Impeachment

[Joe Fan]

Putting myself in the shoes of the sheep awaiting the slaughter, I'd say the swamp is DC. EVERYONE. ...

Most people working in DC are just schlubs. The secretarial pool is from DC high schools (used to be blind women - not kidding). So they are all working stiffs, not involved in the big stuff. The professional class is mostly attorneys working on the GS. So not much corruption there to see either. This is what is so disturbing about McCabe and Ohr and Baker. They were career people, supposed to be above it. It's a very bad look.

The tip top is what we called "political hires." The people in charge of the various agencies and departments. And their immediate assistants. They changed with new admins. The wife of one of my best friends was involved in appropriations - both inside and then outside Govt. I used to quiz her on it, she used to laugh and roll her eyes. I never got a straight answer, and we were close - same home town, liked the same food, music and drink.

 

[Joe Fan]

NATO has kept us out of WWIII. ...

Do you really believe that?

 

[Statalyzer]

It's amazing how short-sighted the modern day Democratic party has become. Obama issued overreaching Executive orders which they cheered but now they are irate that Trump has followed that precedent.

It's always funny to me how the moment the presidency swaps, two huge groups of people instantly swap positions with each other on many issues, and then many people point fingers at the other group for the hypocrisy in making the same switch they themselves just made on the exact same issue.

We know why CNN, msnbc, and all of the others that don’t. They are frauding the American people. But I’m seeing things that are news worthy that’s not being shown on Fox News as well.

Naturally. FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and ABC all believe in the same basic principles, they just don't all follow them in pursuit of the same team's goal.

NATO has been attacked by this Administration, in sync with Russia.
Brexit has been hailed, in sync with Russia.
Russia is against the EU. Trump is as well.

Russia happens to be right on a few things. It would be silly to switch positions on those issues just to follow some sort of "always take the opposite position of Russia" principle.

 

[Joe Fan]

Questions re: Rudy's letter. Is "exigencies" a word?
Shouldn't a writer pick a comma style and stick to it? The Oxford comma. I'm not a grammarian but I vacillate on whether or not to utilize it.

(a) Exigency is a big word in Constitutional law
(b) Of all people, you should stay out of the great comma war

 

[Joe Fan]

Bill Barr appeared on MSNBC. He is saying the right things. But the jury is still out on whether he is going to back it all up with hard action.

"This was very flimsy."

"I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press."​

 

[Joe Fan]

The Dem's Impeachment Resolution declares that Trump

"compromised the national security of the United States" ​

by a 55-day withholding of military aid to Ukraine.

Do you now sleep better knowing that Javelin missiles are flowing uninterrupted into the Donbass?

 

[Joe Fan]

More from Barr -- does he stick with the "spying? claim"

 

[Joe Fan]

More Barr

 

[bystander]

The Dem's Impeachment Resolution declares that Trump

"compromised the national security of the United States" ​

by a 55-day withholding of military aid to Ukraine.

Do you now sleep better knowing that Javelin missiles are flowing uninterrupted into the Donbass?

The Russians hacked our servers. Did Obama compromise our national security through his incompetence?

 

[OUBubba]

(a) Exigency is a big word in Constitutional law
(b) Of all people, you should stay out of the great comma war

I'll take it.

Then he used the wrong tense? Right? "to bring these exigencies circumstances to your attention". Wouldn't it be exigent?

 

[bystander]

This is why Liberalism is the enemy of our country:

Democratic congressman says 'it will not end if the Senate does not convict'

It's all about ruthless, lawless, unconstitutional power mongering. They are despicable people and I will vote Republican next Fall. It's a done deal.

 

[OUBubba]

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Boehner says his party's plan for the president's agenda is to 'kill it, stop it, slow it down."

 

[bystander]

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Boehner says his party's plan for the president's agenda is to 'kill it, stop it, slow it down."

Everybody wants to win. The way it's happening now makes me want to vomit.

 

[HornHuskerDad]

Boehner says his party's plan for the president's agenda is to 'kill it, stop it, slow it down."

And that was a good thing. If fully implemented, Obama's policies would have turned us into the United Socialist States of America.

 

[2003TexasGrad]

This is why Liberalism is the enemy of our country:

Democratic congressman says 'it will not end if the Senate does not convict'

It's all about ruthless, lawless, unconstitutional power mongering. They are despicable people and I will vote Republican next Fall. It's a done deal.

Yep. The Democrats over the last three years have turned me into a 100% Republican. Straight ticket. F it.

 

[2003TexasGrad]

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Boehner says his party's plan for the president's agenda is to 'kill it, stop it, slow it down."

