Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 10:13:25 GMT
Maybe Google the word parody because you obviously don't know what it means or engage your brain when watching a parody to understand that it is indeed a parody.
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Post by Merge on Oct 9, 2019 10:52:26 GMT
That's not what he asked. Biden is on video bragging about getting the investigator in Ukraine fired by withholding aid. Trump asked for help from Ukraine to look into that possible criminal behavior. The fact that he's running for office doesn't excuse him from being investigated. You really need to do far more fact checking before you comment on something that you obviously have very little knowledge of. Please explain how Biden would ask a prosecutor to drop a case that had already been dropped before Biden's son was appointed to the board of Burmisa Holdings. How can anyone ask someone to stop doing something when they're not actually doing in the first place? In fact not only was he not investigating Burisma Holdings he wasn't investigating any corruption charges about anyone. That was the reason he needed to be removed. Shokin was removed from office because HE HIMSELF WAS CORRUPT. The Anti Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the IMF and the EU each wanted him removed. You can look at it in a way that Biden was just the " messenger boy" on behalf of all of them in a way. He just seemed to have more clout with the threat of withholding aid at the time and had nothing to do with his son whatsoever. So please. read a bit more about what actually happened and that goes for Trump and his band of merry men too. I have to say, listening to the bemused folks on BBC News Hour try to make sense of this from the outside is particularly entertaining, in an “OMG I can’t believe this is actually happening” way.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 11:48:59 GMT
NBC News...
“Trump seized on a conspiracy theory called the 'insurance policy.' Now, it's at the center of an impeachment investigation.”
“Just months after Trump’s inauguration, conspiracy theorists pushed a fanciful and unsubstantiated narrative in which the DNC framed Russia for election interference.
An anonymous post from March 2017 on the far-right 4chan message board teased a conspiracy theory that would eventually make its way to the White House.
“Russia could not have been the source of leaked Democrat emails released by Wikileaks,” the post teased, not citing any evidence for the assertion.
The post baselessly insinuated that CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that worked with the Democratic National Committee and had been contracted to investigate a hack of its servers, fabricated a forensics report to frame Russia for election interference. The 4chan post was published three days before then-FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
And that was how it started. That post is the first known written evidence of this unfounded conspiracy theory to exonerate Russia from meddling in the 2016 election, which more than two years later would make its way into the telephone call that may get President Donald Trump impeached. (Federal law enforcement officials have repeatedly made it clear that Russia unquestionably did meddle in the election.)
In the years that followed the original 4chan post, at least three different but related conspiracy theories would warp and combine on the fringes of the internet, eventually coalescing around Ukraine’s supposed role in helping Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Ukraine wasn’t originally part of the theory, but in July, Trump floated CrowdStrike’s name during a call with the president of Ukraine as just one piece of a convoluted conspiracy accusation. That phone call is now at the center of a congressional investigation and impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his power for political gain.
I would like to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … ” Trump said on the call, according to a White House summary. “I guess you have one of your wealthy people. ... The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
To even people who have followed these theories closely, Trump’s call felt detached from any sense of logic.
“It’s a whole new mountain of nonsense,” said Duncan Campbell, a British digital forensics expert who investigated the original claim about CrowdStrike.
This omnibus conspiracy theory has been frequently referred to on far-right blogs, Fox News and recently by the president as the Democrats’ “insurance policy,” a reference to the supposed setup as a way to impeach the president if Trump were to win the election.
Though all the individual theories have been debunked, each has contributed elements that have been cited by the president, as well as his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Beginning months after Trump’s inauguration, conspiracy theorists have pushed this fanciful and unsubstantiated narrative in which the Democratic National Committee framed Russia for its election interference in 2016 and later covered up its false accusation with help from then-Vice President Joe Biden and officials in Ukraine.
In the conspiracy theory, impeachment proceedings recently pursued by House Democrats were always the DNC’s endgame, effectively a cash-out on the “insurance policy.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the “insurance policy” by name in tweets and in remarks on the White House’s South Lawn.
“This is a study of Russia. Why didn’t they invest in the insurance policy? In other words, should Hillary Clinton lose, we’ve got an insurance policy,” Trump said in front of the White House on May 30. “Guess what? What we’re in right now is the insurance policy.”
Although Trump has often brought up various conspiracy theories, there had been little indication that the president had taken aggressive action on them. That changed last month, when the White House released the summary of a call with Ukraine. The subsequent release of a whistleblower complaint further confirmed that the ardently pro-Trump conspiracy theories that have percolated on the far right for years had reached the highest echelons of power — and influenced the decision-making of the president.
