Patterico's Pontifications

9/20/2019

WSJ: Trump Repeatedly Pressured Ukrainian President To Reopen Biden Investigation

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:01 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Have at it:

President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” if his lawyer’s assertions that Mr. Biden acted improperly as vice president were true, one of the people said. Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of U.S. aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on any investigation.

Mr. Giuliani in June and August met with top Ukrainian officials about the prospect of an investigation, he said in an interview. The Trump lawyer has suggested Mr. Biden as vice president worked to shield from investigation a Ukrainian gas company with ties to his son, Hunter Biden. A Ukrainian official earlier this year said he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son.

Good point:

The surprise in this story is that he supposedly didn’t threaten to withhold the $250 million in military aid that Ukraine had been promised if President Zelensky refused to reopen the Biden probe, at least as far as the Journal’s sources know. But of course Zelensky knew that that money hadn’t been approved yet by the White House when he and Trump had their phone call. And Trump knew that he knew. If you’re waiting on a life-and-death loan from the bank and the head of the bank calls you up asking for a personal favor, does he need to literally say the words “do it or you won’t get your loan” for you to understand the consequences if you decline?

Interestingly, neither the White House, nor Joe Biden have commented on this. Further, President Trump is scheduled to meet with Zelensky next week.

This from the Daily Beast:

Ukraine is ready to investigate the connections Joe Biden’s son Hunter had with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, according to Anton Geraschenko, a senior adviser to the country’s interior minister who would oversee such an inquiry.

Geraschenko told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview that “as soon as there is an official request” Ukraine will look into the case, but “currently there is no open investigation.”

“Clearly,” said Geraschenko, “Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.” Among the counts on which Manafort was convicted: tax evasion. “We do not investigate Biden in Ukraine, since we have not received a single official request to do so,” said Geraschenko.

And I’ll just throw this up here for kicks:

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

208 Responses to “WSJ: Trump Repeatedly Pressured Ukrainian President To Reopen Biden Investigation”

  1. Limited time, posting this quickly, figuring you all have an opinion on the matter, one way or the other.

    Dana (05f22b)

  2. But what about emails?
    And fisa?
    And the media is bad.
    And there was an investigation of Russia hacking and Trump was in that.
    So why aren’t you writing about ANTIFA?

    Time123 (d54166)

  3. If Obama did it no one would complain. You only care because orange man bad.

    Time123 (d54166)

  4. So long as he appointments judges I like it’s fine if he trades against our national security interests to help his re-election. There’s really no way treating this as OK could ever hurt our country in the long run.

    Time123 (d54166)

  5. Snark aside, I’m not sold that this is what really happened yet. I suspect it is, but I’m open to new facts.

    Time123 (d54166)

  6. Didn’t Biden recently brag on tape recently about how he threatened the Ukrainians into firing a prosecutor or we would shitcan billions in loans? Wouldn’t Trump just be asking them to correct that mistake?

    Russ from Winterset (04786a)

  7. @Time123… did you read John Solomon’s article? I think that changes the calculus over why Rudy was involved in the first place.

    Additionally:
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversation-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176


    Mr. Trump in the call didn’t mention a provision of U.S. aid to Ukraine, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on any investigation

    Seems like this is another one of this trump-critic’s desire for a certain narrative that is falling flat.

    whembly (4605df)

  8. Other than using mi 6 the bureau thr company, the justice department counter intelligence division, with mifsud there are saudi and italian intelligence ties to invent a crime.

    Narciso (181de5)

  9. Narciso, you seem to be saying Trump wants the IC to invent a crime implicating Biden.

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  10. @8 I can try to guess what you mean…but maybe try to translate that to English first?

    Time123 (d54166)

  11. No they dont need to, but this is what obama has done since his first race in 95, when he eliminated his strongest opposition in 04, what ghe did in 2008, against the only one that would challenge him, using the journolist the legal system

    Narciso (181de5)

  12. Whbly, open to new info. They should release the Whistle blowers report and put some actual facts into the discussion.

    Time123 (d54166)

  13. The reasons why such adhoc arrangements have to employed is because the dems have weaponized the govt, the examples are too tedious tp repeat.

    Narciso (181de5)

  14. We don’t know, let’s see what is revealed.

    What we do know is that Biden is on video (January 2018) bragging about withholding a billion dollars if that prosecutor was not fired… “and S of a B, he was”.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  15. No threats and – per the WSJ – no promises made either.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. There is nothing to this report, as there was nothing tp the steele dossier, the mueller report just harrassment of someone who deign to challenge the anointed partys right to rule.

    Narciso (181de5)

  17. And we know they want to deprive us of reliable electricity, take our guns take our cows, based on the fraud from the last thread. You say they arent serious, i say they arent sane, which is more dangerous.

    Narciso (181de5)

  18. The lesson here is that if Trump pressured the Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating a Kushner owned company, nobody would much care. Amirite?

    Munroe (732181)

  19. Yeah, that makes it ok.

    Time123 (d54166)

  20. Biden traveled to Kiev at Obama’s request, allegedly doing what he was instructed to do. It was Biden who raised the threat to withhold aid unless the prosecutor investigating the company and Hunter Biden’s sketchy financial dealings was schitcanned.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  21. It occurred to me that CH and Narciso don’t actually care what we learn. Probably not worth getting into. I’m out.

    Time123 (d54166)

  22. Anybody see something to trigger a whistle blower filing?

    iowan2 (9c8856)

  23. That is understand of the Biden caper. Biden and Kerry’s sons are also alleged to have traded off their father’s positions/ prominence to have wrangled deals with Chinese companies worth several million dollars each.

    We won’t see much done about that though.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  24. Now none of this concerns intelligence those are matters like are the iranians atriking abquaiq, are the russians invading ukraine, what is the next chinese move. But they push a twisted game of telephone in lieu of facts.

    Narciso (181de5)

  25. 21… sure I am… just as I said. We’ll see what’s revealed… whether there is wrongdoing or if this is just another hoax.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  26. If this follows form, Biden will end up looking worse than Trump.

    harkin (dc1411)

  27. Sometimes “what about” is appropriate.
    Remember Jamal Khashoggi?
    He was a Saudi citizen, killed by Saudis, in a Saudi consulate, in Turkey.
    His only connection to the United States is that he was employed by the Washington Post as a columnist on a temporary foreign worker’s non-resident visa.
    Remember the clamor from Democrats and the media for Trump to use the arms deal with Saudi Arabia to force the Saudi government to punish his killers?
    These people, the Democrats and the media, make me sick.

    nk (dbc370)

  28. That is what I understand of the Biden caper.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. Hey NK, if your example there was a murder.
    And the Saudi commuted it.
    And withholding aid from them was to be in response to their crime.

    What Crime is it you think the Ukrainian government committed?

    For that matter, what do you think Hunter Biden did?

    Time123 (d54166)

  30. Biden traveled to Kiev at Obama’s request, allegedly doing what he was instructed to do. It was Biden who raised the threat to withhold aid unless the prosecutor investigating the company and Hunter Biden’s sketchy financial dealings was schitcanned.

    Then, Colonel, how do explain the tidbit that says the reason Obama/Biden wanted the prosecutor fired was that he was failing to actually investigate corruption?

    If the Bidens were acting corruptly, wouldn’t Biden want a prosecutor who wasn’t prosecuting?

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  31. Whaddabout some actual evidence?
    Whaddabout named sources?
    Whaddabout journalistic integrity?

    PTw (83552a)

  32. Sorry for the spelling errors, I’m on my phone.

    Time123 (d54166)

  33. @31 whatabout following the law and releasing the whistle blowers report?

    Time123 (d54166)

  34. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/20/2019 @ 7:11 pm

    Were you trying to link something? Because if you were, it didn’t link.

    [That’s why I leave all the fancy html stuff to the young’uns. I never do it right.]

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  35. Doubt it will ever get resolved as to whether the Ukrainian prosecutor that Biden got fired was about to investigate Burisma, the firm Biden’s son joined That prosecutor says he was about to investigate Burisma, other Ukrainians in government at the time say that isn’t true.

    What can’t be denied, as summed up by Jim Geraghty today at National Review, is that Hunter Biden got a lot of jobs he wasn’t qualified for as a result of being Biden’s son. https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/trumps-whistle-blowers-complaint-is-probably-about-hunter-bidens-dealings-in-ukraine/

    Interestingly, when Hunter Biden joined Burisma he was co-owned a private equity fund named Rosemont Seneca with Christopher Heinz, step-son of John Kerry. Heinz refused to join the Burisma firm with Hunter Biden, e-mailed two top people at the State Department to state he had refused to join, and shortly thereafter left the Rosemont fund. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/john-kerrys-son-cut-business-ties-with-hunter-biden-over-ukrainian-oil-deal

    Hunter Biden and his firm made over $3 million from Burisma in year after he became a Board Member. I’m sure it is was his sage advice and not anything that Burisma thought Joe Biden could do for them that justified that salary.

    Pete (3aedd6)

  36. Yes, release the whistle blower report. What whistle blower? There is none.

    Munroe (732181)

  37. Hilarious.

    I mean we know they are all crooks right? Watching each side’s crook defense force spin away is amazing.

    Dustin (6d7686)

  38. Whaddabout a rule in journalism that says you should start such a sentence with the qualifier clause “according to people familiar with the matter“ instead of putting it at the end AFTER you’ve already introduced what you are admitting is questionably true information?

    PTw (83552a)

  39. What Crime is it you think the Ukrainian government committed?

    For that matter, what do you think Hunter Biden did?

