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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2019 20:33:45 GMT
Time to start a new thread
From Paul Waldman in the Washington Post.
“Trump finally realizes being president is hard”
“President Trump says many outlandish things, yet even the most outlandish can offer a clue to his thinking. And lately, he’s giving hints that he’s increasingly frustrated by foreign policy.
Which is not how it usually works. Many presidents begin their time in office with an ambitious domestic agenda, then turn more and more to foreign policy as time goes on, because it’s an area where their ability to act is much less constrained. They don’t have to get Congress’ permission for most of what they do, and don’t have to spend months wrangling with two-bit members to achieve anything. For all the power of the office, it’s defined in large part by its constraints, and foreign policy is an area with fewer of them.
Yet when Trump talks about what’s going on around the world, he begins to sound almost wistful, focusing on what he could do but hasn’t and won’t. For example, here’s what he said Friday on the subject of bombing Iran:
The easiest thing I could do, in fact I could do it while you’re here, would say “Go ahead fellas, go do it.” And that would be a very bad day for Iran. That’s the easiest thing I could do, it’s so easy.
What’s so strange about this is that the reason he hasn’t gone to war against Iran is precisely because it wouldn’t be easy, and Trump knows it. One of his few worthwhile impulses is his reluctance to get into another war in the Middle East, because he has no taste for getting trapped in a quagmire like Iraq.
So why keep insisting that it would be “easy”? Let’s look at something else he said today:
We’ve been very effective in Afghanistan, and if we wanted to do a certain method of war, we would win that very quickly, but many, many, really, tens of millions of people would be killed, and we think it’s unnecessary.
Committing the worst genocide in human history is “unnecessary.” Good to know.
You might think this idea — that we could quickly end the war in Afghanistan by killing everyone in the country — would never even occur to a sane person. But Trump keeps bringing it up. Back in July he said, “If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people.” The point is always how easy it could be, compared to what he has to do now.
I think what underlies these repeated statements is a genuine frustration on his part with how complicated being president has turned out to be. This was something Trump was plainly unprepared for. A few months in, he told Reuters, “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
Yes, Trump actually believed that being president of the United States, the most important job on the planet, would be easier than running a midsize brand licensing firm.
This was probably because he figured that being president was mostly giving speeches and throwing out a few ceremonial first pitches (though he is the first president since William Howard Taft not to do the latter, most likely because he’s afraid of being booed). How hard could it be? He saw presidents on TV and thought they were all idiots; obviously he could run circles around them.
Then he got to the White House and learned that everything was more complicated than he thought, especially legislating. You’ll remember him lamenting, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” when in fact everyone except for him was quite aware. Which is why the only major piece of legislation he passed was a tax cut, and it isn’t exactly hard to get a Republican Congress to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
In foreign policy, Trump figured his matchless skills as a negotiator would enable him to solve any problem. I don’t need to know anything about nuclear deterrence and uranium enrichment and throw weights — just get me in a room with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll make a deal!
We saw how that worked out: A bunch of meetings and “beautiful letters” and … nothing. We’re in the same place we were with North Korea before he took office.
As he looks at Iran, all Trump sees is complications. He walked away from the nuclear agreement because it was Barack Obama’s, and now tensions have skyrocketed. He imposed sanctions on Iran, and instead of knuckling under they’re being more provocative. He loves the Saudis but doesn’t have a taste to get into a regional war against Iran on their behalf. A direct strike on Iran would create all kinds of unintended consequences.
At last, Trump understands that it isn’t as easy as he thought. So he can’t stop talking about some other imagined course he could take, the one that would be easy. The one that will remain forever out of his reach.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2019 22:04:21 GMT
linkThe GOP - power over country. Chris Lu.. ”Senate GOP has blocked @markwarner's bill requiring campaigns to report foreign interference in a presidential election. It's a simple bill that codifies what campaign veterans always thought was the law. Now, it's clear why they've blocked this bill.” From NPR.. “WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, took to the Senate floor today to request immediate passage of a modified version of his Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections (FIRE) Act that would require campaigns to report to the appropriate federal authorities any contacts from foreign nationals seeking to interfere in a presidential election. Immediately after Sen. Warner requested unanimous consent, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) objected and thereby blocked the immediate passage of this essential legislation.”The corruption spreads..
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Sept 20, 2019 22:54:39 GMT
U.S. To send troops to Saudia Arabia after oil strike.
Whistleblower scandal? What whistleblower scandal?
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 21, 2019 1:31:25 GMT
From NPR.. “WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, took to the Senate floor today to request immediate passage of a modified version of his Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections (FIRE) Act that would require campaigns to report to the appropriate federal authorities any contacts from foreign nationals seeking to interfere in a presidential election. Immediately after Sen. Warner requested unanimous consent, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) objected and thereby blocked the immediate passage of this essential legislation.”The corruption spreads.. Rep Liz Cheney did it in the House last year.... Good patriots they are!
