Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Feel free to talk about anything you think is newsworthy or might interest readers.
I’ll start.
First news item: President Trump says he might do a “fireside chat” with regard to the Ukraine phone call, and the White House press secretary confirms that he is serious about it:
A defiant President Trump signaled he will not cooperate with the Democratic Party’s impeachment proceedings, insisting his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “a good call” and that he might read it aloud to Americans so they can see his point.
“This is over a phone call that is a good call,” Trump, sitting behind the Resolute Desk, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call, because people have to hear it. When you read it, it’s a straight call.”
Second news item: Former President Obama cautioned “woke” culture warriors and then got cancelled :
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Mr. Obama said. “You should get over that quickly.”
“The world is messy; there are ambiguities,” he continued. “People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”
“I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people,’” he said, “and that’s enough.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb,” he said, “then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’”
[…]
“That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change,” he said. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
Third news item: Sections of the new border wall being easily breached by smugglers:
Smuggling gangs in Mexico have been using power tools to saw through new parts of President Trump’s border wall, making openings for people to pass through…
The Post reports that smugglers have used reciprocating saws that sell at hardware stores for about $100, citing U.S. agents and officials.
The tool’s blade can slice through the barrier’s steel in minutes, they said. They have also used ladders to go atop the barriers in areas around San Diego.
Fourth news item: A little trick-or-treater caught in the crossfire:
Every Halloween, 26th Street through Little Village becomes an unbroken parade of children in bright costumes snaking in and out of businesses braced for the trick-or-treaters.
[…]
A 7-year-old girl dressed in a red and black costume was shot and seriously wounded across the street from the restaurant by a gunman aiming at a gang rival. Yet children continued to come in for candy, despite the crime tape and squad cars.
“It did not faze people,” she said. “Our community is very immune to the situation.”
Police believe the gunman is a member of the Gangster Two-Six gang and was targeting a Latin King when he shot the girl two times as she walked down the street with her father Thursday evening in the 3700 block of West 26th Street — close to the border dividing rival street gangs.
The gunman stepped from an alley about 5:30 p.m. and yelled a Latin King insult before firing at least seven times into a crowd of children, hitting the girl on the right side of the neck and her upper chest, according to Chicago police.
Fifth news item: A fascinating breakdown of President Trump’s tweets:
The Times examined Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter since taking office, reviewing all his tweets, retweets and followers, and interviewing nearly 50 current and former administration officials, lawmakers and Twitter executives and employees. What has emerged is a rich account, with new analysis, previously unreported episodes and fresh details of how the president exploits the platform to exert power.
…He has taken to Twitter to demand action 1,159 times on immigration and his border wall, a top priority, and 521 times on tariffs, another key agenda item. Twitter is an instrument of his foreign policy: He has praised dictators more than a hundred times, while complaining nearly twice as much about America’s traditional allies. Twitter is the Trump administration’s de facto personnel office: The chief executive has announced the departures of more than two dozen top officials, some fired by tweet.
More than half of the president’s posts — 5,889 — have been attacks; no other category even comes close. His targets include the Russia investigation, a Federal Reserve that won’t bow to his whims, previous administrations, entire cities that are led by Democrats, and adversaries from outspoken athletes to chief executives who displease him. Like no other modern president, Mr. Trump has publicly harangued businesses to advance his political goals and silence criticism, often with talk of government intervention. Using Twitter, he threatened “Saturday Night Live” with an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission and accused Amazon, led by Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, of cheating the United States Postal Service.
As much as anything, Twitter is the broadcast network for Mr. Trump’s parallel political reality — the “alternative facts” he has used to spread conspiracy theories, fake information and extremist content, including material that energizes some of his base.
Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter has accelerated sharply since the end of the special counsel’s Russia investigation and reached a new high as Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry, the analysis shows…
Sixth news item: Washington Nationals’ pitcher says “no” to making official White House visit:
Washington Nationals’ pitcher Sean Doolittle will not join his fellow teammates Monday for an official White House visit honoring the new World Series champions, saying Friday that he “just can’t go” because of Trump’s “divisive rhetoric.”
[…]
“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country,’ he told the paper.
[…]
“People say you should go because it’s about respecting the office of the president and I think over the course of his time in office he’s done a lot of things that maybe don’t respect the office.”
He continued: “I don’t want to hang out with somebody who talks like that.”
Have a great weekend.
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana
Good morning.
Dana (16b5ab) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:16 amWhen Obama is calling out people for their narcissism, the end days are nigh.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:17 amIf Trump really wants to troll Democrats with his fireside chat, he’ll make it radio-only and release pictures of himself wearing gasses and smoking a cigarette through a long cigarette-holder.
JVW (54fd0b) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:28 amThe “wall” should 50 feet thick, of stone, with a road on top. We may not be able to get the Mexicans to pay for it, but they’ll probably build it for a LOT less than US contractors.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:28 amWashington Nationals’ pitcher Sean Doolittle will not join his fellow teammates Monday for an official White House visit honoring the new World Series champions, saying Friday that he “just can’t go” because of Trump’s “divisive rhetoric.”
More narcissism.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:29 amI would have kept cool and insisted the B-I-L with autism come along and asked if Barron was interested in being there (at the O.O. visit). The machinations as to whether Barron was allowed and if he was kept room widths away from Doolittle’s B-I-L would be illustrative.
urbanleftbehind (955a38) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:36 amAnd was your #4 before it after reading this?
urbanleftbehind (955a38) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:38 am3, and if he has a young maiden assisting him bathing, he’s just taking the cosplay a few years forward.
urbanleftbehind (955a38) — 11/2/2019 @ 10:58 amI would say: No, that will be when Trump calls out people for narcissism. Except that Trump is always accusing others of faults that he himself displays in superabundance.
