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Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Bombshell That Wasn't

Spot on!



Yet, we have this above-the-fold banner headline in today's Washington Post:

"Diplomat acknowledges 'quid pro quo'." Pffffft (short video)!

By way of review (spew alert):

Ludicrosity rules the day.

Meanwhile, Trump is remaking the federal judiciary system.

103 comments:

  1. What possible difference does it make?

    Republican TX Rep. Mike Conaway said: "Asking people to do something in order to get the foreign aid, that’s a relatively common occurrence with all of our foreign aid. You could say all of our foreign aid is quid pro quo,”.

    Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole says they're not concerned about the existence of a quid pro quo and that “It doesn’t matter much anymore”.

    FL Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said: "Is there anything about their conversation that merits throwing out the votes of 63 million people? That's the bottom line,".

    “Even if the Democrats’ fact pattern that they’ve laid out turns out to be 100% correct, it does not matter,” another House Republican reportedly told The Washington Examiner.

    And to top it all off, Mitch McConnell stated: “I can’t imagine a scenario under which President Trump would be removed from office with 67 votes in the Senate".

    So, it just doesn't matter. Trump could machine gun down a bus load of preschoolers, brag about it and promise to do it again, and it just doesn't matter. Trump is the neon god that the GOP has been instructed to bow and pray to, no matter what. As Mitch stated, there is no scenario.

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    1. Sheesh. Get back on your meds. Your comment is so disjointed that it makes no sense.

      Delete
    2. There's really nothing over complicated about the whole impeachment ordeal. It all falls back to this question.

      1) Did our president
      2) call the Ukraine president
      3) to demand info on an electoral opponent which would benefit his own 2020 election chances in exchange for the Ukraine president to receive Congressional appropriated funding
      4) which is in violation of our Constitution and is an impeachable offense?

      Yes or no? It's really a binary question.

      But now the goal post seems to be moving to the concept that if all the evidence and proof says yes, it no longer matters.

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    3. "Get back on your meds." I love it. I'm going to use that.

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    4. If no, Trump is innocent, your predated response to Goose that Trump cannot be a traitor due to the legality of differing from previous administrations validates my argument.

      Trump is innocent and even if not, it doesn't matter.

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    5. Hey Ronny. Quote the Constitutional article it would have violated.

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    6. I see the Sideshow Bob defense is still in play. Trump attempted to commit a crime and failed, so not impeachable!

      The clock ran out. Trump had to send the aid to the Ukraine before the fiscal year ran out, or have to go to Congress to request it again and explain why the first aid package was held up / never sent.

      The other en vogue defense of Trump is the tu quoque "Biden did it too!" Okay, great. Throw both their asses in prison.

      Next?

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    7. Maybe Sleepy Joe shouldn't have funneled $130 million in federal bailout loans to his son's company or allowed him to get paid directly by a Ukrainian company, think?

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    8. ...and all that can't be investigated by Trump, because Sleepy Joe is running for President where he can be even MNORE corrupt? Wow.

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    9. What crime?

      Oh, Pelosi said last weekend on Deface the Nation that they were still looking for it.

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    10. Ed, Article Two, Section Four of the United States Constitution states: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors."

      Of course, bribery would be the kicker here.

      (((Thought Criminal))), " Trump attempted to commit a crime and failed, so not impeachable!"

      Attempted to bribe?

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    11. You Trump haters need to stop snorting MSNBC. The Democrats will not charge him with actual legal crimes like bribery or soliciting foreign influence in campaign, because there is no evidence for that when you understand what the standards of the statutes are.

      This is about muddying up the President and bringing the American People to the conclusion that he abused the power of the presidency.

      Presidential abuse of power is not necessarily against the law (in this case it is not), but that resonates with the American People's innate sense of fairness, so the Dems could succeed in convicting him in the court of public opinion, which could drive the Senate to impeach him. Senate conviction or not, that is always what this game has been about.

