that.” He goes further, arguing “The Russian-hacked material did damage because, and only because, Russia found a willing accomplice in the person of Donald J. Trump.”
A Preview of What's to Come?
There are many things to be concerned about in the next several months, as a potential presidential impeachment plays out. Among those things is that the United States has a president who may be in the midst of significant cognitive decline, and who definitely lashes out recklessly when he's feeling angry and/or cornered. For example, what might happen the next time Iran pokes the bear, and the U.S. is locked, loaded, and ready to respond? Especially if it happens the same day as, say, the whistleblower testifies? It could make Wag the Dog look like a day at the park.
It is with that in mind that we note this story published by the New York Times on Tuesday. Speaking with White House insiders, they learned that this past March, when Donald Trump was particularly angry about the Mexican border (and the lack of a Mexican-funded wall there), he ordered his staff to shut down all movement between the two countries by noon the next day. Eventually, of course, he backed down, in part because some of his underlings pointed out that action would trap many American tourists in Mexico.
That's not all. At various other times, Trump wanted to pursue a number of other...unorthodox "solutions." He suggested, for example, electrifying the existing wall and putting sharp spikes on top of it, so that anyone who tried to climb it would be impaled and electrocuted. He wanted soldiers to start shooting undocumented migrants in the legs, in order to slow them down. And he even suggested that the U.S. should build a moat along the border, and fill it with snakes and alligators. The latter proposal, though it sounds like it came out of a bad game of Dungeons and Dragons, was actually serious enough that Trump's staff got estimates for him on how much it would cost.
This is all pretty concerning. Probably the least worrisome explanation would be if Trump was joking, except that these "jokes" aren't funny. Further, his staff certainly didn't think he was joking. Alternatively, this is a man who regularly becomes dangerously unhinged, either due to his rage and his hatred, or due to his impaired mental state, or both. And again, what happens if and when articles of impeachment are adopted? It could get really ugly, though it could also mean that people again start talking seriously about a removal under the terms of the 25th Amendment.
"after the latest Dems adventure in irresponsibility, Trump turned the tables on them and quickly released everything"
Yeah, he released the transcript of his phone call with Zelenskiy and Pompeo that shows him reaching out for election help from a foreign source.
Oops!!!
Pelosi was right when she said Rump is impeaching himself.
And the only thing he turned around today is the stock market.
Dow plunges as Trump tries to blame ‘impeachment nonsense’
Most Americans did not vote for and do not support Rump.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/20/trump-says-us-stands-with-saudi-arabia-despite-khashoggi-killing.html
Rump is absolutely corrupt.
Medicaid expansion substantially reduced mortality rates from 2014 to 2017. 345 deaths were averted annually in Illinois where Medicaid was expanded, but in Missouri, where it wasn't, there were an additional 194 deaths each year.
Remember, Republican governors refused to expand medicaid even though it cost their states nothing. Republican governors literally killed people (and still are) to thumb their nose at Obama because he was black.
Christopher Paul Hasson, a Coast Guard lieutenant who federal prosecutors called a “domestic terrorist” and accused of stockpiling weapons as part of a plot to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country,” will likely plead guilty in federal court in Maryland on Thursday.
The court docket in Hasson’s case indicated that a rearraignment was scheduled for noon on Thursday. The news was first reported by The Washington Post, which quoted a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland stating that rearraignment “in general” indicates that a defendant is changing their plea. Hasson had pleaded not guilty when he was first arraigned on the counts he is facing, so it now appears he plans to plead guilty when he appears in court.
The prosecution of Hasson ― who allegedly amassed an arsenal as he plotted to murder prominent Democrats and reporters ― demonstrated some of the issues federal officials run into in “challenging” domestic terrorism cases. Domestic terrorists have killed more Americans than terrorists associated with designated foreign terrorist organizations in recent years, but federal officials have much broader capabilities to target individuals who support foreign terrorist organizations.
Sometimes federal authorities send domestic terrorism cases to state authorities, who might have an applicable charge to deploy against an armed extremist threatening violence. Other times, federal prosecutors get creative with federal law. In Hasson’s case, as well as a couple of other cases against potential violent extremists, federal prosecutors invoked a law that makes it illegal for addicts of controlled substances to possess weapons. A neo-Nazi based in D.C. who pleaded guilty to an addict in possession of a weapon charge was released on time served last month after spending about 10 months in jail.
"our economy is the envy of the world"
-- Troll, October 02, 2019 11:24 AM
U.S. manufacturing dives to 10-year low as trade tensions weigh
--Reuters, OCTOBER 1, 2019 / 11:05 AM
"Yeah, he released the transcript of his phone call with Zelenskiy and Pompeo that shows him reaching out for election help from a foreign source."
which is perfectly legal
Pompeo is investigating the origins of the Russian collusion hoax
asking Zelenskiy for help is following a lead
this whole impeachment farce is about stopping the investigation of the origins of the Russian collusion hoax
suddenly, investigating that is a crime because finding the truth is characterized as digging up "dirt"
people like Hunter Biden make us look bad in the international community
when children of our leaders run around the world trying to make money selling access to their parents, we look weak and desperate and sleazy
Trump's effort to shine a light on this sludge pool is to his credit
"Anonymous Stop spreading your fake news said...
"our economy is the envy of the world"
-- Troll, October 02, 2019 11:24 AM
U.S. manufacturing dives to 10-year low as trade tensions weigh
--Reuters, OCTOBER 1, 2019 / 11:05 AM"
yes, we remain the economic envy of the world
what's amazing is that Trump has given us enough room to take on Chinese aggression that past presidents have ignored
no one will vote against Trump because they think he should concede to the Chinese for short-term economic gain
unemployment is at historically low levels, inflation is non-existent
and Dem presidential candidates aren't even mentioning the economy anymore
"Yeah, he released the transcript of his phone call with Zelenskiy and Pompeo that shows him reaching out for election help from a foreign source."
under the Dem way of thinking, if you commit a crime and want to get away with it. run for President
then, if the authorities try to investigate, you can say they're looking for "election help"
the euphemism won't work
Obama and Clinton's misuse of the FBI and CIA and IRS for election help
and Hunter Biden's selling of influence and access to the White House around the world will see the light of justice
Last week in Des Moines, Iowa, Joe Biden told a reporter that he never discussed his son’s overseas business dealings, but Hunter Biden tells a different story.
On July 8, The New Yorker reported:
In December 2015, as Joe Biden prepared to return to Ukraine, his aides braced for renewed scrutiny of Hunter’s relationship with Burisma. Amos Hochstein, the Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy, raised the matter with Biden, but did not go so far as to recommend that Hunter leave the board. As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma with him just once: ‘Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’’
Yet on Sept. 21, not two months after The New Yorker story published, Biden told reporters at the Polk County Steak Fry in Des Moines, Iowa something different, reported USA Today.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said. “Here’s what I know: Trump should be investigated.”
A newly released photo also seems to contradict Biden’s story. In the photo of the time he was vice president, Joe Biden is seen golfing with his son, Hunter Biden, and an executive board member of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma Holdings. Burisma is the company that paid Hunter Biden $50,000 per month to sit on its board while Joe Biden oversaw Ukraine policy for the Obama administration.