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 21, 2019 1:33:05 GMT
Let's see how this goes............. A New York judge Friday ordered President Trump to answer questions in a civil suit involving a 2015 incident between protesters and his security guards.State Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez ruled Trump must “appear for a videotaped deposition prior to the trial” under oath, saying his testimony is “indispensable.” The trial involves a group of protesters who say Trump’s security guards assaulted them outside of Trump Tower in 2015. The plaintiffs were demonstrating against Trump’s rhetoric toward Mexican immigrants. The judge rejected arguments from Trump’s camp saying the president’s duties should exempt him from testifying. Gonzalez said Trump may answer questions from the White House “at a time that will accommodate his busy schedule,” and that “there would be no necessity for the president to attend in person, though he could elect to do so.” “The decision is not surprising. It may be newsworthy, but it's not surprising. No one is above the law, including the president of the United States,” Attorney Benjamin Dictor, who's representing the plaintiffs, told NBC News. Dictor added that he wrote to Trump attorney Lawrence Rosen after the ruling requesting he “advise what date, time and location will be made available to appear” to testify. ** thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/462426-trump-ordered-to-appear-for-deposition-in-case-involving-his
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 21, 2019 1:43:09 GMT
The gathering is just the second state dinner held by Trump since he took office. It was more than a year ago, in April 2018, that Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron for the inaugural state visit of his administration.
I know why!! He has to pay all food served in the WH! Corrected the State Dept pay for State dinners with taxpayer $$.
Oh and................ White House counselor Kellyanne Conway declined to answer shouted questions about the absence of her husband, George Conway — a critic of the president — at the dinner.
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lindas
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 26, 2014 5:46:37 GMT
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Post by lindas on Sept 21, 2019 2:33:33 GMT
The gathering is just the second state dinner held by Trump since he took office. It was more than a year ago, in April 2018, that Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron for the inaugural state visit of his administration. I know why!! He has to pay all food served in the WH! Oh and................ White House counselor Kellyanne Conway declined to answer shouted questions about the absence of her husband, George Conway — a critic of the president — at the dinner. State dinners are paid for by the state department with taxpayer money, official dinners are paid for by the president. I seriously doubt the Clintons would have hosted 29 state dinners if he had to pick up the tab.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 21, 2019 2:53:55 GMT
The gathering is just the second state dinner held by Trump since he took office. It was more than a year ago, in April 2018, that Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron for the inaugural state visit of his administration. I know why!! He has to pay all food served in the WH! Oh and................ White House counselor Kellyanne Conway declined to answer shouted questions about the absence of her husband, George Conway — a critic of the president — at the dinner. State dinners are paid for by the state department with taxpayer money, official dinners are paid for by the president. I seriously doubt the Clintons would have hosted 29 state dinners if he had to pick up the tab. Ok, thanks for that..... I will fix my post...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2019 4:51:18 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2019 16:22:42 GMT
trump...
”The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won’t get a very large amount of U.S. money, so they fabricate a.....
”story about me and a perfectly fine and routine conversation I had with the new President of the Ukraine. Nothing was said that was in any way wrong, but Biden’s demand, on the other hand, was a complete and total disaster. The Fake News knows this but doesn’t want to report!”
And how many believe what trump is saying?