Are you seriously comparing the way Republicans treated Obama to the way Democrats have treated Trump?

 

[OUBubba]

Yep. The Democrats over the last three years have turned me into a 100% Republican. Straight ticket. F it.

I never voted for a Dem President until Obama and now I'm migrating toward a straight ticket Dem.

 

[nashhorn]

Oh Bubba, how hard you try.

 

[OUBubba]

Are you seriously comparing the way Republicans treated Obama to the way Democrats have treated Trump?

No. I also am not going to try to compare this clown to any POTUS before him.

 

[OUBubba]

Oh Bubba, how hard you try.

Thanks for the kind words! God Bless!

 

[nashhorn]

Good thing you’re not cause the economy and employment might stagger you.

 

[nashhorn]

And you’re quite welcome, I like to keep it civil.

 

[bystander]

Yep. The Democrats over the last three years have turned me into a 100% Republican. Straight ticket. F it.

I've said it before; I'm a Democrat but the wave is far Left. The rock stars of the party are political charlatans who buy votes and use hatred as their tool. The pendulum must be weighted to bring things to the middle.

NOTHING Trump has done is extremist in my opinion. He has presided over some unfortunate situations (children at the border) but it was in the context of millions of people ignoring our laws; daring him to enforce them. I believe the situation was either rectified which is a good thing or the Left really doesn't care because they've gone silent. Either way, he is not a nut job like the true Liberal totalitarian socialists (credit to Mr. Deez for the label). To see the obvious Trump haters being used as "legal scholars" to substantiate the impeachment was all I needed to see.

 

[I35]

I never voted for a Dem President until Obama and now I'm migrating toward a straight ticket Dem.

Bubba did you type that with a straight face?

 

[Mr. Deez]

The lethal aid we gave to Ukraine was limited with the armament a few hundred miles from the actual tanks.

I haven't heard any of this. However, it's an improvement over the previous policy. It's a movement away from Russia's preference. Armament can be moved.

The sanctions are a smoke screen AFTER the Ukraine dumpster fire.

That's really weak. We've imposed sanctions multiple times since Trump took office - long before the Ukraine issue came up.

NATO has been attacked by this Administration, in sync with Russia.

Attacked verbally for freeloading, which objectively many of the nations in NATO are. I wouldn't have done it like he did it, and I disapprove of some of his comments. However, we've supported NATO by bolstering it militarily and financially. What we actually did was very much not in sync with Russia.

Brexit has been hailed, in sync with Russia.

You can be pro-Brexit without being pro-Russia. People support Brexit because they're tired of the EU's ********, not because they like Russia.

Russia is against the EU. Trump is as well.

You don't understand why people don't like the EU. It's got nothing to do with Russia. And is he really that strongly against the EU? Because there's a lot he could do to the EU that would actually be favorable to Russia. He hasn't done any of it.

We inexplicably turned on a dime and sold out the Kurds, giving away Syria to the point that we were bombing our own bases and then the Russians moved into them.

I've ripped him in Syria many times. It was bad policy. (Of course, his predecessor's policy was also bad - and Russia-friendly.)

Then there's this: 25 times Trump was soft on Russia - CNNPolitics

Other than Syria, this is petty, agenda-driven ****. It's "he said bad stuff" or "he didn't criticize X fast enough." And it ignores actions. It also disregards context. Should we be tougher on Russia than we are? Personally, I think we should be. However, the idea that we're being relatively soft on them is nonsense.

What would a "soft" policy actually look like? (Or to put it another way, what did I fear that Trump would do?) A soft policy would lift sanctions and might even withdraw from NATO. At a minimum, it would diminish the US strength in Europe and weaken the US commitment to NATO. Specifically, it would reduce our troop levels, weaken our commitment to missile defense, and close US military assets in Europe. It would undermine our relationship with countries likely to be in Putin targets (meaning Eastern Europe). Well, that actually sounds a bit like Obama's policy.

Barry, there is a phony narrative that the political media puts out which is that the Democrats are and have been big Russia hawks. In rhetoric (since 2016), that might be true, but in practice, it is nonsense. That's why you all don't have any credibility when you attack Trump on the issue. When Putin invaded Crimea, we were in the midst of a massive drawdown in Europe. That was the Obama policy. It was very real. I saw it with my own eyes. We were abandoning large Army facilities in places like Schweinfurt, Heidelberg, and Mannheim (in Germany) that had been backbones of the US deterrent to Russian aggression for 60 years. We didn't have a single tank in Europe - literally not one. Yes, we had a nuclear deterrent, but nobody expected us to engage a nuclear war over Crimea, so effectively, we had no deterrent to Russia. They could do whatever they wanted to, and sure enough, they did.

