Lindell, who still claims that Coomer is guilty of voter fraud, urged the Dominion staffer to turn himself in to the police.
“Eric Coomer if I were you right now, instead of going over and making deals at Newsmax, if I were you, I’m turning myself in and turning in the whole operation,” he said, “so maybe, just maybe you get immunity and you only get to do, I dunno, ten [to] twenty years.”
Lindell added: “You’re disgusting and you are treasonous. You are a traitor to the United States of America. You know what, I can say that, just like I can about Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger. These are things I have evidence of. The evidence is there. It’s sitting there. Well Mike, why don’t you turn it all in to the Supreme Court and bring it to the FBI? Oh it’s getting to the Supreme Court everybody.”
No Mike Lindell, it is you who are disgusting and treasonous and a traitor to the United States
Hi Mike, you fat fucking piece of shit crackhead. You punk assed treasonous traitor to the United States, promoting THE BIG LIE for Traitor Trump and his crew of Russian Repugnants.
By you and your fellow treasonous scumbag shitstains on the underwear of humanity promoting Traitor Trump’s The Big Lie, that just proves how much of a traitor and fascist to this country you truly are. And you want to know what I believe should be done to punk scumbags like yourself Mike Lindell?
Time to execute all the Treasonous Trumpturds, Traitor Trump and all the scum who stand up for Putin Puppet, Diaper Donnie
Yes Mike Lindell, you, along with Commander Bone Spurs Traitor Trump, Moscow Mitch McConnell, Lady Leningrad Lindsey Graham, Ted Cancun Cruz, Matt The Pedophile Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy, hell the whole lot of your fellow Russian Repugnant Senators and Congresspersons, should be rounded up, and fucking executed for High Treason, Seditious Actions and being Traitors to the United States.
Yes Mike, each of you should be rounded up by the True Patriots of this country, sent to Gitmo to be tortured and waterboarded by True Patriots. Then? One morning, given one last Happy Meal from McDonald’s before you are all put up against the wall and executed by a firing squad. Hell Mike, I would even gladly volunteer to be on that firing squad, especially the squad for Traitor Trump and the squad for your execution.
Cause you see Mike? I can talk like this.
“You’re disgusting and you are treasonous. You are a traitor to the United States of America. You know what, I can say that…..and you Mike Lindell, along with your treasonous, Putin dick sucking traitor hero Donald J Trump belong in Gitmo awaiting your executions for High Treason, Seditious Actions and just being overall shitstains on the underwear of humanity.
Here is a link to this pig fucking piece of shit, treasonous Trumpturd Traitor Mike Lindell’s website. Full of Treasonous Shit only a true Traitor to the US would spew from their well used outhouse piehole.
And Lindell reminds me of Paul Bearer of WWE fame.
Just days before the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider the nomination of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s protégé to a federal appeals court, the court’s chief judge requested an investigation of McConnell’s role in creating the vacancy.
Demand Justice, a progressive judicial watchdog group, requested a postponement of Wednesday’s scheduled hearing before the Senate Judiciary on the nomination of Judge Justin Walker of Louisville to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The chief judge of that court issued a public order May 1 asking U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts to transfer to another circuit Demand Justice’s allegation that a judge on the court may have been persuaded to retire to allow another judge to take his seat.
The order, a copy of which The Courier Journal obtained Monday night, does not mention Walker by name.
However, on Monday, the New York Times reported that the court’s chief judge, Sri Srinivasan, has referred Demand Justice’s request for an investigation to Roberts so it can be transferred to another circuit for review and disposition.
Srinivasan was appointed by President Barack Obama.
The Washington Post recently reported that the White House has been considering Walker for a seat on the appeals court since long before Judge Thomas Griffith, who occupies the seat, announced his retirement.
In a news release, Demand Justice said: “Justin Walker’s nomination was already controversial, but this emerging investigation means an even darker cloud is hanging over his appointment. The hearing on Walker’s nomination should not go forward until we know the truth about what ethical lines Mitch McConnell crossed to get Walker this seat.’’
The group said that at least, “McConnell should come clean about whether and when he contacted Judge Thomas Griffith prior to his sudden retirement.”
McConnell spokesman David Popp said Walker’s confirmation will continue.
“Leader McConnell looks forward to watching Judge Walker’s confirmation hearing this week,” Popp said in a statement.
At McConnell’s urging, President Donald Trump nominated Walker for the D.C. Circuit Court less than six months after he took his seat on the U.S. District Court in Louisville.
The Courier Journal reported the appointment of Walker, 38, to the coveted seat would likely ignite a fierce fight on Capitol Hill over the former University of Louisville law professor’s qualifications to serve on the nation’s second-most influential bench.
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary last year rated Walker “not qualified” for the District Court, saying that he had never tried a case, either civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.
But Walker was confirmed by the Senate 50-41, and McConnell praised the pick, saying in a statement that Walker is “an outstanding legal scholar” who represents a “new generation of federal judges.”
Walker was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and to now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh when Kavanaugh sat on the D.C. Circuit bench. Walker was a vocal advocate for Kavanaugh when he faced accusations of sexual harassment allegedly committed when he was a young man.
Margaret, if you want to know just how deplorable Trumpsters are, this week they elected two indicted criminals, a Nazi and a dead brothel owner. And the fact that most people reading this are asking themselves “which Nazi?” is just bat shit crazy. To be honest, it could have been multiple Nazis, but it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a GOP Congressman and a Nazi these days. Some might be just your run-of-the-mill racists. You know what they say about old, white men standing in front of a flag, pledging allegiance to Donald Trump… they all look alike.
A dead brothel owner. I’m sorry. I just had to say that again. The party of family values elected a dead pimp. Bless their hearts but Republicans are nuttier than squirrel shit.