NBC News tracked these various threads in an attempt to understand how they evolved and how they eventually reached the president.
CrowdStrike
Campbell, the digital forensics expert, helped debunk the theory that CrowdStrike framed Russia for the DNC in 2018. He analyzed the data and the origin of documents that had been published on a blog two months after the 4chan post, which purported to contain proof that Russia couldn’t have hacked the DNC.
Campbell investigated the claims and found that the documents were fake, with metadata on the files offering proof that they were illegitimate. Campbell also tracked the source of the documents to a 39-year-old British internet troll working under a fake name who had frequently pushed pro-Russian conspiracy theories under various aliases.
But the fake documents proved effective in perpetuating the CrowdStrike theory. The fake documents found their way to a group of former intelligence officials called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity led by William Binney, a whistleblower who used to work at the National Security Agency. Binney pushed the conspiracy theory several times on Fox News and, at the request of Trump, met with then-CIA Director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the theory. Binney has since disavowed the veracity of the documents after viewing the files’ metadata.
Two years later, in June, former Trump adviser Roger Stone revived the debunked CrowdStrike conspiracy theory as part of his defense. Stone has been charged with witness tampering and five counts of making false statements to the special counsel.
One month and 11 days after that, Trump brought up CrowdStrike in a call with Ukraine’s president.
Even after months of investigating the origins of the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, Campbell said he doesn’t believe even the president has a full grasp of what the theory is meant to insinuate.
Campbell also said that CrowdStrike examined many servers as part of its investigation into how the DNC was hacked, whereas the president wondered on the phone with Ukraine’s president if a single server might be in Ukraine. The company also recently clarified that it had taken no servers into its possession as part of its DNC investigation.
Campbell said Trump may have mixed up even another conspiracy theory in a news conference last week, conflating Hillary Clinton’s email server with the DNC servers examined by CrowdStrike.
At Trump’s direction, the State Department has recently reignited a probe to find the contents of a private email server Clinton held when she was secretary of state. When asked by a reporter if he believes some of Clinton’s deleted emails could be in Ukraine, Trump replied, “I think they could be.”
“Trump’s comments seem to me to be incoherent, even in the context of this conspiracy theory,” Campbell said.
Nina Jankowicz, a former advisor to Ukraine’s foreign ministry, also said she was surprised when Trump mentioned CrowdStrike in conjunction with Ukraine.
“I was in Ukraine when the first conspiracies about ‘Ukrainian collusion’ was coming about,” Jankowicz said. “It was all this murky narrative about how maybe the Ukrainians wanted Hillary.”
Jankowicz said that while various conspiracy theories had swirled around Ukraine, none to her knowledge had touched on CrowdStrike. That company was part of a separate conspiracy theory that posited that the location of Clinton emails were hidden as part of a cover-up.
“Never was there any mention in 2016 of the DNC servers being in Ukraine,” said Jankowicz, who is now a fellow at the Wilson Center studying disinformation. “The whole CrowdStrike thing blows my mind.”
Theories collide
Conspiracy theorists were eager to tie CrowdStrike to yet another theory focused on one of the president’s political rivals: Joe Biden.
In March, John Solomon, a conservative opinion contributor to the politics-focused news website The Hill, began to gain traction with conservative media publications for a series of articles insinuating that the Biden family had been involved with a cover-up that included the vice president pressuring Ukraine’s president to fire a prosecutor who wanted to investigate the Biden family’s business connections in the country.
The theory has been widely debunked. While Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, did work with a Ukrainian energy company, an investigation into his business relationships was later closed, and the investigator who was fired was the focus of international pressure due to a lack of corruption enforcement.
But the notion of a Biden-led cover-up dovetailed nicely with what Trump and many conspiracy theorists were working to prove — that Russia hadn’t hacked the election.
While it’s not clear how the CrowdStrike portion of the conspiracy theory reached Trump, outside of Binney’s meeting years before, Giuliani seized on the Ukraine thread publicly, while privately beginning to pursue an investigation.
In April, Masha Yovanovitch, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, was recalled to Washington. Yovanovitch had been mentioned by Solomon in his articles as denigrating Trump to Ukrainian officials, a claim that was echoed on Fox News.
“The idea was to make it look like Ambassador Yovanovich was doing Clinton and Obama’s bidding,” Jankowicz said.
