by Jack
There are many dark and mysterious forces in play in Washington (which is why some call it the deep swamp) and it’s always been that way to some degree.
You know the old saying about power, right? Yeah, it takes a toll on ethics, no question about it.
So it came to be that virtually every president has had their scandals thanks to their power, whether those scandals went public or not is another thing. In the old days it was fairly easy to contain rumors, lies and scandals, but that is no longer true.
Skipping right along, that brings us to President Trump, the imposter in the White House, as Nancy Pelosi calls him. And that’s among the more mild insults. Warranted or NOT…. no president has been more hated and more verbally abused than Trump and of course he’s done a fair amount of abusing others too! As hated as Lincoln was by the South, the insults directed at Trump have got Abe beat by a country mile.
You know all the old scandals involving Trump, they are many and they go back decades, sex scandals, bankruptcies, mob stories, etc. So, what are we to think about Trump now as president? Is everything said about Trump by democrats a lie? Is every scandal covered by the medial – fake news? Is every scandal involving Trump long before he ran for president… false?
The score card is mixed. There have clearly been dirty dealings on both sides of the political isle for and against Trump. I would be dishonest if I said I thought Trump was a nice guy who has been victimized by the media and democrats. The evidence say he’s not a nice guy…read some of the old lawsuits, very enlightening. They tell a sordid story that is not flattering to his legacy.
Okay, so how will history write this one? It may take another 50 years to really sort out what was and what wasn’t true. I’ve followed the Trump saga fairly close and I have to say, I’m confused and conflicted. Trump is neither a good guy nor is he some kind of traitor, as dems would have us believe.
He’s made good moves as president and some bad one’s. Most of the bad moves involve Trump never knowing when to shut his mouth or how to use diplomacy to further his agenda. He’s not an imposter – but, he is an amateur.
Of course, the stock market has certainly done well under his administration with all the rollbacks in anti-free market capitalism regs and rules. His tax policy was pretty good too, but his spending has pushed us far into the red…that’s bad, real bad! He’s fired over 8000 VA employees and he has made some progress in fixing this dysfunctional institution. The China trade war was gutsy, to say the least. Most people would say this was one of his better fights. But, for all the good he’s done he keeps undermining it with his egotistical behavior that falls way short of being presidential.
So where am I on this impeachment business? In short, I still don’t think he did anything bad enough to be kicked out of office. I believe there was an attempt to use his influence, but to what purpose? Trumps explanation is fairly reasonable. I know the dems don’t think so, but unless they have more on Trump than this so-called Quid Pro Quo scandal, I think they are going to lose…. again. And the more they lose and continue to overturn an election, the worse they look. The dems look bad right now, but if they fail to make their case on this one the damage is going to devastating and long lasting.
Boom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZYCiXshjxk&feature=emb_logo
https://twitter.com/prayingmedic/status/1197234672406646784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1197234672406646784&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheferalirishman.blogspot.com%2F2019%2F11%2Fwell-now-isnt-this-interaction-bit.html
Jordan’s argument is terrible. A threat can be a quid pro quo even if the threat wasn’t followed up on. Every witness has said that Trump made meetings and aid conditional on announcements of investigations. We know for a fact that aid was held up until the whistleblower report was sent to Congress. Jordan’s argument that Trump was simply “dealing with corruption” is also ludicrous given that Trump asked for no general anti-corruption measures, only announcements of investigations that would directly affect his campaign.
But Jordan is very good at ignoring crimes that are taking place right under his nose.
Turner sounds like he’s defending a mob boss. Trump did not have to give an official directive here, because again, everyone understood what he wanted. Giuliani was working on this campaign to pressure Ukraine for months. The non-transcript transcript shows Trump tying aid to the “favor” of these investigations. To continue pretending that there was no quid pro quo here is ludicrous.
It’s not Trump who got caught; Democrats got caught: Rep. Nunes:
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6107082492001/#sp=show-clips
Ps. IG Horowitz’s report will be out Dec. 9th and testify before Senate hearing Dec. 11th.
Hi Peggy, I think I’ve asked you this before, but regarding Nunes’ repeated claim that Schiff tried to obtain nude photos of Trump from Russian pranksters–is he talking about the incident that Schiff immediately reported to the FBI? You know, that thing that no one in the Trump campaign did when they were approached by foreign government operatives claiming they had dirt on Hillary?
As for the allegations regarding Chalupa, they have been fact-checked and found wanting:
Nunes: There were “anti-Trump efforts by DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.”