The end of days will be nigh when Trump begins to acknowledge fault and error in himself.
Or when Trump fans admit they may have been a mite hypocritical in sounding so offended by other people’s narcissism and dishonesty while constantly making excuses for Trump.
Radegunda (39c35f) — 11/2/2019 @ 11:21 am1. G’day from Australia
Dave (cbbd7c) — 11/2/2019 @ 1:07 pm2. I miss Beldar
In the 1970’s a street gang in chicago called the black stone rangers was used by chicago police to counter the influence of the black panther party after the police killed fred hampton and mark clark. The black community doesn’t trust authority and is protective of young black men. This has been going on a long time and now you want change? Sow the wind reap the whirlwind. Now that they are not murdering black leaders like president obama thing could get slowly better and overcome the distrust of the black community. First minorities elect crooks remember vote early and often for curley (irish) then militants and finally real leaders ;but it takes time.
asset (8b03e4) — 11/2/2019 @ 1:58 pmWhat happened to Beldar?
JRH (52aed3) — 11/2/2019 @ 2:05 pmEnjoy, Dave.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/2/2019 @ 3:12 pmNothing like a change of scenery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDzLk9SshY
Well, that just about sums up my thoughts on the Trump presidency, Zero the Hero.
But the are other, much less music related, commentaries.
https://reason.com/2019/11/01/trumps-near-zero-presidency/
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 11/2/2019 @ 3:17 pmIf you needed an example to demonstrate how far off the left side of the beam the Democratic Party has fallen of late, you could do no better than note that Barack Obama, America’s first overtly Marxist-inclined president, has now become the party’s voice of reason and moderation.
Of course, he is “calling out” the radical youth that he himself helped to radicalize. But he is calling them out for being too intolerant of differences, too self-assured in their posturing, and too quick to cast the first stone. This is the man who said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” and that he would stop the rise of the oceans, and that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin, and that it’s better for everyone when you “spread the wealth around,” and that “you didn’t build that.”
That same community rabble-rouser, Bill Ayers protégé, and admirer of Marxist professors, is now the Democratic Party’s moderate voice.
There’s your progressive ratchet in action, “folks.”
Daren Jonescu (2f5857) — 11/2/2019 @ 3:57 pmTrump won’t read the “transcript” because he doesn’t read in general. But if he does read something out loud, he’d be better off reading what Jesse Jackson read.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/2/2019 @ 4:30 pmMueller interview notes obtained by CNN show Trump’s push for stolen emails
President Donald Trump and other top 2016 Trump campaign officials repeatedly privately discussed how the campaign could get access to stolen Democratic emails WikiLeaks had in 2016, according to newly released interview notes from Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation. …
A retelling of events from former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, who served alongside campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is the fullest detail revealed by the Justice Department yet on discussions within the Trump campaign as it pursued damaging information about its Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. The documents were stolen by the Russians, the American intelligence community has found.
“[Rick] Gates recalled a time on the campaign aircraft when candidate Trump said, ‘get the emails.’ [Michael] Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails,” investigators wrote in a summary of Gates’ April 2018 interview with Mueller’s team. Flynn was a foreign policy adviser on the campaign and became Trump’s first national security adviser.
“Gates said Donald Trump Jr. would ask where the emails were in family meetings. Michael Flynn, [Jared] Kushner, [Paul] Manafort, [Redacted] [Corey] Lewandowski, Jeff Sessions, and Sam Clovis expressed interest in obtaining the emails as well. Gates said the priority focuses of the Trump campaign opposition research team were Clinton’s emails and contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Flynn, [Redacted] [Jeff] Sessions, Kushner, and [Donald] Trump Jr. were all focused on opposition topics,” Gates told investigators, according to the interview summary.
…..
Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/2/2019 @ 4:47 pmDana, to me the more significant NYT piece on Trump’s Twitter use is this one, which outlines how he’s been peddling disinformation.
What’s truly regrettable is that, even he has the best access to the best available information, he only seems to absorb “facts” from Fox & Friends and conspiracy theories and Putin, tossing the rest aside.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:11 pm@18: Trump’s twitter feed didn’t advance a fake dossier and a two year collusion hoax.
Munroe (138863) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:21 pmThanks! Unfortunately it takes 24 hours of traveling to get here…
Cool Aussie story: I’ve had the nagging tail end of a cold for a couple weeks, with something in my chest that makes me cough. So I was waiting during a few-hour layover in Melbourne and the guy sitting in the row behind offered me a cough drop from a fresh box of Cepacol. I thanked him very much, and then he insisted I keep the whole box. I tried to protest, but then his wife chimed in “It’s OK, we’re home.” I couldn’t very well refuse so I just thanked them again. The cough drops actually did seem to help, too…
Dave (6974cc) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:21 pmI had t seen that, Paul Montague. That is interesting.
He goes for what’s easy to process and requires little examination or analysis. I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for those around him with experience and serious knowledge about any particular subject and have their expertise pushed aside for Fox and Friends.
Dana (16b5ab) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:42 pmToday:
Jennifer Bendery
@jbendery
Good morning! ☕ Trump keeps naming people to be lifetime federal judges who were rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association and Senate Republicans keep confirming them anyway.
__ _
2013:
Jennifer Bendery
@jbendery
Senate confirms Obama nominee under new filibuster rules and world doesn’t end
__ _
Today:
Mike Moss
@_MikeMoss
I think the ABA’s behavior regarding VanDyke tells us everything we need to know about why that is.
__ _
🎅It’s🎄Almost ⛄️Christmas🎁
harkin (337580) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:54 pm@jtLOL
Replying to
@jbendery
Next time, don’t nominate Hillary Clinton.