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Post by hop2 on Sept 21, 2019 16:47:56 GMT
omg has no one ever had a civics lesson? That’s not how that happens. It is virtually impossible to impeach AND remove Trump & Pence simultaneously. Therefore line of succession does not come into play. It is even more impossible with our current senate our current senate would control the timing of it completely The President appoints a new VP who is then accepted by the senate. Impeach & remove Trump > Pence is President & appoints his VP new VP get senate approval then impeach Pence & replacement is President & appoints a new VP Impeach & remove Pence > Trump appoints a new VP - appointee gets Senate approval then impeach Trump & new approved VP becomes President & appoints another replacement VP The senate & or the POTUS & VP control the timing of the act of removal and there’s NO WAY in hell they’d remove both simultaneously. There’s only one legal way to end up with President Pelosi during Trumps term- Pence & Trump simultaneously have a health crisis that disables them from office. What are the odds of that? I really wish people would stop saying that- that’s NOT how our system works - not how it worked with Nixon either. But Fords position prior to his being appointed & approved as VP leads people to continue to say this ridiculous line of thinking & it just makes them look silly Also, why does this bother me? Why do I even care what random people on the Internet think when they are ignorant about civics?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2019 16:57:28 GMT
omg has no one ever had a civics lesson? That’s not how that happens. It is virtually impossible to impeach AND remove Trump & Pence simultaneously. Therefore line of succession does not come into play. It is even more impossible with our current senate our current senate would control the timing of it completely The President appoints a new VP who is then accepted by the senate. Impeach & remove Trump > Pence is President & appoints his VP new VP get senate approval then impeach Pence & replacement is President & appoints a new VP Impeach & remove Pence > Trump appoints a new VP - appointee gets Senate approval then impeach Trump & new approved VP becomes President & appoints another replacement VP The senate & or the POTUS & VP control the timing of the act of removal and there’s NO WAY in hell they’d remove both simultaneously. There’s only one legal way to end up with President Pelosi during Trumps term- Pence & Trump simultaneously have a health crisis that disables them from office. What are the odds of that? I really wish people would stop saying that- that’s NOT how our system works - not how it worked with Nixon either. But Fords position prior to his being appointed & approved as VP leads people to continue to say this ridiculous line of thinking & it just makes them look silly Also, why does this bother me? Why do I even care what random people on the Internet think when they are ignorant about civics? I don't know the ins and outs of if a POTUS and VPOTUS are brought up on impeachment simultaneously. It's never happened. Then again we've never had a POTUS this blatant about soliciting foreign governments to elect/re-elect him.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2019 19:25:17 GMT
The Hill...
”#BREAKING: Trump Treasury: US deficit surpasses $1 trillion in 11 months hill.cm/gzEvMur”
Remember back when the deficit mattered to Republicans....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2019 20:50:40 GMT
trump...
”Some of the best Economic Numbers our Country has ever experienced are happening right now. This is despite a Crooked and Demented Deep State, and a probably illegal Democrat/Fake News Media Partnership the likes of which the world has never seen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
They numbers continue to be good from Obama’s time in spite of him, not because of him.
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Post by hop2 on Sept 21, 2019 23:43:53 GMT
omg has no one ever had a civics lesson? That’s not how that happens. It is virtually impossible to impeach AND remove Trump & Pence simultaneously. Therefore line of succession does not come into play. It is even more impossible with our current senate our current senate would control the timing of it completely The President appoints a new VP who is then accepted by the senate. Impeach & remove Trump > Pence is President & appoints his VP new VP get senate approval then impeach Pence & replacement is President & appoints a new VP Impeach & remove Pence > Trump appoints a new VP - appointee gets Senate approval then impeach Trump & new approved VP becomes President & appoints another replacement VP The senate & or the POTUS & VP control the timing of the act of removal and there’s NO WAY in hell they’d remove both simultaneously. There’s only one legal way to end up with President Pelosi during Trumps term- Pence & Trump simultaneously have a health crisis that disables them from office. What are the odds of that? I really wish people would stop saying that- that’s NOT how our system works - not how it worked with Nixon either. But Fords position prior to his being appointed & approved as VP leads people to continue to say this ridiculous line of thinking & it just makes them look silly Also, why does this bother me? Why do I even care what random people on the Internet think when they are ignorant about civics? I don't know the ins and outs of if a POTUS and VPOTUS are brought up on impeachment simultaneously. It's never happened. Then again we've never had a POTUS this blatant about soliciting foreign governments to elect/re-elect him. BTW I meant the tweets you posted not you. People tweet this all the time and I’m like ?!? Here I don’t consider it quite a ‘public’ ( though I k ow it’s public ) but I consider it more of a discussion and it doesn’t really bother me here. But rest assured, the Senate completely controls the ‘removal’ process. Without senate removal we know impeachment has no meaning ( other than historical documentation ) ask Clinton. So there’s no way the current senate would allow a simultaneous removal & a Pelosi President. They would explode first. I’m not anti Nancy for president don’t get me wrong. Now if the Senate were to change in 2020 & Trump still win then maybe THAT senate could finagle simultaneous removal. But I still think it won’t be possible for a Democratic President. They can’t control resignation. Trump may live detached from reality but I don’t think Pence does & he’s not going to allow a democratic presidency. Plus the Dems play ‘by the rules’ so they wouldn’t pull a stunt like the Republicans did in North Carolina on 9/11. I sincerely doubt that would happen. We can dream though.
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Post by hop2 on Sept 21, 2019 23:44:58 GMT
trump... ”Some of the best Economic Numbers our Country has ever experienced are happening right now. This is despite a Crooked and Demented Deep State, and a probably illegal Democrat/Fake News Media Partnership the likes of which the world has never seen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” They numbers continue to be good from Obama’s time in spite of him, not because of him. . Which numbers are good? Because manufacturing jobs are DOWN not good.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 22, 2019 3:17:46 GMT
trump... ”Some of the best Economic Numbers our Country has ever experienced are happening right now. This is despite a Crooked and Demented Deep State, and a probably illegal Democrat/Fake News Media Partnership the likes of which the world has never seen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” They numbers continue to be good from Obama’s time in spite of him, not because of him. . Which numbers are good? Because manufacturing jobs are DOWN not good. He has no idea what is true and surely cannot tell it!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 4:20:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 16:36:51 GMT
From the Washington Post.