This is misleading.
Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American consultant for the Democratic National Committee, looked for compromising information about former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and revealed some findings to Ukrainian embassy officials and the DNC, according to Politico.
We found no evidence that the DNC authorized Chalupa’s research or worked directly with Ukraine’s government.
RELATED FACT-CHECK: Fact-checking what Chalupa and the DNC did in Ukraine
Chalupa said she took it upon herself to research Manafort’s connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who fled Ukraine amid protests. As Trump’s campaign surged, she started researching Trump’s ties to Russia, too.
Chalupa shared some rumors and findings with officials from the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to the Politico report.
But Chalupa took issue with the Politico article. She told CNN she was not an opposition researcher and that the DNC never asked her to seek dirt from Ukraine.
Kenneth Vogel, one of the reporters behind the Politico story, clarified on Twitter that the “DNC consultant was not repping DNC” in her communications with Ukrainians.
Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the DNC, told PolitiFact that Chalupa was a part-time consultant hired to help the DNC “engage in outreach to American ethnic communities.”
“The DNC’s contract with Chalupa permitted her to have other clients and/or engage in activities not on behalf of the DNC, which she presumably did,” Watson said.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/nov/20/fact-checking-gordon-sondland-impeachment-hearing-/
Fair article, Jack.
Marketing genius!!!
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/471539-trump-campaign-releases-bull-schiff-t-shirts
Well, yes, the Trump campaign is very good at selling stupid things to stupid people. But that doesn’t take a genius.
Jealous much?
Jealous of what?
[Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura] Cooper said there were only two ways for the administration to legally withhold aid from Ukraine, both of which would have required notifying Congress. Neither of those avenues was pursued, she said. She also testified that the Pentagon did review corruption in Ukraine, and certified there wasn’t any reason to withhold military assistance. The president still appeared to intervene after that certification. https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/trump-impeachment-hearing-coverage-laura-cooper-david-hale-testimony-live-stream-2019-11-20/ One of the defenses on the right has been that the president has the right to conduct foreign policy. But there are still processes the president must use; he could have vetoed the bill that Congress passed authorizing the aid, but he did not, nor did he notify Congress of his decision to withhold it. This is not legal, and is in fact a violation of our system of checks and balances. It also wasn’t even “foreign policy” the president was pursuing, but his own political interests. No one here has been able to explain why, if the president was genuinely concerned with corruption in Ukraine, his only demands for the region were investigations that would politically benefit himself. That’s because there is no explanation other than corruption.
I have only one comment. “But there are still processes the president must use” and so on.
This is a perfect example of how people on the left are so mindlessly clueless and ignorant in their zeal to bring down Trump.
So your position is that the president can sign a bill passed by Congress authorizing aid, and then choose to withhold the aid anyway without notifying Congress, all so he can get a political favor from another country?
On what are you basing this position?
What was it timeline wise, two weeks?
Big withhold.
This has been done before and would be especially wise since the US had knowledge that the Ukranian gov’t had been corrupt. Why give American taxpayer funds to criminals who are not our allies!?!
American Thinker:
Read the article. Dems are desperate to cover for their own malfeasance and corruption.
[Pie here: OH MY, aid was withheld for 55 days! Like that made a huge difference. Obama refused to deliver any military aid during his entire tenure. Trump did deliver that and economic aid. The bastard!]
Aid was withheld for 55 days. The claim that Ukraine did not know that aid was being withheld is nonsense, and has already been disproven. And the claim that Obama said “he would have more “flexibility” to weaken missile defense and otherwise weaken U.S. resistance to Russian ambitions and aggressions…” is simply a lie; that is not at all what his remarks to Medved referred to, and he was obviously not asking for any kind of political favor when he made those remarks. The American Thinker is a fake news site, and if I recall I have debunked just about every article from it you have ever cited in reply to me. Why, oh why, would you keep trying to use it on me?
Again, two different sets of laws and requirements for Trump and Obama.
Under Obama, Democrat Witness Fiona Hill Argued Against Lethal Aid For Ukraine:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/21/under-obama-democrat-witness-fiona-hill-argued-against-lethal-aid-for-ukraine/
Trump Gave Ukraine What Obama Withheld:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in early 2014 was the direct result of Obama’s promised flexibility. The Obama-Biden administration effectively did nothing in response. That didn’t jeopardize U.S. national security? As the Washington Examiner reported:
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin escalated support to separatists in eastern Ukraine that resided in areas with a majority of ethnic Russians. Reserve officers in the Russian military, who also had ties to the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU, commanded the rebels in attacks. By June 2014, the Ukrainian military said that Russia had massed more than 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s border and deployed about 7,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers inside Ukraine.