Now, I know that some of you Democrats out there, especially in Florida, Georgia and Texas, are filling a bit blue today and not in a good Blue Wave way. We’re feeling blue because we fell in love with Andrew, Beto and Stacey and hoped that racists in red states would be standing in line at a Cracker Barrel instead of a polling station. Damn you Cracker Barrel! What happened to your all-you-can-eat chicken fried opossum steak on Tuesdays?
Honestly, it was going to be an uphill battle and we got a bit ahead of ourselves. After all, this is Florida, Georgia and Texas we are talking about. They are GOP red mixed with a little scarlet, crimson, cardinal, ruby, magenta, brick, carmine, rose, vermilion, cerise, coral, and burgundy. The fact that Beto was even in the hunt and the other two are still too close to call is pretty amazing. Sure, it stung. But we really do have a great deal to celebrate. We took back the House. Our wave was big enough to overcome gerrymandering and voter suppression, sending several hundred state and federal members of the GOP packing.
If you are feeling a bit down, maybe this will pick you up. Here are a few of my favorite casualties:
Karen Handel. Remember her? This homophobic, she-devil in wolf’s clothing managed to destroy the otherwise stellar reputation of the Susan G Komen Foundation when she picked a fight with Planned Parenthood. Komen recovered somewhat but it never returned to its former glory. Well, now a Democrat in Georgia named Lucy McBath is my new favorite person and Georgia’s 6th Congressional District’s newest Representative. Kiss my ass Karen. The only organization I liked more than Komen was Planned Parenthood and you damaged one in order to attack the other. Don’t mess with Planned Parenthood. Ever. By the way, McBath ran on more gun control… in Georgia.
Kim Davis. This walking hairball in need of a hairstyle became famous in Kentucky for refusing to give marriage licenses to same sex couples, claiming Jesus told her to hate people. She then crashed a party pretending to be the Pope’s BFF and became the white trash darling for white trash religious nutjobs everywhere when she traveled to Romania to fight gay marriage there. Wait. What? Listen, folks. The cheese slid off this gal’s cracker years ago. Thank goodness that Kentucky Democrats dropped a house on Kim. To be honest, she lost by less than 700 votes, but that was to be expected considering she was related to, married to, divorced by and otherwise had children out of wedlock with a sizable percentage of the male voting population in the county. Hypocrisy is what the GOP now calls a family value.
Jason Lewis. I bet you don’t remember this asshat from Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District unless you’re a slut… I mean a woman… I mean a slut. Lewis complained that political correctness had gotten so bad that he couldn’t even call a woman a slut anymore without getting in trouble. He lost to Democrat Angie Craig. I don’t know you Angie, but I love you regardless of what Jason is most assuredly calling you at this moment.
Jack Phillips. He’s probably the most famous baker in Colorado, but not because his cakes taste good, bad or otherwise. Jack is the Colorado Baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple and took his argument all the way to the Supreme Court. He then tried to sue the Governor of Colorado because he didn’t want to bake a pink and blue cake for a transgender woman. Guess what? Jack now has a new Governor in Colorado. His name is Jared Polis and he’s gay. Please, please, please Governor Polis, order your inauguration cake from Jack if for no other reason than shits and giggles.
Kevin Yoder. I know nothing about this congressman from Kansas except he was a Republican in Kansas, which is rarely a good thing. He lost to a Native American woman named Sharice Davids. Now Sharice has a remarkable story and you should read about it. But I don’t want to talk about that now because I am being a little selfish. I just want to sit a minute and imagine Donald Trump watching Fox News on Tuesday when they gave a Democratic pick up seat to a woman who happens to be Native American and who also happens to be a lesbian and a mixed, martial arts fighter. Ah! Sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee… Sharice honey, if you meet the President, please kick him where it counts.
Barbara Comstock. When Florida Parkland Students came to talk to her about gun violence, she refused to meet with them. Barbara lost to Democrat Jennifer Wexton. Bye, bye Barbara. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.
Listen. I was sad. I wanted Beto as much as anyone. I really did. But here in Texas we picked up so many down ballot Democrats because of Beto that I don’t think being sad is an appropriate way to remember Beto, or Stacey or Andrew. And maybe its not even over for Stacey who is still fighting the good fight. Good luck Stacey. Every vote counts. But no. We can’t be down. We have just too much to be excited about.
Chairman Elijah Cummings, House Oversight Committee
Chairman Adam Schiff, House Intelligence Committee
Chairwoman Maxine Waters, House Financial Services Committee
Chairman Richard Neal, House Ways and Means Committee
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the woman who gave us the Affordable Care Act the last time she had that title
That is huge. We took back the House and turned a huge section of the country blue, while Trump kept Georgia, Florida and Texas red… barely. We changed everything. He changed nothing.
Maybe the Blue Wave wasn’t as big in some parts of the country as others. As it swept from east to west across the country like an invading army of immigrants… no wait. As it swept from east to west, it hit patches of gerrymandering and mountains of voter suppression. But it indeed swept across the country no matter how large or small it seemed at times. One thing we know for sure, if left unchecked, Trump could bring out the worst in all of us. And sadly, he’s proud of that. But then again, he’s an idiot. The blue wave came, and it was big enough. I mean it. Really.
Editor’s note: The 45th president’s approval ratings remain steady despite numerous scandals and missteps. Below is an Oct. 29, 2018, column in which Hedges analyzes Donald Trump’s seemingly indefatigable appeal. On Tuesday, Truthdig will publish a new column by Hedges, one that will present the text of a speech he will give that same day in London in support of Julian Assange.
Cult leaders arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have been shorn of political, social and economic power. The disempowered, infantilized by a world they cannot control, gravitate to cult leaders who appear omnipotent and promise a return to a mythical golden age. The cult leaders vow to crush the forces, embodied in demonized groups and individuals, that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous the cult leaders become, the more they flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity. Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders demand a God-like power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the hope that the cult leaders will save them.