The man in the photo is Devon Archer, who served on the Burisma executive board with Hunter Biden.
The photo was taken at the Hamptons in August 2014, just four months after Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burisma executive board.
In 2018, Biden publicly celebrated pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was looking into corruption within Burisma, using U.S. aid as leverage:
I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b-tch. (Laughter.) He got fired.
New York Times reporting on a second call between President Trump and a foreign leader — this time Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — has sent the media into a frenzy. Liberals have predictably dialed up their impeachment calls.
Don’t go along: What Democrats and their media allies really want is to torpedo Attorney General William Barr’s probe into the origins of the Russian “collusion” hoax.
News of the Australian call followed an anonymous CIA officer’s whistleblower complaint about a July call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, in which the American supposedly conditioned US aid to Ukraine on the Kiev government supplying dirt on Joe Biden.
Then on Monday, the Times reported on Trump’s ask from Morrison. Trump was again, the paper claimed, using “diplomacy for potential personal gain.”
But how? Even if one thinks mentioning Biden on the Ukraine call was ill-advised, it’s hard to see what’s objectionable about the Australia call. After all, the bipartisan consensus to uncover possible foreign interference in the 2016 election led to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation. To get to the bottom of foreign interference, Barr needs the cooperation of … foreign officials.
And there’s the rub. Democrats and the anti-Trump media were determined to keep the focus on Trump and Russia. Republicans, on the other hand, dismissed the collusion narrative, which turned out to be bunk, as the Mueller report determined. Instead, the right pointed at coordination between the Hillary Clinton campaign and other foreign powers.
Democrats and the media say that’s a right-wing conspiracy theory. But just because something isn’t in the Mueller report doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Thanks to reporting by Politico, for example, we know of efforts by Clinton operatives to solicit information from the Ukrainian government on dirty Trump campaign officials.
“Our country has been through a lot, and Ukraine knows a lot about it,” Trump told Zelensky. That’s true, and it’s why Democrats, the press and anti-Trumpers in the security establishment and the permanent bureaucracy are worried.
Note, for example, that the whistleblower’s written complaint, based entirely on second- and third-hand information, presents Trump’s request that the Ukrainian leader work with Barr to “get to the bottom” of the collusion hoax as part of the alleged quid pro quo. That suggests the whistleblower and his confreres in the intelligence apparatus are worried about Barr’s investigation and what it could uncover about their spying on the Trump campaign.
The whistleblower complaint and the manic news reports of the Australia call both serve the same dual purpose: to advance the anti-Trump operation and to shield its perpetrators by smearing Barr and thereby discrediting the investigations under his authority.
There are two known Department of Justice inquiries. One is a forthcoming inspector general report on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Congressional sources say the report is expected to be thorough and may include criminal referrals.
The investigation led by US Attorney John Durham, who reports to Barr, is more comprehensive. According to a Justice Department spokesperson, “Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries.”
The FBI’s anti-Trump investigation began in July 2016, based on a tip from Alexander Downer, then Australia’s envoy to Britain. He alleged that onetime Trump adviser George Papadopoulos had told him that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton.
Barr is reportedly interested in Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud. The Rome-based academic hasn’t been heard from in nearly two years. Well known to Italian and other Western intelligence services, Mifsud is alleged to have told Papadopoulos about Russia possessing dirt on Clinton.
If Mifsud is a Russian agent, as former FBI Director James Comey alleged, NATO countries will spend years assessing the damage. If he isn’t, it’s evidence that Comey’s FBI wasn’t probing the Trump campaign — but running a sting operation against it.
Investigators’ most important stop is likely to be London, home of former British spy Christopher Steele, whose false and salacious reports written on behalf of the Clinton campaign won the FBI a warrant to spy on Page, the Trump adviser.
In the meantime, count on the continued efforts of Democrats and anti-Trump operatives in the intelligence community and media to discredit Barr. They have to stay on offense — or risk exposure.
" reaching out for election help from a foreign source."
which is perfectly legal"
No it is not legal to seek election help; from a foreign source.
Stop lying and showing your ignorance.
The Act and Commission regulations include a broad prohibition on foreign national activity in connection with elections in the United States. 52 U.S.C. § 30121 and generally, 11 CFR 110.20. In general, foreign nationals are prohibited from the following activities:
-Making any contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or making any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States;
-Making any contribution or donation to any committee or organization of any national, state, district, or local political party (including donations to a party nonfederal account or office building account);
-Making any disbursement for an electioneering communication;
-Making any donation to a presidential inaugural committee.
Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to an FEC enforcement action, criminal prosecution, or both.
Definition
The following groups and individuals are considered "foreign nationals" and are subject to the prohibition:
Foreign citizens (not including dual citizens of the United States);
Immigrants who are not lawfully admitted for permanent residence;
Foreign governments;
Foreign political parties;
Foreign corporations;
Foreign associations;
Foreign partnerships; and
Any other foreign principal, as defined at 22 U.S.C. § 611(b), which includes a foreign organization or “other combination of persons organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”
"No it is not legal to seek election help; from a foreign source.
Stop lying and showing your ignorance."
I'm tempted to say you're lying, but you may simply misunderstand the law. Your creative interpretation of the law would only apply in places where caterpillars smoke hookahs.
To say the top law enforcement officer in our land cannot pursue a criminal investigation that involves individuals in a political party other than his own is ridiculous. Keep in mind that the criminal investigation preceded Trump's presidency and had been cancelled under suspicious circumstances
"The Act and Commission regulations include a broad prohibition on foreign national activity in connection with elections in the United States. 52 U.S.C. § 30121 and generally, 11 CFR 110.20. In general, foreign nationals are prohibited from the following activities:
-Making any contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or making any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States;
-Making any contribution or donation to any committee or organization of any national, state, district, or local political party (including donations to a party nonfederal account or office building account);
-Making any disbursement for an electioneering communication;
-Making any donation to a presidential inaugural committee.
Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to an FEC enforcement action, criminal prosecution, or both."
no reasonable person would read this and conclude that a foreign government conducting a criminal investigation was a campaign contribution
to make such an erroneous conclusion, one would have to be both extremely biased and extremely worried that your side can't achieve its goals by suasion of a democratic society
"Definition
The following groups and individuals are considered "foreign nationals" and are subject to the prohibition:
Foreign citizens (not including dual citizens of the United States);
Immigrants who are not lawfully admitted for permanent residence;
Foreign governments;
Foreign political parties;
Foreign corporations;
Foreign associations;
Foreign partnerships; and
Any other foreign principal, as defined at 22 U.S.C. § 611(b), which includes a foreign organization or “other combination of persons organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”"
are you worried at all that Hillary Clinton hired a foreign spy to conduct op research for her campaign
the exchange of money probably makes her action illegal although President Trump magnanimously declined to prosecute her, in the interest of our country
quaint concept, huh?
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That is the motto of congressional Democrats when it comes to getting President Donald Trump.
They want to make him a one-term president — and if they can find a way to force him out of office before the 2020 election, all the better.