Again, the Obama-Biden administration did nothing in response, in fact less than nothing as it denied lethal aid Ukraine was begging for. In 2017, Trump announced plans to reverse the policy of the Obama administration, which stood by silently when Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea and attacked Ukraine, and sell the Ukrainians lethal defensive weaponry, including anti-tank missiles designed to destroy Putin’s Russian tanks in the hands of separatist rebels:”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/trump_gave_ukraine_what_obama_withheld.html
Obama approves $75 million in nonlethal aid to Ukraine:
“The United States will provide Ukrainian forces fighting Russia-backed separatists $75 million in nonlethal equipment, including small reconnaissance drones, radios and military ambulances, a senior administration official said.
President Obama has also approved the transfer of 30 armored Humvees and up to 200 unarmored Humvees under a separate authority, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity.
“We have said from the outset of the crisis in Ukraine that the United States supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the official said. “We have been working together with our European and other international partners to achieve a diplomatic solution to this crisis.”
https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-us-ukraine-aid-20150311-story.html
Why are you pretending to not understand the difference between policy disagreements, and trading policies for political favors?
The issue is not whether or not Obama gave aid. There is no evidence that his decisions were based on political favors from Russia. There is overwhelming evidence that Trump asked for a political favor from Ukraine in exchange for political favors. That’s the abuse of power. Stop ignoring it.
“There is overwhelming evidence that Trump asked for a political favor from Ukraine in exchange for political favors”
No there isn’t.
We are witnessing a side show of gossip and hearsay.
[Pie here: Just like all of the “witnesses” at the impeachment hearings: Speculation, opinion, interpretation and hearsay and not an ounce of first hand knowledge of White House communications. Typical Rat.]
The “transcript” the president released (which straight up says it is not a transcript) shows Trump asking for the “favor” of politically-motivated investigations right after talking about aid. Every single witness who has testified so far has described the campaign to tie investigations and meetings to the aid. Everyone in the administration knew this is what Trump wanted. Trump instructed them to “talk to Rudy,” who was publicly asking for these investigations. Trump repeated his desire for these investigations on the White House lawn. Give it up, Tina. The case is closed. The only thing preventing impeachment now is that Republicans don’t care. So why deny that it happened? Just say you don’t care.
A HUGE thank you to Nancy and Schiffffffff.
Trump’s impeachment opposed by more independents: poll:
https://nypost.com/2019/11/21/trumps-impeachment-opposed-by-more-independents-poll/
RNC continues to dwarf DNC in fundraising:
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/10/rnc-continues-to-dwarf-dnc-2020/
The BullSchifft show won’t stop until a certain pencil-necked, pop-eyed, camera-hog leaves Clowngress.
Some excerpts from former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan’s WSJ piece:
Look, the case has been made. Almost everything in the impeachment hearings this week fleshed out and backed up the charge that President Trump muscled Ukraine for political gain. The pending question is what precisely the House and its Democratic majority will decide to include in the articles of impeachment, what statutes or standards they will assert the president violated…
In the two months since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry was underway and the two weeks since the Intelligence Committee’s public hearings began, no one, even in the White House, has said anything like, ‘He wouldn’t do that!’ or ‘That would be so unlike him.’ His best friends know he would do it, and it’s exactly like him…
What became obvious in the hearings was the sober testimony from respectable diplomats — not disgruntled staffers with nutty memoirs but people of stature who don’t ordinarily talk — about how the administration operates. It became clear in a new and public way that pretty much everyone around the president has been forced for three years to work around his poor judgment and unpredictability in order to do their jobs….
A full-blown trial on charges most everyone will believe are true, and with an election in less than a year, will seem absurd to all but diehards and do the country no good. So the reasonable guess is Republican senators will call to let the people decide. In a divided country, this is the right call.
The last part I must disagree with–Noonan is saying that Trump is absolutely guilty, but since the Republicans in the Senate don’t care and won’t convict, we shouldn’t even have a trial? If that’s the case then we may as well amend the Constitution to remove the impeachment power.
Trump on Yovanovitch: “She wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy. She is in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it. It look a year-and-a-half, two years to get the picture up. She said bad things about me … This was not an angel this woman, okay?”
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1197878059938013184
All this insane, emotionally immature man cares about is himself. Anyone who believes he would ever put the country above his own needs and ego has not been paying attention.
