I think they should impeach him again, beginning in a couple of weeks. Force the Senate GOP to make or break their party.
What’s the impeachment basis this time? Malignant incompetence? Has everyone stopped talking about the Syrian Civil War is my other question - nice little interface in this article back to that.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors would be an easy play. Treason wouldn't be unreasonable either: A high school debate team could make the point that ignoring a foreign power paying to have our troops shot simply because you have business interests with them would be "Adhering to their enemies". I'm with am_Unition. If I were Congress I'd make a run at it for damn sure. Now is a time where Democrats could wrap themselves in the flag all day long.In Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
The House could get it done pretty quick, they're practiced. I think it's a question of if this is egregious enough for folks to step forward, whether to testify, whistleblow, or leak. Then, the Senate GOP squirm. This seems pretty egregious, to me. The strongest case for actual treason yet.
I mean let's suppose it's September of 1971 and Woodward and Bernstein reveal that the People's Republic of China had been paying the Vietcong a bounty for shooting American soldiers, and that William Colby briefed Nixon in June. Nixon knew, but he didn't tell the public because it would interfere with his visit to China in July. FUCK the watergate breakin, yo. That shit would be sorted.
I think he'll do anything to get re-elected, and somehow thinks this is his path. He believes he requires help from Russia this dearly, or is worried of blackmail. It always sounded so conspiratorial to so many people. I don't know how else to explain dereliction of duty in protecting active American soldiers.
You're overthinking it. Trump wants praise. He does what gets him praise. There is a large proportion of the world that will never praise him, so he does what the praisers like. And he knows that owning the libs is what they like the best. At the end of the day, he's our first troll president, elected by trolls, to troll the country.
Maybe I do overthink it. The trolololol is certainly true, to a high degree. I still personally believe the "White House or jail house" narrative best explains his mindset. Maybe we'll even live to find out?
Good questions. Any impeachment basis specific to this is indeed murky, and since the Senate just set a precedent that impeachment requires an actual crime, get ready for "malignant incompetence is not a crime!". Personally, I would say this is "legit treasonous". Before 2020, impeachment was generally considered a political process, unwed to requiring proof of criminal wrongdoing, so long as the House and Senate agreed to remove the president. But with Bolton's latest book, it's clear that there are enough wrongdoings to merit several more investigations. It's a torrent, and it'll be tough to prioritize. IMHO, House dems should initiate these investigations ASAP, and push forwards, regardless of whatever happens in November. Everyone knows damn well that they'll never get Bolton under oath before the election, as Trump will claim executive privilege to block Bolton from testifying, and then use the courts to tie things up for god knows how long. Trump abuses the judiciary possibly more than he does Congress. Edit: of course, McConnell & co. are vvvvvveryyyyyy complicit in the judicial-packing-while-abdicating-legislation scheme. Most of the Western world does largely seem to have given up on Syria, yes. I'm not an expert on Syria, but the continuing pattern of Putin-friendly Trump policies is unmistakable. There's no way that Trump wasn't briefed on a hostile foreign power hiring Afghan mercenaries to kill American troops. God knows what he did to avoid taking action on this. Hanlon's razor looks less and less likely. Stay safe.
There are five factions in Syria: - Assad. Crushed insurrections. Has conditional backing from Russia, Iran and therefore Hizbollah. - The rebels. Crushed. Has conditional backing from the US and therefore Britain, and France. - The Salafists. Various and sundry jihadis. Has conditional backing from other jihadis. Isis goes here. - The Rojava. An ethnic group with territory that would like to be a country please. Kurds, basically, with all the enemies of Kurds, IE Turkey, Iraq, Syria, jihadis. Also Kurds, which means no friends. - CENTCOM. US Spooks and rambo-types doing their black-book kinetic best out in the land beyond accountability. In a reasonable world they'd back the rebels but they only do that sometimes. Sometimes they're against them. Assad would have fallen if it had been "Assad vs. not-Assad" but "not-Assad" is still four factions. Rojava gives no fucks about non-Rojava Syria. Salafists give no fucks about infidels. CENTCOM is pursuing its own fucked up strategy which, frankly, is to mess with Russia (and Turkey to a lesser extent) but ostensibly Turkey is an ally and ostensibly we support the freedom of Rojava and meanwhile the President has been sitting on the fact that Russia's been putting a bounty on our troops for three months and fucking Erik Prince and Rudy Giuliani are extralegal ambassadors of who-the-fuck-knows-what so shit be murky. The '90s and '00s were characterized by "US Troops to X" at which point we imposed order for better or worse and there were two sides to every battle. The '10s were characterized by "US Troops from X" at which point whatever drama cracked loose from the Arab Spring was left to sort itself out into whatever multifaceted catastrophe was most likely from whatever weak response the incumbents had and whatever disorganized skirmishes any given group of rebels felt like putting up. We wanted globalism without imperialism. This is what it looks like.