      Mitigating against this is the half of the electorate who voted for him with their middle finger. CIA employees and Army officers spying on him, bureaucratic mole rats leaking everything, Intelligence agencies and FBI conspiring "insurance policies" against him all reinforce the perception that our government is corrupt and is controlled by an unelected junta:

      Go with the program, and you can be a successful president. Fight them, and "they got six ways to Sunday to get back at you."

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    12. I don't see it as an issue of hating or not hating Trump. I don't see it as an issue of how many people voted for or against him.

      I see it strictly an issue of if he is guilty or not guilty of using congressional appropriated funds to another country as a bargaining tool to dig up dirt on an opponent to help him get reelected- which is defined by the Constitution as an impeachable offense.

      If he's innocent, the election results and his popularity is irrelevant.

      If however he's guilty, giving him a pass would set a dangerous precedent and he should be removed regardless of how many people voted for him or like or hate him.

      My main point has been that much like if he shot someone down on Time Square in broad daylight, it just doesn't matter.

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    13. RJW - to be impeachable, would a President have to offer a bribe, or recieve one? Or both?

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    14. Thought Criminal, I'm not a Constitutional lawyer but your question seems to be an attempt to dissect the wording of soliciting and extorting intervention by foreign powers in U.S. elections. I don't know how the "did he say he beat his wife" tactic will work out but I do suspect the GOP senate will come up with something to your liking.

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    15. On Biden... I really don't think Trump gives a damn outside the desire to create media buzz, hence the demand that the Ukrainians publicly announce they are investigating Biden, said announcement being more valuable to Trump than an investigation itself.

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    16. Ronald, if President Trump asking Ukraine to "look into it" is the only "dangerous precedent" you can see in all of this, you need to widen your scope.

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    17. SF, the big difference being if the president was after foreign help in rigging an U.S. presidential election, particularly in a way which would strengthened a foreign adversary.

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    18. And "if" frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their little green butts when they jumped.

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    19. RJW - my anti-Trump credentials are unassailable. I want the bastard gone for uttering a stray thought about confiscating guns. My question was honest. Which is the impeachable crime? Offering a bribe or recieving one?

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    20. Recieving a bribe may fall under enoulments... but that seems inapplicable. Offering a bribe seems inapplicable in that it was an equipment transfer, not cash, involved. Not sure that Zelinskiy can profit from military radios. What was he gonna do, have a yard sale?

      No, the Dems have established a quid pro quo was in play. The crime should be that the military aid *did not belong to Trump.* Like all leftists that came before him, Trump was playing with other people's money, in this case money released by Congress for a specific purpose. That purpose was not to get the Ukrainians to malign Joe Biden on TV.

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    21. (TC), I commend your Trump admonishment on gun confiscation. I was amazed to see so many pro 2nd Admin folk who would have taken to the streets with torches and pitchforks had Obama said such to give Trump a pass on it.

      If a person attempts to rob a bank but fails to walk away with any cash, was there a crime? Should the intended robber get a pass on a technicality?

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    22. And "Bribery" is a "High Crime"?
      I asked which article he violated, as you claimed, not which article applies to impeachment.

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    23. It's not if bribery is a high crime but rather "Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, OR other High crimes and Misdemeanors."

      There's no need to refer to any other article. Article 2, section 4 kinda lays it bare.

      If you're asking me if he's violated an article, that's up to the senate to decide if impeached, not me.

      But again, I don't see the GOP senate convicting Trump of bribery or other high crimes no more than they would if he lobbed hand a grenade into a maturity ward on live TV and then bragged about it with a promise to do it again.

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    24. RJW - it's the Sideshow Bob defense. No one's ever received the Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry, after all.

      For me, Trump is the end product of the deterioration of the principles of GOP that really became apparent when they made their party nominee a pro-gay marriage environmentalist nutjob (Romney). Trump is merely the head of the post-Romney residue, a party and voter base that stands for absolutely not a damned thing.