Donald Trump has transformed the decayed carcass of the Republican Party into a cult. All cults are personality cults. They are extensions of the cult leaders. The cult reflects the leader’s prejudices, worldview, personal style and ideas. Trump did not create the yearning for a cult leader. Huge segments of the population, betrayed by the established elites, were conditioned for a cult leader. They were desperately looking for someone to rescue them and solve their problems. They found their cult leader in the New York real estate developer and reality television show star. Only when we recognize Trump as a cult leader, and many of those who support him as cult followers, will we understand where we are headed and how we must resist.
It was 40 years ago next month that a messianic preacher named Jim Jones convinced or forced more than 900 of his followers, including roughly 280 children, to die by ingesting a cyanide-laced drink. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge and address the impending crisis of ecocide and the massive mismanagement of the economy by kleptocrats, his bellicosity, his threats against Iran and China and the withdrawal from nuclear arms treaties, along with his demonization of all who oppose him, ensure our cultural and, if left unchecked, physical extinction. Cult leaders are driven, at their core, by the death instinct, the instinct to annihilate and destroy rather than nurture and create. Trump shares many of the characteristics of Jones as well as other cult leaders including Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles, the founders of the Heaven’s Gate cult; the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who led the Unification Church; Credonia Mwerinde, who led the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda; Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong; and David Koresh, who led the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
“A cult is a mirror of what is inside the cult leader,” Margaret Thaler Singer wrote in “Cults in Our Midst.” “He has no restraints on him. He can make his fantasies and desires come alive in the world he creates around him. He can lead people to do his bidding. He can make the surrounding world really his world. What most cult leaders achieve is akin to the fantasies of a child at play, creating a world with toys and utensils. In that play world, the child feels omnipotent and creates a realm of his own for a few minutes or a few hours. He moves the toy dolls about. They do his bidding. They speak his words back to him. He punishes them any way he wants. He is all-powerful and makes his fantasy come alive. When I see the sand tables and the collections of toys some child therapists have in their offices, I think that a cult leader must look about and place people in his created world much as a child creates on the sand table a world that reflects his or her desires and fantasies. The difference is that the cult leader has actual humans doing his bidding as he makes a world around him that springs from inside his own head.”
George Orwell understood that cult leaders manipulate followers primarily through language, not force. This linguistic manipulation is a gradual process. It is rooted in continual mental chaos and verbal confusion. Lies, conspiracy theories, outlandish ideas and contradictory statements that defy reality and fact soon paralyze the opposition. The opposition, with every attempt to counter this absurdism with the rational—such as the decision by Barack Obama to make his birth certificate public or by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to release the results of her DNA test to prove she has Native American ancestry—plays to the cult leader. The cult leader does not take his or her statements seriously and often denies ever making them, even when they are documented. Lies and truth do not matter. The language of the cult leader is designed exclusively to appeal to the emotional needs of those in the cult.
“Hitler kept his enemies in a state of constant confusion and diplomatic upheaval,” Joost A.M. Meerloo wrote in “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing.” “They never knew what this unpredictable madman was going to do next. Hitler was never logical, because he knew that that was what he was expected to be. Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot—it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counter-argument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault him with another.”
The cult leader grooms followers to speak in the language of hate and violence. The cult leader constantly paints a picture of an existential threat, often invented, that puts the cult followers in danger. Trump is doing this by demonizing the caravan of some 4,000 immigrants, most from Honduras, moving through southern Mexico. Caravans of immigrants, are, in fact, nothing new. The beleaguered and impoverished asylum seekers, including many families with children, are 1,000 miles from the Texas border. But Trump, aided by nearly nonstop coverage by Fox News and Christian broadcasting, is using the caravan to terrify his followers, just as he, along with these media outlets, portrayed the protesters who flooded the U.S. capital to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as unruly mobs. Trump claims the Democrats want to open the border to these “criminals” and to “unknown Middle Easterners” who are, he suggests, radical jihadists. Christian broadcasting operations, such as Pat Robertson’s The 700 Club, splice pictures of marching jihadists in black uniforms cradling automatic weapons into the video shots of the caravan.
The fear mongering and rhetoric of hate and violence, as I saw in the former Yugoslavia, eventually lead to widespread acts of violence against those the cult leader defines as the enemy. The 13 explosive devices sent last week to Trump critics and leaders of the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, along with George Soros, James Clapper and CNN, allegedly by Cesar Sayoc, an ex-stripper and fanatic Trump supporter who was living out of his van, herald more violence. Trump, tossing gasoline on the flames, used this assault against much of the leadership of the Democratic Party to again attack the press, or, as he calls it, “the enemy of the people.” “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” he tweeted. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its acts, FAST!”
It should come as no surprise that on Saturday another enraged American white male, his fury and despair seemingly stoked by the diatribes and conspiracy theories of the far right, entered a Pittsburgh synagogue and massacred eight men and three women as he shouted anti-Semitic abuse. Shot by police and arrested at the scene was Robert Bowers, who believes that Jewish groups are aiding the caravan of immigrants in southern Mexico. He was armed with a military-style AR-15 assault rifle, plus three handguns. The proliferation of easily accessible high-caliber weapons, coupled with the division of the country into the blessed and the damned by Trump and his fellow cultists, threatens to turn the landscape of the United States into one that resembles Mexico, where at least 145 people in politics, including 48 candidates and pre-candidates, along with party leaders and campaign workers, have been assassinated over the last 12 months, according to Etellekt, a risk analysis firm in Mexico. There have been 627 incidents of violence against politicians, 206 threats and acts of intimidation, 57 firearm assaults and 52 attacks on family members that resulted in 50 fatalities. Trump’s response to the mass shooting at the synagogue was to say places of worship should have armed guards, a call for further proliferation of firearms. Look south if you want a vision of our future.