_
A presidential loathing for Ukraine is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry
Three of President Trump’s top advisers met with him in the Oval Office in May, determined to convince him that the new Ukrainian leader was an ally deserving of U.S. support.
They had barely begun their pitch when Trump unloaded on them, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the meeting. In Trump’s mind, the officials said, Ukraine’s entire leadership had colluded with the Democrats to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign.
“They tried to take me down,” Trump railed. …..
But the harder they pushed in the Oval Office, the more Trump resisted.
……
“They are horrible, corrupt people,” Trump told them……
Trump’s animosity to Ukraine ran so deep and was so resistant to the typical foreign policy entreaties about the need to stand by allies that senior officials involved in Ukraine policy concluded that the only way to overcome it was to set up an Oval Office meeting with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. …..
Inside the administration, Trump’s top advisers debated the origins of his ill-feeling. Some argued that Trump saw Ukraine as an impediment to better U.S. relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was angry about U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow for its annexation of Crimea and for the Kremlin’s ongoing support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. ….
Since his first days in office, Trump has made clear that he has little patience for alliances or anything that commits the United States to defending a weaker ally. He has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO and harangued Europeans for not contributing more to the common defense. U.S. officials describe Trump’s mind-set as short term and transactional. Instead of looking for allies, Trump is forever in search of a deal, they say. …
Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:56 pmWhat’s truly regrettable is that, even he has the best access to the best available information, he only seems to absorb “facts” from Fox & Friends and conspiracy theories and Putin, tossing the rest aside.
While this is true, and not very good, it is representative of many of his supporters. One might ask why so many people are trying to get their information from such dodgy sources instead of the established news media. The answer would pertain to many things about Trump, such as “How did this guy win?”
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:58 pm23 Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:56 pm
That’s pretty much the way I see the situation (that is that Trump saw it) and that;s why it is correct to say there was no quid pro quo.
So that explains how a meeting became the quid.
This is what I think happened. I don’t know whether the “Fireside chat; is going to explain itt this way;
Trump’s holding up of the aid to Ukraine verged on illegality because he risked the money not being spent by September 30, and that would violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974
Pentagon lawyers told the White House, after they had been officially notified in July that the money wasn’t going out, that if the spending was not approved by August 6, it would be impossible to spend all the money by September 30, and Trump would stand in violation of the Impoundment Control Act.
That alone, had it happened, would be sufficient grounds for impeachment by the way if the House wanted to do that,
Mick Mulvaney, wearing his hat as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said they were wrong. Mulvaney did not bring the problem to Trump’s attention. After all, he was a yes man.
Instead he tried to devise another way, using Gordon D. Sondland, the Ambassador to the European Union, to get Trump to approve the aid. That was by getting Ukraine to satisfy Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani would tell Trump the people in the Ukrainian government now were good guys and that would be it.
Mulvaney and Sondland didn’t tell the Ukrainians that aid was being withheld because that would be called to the attention of Congress by Ukraine and then Trump would find out he’d ordered something that he had no power to do.
Mulvaney didn’t want Trump to find out there had ever had been a problem caused by his decision not to send the aid.
Or, like Anonymous said in his 2018 Op-ed piece, he was “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations” and “thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses”
HE COULDN’T CONTINUE TO DO THAT IF HE LET TRUMP KNOW HE THOUGHT HE WAS WRONG
Now also apparently, the president was authorized to withhold the aid in case of corruption (I’m not sure of this but Jonah Goldberg wrote that) so Mulvaney he discussed with Trump where did Trump see corruption that Ukraine wasn’t tackling properly.
The very gentle pressure on Ukraine to help Giuliani didn’t work, partially at least because Giuliani was talking nonsense.
On August 28, the Ukrainians found out, from a Politico article and also from an Adam Schiff announcement and I don’t know how they might be related, that the aid was not stalled by bureaucracy but was being withheld by presidential order.
Sondland had to explain himself to a lot of people and now said that there was a quid pro quo of investigations for the aid, although he didn’t tell that to the Ukrainians.
This claim of a quid pro quo – investigations for the aid – was soon brought to Trump’s attention by Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis) on September 1. Trump said he never said any such thing and wouldn’t do any such thing and asked Senator Johnson who told him that. Johnson told him Sondland. Trump further said there was a bigger problem with Ukraine and it seems like he meant was that not even that would free the aid. And he said the same thing when Sondland was asked to ask Trump if there was a quid pro quo of investigations to free the aid..
Trump said no there wasn’t and he couldn’t tell that to the Ukrainians.
And what this meant was that nothing so simple as approving an investigation into Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election and into Burisma was going to work.
So by now, there were mutterings in Congress and they were thinking of what steps they should take and two weeks after the hold on the security aid became public, on September 11, 2019, when Trump saw he had a political problem he reversed himself and authorized the aid.
But, as the Pentagon had predicted, they couldn’t get all the aid out the door by September 30, when all the appropriations for Fiscal 2019 expired, and it had to be transferred and re-appropriated
Sammy Finkelman (976d9e) — 11/2/2019 @ 6:24 pmfor Fiscal 2020 in the continuing resolution.
The President didn’t Trust Ukraine. So? That would be an article II power. Withholding funds due to corruption is an Article II power. You can argue,(unsuccessfully) that there was no corruption, or that was not a true motivator, tough. Dems don’t need any reason. They can write the article of impeachments for winning the election. They don’t need a reason.
iowan2 (cca05f) — 11/2/2019 @ 6:50 pmItem 1: President Trump says he might do a “fireside chat” with regard to the Ukraine phone call, and the White House press secretary confirms that he is serious about it…. Source.