“All this insane, emotionally immature man cares about is himself. ”
Wrong! Actual facts about his personal life and his leadership abilities prove you are wrong…dead wrong. What are you? Blinded by hate? A sore loser? A person incapable of seeking information outside that carefully crafted left-wing sack of lies and distortions?
Very few people could continue to work as hard as this man does every day fir the American people, with a smile on his face, under the abuses of the opposing party leadership and cult following.
The Democrat Party has not looked this bad since their KKK days.
Re Tina “What are you [Chris Souza]? Blinded by hate? A sore loser?”
I can answer that. A loser, assuredly a blinded by hate loser and definitely a sore loser.
[Pie here: Angry, hate filled sore loser Souza whines and pathetically attempts to insult me when confronted with the truth about his own mental condition. *Yawn*]
I can answer that. A loser, assuredly a blinded by hate loser and definitely a sore loser.
Dear god. You and Trump really are two peas in a pod. You can stop pretending you dislike the way he speaks, now. You’re just like him.
[Pie here: Hmmm, I suppose refusing to hang the picture of the present POTUS in your office says nothing.]
I’m just gonna quote it again…
Trump on Yovanovitch: “She wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy. She is in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it. It look a year-and-a-half, two years to get the picture up. She said bad things about me … This was not an angel this woman, okay?”
This, to you, sounds like an emotionally healthy man who cares about other people? I want you to say that. I want you to say that this is a normal thing for a person to say. You can’t.
[Pie here: This is really worth noting? Poor Souza must really be having a bad day.]
Worth noting that in this same interview Trump once again talked about his friendship and admiration with the dictator of China. A man who oppresses his own people is a “friend…” but Yovanovitch is “not an angel” because she wouldn’t hang a picture of him (and there is no evidence this is even true). That’s the man you’re defending right now. You can do better. I believe you are better than this.
Hum? Even CNN and Yahoo reported this, so it must be true.
“The FBI reached out last month to the CIA analyst who filed a whistleblower complaint against President Trump, according to reports.
Yahoo! News reports that an FBI agent from the Washington, D.C., field office contacted the whistleblower’s lawyers, seeking an interview.”
https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/20/fbi-interview-whistleblower/?fbclid=IwAR1aqOuXLbRdUKgzynV-6NutFhkg_ep2m4oBAKnGEuNTvgsb7FNrMelFvTo
And another scandal – this time for Taxifornia!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-ags-anti-trump-lawsuits-have-cost-taxpayers-21m-state-gop-says
The sleeping giant now included a large number of independent voters, according to polls showing double digit increase against Trump’s impeachment.
Mark Levin: Schiff awakened ‘sleeping giant’ with impeachment:
“Fox News host Mark Levin on Friday said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has awakened a “sleeping giant” of the American people in the impeachment charge against President Trump. The reference to the famous quote compared the lawmaker to World War II Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto.
“After we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto of Japan said, ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve’,” Levin told host Sean Hannity on Fox News. “You know, Adam Schiff, you are in some ways Admiral Yamamoto: You just awakened a sleeping giant. You threw everything you had at the president, at the Republicans, at 63 million voters who voted for this president.”
“This is the best you have? You have nothing,” Levin added. “You are the Democratic Party’s Yamamoto.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/471641-mark-levin-schiff-awakened-sleeping-giant-with-impeachment
———
Poll finds sharp swing in opposition to impeachment among independents:
“More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it, a significant change from Emerson’s polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.
Since October, Emerson has found Trump’s job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43 percent to 48 percent.
This is the second poll this week to show voters are increasingly likely to oppose impeachment, despite wall-to-wall media coverage”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/471542-poll-finds-sharp-swing-in-opposition-to-impeachment-among-independents
John Solomon fights back to attacks to discredit him, with 28 facts. A MUST read.
Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns … with the facts:
https://johnsolomonreports.com/responding-to-lt-col-vindman-about-my-ukraine-columns-with-the-facts/?fbclid=IwAR0XVAihgPXy_CEcbyFxuabxPJwk-qu7flf4G4pOxs5a6r8yPhBjjPgjVbk
Another interesting read about Lt. Col. Vinman.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jim_Hickman13/status/1190077852680634368?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2XXvbNuoDKO1nzdyJfeETqidJYHbfAteZpQ_YoLjDfpBa9aPZE8PmZdJ8
Branco does it AGAIN!!!!
https://legalinsurrection.com/tag/a-f-branco/