Domestic terrorism and nihilistic violence are the natural outcomes of the economic, social and political stagnation, the total seizure of power by a corporate cabal and oligarchic elite, and the contamination of civil discourse by cult leaders. The weaponization of language is proliferating, as seen in the vile rhetoric that characterizes many political campaigns for the midterm elections, including the racist robocall sent out against Andrew Gillum, an African-American candidate for the governorship of Florida. “Well, hello there. I is the negro Andrew Gillum and I’ll be askin’ you to make me governor of this here state of Florida,” a man speaking in a caricature of a black dialect accompanied by jungle noises said in the robocall. Cults externalize evil. Evil is embodied in the demonized other, whether desperate immigrants, black political candidates and voters, or the Democratic Party. The only way to purge this “evil” and restore America to “greatness” is to eradicate these human contaminants.
The cult leader, unlike a traditional politician, makes no effort to reach out to his opponents. The cult leader seeks to widen the divisions. The leader brands those outside the cult as irredeemable. The leader seeks the omnipotence to crush those who do not kneel in adoration. The followers, yearning to be protected and empowered by the cult leader, seek to give the cult leader omnipotence. Democratic norms, an impediment to the leader’s omnipotence, are attacked and abolished. Those in the cult seek to be surrounded by the cult leader’s magical aura. Reality is sacrificed for fantasy. Those who challenge the fantasy are not considered human. They are Satanic.
Meerloo wrote:
The dictator is not only a sick man, he is also a cruel opportunist. He sees no value in any other person and feels no gratitude for any help he may have received. He is suspicious and dishonest and believes that his personal ends justify any means he may use to achieve them. Peculiarly enough, every tyrant still searches for some self-justification. Without such a soothing device for his own conscience, he cannot live. His attitude toward other people is manipulative; to him, they are merely tools for the advancement of his own interests. He rejects the conception of doubt, of internal contradictions, or man’s inborn ambivalence. He denies the psychological fact that man grows to maturity through groping, through trial and error, through the interplay of contrasting feelings. Because he will not permit himself to grope, to learn through trial and error, the dictator can never become a mature person. … It is because the dictator is afraid, albeit unconsciously, of his own internal contradictions, that he is afraid of the same internal contradictions of his fellow man. He must purge and purge, terrorize and terrorize in order to still his own raging inner drives. He must kill every doubter, destroy every person who makes a mistake, imprison everyone who cannot be proved to be utterly single-minded.
Behavior that ensures the destruction of a public figure’s career does not affect a cult leader. It does not matter how many lies uttered by Trump are meticulously documented by The New York Times or The Washington Post. It does not matter that Trump’s personal financial interests, as we see in his relationship with the Saudis, take precedence over the rule of law, diplomatic protocols and national security. It does not matter that he is credibly charged by numerous women with being a sexual predator, a common characteristic of cult leaders. It does not matter that he is inept, lazy and ignorant. The establishment, whose credibility has been destroyed because of its complicity in empowering the ruling oligarchy and the corporate state, might as well be blowing soap bubbles at Trump. Its vitriol, to his followers, only justifies the hatred radiating from the cult.
The cult leader responds to only one emotion—fear. The cult leader, usually a coward, will react when he thinks he is in danger. The cult leader will bargain and compromise when afraid. The cult leader will give the appearance of being flexible and reasonable. But as soon as the cult leader is no longer afraid, the old patterns of behavior return, with a special venom directed at those who were able to momentarily impinge upon his power.
The removal of Trump from power would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan and denounced reality-based science and journalism long before Trump did. Cults are a product of social decay and despair, and our decay and despair are expanding, soon to explode in another financial crisis.
The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to discredit Trump, as if our problems are embodied in him, are futile. The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. This crusade attempts to reduce a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It is accompanied by a refusal to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression neuters the press and Trump’s mainstream critics.
Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like liberation movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a Democratic Party that refuses to confront the corporate forces of oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.
The Republican Party, we have noted, has gone from a conservative party to an authoritarian one. With a total of 11 pardons and commutations of rich, corrupt and utterly undeserving men, President Trump has completed the transition from the law-and-order party to the crime-mob party.
President Trump on Tuesday used his sweeping presidential pardon powers to wipe away the crimes of a list of boldface names, including disgraced politician Rod R. Blagojevich, convicted junk bond king Michael Milken and former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik.
Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of seven convicted white collar criminals at the center of federal anti-corruption and tax fraud cases spanning decades, alongside four women whose cases were not as well known. …
Also on Trump’s pardon list … [was] Edward DeBartolo Jr., the billionaire former owner of the San Francisco 49ers football team, who pleaded guilty two decades ago to charges related to his role in a corruption case against former Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards (D).
While appearing on television (Trump’s connection to the outside world — or, rather, the outside world that the right-wing media would like to exist) was a popular means of getting Trump’s attention, it was no surprise that some of the beneficiaries seemed to have ponied up money to elect Trump. The Daily Beast reported:
For those who didn’t receive the Fox News treatment, it appears that in at least one case, cold hard cash did the talking. Paul Pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $473,000 and received three years probation, was issued a full pardon and clemency by the president.
According to FEC filings, Pogue’s family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct contributions and in-kind air travel to the Trump Victory Committee. Beginning in August 2019, Ben Pogue—CEO of Pogue Construction and son of Paul Pogue—and his wife Ashleigh made over $200,000 in contributions to the campaign.
Hand Job Hannity of Faux Nitwit Newsless giving a reach around to Donald J Trump live on air
Trump, the corrupt and entitled white male who perceives himself as the perpetual victim, must feel a connection to other privileged, corrupt figures. If they are victims of a rigged or unfair system, he must be, too. (One can now fully appreciate how ludicrous was the defense in the impeachment trial that Trump was motivated by a heartfelt desire to root out corruption. Republicans who parroted this nonsense should be voted out of office.)