“Trump’s Ukraine call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility”
“When the July 24 congressional testimony of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III deflated the impeachment hopes of Democrats, President Trump crowed “no collusion” and claimed vindication from accusations that he had conspired with Russia in the 2016 election.
Then, the very next day, Trump allegedly sought to collude with another foreign country in the coming election — pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up what he believed would be damaging information about one of his leading Democratic challengers, former vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the conversation.
The push by Trump and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to influence the newly elected Ukrainian leader reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility — apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast powers of the United States to taint a political foe and confident that no one could hold him back.
“We haven’t seen anything like this in my lifetime,” said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution who graduated from college just before Watergate. “He appears to be daring the rest of the political system to stop him — and if it doesn’t, he’ll go further.”
The effort — which came as the Trump administration was withholding financial and military support from Ukraine to help the small democracy protect itself against Russian aggression — illustrates Trump’s expansive view of executive power and what appears to be a cavalier attitude about legal limits on his conduct.
While Mueller’s investigation did not place Trump directly in the Russian conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and boost Trump’s candidacy, the president was an active participant in the Ukrainian episode, which was brought to light by an intelligence official’s whistleblower complaint.
Trump has said he did nothing improper in his calls with Zelensky or any other foreign leader, and on Saturday he derided Democrats and the media for what he dubbed “the Ukraine Witch Hunt.”
But the scrutiny surrounding the phone call has brought fresh peril to Trump’s presidency and could turbocharge the drive by some House Democrats to open impeachment proceedings.
Democrats’ frustration with their inability to check Trump and hold him accountable for his conduct after nine months in the majority is starting to boil over. Lawmakers for the first time are saying publicly that their caucus looks feckless, and some are fretting that their flimsy oversight and reliance on the courts to eventually rescue them have proved fruitless.
We back off everything,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). “We’ve been very weak.”
House Democrats already are probing whether Trump and Giuliani withheld U.S. assistance to the Ukrainian government until it agreed to investigate possible corruption involving Biden and his son Hunter. But asked whether he or Trump were worried about congressional investigations, Giuliani laughed. “They’re a bunch of headhunters and have lost any credibility,” the president’s lawyer said.
Giuliani said new scrutiny of Trump’s communications with Zelensky is welcome because it draws attention to Biden and his family’s involvement in Ukraine. “The reality is, the more the Democrats press for an investigation of what I did in the Ukraine, I invite it,” Giuliani said. “I’m just doing my job as a poor, simple, little defense lawyer who’s defending his client.”
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, said the president has calculated that there is a political upside to spotlighting Ukraine and a story he believes “would crush Biden if people came to believe it was true.” “If you’re going to be Andrew Jackson, there will be consequences, but he will be called ‘the great disrupter,’ ” Gingrich said, drawing parallels between the seventh president and 45th. “He gets up every morning and thinks, ‘What can I disrupt?’ He’s not going to back off.”
Trump’s sense of himself as above the law has been reinforced throughout his time in office. As detailed in the Mueller report, he received help from a foreign adversary in 2016 without legal consequence. He sought to thwart the Russia investigation and possibly obstruct justice without consequence. Through the government, he has earned profits for his businesses without consequence. He has blocked Congress’s ability to conduct oversight without consequence.
Now he is alleged to have leveraged taxpayer dollars and U.S. military might to extort a foreign government for opposition research on a political opponent, and it is unclear what consequences, if any, he may face.
“We got progressively desensitized,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in the Obama administration. “We’re learning progressively about wrongs, and one part gets absorbed before the next part gets revealed, so for whatever reason the public doesn’t get excited about it. It’s mystifying.”
One explanation is that Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly fallen in line behind Trump, reacting with instinctive nonchalance and blocking efforts to investigate his actions or hold him accountable.
What we’re discovering is that the Constitution is not a mechanism that runs by itself,” Galston said. “Ultimately, we are a government of men and not law. The law has no force without people who are willing to enforce it. The ball is now squarely in the court of the Republican Party, and particularly Senate Republicans. Will they ever be prepared to say enough is enough?”
Legal experts said it is extraordinary that Trump allegedly sought political assistance from a foreign government after a tortured, nearly three-year national conversation about the illegality of doing so. Asked what the president had learned from the Mueller investigation, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said, “Nothing. Zero.”