    I don’t know. Let’s get the Ukrainians to investigate so we can find out. Hunter Biden is a U.S. citizen and the United States has jurisdiction. After that, if there’s anything to it, it’s a matter of prosecutorial discretion and allocation of resources.

    nk (dbc370)

  40. 34… no, my phone had autocorrected me into being even less coherent than usual in #23… just correcting the situation.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  41. Oh, sorry, there’s a whole lot of laws about U.S. businessmen engaging in illegal business practices in foreign countries, such as bribery of government officials among other things, and there have been prosecutions and convictions for their violation.

    nk (dbc370)

  42. There have been just a handful of reporters and commentators who have gotten this story right, the rest and thats 80% has been criminally irresponsible, yet neither them or their sources have been held accountable.

    Narciso (181de5)

  43. Biden and Kerry’s sons are also alleged to have traded off their father’s positions/ prominence to have wrangled deals with Chinese companies worth several million dollars each.

    Got it. They did under Obama what Eric and Donald Jr are doing now.

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  44. If this follows form, the WSJ will soon print a correction that the Ukrainians don’t remember anything about Trump forcing his penis into their hands.

    Munroe (732181)

  45. @41 I don’t think that Hunter Biden broke any laws by joining the Burisma Board; he was simply doing what he had been doing his whole life, grifting off his dad’s position as Senator and then VP to make money and get positions he never, ever would have gotten otherwise. He saw no problem with doing this; Kerry’s step-son showed some integrity by not joining the Burisma board and then severing ties with Hunter Biden.

    Pete (3aedd6)

  46. Nk, our laws require probable cause to open an investigation. And it would start with our doj.

    Time123 (d54166)

  47. Now the ridiculous story that the firing was a nible act, well i named it the basilisk for a reason

    Narciso (181de5)

  48. Narciso, didn’t you notice the idiocy in that article?
    It’s claiming that the Trump DOJ, administered by Sessions, didn’t follow up on allegatiins against the Bidens and Team Clinton.

    So either the allegations were not actually made, or Jeff Sessions’s deputies thought they were worthless.

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  49. Trump will have more flexibility after the election.

    No, I don’t like this, not even a little bit. But Trump could give Alaska to Cuba and I still wouldn’t vote for any of the Democrats.

    And part of me wants to point out that we only hear about this because the nomenklatura hate Trump’s upsetting of their apple cart and will do anything they can to block him at every turn, openly or in secret.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  50. Why does no one talk about the REAL political scandal — Trump’s attempts to kill primaries and caucuses and go straight to the coronation? This whole “Me or the Communists” thing is a false choice, engineered as if it was inevitable. If Trump does poorly in NH or IA, as LBJ did against token opposition, we’re going to need those primaries.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  51. I’m not convinced that Trump didn’t attach $250 million in military aid to his demands for the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Biden. It’s just a fact that he released the money on 9/12, the day before Schiff announced that he was going to subpoena the DNI for the IG report.

    Paul Montagu (55d3ec)

  52. “Biden’s Burisma directorship attracted attention because Burisma was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a minister under Russia-friendly President Viktor F. Yanukovych who subsequently went into exile after a popular revolution. After Yanukovych was ousted, Zlochevsky faced a variety of corruption-related investigations involving his business.”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  53. 43… “Got it. They did under Obama what Eric and Donald Jr are doing now.”

    I welcome links that provide the details.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  54. If they want Ukraine to investigate, why haven’t they made an official request for investigation? Right now it’s all the usual lights and noise. They have the option to take it seriously, but they haven’t.

    Nic (896fdf)

  55. 54… his name is mudd, and he’s on his 17th O-ring. Engineering is developing a hardened version that will hopefully withstand the extreme pressures caused by high temps combined with intense butt-hurt.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  56. Isn’t it a shame that a president has to moonlight as an investigative journalist?

    Munroe (732181)

  57. 58… lol… lay a trail of chicken feed, that’s obviously what the chickenschit media subsists on.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  58. OT… this Ken Burns PBS series on Country music is outstanding!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  59. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/20/2019 @ 8:29 pm

    A gentleman on my music forum seems to agree with you. And he ought to know. He’s a songwriter/performer based in Nashville and involved in the blues/indie rock/bluegrass scene.

    Kishnevi (1cc50f)

  60. Because theyve all been dragooned into this snipe hunt, that comey put into motion.

    Narciso (181de5)

  61. joe bidens role which he proudly talks about on video in getting the ukranian prosecutor fired who was investigating his son is what should be investigated. If you only watch cnn and msdnc you would not know the damming video existed!

    lany (d9c38e)

  62. 60- Indeed Col. Fabulous C.W. history.

    mg (8cbc69)

  63. Biden/Mittens/2020

    mg (8cbc69)

  64. The ICWPA law defines the parameters of an “urgent concern” complaint as an abuse or violation of law “relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an intelligence activity involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters.” The president’s conversation with a foreign leader does not seem to fall under this whistleblower definition.

    The Inspector General is in place to ferret out lawlessness inside an agency. This fails that simple test.

    I’ll ask again. How does this rise to a whistle blower inquiry? There are at least a few deep staters involved in this. Those 2 “sources that are ex govt employees”? DNI Dan Coates and dept DNI Sue Gordon. IC hates President Trump. He keeps turning over rocks.

    iowan2 (9c8856)

  65. doesn’t its a shame to a president has to moonlight as investigative journalist?
    such a bully…….

    SINTHIYA SINHA (d3fa73)

  66. Biden traveled to Kiev at Obama’s request, allegedly doing what he was instructed to do. It was Biden who raised the threat to withhold aid unless the prosecutor investigating the company and Hunter Biden’s sketchy financial dealings was schitcanned.

    That prosecutor was doing the opposite of investigating Burisma and Zlochevsky. Shokin was corrupt, stonewalling investigations into the Ukrainian elite.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  67. All that we know is an official in the intelligence community filed a whistleblower complaint. Everything else is speculation.

    As additional reporting comes out drip by drip, it appears that the official acted not because of one phone call to a foreign leader, but after multiple incidents. There may be other foreign leaders involved.

    This is cause for concern, and Congress needs to get to the bottom of it.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  68. Shokin wasn’t sacked because he was going to investigate Burisma/Zlochevsky. He was sacked because he wasn’t doing so, among other things.

    The trouble began when right-wing bloggers sought to meld these two points into a single conspiracy in which Joe Biden had the prosecutor sacked to protect his son’s business interests. I may be an outsider to the bewildering mess that is Ukrainian politics, but, on this particular issue, I have a genuine insight into what happened, having written extensively about Hunter Biden’s ex-employer, Mykola Zlochevsky.
    As a result, when journalists seek the fire behind the smoke in the Biden-Ukraine tale, they often call to ask my opinion. Many are eager to flesh out what seems a satisfyingly simple conspiracy, but I have to tell them: It isn’t true. The timeline doesn’t work. The investigation into Burisma, Hunter Biden’s employer, had ground to a halt long before the prosecutor was sacked. A subsequent probe into the company’s owner was opened because of a request from Ukrainian legislators, not because of prosecutorial initiative. There is, in short, no there there; the bloggers are putting two and two together — and coming up with 22.

    This is another case of Trump believing (or wanting to believe) FakeNews and then using Giuliani as his agent to push this FakeNews narrative for his own personal gain. It is an impeachable offense, him once again putting his own interests above his country.

    If Trump did that, it would be the ultimate impeachable act. Trump has already done more than enough to warrant impeachment and removal with his relentless attempts, on multiple fronts, to sabotage the counterintelligence and criminal investigation by then-special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and to conceal evidence of those attempts. The president’s efforts were impeachable because, in committing those obstructive acts, he put his personal interests above the nation’s: He tried to stop an investigation into whether a hostile foreign power, Russia, tried to interfere with our democracy — simply because he seemed to find it personally embarrassing. Trump breached his duty of faithful execution to the nation not only because he likely broke the law but also because, through his disregard for the law, he put his self-interest first.
    The current whistleblowing allegations, however, are even worse. Unlike the allegations of conspiracy with Russia before the 2016 election, these concern Trump’s actions as president, not as a private citizen, and his exercise of presidential powers over foreign policy with Ukraine. Moreover, with Russia, at least there was an attempt to get the facts through the Mueller investigation; here the White House is trying to shut down the entire inquiry from the start — depriving not just the American people, but even congressional intelligence committees, of necessary information.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  69. What I think is that the Ukrainians have infiltrated the “intelligence community”. What the Dickens is the “intelligence community”, anyway?

    nk (dbc370)

  70. Its a gang that couldnt shoot straight, the hacks get promoted (like brennan) if there is an able officer like flynn, they throw shade on him, one way or another.

    Narciso (181de5)

  71. 70… link please.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  72. Why does google delete bidens boast to richard haas, because you can make up any story if any inconvenient facts pop up.

    Narciso (181de5)

  73. What the Dickens is the “intelligence community”, anyway?
    an embarrassment.

    mg (8cbc69)

  74. Biden explains…

    https://youtu.be/UXA–dj2-CY

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  75. ABC investigates…

    https://youtu.be/lH_sdTC7Anw

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  76. Two brief videos will bring you and others up to speed, Paul.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  77. And to think that I used to have some respect for the Wall Street Journal but now that they have criticized Dear Leader my eyes have been opened and I realize they’re just another failing fake news Democratic propaganda outlet. Sad!

    And this place is really going to the dogs if I’m not repeating the same comment a dozen commenters have already made. Where’s all my cultists gone? Nobody’s defending the infallibility and perfection of His Orangey Goodness?

    Jerryskids (702a61)

  78. The journal shows respect to a hack like simpsomand throws jay solomon under the bus, because he unraveled the iran deal.