Impeaching Trump has been the Democrats’ monomania ever since they took control of the House of Representatives following the 2018 midterms. They thought they could get Trump on Russian collusion, and they also eyed an opportunity to impeach Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh just for good measure.
Neither approach proved to be very fruitful. After more than two years of screaming bloody murder about Trump being a puppet of Vladimir Putin, the Muller report proved to be a complete dud; and the effort to smear Kavanaugh a second time as a means to further undermine the president has petered out. This on top of the scores of other inquiries House Democrats have feverishly plotted, digging into nearly every aspect of Trump’s private and political life.
Undaunted by their past misfires, congressional Democrats now think they have found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket with Trump-Ukraine.
In their latest attempt to undo the 2016 presidential election simply because they despise the current occupant of the Oval Office, it is Democrats’ general contention that Trump sought to pressure Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election by looking into shady Biden family dealings and then sought to cover it up.
Further, congressional Democrats are so sure they have Trump’s number this go-round that they intend to move with lightning speed on impeachment, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has tapped House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to lead the charge for now. Schiff is the Democrats’ go-to carnival barker when it comes to spreading copious amounts of disinformation. The media hangs on Schiff’s every word and rarely questions his motives — even after he infamously said there was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight” between Trump and Russia.
One could certainly argue that Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was ham-handed and ill-advised — but to claim it’s illegal and thus warrants a fast-tracked impeachment seems like wishful thinking, and is an enormous political gamble.
Legally speaking, there does not appear to be any promises or threats or any kind of quid pro quo on Trump’s part. Further, the Ukrainians weren’t even aware that U.S. military aid was being held up at the time. As for campaign finance violations, the Department of Justice has already thrown cold water on that. Further, if Trump is engaged in a cover-up, he’s doing a terrible job of it by taking the unprecedented step of making not only the call public, but also the whistleblower complaint. For those who want to delve into allegations of secret servers, Trump’s predecessors have engaged in similar actions.
What should give the American public and some Democrats great pause is that the process for whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress might have been altered to allow secondhand and even thirdhand information to suffice. Further, the whistleblower complaint reads more like a premeditated political set-up from a leaker than the misgivings of a concerned citizen worried about potential White House wrongdoings. But the real kicker, if you want to be cynical, is that Democrats are accusing Trump of engaging in the very same activity with Ukraine in which they were involved in 2016 and again in 2018.
No one knows how this will ultimately pan out. There are significant political risks for both parties. But here’s what we do know.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has to be downright giddy. She is currently surging in the Democratic presidential polls, and she gets to scream at Trump while defending her primary opponent Joe Biden to the teeth, yet privately hoping this ordeal sinks Biden and Trump as well.
When all is said and done, if persuadable voters (independents, swing-state voters) see this as nothing more than congressional Democrats crying wolf for the umpteenth time, engaging in a partisan exercise to appease a rabid base who refuses to accept Trump as a legitimate president, then Trump will be reelected in 2020. Further still, the House could come into play as well, when it wasn’t before this gambit.
This is a high-risk game Democrats are playing, and they’re going all-in to take out Trump.
By now it's clear that the Democrats have made one of the first great political blunders of the 21st century by trying to impeach the president of the United States based on a half-understood rumor.
If the groundswell of small-dollar donations flowing into the Trump campaign's coffers offers any indication, the Democrats are going to pay a terrible price for indulging the demands of their radical base. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign raked in a $13 million haul within 36 hours of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s embarrassingly vague announcement of a “formal impeachment inquiry.”
That’s significantly more than most of the Democrat presidential candidates are able to raise in a whole quarter. It’s more than Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke raised in two whole quarters, which many liberals hailed as potentially game-changing at the time.
The sudden flood of donations to President Trump’s reelection effort provides undeniable evidence that this impeachment gambit represents a massive miscalculation.
The White House has now publicly released both the rogue CIA agent’s “whistleblower complaint” and the transcript of the call -- the one that the “whistleblower” didn’t even hear, yet felt entitled to use as the basis for anonymously accusing the president of the United States of a crime. The allegations contained in the complaint are based entirely on hearsay. And according to the president’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, they appear to have been professionally prepared at an outside law firm. If true, that would all but confirm that the complainant’s motivation was political, not patriotic.
The complaint that Democrats are using to plunge the country into an impeachment morass is already coming apart at the seams. Parts of the account have already been proven false — just like CNN’s bogus claim that acting Director of National Intelligence Joe Maguire was threatening to resign. DNI Maguire flatly denied the report, and was on hand to testify to both the House and Senate intelligence committees last week to nip the “coverup” conspiracy theories in the bud.
The fact that the speaker of the House didn’t even wait for the transcript to be released before declaring her intent to impeach is a clear indication that the whole exercise is a sham.
The Democrats desperately need a distraction from their party’s alarming lurch toward radicalism. The first few rounds of Democrat presidential primary debates have been unmitigated disasters. Their leading candidates are openly advocating for policies — such as free health care for illegal aliens, fracking bans, and multitrillion-dollar government takeovers of the economy — that are so far outside mainstream opinion that they’re guaranteed to drive voters away from the eventual nominee in the general election.
Pelosi, who has been under constant pressure from the far-left wing of her caucus to start impeachment proceedings on virtually any pretext, needed to do something to mollify the radicals.
That may have bought the speaker a short-term reprieve, but the long-term political ramifications will come back to haunt her. The Democrat base that has been clamoring for impeachment since Inauguration Day was always going to vote for the Democrat candidate in 2020, no matter who it is.
Republicans and independent voters, on the other hand, are reacting to the impeachment announcement by showing their support for the president in the only way they can for the time being: by going online and making a contribution.
If this week’s GOP fundraising haul is any indication, Pelosi didn’t just drive another nail into the coffin awaiting the Democrats’ nominee next year, she may also be looking at serious losses in the swing House districts that handed her the speaker’s gavel in 2018. The moderate Democrats in those seats are already being put on the spot by the impeachment push. Their Republican challengers are poised to hold them accountable back in their home districts, hoping to ensure that those freshman legislators find themselves out of office next year.
The true toll of the Democrats’ decision to proceed with this Ukraine farce, of course, is the damage it is already inflicting on our government institutions. The American people won’t look kindly on their politicization of a process that exists as a last resort in a genuine crisis — which this clearly is not.
We know that this charade won’t result in Donald Trump leaving office, but it may well result in many Democrats leaving theirs.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is urging three foreign governments to cooperate with the Justice Department probe into the origins of the Russia investigation.
Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter on Wednesday to the governments of Italy, Australia and the United Kingdom defending outreach from Attorney General William Barr as part of the investigation.
"That the attorney general is holding meetings with your countries to aid in the Justice Department's investigation of what happened is well within the bounds of his normal activities. He is simply doing his job," Graham wrote in the letter.
He added that he was requesting "your country's continued cooperation with Attorney General Barr as the Department of Justice continues to investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."
Graham noted in his letter that "it appears" the United States used "foreign intelligence as part of their efforts to investigate and monitor the 2016 election."