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    25. For the record, the difference between a crime and a high crime, in my opinion, is who committed it. The "high" refers to the station / rank of the criminal, in this case the President.

      I'm sure Republicans will pop the drug test defense out, and claim Trump wasn't high when he committed the crimes under discussion.

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    26. TC,
      The problem with the GOP predates Romney, IMO.

      Also IMO, Trump got elected because he's an outsider and a disrupter.


      Professional politicians have been a plague upon the land for decades.

      Delete
    27. Looking back, I'd say the Tom DeLay era started the down hill legislative ruin of the GOP as he seemed to have a "defeat them" v "work with them" attitude. And of course the Newt impeachment, shall we say, "witch hunt" was polarizing enough.

      And then came the GWB & Bill Frist super-majority that if you remember later admitting to "spent like drunkard sailors" and "lost their way", ultimately burning the economy to the ground.

      And then came the defiant refusal to accept a black president of Mitch McConnell grinding the Senate to a halt. It was however a successful stratagem of blaming Dems for his own sabotage (notice he's doing it again with his "do-nothing-congress while bringing nothing to the floor).

      But the big shift for the GOP came in 2010 with United Citizen v Fed. Nothing's done unless it's donor approved and of course, for the donor. Lobbyist seem to be coming a thing of the past as now it's like more of a phone call from a top donor makes the yea or nay. I'm trying to think back over the past 10 years a single bill from the GOP actually pushed for their constituents. Nothing.

      They seem to be in repeat mode on steroids as we saw with the tax scam when in power and then back to obstruction when they lost the House.

      As for democrats, they've been naive, spineless, and legislatively inept.

      Trump won due to several factors but 1 of the biggest contributors was that Hillary snubbed the working class and Trump conned them.

      Of course, just my opinion.

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    28. AOW and RJW you both make valid observations. For me at the Presidential level it was 2012 that was the spirit-killer. Several of the regulars here (myself included) had banded together to blog against Obama in 2008, here we are 11 years later with Trump basically continuing the foreign and domestic policies of Obama but it's cool now because Trump switched parties. Romney sticks out in my mind because in 2012 the mantra became "set your principles aside and vote for Romney anyway." Wew, that's gravitas and charisma (/sarcasm). I get it, Hillary Clinton had to be denied the White House. Because....

      She would have been Trump while Democrat.

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    29. Hillary lost because she arrogantly assumed she could not lose to someone who was spreading such hatred. Never underestimate the stupidity of the fearful. The press made a big deal of her lack of visits to working class states as they felt 'forgotten.' Boo hoo, the Dems just saved the economy from an incompetent Bush administration and saved the auto industry. The media misled them.

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    30. That's quite a fanciful tale you've spun. The media misled people to help Trump???

      Also, to hold half the nation in such contempt because they are not in lockstep with you is unhealthy.

      Delete
    31. Hillary was a horrible candidate. I still say Biden or Bernie would have beaten Trump.

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    32. SF - Agreed. Clinton was toxic and had a last minute game penalty by way of Comey.

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    33. On the obverse side, any of the 17 GOP candidates in 2016 would have beat Hillary. Trump ain't special. Less than that, actually. The most Hillary-esque Republican won.

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    34. Wasn't Trump the least popular president ever elected?

      Funny thing prior to the 2016 election. I said it at least 100 times and wrote it on countless blogs and such that we had 2 profoundly flawed candidates running which could only logically hand us a profoundly flawed president.

      That seemed to be the consensus, very rarely generating a disagreement. Now, so many that then agreed seem to think the J in Donald J. Trump stands for Jesus, despite him proving over and over and over again to be profoundly flawed.

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    35. 2016 was the apotheosis of our dysfunctional and corrupt political system.

      A healthy system with two principle-based parties would never have produced a candidate Hillary or a candidate Trump.