    Narciso (181de5)

  79. A large part of the problem is the way post siviet reforms came into being, in all the former republics, the one like kusko (sic) who were repurposed apparatchiks, janokovich was oart of that crew but darling tymochenko wasnt goody two shoes either.

    Narciso (181de5)

  80. Its an interest to me, because if my country of birth is freed one day, we know to move betweennative state apparatchiks and diaspora elements

    Narciso (181de5)

  81. “I’m not convinced that Trump didn’t attach $250 million in military aid to his demands for the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Biden.”

    Such a minor leaguer. Can’t even learn from Hillary that you don’t hire people to dig up dirt, you hire them to fabricate it.

    harkin (58d012)

  82. Enjoy your Saturday, skids!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  83. All that we know is an official in the intelligence community filed a whistleblower complaint. Everything else is speculation.

    We also know that the IG found the complaint “urgent” enough to pass it on to the DNI, who is required by law to convey it to Congress.
    The DNI, in defiance of the law, has not done so.
    Why not? And why has the AG apparently inserted himself into the matter?

    Trump says the whistleblower has a partisan motive. Does he know who the whistleblower is?

    Do Trump apologists believe that the IG, selected by Trump, is a Deep State mole with an irrational animus against him? That seems to be the default way of waving away every unflattering thing said about Trump by people who have actually dealt with him in his administration.

    Radegunda (1ad3e8)

  84. Justice never comes, comey should have faced charges for leaking those memos through a third oarty, the bureau officials that received insucements from democrats should have been inducted, wolfe of the intel committee shouls have been jailed

    Narciso (181de5)

  85. Questions for the Trump supporters.

    If Trump did what’s alleged, do you think it is wrong? If not, why is this a right thing to do?

    Appalled (4c14b4)

  86. “We also know that the IG found the complaint “urgent” enough to pass it on to the DNI, who is required by law to convey it to Congress.”
    Radegunda (1ad3e8) — 9/21/2019 @ 8:52 am

    He’s required by law, if the law applies. It doesn’t.

    In my view, Chairman Schiff’s claim, based on IGIC Atkinson’s interpretation of the statute, is wrong. Section 3033 does not apply to a president’s negotiations with or commitments to foreign powers, or to a president’s sharing of classified information with foreign powers. To repeat, the statute applies to intelligence activities by government officials acting under the authority of the DNI. If I am right, the Trump administration should not be accused of law-breaking for declining to follow Section 3033, even if the whistleblower had an “urgent concern” in the ordinary understanding of that term.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/trump-whistleblower-claim-congress-should-investigate/

    Munroe (732181)

  87. Impeach. Impeach. Russia. Russia. Collusion. Collusion. Racism. Racism. Ukraine.

    Wonder where the 2 minutes of hate will come from next.

    P.S. Trump’s approval rating is higher than Obama’s at the same point in their respective presidency.

    NJRob (0812ff)

  88. As a Trump apologist of long-standing, I think the Ukrainians are trying to backdoor Trump who, BTW, has almost unfettered authority in foreign relations under Article II. Their lobbyists and agents, disclosed and undisclosed, got into contact with the Dems who put them in contact with friendly assets in the “intelligence community” which resulted in a “whistleblower”, which resulted in this dog and pony show. Adam Schiff’s breathlessness alone should give the clue to the scenario or something very close to it.

    nk (dbc370)

  89. Overheard somewhere: May the Lord bless and keep Trump – far away from us.

    felipe (023cc9)

  90. OT: Why are we sending our guys to Saudi Arabia? I’m sorry they are having a conflict with their neighbors, but how is that our business? We have enough people in the middle east already who are apparently never ever never ever never ever coming home.

    Nic (896fdf)

  91. Their lobbyists and agents, disclosed and undisclosed, got into contact with the Dems who put them in contact with friendly assets in the “intelligence community” which resulted in a “whistleblower”, which resulted in this dog and pony show. Adam Schiff’s breathlessness alone should give the clue to the scenario or something very close to it.

    So the Ukrainians suckered Trump to get him into hot water with the Democrats…to accomplish what? What outcome are they trying to achieve? Pwning Trump, some strategic measure?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  92. What’s the point in being President if you can’t use your office to reward your friends, punish your enemies, and get rich(er) at the same time?

    Ripmurdock (9622fb)

  93. “If Trump did what’s alleged, do you think it is wrong? If not, why is this a right thing to do?”
    Appalled (4c14b4) — 9/21/2019 @ 9:11 am

    He’s alleged to have colluded with Russia to rig an election, obstructed justice, violated campaign finance laws, sexual assault, inciting racists to commit mass murder, having a crush on world dictators….

    So, sounds wrong to me.

    Munroe (2e6880)

  94. They wanted the $250 million in military aid and Trump was not handing it over. It’s right there in the post.

    nk (dbc370)

  95. My 99 was to Stalag 96.

    nk (dbc370)

  96. They wanted the $250 million in military aid and Trump was not handing it over. It’s right there in the post.

    So that’s why they didn’t do the investigation in 2016, or 17, or 18. You have to retcon history for that to be true. It appears to be logical, but the deep chain of events cannot support it.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  97. based on what info, that’s a pogrebin (unwarranted inference) now palomino Pelosi, who knows what she was doing at the time, swapping out arquillian crews, but we know which administration provided weapons and which provide #hashtags and food rations,

    narciso (d1f714)

  98. He’s alleged to have colluded with Russia to rig an election, obstructed justice, violated campaign finance laws, sexual assault, inciting racists to commit mass murder, having a crush on world dictators….

    So none of those things are true, or you don’t care that those things are true?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  99. change of administrations, poroshenko out, zelensky in, there are other things happening then the snipe hunt for trump you know, and yes a comedian won, because they are full up on clowns in the radka

    narciso (d1f714)

  100. And this “political opponent” thing? That’s just a variant of the race card. A criminal does not get a pass because his daddy is the political opponent of the current chief law enforcement officer.

    And Hunter Biden, for crying out loud? You see any side of that incestuous cocaine snifffer you want to be on?

    nk (dbc370)

  101. Robert Laurie
    @RobertLaurie
    “The whistleblower didn’t have direct knowledge of the communications, an official briefed on the matter told CNN.”

    Then they’re not really a “”whistleblower.” They’re just spreading a rumor.
    __ _

    Jennifer E
    @AgelessJE
    I wonder if it’s the same “whistleblower” who accused Kavanaugh with no recollection of anything happening…
    _ _

    Sharyl Attkisson🕵️‍♂️
    @SharylAttkisson
    If you were an anti-Trump leaker in the Intel Community afraid that you are about to be exposed with an investigation, might you not seek protection by calling yourself a “whistleblower”?
    Asking for a friend.
    __ _

    Some College
    @RobsRecStudio
    They’re using this BS to give so called support and justification to the actual spygate treachery that the IG will be reporting on soon. This is a well timed trick and a lie designed to inoculate the public.

    I got my flu shot Thurs. Get yours if you haven’t yet, this season’s world case numbers are rising way early.
    💉

    harkin (dc1411)

  102. I wouldn’t hand him the keys, he’s the ellis (remember die hard) of that enterprise, of course the Heinz’s and even the bulger’s were in on this deal, reasons,

    narciso (d1f714)

  103. And this “political opponent” thing? That’s just a variant of the race card. A criminal does not get a pass because his daddy is the political opponent of the current chief law enforcement officer.

    And Hunter Biden, for crying out loud? You see any side of that incestuous cocaine snifffer you want to be on?

    Irrelevant, asking a foreign government to investigate it for the express purpose of getting political leverage on an opponent’s kid, is illegal (who’d prosecute him though; DOJ,congress?), and immoral. But we know who we’re talking about, so sure, he’s done it before, he’s had no repercussions, so why not do it again. He’s probably asked the same from Israel, the UK, France, Canada…

    It’s not about Hunter Biden, i.e. Joe Biden once removed. Plus, Eric and DonnyJ exist.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  104. “So none of those things are true, or you don’t care that those things are true?”
    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c) — 9/21/2019 @ 10:16 am

    I do think he peed on a bed in Moscow. Other than that, horse hockey.

    But, whaddabout Kavanaugh?

    Trump superhaters are the .000 hitter the manager keeps putting in the lead off spot.

    Munroe (2e6880)

  105. Cheeto jeezus=Bad, I’m decided, it’s true. What now? the devolution of this whole America thing continues. We’ll survive it, but we’ll have to ice down the black eye he’ given us for a decade or two.

    All of that plus him being the most free-spending drunken sailor like president in history, but again, Cheeto jeezus=bad.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  106. How do we know it was eight times, we dont heck even the ap hasnt confirmed these particular reports

    Narciso (181de5)

  107. Im reminded with matthew whitaker every agency was enliated to run him down like dr. Richard kilmball.

    Narciso (181de5)

  108. Since McCarthy does not know what the contents of the whistleblower’s complaint are, he doesn’t know whether the definition of urgent concern used in Section 3033 applies or not. It might.

    An intelligence official observed or overhead what he or she thought were violations on multiple occasions. It wasn’t just one phone call to a foreign leader. It was several, and it may be that those were to other foreign leaders as well.

    If the whistleblower were a partisan hack, a deep state operative with animus toward Trump, he or she would have leaked it to the press. But that didn’t happen here. The whistleblower followed protocol, filed a complaint, which necessarily had to include corroborative evidence such as transcripts, and submitted it to the IGIC, who found it credible and serious, hence an urgent concern.