Graham had said earlier this week that he was planning to send the letters in the wake of The New York Times reporting that Trump had reached out to the Australian government to assist Barr as part of the Justice Department's investigation. The Justice Department subsequently confirmed the report.
"This New York Times article is an effort to stop Barr. ... What are they afraid of? This really bothers me a lot that the left is going to try to say there's something wrong with Barr talking to Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom," Graham said during a Fox News interview earlier this week.
Barr has also reportedly spoken with officials from Italy and the UK.
The conversations come after the attorney general said earlier this year that he planned to investigate the intelligence collection on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election to determine whether it was “adequately predicated.”
The troll and rump are spinning like tops.
Their fear is palpable.
President Trump, amidst the shouting of “treason” at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and the repetition of debunked conspiracy theories, revealed that he understands how much trouble he is in. (And by the way, since accusing the president of wrongdoing obviously would not be treason, why don’t the media ask him why he insists on saying this?)
The revealing moment came in Trump’s unhinged and angry afternoon news conference on Wednesday. The Post recounted:
"When Reuters’s Jeff Mason tried again and again to ask the [Joe] Biden-specific question, Trump became angry and demanded that Mason “not be rude” and instead ask a question of the Finnish president. When Mason pressed him, Trump responded that “Biden and his son are stone cold crooked,” then leveled his oft-made attack against the “fake news” media."
There is no acceptable answer to that question, because we now have a rough transcript of the call in which he repeatedly seeks to enlist the Ukrainian president’s help in finding (nonexistent) dirt on Biden. That’s the sole purpose of the call. He wanted a “favor” — help in smearing a political opponent.
There is no defense that Trump didn’t say such things. (We have the rough transcript and multiple witnesses.) There is no defense that this is permissible for the president of the United States. (That’s why Trump was so eager to claim exoneration on allegations of “collusion” regarding Russian interference in 2016). As Biden said on Wednesday, “It’s way beyond anything I frankly thought he would do.”
Trump and his embarrassing spinners can concoct whatever irrelevant and false excuses they want. (The whistleblower’s account was “false,” Trump claims, yet it matched the rough transcript; Schiff “wrote” the whistleblower complaint, Trump asserted, except Schiff apparently didn’t and doesn’t know his or her identity. The list goes on.)
We have Trump’s words doing what no president can be permitted to do — namely, invite foreign interference in our election. If we never found out anything else — if the rough transcript were not hidden in a super-secret file, if Trump did not threaten the whistleblower with exposure in violation of the law, and if he and his attorney general had not asked multiple countries for help trying to disprove the indisputable conclusion that Russia intervened to help him in 2016 — the rough transcript itself would be a sufficient basis for impeachment. And that is why Trump can’t answer the reporter’s question. The call is “perfect,” just not in the way Trump would have us believe.
The potency of the rough transcript is why simplicity is the friend of Democrats. The first article of impeachment is devoid of any complication: President Trump tried to entice a foreign power to provide opposition research that Trump believed would help him get reelected. That is it. It is a violation of his oath and a betrayal of our democracy. (A quid pro quo makes it worse, but is irrelevant.)
Now, Trump and his advisers are obstructing Congress’s investigation by refusing to respond to subpoenas and to let witnesses testify. That’s article two of the impeachment. Trump has also threatened the whistleblower and sought to reveal his or her identity, which is the basis for article three of the impeachment. The rest is utterly irrelevant, not to mention false.
Biden carried out the Obama administration’s and the West’s anti-corruption agenda in urging Ukraine to fire an ineffective prosecutor (who was not in any event investigating Biden’s son at the time). But really, who cares? For purposes of Trump’s impeachment, Biden’s actions don’t matter.
Schiff, Biden, the media, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Trump targets can be used to distract but not to exonerate. It is no wonder Trump is in a full panic. For the first time in his presidency, only his actions matter.
"I'm tempted to say you're lying, but you may simply misunderstand the law. Your creative interpretation of the law would only apply in places where caterpillars smoke hookahs."
Said the graduate of Rump U Law School, a real party school.
Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission, was moved once again to remind political candidates that asking for help from foreign governments is illegal, minutes after President Donald Trump publicly did just that.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning, the president urged the governments of Ukraine and China to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
“Is this thing on?” Weintraub wrote as she retweeted a message she first posted in June, this time adding a microphone emoji.
“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election,” the chair’s original message read.
“This is not a novel concept,” the original post continued. “Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers ... knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America’s.”
Weintraub was prompted to post that reminder in June after Trump told ABC News that he would consider accepting information on a political rival from a foreign national and dismissed the idea that such an act would constitute foreign interference in a U.S. election. The Mueller report, released earlier in the year, outlined Russian interference in the 2016 election along with 10 instances in which Trump may have sought to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation.
Now, the president has apparently become bolder than ever.
Despite White House officials’ alleged efforts to cover up a July conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ― in which the U.S. leader asked his Ukrainian counterpart to dig up dirt on Biden ― Trump solicited help from another foreign country before news cameras on Thursday.
He did so even as the House is conducting an impeachment inquiry centered on Trump’s conversation with Zelensky, which came to light in a whistleblower complaint.
“China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Trump said.
The president is thought to view Biden as his chief rival in the 2020 election.
ox News’ senior judicial analyst and former judge Andrew Napolitano doesn’t see a bright future ahead for President Donald Trump ― and his view of Trump’s recent past is even dimmer.
In an opinion column published on the Fox website late Wednesday, Napolitano assessed Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019, in which Trump asked Zelensky “do him a favor” immediately after mentioning U.S. aid to the country.
Trump had ordered the aid withheld from Ukraine just days before the phone call, though it had already been appropriated by Congress.
“That conversation manifested both criminal and impeachable behavior,” Napolitano wrote. “The criminal behavior to which Trump has admitted is much more grave than anything alleged or unearthed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and much of what Mueller revealed was impeachable.”
In addition to the call itself, Napolitano also took issue with Trump’s personal conduct since the allegations came to light via a whistleblower report in late September.
Trump has accused the unidentified whistleblower of treason and amplified statements saying his impeachment would lead to a “Civil War-like fracture.”
“The president’s allusions to violence are palpably dangerous,” wrote Napolitano. “They will give cover to crazies who crave violence, as other intemperate words of his have done.”
“This language is a dog whistle to the deranged,” he added.
Napolitano is one of the few Fox personalities to consistently call out some of Trump’s more outrageous behavior. The fracture between Fox’s news and opinion sides spilled into the open last week when Tucker Carlson and host Shepard Smith traded barbs over Napolitano’s insights.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers echoed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s push for anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine, including within the country’s office of the prosecutor general, according to a 2016 letter unearthed by CNN.
In the letter, Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus, pressed Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to take action on “entrenched corruption” within his government.
“We recognize that your governing coalition faces not only endemic corruption left from decades of mismanagement and cronyism, but also an illegal armed seizure of territory by Russia and its proxies,” they wrote in the letter. ”[We] urge you to press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General’s office and judiciary.”
The letter ― also signed by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ― appears to undermine President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that there was “quid pro quo” when then-Vice President Biden withheld aid to Ukraine to push the country’s leaders to fire its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.