Looking to combine the two theories, online conspiracy theorists began pushing baseless rumors that CrowdStrike’s chief technology officer and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, who is Russian-American, was simultaneously working for Ukraine. There is no evidence to support that claim.
The conspiracy theory about Biden wound up being repeated three times in Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president. The Hill’s columns were later explicitly mentioned in the whistleblower complaint about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine’s president that was released to Congress last week.
The Ukraine element fit particularly well with the “insurance policy” narrative that suggested any attempt to investigate the president was actually part of a Democratic conspiracy.
The phrase refers to a text sent from then-FBI agent Peter Strzok to FBI attorney Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair. Strzok, who was investigating Russia’s interference into the 2016 election for the FBI, was texting with Page about internal debates about how publicized and prioritized the probe, which had not yet been made public, should be.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40,” Strzok wrote in a text, referring to the investigation. Transcripts of 16 months of texts between Strzok and Page were released by the Justice Department in December 2017.
Trump and conservative media have since taken the text to mean Strzok and members of what the president termed the “deep state” at the FBI were part of what he called a “coup” to remove him from office, even before he was elected.
For this conspiracy theory, Jankowicz said, the more anecdotes, the better — even if they don’t make sense when they’re all put together.
“That’s all the proof that any conspiracy theorist needs. Don’t look at the timeline at all. You just need a simple narrative to stick to,” Jankowicz said. “The more complicated you make it, the harder it is to figure out. And sometimes that’s the point.”
The Hill and Fox News
On March 23, Giuliani’s Twitter account hit “like” on a tweet featuring a video clip from Sean Hannity’s Fox News primetime show. In it, frequent guest commentator Joe DiGenova alleged that Ukrainian officials tried to help Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. elections, referring to one of Solomon’s articles in The Hill.
That “like” by Giuliani is the earliest known public evidence of how this conspiracy theory reached the president’s personal lawyer, according to records of Giuliani’s social media activity preserved by NBC News.
Image: Rudy GiulianiRudy Giuliani speaks at an event in Ashraf-3 camp in Manza, Albania, on July 13, 2019.Florion Goga / Reuters file In the six months since the Twitter interaction, Giuliani has tweeted numerous times in reference to the Ukraine theory, including falsely stating in April that “now Ukraine is investigating Hillary campaign and DNC conspiracy with foreign operatives including Ukrainian and others to affect 2016 election.” Ukraine is not investigating the Clinton campaign.
Other members of Trump’s inner circle have also promoted various accusations leveled against Biden that coincided with Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on him. Legitimate concerns about Biden’s son and his business deal with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma have been folded into the conspiracy theory, conflating real-life conflict of interest questions with allegations of a fantastical conspiracy by a global cabal.
On Monday, Giuliani was subpoenaed for his involvement in the White House effort to dig up incriminating evidence on Biden; the article that was mentioned in the Fox News segment ended up as a part of a whistleblower complaint filed against the president; and Solomon’s main source has walked back some of the claims that helped fuel the article that reached Fox News.
The president now faces an impeachment inquiry into whether his attempts to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate the conspiracy theory constitutes an abuse of power and if the president’s staff then tried to cover up the president’s actions.“
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 12:33:51 GMT
You really need to do far more fact checking before you comment on something that you obviously have very little knowledge of. Please explain how Biden would ask a prosecutor to drop a case that had already been dropped before Biden's son was appointed to the board of Burmisa Holdings. How can anyone ask someone to stop doing something when they're not actually doing in the first place? In fact not only was he not investigating Burisma Holdings he wasn't investigating any corruption charges about anyone. That was the reason he needed to be removed. Shokin was removed from office because HE HIMSELF WAS CORRUPT. The Anti Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the IMF and the EU each wanted him removed. You can look at it in a way that Biden was just the " messenger boy" on behalf of all of them in a way. He just seemed to have more clout with the threat of withholding aid at the time and had nothing to do with his son whatsoever. So please. read a bit more about what actually happened and that goes for Trump and his band of merry men too. I have to say, listening to the bemused folks on BBC News Hour try to make sense of this from the outside is particularly entertaining, in an “OMG I can’t believe this is actually happening” way. I think we (general) do find it strange as it's very difficult to see the reasoning for it when there is plenty of evidence out there to double check and refute the allegation that VP Biden had any nafarious intentions. I suppose it comes down to saying the sky is blue and Trump would still insist it was green!
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 12:39:52 GMT
Wonder how the gullible GOP will react when/if a Dem president is investigated and refuses to cooperate cuz "witch hunt!!"