    The IGIC then passed it on to the DNI, under the assumption he would forward it to the relevant committees in Congress. But the DNI consulted with the DOJ first, then decided it was not a matter of urgent concern and did not forward the complaint to the relevant committees. That’s not his decision to make. It’s the IGIC’s. By law, once the IGIC determines a complaint a matter of urgent concern, the DNI “shall” forward it Congress. The whistleblower and the IGIC followed protocol, as required by law. The DNI, under advise of the DOJ, did not.

    Something is rotten here. If there’s no there there in the complaint, why not forward it to Congress? The obvious conclusion is that there is something there there. What could that possibly be?

    Oh, I don’t know, just spit-balling here, but using classified information or threatening to withhold military add to induce a foreign government to investigate a political opponent might be it. That’s bribery and extortion, not to mention election interference. He publicly and loudly called for Russia to release hacked emails, then obstructed the investigation into Russian interference and lied about it. Now he’s trying to coerce Ukraine to do the same, discredit his opponents. He may also be coercing other countries, like China and North Korea, maybe even Iran. Not that these countries are not already and ongoingly interfering in American campaigns and elections through a variety of methods, including hacking, social media propaganda bots, etc.

    Abuse of power, disregard of the law, not only inviting but demanding foreign interference in elections, misusing intelligence and military aid, that all falls under Section 3033.

    Congress needs to act, reclaim its authority to serve as a check and balance on the executive branch. We have a president compromising national security, and that is a grave concern.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  109. “You see any side of that incestuous cocaine snifffer you want to be on?”

    Upwind. Same applies to these NeverTrumpers.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  110. 115… sad promotion of one more hoax.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  111. “Did you order the Code Red?”

    Advocaat (45d1a6)

  112. I’ll wait for the real evidence… names and dates, specific accusations of specific wrongdoing.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  113. Heh! See Dana’s new post.

    nk (dbc370)

  114. “Trump’s alleged request that Ukraine work with his personal counsel raises the issue of a potential personal political favor…”

    — David French, Fruitbat

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  115. as usual he has the story backwards, but a day ending in y,

    narciso (d1f714)

  116. Regardless to how we each see it individually, that is clearly a way to obstruct justice. None is namby pamby “I hope you find a way to clear so and so” or ” ‘Call Rod (Rosenstein), tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the Special Counsel.”
    Nope. This is High Noon out of town by sundown or else threats to a prosecutor that Biden is obviously proud of.
    I can only conclude that Trump is an obstruction gelding compared to Bidens obstruction stud swagger

    steveg (354706)

  117. GG can be depended on for the histrionic details behind the DNC talking points.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  118. Groper joe biden bragging about getting the prosecutor fired or he would with hold aid to ukraine on video. and the prosecutor was fired is all the evidence you need.

    lany (9101b2)

  119. he takes all these fainting spells seriously, which he really shouldn’t,

    now this grand mal freak out to the skydragon by the black bloc Firestarter, that’s more concerning,

    https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/20/shamelessness-and-ignorance-unlimited/

    narciso (d1f714)

  120. What is this “IGIC” and why does it suddenly OUTRANK the Department of Justice? And why does this mysterious high-ranking organization need to depend upon the Defense National Intelligence agency before its information gets to Congress?

    There is no “rank” to out. Does the Starbucks manager outrank the 711 manager?

    And why is anybody not actively donating money to them trying to empower Congress? Who looked at that collective of mediocrities with control of the federal budget and said “What they need is MORE POWER!”

    There is a finite amount of “power”, congress has delegated/relinquished some powers enumerated in the constitution, it’s also within their purview to reclaim it. The words in the constitution have meaning.

    But these are obvious things. Of course, you’re playing a roll as a fan of presidential power now, probably not when Obama was president.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  121. So, it was not even the Ukrainians, probably. It’s just the Democrats and the media throwing up a smokescreen for Biden’s misconduct. (Link from Dana’s new post.)

    I don’t know who makes Trump look better by comparison: The Democrats, the media, or his very own Orange-squeezers. But in this particular instance, he does look better than all of them.

    nk (dbc370)

  122. No, I don’t think there was really misconduct by Joe Biden, although it cold fool a person who is not paying close attention to the details.

    One of those persons was Donald Trump.

    Now we have something interesting here:

    The whistblower complaint was improper, because it was not possible misconduct by the intelligence community; its just that people in the intelligence community were in aposition to know of possible miscondct on the part of Donald Trump. (I seriously doubt though that Donald Trump intended to pressure Ukraine to start an investigation into Biden, and still less, an impromper investigation.

    Adam Schiff is saying that regardless of whether or not this wasa proper whistleblower complaint, it still was a whistleblower complaint and was required by law to be forwarded to the Intelligence Committees.

    I see a possible political conspiaracy too here, bt=ut we don;t knoow enough to know ow this got started.

    And also I see a possible bottom line: Republicans should always be investigated and Democrats never should be. That is not a principle we shold have.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  123. 126. lany (9101b2) — 9/21/2019 @ 1:46 pm

    joe biden bragging about getting the prosecutor fired or he would withhold aid to ukraine on video. and the prosecutor was fired

    Now, think for a second:

    If Joe Biden thought there was anything improper about that, would be brag about it?

    So something is wrong with that talking point.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  124. We’re talking to richard haas sammeh, not the agarpest tool.

    Narciso (181de5)

  125. According to the WaPo the “Whistle-blower” didn’t learn about trump’s “outrage” in the normal course of work. Aka – he learned it 2nd hand. So, its just some partisan Democrat low level weasel trying to hurt trump. As I’ve written before, the DNI IG head needs to be fired. He’s obviously a member of the “Resistance”

    rcocean (1a839e)

  126. Leaking is against the law. An IG complaint is not. And what’s he supposed to leak? A 2nd Hand bit of gossip? He/she had no DIRECT knowledge of what Trump said – per the wapo

    rcocean (1a839e)

  127. Another MSM/Democrat/Never trumper nothing burger. But don’t be sad. they’ll come up with another fake news story next week. Remember Orange man bad.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  128. So, its just some partisan Democrat low level weasel trying to hurt Trump.

    Put up to it by Democrat high-level weasels to distract from and obfuscate what Biden did.

    nk (dbc370)

  129. @136. “What Biden did”… was start off his Iowa stemwinder today with an “I remember when…” quip and it ran down from there. It is amusing he’s quick to go the easy route attacking Trump but plays dodge ball with his kid…

    “A man with ten thousand dollars hid somewhere…” – Rev. Powell [Robert Mitchum] ‘The Night of the Hunter’ 1955

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  130. A lot of people, atuffed that cigar store indian with cash, all the subprime player, his chief iraq adviser got a nice oil deal from the kurds

    Narciso (181de5)

  131. He told obama to keep droning instead of applying mccrystals strategy, his man tried to take down karzai, which sank any trust he might of had in us

    Narciso (181de5)

  132. Old Joe is done, he doesn’t have the crazy old man manic “mentally challenged” strength of Trump, he’s just old.

    Now its going to be the old screechy .001% native American lady vs a mental defective for 2020. Yay!!

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  133. Gag me with a trebuchet, coronello.

    Narciso (181de5)

  134. marciso @132.

    We’re talking to richard haas sammeh, not the agarpest tool.

    That does not compute.

    What is that in reference to? (“we’re talking’)

    Richard Haass (two with two “S”s) who worked with Clin Powell, and has spent a lot of time dealing with the matter of Northern Ireland is best known for arguing in a book that the United states should be the world’s sheriff (this differs from a policeman in that the sheriff doesn’t do it all himself but rounds up a posse) He’s not always for intervention but believes when there is intervention, it should improve the situation and not be done halfway.

    I can’t find out at all what argapest is. I assume you mean Arga* plus pest as an adjective.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  135. *sharpest*

    nk (dbc370)

  136. I can’t find out at all what argapest is. I assume you mean Arga* plus pest as an adjective.

    Dude, that is a lot of thought to have given to that.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  137. Hmmmmmm

    CNN’s Mudd Surprises Chris Cuomo by Slamming Intelligence Whistleblower

    https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/pj-gladnick/2019/09/19/cnns-mudd-surprises-chris-cuomo-slamming-intelligence-whistleblower.

    harkin (58d012)

  138. 143. OK, so #132 could be partially decoded as:

    We’re talking to richard haas sammeh, not the sharpest tool

    I still don’t understand what the reference to Richard Haass is.

    I checked and this seems to have something to do with #75, which goes:

    Why does google delete bidens boast to richard haas, because you can make up any story if any inconvenient facts pop up.

    Is that the boast? Is it in fact deleted somehow?

    Here’s the transcript of Biden’s speech:

    https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue-launch-former-vice-president-joe-biden

    I don’t know – has Google made it harder to find? (I got this through the wikipedia artocle abut Hunter Biden)

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  139. So what we have now from narcso (more fully decrypted) is:

    Richard Haass (president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, and that’s where Biden, on Jan. 23, 2018 made his speech in which he boasted of getting a Ukrainian prosector fired) is supposed to be so stupid that he doesn’t understand that what Biden says he did is wrong?

    You could argue that Biden is too stupid to understand that. But why should anybody else be?

    Anyway I don’t think that’s the answer – that Biden and/or the people he was speaking to didnt realize he was boasting of a cover-up.

    In truth, getting rid of that pro-Russian or pro-Yanukovych or corruption protecting prosecutor was an objective of President Obama, and unless you want to say that the real reason was to protect Hunter Biden, and to get himreplaced by someone whi would protect Borisma, it has nothing to do with him, and in fact Hunter Biden was not under any threat of investigation, because he didn’t do anything except take money for nothing. (Well, he was supposed to advise them about corporate governance!?)
    Here is a December 2015 New York Times story about it:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html

    AND Burisma, the company that put him on its board (presumably in an attempt to protect itself) was not under active investigation at the time. If it had been, you could have somethng because Hunter Biden might lose his job.