Item 2: All great works of drama feature a memorable, show-stealing pair of clowns — your Rosencrantzes and Gildensterns, your Vladimirs and Estragons. In the drama of Ukraine-gate (a.k.a Ukraine-ghazi, a.k.a. Uncle Rudy’s Wild Ride), the questing couple whose artful failures reveal the icy abyss deep in the heart of human existence is the Ukrainian-Floridian lawyer duo Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. … source.
The late night skits just write themselves. Comedy gold!
Rip Murdock (e4a538) — 11/2/2019 @ 7:14 pmPutin’s words, coming out of Munroe’s mouth.
Paul Montagu (cbbfc4) — 11/2/2019 @ 7:44 pmhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/11/warren-loses-the-lawyers.php
ColoComment (a5d387) — 11/2/2019 @ 7:47 pmThat’s nonsense. There was a Ukrainian-born American activist who worked for awhile with the DNC who got some information from the Ukrainian embassy. Unlike Putin, there was no directed effort from Ukrainian leadership to tip the scales in an American election.
Paul Montagu (cbbfc4) — 11/2/2019 @ 7:58 pmTrump has been fed a load of bullsh*t on Ukraine, thanks to the likes of Putin, the Hungarian president and probably Manafort, who was a one-degree-removed agent for Putin. The reality is that Trump is so in denial of Putin’s “sweeping and systematic” effort to undermine our election that he’s clinging to whatever alternative narrative he can get his hands on, truth be damned.
Jonah Goldberg on Conan the Heroic Dog (I don’t have a link, so it’s a cut-and-paste):
Amen. For the first time in all my dog-owning years, our latest pup (Nellie) bonded to me (instead of Mrs. Montagu or the kids), and it’s been a special relationship, and an unexpectedly excellent one.
Paul Montagu (cbbfc4) — 11/2/2019 @ 8:38 pmThat’s so nice, Paul Montague – both Goldberg’s piece, which I wholeheartedly agree with, and that Nellie girl is yours.
Dana (16b5ab) — 11/2/2019 @ 9:09 pmA friend of mine was involved with getting dogs to afghanistan, and now after they finish serving she finds homes for them all around the country. On her own dime. Mary Katherine a retired bomb sniffer will meet you at the driveway check you out and then proceed to look under the vehicle sniffing away. She finished, came back to me and put her head on my hip. My friend said whoa, she has never did that before. Getting to know Mary Katherine has been a great experience. She will smell me at a farmers market or the post office and leave my friend and come see me. My friend tells a friend she is with – Don’t worry she is going to see her boyfriend!! She has another dog, Sam whose job was to keep everyone behind him. So these two dogs are in the room where I’m working and Mary Katherine wants to leave, but Sam wouldn’t let her out of the room until he thought it was safe. absolutely hysterical watching that dog keep Mary Katherine fro exiting the room. Dogs Rock.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 1:43 amHey, Nellie. I bet your a good girl!
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 2:00 amSo when the orange said al-Bagdadi died like a dog he was paying him a compliment?
nk (dbc370) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:22 amUgh. Again with the “they say…”
felipe (023cc9) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:47 amLike a deer that yearns for the streaming water, I yearn for those who would utter “I say.” I yearn for the Truth.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/2/2019 @ 5:58 pm
There is something about your comment that I really like, Kevin; you invite the reader to think.
felipe (023cc9) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:50 amGood morning, everyone! I am off to worship my Creator; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. I will remember you, and yours, in my prayers.
felipe (023cc9) — 11/3/2019 @ 4:35 amDominus vobiscum, felipe.
I will similarly be driving my daughter to church a little later.
nk (dbc370) — 11/3/2019 @ 4:49 amWhen asked if people took his seriously, the candidate gave the perfect answer: “It’s all fun and games until Andrew Yang is beating you in the polls.”
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/3/2019 @ 6:41 amIt’s him, Biden and a one-percenter or two who favor nuclear power.
#32 Everyone likes dogs.
rcocean (1a839e) — 11/3/2019 @ 7:50 amnk (dbc370) — 11/3/2019 @ 4:49 am
Et cum spiritu tuo, nk.
felipe (023cc9) — 11/3/2019 @ 8:16 amIt isn’t as though nobody else could see that Trump’s thinking really is “short term and transactional” and that he always prefers an “I win / you lose” deal to a real alliance.
And it isn’t as though anyone should look to Trump himself to find the Truth about anything.
Radegunda (0a00f2) — 11/3/2019 @ 8:36 am“Nellie’s a good girl!” She hears that every day.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:29 amIt’s amazing how a dog who’s connected to you hangs on your every word and movement. Every person should experience such a thing, and it’s humbling that would a canine would give her life over like that.
“Nellie’s a good girl!” She hears that every day.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:29 amIt’s amazing how a dog who’s connected to you hangs on your every word and movement. Every person should experience such a thing, and it’s humbling that would a canine would give her life over like that.
Oops, sorry for the dup.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:30 amRadegunda (0a00f2) — 11/3/2019 @ 8:36 am
Right on all counts.
felipe (023cc9) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:32 amBut at some point, regardless of which side of the ledger you sit on, Felipe’s demand is a reasonable request to start naming names and for those “names” to expunge or get off that open seat.
urbanleftbehind (ba6eb3) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:58 amTrump is having a press conference right now.
Sammy Finkelman (58e1fc) — 11/3/2019 @ 9:59 am46: It’s worthy saying twice.
Radegunda (0a00f2) — 11/3/2019 @ 10:29 amMy dogs Walter and Gina hate daylight savings time.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 10:32 am”Putin’s words, coming out of Munroe’s mouth.”
Paul Montagu (cbbfc4) — 11/2/2019 @ 7:44 pm
Not sure what end of your body that comment came from, Montagu, but it’s all Schiff.