Trump claims Biden did so for the purpose of impeding an investigation into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company upon whose board Hunter Biden served. No evidence has been brought to light to suggest this.
Biden boasted in 2018 about withholding $1 billion in aid to Ukraine to get them to oust Shokin, which Trump has claimed amounts to a “quid pro quo.” But foreign policy experts, including a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, say Biden’s actions were an appropriate form of diplomatic pressure.
Biden wasn’t the only person calling for Shokin’s removal from office. Members of Congress (as evidenced by the 2016 letter of support), European leaders and international organizations were all pushing for the notoriously corrupt prosecutor to be fired.
Shokin’s office had opened an investigation into Burisma, but it was dormant by the time Biden was working on anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have cleared Biden of any wrongdoing related to Shokin’s firing.
“The United States, the European Union, the I.M.F., and Ukraine’s leading reform figures were all pressing for Viktor Shokin to be removed from office because he was one of the biggest obstacles to fighting corruption in the entire country,”
“This was a bipartisan goal in Congress as well,” he added. “It is unfortunate that Senator Johnson seems to have forgotten a time when he put the country’s values over his own politics, but perhaps re-reading his well-articulated words whole-heartedly agreeing with Joe Biden’s push to move the anti-corruption cause in Ukraine forward will help him on his journey back to intellectual consistency.”
Unemployment hit a fresh 50-year low in September, as the economy nears full employment, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The jobless rate dropped 0.2 percentage points to 3.5%, matching a level it last saw in December 1969. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and the underemployed also fell, declining 0.3 percent points to 6.9%, matching its lowest in nearly 19 years and just off the all-time low of 6.8%.
Also, the jobless rate for Hispanics also hit a new record low, while the level for African Americans maintained its lowest ever.
The report comes as Democrats try to stoke fears that weakness abroad will bleed into the U.S. and \cause a recession.
“Overall, this report provides more evidence that the labor market is still healthy” said Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board.
The U.S. economy added a modest 136,000 jobs in September, sending the unemployment rate to a nearly 50-year-low, a mixed bag that some economists said was more evidence that the country could be headed for a slowdown.
The pace is well-below average monthly growth last year, though the unemployment rate of 3.5 percent was the country’s lowest since 1969.
“It’s kind of a mixed picture,” said Douglas Kruse, an economist at Rutgers University and a former White House adviser under President Obama. “The job growth was less than what Wall Street and economists were expecting, but the drop in the unemployment rate was unexpected."
Manufacturing has already entered a decline and consumer spending is also appearing to soften, after more than a year of strength. The new report, issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that the economy lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs in September.
The National Retail Federation warned Thursday that economic uncertainty, new tariffs and fluctuations in the stock market could derail Americans’ spending plans in the run-up to the holidays. Retail lost some 11,000 jobs, driven by employment declines at clothing stores. Some other sectors performed much better, however, as health care and business services added more than 70,000 jobs combined.
Nick Bunker, an economist at the jobs site Indeed, said that the unemployment rate was a good sign, but said that other economic indicators complicated the picture. Of particular note, he said, was that wage growth slowed from 3.2 percent to 2.9 percent in September.
“You would expect wage growth to be much stronger given this unemployment rate,” he said. Economists have puzzled over why wage growth has remained modest since the recession despite the falling jobless rate.
“There’s just been a large pool of people out there who are available to be employed without raising wages, but that just can’t keep going on," Kruse said. “We’re hitting the point where we’re going to have to see wage growth or employers aren’t going to find workers they need.”
Bunker said that the slowing wage and payroll growth made for a concerning picture.
“Those two trends are a sign that is a labor market that is slowing down,” he said. “Not because we’re hitting full employment, but rather this is a slowdown for employers and a slackening in economic growth.”
The employment rate of prime working age Americans is strong, but it is still lower than levels seen at the end of the 1990s, Bunker noted.
Economists also point to other signs, including a manufacturing recession that are affecting employers as they struggle to find workers in a tight jobs market....
"Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission, was moved once again to remind political candidates that asking for help from foreign governments is illegal, minutes after President Donald Trump publicly did just that.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning, the president urged the governments of Ukraine and China to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
“Is this thing on?” Weintraub wrote as she retweeted a message she first posted in June, this time adding a microphone emoji.
“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election,” the chair’s original message read."
Ellen, Ellen, you deep state fool. Any move any country makes could be construed as a thing of value, under your definition. This is not a "thing of value" that this law refers to. The idea is preposterous. The regular business of government can't come to a standstill.
The Bidens engaged in sleazy behavior. Having children of the VP run around trying to sell their connection with their father is just the kind of Washington"swap" behavior Trump campaigned to end. And he won the election. We have a treaty with Ukraine that they will provide assistance when an investigation leads to matters within their jurisdiction. The conflict of interest, where Obama had named Biden to straighten out Ukraine while his son was receiving 50K a month from Ukraine needs to be investigated. It's highly suspicious.
Presidential candidates are not above the law.
"A bipartisan group of lawmakers echoed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s push for anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine, including within the country’s office of the prosecutor general"
and Trump continues that push by calling for a look at Hunter Biden's suspicious arrangement
"The U.S. economy added a modest 136,000 jobs in September, sending the unemployment rate to a nearly 50-year-low, a mixed bag that some economists said was more evidence that the country could be headed for a slowdown.
The pace is well-below average monthly growth last year, though the unemployment rate of 3.5 percent was the country’s lowest since 1969.
“It’s kind of a mixed picture,” said Douglas Kruse, an economist at Rutgers University and a former White House adviser under President Obama. “The job growth was less than what Wall Street and economists were expecting, but the drop in the unemployment rate was unexpected."
Manufacturing has already entered a decline and consumer spending is also appearing to soften, after more than a year of strength. The new report, issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that the economy lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs in September."
fascinating that the Dems think they will convince America that the economy
unemployment is at historic lows and inflation and interest rates are too
moreover, opportunity has disproportionately gone to the bottom half of workers, especially minorities
Dems grandest hopes that the economy will go bad and Americans will suffer don't seem likely to be fulfilled
Americans aren't likely to vote for the sleazy Biden family or elderly socialists like Warren and Sanders who to wreck the economy
this election is close to over
and if Dems were to remove Trump by impeachment, Pence would win all fifty states
if Trump left before year's end, Pence could be President for nine years!
Read the emails:
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/a/4/a4a91fab-99cd-4eb9-9c6c-ec1c586494b9/621801458E982E9903839ABC7404A917.chairmen-letter-on-state-departmnent-texts-10-03-19.pdf
"Ellen, Ellen, you deep state fool. Any move any country makes could be construed as a thing of value, under your definition. This is not a "thing of value" that this law refers to. The idea is preposterous. The regular business of government can't come to a standstill."
Anonymous, anonymous, you obsequious troll. It's called "opposition research." Campaigns pay good money for it - unless you're going to argue that dollars don't have value, then opposition research is a thing of value, otherwise people wouldn't pay money for it.
The regular business of government doesn't require politicians to solicit foreign nations for opposition research on American politicians. Don't be stupid.
