Impeach the MotherF%@KER!

[normiss 798]

NY State Attorney General has secured a court order forcing President Trump to pay $2M in damages after admitting to illegally using the Trump Foundation to help him intervene in the 2016 presidential election and further his own political interests.

 

[kallend 2,026]

16 hours ago, normiss said:

NY State Attorney General has secured a court order forcing President Trump to pay $2M in damages after admitting to illegally using the Trump Foundation to help him intervene in the 2016 presidential election and further his own political interests.

 

Let's be quite clear on this,  Trump admitted misusing money raised by his charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to promote his presidential bid (among other things).

And this, of course is in addition to the $25 Million he had to pay on account of running a fraudulent "university".

Small-time con-men go to prison for far less egregious acts.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

And yet the folks who went absolutely ballistic about the Clinton Foundation's "misdeeds" (none of which were proven true) are...

Silent.

[normiss 798]

There is some amazing and accurate interpretation of what we're seeing.

Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian who uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics. She is the author, most recently, of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.

Her November 6th post is VERY telling of the Republican party. Clearly not the party it once was.

[normiss 798]

Heather, again, sums this up in reality.

I'm stunned.

It's time to subpoena Mick Mulvaney, then promptly arrest him when he refuses.

THAT is how we used to do this.

This is unbelievable - how can ANY and every US citizen not see this?

 

 

November 8, 2019 (Friday)

Today the stories we've been watching for weeks continued to develop. Congress released the transcripts of the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky, and Fiona Hill, formerly Trump's expert on Russia. As the other transcripts have done, these transcripts upped the ante for the Ukraine scandal. The witnesses said they had no doubt that the president was demanding the announcement of an investigation into the Bidens in exchange for release of the military aid to Ukraine. If you or I did that, it would be called extortion.

The two testimonies also clarified the timeline for the Ukraine scandal. It was at a meeting on July 10 with Ukrainian officials that career US officials realized that there was a second team working with the Ukrainians without their knowledge. In that meeting, Ukraine officials were still unaware that their military aid was being held back, and so they were focused on arranging a meeting between Zelensky and Trump to illustrate that the US backed the new Ukraine president. But just as then-National Security Advisor John Bolton said a meeting was possible, Gordon Sondland, the Ambassador to the European Union (remember, Ukraine is not in the European Union) hijacked the discussion and told the attendees that, under the direction of acting Chief of Staff Mike Mulvaney, he had already worked out a deal for a meeting between Trump and Zelensky. Bolton called a quick end to the meeting, and Sondland then met with the Ukrainians to tell them they had to announce an investigation into Biden's son's work in Ukraine. Vindman, who was present (he speaks Ukrainian), was deeply trouble by the reported the conversation. For his part, Bolton told Fiona Hill that he was "not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this."

So now, the Ukraine scandal has an explicit quid pro quo and it reaches into the president's own circle. The obvious person for the House Intelligence Committee to question as it takes over the impeachment investigation is Mick Mulvaney, but, along with most other White House officials, Mulvaney and his own aides have refused to honor subpoenas. John Bolton is also a valuable witness. He has expressed a willingness to testify, but claims he wants clearance from a court first. I'm not sure how to call this one: Bolton is a hardliner who believes in a strong president... but he is clearly furious that he was undermined by amateurs when he was in a key position in our government. Will he testify in the end? My guess is yes, but that and $2 will get you a cup of coffee.

Fiona Hill also got frustrated by Republicans questioning her repeatedly over the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine rather than Russia that attacked the US in 2016. Ukraine was not the country that attacked, she insisted. It was Russia, and Russian leaders were gearing up to do worse in 2020. "You just had the Senate report coming out informing us all yet again, a bipartisan, nonpartisan report from the Senate about the risk that there is to our elections," she said. "If we have people running around chasing rabbit holes because Rudy Giuliani or others have been feeding information to… [the media]… we are not going to be prepared as a country to push back on this again. The Russians thrive on misinformation and disinformation… We’re in peril as a democracy because of other people interfering here…. And if we don’t get our act together, they will continue to make fools of us internationally.” (177)

So the pressure on Trump continues to mount, and he continues to try to resist it by stonewalling.

But what I found most interesting today was two other things: a speech by a federal judge last night and a letter to Trump's personal lawyer from the whistleblower's lawyer. Both complained about Trump's behavior, but rather than the complaints we've heard all along about how cruel or boorish the man is, both of these two condemnations talked about the role of the presidency, and noted that Trump did not measure up to the requirements of the job.