Worse still, there is widespread suspicion that this is simply a prelude to pardons for cronies Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and others. Trump wants vindication and secrecy, so what better way than to direct senators not to hear evidence of his own misdeeds, delegitimize the convictions of his associates and then, by pardon, obtain their silence and gratitude?
Mimi Rocah, a former prosecutor, tells me: “The pardon power is supposed to be about correcting injustices. There is no reasonable argument that the people pardoned today — all of whom corrupted our financial and political systems in massive ways — were subject to a miscarriage of justice.” She adds, “To the contrary, they are powerful, connected white men who had the benefit of good defense lawyers. It also sends a message to Stone, Giuliani, Manafort and Flynn — that Trump has their back because white collar crime doesn’t count.”
Do his supporters even care that the swamp he promised to drain is more fetid than ever? Are Republicans who emboldened him with an acquittal in his impeachment trial just a tad embarrassed by the normalization, the celebration even, of corruption? Probably not. They have long since discarded any semblance of concern for the rule of law, let alone for decency and propriety.
“President Trump knows voters think he’s corrupt,” says Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy. “But many of his voters stick with him because they think, ‘They’re all corrupt, so I’ll take my corrupt guy over the other one.’ But whatever flaws American democracy has had over the years, we all agreed we wanted a Republic, and not a King.” He adds, “Trump’s bet is that voters will forget that. It’s our job to make him lose that bet.”
In case one needed further evidence of the urgency of removing Trump at the ballot box and sending his Republican enablers packing as well, this last descent into self-serving veneration of corruption should remind us we are well on the way to banana-republic territory.
Former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller notes, “Trump has consistently made clear who he believes deserves mercy and who he believes deserves the full weight of federal law enforcement. If you’re a connected Republican, someone whose family can manage to appear on Fox, or someone who commits crimes against the people Trump despises, then he will go to bat for you.” However, Miller says, “if you’re one of the 13,000 whose clemency petition is pending at the Justice Department, and you don’t have anything to offer the president, then good luck.”
The latest outrage should also serve as a wake-up call for Democrats: Choose the candidate who can deliver a victory, a commanding victory, over Trump and his ethically degenerate party. Do not get distracted by fundraising methods or ideological purity. Win. Just win. Our democracy (not to mention our collective sanity) depends on it.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR TO ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE A NEW GOVERNMENT, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, IT IS THEIR RIGHT, IT IS THEIR DUTY, TO THROW OFF SUCH GOVERNMENT AND TO PROVIDE NEW GUARDS FOR THEIR FUTURE SECURITY.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence.
Our United States Congress is in dire need of a really good enema, to get out all the shitstains on the underwear of the Founding Fathers and off the Constitution and rule of law that the Red Russian Repugnants have done, wiping their traitorous asses with it, since Putin’s Puppet, Ronald McDonald Trump invaded the White House.
Tomorrow is the end of Democracy as we know it should be
Tomorrow? The Red Russian Repugnants, led by Moscow Mitch McConnell KY and Leningrad Lindsey Graham SC, along with Devin “The Cow” Nunes, Alexander “I Don’t Care” Lamar TN, John Barrasso WY, Marsha Blackburn TN, Roy Blunt MO, John Boozman AR, Mike Braun IN, Richard Burr NC, Shelley Moore Capito WV, Bill Cassidy LA, Susan Collins ME, John Cornyn TX, Tom Cotton AZ, Kevin Cramer ND, Mike Crapo ID, Ted Cruz TX, Steve Daines MT, Michael B Enzi WY, Joni Ernst IA, Deb Fischer NE, Cory Gardner CO, Chuck Grassley IA, Josh Hawley MO, John Hoeven ND, Cindy Hyde-Smith MS, James M. Inhofe OK, Ron Johnson WI, John Kennedy LA, Angus S. King Jr ME, James Lankford OK, Mike Lee UT, Kelly Loeffler GA, Martha McSally AZ, Jerry Moran KS, Lisa Murkowski AK, Rand Paul KY, David Perdue GA, Rob Portman OH, James E. Risch ID, Pat Roberts KS, Mitt Romney UT, Mike Rounds SD, Marco Rubio FL, Ben Sasse NE, Rick Scott FL, Tim Scott SC, Richard C Shelby AL, Dan Sullivan AK, John Thune SD, Thom Tillis NC, Patrick J Toomey PA, Roger F. Wicker MS, Todd Young IN (Note: Names taken from the current list of U.S. Senators of the 116 Congress as well as the information to each Republican Senate contact info listed at end.) will all more than likely violate not only the oath most of them who call themselves Christian, their oath to God and Jesus they took when they were sworn into office, to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but also the oath they swore before God and Jesus at the start of the impeachment trial of Donald J Trump in the Senate to be impartial jurors and consider all the evidence, are? Going to not remove Donald J Trump for his crimes, when they would have done so if President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had done what Donald J Trump did with the Ukraine.
Heck they would have demanded their impeachment the moment Obama or Clinton sent out a hateful tweet as Trump does on a daily basis.
They would have demanded that President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton be arrested and tried for High Treason against the United States if they had praised Putin or any other dictator as Donald J Trump has done, or taken the side of Putin over our own CIA, FBI and other State Department agencies. Or if they had held an over two hour private, secret meeting in Helsinki with Putin as Trump did and not release any information about that meeting.
But? The Republican Senators are going to walk all over the Constitution and the rule of law tomorrow, the same rules and Constitution they state they are the defenders and protectors of, and find this son of a bitch criminal Donald J Trump? Not guilty. And? By doing so? Prove how much a bunch of complete and total hypocrites they truly are in their refusing to the same rules they demanded during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, that witnesses should be called and evidence admitted, not be applied to Donald J Trump’s impeachment trial. And? Even before the trial? Admit they were never going to find him guilty or remove him from office. So that when they took that oath to swear to be impartial jurors and hear all the evidence and decide on that? They were committing willful perjury because they knew they were never going to keep that oath they swore to take in the first place. And these same hypocrites absolve Donald J Trump of his crimes that they would in fact? Demand President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton be impeached and removed from office for if they had done the same thing.