    Here’s a New York Times story about this from May 1 this year that goves Biden’s defense:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html

    Amos J. Hochstein, who worked with Vice President Biden on Ukraine issues as the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs, said the Obama administration’s support for prosecuting Mr. Zlochevsky ]who among other things, owned Burisma] contradicts any implication that the elder Mr. Biden was seeking to oust Mr. Shokin in order to protect his son or Mr. Zlochevsky.

    “I was in almost every single meeting that Vice President Biden had with President Poroshenko, I was on every trip, and I was on most of the phone calls, and there was never a discussion about his son, or Burisma,” Mr. Hochstein said. “None of these issues ever came up.”

    On Wednesday, Hunter Biden said in his statement that his term as a director had expired and that he was stepping down from Burisma’s board in a political climate “where my qualifications and work are being attacked by Rudy Giuliani and his minions for transparent political purposes.”

    Obama’s stated reason was that the prosector was not investigating corruption or not investigating it enough.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  140. It was a typo, sharpest, was their any subsequent prosecution of course not, or jr wouldnt have gotten his botella

    Narciso (181de5)

  141. Two brief videos will bring you and others up to speed, Paul.

    I’m up to speed on your FakeNews. What you and Trump and Giuliani and the rest of the head-nodding supporters are not up to speed on is (1) Biden’s conditioning aid to Ukraine on the firing of Shokin was not illegal (2) Shokin wasn’t fired because he was looking into Burisma/Zlochevsky, he was fired for the opposite (and for shielding corrupt Ukrainian elite and his own corrupt staff).

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  142. 150… You’re due for another disappointment. Have a splendid Sunday!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  143. ‘ But back to the Ukraine. On Friday, the oyez, oyez, oyez boys in the press whipped up the big display type to announce that someone in the “intelligence community” (we don’t know whom) issued an official complaint that President Trump made a “promise” (we don’t know what) to an unnamed foreign leader that the complainant, whoever it is, found “troubling.” . . .

    Stepping back for a moment from that snarling imbroglio, I do wonder whether the latest “Trump abused his powers, let’s impeach him!” gambit is not rather an impressive deployment of a rhetorical-political gambit known as the “preemptive tu quoque I-tagged-you-first” strategy. The media and anti-Trump commentariat is jumping up and down in unison saying, “Trump is leaning on a foreign power in order to gain a political advantage.”

    But what is that charge cover for? A chap called Robert Barnes, writing on Twitter, reminds us of a pertinent fact. “The same Democrats who used all the powers of the Presidency to spy on an opposing campaign, and continue to use every power of the House to invade the privacy of the President, are deeply offended that Trump would want corruption investigated involving a former Vice President?” That’s what Latinists called a nonne question, one that expects the answer “Yes.” ‘

    https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/21/another-week-another-pseudo-scandal/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  144. @152 there are too many false and unproven statements there to really engage with. But I’ll stipulate them to ask the question: “do you think that makes what trump did ok?”

    Time123 (d54166)

  145. Still awaiting evidence of what he did.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  146. I can’t find out at all what argapest is. I assume you mean Arga* plus pest as an adjective.

    Or that Narciso just isn’t that agarp.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  147. And eichenwald is now on board, snorfle, watch out for octopi.

    Narciso (181de5)

  148. Rudolph Giuliani was just on Fox News Sunday talking about what he called a big scandal and said that the Biden family took even more money out of China.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  149. The timing doesn’t add up.
    Given the actual evidence, the worst that can said is that Joe Biden had the appearance of a conflict of interest. He shouldn’t have been the one dealing with Ukrainians while his son was taking checks from a Ukrainian corporation.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  150. 158… oh, what slack they cut…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  151. 130. Paul Montagu (f2c051) — 9/22/2019 @ 6:36 am

    (1) Biden’s conditioning aid to Ukraine on the firing of Shokin was not illegal

    There are many things that are not illegal that can become illegal if there isa corrupt purpose to the,/

    Better say: Biden’s conditioning aid to Ukraine on the firing of Shokin was not his own idea.

    (2) Shokin wasn’t fired because he was looking into Burisma/Zlochevsky, he was fired for the opposite

    Very possible that Norisma protecxted itself anothr way.

    You want my opinion: I think it;s quite possible thsi whole thing was leaked now by people who want some other candidate to win the Democratic nomination, and leaked because Biden is not corrupt enough

    The whistleblower complaintt is probably mostly about aid to Ukraine being withheld in the first place, not Trump’s conversation. The Ukrainian president at that time didn’t even know there was a hold on it, and probably Trump didn’t know either, and he certain;y didn’t ell him that it was withheld and might be released.

    Somebody in the intelligence community probably cooked up some phony reason to investigate something or not complete the vetting and so held up the arms deliveries.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  152. 158. Paul Montagu (f2c051) — 9/22/2019 @ 7:40 am

    He shouldn’t have been the one dealing with Ukrainians while his son was taking checks from a Ukrainian corporation.

    Also China, where the conflict is much more clear ad bigger.

    I think Joe Biden is enough of fool (or tolerant of his troubled son) to ket this happen. If he didn’t discuss what business dealing his son was doing it wass probably on purpose. It coudl even be taht this was the way he thought he would protect himself from aperceived conflict of interest,

    By the way, I think the people who tried to bribe the Democrats basically got cheated. (but they could make things look to other foreigners like the fix was in)

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  153. The Trump and Kushner families did almost nothing to get money out of foreign coutries because of the presidency and what they did they stopped. That’s where we are. Double standard. And a double standard only helps the most wired in people.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  154. Somebody in the intelligence community probably cooked up some phony reason to investigate something or not complete the vetting and so held up the arms deliveries.

    This is all the more reason for the IG report to be released to Congress and to the American people, Sammy. We should have the opportunity to judge for ourselves instead of taking the word of a con man president and his befuddled personal attorney.
    It’s as if Trump didn’t read or comprehend Volume I of the Mueller report. There are laws on the books about political campaigns accepting help from foreigners.

    For those wondering, there are several statutes that would cover a situation where a politician or candidate sought to get a foreigner to interfere in an American election. Not the least of these is 50 U.S.C. 30121(2) which states that “It shall be unlawful for… a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation [of a thing of value] from a foreign national.” Additionally, there would be potential violations of 18 U.S.C. 371(1) which states

    If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  155. “It’s as if Trump didn’t read or comprehend Volume I of the Mueller report. There are laws on the books about political campaigns accepting help from foreigners.”
    Paul Montagu (f2c051) — 9/22/2019 @ 8:13 am

    Wait til Mueller finds out about Fusion GPS — hoo boy, he’ll blow a gasket.

    Munroe (732181)

  156. Fusion (steele) haklyut (downer) halper (mi 6 and dia) the whole lokhova sliming.

    Narciso (5a21f8)

  157. “Do you know how Hunter Biden was paid? $3M goes from Ukraine to Latvia, Latvia to Cyprus, Cyprus to Rosemont-Seneca.”

    Sounds totally above board.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  158. SF: Somebody in the intelligence community probably cooked up some phony reason to investigate something or not complete the vetting and so held up the arms deliveries.

    And if so, the story is quite different than the way it’s being spun. And somebody may actually be trying to shift blame away from where it belongs.

    163. Paul Montagu (f2c051) — 9/22/2019 @ 8:13

    This is all the more reason for the IG report to be released to Congress and to the American people, Sammy.

    That is correct, although we don’t know, who, if anybody, in the United states federal government is fair and impartial. We’ve got a big problem there.

    If something like what I suspect is the case, we should find out what’s going on, but people will have a tough job learning what actually has been going on, and still less if it is bottled up in the Congress.

    What’s going on here is we are getting a story, or bits of a story, but also spin

    And the spin doesn’t actually seem to match with the totality, or even the parts of the story, that have been leaked.

    I suspect that the way it works, is that a number of reporters are getting spin “off the record” and its influencing the way they see things. Not everybody gets the same leaks, and some secondary sources are more honest. Furthermore, there are leaks coming out of Ukraine, done by people who I think only want to remain neutral betwee the political parties in the United States add between whoever is pointing figures at each other, and I think that clarifies some things. But it’s not being put together with the other information.

    Note: “off the record” means it cannot be used for publication, but “off the record” can be used to spin the way things are understood. “Deep background” oan be used but not sourced, but I think there’s a lot of misleading or downright false off the record spin here.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  159. When someone lies to you that many times you burn your source:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/beyondreasdoubt/status/1175567763017994242

    Narciso (5a21f8)

  160. We should have the opportunity to judge for ourselves instead of taking the word of a con man president and his befuddled personal attorney.

    Absolutely. We should get the data. But we actually do have more information.

    I think we know now (or can tell from leaks)

    1. The whistleblower complaint primarily concerned the withholding of the aid money from Ukraine through what could be improper means. (the creation of unnecessary obstacles for approval.)

    2. The whistleblower has no knowledge of what President Donald Trump said to Ukrainian president Volodymar Zelensky in their telephone conversation, but either he, or more likely somebody else, speculated that Donald Trump was trying to force Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden or his son.

    If somebody else, the whistleblower complaint, which in that case was solely against lower ranking officials with no speculation as to why or about higher orders was twisted into a complaint against Donald Trump.

    3. The speculation that Donald Trump was trying to force Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden or his son by using the aid as leverage…

    …is ABSOLUTELY FALSE!