Munroe (dd6b64) — 11/3/2019 @ 10:33 amMore proof of the nk theory wrt Trump and Guliani: http://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-tried-spell-republican-accidentally-202333456.html
urbanleftbehind (ba6eb3) — 11/3/2019 @ 10:47 amMittens finding out that joining the Resistance is not a guarantee against getting ratio’d:
https://mobile.twitter.com/OTLonESPN/status/1189590704529596419
harkin (337580) — 11/3/2019 @ 11:16 amNo use but for Romney to be a sanctimonious scold on NIL, Ron DeSantis kind of beat him to the enlightened “black-friendly” position on that (smart because FL is a net “exporter” of collegiate football talent).
urbanleftbehind (ba6eb3) — 11/3/2019 @ 11:41 amI had a dog once, when I was a small boy in San Antonio. His name was Whiskers. Oh, how we would run around and play together in the backyard of our home. I loved that dog.
Then, one day I put him on a leash to take him for a walk around the block. Suddenly, this car came screaming around the corner, ran over him and sped away. That was a traumatic event for a six-year old boy. I mean, seriously, standing alone in the street with your best friend dead. But at least that reckless idiot didn’t run over me–he missed me by about two feet. Still, what to do? Everything happened so fast, and now my dog is dead.
So, I carried him home, dug a grave in the backyard, made a little monument, and buried him.
Shortly thereafter my parents moved down here, into an apartment complex. I wanted to get another dog, but apartment living is not for dogs. They need a backyard they can run around and play in. I suppose it depends on the breed, because there are people that have always had dogs in this complex, but those are mostly little dogs, like Chihuahuas or Poodles. Not exactly the kind of dogs I bind with. I have always wanted a dog, but it would have to be a German Shepard or a Siberian Husky, not a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull. Unfortunately, I have not lived where such a dog could be provided for. A dog like that requires a backyard, a territory all his own.
Perhaps this is why “A Boy and His Dog” by Harlan Ellison, is one of my favorite science fiction stories, even more than Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. It’s a short story, set in post-apocalyptic Earth. Civilization has been destroyed, and there are over-dwellers and under-dwellers.
On the surface, a boy has a physic link with his dog. They can read each other’s minds. The boy searches for food, and the dog searches for girls.
Problem is the under-dwellers have become sterile. Their men are impotent. So what they do is send young women to the over-world to seduce fertile young men. This is the scam the hero is seduced into. When he realizes that they plan to harvest his sperm, strapped down on a table, testicles drained, he revolts and escapes. The under-world is such a dirty place.
He takes the girl who seduced him with him. And when they get to the surface, there is his loyal dog waiting for him, dying of hunger. So he kills the girl to feed his dog.
Yeah, absolutely. The girl totally betrayed him, and then tried to take advantage of him. But the dog was always loyal. The dog would have died at the entrance to the under-world before he abandoned the boy.
This is what I’m talking about. Forget the girl. Remember the dog.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 11/3/2019 @ 12:04 pmYes. Trump will read the call transcript to prove that he can read. It sure won’t be because it demonstrates innocence.
noel (f22371) — 11/3/2019 @ 12:21 pmGawain’s Ghost,
That was an incredibly traumatic experience, no doubt. I feel so badly for the little boy you were having to experience that. It would be traumatic for an adult, let alone a young child.
I have that German Shepherd you mentioned. All 100lbs. He was found wandering the streets of a small backwater town, ended up in a kill shelter, and then a dog rescue worker picked him up just as they were getting ready to euthanize him. No one adopted him. Shepherds scare people. They require a lot of diligence and commitment, yet are incredibly loyal. Anyway, we adopted him from the rescue center where he had languished for months. He quickly fattened up, immediately bonded with the family, loves his two daily hour-long walks. What took much longer to overcome was his panic and insecurity when left alone or if we were out of his sight. But in four years, he has been so spoiled and indulged, that I don’t think he even knows that he’s a dog. He is the neighborhood darling, gets tons of affection while out for walks, and quite literally prances around like a show pony. On the flip side, he barks madly at…crickets, constantly tries to jump up telephone poles if he see squirrels overhead, has hilarious-to-watch nervous breakdowns if he sees a cat, and periodically thinks he’s a lap dog and tries to settle on our laps. He’s a good dog. He had a horrible life before, but the skinny, wounded boy seems to have transformed into a happy fellow who knows that he is finally home.
Dana (cb74ca) — 11/3/2019 @ 12:38 pmPutin has been selling the bogus narrative (with Trump’s blessing) that Putin wasn’t behind a “sweeping and systematic” effort to undermine the 2016 election, and Putin has also pushed the bogus narrative (with Trump’s blessing) that Ukraine was behind the DNC hacks. You’re a loyal Trump supporter.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 11/3/2019 @ 1:01 pmCalled as seen.
Gawain’s Ghost,
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:34 pmWow!
You obviously recovered.
But Wow.
Yes, Dana, it was a traumatic experience. I mean, you’re just a young boy out walking your dog, and the next minute he’s run over in the street. What do you do? Alone, on a corner, with a dead dog.
There’s no police to call. The reckless driver sped away. There were no witnesses, just me, and I barely got a look at the car. All I could do was carry Whiskers home to the backyard, give him a decent burial and built a little monument, which is about all a six-year old can do.
I love dogs, and I’ve always wanted another one. It’s just that the relationship between a boy and his dog is always about the backyard. That’s where they play together, and that’s what he defends.
It’s hard to explain the relationship, but Harlan Ellison has a pretty good idea of it. There really is a psychic/telepathic link. And no deceitful girl can ever match the loyalty of a dog to his boy. She just wants to exploit him; he only wants to defend him.