US District Judge Paul Friedman's speech before a group of Washington judges and lawyers laid out Trump's vicious attacks on the judiciary, and concluded: “This is not normal.... And I mean that both in the colloquial sense and in the sense that this kind of personal attack on courts and individual judges violates all recognized democratic norms.”

The lawyer for the whistleblower did something similar in a "cease and desist" letter he wrote to the President's lawyer demanding that Trump stop his attacks on the whistleblower. The lawyer gave Trump a history lesson on other presidents in trying times, quoting Lincoln and JFK, and concluded: "Your client's rhetoric and behavior fall well beneath the dignity of the office."

What I see in these comments is a growing popular recognition that the struggle to hold Trump accountable for lawbreaking is not about party, but rather is about the survival of American democracy.

It's high time.

-----

Once again, you can get these as a newsletter through Substack if you wish (it's free), although I have not yet figured out how to put notes over there. The address is: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

[yobnoc 142]

I watched several hours of the impeachment hearing today, and the biggest things that stuck in my craw were:

Jim Jordan and John Ratcliffe shouting down Bill Taylor for theatrical points

Devin Nunes opening statement of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks

79 different defenses (no clear message) of the president that don't stand up to even the barest scrutiny

The lack of specificity on the part of the Republicans with the sloppy Burisma allegations they were throwing around (The timeline of events does not lend their conspiracy theory any favors)

How unprepared the Republicans seemed when Kent started listing just how many former politicians and even former presidents sat on the board at Burisma

The stunning ability of the witnesses to do in a few short sentences to the entire Burisma smoke screen what Democratic Lawmakers haven't been able to do at all: make it look as stupid and incoherent as it really is.  But this seems to be a hallmark of the Republicans recently: hurl a simple but outrageous allegation - doesn't matter if it's 9 parts false to one part truth - and the damage is done.  No matter how logically sound the defense is, you're still on defense, and you'll never get through to low-information voters with the defense, because they already stopped paying attention.  It's genius, but it's disgusting.

The utter lack of competence of the Republican Counsel.  He didn't know the answers to the questions he was asking.  I haven't even been to law school but I know that a good lawyer doesn't ask a question they don't already know the answer to.

The complete unflappability of the witnesses.  The Republicans did their absolute best to try to paint them as partisan, and they failed miserably in that effort. 

[normiss 798]

With Moscow Mitch sitting on 250 bills and refusing to even consider them, I doubt they have the intestinal fortitude required to actually adhere to the oath they took much less the country they represent.

I expect them to refuse to even act and not remove him from office.

We can only hope that finally, America sees them and the POTUS for what they are actually doing and remove them all from office via elections.

This after only the first day.

 

Also of interest today while POTUS was hosting his Dictator buddy who massacred our allies in the White House, trying to distract from the Impeachment hearings, NoKo was threatening us. Again. About the routing exercises with SoKo, and also about the stalled nuke talks.

[DJL 235]

12 hours ago, yobnoc said:

How unprepared the Republicans seemed when Kent started listing just how many former politicians and even former presidents sat on the board at Burisma

Can you link this? I'd like to see that for a conversation I'm having regarding how relevant it is that he was on it.

[kallend 2,026]

12 hours ago, yobnoc said:

The utter lack of competence of the Republican Counsel.  He didn't know the answers to the questions he was asking.  I haven't even been to law school but I know that a good lawyer doesn't ask a question they don't already know the answer to.

The complete unflappability of the witnesses.  The Republicans did their absolute best to try to paint them as partisan, and they failed miserably in that effort. 

I thought the Republicans did a pretty good job of putting on a Chewbacca defence.

[normiss 798]

So today the Roger Stone jury is deliberating. When he's found guilty, which is all but guaranteed, and sent to prison, can we just build a new Federal prison facility and name it the Trump Presidential Library? He clearly has enough criminals to populate a facility now.

He's got the best numbers. Bigly convictions.

 

[metalslug 36]

On 11/7/2019 at 11:39 AM, normiss said:

I'd call that a successful ping.

If more people knew the 'g' part of that acronym then they probably wouldn't be doing it quite so much... 

[timski 80]

On 11/7/2019 at 6:50 AM, jakee said:

From what I hear though it's really easy to smuggle cell phones into prisons - so he'll be able to butt dial as many reporters as he wants.

This is a whole different version of the butt dialing I know of!!! HAHA. 