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    36. SF, I also recall the reference of Trump as the Frankenstein the GOP created.

      His present predicament should realistically only stand to reason.

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    37. I prefer to think of him as a massive incendiary device.

      As I said somewhere else here, he took a flamethrower to the establishment. His inaugural address was a declaration of war, and the establishment took him at his word. He attacked them, and they are attacking back.

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    38. When one takes a flamethrower to the people's house and it implodes in flames, it's hard for me to view that person as the victim.

      He promised to drain the swamp only to contaminate it to an unseen level.

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    39. I've never called President Trump a "victim."

      I have lamented that he declared war, but failed to bring a big enough Army.

      Our corrupt, bloated federal bureaucracy is not "the people's house."

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    40. Correcting the corruption and dysfunction of gov was likely a huge driver of seating Trump. Hillary was seen as corrupt and Dems legislated like a squirrel in the road, not knowing which way to go to avoid the oncoming car. Rs were donor owned with only their interests in mind.

      Problem is, Trump has grown a much larger mafia style government where corruption has no bounds. Each time corruption or negativity is exposed, he creates more dysfunction (overriding military discipline and firing the Navy Secretary as the most recent example) or Twitters something outrageous in order to muddy the water and throw sand in the air.

      As for any hopes of curtailing corruption, the voters were had. But, they knew who he was going in.

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  2. In the meantime Fox News is still harping on Benghazi. But I'm betting Trump will not finish his term. Maybe it's time for the 'second phase' of his annual physical?

    I don't get it. I for one, want to know if he's really a traitor. Why don't you? What has he done for you or this country except further divide us with his hate and racism?

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    1. Goose,
      Get a clue! It is not treason for Trump's foreign policy to differ from the previous Presidents' foreign policies.

      What has he done for you?...

      Unleashed our economy's engine, for one thing. Primarily accomplished by major deregulation.

      The racism charge no longer has any meaning. Overused way too much!

      Delete
    2. Fox News is still harping on Benghazi

      Really? Link, please.

      Delete
    3. Nah, all he has done is given those who need it least a tax break and while many of the largest corporations pay no taxes, get billions in subsidies and send their money to off shore tax havens...average Americans get to pay for it while our infrastructure crumbles and our health care costs rise.

      Unless you're well into six figures, you're kidding yourself. Trump walked into a thriving economy and his deregulation has cost us mostly in the environment. Ask a Virginian about all the new coal jobs while Trump's deregulation allows the poisoning of his waters once again. And the kicker is, this guy would probably vote for him again while his kids hair falls out. We are that stupid.

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    4. Goose,
      We are at an impasse. Continue believing what you will.

      Adiós.

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    5. Using aid paid for by taxpayers to bribe or coerce a foreign entity or government for the purposes of investigating a political opponent is pretty damning.

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    6. "Using aid paid for by taxpayers to bribe or coerce a foreign entity or government for the purposes of investigating a political opponent is pretty damning."

      Like Biden clearly did.

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    7. More hilarious to me, contempt for America-hating leftists like Trump aside, is the seeming belief on Trump's part that Joe Biden is going to somehow make it out of the Democratic primaries.

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    8. Ed Bonderenka said: "Like Biden clearly did."

      No, he did not. Sorry.

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    9. ...for the purposes of investigating a political opponent is pretty damning.

      Yes it is.

      ...for the purposes of curtailing government corruption is NOT damning.

      And if it's BOTH? The Founders had no problem with Representatives profiting from some of their dealings, providing it wasn't strictly "personal" (that the public also profited).

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    10. Joe Biden relates this exchange with the Ukraine government, which he had while his son was on the board of Burisma, which was being investigated by the prosecutor Biden demanded be fired.


      Yes, it was Obama's US policy, which gives the cronyism a patina of legitimacy.

      "And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.

      So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b-tch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."