So, at the end, when the hero escapes from the underground lair that only wanted to harvest sperm, there is his dog, awaiting his return at the entrance. Almost dead, because a dog will sacrifice everything to befriend a boy. When faced with a choice between the girl who lied to him and used sex to seduce him into testicular slavery, and the dog who has always remained loyal to him, what decision is to be made at the climax?
Um, kill the girl feed her to the dog,
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:36 pm58 – Standing Ovation in your recovery of that 100 lb. G.S.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:38 pmYeah, I’ll pass on the Harlan Ellison story and take your word for it. If you are ever in a position to rescue a German Shepherd, I highly recommend it. Their loyalty is unmatched, they are very smart and vigilant over their owners. But, if one considers adopting a shepherd, know that they require long walks, several times a day. They require consistent discipline, and it may take a while for their strong wills to yield to the loving hand of their masters. But the hard work is worth it in the end. They are alpha dogs and must be taught (and constantly have it reinforced) just who the leader of their new pack is. They tend to get antsy if they are not stimulated enough (they are work dogs and very smart work dogs and need to be occupied). In other words, they require a lot of time and commitment. Also, ours has cleverly gotten out of the yard a few times to run up to passers-by and attempted to play with their dogs they are walking.
P.S. Beware though, it doesn’t go over well with dog owners walking their dogs down the street and a hundred pounds of happy, playful German Shepherd escapes the yard, and makes a B-line (with tail wagging) to have a romp with their new friend walking by…
Dana (cb74ca) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:44 pm63- you just described my Chesapeake Bay Retriever. 90 lbs. of non stop alpha.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:48 pmOn our walk the other day he carried a 4x4x3′ 1/2 mile home. Walter was proud as a peacock.
mg (8cbc69) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:50 pmWow. Determination and strength. Retrievers are gonna retrieve.
Dana (cb74ca) — 11/3/2019 @ 3:55 pmThe Act was passed in response to feelings in Congress that President Nixon was abusing his power of impoundment by withholding funding of programs he opposed. The Act, especially after Train v. City of New York (1975), effectively removed the presidential power of impoundment.
I am going to bet money that no President has accepted that view, and that they feel the executive is the person who decides whether to spend appropriated funds.
The Constitution says that no monies may be expended without Congressional appropriation (and yet DACA), but nowhere does it say that all appropriated money must be spent. Passing a law directing the executive in his duties is pretty clearly a separation of powers problem.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/3/2019 @ 5:44 pmCertainly if a President spends funds that Congress has REFUSED to appropriate, it would be impeachable, and probably criminal. But I really doubt that Congress can force a President to spend funds in an area that lie within his Constitutional duties. It’s impeachable, of course, but what isn’t?
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/3/2019 @ 6:42 pmAppropriations by Congress are laws. So if the money is not spent, that’s a violation of the law.
Remember, the primary duty of the Executive branch is to Execute the laws passed by the Legislative branch.
More broadly, I would say that the idea you are suggesting would justify the President ignoring any law he chooses.
Kishnevi (61bde2) — 11/3/2019 @ 6:56 pmAppropriations by Congress are laws. So if the money is not spent, that’s a violation of the law.
Congress cannot pass a law that alters the constitutional duties of another branch. This is why the War Powers Resolution has been viewed as unconstitutional by every president.
Administration of spending in areas that the president has constitutional authority (foreign affairs, military, etc), or which merely reflects priorities within the bureaucratic structure are really not Congress’s to dictate. Congress CAN expect that funding is not denied to programs or agencies that it creates, but a lot of discretion is due the executive.
In the case of foreign aid, the withholding of money is pretty common and a stick that the president can use in his conduct of foreign policy.
Now, you can argue that THIS president, being a fracking moron, should not have that power, but it isn’t gonna work.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/3/2019 @ 11:59 pmThe only case (Train vs City of New York) where this came up was when Nixon tried to avoid enforcing environmental laws — after a veto was overridden — by not spending the money allocated for that purpose. The Supremes said he had to, but they pointedly refrained from extending that rule to more than the case at hand.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/4/2019 @ 12:02 amDepends on what you mean by “alter the constitutional duties of.” Madison wanted the purse and the sword separate. The power of the purse is explicitly laid out as a means of diminishing the power of the executive, esp in matters of war.
JRH (52aed3) — 11/4/2019 @ 2:01 amWe don’t have a king for a reason.
JRH (52aed3) — 11/4/2019 @ 2:02 amPresident Trump: “False stories are being reported that a few Republican Senators are saying that President Trump may have done a quid pro quo, but it doesn’t matter, there is nothing wrong with that, it is not an impeachable event,”
Here we go again. Deny. Attack. Then the coup de grace of defenses…. the BRAZEN ADMISSION.
“Of course I did.”
noel (f22371) — 11/4/2019 @ 3:59 am“It’s done all the time.”
“Get over it.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s a perfect call.”
I saw this technique in junior high. It wasn’t persuasive then either
noel (f22371) — 11/4/2019 @ 4:19 amOh, sorry, I forgot Trump’s most brazen cover of all….
“At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call…”
noel (f22371) — 11/4/2019 @ 4:26 amReasoned discourse and Trump do not go together. He’s a yammering, jabbering, whining, screeching, foul-mouthed brat who only understands a whack across the mouth. Then he whimpers like a dog.
nk (dbc370) — 11/4/2019 @ 5:51 amThe political parties just keep getting smaller and further apart.
The Democrats now want socialism. The Republicans want billionaires to have tax deferments while they are alive and no estate taxes when they die, leaving the tax burden to far less wealthy salaried folks.
The Democrats want partial-birth abortion and Trump wants to “punish” women who have them.
The Democrats want unlimited immigration and the Republicans can’t stop insulting immigrants. On and On.