    We know this because:

    A) There are people who have seen the transcript of the conversation and there has been a leak that Donald Trump never brought up the matter of the aid in the conversation. (although the stories contain dark hints that maybe he didn’t need to point it out)

    B) There is a leak from Ukraine, that the Ukrainian government didn’t even know there was any kind of a hold on the aid.

    Which means, no use of it as leverage. And that the withholding was on some spurious security or intelligence related pretext – e.g. they need to check something out or complete the vetting.

    4) Ukraine did not start an investigation of Biden or his son, and the aid was delivered, perhaps after the delay caught the attention of Republican members of Congress.

    If the whistleblower complaint mentioned something about Trump pressuring Ukraine it was quite possibly then a CYA complaint.

    5) There is a dispute as to whether this was kind of whistleblower complaint that is required to be forwarded to Congress. Congressman Adam Schiff says, in effect, that even if it is wrongly categorized, it still muat be forwarded. I am not sure what this tells you about the nature of the complaint. Were there two of them? Maybe forthcoming leaks will clarify matters.,

    Also:

    5) Donald Trump was not capable of explaining what supposedly was the wrong thing Biden had done, (he’s Donald Trump) but he knew that Rudolph Giuliani was convinced of it, (and there we could have a problem of someone in Ukraine trying to get Giuliani off on the wrong trail) and so he advised the Ukrainian president to have someone listen to Rudolph Giuliani, who could explain it.

    6) And a meeting was set up through the State Department. Giuliani also was debriefed by the State Department.

    So Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would know what’s going on here.

    7) Giuliani is himself more concerned about Hunter Biden profiting from a relationship with China, which involves more money and where he thinks the case is stronger. he also thinks Joe Biden must have talked with his son about his business dealings, but Joe Biden could have decided to try to learn as little as possible about his son;s business dealings in China, thinking that that was a way to avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety. (Hunter seems to say he discussed something)

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  161. “Do you know how Hunter Biden was paid? $3M goes from Ukraine to Latvia, Latvia to Cyprus, Cyprus to Rosemont-Seneca.”

    Giuliani on Fox News Sunday.

    Sounds more like a protection against an audit than something designed to protect Hunter Biden.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  162. 30. Kishnevi (1cc50f) — 9/20/2019 @ 7:14 pm

    how do explain the tidbit that says the reason Obama/Biden wanted the prosecutor fired was that he was failing to actually investigate corruption?

    The explanation would be that that’s not what Obama really wanted.

    Oh, the reason some people in the Ukraine, or somebody somewhere was told, at some point, that the aid was beibg withheld, was that Donald Trump supposedly:

    1) Was concerned about corruption in Ukraine.

    OR

    2) Wanted the European countries to give the money.

    And we don’t really know who said this to whom when. nd we don’t know if that’s a big lie or not because we don’tt know if if it was ever an official decision (holding up the aid_.

    If the Bidens were acting corruptly, wouldn’t Biden want a prosecutor who wasn’t prosecuting?

    According to Giuliani, that’s what he supposedly got.

    https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/denzel-washington-on-the-club-that-made-him-the-man-he-is-today

    When Biden got the prosecutor fired, the new prosecutor, who Biden approved — you don’t get to approve a prosecutor in a foreign country, unless something fishy is going on.

    The new prosecutor dropped the case, not just on Biden’s kid and the crooked company that Biden’s kid work for, Burisma. That was done as a matter of record in October of 2016, after the guy got tanked.

    He also dropped the case on George Soros’ company called AntAC. AntAC is the company where there’s documentary evidence that they were producing false information about Trump, about Biden. Fusion GPS was there.

    You can hear it all here maybe:

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/6088497630001/#sp=show-clips

    I’m not sure I follow it all, yet.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  163. @ 163 “There are laws on the books about political campaigns accepting help from foreigners.”
    There was the 2017 story in Politico entitled “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfirehttps://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
    Interesting, don’t you think?

    Pete (3aedd6)

  164. How maybe Giuliani was put on the wrong trail, or off another trail:

    ROBERTS: You went there for one thing, you found out something else, and that’s what you have been digging on this.

    (CROSSTALK)

    GIULIANI: That’s the way the pro-Biden media lines it up.

    This began with someone coming to me saying, this information can clear your client about the corruption in Ukraine between the Ukraine, the Democratic Party, the ambassador, and the FBI agent who investigated the case.

    (CROSSTALK)

    ROBERTS: But it then — but then it morphs into Biden.

    GIULIANI: And — inextricably combined, because Biden had the guy fired, Shokin.

    By the way, his statement is on record. The lazy press could go read it. They don’t have to listen to me. There are three videotapes of prosecutors on record, available on here, that nobody has covered for five months, because this town protects Joe Biden.

    [Giuliani means Biden is on the record as claiming, in aspeech on on January 23, 2018 the he got the guy fired.]

    His family has been taking money from his public office for years, $1.5 billion from China, when our vice president is supposed to be impartially and independently negotiating for us? And the kid, he takes him on Air Force Two to China, and the kid…

    ROBERTS: That was in 2013.

    GIULIANI: Yes.

    And the kid, unfortunately, is a drug addict. China didn’t give $1.5 billion to his kid, Biden’s kid, a recovering drug addict, Kerry’s stepson, and Whitey Bulger’s nephew.

    Ladies and gentlemen, go look at what the press has been covering up on you. Can you imagine…

    ROBERTS: This is a company called Rosemont Seneca.

    Let me just — let me just come back, if I could.

    GIULIANI: You got to stop for a second.

    Whitey Bulger’s nephew?

    ROBERTS: Let me just stop for a second.

    GIULIANI: One-point-five billion coming from China, when our vice president…

    (LAUGHTER)

    ROBERTS: Mr. Mayor…

    GIULIANI: That doesn’t shock you?

    ROBERTS: … let me stop for a second, because…

    GIULIANI: I mean, how far have we deteriorated?

    ROBERTS: Let me stop for a second, because we are throwing around a lot of Ukrainian names that people don’t know about.

    GIULIANI: Well, that’s because nobody would ever cover this.

    ROBERTS: Viktor Shokin was a prosecutor back when Biden was the vice president.

    He was looking into Burisma Holdings…

    GIULIANI: Right.

    ROBERTS: … of which Hunter Biden was on the board of directors.

    GIULIANI: Correct.

    ROBERTS: There were some allegations that there was some monkey business going on with Burisma.

    (LAUGHTER)

    ROBERTS: Joe Biden — Joe Biden — Joe Biden went over to Ukraine in 2016…

    GIULIANI: Right.

    ROBERTS: … and said that, I’m going to withhold more than a billion dollars in loan guarantees unless you fire this prosecutor.

    Joe Biden talked about that in 2018. Let’s roll that.

    GIULIANI: Right.

    (LAUGHTER)

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    BIDEN: 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.

    And I think it was, what, six hours. I look at it. I said, we’re leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    ROBERTS: But Shokin had been heavily criticized for corruption.

    And it was the United States and a number of other Western countries who said…

    GIULIANI: So is everybody in the Ukraine.

    ROBERTS: … he needs to go.

    GIULIANI: More relevant…

    ROBERTS: So, was this tied to Hunter Biden, or was this the United States saying, you have got a bad actor there, because he was accused of corruption in his office? And other countries in the West were saying he needs to go as well.

    GIULIANI: What does it matter, if the — if the son is under investigation? He didn’t disclose that.

    Giuliani means that Biden didn’t disclose, in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, that his son was under investigation. Except that he was not. The company he worked for was, maybe. Giuliani later says this correctly]

    Doesn’t the thing strike you? I mean, it is so warped. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that he would tell that story and not mention to you that his son’s company was the major defendant in the investigation, the guy who was carrying on?

    Do you — I happen to know — and I have seen the records — do you know why he was fired? Do you know how the kid was paid? Three million dollars goes from Ukraine to Cyprus — I’m sorry — Ukraine to Latvia, Latvia to Cyprus, Cyprus to Rosemont Seneca.

    I have seen each one of the wires.

    When that prosecutor, Shokin, subpoenaed Cyprus, he got a response. I have the record. They gave him all the information, but two people, Hunter Biden and John Kerry’s stepson — I’m sorry — John Kerry’s speechwriter, who was the best friend of his stepson.

    ROBERTS: The prosecutor who followed..

    GIULIANI: When that happened, Joe Biden knew that they were zeroing in on Hunter.

    As he goes further along, Giuliani actually clarifies that Hunter Biden wasn’t actually under investigation, but he says that could have been next.

    The recent prosecutor said there was nothing illegal in Hunter Biden getting all this money because the Board of Directors could pay him whatever they wanted to pay.

    Hunter Biden actually doesn’t seem to have done anything. But if something happened to that company, now he {Hunter Biden, not Joe) was in a position to lose a very substantial emolument. That was the point.

    And he went over there and he got him fired. And the next day, people showed up. And they started on getting the case for the kid dismissed, as well as the case for Soros. And that’s what brings me into it.

    ROBERTS: Now, the prosecutor — the prosecutor…

    GIULIANI: No, you got to let me finish.

    ROBERTS: OK.

    GIULIANI: He said, I went there to get dirt on Joe Biden.

    Do you know, when I found out about Joe Biden, do know what I told my colleague? They are going to cover this up.

    Too bad Biden is involved in this. I got a nice straight case of Ukrainian collusion. The minute I say Biden, that Washington press corps is going to go nuts. They have been covering up for years, China, plagiarism.

    Giuliani means the natinoal press, by never remincing people of the story or perhaps with other examples, is covering up Biden’s plagarism and the erarlier story about Hunter Biden and China.

    ROBERTS: OK. OK. All right.

    Now you’re straying into areas of opinion, as opposed to fact.