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 12:42:51 GMT
First. Are you Gia? I don’t know, but I would like to believe if Gia decided to come back to the board she would be upfront about it and not a sneak. Second, if trump has nothing to hide, he should be forthcoming and allow the various individuals to testify regardless of how Schiff presented trump’s comments. The important thing for trump is to prove he has done nothing wrong nor does he have anything to hide. But I have to say, I posted part of trump’s transcript on the catch all thread and it does sound like something a mafia boss would say. As to your little rant, careful you are sounding a lot like the nut sitting in the White House with his outbursts. I am lovetherain and the reason I left and came back is personal and does not make me a sneak, no matter who I was before. He can have nothing to hide and still not get a fair hearing as shown by such things as the lies coming from Schiff and the changes made to the policies of whistle blower complaints just to fit this situation, which the ICIG admitted to in its press release on Monday — directly impacted its treatment of the anti-Trump complaint filed in August. You're priceless. I don't know what "lies" from Schiff you're referring to, but how do you feel about the DOCUMENTED lies Trump spouts on a DAILY BASIS!?!?!?!??!?! You're such a hypocrite. www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/false/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/12/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 12:53:21 GMT
I know I shouldn’t, but... You don’t seem to grasp the main point. It’s one thing to investigate Joe Biden and/or his son-through the proper channels. It is quite another thing for a president to ask a foreign government to help him find dirt on a political opponent. He is using the power of his office to help himself. It’s not an ok thing to do. That's not what he asked. Biden is on video bragging about getting the investigator in Ukraine fired by withholding aid. Trump asked for help from Ukraine to look into that possible criminal behavior. The fact that he's running for office doesn't excuse him from being investigated. Do you understand the difference between using the weight and pressure of the United States of America to promote good governments abroad (so that US companies can make billions there w/o excessive corruption) and using the weight and pressure of the United States of America TO PROMOTE YOUR OWN BLOATED SELF-INTEREST?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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Post by Merge on Oct 9, 2019 14:41:17 GMT
Wonder how the gullible GOP will react when/if a Dem president is investigated and refuses to cooperate cuz "witch hunt!!" I do recall the Clinton administration referring to his impeachment as a "right wing conspiracy," but notably, they cooperated with the process.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Oct 9, 2019 18:23:04 GMT
Shokin was removed from office because HE HIMSELF WAS CORRUPT. The Anti Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the IMF and the EU each wanted him removed. You can look at it in a way that Biden was just the " messenger boy" on behalf of all of them in a way. He just seemed to have more clout with the threat of withholding aid at the time and had nothing to do with his son whatsoever. The messenger sent by the United States Senate to the Ukraine! Letter is posted above.. @dottyscrapper I was just adding to your comment, certainly not telling/lecturing you.
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Post by lucyg on Oct 9, 2019 20:28:14 GMT
But it’s okay for Trump to “joke around” by publicly asking hostile nations to interfere in our elections, right? And there was enough just in the phone call summary supplied by the White House to impeach him. “I need a favor from you, though ...” Let alone what gets uncovered by the follow-up investigation, should the WH quit blocking their people from testifying and trying to claim the House doesn’t have the right to impeach him. Four more years of this crap, and we WILL be a dictatorship. Not a fake one like you people tried to pin on Obama, but a real one, where they lock up political opponents and unfriendly journalists. Was Trump claiming to be joking? I don't think he did. Asking for help in uncovering criminal behavior is not an impeachable offense, it's his damn job. And do you think that just because someone is running for office that makes them above the law? We are talking about when he doubled down on his veiled Ukraine threat by asking (on camera, on the WH driveway, last week) for China to also investigate the Bidens. As far as I know, Trump never claimed it was a joke. He was dead serious. His Congressional minions, however, were all over the Sunday talk shows, brushing it off as a joke. In addition, that was also his explanation for inviting Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails during the 2016 election ... it was a “joke.” How many times are Republicans going to excuse his vastly inappropriate statements as jokes or misspeaks or “he didn’t mean what he said” or “he isn’t a politician”? xx There may be circumstances under which it is appropriate for a president to ask for foreign assistance in an investigation. This was not one of them. He is pursuing a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by the fringe right wing, in order to bring down a political opponent he clearly fears. It is never going to be appropriate to make military assistance to an ally that’s been invaded by a larger, hostile nation contingent on the ally fabricating evidence against the president’s political opponent. And may I add, he has never shown the tiniest bit of interest in corruption here under his watch (his own, his family’s, his appointees’, even other elected officials’ ... as long as they support him) or in his selected favorite dictators’ regimes (Russian, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, the Philippines). Only when he thinks he might be able to produce something to bring down Joe Biden ... suddenly he’s all about fighting corruption. xx And of course running for office doesn’t make anyone above the law. It also doesn’t make them the proper victims of hit jobs by people who have no ethics, no morals, no honesty, no boundaries, and no respect for the law or the Constitution. Which is what Trump did to Hillary in 2016 and is trying to do to Biden this time. xx And just so we’re very, very clear on this ... Joe Biden spoke to Ukraine about their corrupt public prosecutor at the request of pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world. He wasn’t trying to get them to quit investigating the state oil company ... he was trying to get them to actually investigate. It did not benefit him, despite what Rudy Giuliani is trying to dig up to please the mob boss and make a few bucks for himself on the side. And now, Syria. Even Republicans are upset about it. I guess Trump Towers Istanbul is more valuable to him than the lives of our loyal allies. National security be damned.