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  3. I will await the forthcoming - finally - of the IG report... then let us hear bombshell... but I will not hold my breath.
    Apparently the State department drones think they run the show... they will support each other to the death.... Looking forward to this afternoon's GOP retort....
    Apparently the State dept had an entirely different point of view a couple of years ago... Should be fun.

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    1. The IG report (I assume you mean the one on the origins of the "Russia meddled in the election" thing, Comey, Brennan et al) will be released in the Friday afternoon news dump, will be ignored by the media, and will be forgotten in a week or less.

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    2. Monday, December 9, hearing on the 11 as I recall

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    3. Right. The IG may file it on Monday, but the news release will be on Friday afternoon. Regardless of when it is filed the media will ignore it and it will be forgotten within a week, drowned out by a blizzard of Trump impeachment "bombshells."

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    4. I'm not pinning any hopes on the IG report or the other DoJ investigations. Bureaucracies are self-protecting.

      That is why rotten governments fail--the bureaucracies are incapable of critical self-analysis and self-correction.

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  4. It was a quid pro quo in the sense all foreign aid is.

    It was ill-advised and plainly not very smart to specifically mention the Bidens, but there is a scandal swirl around Burisma, and we have been hammering and cajoling Ukraine on political corruption there going back to President Clinton.

    President Trump pressed them for investigations in this environment of us pressing them on that for years. He didn't ask for dirt, he asked them to "look into it." As President, that is within his purview. Burisma is tied up in corruption, and you're going to tell me a President can't bring that up if one of his political opponents are caught up in the dragnet? Preposterous.

    Also, the canard about seeking election interference is also nonsense. Biden is not the nominee yet, and even so, the legal line of reasoning is tenuous at best and a motive must be proven.

    Couple that with the fact that Ukraine got the aid without doing anything with Burisma or the Biden's, and the case falls apart.

    Also, where were all these concerned Ukraine "experts" when Obama responded to Putin's aggression by sending blankets and pillows?



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    1. It's sad the President had to outsource work he couldn't get his own Justice Department to do.
      Investigate Biden. And his former boss.

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    2. Schiff's closing statement bemoaned an administration that would withhold aid to an ally in there struggle against Russia.
      As you pointed out that Obama did.

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    3. Unlike stale cut-and-paste propaganda, comparison to actions of past Presidents provides context and enriches the debate.

      Saying so does not justify President Trump's actions, but its a fair question: Where was the outrage from these good diplomats when Obama allowed Putin to gobble Crimea, and responded by sending blankets and pillows?

      Delete
  5. This Schiff Show is a soap opera designed to appeal to emotion. The fact that the press has to point out the bombshells and explain why they are bombshells reveals the fact that they are actually duds.

    Anyone who had had real bombshells (mortars, rockets) aimed at them and explode near them can tell you you don't need anyone to explain it to you. I have the permanently-ringing ears to prove it.

    Also, the Infotainment Media Complex's adjective overload also gives it away that this is a propaganda job.

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  6. Has anyone else noticed the false dichotomy fallacy being peddled by the Never-Trumper witnesses and dutifully echoed by the Democratic party propaganda arm know as "the press?"

    They are all saying it is a false statement that Ukraine meddled in our elections... because Russia did!

    They can't be that dumb. No one in this impeachment debate is alleging Russia did not attempt to influence our elections, and alleging Ukraine attempts to influence our elections is not negating the former.

    We are being propagandized.

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  7. Replies
    1. Both Taylor and Kent declared that America’s vital national interest is wrapped up in Ukraine, though neither sought to explain why in any substantive way. Spin out all the potential scenarios of Ukraine’s fate and then ask whether any of them would materially affect America’s vital interests. Any affirmative answer would require elaborate contortions.

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    2. "National Interest" is a buzz word. No one knows what that means, which is why our country is in so much trouble. Whoever in the past said that democracy isn't pretty must have been a master of the understatement.