    GIULIANI: No, I’m not. I’m straying into what is wrong with us today and the unfairness.

    ROBERTS: We need to point out — we need to point out that Yuriy Lutsenko, who was the prosecutor who was appointed after Shokin was fire…

    GIULIANI: Approved by…

    ROBERTS: … resurrected, reanimated the case, and found that Hunter Biden was, in fact, paid millions of dollars.

    But Lutsenko said that the board of Burisma was able to pay a board member whatever they wanted, and he didn’t see anything wrong with that.

    GIULIANI: John, how is the coverage so distorted?

    ROBERTS: I’m just pointing out a fact.

    GIULIANI: If you did any work, you would find out Lutsenko is the prosecutor that Biden put in.

    There’s a newspaper article in which Biden approves Lutsenko when he’s appointed. Doesn’t that strike you as odd, that the vice president would approve a particular prosecutor?

    Did you ever bother to look?

    (CROSSTALK)

    GIULIANI: Let me finish.

    ROBERTS: One other point we need to make here before we go.

    GIULIANI: No, no, no, I want answer another question unless you let me finish. This is really unfair.

    These are very important things that have been covered up for years to protect slimy Joe.

    The reality is that there are three other prosecutors where all you have to do is go online, three others, that say that this was done precisely to get rid of Biden, to cover up Hunter, and to cover up Soros.

    I will give you their names. One of them is Kulik, Konstantin Kulik. The other is Shokin himself. And the third one is a prosecutor by the name of Inazdir (ph).

    They are present officials. Three of them were officials. One is still an official of the Ukrainian government.

    If you bothered to look, you could listen to them on tape telling you that. Now, they may all be lying, but Lutsenko may be lying also. But it’s 3-1.

    ROBERTS: One more point we got to make.

    GIULIANI: And Lutsenko is Biden’s chosen prosecutor.

    ROBERTS: OK. You have made your point.

    One more point to make we need to make.

    GIULIANI: You will also find there is a great deal of suspicion.

    ROBERTS: Yes, Joe Biden yesterday told our Peter — Joe Biden told our Peter Doocy yesterday that he never discussed overseas business with his son Hunter.

    GIULIANI: Do you believe that?

    I think it is quite possible, but it could only be on purpose. Now he might not have told the Chinese government that he was deliberately keeping himself unaware of whatever business deals Hunter Biden was making.]

    ROBERTS: I don’t know. Do you believe that?

    GIULIANI: I’m flying my son to China. How long is the flight to China?

    ROBERTS: Its a while.

    GIULIANI: Fifteen hours, 16 hours, 17?

    I’m flying my son to China on Air Force Two. I’m going to negotiate with the Chinese to help America. My son is going there to negotiate to help the Biden family.

    When he comes back, and eight days later, the kid gets a billion dollars in his ridiculous private equity fund run by a recovering drug addict, somebody connected to the vice president of the United States and somebody connected to the biggest gangster in America.

    The son of his brother, who had been in politics, president of the MAssachusetts State Senate, and left it for the more obscure position of president of a university. Whitey Bulger was connected to corrupt FBI agents.

    Wait a second. The son doesn’t say to him, I got a billion dollars? By the way, you see what Joe said? It’s contradicted by the son. The son said, I talked to my father about it.

    How about this? There was an article on December 9 of 2015 in “The New York Times” raising holy hell about Biden’s son being on the board of the most corrupt company in Ukraine and how strange it looked.

    I don’t know if Joe reads the newspapers, but somebody must have read that to him.

    And, finally, if Joe didn’t know what his son was doing abroad, how may conflicts are there? This guy was flying blind? I don’t know. Did he get money from Russia? Did he get money from Cuba? Was he doing business in Venezuela?

    You’re telling me that the vice president of the United States was there for eight years. His son is going around the world taking millions from some adversary of the United States.

    ROBERTS: Yes.

    GIULIANI: Don’t say yes. This is important.

    ROBERTS: No, no, we have — I’m saying we have got to go.

    GIULIANI: This is about the only time I have gotten to point out a tremendously large scandal that affects the American people.

    And it’s your job to do it, not just mine. I’m doing it to defend my client.

    ROBERTS: We are out of time.

    GIULIANI: But you’re telling me that he had no system with his son to check on conflicts? So we know of two.

    I think Biden’s system was to remain ignorant of whatever his younger son was doing.

    We know there’s a big conflict with Ukraine. We know there is a big conflict with China. Since Joe says and is apparently selling the swamp media on the fact that he didn’t know, well, Joe, how many more conflicts are there? Venezuela? Cuba?

    ROBERTS: You have mentioned that.

    We have got to leave it. Mr. Mayor, we are…

    GIULIANI: One-point-five billion is enough for most people to get investigated.

    ROBERTS: We are out of time for this morning, but, clearly, we are going to keep looking into this.

    GIULIANI: And this is going to get bigger and bigger. And everything I say, I can prove.

    ROBERTS: Rudy, thanks so much for being with us.

    GIULIANI: Take me on.

    ROBERTS: All right. Appreciate it.

    But the thing is, I think all of this, including the criminal referral about Hunter Biden that Donald Trump made to president of Ukraine, which inevitably leads to press ccverage of whatever Donald Trump was trying to interest Ukraine in, could have been leaked by a Democrat!

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  165. I watched that “interview”, it was both informative and highlarious.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  166. “And I think it was, what, six hours. I look at it. I said, we’re leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well son of a b!tch. He got fired.”

    I finished the rest of the quote they didn’t show in the clip… it being Sunday and all.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  167. 176. Well, this “never” sounds a lot like Corey Lewandowski’s “never” but Biden has a a better excuse.

    It’s not a big discussion that Hunter Biden said he had with his father. In fact actually it’s not really a discussion at all.

    What the New Yorler said was:

    As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma with him just once: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’ ”

    Not truly a contradiction of:

    “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,”

    Since you can interpret “spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” as being more than the general topic of overseas business dealings.

    You have to avoid these inaccurate or semi-inaccurate talking points.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  168. “There is a finite amount of “power”, congress has delegated/relinquished some powers enumerated in the constitution, it’s also within their purview to reclaim it. The words in the constitution have meaning.”

    The words only have as much meaning as those men who choose to follow them. Congress has relinquished it’s power, you say, yet if they wanted it back, why do they need US to demand they take it back? Let them make their demands for their own power on their own time!

    “But these are obvious things. Of course, you’re playing a roll as a fan of presidential power now, probably not when Obama was president.”

    I am a fan of the most qualified people making the most important decisions. You’re apparently a fan of handing over power to a suite of heavily-gerrymandered DSM cases even when they’ve already shown themselves both unable to wield it and willing to hand it over or exercise it wholly in the service of worse people at the first opportunity!

    Again, when Corey Lewandowski goes to Congress and comes out looking better than anyone there, how do you get ‘they just don’t have ENOUGH power, you see!’ as a conclusion!?

    BigCLewandowski (24ced3)

  169. Corey Lewandowski said that he had never gotten involved with Jeff Sessions or the Department of Justice in any way but he asked to discuss the investigation with the attorney General.

    This is more of aa departure from the truth than Biden saying he had never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings when in reality, according to Hunter, he had raised the subject briefly and obliquely by saying ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ to which Hunter says he replied ‘I do.’

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  170. The words only have as much meaning as those men who choose to follow them. Congress has relinquished it’s power, you say, yet if they wanted it back, why do they need US to demand they take it back? Let them make their demands for their own power on their own time!

    I fail to see an actual argument in your statement, Their own time is whenever they chose it because that’s what the words on that old piece of paper mean. You may want to review it.

    I am a fan of the most qualified people making the most important decisions. You’re apparently a fan of handing over power to a suite of heavily-gerrymandered DSM cases even when they’ve already shown themselves both unable to wield it and willing to hand it over or exercise it wholly in the service of worse people at the first opportunity!

    The most qualified, like DonnieJ? You’re complaining about some sort of left wing gerrymandering? You are not making sense, do you even know what gerrymandering means, because your words say that the answer is no.

    Also, DonnieJ lost the popular vote by millions, so does that mean he shouldn’t be president?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  171. And Corey Lewandowski going to congress? That’s a joke right? First, he’s slightly less moronic than his old boss, but only barely. He’s (not officially) running in an election where he’ll be lucky to get third in the primary, and if he miracled that, the 25 point loss in the general would ruin his career in getting fired, I mean, yeah, getting fired. He’s the Mooch without actual success in something to fall back on.

    Corey Lewandowski is a loser, but he is really good at it.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  172. “Also, DonnieJ lost the popular vote by millions, so does that mean he shouldn’t be president?”

    You’ve indicated you don’t know how the electoral college works.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  173. The Electoral College is constitutionally mandated gerrymandering.

    Kishnevi (f2c02a)

  174. Thats a contradiction in terms,

    Narciso (cc2282)

  175. This whole thing of electing rulers put into practice by some 3,000 slave-owning boy-lovers in Athens 2,500 years ago is primitive and anachronistic. We now have the means to choose the people who’ll run our country when they’re still children, through a series of tests, education and training, and appoint them to the various government functions for which they demonstrate excellence, without regard to race or sex or their parents’ socio-economic status, and without the need to gain the approval of the mob. That’s the kind of system that’s called for in the 21st century.

    nk (dbc370)

  176. The Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, but it’s not gerrymandering, by definition. The states haven’t had their borders changed or altered so as to give one side an electoral advantage.

    Paul Montagu (f2c051)

  177. The states haven’t had their borders changed or altered so as to give one side an electoral advantage.

    Exactly. Though give the guy a little credit. It’s not as pathetic of an assertion as the one claiming being able to see a Bahamas lighthouse, even in daylight, from the beach in Ft. Lauderdale. But it shoehorns into Teh Narrative a little better.