In addition, our response was pathetic. Yeah, we talked some **** and imposed sanctions, but we left the Ukraine defenseless. We slowly reversed the drawdown, but it was pretty tame. We deployed some troops to Poland on a rotational basis, but we didn't increase our permanent presence in Europe and didn't really rebuild our deterrent. Furthermore, we were stand-offish with the Eastern Europeans, whom Obama viewed as retrograde (because they're socially conservative).

In the last few years, we have changed the game. We're increasing troop levels in Europe for the first time in a long time. We haven't reopened everything that closed (and shouldn't), but that installation in Mannheim? It's visible from the Autobahn (A6), and I drove past it today. It is loaded with armored personnel vehicles, tanks, and other equipment. We're deploying large numbers of troops to places like Poland and Bulgaria, and plans are being laid to permanently station troops in Poland. I don't need CNN to tell me what's happening and what to think. They can **** off. I'm here, and I am seeing this with my own eyes. Are you enough of a partisan dumbass to think that Putin likes this? He doesn't. We're not whoring for Vladimir Putin. Wake the hell up. He would happily trade Trump for Hillary Clinton.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Brexit was brought on by active measures from the far right and Russia, who wants the EU to fail.

Brexit was largely supported by working class people, and huge numbers of them were Labour voters (who are not far right), because the EU looks down upon them and doesn't give two squirts of piss about them. Sound familiar?

There is a movement across the globe toward nationalism and authoritarianism. Seems odd.
Who are the despotic leaders (excluding Erdgregron) in the EU?

Do you know how dumb you sound when you say stuff like this? You do know that national leaders are democratically elected and that the true EU power brokers are not, right? They are the actual authoritarians, not the nationalists.

The only thing failing in any of these investigations is that there is an abuse of executive privilege. If Pompeo, Bolton, Mulvaney, etc. were to testify the outcome would be a little more clear.

It's called a subpoena. Anyone who has passed a first year Civil Procedure class in law school knows how to do it. If he was drunk or asleep that day in law school, Adam Schiff can call me. I'll draft the documents for him for free.

 

[Sangre Naranjada]

...that installation in Mannheim? It's visible from the Autobahn (A6), and I drove past it today. It is loaded with armored personnel vehicles, tanks, and other equipment.

But is there a Steamroller? During the Christmas season that is the important question.

 

[2003TexasGrad]

No. I also am not going to try to compare this clown to any POTUS before him.

You clearly have a reading comprehension problem.

 

[bystander]

No. I also am not going to try to compare this clown to any POTUS before him.

We know the Left hated Reagan along with the two George's. To act like Trump is some outlier that reserves him a new wing in the hall of hatred is ridiculous. He has a big mouth. So what? He makes mistakes and we'd all rather he tone it down but the fact in my view is that his big mouth is providing some sort of cover for the usual level of Left-wing hatred.

Trump didn't invent all the problems and don't pretend he's the first President to lie about things.

Obama deported over 3 million people but he did it in a nice way. He pretended to feel their pain. Just like Clinton. If that's what you need then that's your affair. Look at policy. You don't like it. Fair enough. But Trump is doing his job just as he said he would.

 

[Joe Fan]

It will be interesting to watch how all of this plays out.
The reality appears to be that several Senators from both parties have been participating in a money laundering scheme involving US taxpayer money in the form of aid to Ukraine. Probably other countries too, for a long time.
But in this case, some of these same Senators are jurists on a pending impeachment trial of President Trump who is attempting to stop the corrupt financial processes they have been benefiting from.
We live in crazy times.

Ive been thinking about how the Senate will get all of this this done. How can McConnell allow a trial while simultaneously keeping the Senate's own Ukraine graft out of the evidentiary spotlight? If we know anything about them, we know that they will not expose themselves to scrutiny and so we are not going to get a full hearing about what was really happening in Ukraine.

So, today, some Senators signaled that any “trial” will be limited to two weeks. And certain witnesses conveniently cannot be called without majority consent. In short, this whole thing is taking an even more sickening tone, which seemed impossible until this last 2 weeks as Gulini/OAN began exposing all the crap that has been going on there. Ugh. This Senate trial has morphed from the bogus impeachment trial of Trump to ***-covering by the Senate of the Senate (not to mention the State Dept) -- specifically IMF/USAID “foreign aid” corruption/kickbacks involving folks from both parties.

It's a swamp I tell ya.


* ps - one footnote -- I mentioned about that Kerry's son was involved in the Ukraine graft (he is really his stepson, a Heinz). But it looks like he actually took himself out of the deal, so credit to him if this is true.