We who abide by the rule of law and the Constitution could go all meltdown snowflake freakshow like the Trumpsters have, like the psycho Christotaliban preachers Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Jim Bakker, Rick Wiles and others have called for a Civil War if Traitor Trump is removed from office and demand if he is not removed we should start a Civil War. But that is not our style. No, we still believe in the rule of law and the Constitution even if the Red Russian Republicans no longer do.
And of course? With the Red Russian Repugnants absolving Traitor Trump for his crimes, they are also now telling him? YOU are right, just like you said in your campaign, you can in fact? Shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and you will not lose any support from us and we will fight tooth and nail to find you not guilty.
It is time for all of us to do all we can to vote out these Red Russian Repugnants. Get your voting age children, get everyone you know and tell them how serious this is. The Red Russian Republicans have already made their choice to violate their oaths of office, to violate the oaths they took before the trial and to violate the Constitution and rule of law in defense of Traitor Trump.
So, come November 3rd, 2020? Get off your asses and vote Blue no matter who. We created one tsunami during the Mid Terms…this time? Let’s bury them in the biggest Blue Wave they have ever seen.
The minute Moscow Mitch McConnell, Leningrad Lindsey, and the rest of the Russian GOP’s tucked their little dicks between their legs and started sucking on Traitor Trump’s tiny dick.
Republicans defeat Democratic bids to hear witnesses in Trump trial
Two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah — joined all 47 Senate Democrats in voting for the motion. Two potential GOP swing votes, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, stuck with their party, ensuring that the Democratic motion was defeated. It came after the House’s impeachment prosecutors argued for weeks that voting against new witnesses and documents would render the trial a “sham” and a “cover-up” of the president’s alleged misconduct.
“Senators who opposed hearing from these witnesses, when their testimony would have better informed a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the president, will be hard pressed to explain why,” the House impeachment managers said in a joint statement. “Senators chose instead to set a dangerous precedent that will have long-lasting repercussions for the United States Congress, the balance of powers, and our democracy as a whole.”
Although Alexander said he believed Trump’s conduct was inappropriate — and that Democrats had “proven” the case against him — he said hearing from additional witnesses would not change his view that Trump did not commit impeachable offenses.
First? Let’s see the hypocrisy of the Russian Repugnants shall we?
Republicans demand more impeachment witnesses during Clinton Impeachment Senate Trial
This segment shows how Republican Henry Hyde, the House Judiciary Committee chairman leading the 1999 Clinton impeachment, explicitly backed new witnesses for the senate trial of Clinton. Hyde told NBC “this is a trial, not a grand jury proceeding… and we have a tremendous burden” of proof.
Senator Lindsey Graham saying you must have impeachment witnesses during Clinton’s Impeachment Senate Trial
Lindsey Graham Said You Must Have Impeachment Trial Witnesses… In 1999: GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham sounded a lot different on the idea of having witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial two decades ago when the president at the center of things was Bill Clinton. Aired on 01/16/20.
Senator Lindsey Graham, again, during Clinton’s Senate Impeachment Trial, demanding what the Democrats demanded during Trump’s farcial impeachment trial before the Russian Repugnants defending him
Watch Lindsey Graham Go Back to 1998 To Slam President Donald Trump Impeachment inquiry | NBC News
The Russian Repugnants were very different during Clinton’s Senate Impeachment Trial over witnesses and evidence.
Fifteen of the Senate Republicans who will try President Trump’s impeachment were in Congress during the Clinton impeachment. Only one voted to acquit Bill Clinton. Here’s columnist Ruth Marcus’s advice to them.
More Russian Repugnants demanding more impeachment witnesses during Bill Clinton’s Senate Impeachment Trial
Watch: Republicans Demand More Impeachment Witnesses, When Clinton Was On Trial | MSNBC
And now? Let’s look at the High Treason of the Russian Republicans, in defense of Putins Puppet, Donald J Trump and throw the rule of law and the Constitution out the window.
Moscow Mitch McConnell already declares the fix is in and the Russian Repugnants will not abide by their oath they swore to at the start of the impeachment trial of Traitor Trump
In between public impeachment hearings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell outlined what would happen when the impeachment process reaches the Senate. McConnell said he did not believe there would be enough votes to impeach President Trump.
Retiring Russian Repugnant Senator Lamar Alexander, even though he believes Trump committed these acts? He does not care about the real truth, and folds under Traitor Trump’s hairy orange balls.
Senator Lamar Alexander, who had been considered a pivotal vote on witnesses, said late Thursday that he will not vote for witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial. CBSN political contributor Molly Hooper, CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson and Loyola law school professor Jessica Levinson joined CBSN to discuss the ninth day of the impeachment trial.
Russian Repugnant Senator Lisa Murkowski again? Sells out the Nation and the Constitution and the rule of law, by selling out to her fellow Russian Repugnants and Traitor Trump
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the last true publicly undecided Republican senator, said she would oppose witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, meaning the vote that’s slated for Friday is very likely to fail 49-51.
The Russian Repugnants in the act of committing High Treason against the United States in defense and support of the Putin Puppet, Traitor, Donald J Trump
The Senate voted to block any witnesses from being called in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, a move that will mark the beginning of the end of the third Senate trial for a president in US history. The Senate voted 51-49 to defeat a motion to allow subpoenas for witnesses and documents, with two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, joining Democrats to back extending the trial.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz weighs in on the impeachment trial as it nears the final vote.
