It's not a crime if you do it on TV, right? An incredibly transparent attempt by Trump to normalize the most obviously felonious behavior he's exhibited so far. If someone you know supports Trump's efforts to solicit foreign government interference in our elections, they're a fucking moron. Don't bother engaging with them about it, your efforts will be futile.
The idea that the Chinese government can be trusted to provide honest information on this subject is nothing short of laughable. Don't be surprised in the coming days if Trump lets slip that he might lift some tariffs should China's president Xi agree to "investigate" the Bidens.
Note that Obama had nothing to do with launching the investigation into Trump's campaign, and never said a word about it publicly prior to the election (with who else to blame but the Senate Majority Turtle?). At the time, the U.S. was using (GASP) its own law enforcement apparatus to do the investigating, which, to rational people, sounds logical and in accordance with the written law, but Trump and his loyal dipshits interpret that as evidence of the Derp State. That vicious Derp State, who released the Mueller Report that "totally exonerates" the president, and took no further action to hold Trump accountable for any of the conduct described therein. What, that doesn't all make sense to you?
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UPDATE:
The hyper-partisanship surrounding the 10-hour closed-door hearing [WARNING: autoplay w/ possible sound] is certainly not going away for the immediate future. Republican House committee members have said that the transcript should be released, and doing so would spoil the impeachment attempt. But...
- Democrats pounced on newly revealed text messages, which Volker reportedly shared Thursday with the lawmakers, showing deep concern from a top diplomat toward Trump’s Ukraine dealings. In the exchange, William Taylor, the leading U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, said “it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
The remark received pushback from Gordon Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, who said Taylor was “incorrect about President Trump's intentions.”
“The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelenskiy promised during his campaign," Sondland wrote.
Update to the Update: The Dems just released a handful of State Department text messages relevant to their investigation. Ohhhhhh boy, I've finished reading it, and this is going to utterly devastate Trump's case. Bill Taylor, in particular, is wrecking things, what with his outdated/ethical methods from being a State Department employee back in the Bush and Obama years. Sondland is probably going to prison, the fact that he is seen repeatedly coaching Taylor to stop making incriminating statements or questions in the text thread shows that he understands the wrongdoing he commits. Yikes. It's not terribly surprising, given that Sondland is a Trump appointee who donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund. Yeah, of course the Repubs call to release the transcript of today's hearing was a bluff. To pretend like these texts in anyway help Trump is lunacy. At least they're using a consistent strategy?
Another big one from the hearing today: In August, a speech was drafted up by our diplomats and given to Ukraine, with the instruction for Zelensky (their prez) to read it. The announcement would've given the appearance of Ukraine acting independently to re-open the investigation into the company Hunter Biden served on. We know that the military aid to Ukraine was finally released on September 11th (after a Dem Senator threatened to withhold $5 billion in Pentagon funding until the aid was sent), at which point Zelensky had yet to make the choice to read it, even after at least 2 or 3 weeks with the option. Update: You can read in the text exchange linked above that a White House visit was also leveraged to convince Zelensky to make the statement they wrote for him. Stupidgate.
And I swear to God, when (not if) Fox News uses the "but Don McGahn didn't carry through with Trump's directions to fire Mueller, so it's not obstruction" applied to Zelensky not reading the transcript, I'm closing my laptop and going to the gym to lift.
Next week, the Ukrainian diplomat fired by Trump/Rudy earlier this year, Marie Yovanovitch, will testify before the House panels. I think that one's gonna be a doozy.
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The Federal Election Commission (FEC) chairwoman retweeted her own post from a few months ago, which linked to an FEC statement that unambiguously shows her interpretation of the law to be that Donald Trump has broken a very serious election law. I think she (or one other person) could be tweeting her resignation in the coming days, but I hope not.
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I ctrl+F'd for "China", but the only story about about Trump asking the Chinese to investigate the Bidens appears in the above photo. Can you find it? So there, Fox News covered it (I refuse to link anything on that domain), it's just not that big of a story, guys.
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New rule: Every angry/bad-news post I make must be accompanied by something comedic pertaining to Trump. We'll kick things off with Trump quotes read by Zapp Brannigan's (Futurama) voice actor.
Real talk: Trump's fond of autocrats, such as Putin, Kim and Duterte. Trump has also lived his life risking consequences rather than abiding by rules. And if you're Trump, the difference between ruling class in Turkmenistan and being ruling class in the United States isn't so different, so why should anything else be? Let's be honest - if Ramzan Kadyrov were doing this shit, we'd expect it. Let's be further honest: if Ramzan Kadyrov were doing this shit with the tacit approval and backing of the Foreign Service, the State Department and the CIA, we'd expect it. Let's be brutally honest: if Ramzan Kadyrov were doing this shit with a shadowy clique of "advisors" and special forces operators around him, under the tacit approval and backing of the Foreign Service, the State Department and the CIA, we'd expect it. Most of us wouldn't approve but none of it would be shocking. Trump's a despot. We've known this for decades. It's never been an issue before because he's never been near the levers of power. Our fundamental problem is that we accidentally installed a third-world despot as President of the United States and entirely too much of the government shrugged and said "we work with despots all the time, let's see how this plays out."
I thought about it for a while, and I don't think there exist any secret rules that govern the reaction of the IC should they suspect the president to be a foreign asset. I don't think there should exist any rules like that either, because... actual coup. But what's going to happen anyway is multi-institution object fixation, where gradually everyone grows to loathe Commader Bonespurs, and OOPS, it turns out that evidence of wrongdoing just keeps popping up without anyone needing to even begin talking about commissioning a search of anything. Also, comedy news / late night has been fantastic lately. Seth Meyers has been doing more deadpan, and I don't think it's intentional. The jokes are better than ever, probably because the content provided by the White House already comes in the form of a joke, but his disgust seems to genuinely overwhelm his appreciation of the comedy. Colbert has cracked me up more times than ever over the last week, but maybe I just need to laugh more than I ever have before. The best comedy I've seen lately is the result of what happens when a Christian counselors association made a last-minute swap of a dead-serious pastor into a slot previously scheduled for a Christian comedian. It just gets better and better, I promise. I feel so bad for the guy, but, ugh, it's too funny.