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2019 18:52:04 GMT
Yes, he can. From Politico:"Is it ever appropriate for a U.S. president to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival? Democrats seem to assume the answer is no, that this kind of request could never be proper, given the implications for our electoral system." "History shows that a president sometimes might be justified in asking a foreign country to investigate a political rival, including a former vice president. So, the mere fact of Trump’s request for an investigation into the Bidens, without considering the circumstances of the request, is not enough to impeach him." Did you read the rest of it? Congress must examine Trump's intent. Congress has Volker's testimony and at some point, State will have to turn over Sondland's texts and allow him to testify. Giuliani will eventually have to testify, too. The intent is already pretty clear. Look, this is pointless. I'm done. Yes, I read it. Just because there are caveats doesn't mean your statement "Trump cannot ask a foreign govt to investigate a political rival." is true. That's all I'm saying.
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Just T
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,527
Jun 26, 2014 1:20:09 GMT
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Post by Just T on Oct 18, 2019 19:46:02 GMT
Did you read the rest of it? Congress must examine Trump's intent. Congress has Volker's testimony and at some point, State will have to turn over Sondland's texts and allow him to testify. Giuliani will eventually have to testify, too. The intent is already pretty clear. Look, this is pointless. I'm done. Yes, I read it. Just because there are caveats doesn't mean your statement "Trump cannot ask a foreign govt to investigate a political rival." is true. That's all I'm saying. I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2019 20:40:57 GMT
Yes, I read it. Just because there are caveats doesn't mean your statement "Trump cannot ask a foreign govt to investigate a political rival." is true. That's all I'm saying. I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
Life got extremely busy, so I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. When I did come back, I finished a conversation I was having. Is that really a problem for you?
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Post by lucyg on Oct 18, 2019 20:43:35 GMT
I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
Life got extremely busy, so I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. When I did come back, I finished a conversation I was having. Is that really a problem for you? You didn’t finish your conversation with me. In this thread. It’s okay, whatever works for you.
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Post by dewryce on Oct 18, 2019 22:09:15 GMT
I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
Life got extremely busy, so I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. When I did come back, I finished a conversation I was having. Is that really a problem for you? Now that you have some time perhaps you can comment.
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Just T
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,527
Jun 26, 2014 1:20:09 GMT
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Post by Just T on Oct 18, 2019 22:19:50 GMT
I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
Life got extremely busy, so I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. When I did come back, I finished a conversation I was having. Is that really a problem for you? Nope, it's really not. I just find it interesting that with all the shit going on the past week or so, you came back to respond to an old thread, yet didn't address the shit show that is going on right now. I know you won't, so I am not sure why I even bothered to say anything. Stupid me.