“I think he thinks it’s perfectly okay,” Akerman said. “This guy has got no scruples whatsoever. I don’t think he would stop for a second.”
Trump said in June that he would accept help with his 2020 reelection campaign from another country, which would be against the law.
“There’s nothing wrong with listening,” he told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. “If somebody called from a country, Norway — ‘We have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”
This past week, in a federal lawsuit in New York to block a subpoena issued by Manhattan prosecutors for his tax returns, Trump’s lawyers argued the sweeping legal theory that the Constitution does not allow for the president to be criminally investigated while in office. While the Justice Department has concluded that a president could not be indicted while in office, it has never suggested that simply investigating one would be off limits.
Trump’s moves in Ukraine are not a tertiary interest. For years, it has been a priority of the United States to boost the effective power of the Ukrainian military to form a bulwark against Russia.
Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a senior national security and diplomatic official in past Republican and Democratic administrations, said Ukraine has been “a major interest of the United States — and if the stories are true, the president cavalierly thrust the national interests aside in favor of his personal political interests.”
“That is clearly wrong and clearly an abuse of power,” added Burns, who is informally advising Biden on foreign policy.
Trump has mocked the media for covering the whistleblower complaint, which he derided Friday as a “partisan” attack. Right-wing media personalities have buoyed Trump amid the onslaught, disparaging the anonymous whistleblower as part of a “deep state” conspiracy to remove the president from office.
“The coup actually is ongoing; it hasn’t stopped,” Rush Limbaugh insisted to his listeners this past week on his radio program, claiming there were “speech police” in the intelligence community.
Matthew G. Whitaker, Trump’s former acting attorney general, said on Fox News Channel, “This is a clear example of someone that’s part of the deep state in the intelligence community taking advantage of this whistleblower procedure and then trying to create this firestorm.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who recently met with Zelensky in Ukraine, said he and other Democrats are frustrated with the pervasive culture of inaction among congressional Republicans.
“If it’s true that the president requested that the president of Ukraine interfere in an American election, we are in really dangerous, brand-new territory,” Murphy said. “That’s absolutely, completely unacceptable in a democracy.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) often declares that “no one is above the law” and has vowed that her party would hold Trump “accountable.”
But she has refused so far to green-light impeachment proceedings — creating tensions with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), among others who favor impeachment — and instead has looked to the courts to counter the White House’s moves to stonewall Congress.
When are we going to get serious about enforcing our subpoenas?” asked a frustrated Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who has pushed for leadership to fine Trump officials who are not compliant with their investigations. “We have to put some teeth into this.”
Some Democrats have gone so far as to suggest that House Democrats’ unwillingness to impeach Trump has only encouraged the president’s lawlessness.
“After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a top-tier Democratic presidential candidate, wrote Friday evening on Twitter. “By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump’s latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.”
Democrats’ vocalization of a sense of helplessness was particularly acute at the end of an embarrassing week that underscored how the Trump administration has been able to run circles around their investigations. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski turned in a defiant performance in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, dodging questions, talking over members and even promoting his own potential Senate bid and book sales.
Two days later, news broke that the administration was refusing to turn over the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump compromised national security with some sort of “promise” to a foreign official. Although the inspector general of the intelligence community deemed the matter credible and of “urgent” concern, the administration blocked the complaint from being shared with Congress.
“As president, he just overwhelms us,” lamented Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a former 2020 presidential candidate. “I mean, you’ve got kids in cages — we’re trying to deal with that. We’ve got the continued mass shootings, and he won’t help us with that. And then you’ve got the urgency of this [oversight]. So, I mean, it’s really just kind of, where do you prioritize your resources and your time?”
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 16:41:02 GMT
You want a functioning democracy w/actual "checks and balances" like we were sold in High School!?!?!?!? Donate and move HEAVEN AND EARTH to flip the Senate and remove the boot lickers.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 16:49:40 GMT
I’m thinking I should change the name of this thread to “How a Reality Show TV Actor corrupted the Federal Government and very few people cared - Part 29”.
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rodeomom
Pearl Clutcher
Refupee # 380 "I don't have to run fast, I just have to run faster than you."
Posts: 3,656
Location: Chickasaw Nation, Oklahoma
Jun 25, 2014 23:34:38 GMT
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Post by rodeomom on Sept 22, 2019 16:58:50 GMT
I’m thinking I should change the name of this thread to “How a Reality Show TV Actor corrupted the Federal Government and very few people cared - Part 29”. I wish you would.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 17:06:52 GMT
Keep in mind. Ukraine is literally fighting for its existence and trump, as President of the United States, is using their need of our help to benefit himself personally.
From the Washington Post..
“Ukrainian leaders feel trapped between warring Washington factions”
“KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian leaders are trapped in the middle of a very Washington firefight, facing mounting pressure from President Trump and his allies to investigate the son of political rival Joe Biden, and are searching for a way to escape.