Some background info: (from Wikipedia)
In the politics of the United States, opposition research (also called oppo research) is the practice of collecting information on a political opponent or other adversary that can be used to discredit or otherwise weaken them. The information can include biographical, legal, criminal, medical, educational, or financial history or activities, as well as prior media coverage, or the voting record of a politician. Opposition research can also entail using "trackers" to follow an individual and record their activities or political speeches.[1]
The research is usually conducted in the time period between announcement of intent to run and the actual election; however political parties maintain long-term databases that can cover several decades. The practice is both a tactical maneuver and a cost-saving measure.[2] The term is frequently used to refer not just to the collection of information but also how it is utilized, as a component of negative campaigning.
President Donald Trump’s foreign election interference scandal is the result of an “illegal” and “covert” psychological operations (PSOP) on the American people, a former FBI special agent was expertise in the arena explained on Friday.
CNN analyst and Just Security editor Asha Rangappa explained her conclusion in a thread posted on Twitter.
“One thing not to overlook in understanding the significance of the texts is that in addition to soliciting section assistance and abusing his power, Trump was attempting to employ covert propaganda against the American public,” she wrote, posting a clip of her appearing on CNN.
“As I note in the clip above, one thing the texts make clear is that the administration wasn’t just interested in Ukraine investigating Biden — they were specifically interested in the *messaging* about the investigation. If what you care about is “corruption,” you would be satisfied with an assurance that Ukraine was going to investigate. Instead, the Trump admin doesn’t care so much about the investigation itself, but making sure that the fact that it is being investigated is *being broadcast* to the audience they care about: American voters.”
“IMPORTANTLY, they are very invested in the message being crafted in a *specific way* — tailored to Trump’s benefit by maximizing the “seeds of doubt” on both Biden and the 2016 election. It’s being drafted by Trump’s personal lawyer!” she noted. “In addition, the message was going to be delivered as an official statement from Ukraine, with NO INDICATION that the United States either precipitated or participated in its creation in any way.”
“This, folks, is called black propaganda,” Rangappa concluded. “Black propaganda attempts to conceal the true source of information, so that the target cannot accurately assess the credibility of the message or the motives of the source behind it. Trump wanted to cloak his own role and motives behind a statement of a foreign country.”
“The goal here is to manipulate the American public into to thinking that Ukraine had *independently* reached the same conclusions about the Russia investigation, and/or uncovered criminal leads about Biden,” she explained. “Trump could then use this to bolster his own views.”
Rangappa explained her experience with cases like this.
“Not for nothing, but a good chunk of the cases I investigated in the FBI were ‘perception management’ (propaganda) cases,” she revealed. “We actively try to STOP foreign countries from doing this to us, because we believe that part of an open society and marketplace of ideas is ensuring that people know the true source of information in order to assess credibility and critically evaluate the content (FARA originated in 1938 as a way to combat Nazi propaganda, [by] requiring state-sponsored content to be identified as such).”
” Basically, you have the Trump admin attempting to conduct an illegal covert psyop on the American public, using officials from the State Department and his own attorney to do it. It’s literally a version of what Russia did in 2016,” Rangappa concluded.
The oft-cited “Donald Trump tells it like it is” defense of the president is coming back to bite him and his ardent supporters.
President Trump is now regularly saying the quiet part out loud. He has tried to use the office of the presidency to pressure foreign governments to investigate a political opponent, a clear abuse of power.
On Thursday, a reporter asked the president, “What exactly did you hope the Ukrainian president would do about the Bidens?” Trump’s answer was stunning — and obvious at the same time. He replied, “I think if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation. … They should investigate the Bidens. … China likewise should start an investigation.”
For those who have been paying close attention, this is, indeed, the exact thing Republicans have spent days denying that Trump asked in his July phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, though the president has upped the ante by adding a request to China to investigate the former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
A Monmouth University poll released this week found that only 40 percent of Republicans believe Trump mentioned Biden on the call with the Ukrainian president. What will they say now?
The president is his own worst enemy — and I, for one, am thankful for it. He strikes a hole in the heart of any decent defense of his behavior on a regular basis. There have been no breaches in whistleblower protocol, no matter what accusations the president hurls at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) or the whistleblower himself.
According to guidance on “protected disclosures” from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), communication of urgent concern can go to congressional intelligence committees. There is bipartisan consensus on this, with spokespeople for Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) saying that it would be standard practice for the “intelligence committee to tell a potential whistleblower to hire counsel and file a complaint with an agency IG or the IC IG.”
There goes that argument. And with news trickling out about congressional testimony by Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine — which included a text message from Bill Taylor, the former top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, that read, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance to help with a political campaign” — the president’s story will continue to look more and more ridiculous. (The text message exchange reveals pushback on that assertion and then a suggestion to take the conversation offline.)
Americans are taking note
For those following public opinion on the impeachment issue, a new poll from USA Today and Ipsos finds that 45 percent of Americans support impeaching Trump, compared to 38 percent who oppose it. Critically, 44 percent support the Senate removing Trump from office, and 35 percent oppose it. The rise in support for removing Trump from office represents a shift in attitude toward impeachment from independent voters. Nearly a third feel there is reliable evidence to impeach, compared to 34 percent who say no, but those independents support impeaching Trump by a 37-33 percent margin. Overall support for removing Trump is now up to 37 percent in favor and 31 percent opposed.
This is before any formal inquiry has even begun.
In the same poll, 52 percent say they believe Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden is an abuse of power, compared to just 21 percent who don’t. The gap among independents is noteworthy: 45 percent see it as an abuse of power, versus 16 percent who don’t. It’s even close among Republicans, with 30 percent reporting that it’s an abuse of power and 40 percent saying that it isn’t. And 44 percent believe the whistleblower is a patriot, versus 21 percent who think he’s a traitor.
There’s an obvious opening for the Biden campaign to make the president’s attacks a central component of his campaign, especially with his emphasis on his own electability. There’s a strong argument to be made that Trump is going after Biden because he sees him as his principal challenger, which time will bear out. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) surge is very real.
In the meantime, we need to see more statements from Biden like this one: “With his administration in free fall, Donald Trump is flailing and melting down on national television, desperately clutching for conspiracy theories that have been debunked and dismissed by independent, credible news organizations.”
We must all be on the offensive to combat Trump’s smears and his Republican defenders and to hold them to account. The impeachable offenses are all around us, and they’re banking on the fact that we aren’t paying attention or are consuming news from sources that do their dirty work.
Don’t let Trump’s gamble that we’re too dumb to see what he’s doing pay off. We’re better than that.
"Anonymous, anonymous, you obsequious troll. It's called "opposition research." Campaigns pay good money for it - unless you're going to argue that dollars don't have value, then opposition research is a thing of value, otherwise people wouldn't pay money for it."
Opposition research is when investigators make an overarching examination of the background of a political candidate.
Trump didn't ask the authorities in Ukraine to do that. He asked them to look at a specific incident that had been widely reported in the media.
"The regular business of government doesn't require politicians to solicit foreign nations for opposition research on American politicians. Don't be stupid."
We have a treaty with Ukraine that provides for us to request their assistance when criminal activity involves matters under their jurisdiction.