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 0:10:07 GMT
Life got extremely busy, so I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. When I did come back, I finished a conversation I was having. Is that really a problem for you? You didn’t finish your conversation with me. In this thread. It’s okay, whatever works for you. Sorry, that one got missed, I'll go back and look where we were...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 0:27:53 GMT
Was Trump claiming to be joking? I don't think he did. Asking for help in uncovering criminal behavior is not an impeachable offense, it's his damn job. And do you think that just because someone is running for office that makes them above the law? We are talking about when he doubled down on his veiled Ukraine threat by asking (on camera, on the WH driveway, last week) for China to also investigate the Bidens. As far as I know, Trump never claimed it was a joke. He was dead serious. His Congressional minions, however, were all over the Sunday talk shows, brushing it off as a joke. In addition, that was also his explanation for inviting Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails during the 2016 election ... it was a “joke.” How many times are Republicans going to excuse his vastly inappropriate statements as jokes or misspeaks or “he didn’t mean what he said” or “he isn’t a politician”? xx There may be circumstances under which it is appropriate for a president to ask for foreign assistance in an investigation. This was not one of them. He is pursuing a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by the fringe right wing, in order to bring down a political opponent he clearly fears. It is never going to be appropriate to make military assistance to an ally that’s been invaded by a larger, hostile nation contingent on the ally fabricating evidence against the president’s political opponent. And may I add, he has never shown the tiniest bit of interest in corruption here under his watch (his own, his family’s, his appointees’, even other elected officials’ ... as long as they support him) or in his selected favorite dictators’ regimes (Russian, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, the Philippines). Only when he thinks he might be able to produce something to bring down Joe Biden ... suddenly he’s all about fighting corruption. xx And of course running for office doesn’t make anyone above the law. It also doesn’t make them the proper victims of hit jobs by people who have no ethics, no morals, no honesty, no boundaries, and no respect for the law or the Constitution. Which is what Trump did to Hillary in 2016 and is trying to do to Biden this time. xx And just so we’re very, very clear on this ... Joe Biden spoke to Ukraine about their corrupt public prosecutor at the request of pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world. He wasn’t trying to get them to quit investigating the state oil company ... he was trying to get them to actually investigate. It did not benefit him, despite what Rudy Giuliani is trying to dig up to please the mob boss and make a few bucks for himself on the side. And now, Syria. Even Republicans are upset about it. I guess Trump Towers Istanbul is more valuable to him than the lives of our loyal allies. National security be damned. The president of Ukraine said there was no threat from Trump when he was asked to look into matters related to Ukraine and the U.S. election. Mick Mulvaney said what he did was "absolutely appropriate" and that "we (as in the US) do that all the time". It was done in previous administrations, including the ones you backed. We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo. The question -either way- is about whether or not the strings attached are overtly about getting your political opponent. The story from the Democrats started with the accusation that Trump said "specifically" that you will not get your aid unless you investigate Joe Biden. Now that this has shown to be untrue, the media have shifted that accusation to say that it's just as bad for Trump to say "you won't get your aid unless you investigate Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election". Nope not the same thing at all. The US has a legitimate interest in finding out about foreign interference in an election. The Democrats just spent 2 years investigating (with taxpayer dollars) Russian interference in the 2016 election. All while threatening to withhold aid from the US if they didn't help with the investigation. Why is it okay for Democrats, but you think it's impeachable for Trump? That's not rational. The standard has to hold up for both sides, not just the side you hate.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 0:46:03 GMT
We are talking about when he doubled down on his veiled Ukraine threat by asking (on camera, on the WH driveway, last week) for China to also investigate the Bidens. As far as I know, Trump never claimed it was a joke. He was dead serious. His Congressional minions, however, were all over the Sunday talk shows, brushing it off as a joke. In addition, that was also his explanation for inviting Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails during the 2016 election ... it was a “joke.” How many times are Republicans going to excuse his vastly inappropriate statements as jokes or misspeaks or “he didn’t mean what he said” or “he isn’t a politician”? xx There may be circumstances under which it is appropriate for a president to ask for foreign assistance in an investigation. This was not one of them. He is pursuing a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by the fringe right wing, in order to bring down a political opponent he clearly fears. It is never going to be appropriate to make military assistance to an ally that’s been invaded by a larger, hostile nation contingent on the ally fabricating evidence against the president’s political opponent. And may I add, he has never shown the tiniest bit of interest in corruption here under his watch (his own, his family’s, his appointees’, even other elected officials’ ... as long as they support him) or in his selected favorite dictators’ regimes (Russian, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, the Philippines). Only when he thinks he might be able to produce something to bring down Joe Biden ... suddenly he’s all about fighting corruption. xx And of course running for office doesn’t make anyone above the law. It also doesn’t make them the proper victims of hit jobs by people who have no ethics, no morals, no honesty, no boundaries, and no respect for the law or the Constitution. Which is what Trump did to Hillary in 2016 and is trying to do to Biden this time. xx And just so we’re very, very clear on this ... Joe Biden spoke to Ukraine about their corrupt public prosecutor at the request of pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world. He wasn’t trying to get them to quit investigating the state oil company ... he was trying to get them to actually investigate. It did not benefit him, despite what Rudy Giuliani is trying to dig up to please the mob boss and make a few bucks for himself on the side. And now, Syria. Even Republicans are upset about it. I guess Trump Towers Istanbul is more valuable to him than the lives of our loyal allies. National security be damned. We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo. The question -either way- is about whether or not the strings attached are overtly about getting your political opponent. Check your facts LINK
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 2:19:45 GMT
We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo. The question -either way- is about whether or not the strings attached are overtly about getting your political opponent. Check your facts LINKYou think there was no quid pro quo in the letter, after seeing the transcript, do you think there was in Trump's phone call?