The Russian Republicans have committed High Treason in their defense of Putin’s Puppet, Donald J Trump
18 U.S. Code CHAPTER 115— TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES
18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
18 U.S. Code § 2382. Misprision of treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
Traitor Trump and his praising and defense of Putin and Russia
Trump Best Comments on Vladimir Putin, Russia
Trump Best Comments on Vladimir Putin, Russia
Putin praises Trump
VIDEO: Putin & Assad Caught Laughing at Trump
More evidence of Trump’s High Treason
Trump jokes with Putin about election interference
In a bilateral meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Japan, President Trump joked about the Kremlin’s attacks on US democracy. This comes after Trump told reporters on Wednesday that his conversations with Putin are none of the media’s business.
Donald Trump: I congratulated Putin on his Victory
U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to congratulate him on his re-elction
While Trump changes his position on an almost daily basis on whether or not Russia did exactly what four intelligence agencies confirmed that they did, and which no one in Congress now denies, his new communications director confirmed that Trump is still unsure that Russia was responsible for the hacks performed to influence the 2016 presidential elections in Trump’s favor. Citing an unnamed source that Scaramucci was later forced to admit was none other than the president himself, the new communications director told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union that:
‘Somebody said to me yesterday—I won’t tell you who—that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those emails, you would have never seen it, you would have never had any evidence of them.’
It seems baffling that Trump is still holding to that line, but a new report by The New York Times makes the president’s position far more clear. Trump changes his position on Russian hacking at times when his feet are held to the fire, but:
‘When Mr. Trump met Mr. Putin in Hamburg, Germany, two weeks ago, he did not utter similar suspicions, at least in public. In fact, he emerged to tell his aides that the Russian president had offered a compelling rejoinder: Moscow’s cyberoperators are so good at covert computer-network operations that if they had dipped into the Democratic National Committee’s systems, they would not have been caught.’
A belief in those assertions certainly falls in line with statements made by Trump throughout the campaign and during his presidency. Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, the president tweeted:
Unless you catch “hackers” in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?
While that claim is entirely untrue, it also speaks to Trump’s assurance from Putin that if Russia had been responsible for the hacks, there is no way U.S. intelligence and cybersecurity experts would have been able to identify the hackers or their country of origin. Russian cyberattackers are just that good, according to Putin, and it seems the president is more than ready to believe him lest the legitimacy of his 2016 win be questioned.
Malcolm Nance, a former U.S. Counterterrorism & Intelligence Official, argues that Putin has an ‘information dominance’ over President Donald Trump reacting to their meeting at the G20 summit.
Donald Trump heaps more praise on Putin Trump on Putin’s alleged killing of journalists: ‘At least he’s a leader’
Donald Trump heaps more praise on Putin: ‘At least he’s a leader’An excerpt of Donald Trump’s interview on ‘Morning Joe’ on Thursday.
Donald Trump hesitated on Friday to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegations the Kremlin has killed high-profile journalists critical of the leader, saying “our country does plenty of killing also.”
During an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump expanded upon his welcoming of praise from Putin, remarking that “when people call you brilliant, it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough then asked Trump what he thought about the number of high-profile murders of journalists who have been critical of Putin. “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know unlike what we have in this country,” Trump responded.
Scarborough pressed Trump again on the issue.
“Well I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe,” Trump said. “So, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity.”
Asked then, whether he would condemn Putin’s hostility toward journalists, Trump said, “Oh sure, absolutely.”
According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, 23 members of the media have been killed in Russia since Putin took power in 2000, though not all of their deaths appear to be related to their work. The 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, one of the highest profile media cases internationally, resulted in prison sentences for five men in 2014, though it is unclear who ordered the contract killing. Later in 2006, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who had fled to the United Kingdom and accused Putin of ordering Politkovskaya’s killing, fell ill the same day he met with two former KGB officers. He later died, with British health investigators finding a significant amount of radioactive polonium-210 in his body, the first documented instance of such a poisoning.
Mitt Romney, who was outspoken during the 2012 campaign about the threat Russia posed to the United States, implicitly rebuked Trump on Twitter later in the morning.
“Important distinction: thug Putin kills journalists and opponents; our presidents kill terrorists and enemy combatants,” the former Republican nominee tweeted Friday, following Trump’s repeated praise of the Russian president’s strength, despite his condemnation of his alleged ordered killing of his political and media opponents.
It is the second time in recent weeks that Romney has criticized the Republican poll leader’s comments, tweeting on Dec. 8 that Trump “fired before aiming” with his call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.
Throughout the course of his interview, the Manhattan mogul explained why he felt the United States and Russia would have a better relationship in a Trump administration, remarking repeatedly upon the poor “chemistry” between Putin and President Barack Obama.
In looking at photos of Putin and Obama seated together, Trump mused, “Nothing good is going to come of that.”
“I’ve always felt fine about Putin. I think that he’s a strong leader,” he said, proceeding to rattle off his recollections of the Russian leader’s polling. “I think he’s up in the 80s, which is you see where Obama’s in the 30s and the low 40s and he’s up in the 80s, and I don’t know who does the polls, maybe he does the polls, but I think they’re done by American companies, actually.”
As far as dealing with Putin’s aggression in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine, Trump reiterated his longstanding position that European countries like “big, monstrous” Germany should do more. “They accept his oil and gas and lots of other things, and here we are fighting like hell,” he said.
On whether that would mean “leading from behind,” Trump demurred. Scarborough asked Trump whether he would give Poland its antimissile defense system, plans for which the Obama administration scuppered in 2009.
“I would consider that, absolutely,” Trump said. “You know, when you say follow, I think that’s great, but maybe we should do a little bit of following and let the neighbors sort of tell us, you know, like, let us let the neighbors take more of an active role in the Ukraine.”
He added, “Frankly I’d like to see a little more enthusiasm from those affected, Joe.”