If the Dems nominate someone like Biden, Warren or Bernie and the Republicans nominate their own geriatric Trump, there will be a huge gap in the middle of the political spectrum for a young, intelligent, moderate…. and Independent Presidential candidate. Please, someone save us!
noel (f22371) — 11/4/2019 @ 6:40 amA term for a practice used by so called Trump butt gerbils to describe their opposition is now official policy in China:
http://news.yahoo.com/china-reportedly-sending-men-sleep-120625885.html
urbanleftbehind (3525c6) — 11/4/2019 @ 6:42 amThey can’t put it on the internet if it’s not true, urbanleftbehind.
nk (dbc370) — 11/4/2019 @ 7:05 amIf it is true, that explains a bit of the NBA player approval of the regime.
urbanleftbehind (3525c6) — 11/4/2019 @ 7:07 am26. iowan2 (cca05f) — 11/2/2019 @ 6:50 pm
There’s a whole big front page story in the New York Times (the second lead – the top left side column) today about that, including what Ukraine did to get on his good side.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/politics/poroshenko-trump-ukraine.html
About the freezing of the criminal cases: Online, the NYT links to this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/europe/ukraine-mueller-manafort-missiles.html
Of course, Trump was not really interested in protecting Manafort – that was all done on spec, (nobody can find evidence of Trump asking for that) and maybe even it wasn’t Trump they were trying to help, but Ukrainians that would be caught up in any further investigation.
Manafort was done for because of tax evasion and failure to register as a foreign agent (plus later, lying to banks and obstruction of justice, and the fact that he had some contacts with Russians in which he felt they were trying to get him to do things, and the fact that he had nothing to say against Trump) And he wouldn’t have been held responsible for anybody stealing money, or getting money from Russia with which to pay him.
So that attributing this halt to fear of Trump might be a cover story, although they did stop co-operating with Mueller.
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:04 amErrata: The anti-corruption prosecutor who was not Lutsenko was in the second article. His name was Serhiy Horbatyuk. Most of what he was doing – he was conducting 3,000 investigations into crimes committed during the Maidan Revolution (including murders) not just the four cases somewhat related to Paul Manafort. So attributing that to fear of Trump is a cover story.
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:10 am* Most of what he was doing was stopped by Lutsenko.
http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1565658489
He shut things down when he was about to lose his job. (june and August of this year)
Apparently, in 2018, he was just slowing things down.
So maybe it could be possible to argue that the Manafort linked cases were stopped on their own.
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:15 amfelipe @36. Trump said “they say” in that telephone call:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
Also:
That last idea was repeated yesterday by a Republican on “This Week”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-11-19-mayor-pete-buttigieg-rep/story?id=66721987
Scalise at least does not connect it to dropping any investigation, but it almost certainly did not happen.
Joe Biden said it happened, but the whole “war story” was almost certainly a tall tale made up out of whole cloth by Joe Biden.
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:48 amAlthough did NOT brag about firing a prosecutor to stop an investigation into his son, it does, in a way, sound horrible, (assuming hat Alexander Vidmann is correct that Donald Trump referred to a recording d=in an ellpsis in the Trump-Zelensky call transcrip, but that is mostly as an egregious example of american imperialism.
The way Biden told it, he was getting a bad prosecutor fired, although his replacement wasn’t so good, and Biden said that too, and he introduced the whole anecdote as an example of backsliding on corruption.
He bragged about it a year after he stopped being vice president, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, on Tuesday, January 23, 2018:
https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue-launch-former-vice-president-joe-biden
It’s down there:
Maybe Biden will plead bad memory one do these days.
After the Republicans discover the problems with that story, which I am sure that Schiff and Pelosi are well aware of right now.
And you can’t solve it by moving the Kiev trip back to December 2015 – Viktor Shokin didn’t lose his job until March, and the aid was not authorized until early June.
Now I think Trump wasn’t making it up about Biden bragging about stopping a prosecution – I’m inclined even to believe that he didn’t make up the whimpering of Baghdadi by himself – but got it from somebody else, although not a source he had any business considering reliable. But it wasn’t Giuliani whose whole point was that Biden supposedly concealed his true motive for getting the prosecutor fired. (Except he didn’t do that)
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:54 amI “liked” this misstatement by a Democrat yesterday:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-transcript-of-face-the-nation-on-november-3-2019/
Seems like it has still not yet been prepared. Which is unusual. I’ll try later.
But he said that Bolton referred to a “drug deal” that Sondland and Trump and Giuliani were cooking up while in reality Bolton never mentioned Trump. Or Giuliani.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/bolton-giuliani-fiona-hill-testimony.html
But Bolton definitely did not include Trump.
Sammy Finkelman (1a8726) — 11/4/2019 @ 9:01 amThe first transcripts have been released.
Not the most imoortant ones.
They have to do with the recalling f U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch and include something about the activities of Rudolph Giuliani/
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/4/2019 @ 2:39 pmTrump ally Roger Stone’s trial to start this week
What people seem to forget is what happened to Frank Pentangeli next:
I think this is what Stone was referring to-permanently removing the problem.
Rip Murdock (59d7bd) — 11/4/2019 @ 3:49 pm25. 67.
The Act was passed in response to feelings in Congress that President Nixon was abusing his power of impoundment by withholding funding of programs he opposed. The Act, especially after Train v. City of New York (1975), effectively removed the presidential power of impoundment.
Kevin M (19357e) — 11/3/2019 @ 5:44 pm
That’s probably true, and that could be what Mulvaney told the Pentagon lawyers.
But presidents probably also have honored it, like they do with the War Powers Act..
I found this article – maybe there are some lawyers who have access to it already:
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/umkc58&div=15&id=&page=
This probably mentioned the attitudes of various administrations.
I found also this:
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7306&context=ylj
This argues that the law is toothless, but doesn’t have to be.