Joe Biden and his family are not above the law.
Imagine if Donald Trump Jr was getting paid "consulting fees" by Russia
1'President Donald Trump’s foreign election interference scandal is the result of an “illegal” and “covert” psychological operations (PSOP) on the American people, a former FBI special agent was expertise in the arena explained on Friday.
CNN analyst and Just Security editor Asha Rangappa explained her conclusion"
CNN, not an objective news source, has an army of former deep state swamp creatures from the intelligence community being paid to characterize any situation in an anti-Trump way
remember Clapper and Brennan who assured us that Trump colluded with Russia and then the special prosecutor came back and showed they were lying
"President Trump is now regularly saying that he has tried to use the office of the presidency to pressure foreign governments to investigate a political opponent, a clear abuse of power."
that would only be an abuse of power if the political opponent hadn't engaged in suspicious behavior, worthy of investigation
if the political opponent hadn't engaged in suspicious behavior, worthy of investigation, Trump would be fulfilling his obligation as the overseer of the country's law enforcement agencies in requesting that foreign governments investigate this individual
btw, it was a request: there is no undue pressure applied
Joe Biden's family is not above the law
"There’s an obvious opening for the Biden campaign to make the president’s attacks a central component of his campaign,"
LOL!
since the impeachment inquiry was announced Trump has raised record contributions while Biden's campaign is in decline
if Biden wants to make his son's selling of his Dad's influence as VP a central component of his campaign, I think Trump and the GOP and Elizabeth Warren would be just delighted
President Donald Trump held what amounted to a mini-rally with nearly 300 young black supporters inside the White House on Friday, replete with campaign-style chants of “USA!” and “four more years!”
“You broke the sound barrier,” Trump told the audience of African American students and young professionals, who greeted him with chants and cheers inside the White House’s East Room. “I’ve never heard it quite like that, and I appreciate it. We love you.”
With an eye on the 2020 election, the president delivered his pitch to black voters — and aired his grievances. He not only touted historically low unemployment among black Americans but also conducted a roll call of his top black supporters, while slamming Democrats and the news media along the way.
At one point, Trump also credited African Americans for building the country, a seeming reference to their ancestors’ role as slaves.
“You know, you’re just starting to get real credit for that, OK,” Trump said. “I don’t know if you know that, you’re just starting to get — you built the nation. We all built it, but you were such a massive part of it. Bigger than you were given credit for. Does that make sense?”
Friday’s speech marked the second time in the past month Trump participated in an event with an overwhelmingly black audience. In September, he addressed leaders of historically black colleges and universities.
Trump made both broad and personal appeals to black voters Friday. He praised conservative commentators Candace Owens and Terrence Williams and White House aide Ja’Ron Smith, individually inviting each of them to join him on stage. Trump complimented Smith for his role with the White House and commended Owens for her television appearances and Williams for his tweets about actress Debra Messing, a Trump foil.
Owens, Trump said, is a “star” who is not only “tough” but also “beautiful.”
“Under the #MeToo generation, we’re not allowed to say it,” Trump said. “So all of you young, brilliant guys, never, ever call a woman beautiful, please. You’re not allowed to do it.”
Trump noted that the economy is doing so well that Americans are “finding jobs and they’re getting good jobs and if you don’t like that job you can get another one because you have a lot of choice.”
“While we are fighting every day to build up our nation, the far left only wants to wreck, ruin and destroy our nation,” he said. “And you know better than anybody, for the last three years, Democrat lawmakers, their deep-state cronies, the fake news media, they’ve been colluding in their effort to overturn the presidential election — 63 million people voted — and to nullify the votes of the American people and many African American people voted for Trump, even then. Now they like me more.”
Still, the Trump campaign hopes it can appeal to black voters to boost turnout in key states next year, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The president noted that Democratic politicians have let down the African American community for more than 100 years but touted how black Americans have benefited from the Trump administration’s policies over the last three years.
“No one in America has been hurt more as a result of the Democrats’ corrupt leadership and socialist policies than our nation’s African American community,” Trump said. “It’s true. That’s true.”
Trump name-checked South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott for talking to him about “opportunity zones” to spur investment in distressed communities and credited himself for helping pass a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill.
After voicing support for law enforcement, Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump suggested a number of African Americans live near “brutal killers” and sometimes become their victims.
“They’re killers, but you’re tough,” he told the crowd. “You fight back. But sometimes you don’t win those fights because these guys are tough, too. They shouldn’t be in our country.”
The anti-Trump whistleblower whose allegations against President Donald Trump sent Congress into an impeachment frenzy concealed his interactions with House Democrats from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) and failed to disclose them as required.
ICIG Michael Atkinson testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) that the anti-Trump complainant, whose identity has not been made public, did not inform the ICIG in his complaint that he or his team had already contacted Democratic staff working for Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee.
The complainant’s failure to disclose his interactions with Schiff or his staff puts him in legal hot water, as the whistleblower form he submitted requires individuals to disclose “other actions you are taking on your disclosure” under penalty of perjury. An entire page of the whistleblower form is dedicated to collecting information about previous disclosures so the ICIG can take appropriate action in response to the complaint.
“I have previously disclosed (or am disclosing) the violations alleged here to (complete all that apply),” the form requires the complainant to attest. The form includes checkboxes for disclosures to other inspectors general, other agencies, the Department of Justice, the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Special Counsel, other executive branch departments, Congress and its respective committees, and media. It also includes a separate question asking the complainant to detail those previous disclosures to the ICIG.
If the anti-Trump complainant did, in fact, refuse to disclose previous disclosures of his allegations to Congress or the news media, he is subject to felony criminal penalties for making false statements. While a letter from the so-called whistleblower to Schiff and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was declassified and released last week, the underlying form submitted by the anti-Trump complainant has not been made public.
The final portion of the whistleblower form requires whistleblowers to attest under penalty of perjury that they have neither misstated nor concealed material facts in their complaints.
“I certify that all of the statements made in this complaint (including any continuation pages) are true, complete, and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief,” whistleblowers are required to attest. “I understand that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1001, a false statement or concealment of a material fact is a criminal offense punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up to five years, or both.”
"if the political opponent hadn't engaged in suspicious behavior, worthy of investigation, Trump would be fulfilling his obligation as the overseer of the country's law enforcement agencies in requesting that foreign governments investigate this individual"
The Bidens weren't engaged in any "suspicious behavior." All Rump has is a bunch of half-baked conspiracy theories that have been debunked ad-nauseum.
But it doesn't matter how often a conspiracy theory has been debunked - conservatives will somehow find more truthiness in it than actual facts.
Why don't you tell us about Obama's fake birth certificate again.
Mitt Romney
✔
@MittRomney
When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated.
180K
12:02 PM - Oct 4, 2019
68.6K people are talking about this
Mitt Romney
✔
@MittRomney
Replying to @MittRomney
By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.
89.9K
12:02 PM - Oct 4, 2019
"The Bidens weren't engaged in any "suspicious behavior.""
yeah, they were
while Biden was vice-president and Obama had tasked him with handling the Ukraine situation and he was travelling there regularly to meet with officials, his son was being paid 50K a month by the Ukraine and no one has explained why
"a bunch of half-baked conspiracy theories that have been debunked ad-nauseum"
this is something the media keeps repeating but there are never any details
what, precisely, has been debunked, and how, precisely, was it debunked?
