Impeach Trump Y/N

you know a thing called "dying" exists, right? xpost

going to bed is another thing that does it, and it's temporary. the whole dying thing is so...fatalistic, you know?

lol I meant Trump wasn't gonna live forever

Okay so here's a thing that's only just now occurring to me for some reason: one whistleblower was so gobsmacked by the president's actions that he/she made a stink and now here we are, inching right astride articles of impeachment. So. The question now poking me in the side is: how many other people in a position similar to that of our whistleblower have held their tongues up 'til now despite severe misgivings but who may, given the evolving climate, feel emboldened to come forth with an absolute avalanche of dirt on Mr. Wonderful?

i have a special batch of popcorn waiting for the revelation that one of the transcripts filed in the Double Secret Server documents MBS offering dirt on Bezos in exchange for a slow-roll on Khashoggi

kay so here's a thing that's only just now occurring to me for some reason: one whistleblower was so gobsmacked by the president's actions that he/she made a stink and now here we are, inching right astride articles of impeachment. So. The question now poking me in the side is: how many other people in a position similar to that of our whistleblower have held their tongues up 'til now despite severe misgivings but who may, given the evolving climate, feel emboldened to come forth with an absolute avalanche of dirt on Mr. Wonderful?

― Steampunk wasn't in my vocapulary 6 days ago. (Old Lunch), Friday, September 27, 2019 10:31 PM

*fart*

farts are *kind* of whistleblowing

Alf, I am both disappointed and tickled by your response. It's a weird feeling, not altogether unpleasant.

Solid, sound fart.

a meh

xpost Remember when he was on some show years ago (sigh ... ) and when asked about how Russia (or whomever) kills people it disagrees with, he more or less sneered "oh, and we don't?"

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, September 27, 2019 6:21 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Trump otm

when asked about how Russia (or whomever) kills people it disagrees with, he more or less sneered "oh, and we don't?"

it's just a variant on the tu quoque argument, put into the service of excusing obvious criminality or immorality. Or to use more modern terminology "both-sides-ism".

it's an ideological barndoor left wide open by a multigenerational rejection by the entire political mainstream of any serious critique of US foreign policy premises or practice which u should continue to expect cynical adventurers to walk thru

“He’s a killer”

“There are a lot of killers. There are a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent?”

the way he embraced it was memorable

kinda semiswiped from The Godfather, which I bet he's seen more often than Citizen Kane

Giving him way too much credit there. Dude’s favorite movie is Bloodsport.

https://i.imgur.com/CBvwrYA.jpg

This was good

This interview was so good. pic.twitter.com/1jrPnr70Ou When the whole clip becomes available I will post it. Timothy Snyder is among the best we have.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) September 28, 2019

Ooh, I like the theory that one reason Trump's people put all those communications in the classified server was to hide them from Mueller and other investigators. Maybe it's a Pandora's black box of misdeeds.

https://newrepublic.com/amp/article/155202/impeachment/

“Whataboutism” could still be a powerful weapon for the Trump side. His criminality is more explicit than the “soft” corruption that had dominated Washington forever, and was more or less enshrined into law by Citizens United. His corruption is far worse because he is clearly soliciting personal favors, using the power of the state as leverage, and trying to cover up evidence of it, but the Dems need to make sure the public sees that.

but the way things have gone wasn’t great either, which puts Dems in a weak position. Trump never coukd have rose in the first place if he couldn’t convincingly make the swamp argument

is there anything in your view that doesn't put the Dems in a weak position

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruaeusy4aOE

I just know pelosi lurks so i want to remind her of things to watch out for

good advice, also Nancy watch out for FlopsyDuck, I just don't think you should trust that poster

Trump never coukd have rose in the first place if he couldn’t convincingly make the swamp argument

I don't think so. He rose on the wings of the birther conspiracy theory.He rose by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. He rose by pinning nasty sarcastic nicknames on his hapless opponents and claiming they would pay for a border wall. He rose by making outlandish promises about delivering health care that was better and cheaper than Obamacare and about winning so much we'd tire of it. He rose by pledging fealty to the evangelicals over abortion and federal judgeships.