The Yale article thinks there is a Principle of Appropriation Expenditure, although he on;y source would be logic.
It also says there are numerous small-scale impoundments that occur within agency bureaucracies on a routine basis that are not reported to Congress, as required by the ICA,(says footnote 10) and are apparently not reported to the Office of Management and Budget either.
This impoundment came from the president of the United States and he didn’t give Mulvaney good reasons and Mulvaney kept it secret from the Ukrainians and Congress – a point that Schiff needs to obfuscate to make his case – and tried to find ways to get Trump to reverse himself.
His main or only idea was, working through Gordon Sundland, the Ambassador to the EU and a politial appointee, to get the Ukrainians to co-operate more with Giuliani.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/4/2019 @ 6:02 pmThe CBS Evening News gave what Norah O’Donnell said was the cliff notes version of the released transcripts.
Even shorter, the Ambassador was disturbed at what she called false stories about herself. Gordon Sondland told her to send a tweet praising Donald Trump to save her job. She was trying to stop corruption.
When she found out what Trump said about her in the July 25 call after the transcript was released
she didn’t like that, and she thouht Trump’s further comments
thought she might be under FBI investigation. Trump added that after Zelensky agreed she was bad and that
Another person also testified that State Department personnel felt they could not issue a statement of support for her.
Pompeo is on record as saying this person never brought up anything with him and Trump was shown saying (today?) that the Ukrainian president agreed with him
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/4/2019 @ 6:41 pmThe reason these two testimonies were released first is probably because they were the administration officials most critical of Trump. But there will be more tomorrow. Probably Volker and I think I heard Sondland.
Sondland is supposed to under suspicion of perjury. But they;re talking only about whether or not John Bolton cut a meeting short and maybe about whether Sondland mentioned specific things or people e wanted Ukraine to investigate in order to get a meeting of Zelensky with Donald Trump
There might have been two meetings one in June and the other July 10..
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/4/2019 @ 7:51 pmI’m thinking: Another Biden tall tale?
https://www.pressreader.com/usa/new-york-magazine/20191028/282385516306190
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/4/2019 @ 7:55 pm91 days till the Iowa caucuses (the Hawkeye Caucai” as Rush Limbaugh used to call it) and one year minus a day till the November election next year (366 – 1 = 365 days)
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:01 pmCaucus is an American, not a Latin, word.
Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
nk (dbc370) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:14 pm1) caucus has a sufficient pedigree to be used by Charles Dodgson. The caucus race is after all the model for all participation prizes.
2) Rush being Rush, he probably was punning on “caca”.
Kishnevi (e85727) — 11/4/2019 @ 8:19 pmRe: “Hawkeye Caucai”
94. 95. 96. Rush Limbaugh knows that cacai is not the plural of caucus, but he does, or did, it anyway, as a kind of a joke, probably because it rhymes.
He likes (or liked) saying it over and over again – I mean whenever he gets the chance, he throws it in. He does a number of things like that, most commonly with usually giving people wrong names, or wrong pronounciations.
There are other things he gets wrong unintentionally. He;s got interesting facts or leads to facts, but sometimes you can tell, or I can tell he’s wrong because I follow something so much. He never takes calls correcting himself. Although at a later time the wrong fact may not be there and he sometimes corrects himself but he never lets a caller do that.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 1:58 amEveryone, including Rush Limbaugh obviously, knows it is the “Iowa caucuses”
This is one of the things that Rush gives a twist to. I don’t know if he will do it this year.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 2:07 amSammy-
The reason these two testimonies were released first is probably because they were the administration officials most critical of Trump. But there will be more tomorrow. Probably Volker and I think I heard Sondland.
Hardly. The most critical should be Amb. Taylor.
Rip Murdock (86020d) — 11/5/2019 @ 8:49 amTaylor contradicts the narrative that Schiff is trying to tell, and besides his opening statement has been released and all we’d get know is the cross examination.
There was no quid pro quo on the table that Trump knew about on July 25 the day when he spoke to Zelensky and neither did the Ukrainians know the aid was withheld .This may sound crazy to you, withholding aid and not telling the Ukrianians, but it’s true, because Trump was disposed to not give the aid PERIOD and Mulvaney and Sondlad were trying to get Trump t reverse that decision.
The idea of a quid pro quo didn’t come from Trump.
On August 29 after the Ukrainians found out, Taylor wrote a letter (a State Department cable) which Mike Pompeo hand carried to Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/politics/mike-pompeo-ukraine-state-department.html
Mike Pompeo is walking a tightrope, as they say.
There’s another thing that keeps on being repeated that is wrong. It is said that Mikle Pompeo contradicted Michael McKinley because McKinley said he
No contradiction: McKinley was talking about when Marie L. Yovanovitch was still in Kiev; Pompeo was talking about after she got back.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 12:13 pmIt could be that Trump had in mind to release the aid if Ukraine helped him, but in that case he was very careful not to mention that the aid was being held back to Zelensky. He wanted it to be genuine.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 2:42 pmThia was released from Bill Taylor before:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/22/us/politics/william-taylor-ukraine-testimony.html
No explanation = no quid pro quo.
I
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 2:47 pmThis Op-ed piee also doesn’t fit with the narrative that Adam Schiff is trying to push:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/trump-ukraine.html
She links this to Russia which is extremely logical.
She still has him trying to extort Ukraine’s president to announce investigations that would benefit Trump politically, using aid and the promise of a visit.
But that was done by Sondland. Sundand wanted to free the aid without embarassing Trump.
She wrotes also like this:
She says he should be removed from office because “he has subverted American foreign policy for corrupt personal ends.”
But if he beliwved it, or believed it possible, and only wanted the truth, it wasn’t a corrupt end.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 11/5/2019 @ 2:54 pm