      Delete
  8. I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that we do quid pro quo every time we go to the voting precinct. In exchange for some exhausting list of promises that are never fulfilled, we vote for congress critters and senators, state legislators, and members of the city council. So why is this antiquated latin expression the end all of American politics? But of course, if we must talk about quid pro quo, what about “Tell Vladimir that I’ll get back to him after the election.” I don’t think that ANY thinking American should adore either party—our nation has to be better than this [political parties]. What we should all be pissed off about is the level of corruption and malfeasance in our government—no matter who does it. If we can’t get beyond this, we won’t have a Republic much longer.

    With all that said, I really do not understand how Trump can select and surround himself with so many dolts. I wouldn’t hire Sondland as a janitor much less a UN Ambassador. If he runs his company in the same way he does his job as an ambassador, he must be constantly in the red. And what’s with Giuliani? Fire his ass and hire Trey Gowdy.

    Washington: Clown Central.

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    1. +

      Trump excoriated and blistered the Establishment during his campaign, and his inaugural address was an incendiary bomb that blew out every window of The Establishment. Couple that with is vulgar bombast and mercurial style, and many of the professionals and seasoned pros stayed away. He also blacklisted many who would have otherwise gone to work for him.

      So, he is stuck with an inner circle of amateurs, and they are encircled by professional ratfinks, weasels, political spies, lying leakers, booby trap artists, and firebugs taking every opportunity to sabotage his agenda, sap his foundations, and rat him out to the press and his political enemies in Congress.

      He did declare war on them, and they took him at his word.

      Delete
    2. Trump inherited Sondland.
      As he did a number of people.
      Not a lot of good people want to leave what they built to serve the Republic.

      Delete
    3. Sonderland paid Trump's Inauguration Committee $1M for his Ukraine post.

      Delete
    4. Excuse me, I was wrong. About Sondland.

      Delete

    5. With all that said, I really do not understand how Trump can select and surround himself with so many dolts


      Well, it's either resign in disgust or go to prison for crimes past and present. Trump winnows his administration down to people good at crime? Or more charitably, Trump is the Uber-dolt.

      Delete
  9. Sorry Ed... Trump did not "inherit" Sondland. He's another hotel magnet who, as Goose mentioned paid, as many donors do, for his ambassadorship.

    BTW... there were plenty of people who left what they built to serve the republic. Men like Manafort, Stone, Gates, Flynn and a host of other people convicted of various crimes.

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  10. Peggy Noonan sums up the situation well.

    She concludes...

    So the reasonable guess is Republican senators will call to let the people decide. In a divided country this is the right call. But they should take seriously the idea of censuring him for abuse of power. Mr. Trump would be the first president to be censured since Andrew Jackson, to whom his theorists have always compared him.

    President Trump's crime was doing openly and personally what savvy politicians have always done surreptitiously, and with buffers, cutouts and bagmen.

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    1. Right on. And maybe Peggy's no longer... fit?

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    2. Parson,

      I find partisan cheerleading boring, so I have a stable of honest writers I stay tuned in on as a kind of weather gauge.

      She and Matt Taibbi are two such writers.

      Delete
  11. Franco Aragosta reminds us, today marks the sad anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

    Rumor has it, if Schiff can pull this thing off, Eric Ciaramella will be getting the CIA's prestigious Lee Harvey Oswald Award.

    They have "six ways to Sunday" to award it to him.


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  12. Entertaining Leftists means SPREADING their vile views. Talking with them as though they were reasonable fellow human beings with a point of view that deserves to be heard lends them an aura of credence they do not serve.

    Because Leftists are increasingly dominatng this blog, –– as te ALWAYS do whenever and wherever they are tolerated –– this once beloved corner of the blogosphere place no longer passes the SMELL TEST.

    Hasn't the Lesson of Lisa's Litterbox taught you how foolish it is to do ANYTHNG that might help encourag the Left to amplify its treacherous, calumnious voice?