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 3:16:44 GMT
You think there was no quid pro quo in the letter, after seeing the transcript, do you think there was in Trump's phone call? I read the letter twice. Where specifically is the “quid pro quo”?
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 4:13:16 GMT
You think there was no quid pro quo in the letter, after seeing the transcript, do you think there was in Trump's phone call? I read the letter twice. Where specifically is the “quid pro quo”? I'm interested to know, do you think there's a quid pro quo in the phone call transcript?
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samantha25
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,890
Jun 27, 2014 19:06:19 GMT
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Post by samantha25 on Oct 19, 2019 4:17:24 GMT
I read the letter twice. Where specifically is the “quid pro quo”? I'm interested to know, do you think there's a quid pro quo in the phone call transcript? Yes. Interesting that the actual call transcript was not released... just a summary. Would like to see what was really said.
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 4:25:58 GMT
I read the letter twice. Where specifically is the “quid pro quo”? I'm interested to know, do you think there's a quid pro quo in the phone call transcript? “We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo.”Apparently you do. I’m just asking where specifically it is in the letter.
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Post by elaine on Oct 19, 2019 4:42:17 GMT
Even if it was specifically and explicitly asked somewhere- which I have not seen evidence there of: Is asking a country to cooperate with an ongoing investigation - not demanding that they come out “for” or “against” anyone, but simply answer questions and turn over requested documents - the same as asking a country to “dig up dirt” on a political candidate?
If all the evidence in possession of the Ukraine administration pointed to Trump’s innocence/“no collusion” how would that be quid pro quo in the same sense as demanding the Ukraine provide negative evidence against Biden?
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Oct 19, 2019 15:14:56 GMT
The Senators were asking for the benefit of the USA!
trump asked for his personal political benefit!
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Oct 19, 2019 17:07:22 GMT
Yes, I read it. Just because there are caveats doesn't mean your statement "Trump cannot ask a foreign govt to investigate a political rival." is true. That's all I'm saying. I just love that you chose to comment on this thread and bring it back up to the top when it hadn't been commented on in days, but are strangely silent on the threads that about all the other shit Trump has pulled/done in the last week. SMH
Classic GIA. I noted the same thing on another thread. It’s almost as if she’s active for a week, then disappears for about 10 days or so, then comes back. It was exactly the same schedule as Gia . And the only echo chamber is lovetherain/Gia just like she was when she posted under that and mytnice. Gia’s changed ID’s several times.
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Post by verdepea on Oct 19, 2019 18:29:55 GMT
As someone who has only been partially engaged on this board, I repeatedly get the impression GIA, et al. is a bot.
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 11:09:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2019 21:18:01 GMT
I'm interested to know, do you think there's a quid pro quo in the phone call transcript? “We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo.”Apparently you do. I’m just asking where specifically it is in the letter. I do not think there is a quid pro quo in the phone call transcript, do you?