"But it doesn't matter how often a conspiracy theory has been debunked - conservatives will somehow find more truthiness in it than actual facts."
what, precisely, has been debunked, and how, precisely, was it debunked?
"Why don't you tell us about Obama's fake birth certificate again."
I've never told you anything about it
"When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated."
thanks for sharing, Mitt
but you won't ever be President
America doesn't like you, and you aren't going to change their mind by attacking the President
I know it worked for John McCain and George Bush but you're too strange
that's why Trump didn't make you Secretary of State even though you went to Trump Tower and grovelled before him
"By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling."
Joe Biden's family is not above the law
Mounting evidence buttresses claims in whistleblower complaint
Since the revelation of an explosive whistleblower complaint that sparked an impeachment crisis for President Trump, he and his Republican allies have coalesced around a central defense: The document was based on secondhand information, mere hearsay riddled with inaccuracies.
But over the past two weeks, documents, firsthand witness accounts and even statements by Trump himself have emerged that bolster the facts outlined in the extraordinary abuse-of-power complaint.
The description of a July 25 phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine, which formed the heart of the complaint and was still secret at the time the claim was filed in mid-August, matches a rough transcript of the call that the White House released a day before the complaint was made public.
The whistleblower’s assertion that records related to the phone call were transferred to a separate electronic system intended for highly classified material has since been confirmed by White House officials.
And the whistleblower’s narrative of the events that led up to the call — including a shadow campaign undertaken by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and the attempts of State Department officials to navigate his activities — have been largely confirmed by the text messages of three diplomats released Friday, as well as Giuliani himself in media interviews.
Independent evidence now supports the central elements laid out in the seven-page document. Even if they disregarded the complaint, legal experts said, lawmakers have obtained dramatic testimony and documents that provide ammunition for the whistleblower’s core assertion: that the president of the United States used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”
“Everything we’ve found to date validates the information. . . . It’s brilliantly effective. It really does function almost as a one-stop shop, investigative road map,” said Harry P. Litman, a former U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania who has represented other government whistleblowers....
And what does the Orange Musselini do? Trump uses vulgarity, calls for Romney’s impeachment after senator criticizes president’s China, Ukraine appeals
"Since the revelation of an explosive whistleblower complaint that sparked an impeachment crisis for President Trump, he and his Republican allies have coalesced around a central defense: The document was based on secondhand information, mere hearsay riddled with inaccuracies.
But over the past two weeks, documents, firsthand witness accounts and even statements by Trump himself have emerged that bolster the facts outlined in the extraordinary abuse-of-power complaint."
the inaccuracy is that there was no quid pro quo
Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Biden scandal under existing treaty obligations
no quid pro quo was necessary and none was offered
Trump was doing his job
Biden and his family are not above the law
and, by releasing everything, Trump has undercut the usual Dem tactic of alleging a cover-up
poor Dems
they've made fools of themselves
again
As Eric and Donald Trump Jr. slam Joe Biden’s son for serving on the board of a Ukrainian company while his dad was vice president, their international operations capitalizing on White House connections are “warp speed” unethical, declared a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
“Rest in peace, irony,” joked MSNBC host Joy Reid Saturday on “AM Joy” after playing clips of the Trump brothers angrily ripping Hunter Biden.
Reid’s guest David Frum quipped: ”When you see poor Eric and poor Don Jr., you realize there are bivalves with more self-awareness than the Trump children.”
They argue — without any evidence — that Joe Biden worked to block a corruption probe into an energy company whose board of directors included his son. Meanwhile, they profit from international operations stretching to as many as 30 nations still owned by their dad, the president.
“Presidential families should behave themselves in more circumspect ways,” said Frum, who is also an author and writer for The Atlantic. “The Trump family is so far and away the most corrupt in American presidential history that you really can’t think of who’s in second place.”
Eric Trump last month slammed Hunter Biden’s role in an international company. A day later he hailed a brand new housing complex development in Scotland for the Trump Organization, which is still owned by his dad.
Just weeks earlier the Air Force launched an investigation into personnel spending tens of thousands of dollars at Trump Organization’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland during refueling layovers at newly favored nearby Prestwick airport.
Both Reid and Frum referred to Ivanka Trump obtaining several Chinese trademarks for her private company — including for voting machines — last year even as she was dealing with Chinese officials in her role as a senior White House adviser. Trump’s eldest daughter won three trademarks in 2017 on the same day she dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. She was granted five trademarks early this year ahead of trade talks with the Chinese.
“You have Ivanka Trump getting Chinese trademarks for voting machines,” noted Reid. “You’ve got Donald Trump Jr. in Indonesia kicking off the sale of luxury condos” — developed with a $500 million cash infusion from a China-owned construction business. “What is happening here?”
Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, meanwhile, met with senior officers of the Anbang investment operation in China “with a view to get hundreds of millions of dollars to rescue his desperately failing project on Fifth Avenue,” noted Frum.
Kushner’s family members solicited Chinese investment in Beijing in 2017 with a presentation including photos of their very own White House adviser and the president — and promises that Chinese could get special U.S. investor visas if they pumped money into the Kushner family business.
The president complaining about corruption in government is like “hearing Al Capone complain about mob activity in Chicago,” quipped Reid’s other guest, Elizabeth Spiers, former editor of the New York Observer, which Kushner once owned.
The intelligence official is said to have firsthand knowledge of details cited in the first whistleblower’s complaint against Trump.
A second whistleblower who’s said to have firsthand knowledge of allegations of misconduct involving President Donald Trump and Ukraine has come forward to speak with the intelligence community’s inspector general, two attorneys representing the whistleblowers have said.
Attorney Mark Zaid told ABC News Sunday that this intelligence official, whom his firm is also now representing, is able to speak directly about the details cited in a first whistleblower’s complaint against Trump regarding his July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president.
Fellow attorney Andrew Bakaj also confirmed the development on Twitter, adding that their D.C. firm represents “multiple whistleblowers” in connection to the complaint against Trump.
Zaid said he does not know if this second individual is the same official reported by The New York Times on Friday, or if it is an additional one. That official was reportedly interviewed by Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson during an investigation into the first whistleblower’s complaint.
An additional account of Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could potentially add credibility to that offered by the first whistleblower. The original complaint relies on secondhand knowledge but is supported by a summary of Trump’s call with Zelensky.
Trump, who’s accused of inappropriately pressuring Zelensky to investigate one of his 2020 presidential rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, has attempted to cast doubt on the recount.
He’s described his call with Zelensky as “absolutely perfect” and “totally appropriate.”
Reliable rumor has it that when he died earlier today, Ginger Baker — the most imaginative drummer that ever played in a rock band — immediately went to hell. But he was so horribly unpleasant and obnoxious that the devils refused to admit him.
So Ginger's in heaven now, surrounded by the good, the decent, the kind, and the well-adjusted — and banging up an ungodly beautiful storm.
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