They could give in to Trump’s demand to open an inquiry into the Ukrainian business dealings of Hunter Biden and risk the anger of Democrats and others for engaging in what those interests would see as interference in the 2020 elections. Or the Ukrainians could defy Trump and face the wrath of a president who had frozen $250 million of crucial military assistance for mysterious reasons before releasing it earlier this month.
Either way, they risk cracking the bipartisan consensus that has firmly supported Ukraine against Russia since 2014, when the Kremlin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and stoked war in Ukraine’s east. If Ukraine becomes associated with one U.S. political party or the other, it could jeopardize ties with its most important security backer.
It’s a diplomatic disaster for our relations with the United States,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, the director of the New Europe Center, a Kiev-based foreign policy think tank. “I don’t know what could be the way out of this story.”
The predicament could come to a head Wednesday, when Trump is to sit down, for the first time, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Zelensky has sought the meeting for months, seeing it as a way to demonstrate U.S. support for a country that is still fighting a war in its east and enduring Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Trump has been reluctant, and he pressed Zelensky about Biden in a July phone conversation that is the subject of an extraordinary intelligence community whistleblower complaint.
In an interview with Ukrainian television station Hromadske that aired on Saturday, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko denied that Trump had pressured Zelensky during the phone call.
“I know what the conversation was about, and I think there was no pressure,” he said. “There was talk, conversations are different, leaders have the right to discuss any problems that exist. This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on a lot of questions, including those requiring serious answers.” Diplomats, politicians and analysts inside and outside Ukraine said Saturday that Ukraine was in a precarious position.
“Really couldn’t get worse” for Kiev, said a senior European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid aggravating the situation
I’m afraid to do even more harm to Ukraine,” said a normally gregarious former policymaker, turning down a request for comment.
Zelensky — who until recently was a comedian with no political experience — will have to tread carefully. A misstep could further inflame the situation in Washington, costing Ukraine its ties either to Republican or Democratic lawmakers. Since Trump has embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin and questioned both NATO and the reasons to support Ukraine, the bipartisan backing for the country in Congress has come to represent the main U.S. security guarantee for Kiev. If that were eroded, Ukraine could be in an especially dangerous position.
“Our vital interest is to ensure and to protect and to strengthen the bipartisan support for Ukraine,” said Danylo Lubkivsky, a former Ukrainian deputy foreign minister. “This is not all about Ukraine. Don’t impose some domestic issues, problems on Ukraine, while Ukraine fights against Russia’s aggression and struggles for its independence and freedom.”
Zelensky is also talking about meeting with Putin as well as with the leaders of France and Germany in the coming weeks to try to hammer out a settlement to the conflict that is in its fifth year. That makes the uproar in Washington especially unsettling, because it weakens Ukraine’s negotiating position.
Zelensky has been more open to Russia than his predecessor, negotiating a major prisoner swap with the Kremlin in addition to suggesting discussions with Putin.
The ultimate beneficiary of all this story is Russia,” said Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a clean-governance organization in Kiev.
Already, some Ukrainians worry that Zelensky may have offered too much to Trump’s team.
“Just stay away from it. It is not our story. There is nothing to gain, there is lots to lose,” said Victoria Voytsitska, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was swept into office in 2014 in a wave of Western-oriented activists who entered politics after the political upheavals that year.
Using an investigation “as a tool to say we’re reopening this to provide a benefit, leverage to a particular candidate, would be a mistake,” she said.
Ukrainian policymakers and analysts worry that their leader is walking into an ambush by meeting Trump on Wednesday. They fear it could set back efforts to improve the rule of law made since the 2014 revolution, which overthrew a deeply corrupt leader.
One irony is that U.S. resources have been poured into Ukraine since its 1991 independence from the Soviet Union to try to foster an independent judiciary, one that could stand up to political pressure — the exact sort of pressure Trump is now applying, Getmanchuk said.
Capitulating “would be a disrespect to all the Americans who gave funds and investment from U.S. taxpayers for 28 years for reforms,” she said. Days after the July phone conversation between Trump and Zelensky, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani followed up with an in-person meeting with Andriy Yermak, a top Zelensky aide, in Madrid, Giuliani said. Giuliani said that he met with Yermak to suggest two matters for investigation and that Yermak indicated the Ukrainians were open to pursuing the investigations. Yermak did not respond to a request for comment.
The first matter concerned allegations that Ukraine’s government colluded with Democrats in 2016 to try to derail Trump’s presidential bid.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the release of a ledger documenting millions of dollars of off-books payments from the former Ukrainian government to Paul Manafort helped lead to Manafort’s ouster as Trump’s campaign chairman. Manafort had been a consultant to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russia-friendly leader who was forced to resign in 2014. Giuliani said that the release of that information was part of a coordinated campaign by the Ukrainian government to help Democrats. He offered no evidence.