If the Democrats play this right, this is the lever that kicks Trump out, and returns the Dems to the party that "supports our troops". 1. Open impeachment hearings. 2. Establish Trump knew and did nothing. 3. Sing about how military service is the greatest service/sacrifice any American can make for their country, and their Commander in Chief took an oath to protect them. 4. Move to impeach. 5. Equate impeachment with being a true, red-blooded, military-loving American, and any other position as support for the Taliban/Russia coalition who KILLS AMERICAN SERVICE MEMBERS. Republicans know Trump is a sinking ship, and are fast-walking backwards away from him. Fuck, even Pence wore a mask yesterday. They need a token way to distance themselves from his upcoming November disaster, so they still have a career Nov 8th. (AND a leg to stand on as a "friendly compatriot across the aisle" when the House, Senate, and Presidency all go Democrat.) But the Dems will fuck up any advantage they have. They always have. They always will.
If you read Legacy of Ashes you learn that the CIA has pretty much gotten its ass kicked in nearly every engagement, the noteworthy exception being Kermit Roosevelt and the overthrow of Mossadegh. Of course, Wiener doesn't have much to say about the CIA's successful rout of the Soviets in Afghanistan and it certainly doesn't cover their conversion to covert air force under Obama.
The CIA did pretty well in Indonesia, Chili, Argentina and few other places if two million or so unnecessary corpses is doing pretty well. An empire based on Trade became the global standard, an empire that mostly didn't involve our own troops but in which we captured a great deal of the benefit. The CIA was a vital cog in that machine. That's what I think happened at least. We have mostly lost control of the beast we created but it was a glorious half century if you can stomach the cost.
You presume that murder and genocide is the goal. I don't think that's fair - I think any clandestine service given the choice between bloodless control or pogroms will go for the velvet glove treatment. By that standard, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, and the rest of this list are utter and total cockups. I mean, So in '76 Operation Condor installs the junta. The junta proceeds to murder 30,000 Argentinians. Less than a senatorial term later, they're invading a British protectorate just to look like they're doing something and we're slipping anti-radar missiles to the limeys to take them out. Ain't nobody sayin' they can't carry water. It's just not the only thing, you know?
Scary Map I saw today. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYtqK6lWkAMlztY?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
Sounds pretty true. It makes some sense to me that several years of foreign policy atrocities could all come crashing down at once. Sucks that it's during a pandemic.
How many bounties were paid, how much did people get? Were any bounties actually ever paid? We don't know. I've read up on U.S. intelligence activities this past year, mostly historical stuff but I think it's pertinent. Who ever leaked this had a motive. It could be someone who wants to see a stronger position against Russia, it could be someone who wants Trump to lose. The one thing I don't think it was? A CIA officer who thought the American public needed to be more informed. There are just an ungodly shit ton of things the American people could know about the conduct of the Afghan war or Russian hijinx that would spin our heads are illuminate our understanding of government incompetence. This was targeted with particular goals in mind by people who use information to try and effect political change for a living. It might be gospel truth, it might be an intercept of a casual conversation that never amounted to anything. I don't trust "sources" with motives like I do evidence. Everyone is too ready to believe anything negative about Trump. Being an overly credulous isn't a virtue, but you wouldn't know it by the way most people think about politics. The only group less trustworthy than intelligence agencies is elected officials. If more evidence is needed to impeach him than he is effectively unimpeachable. The one thing I think we can all agree on is that Joe Biden is probably the most exciting presidential candidate of the last hundred years!
If I'm in Afghanistan and I have reason to believe the GRU has a bounty on my head? I run that up the chain. If it comes back down the chain that nothing will be done? I run that to the Washington Post. If I'm in the Washington Post and I get this tip? I follow up. And that's all the motive we need.Who ever leaked this had a motive.
I just read a longish profile of Fiona Hill in the new Yorker. In it, she describes is decent detail how individuals inside the administration leak things to the press for the sole purpose of making other individuals look bad to the president, not to the public. They use the press to backstab each other without any regard to the public responsibility of either the government or the media. I'm sure this has been done in the past, but I'm also sure it's never been weaponized this way.
Looking bad to the public has been no impediment to anyone in this administration, other than getting heckled at restaurants. Everyone there is a brazen opportunist and curtailing the opportunity of your opponent is just checkers. The basic problem is that integrity is a handicap in this administration, so this is what we get.
It's quite the war of "who knew what, when" right now. The waters have been muddied. We need documentation. It exists, but Trump may have eaten it all by 8 AM tomorrow morning. Prediction: Trump was indeed alerted to this intel, called up Vlad, and took his word against our own intelligence community, just like in Helsinki. edit: for Trump, every event is an opportunity, right? This will be a convenient loyalty test for his IC top brass.