"Drain the swamp" was just another empty slogan aimed at voters who hate national politics for a multitude of reasons, both petty and principled, but without ever having to make clear what "drain the swamp" would look like in terms of specific actions.

Damn. claiming Mexico would pay for the wall, not his opponents.

Trump is president because he triggered enough racists to vote for him.

sucks that we have no control over the political landscape and that it would be irrelevant to what is happening to us even if we did. sure hope no one triggers enough racists again

wat

JUST IN: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Pres. Trump's encouragement of a foreign leader to investigate a political rival and his family is a serious problem, according to a new @ABC News/Ipsos poll. https://t.co/RxPL49EOYi pic.twitter.com/68qjjuDyli

— ABC News (@ABC) September 29, 2019

(Does the quick math) Hmm, that pretty much directly reflects his consistent approval/disapproval numbers, doesn't it?

64 percent?

I mean, I like seeing that! But hasn't his personal approval rating hovered perpetually around 40%?

Oh, or you're saying my approval/disapproval ratio analogy was turned around? Well, yeah, OK. Consistently 60/40 against/support is what I meant.

good to know 1 in 3 Americans see no problem with holding back congressionally-approved aid to an ally until they manufacture some dirt on a political rival

1 in 3 americans need to get their shit together

I'd guess that a sizable number of those people don't even understand the question.

An excellent summary of the week.

That doesn’t mean the right won’t find its footing. But its machinery is actually slow and ungainly relative to the whistleblower story, while what the Democrats have working for them is speed. The impeachment inquiry feels like an emergency (because it is one, even if others have come before it and gone unrecognized). And the Democrats’ single-minded sense of urgency is somehow outpacing the hurricane of misinformation the right usually generates to drive American news cycles.

Indeed it is. Man, Giuliani is so fucked!

Giuliani is small potatoes. Trump is the epicenter of the disaster.

Old Lunch, there are also people who understand the question fine, and further know that it's asking "is orange man bad?" And they know their answer needs to be "fuck you, media."

The genuinely interesting poll is probably not possible today, because people know their answers are tribal signifiers. They will answer tribally.

In idle fantasy-land, if I had a time machine, it would be neat to go to 2014 and ask people "Is it bad for a President to enlist foreign help in discrediting his political rivals?"

Even the real-world sport of saying to Trumpites: "if this were a Democrat..." is pointless, because I know the answer: it doesn't matter. Tribals gonna tribe.

I saw this on Melania's plagiarized speech. "Well, when Michelle said it it was false, and when Melania said it it was true." I saw this on the topic of the Taliban Camp David meeting. What if a Democrat President had done this, etc. etc. The Trumper line was, "the comparison is invalid because Obama would have given away the store; Trump would have art-of-the-dealed their turbaned asses into the stone age, etc. etc."

sorry for long excerpt, but this is a fun, handy list of suggestions of who the house impeachment inquiry should talk to, from the nyt editorial board:

But here are a few notable figures — in addition, of course, to the whistle-blower himself — who could prove particularly useful to House investigators.

Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney/fixer. As the point person on the push to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Mr. Giuliani likely knows more about the origins, scope and details of the effort than almost anyone. Some of the more targeted mysteries he could shed light on include: When and from whom did the president first get the idea to pressure Ukraine? How did Mr. Giuliani first become involved? Was he being paid for his work, and if so, by whom?

Mr. Giuliani loudly insists that he was working at the behest of the State Department. In that case, when did he first make contact with department officials? Which officials did he work with and in what capacity? How many people knew about his freelance project for Mr. Trump?

Bill Barr, attorney general. Mr. Barr is neck-deep in this mess. He features prominently not only in the whistle-blower’s complaint but also in the readout of the July 25 call, in which Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky that Mr. Barr, like Mr. Giuliani, would be contacting him about the investigation into Mr. Biden. The Justice Department has denied that Mr. Barr knew anything about this promise. But Mr. Barr should be pressed on why Mr. Trump thought it was proper to offer the services of the American attorney general to help a foreign government investigate his own political opponent.