Serhiy Leshchenko, the Ukrainian lawmaker who revealed the ledger, says he released the information to try to fight corruption in Ukraine, not intervene in U.S. politics.
The second matter raised by Giuliani involved a probe of the Ukrainian gas tycoon who put Hunter Biden on the board of his company Burisma.
In 2016, then-Vice President Biden demanded the ouster of Ukraine’s top law enforcement official, Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Trump and Giuliani have accused the elder Biden of pushing for Shokin’s dismissal to protect Hunter Biden from an investigation into Burisma. But it is unclear how seriously Shokin was pursuing Burisma at the time he was forced out. Diplomats said at the time that Shokin’s ouster was tied to Western worries about corruption in Ukraine’s justice system. Washington’s concerns were widely shared by Ukraine’s European partners, and they embraced Shokin’s departure.
“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son,” Trump wrote Saturday on Twitter. Biden said Saturday that he had never spoken with his son about his business in Ukraine and accused Trump of “doing this because he knows I will beat him like a drum.”
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Post by hop2 on Sept 22, 2019 17:23:02 GMT
I just can’t anymore
What banana republic have we turned into.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 22, 2019 18:52:06 GMT
Trump admits to discussing Biden in scrutinized talk with Ukrainian leader"No quid pro quo, there was nothing," Trump said the call. "It was a perfect conversation." Sept. 22, 2019, 11:47 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 22, 2019, 1:21 PM EDT By Allan Smith President Donald Trump on Sunday acknowledged that he discussed former Vice President Joe Biden during a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but denied accusations that he is using the power of his office to hurt a major political rival. ** "I'm not looking to hurt Biden or even hold him to it," Trump said on Sunday, adding, "Now me, on the other hand, my conversation with the new president of Ukraine was perfect." ** Speaking to reporters later on Sunday in Texas, Trump said he might provide a copy of the transcript to a "respected source," adding "everyone will say" the conversation between him and Ukraine's president was perfectly fine. ** www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-claims-no-quid-pro-quo-when-he-discussed-biden-n1057376He might provide a transcript..? Sure.... we KNOW they alter transcripts before they are released!! The WH has done it before and will again! (Quick blurb on CNN: Polesi, something about the WH is refusing to release the transcript and we are entering "Grave new chapter of lawlessness".... might need to impeach to get it? NOT sure)
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Deleted
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Mar 29, 2024 6:04:07 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2019 20:21:27 GMT
PolitiFact...
“It’s true: millions in dark money has been spent to tilt courts right”
“After the Supreme Court agreed this term to hear a Second Amendment case brought by an NRA affiliate, several Senate Democrats cried foul.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and four other Democratic senators took the unusual step of filing a friend-of-the-court brief imploring the court’s conservative justices to resist right-wing activist pressure. These groups aim to reshape the judiciary to reflect their undisclosed financiers’ interests, the Democrats argued, on everything from expanding the Second Amendment to weakening unions and eroding voting rights.
To influence the court’s composition, Whitehouse said, a combined $34 million in "dark money" went toward both blocking President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and confirming President Donald Trump’s two Supreme Court picks, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
In a follow-up to the legal brief, Whitehouse in a Sept. 6 Washington Post op-ed described the money as follows:
"One unnamed donor gave $17 million to the (Leonard) Leo-affiliated Judicial Crisis Network to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland and to support Gorsuch; then a donor — perhaps the same one — gave another $17 million to prop up Kavanaugh."
It can be difficult to trace the path of anonymous political spending with precision, and we wanted to know the factual basis for Whitehouse’s claim. The evidence we found about the money’s origins, and where it went, backed it up.
‘A network of interlocking nonprofits’
The Judicial Crisis Network is one of several organizations that comprise an opaque network of politically conservative nonprofit organizations who, under the IRS rules, are not required to disclose their donors. (Liberal groups also spend millions on Supreme Court battles, and which side spends more can be hard to track.)
Whitehouse is correct that the Judicial Crisis Network received two donations from undisclosed backers to the tune of $17 million as the Supreme Court confirmation fights were underway. His office pointed us to an article by the transparency groups MapLight and the Center for Responsive Politics, which linked to the Judicial Crisis Network’s public disclosure documents for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
These documents showed a $17.9 million donation in 2016 followed by a $17.1 million donation the next year. Neither donor was revealed, so it’s possible they are the same person or group. Here’s how the contribution appeared in Judicial Crisis Network’s public disclosure from fiscal year 2017:
The Judicial Crisis Network is among several groups linked to activist Leonard Leo, who has advised President Donald Trump on his judicial picks — and who Whitehouse name-dropped in his op-ed. Leo is the executive vice president of the conservative and libertarian legal association the Federalist Society. But a Washington Post investigation described Leo’s influence in more sweeping terms, referring to him as "the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits," who has "harnessed the nation’s nonprofit system to influence judicial appointments that will shape the nation for decades."