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Post by lucyg on Oct 19, 2019 21:21:34 GMT
We are talking about when he doubled down on his veiled Ukraine threat by asking (on camera, on the WH driveway, last week) for China to also investigate the Bidens. As far as I know, Trump never claimed it was a joke. He was dead serious. His Congressional minions, however, were all over the Sunday talk shows, brushing it off as a joke. In addition, that was also his explanation for inviting Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails during the 2016 election ... it was a “joke.” How many times are Republicans going to excuse his vastly inappropriate statements as jokes or misspeaks or “he didn’t mean what he said” or “he isn’t a politician”? xx There may be circumstances under which it is appropriate for a president to ask for foreign assistance in an investigation. This was not one of them. He is pursuing a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by the fringe right wing, in order to bring down a political opponent he clearly fears. It is never going to be appropriate to make military assistance to an ally that’s been invaded by a larger, hostile nation contingent on the ally fabricating evidence against the president’s political opponent. And may I add, he has never shown the tiniest bit of interest in corruption here under his watch (his own, his family’s, his appointees’, even other elected officials’ ... as long as they support him) or in his selected favorite dictators’ regimes (Russian, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, the Philippines). Only when he thinks he might be able to produce something to bring down Joe Biden ... suddenly he’s all about fighting corruption. xx And of course running for office doesn’t make anyone above the law. It also doesn’t make them the proper victims of hit jobs by people who have no ethics, no morals, no honesty, no boundaries, and no respect for the law or the Constitution. Which is what Trump did to Hillary in 2016 and is trying to do to Biden this time. xx And just so we’re very, very clear on this ... Joe Biden spoke to Ukraine about their corrupt public prosecutor at the request of pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world. He wasn’t trying to get them to quit investigating the state oil company ... he was trying to get them to actually investigate. It did not benefit him, despite what Rudy Giuliani is trying to dig up to please the mob boss and make a few bucks for himself on the side. And now, Syria. Even Republicans are upset about it. I guess Trump Towers Istanbul is more valuable to him than the lives of our loyal allies. National security be damned. The president of Ukraine said there was no threat from Trump when he was asked to look into matters related to Ukraine and the U.S. election. You were thinking the guy who just finally collected hundreds of millions of dollars from Trump, and probably is hoping for more later on, would publicly accuse him?Mick Mulvaney said what he did was "absolutely appropriate" and that "we (as in the US) do that all the time". It was done in previous administrations, including the ones you backed. You might want to review the public response to these Mulvaney statements by just about everyone, including congressional Republicans, before taking this stance. Again, it is likely we might ask for specific actions/behaviors when awarding funds. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to ask for fake criminal investigations based on nothing but fringe conspiracy theories, that are intended purely to benefit the president’s political ambitions. None of these accusations have been substantiated, the Ukrainians have investigated and cleared Biden, but Trump & co. are still demanding cooked-up charges.We now know that 3 Democrat senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine, just last year, saying we want to withhold your aid unless you're willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation. That's an actual quid pro quo. The question -either way- is about whether or not the strings attached are overtly about getting your political opponent. Nope, these two things are not the same at all. I know you don’t want to give up on this Trump-as-hero scenario, but you aren’t going to win this one. Congress and the president aren’t equivalent, the “investigations” weren’t equivalent, the “threats” weren’t equivalent.The story from the Democrats started with the accusation that Trump said "specifically" that you will not get your aid unless you investigate Joe Biden. Now that this has shown to be untrue, the media have shifted that accusation to say that it's just as bad for Trump to say "you won't get your aid unless you investigate Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election". Nope not the same thing at all. I think you’re getting your talking points from right-wing media. I never heard Democrats say either of those things. Perhaps someone did and I missed it, but that doesn’t make it the Democratic “party line.” The reporting I saw was based on the whistle-blower complaint and the call summary released by the White House.The US has a legitimate interest in finding out about foreign interference in an election. The Democrats just spent 2 years investigating (with taxpayer dollars) Russian interference in the 2016 election. All while threatening to withhold aid from the US if they didn't help with the investigation. Why is it okay for Democrats, but you think it's impeachable for Trump? That's not rational. The standard has to hold up for both sides, not just the side you hate. Pretty much everything in this paragraph is overheated right-wing rhetoric. Sentence 1, yes, correct ... but once it’s been investigated, you don’t need to threaten to withhold promised military aid until you get the final result you wanted. Sentence 2, of course the Justice Department (not the Democrats, try to keep in mind how the investigation actually started) investigated a case with lots of evidence. Surprised? The taxpayer dollars were mostly made up by seizing Paul Manafort’s ill-gotten gains, though, so there’s that. Wish I could say the same for the 9 or 14 or whatever it was Benghazi investigations the Republicans (yes, the Republicans, actually) conducted. Sentences 3-6, we’ve been through this already. Trump was trying to extort Ukraine in order to fabricate dirt on his political opponent. The law says you don’t have to explicitly demand the quid pro quo to have committed a crime ... the implication is enough. That is unquestionably what Trump did. Mick Mulvaney said so. He also said everyone does it. No, no, they don’t. I guess that’s what criminals always think ... everyone does it, so I might as well, too. The Democrats did not extort anyone, were not trying to enrich themselves, and were asking for cooperation with a legitimate, existing investigation by the U.S. Justice department. And I’d just like to repeat this paragraph from my PP since you chose to ignore it the first time: And also ... Kurds are dying at the hands of the Turks right now. Thanks to the irresponsible actions of our incompetent and self-dealing president. But you’re still blaming the Democrats for being hypocrites, because that’s what’s most important, isn’t it?
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