When the whistle-blower complaint citing him by name was referred to the Justice Department, Mr. Barr should have formally recused himself from any involvement with it. Why didn’t he?

Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff. In July, Mr. Trump directed Mr. Mulvaney to arrange for Ukraine’s military aid to be put on hold. What explanation did he give Mr. Mulvaney? Whom did Mr. Mulvaney contact at the Departments of Defense and State to make that happen? What explanations did he offer them?

Mike Pompeo, secretary of state. Robert Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has already issued a raft of questions that he’d like Mr. Pompeo to address, including: Was Mr. Pompeo concerned that America’s Ukraine policy had been partially outsourced to the president’s personal lawyer? When did Mr. Pompeo first learn of Mr. Giuliani’s work? Did he approve it, and was he aware that State Department officials were involved with it? What explanation was he given for the withholding of aid to Ukraine?

Kurt Volker, former part-time special envoy to Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union. Both men consulted with Mr. Giuliani about his Ukraine project. On July 26, one day after Mr. Trump’s call with Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Volker and Mr. Sondland met with Ukrainian officials and reportedly offered advice on how to “navigate” Mr. Trump’s requests. Did they, as the whistle-blower claims, at some point become concerned about Mr. Giuliani’s work and seek to “contain the damage”? Mr. Volker resigned his post on Friday. Why?

Mike Pence, vice president. In his conversations with Ukrainian officials, including his Sept. 1 meeting with Mr. Zelensky, was there any mention of Mr. Biden or of the delayed military funding package? When asked at a news conference on Sept. 2 if he could assure Ukraine that the two issues were not linked, Mr. Pence ducked the question. Mr. Pence should also explain why Mr. Trump directed him to cancel his plans to attend Mr. Zelensky’s inauguration in May.

Mr. Trump himself has suggested looking into Mr. Pence’s interactions with Ukrainian officials. “And I think you should ask for VP Pence’s conversation, because he had a couple conversations also,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

John Bolton, former national security adviser. Mr. Bolton was forced out of the White House in September. What did he know about Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign? Mr. Bolton is said to have pushed for the withheld military aid to be released. What explanation did he receive for it being withheld?

Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community. Mr. Atkinson reviewed the whistle-blower complaint, deemed it both “urgent” and “credible,” and forwarded it to Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence. After Mr. Maguire declined to pass the complaint along to Congress, as indicated by federal law, Mr. Atkinson chose to alert lawmakers to its existence himself. What explanation did Mr. Maguire give for not forwarding the complaint? How did he respond when Mr. Atkinson informed him that he would be alerting Congress?

Lawmakers will also need to hear from whoever was charged with moving the transcript of Mr. Trump’s July 25 call from the usual computer system to the special server, maintained by the National Security Council, reserved for “classified information of an especially sensitive nature.” Who directed this action? (On Friday, a White House official told CNN that N.S.C. attorneys did so.) Who else knew about it? Did anyone object at the time? Have other such conversations been improperly stashed in the system, as the whistle-blower alleged? (It has been reported that reconstructed transcripts of phone calls Mr. Trump had with the Saudi royal family and with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, were stored on the server as well.) It’s worth remembering that one of the biggest bombshells of the Watergate hearings came from Alexander Butterfield, a relatively obscure administration staffer, who shared what he knew about the White House taping system.

Then there are the “multiple U.S. government officials” whom the whistle-blower cites as his sources — the ones whom Mr. Trump has compared to spies and has implied deserve to be executed for treason.

meanwhile, election season starts to heat up. this year is going to the most insane, unpredictable season of must-see real life yet

Why are so many of the usual suspects in Italy right now? Barr, Pence, Pompeo, iirc Bannon ...

I hear Italy is often rather pleasant in early autumn.

just a fun weekend in italy with the boys

Trump’s been filling his diaper extra hard on Twitter the last half hour or so

ok, wtf is with him calling the phone call "perfect" over and over? this has gone on for days now