    The STENCH here has become unbearable

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    1. So you'd rather have a self congratulatory discussion rather than discourse? What's wrong with disagreements if the points are presented in a cogent manner and are factual? Oh....I forgot.

      Delete
    2. @Goose: you’re just now figuring this out?

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    3. @ Goose, it's simply Franco the Exaltalted lecturing on his beloved topic.

      Hate liberals for no other reason than they are liberals.

      That's just Franco, aka FreeThinke. Oh wait,my mistake, there are a lot of Franco's.

      Delete
    4. Les,

      Franco has provided many well-written reasons for why he detests the left. The tirades he unleashes are for dramatic effect, but his reasoning is cogent and based in facts and history, but I suppose all that is foreign to you.

      Delete
    5. Is it?

      Now, circle your wagons. Be sure to be clutching your bibles.

      Delete
    6. Les,

      You are the court jester of non-sequiturs.

      I don't agree with Franco's statement above, but it is plainly and logically stated, if not overblown. AOW has tighter standards that Lisa does, and each blog owner has the right to set those standards.

      Unlike Franco, I enjoy the back and forth with you lefties (when you're actually posting what you think, and not leftwing cartoon canned propaganda), and people like Thought Criminal who provide blistering dissent from the right.

      Delete
    7. Please. Don't make me laugh.

      The fact you refer to me as "court jester of non-sequiturs", refer to me as a "lefty", and implying I don't think for myself places young league with the rest of the rightie rightie trumpers.

      You party, its ideology, (and its president) has become so corrupt and dishonest that is SICKENS me. Sadly the buffoons of the right morphed the party and its once sound agenda into what I'm not exactly sure but it is putrid and it STINKS to the Stratosphere.

      The party I was once a town vice chairman of locally is now now a party I despise and detest.

      BTW, I am not now, nor will I ever be, a democrat. Truth and integrity are not the hallmark of either party. It's just that right now the cons and republicans stink a lit worse than Trump and HIS republican party Silver

      Delete
    8. Welcome to the tribeless! I am a registered Libertarian, a totally ineffectual party, but it allows me in a small way to register my disgust with both parties.

      I dub you "court jester of non-sequiturs" for your "clutching your bibles" comment. I have no idea how that had anything at all to do with the comment thread.

      Delete
    9. I did not expect you would understand Silver. And furthermore, it doesn't matter that it sailed over your head. 🙂 Exactly in the the same way what you doesn't matter. All most people are looking for in political blogistan are echo chambers where they can feel part of the tribe. In other words all they really want is validation of their own hidebound beliefs and acceptance in the choir of their choice.

      You're welcome to it. As is Franco/FreeThinke et all.

      Delete
  13. FT, you can always be irrelevant somewhere else...

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  14. My take away from this excellent post was "ludicosity."

    Forgive me if I quote you.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. I ate to be the one t tell you, but there is no such word s "ludicrosity." Maybe there SHOULD be, but there isn't.

      How do I know?

      Okay, I'll tell you.

      When I was a sophomore in high school seen-hundred years ago, I wrote an essay, and calld it "The Ludicrosity of Smoking."

      Our excellent teacher told me that while the content of my remarks was excellent and very well written, there was NO SUCH WORD as "LUDICROSITY." The correct term is "LUDICROUSNESS."

      If that sounded awkward to me (it DID!) I could use Absurdity, Inanity, Inadvisability, Fallacy, Unsuitability, Foolishness, etc. –– anything but "LUDICROSITY."

      She said that belonged in a class with IRREGARDLESS, HOWSOMEVER, and "They Don't Got No Idea Where They're AT." (:-x

      Delete
    3. Franco,
      Ahem. I am well aware that the word lucrosity is not in the dictionary.

      I look at the matter this way: rules are critically important (I'm usually a stickler for rules, as you know), but there is also a time to break the rules. Therefore, I coined the word. It has more "punch" than the other choices -- although the words inanity and absurdity come close.

      Delete

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