    …primitive and anachronistic. We now have the means to choose the people who’ll run our country when they’re still children, through a series of tests, education and training, and appoint them to the various government functions for which they demonstrate excellence, without regard to race or sex or their parents’ socio-economic status, and without the need to gain the approval of the mob. That’s the kind of system that’s called for in the 21st century.

    Heh. Good one. And scary close to what our modern day “king makers” truly believe.

    PTw (894877)

  178. Btw there was no aide shutdown, the times just talked to outgoing officials with a grudge against the current administration.

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  179. What the dems want is effectively a jerrymander a popular vote would privilege california and new york and minimize everyone elses vote.

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  180. Trump is alleged to have insisted on or implied a quid pro quo with Ukraine. You investigate my poitical opponent’s kid, or you don’t get foreign aid.

    There is a lot of sound and fury to stir up the dust, but, the question remains.

    1. Trump supporter — is this OK with you? If it is, why?

    2. Also Trump supporter — If it is not ok, why why do you oppose a focused investigation by Congress, and a release of the transcript of the conversation with Ukraine.

    Appalled (d07ae6)

  181. There is an easy fix to California’s underrepresentation in Congress — break the state up into several states. (You can split NY in two as well, though that might cause unwanted fracking)

    Appalled (d07ae6)

  182. They wont let it happen, they mean to rule.

    As i pointed out, the quid pro quo happen, now the scandal is how a made up story becomes the dominant event, crowding out real matters regarding intelligence.

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  183. Alaska is more than four times the size of California. How many states should it be split into?

    I know, I know, but why should only population and not land area too be determinative? The population is taken care of in the House of Representatives, and the land area should likewise be represented in the Senate. What fault is it of the big states if people want to live crowded together like rats instead of availing themselves of all that wide open space?

    nk (dbc370)

  184. nk,

    Well, in California –nwhy should San Diego be governed by Sacramento?

    I think California itself would be better off if the huge areas with distinctive and different cultures were divided up. LA and the Bay Area don’t belong in the same state. And it would go a long way to resolving the representation question without totally tossing the geography issue in the ashbin.

    Appalled (d07ae6)

  185. As long as California agrees, Congress can make as many states out of it as it wants:

    New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. Article IV, Section 3.

    Go for it!

    nk (dbc370)

  186. In this congress they’d more likely carve up texas, because the earth cries or something, change my mind.

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  187. In this congress they’d more likely carve up texas, because the earth cries or something, change my mind.

    Well, since you asked…and not that I totally disagree, as it is all a matter of degree….bleh…but I could see a very good leftist argument for carving up CA into two states, just so long as THEY get to draw the line. Split it twixt LA and SF and you will STILL have enough leftists to outweigh the conservatives further inland and thus get TWO more senators for the left and thus TWO more electoral college points. And a good number of teh stupid conservatives, thinking here more of those outside of CA, would go along with it. With TX they would get a much bigger fight.

    PTw (894877)

  188. Yes they would find a way to disenfranchise tbe central valley and interior

    https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/media-corruption-on-perfect-display-in-one-washington-post-paragraph/

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  189. Texas isnt dumb…they will trade a Borderlandia (RGV and parts abutting south San Antonio) for a Wyoming-2 (Panhandle, Permian, maybe EP) and 3 Georgia-like states centered around their respective NBA cities but enough rural surrounding to negate the urban vote.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  190. I don’t see how the Democrats gain by splitting Texas. They do gain by splitting California. So I can see this in play after 2020, and it even sees like the right thing to do (and Constitutionally approved!)

    Appalled (d07ae6)

  191. If they cant take it, they neutralize it:
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/11/hinkley-point-c-case-against-cgn-has-the-feel-of-a-modern-spy-thriller

    Ellus’s business partner, charged with two yeare

    Narciso (ff6b13)

  192. 191. Appalled (d07ae6) — 9/23/2019 @ 6:32 am

    191.Trump is alleged to have insisted on or implied a quid pro quo with Ukraine. You investigate my poitical opponent’s kid, or you don’t get foreign aid.

    That’s what is alleged, but they know already it’s not true.

    The New York Times, at least, got the Ulrainian summary of that telephone conversation. And nobody with any kind of knowledge is disagreeing, not even anonymously. People know, without a transcript, what happened in that connversation just like they know what happened in the conversation between Mike Flynn and the Russian Ambassador.

    What Trump said was more or less that if they fully investigated corruption there would be better relations between the two countries. What Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was interested in was getting a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump. That was not happening. It was finally scheduled to happen during Trump’s trip to Europe (probably the trip for the anniversary of Hitler’s invasion of Poland) but Trump cancelled that trip because of Hurricane Dorian which he thought might hit several states that he carried in the 2016 election and he wanted to show up at the scene of the disaster.

    The meeting is finally scheduled to take place on Wednesday, at the United Nations.

    In the conversation, Trump referred Zelensky to Giuliani, who had accusations to make or suspicions about Joe or Hunter Biden, and somebody counted up at least eight separate references. Trump wanted everything Giuliani had to say checked out.

    Ukraine did not know at the time (July 25) that somebody somehow had put a hold on the aid by throwing up some bureaucratic obstacle. There is, I think. a great possibility that Donald Trump didn’t know.

    It is unknown what exactly is in the whistleblower complaint but it may allege that the reason the aide was withheld was that Donald Trump wanted to pressure kraine to open an investigation into Joe Biden.

    The whistleblower complaint, made on August 12, speculates as to what took place during the telephone conversation between United States president Donald J. Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

    Now I wonder how that fact of a whistleblower complaint leaked.

    Apparently, there was some testimony about it in Congress (so somebody first leaked to a member of Congress) in which the legal issues concerning the whistleblower complaint were discussed but just what this was alla bout was not, but then somebdy started leaking more, first about he hearing and then some more details.

    The intelligence committees of Congress were not given that whistleblower complaint, although they are supposed to get all whistleblower complaints involving the inteligence community, because the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, when asked to rule on this by the Director of National Intelligence, said that allegations against the president are not covered by Section 3033(k) of the whistleblower statute. And that even the substance of it might not be (possibiliy because the whistleblower had no factual information or didn’t make the allegation the right way?)

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says that it doesn’t matter whether this was a proper subject for a whistleblower complaint – it was still, in fact, a whistleblower complaint and so should have been forwarded to his committee because there’s no discreton about it written in the law.

    Of course he’s giving only half the argument and not being very clear about what he’s saying.

    Meanwhile Giuliani is saying that quite possibly the reason that Joe Biden got the prosecutor fired was to protect his son, and that Hunter Biden maybe had committed some underlying crime (the most logical of which would be participating in the looting of the company, thus cheating minority investors, or maybe debt holders or maybe the Ukrainian government of taxes.)

    The Ukrainian government doesn’t want to take sides with either political party in the United States.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  193. Right nnow there;a move to make the District of Columbia, minus some federal buildings and immediate surroundings, the 51st State, which would add 2 probably Democratic Senators to the Senate. Republicans ppose that but are not giving that as the reason. One Republican complained that the Trump hotel was put into the state in the bill. (on the idea that they’re going to harass him?)

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  194. Some states were created to gerrymander the Senate or the Electoral College.

    West Virginia in 1863.

    Nevada in 1864.

    The splitting of Dakota in North Dakota and South Dakota in 1889.

    Now it could also be said that admitting all of California into just one sate back in 1850 was a mistake, but they probably couldn’t get two states, and might not get another one for a long time.

    In 1820, Maine was split off from Massachusttes as part of the Missouri Compromise. They were already counting slave states and free states.

    In 1958/9 Alaska was expected to be Demcratic and Hawaii Republican. Within about ten years it worked out the other way.

    DC would not affect the Electoral College because it has 3 Electoral votes anyway and now the size of a House district has grown so much that it would still have 3. In fact, Rhode Island may go down from 4 Electoral votes to3 after the 2020 election.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  195. But of course Zelensky knew that that money hadn’t been approved yet by the White House when he and Trump had their phone call.

    No, he didn’t know that, maybe because they were getting excuses, but they didn’t know that it was being held up.

    And then when they got the money they got some more money from State Department fund that they hadn’t expected.

    And the Wall Street Journal is about two or three days late to the story that supposedly didn’t threaten to withhold the $250 million in military aid that Ukraine had been promised. Thats because apparently that allegation is in the whistleblower complaint, bit apaprently was made, as the New York Times likes to say “without evidence.”

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  196. Further, President Trump is scheduled to meet with Zelensky next week.

    This Wednesday. (next week as of Friday September 20)

    I didn’t realize that the date of that WSJ story was indeed two or three days ago.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)

  197. 183. Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c) — 9/22/2019 @ 9:18 pm

    And Corey Lewandowski going to congress? That’s a joke right? First, he’s slightly less moronic than his old boss, but only barely. He’s (not officially) running in an election where he’ll be lucky to get third in the primary…Corey Lewandowski is a loser, but he is really good at it.

    He’s leading in the polls in the Republican primary for the United States Senate from New Hampshire, r was before his testimony

    https://www.insidesources.com/new-poll-gives-trump-ally-corey-lewandowski-big-lead-in-n-h-senate-primary

    Now that may be because of name recognition. All 3 announced candidates were below 10%, (Corey Lewandowski has not announced) Corey Lewandowski was near 30% and “undecided” was at 49 percent.

    Ted Cruz endorsed another Republican.

    Now he might not do too well against New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

    Sammy Finkelman (9a15c6)


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