[billvon 2,990]

11 hours ago, normiss said:

So today the Roger Stone jury is deliberating. When he's found guilty, which is all but guaranteed, and sent to prison, can we just build a new Federal prison facility and name it the Trump Presidential Library?

Not if Dear Leader comes through.

Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone on Thursday reportedly begged the president to pardon him through a message sent to InfoWars far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as the jury deliberated his fate.

Stone, 68, a former Trump 2016 campaign adviser and longtime Republican operative, reportedly sent a message to Jones asking to be pardoned while being tried in federal court in Washington D.C. over seven charges of lying to Congress about his relationship with WikiLeaks.

"Roger Stone's message is this," Jones said during Thursday's broadcast of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show, "He expected to be convicted. He said, 'Only a miracle can save me now,' that was exact words to me last night and this morning."

"And he said to me, 'Alex, barring a miracle, I appeal to God and I appeal to your listeners for prayer, and I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they're not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected,'" Jones continued. . .

https://www.newsweek.com/roger-stone-reportedly-pleads-trump-through-alex-jones-jury-deliberates-his-fate-please-pardon-1471905

[timski 80]

23 hours ago, normiss said:

 

We can only hope that finally, America sees them and the POTUS for what they are actually doing and remove them all from office via elections.

 

When "we the people" demand term limits, perhaps the tides will begin to turn in our favor. We have a long road ahead and some serious changes to make. 

[normiss 798]

51 minutes ago, metalslug said:

If more people knew the 'g' part of that acronym then they probably wouldn't be doing it quite so much... 

It's an ICMP echo packet, named after the sound sonar makes.

It's not an acronym.

[normiss 798]

19 minutes ago, billvon said:

Not if Dear Leader comes through.

Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone on Thursday reportedly begged the president to pardon him through a message sent to InfoWars far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as the jury deliberated his fate.

Stone, 68, a former Trump 2016 campaign adviser and longtime Republican operative, reportedly sent a message to Jones asking to be pardoned while being tried in federal court in Washington D.C. over seven charges of lying to Congress about his relationship with WikiLeaks.

"Roger Stone's message is this," Jones said during Thursday's broadcast of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show, "He expected to be convicted. He said, 'Only a miracle can save me now,' that was exact words to me last night and this morning."

"And he said to me, 'Alex, barring a miracle, I appeal to God and I appeal to your listeners for prayer, and I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they're not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected,'" Jones continued. . .

https://www.newsweek.com/roger-stone-reportedly-pleads-trump-through-alex-jones-jury-deliberates-his-fate-please-pardon-1471905

The efforts to activate Dictatorship are strong right now.

I never thought I would see what this country is becoming.

 

I should consider learning and becoming fluent in a foreign language.

Trouble is, which one?

[mbohu 77]

1 hour ago, normiss said:

Trouble is, which one?

Russian?

[ryoder 1,590]

1 hour ago, normiss said:

It's an ICMP echo packet, named after the sound sonar makes.

It's not an acronym.

Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.

[normiss 798]

9 hours ago, mbohu said:

Russian?

I was hoping for a choice in the matter though.

[gowlerk 2,190]

12 minutes ago, normiss said:

I was hoping for a choice in the matter though.

Learn Quebecois French and come to Canada. Bilingual people do quite well here and you'll get used to 6 months of winter eventually.

[Remster 30]

27 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Learn Quebecois French and come to Canada. Bilingual people do quite well here and you'll get used to 6 months of winter eventually.

6 month eh? Planning to stay in the South? 

 

[DJL 235]

I'm not sure why they're including Yovanovitch's testimony, she has zero to do with any impeachable issues.  This is filler.

 

[lummy 4]

2 hours ago, DJL said:

I'm not sure why they're including Yovanovitch's testimony, she has zero to do with any impeachable issues.  This is filler.

 

I believe it's to outline a potential abuse of power charge by getting rid of her because she stood in the way of Guiliani's efforts 

[kallend 2,026]

2 hours ago, DJL said:

I'm not sure why they're including Yovanovitch's testimony, she has zero to do with any impeachable issues.  This is filler.

 

Don't want a blockbuster to distract from the Stone verdict, maybe.

[gowlerk 2,190]

3 hours ago, DJL said:

I'm not sure why they're including Yovanovitch's testimony, she has zero to do with any impeachable issues.  This is filler.

 

Trump seems to care. He was tweeting about her during her actual testimony.