The Judicial Crisis Network and Federalist Society did not respond to our requests for comment.
Tax filings from the time of the Judicial Crisis Network’s creation in 2005 (then called the Judicial Confirmation Network) show it was based out of the home of Ann and Neil Corkery, who the Washington Post described as Leo’s "close allies," and who have served in various capacities at other groups he’s affiliated with. One of those is the Wellspring Committee, which has donated millions to the Judicial Crisis Network.
Both Neil and Ann Corkery have been listed at various times as the president of Wellspring. And according to MapLight, Daniel Casey, a director for Judicial Crisis Network, is the father of Wellspring director Michael Casey.
Like the Judicial Crisis Network, the Wellspring Committee was created under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, which means its donors can remain secret. But such organizations are required to disclose who they make grants to.
Wellspring reported a $14.8 million grant to the Judicial Crisis Network during its 2017 fiscal year. The previous year Wellspring gave the group $23.4 million. According to MapLight, between 2012 and 2015, Wellspring gave the Judicial Crisis Network more than $15 million. (Wellspring dissolved in December 2018.)
Through the work of transparency groups like MapLight and the Center for Responsive Politics, more information has come to light about the relationship between Wellspring and the Judicial Crisis Network.
"While we were able to piece together that Wellspring has been Judicial Crisis Network’s top donor many years, Wellspring is also a ‘dark money’ group so the ultimate source of funding remains hidden," Anna Massoglia of the Center for Responsive Politics told PolitiFact. "Wellspring just adds an extra layer of insulation between Judicial Crisis Network and the donor or donors bankrolling the operation."
Confirmation fights
Whitehouse accurately described the Judicial Crisis Network’s role in the fight over two vacant Supreme Court seats. The group launched a seven-figure advertising campaign days after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died on Feb. 13, 2016. The aim: to block Obama’s eventual nominee to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court.
"Today, the Judicial Crisis Network is launching a ‘Let the People Decide’ advertising campaign," read a statement from the group’s head Carrie Severino. "In this first phase, we want to thank the U.S. Senators who say that the American people should decide who picks the next Supreme Court justice."
The ads applauded Republican senators like Chuck Grassley of Iowa, then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who opposed holding confirmation hearings for Obama’s eventual nominee Judge Merrick Garland — which ultimately led to Scalia’s seat remaining vacant into Trump’s presidency.
According to a Judicial Crisis Network press release that has since been removed from their website, the group spent more than $7 million to block Garland’s nomination. The organization then pledged an additional $10 million to support the confirmation of Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed to the court on April 7, 2017.
After Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing voter, announced his retirement in late June 2018, the Judicial Crisis Network prepared once again to spring into action. With Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh the following month, the group said it would spend at least $10 million on pro-Kavanaugh advertising — the same amount it spent in support of Gorsuch.
Our ruling
Whitehouse said, "One unnamed donor gave $17 million to the Leo-affiliated Judicial Crisis Network to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland and to support Gorsuch; then a donor — perhaps the same one — gave another $17 million to prop up Kavanaugh."
Public disclosure documents show the Judicial Crisis Network received $17.9 million in fiscal year 2016 and $17.1 million the following year. Both came from an undisclosed source during confirmation fights over two vacant Supreme Court seats. (We were unable to determine if it was from a single donor.) Media reports show a number of connections and overlapping interests between the Judicial Crisis Network and the influential conservative activist Leonard Leo.
We rate this True.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 22, 2019 22:01:11 GMT
Public disclosure documents show the Judicial Crisis Network received $17.9 million in fiscal year 2016 and $17.1 million the following year. What great good they could do for people who are hungry, have no housing and need to see a doctor! It is also a great shame that they have no confidence in their candidates that they need to buy their seats!
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Mar 29, 2024 6:04:07 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2019 1:14:29 GMT
trump..
”Just leaving the Great State of Ohio for New York and a few big days at the United Nations. Your Country will be well represented!”
Yea right! More like embarrassed by him yet again...
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 23, 2019 1:33:21 GMT
trump.. ”Just leaving the Great State of Ohio for New York and a few big days at the United Nations. Your Country will be well represented!”Yea right! More like embarrassed by him yet again... NOT that he will even consider attending the Climate Change meeting tomorrow! Um, no, he will host a Religious Persecution meeting sometime or other!
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Sept 23, 2019 2:10:45 GMT
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