President Donald Trump Praises Montana Congressman Who Assaulted Reporter
President Trump on Thursday spoke at a rally in Montana in attempt to fire up his base ahead of the midterms. He took a moment to praise Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana for physically assaulting a reporter in 2017. Gianforte later pleaded guilty to an assault charge and issued an apology.
Trump sides with Saudi Crown Prince over CIA on Kashoggi Murder: Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.”
Trump’s history of trusting Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea
Dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly murdered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to Turkish authorities. Saudi’s crown prince denies any knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, and President Trump is taking the monarch at his word, despite Saudi’s known record of targeting journalists and human rights activists. It’s not the first time Trump has put his trust in a dangerous world leader.”
And this is the scumbag they believe is a great person, fit to be president of the United States.
Donald Trump compilation: The 90 most shocking things he’s said during election campaign
From calling Mexicans’ rapists to “locker room talk” and “such a nasty woman.” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said and done some outrageous things on the campaign trail. Here’s the 90 most memorable.
THIS IS WHO THE RUSSIAN REPUGNANTS ARE PROTECTING AND DEFENDING.
If President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had been recorded defending Putin and Russia over our own CIA and other intelligence agencies? Why the Repugnants would be demanding they be arrested for High Treason and executed at Gitmo.
But? Because it is Putin Puppet Traitor Trump praising Putin, and other dictators? That is ok.
If it was President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton doing ANY of these things that Trump has been bagged for? They would demand their impeachment and their removal from office.
But because it is Traitor Twitter Tyrant Trump? Why he gets a pass.
And the Repugnants just proved Traitor Trump right.
HE COULD SHOOT SOMEONE IN THE MIDDLE OF FIFTH AVENUE, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, AND IT WOULD BE RECORDED ON VIDEO, AND MITCH MCCONNELL, LINDSEY GRAHAM, DEVIN NUNES AND ALL THE REST OF THE RUSSIAN REPUGNANTS? WOULD STILL DEFEND HIM.
Is it time for a new Civil War?
The Trumpsters stated that if Trump was removed from office, they would start a new Civil War.
But should we who know that Trump is guilty and should be removed from office, also proclaim we should start a Civil War if the Repugnants do not remove him from office.
First? NO.
I believe we should continue to work in the system, and get out the vote. To get EVERYONE, including teens and millenials, who are eligible to vote, off their asses and get them to vote. The ONLY way we can overcome this right now from a legal standpoint is to overwhelmingly vote out all the Repugnants who supported and defended this Treasonous Trump.
Yet, what if the election machines are rigged? And they change the votes from Democrat to Republican as has been shown on a few of these machines? And what if the Repugnants do lose like they did in the last mid-terms and Traitor Trump loses and refuses to leave office, and institutes Martial law even? What do we do about this?
THE FOUNDING FATHERS? TOLD US WHAT TO DO IN THIS CASE.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR TO ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE A NEW GOVERNMENT, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, IT IS THEIR RIGHT, IT IS THEIR DUTY, TO THROW OFF SUCH GOVERNMENT AND TO PROVIDE NEW GUARDS FOR THEIR FUTURE SECURITY.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence.
YES, WE CONTINUE TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS AND RULES OF THE CONSTITUTION, BUT WHEN THE REPUGNANTS AND TRAITOR TRUMP TRULY THROWS THOSE RULES AND LAWS OUT THE WINDOW AFTER THE NEXT ELECTION?
THEN? IT IS TIME FOR A NEW CIVIL WAR, A WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AGAINST THE RUSSIAN REPUGNANTS AND TRAITOR TRUMP WHO HAS STOLEN OUR COUNTRY.
Chris Cuomo: Closing Argument: You Should Be Mad As Hell And Send Message You’re Not Going To Take It Anymore
CNN’s Chris Cuomo tells viewers they should be angry about the vote against witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, and urges them to speak out. #CNN#News
We could lower ourselves to the level of Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Rick Wiles and Jim Bakker, echoed by Trump with his retweets of Jeffress, and pushed by his radical, hard core followers that if Trump was removed from office they would start a Civil War 2.0. But we are not like they are. We do our best to believe in the rule of law. To abide by the rule of law.
Republicans once stated they were the greatest defenders of the rule of law and the Constitution. But they have proven otherwise. As you said Chris, they stood up for this Criminal in Chief of the White House. I do not know why they fear him so much, I do not know what kind of Kompromat that Trump, or the Russians have on Moscow Mitch McConnell, Leningrad Lindsey Graham, and all the other Republicans who have put Trump above all they supposedly once stood for. Graham got busted outright in his hypocrisy, with all the video of what he said during the Clinton impeachment, and what he now says of Trump.
There is only one hopeful way to end the reign of terror of Trump and McConnell, Graham, and all the rest who have stood up and defended his crimes.
NOW, MORE THAN ANYTIME IN HISTORY? GET OFF YOUR BUTT, MAKE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE, AND GO AND VOTE THESE CRIMINALS OUT OF OFFICE. EITHER THAT?
OR IT WILL CONTINUE TO SLIDE INTO THE DICTATORSHIP OF TRUMP THAT IT IS NOW IS.
Traitor Trump, Moscow Mitch, Leningrad Lindsey, and the rest of the Treasonous GOP, who care more about their party and keeping power than they do about the oath of office they all placed their hands on a bible and swore to? Have committed High Treason Against the United States and as such? Deserve to be taken to Gitmo, waterboarded until they give up all their dirt they sold us out to Putin and Russia, Un, Erdogran and al the rest of the dicktaters they sold us out to, before we give them all one last Happy Meal and then? Execute these fuckers in front of a firing squad.
The minute Traitor Donald J Trump withheld the Congressional approved funds and military weapons to the Ukraine, in order to use as a carrot to dangle in front of the President of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to do his bidding and dig up dirt on the Bidens, Burimsa and find out about the bogus claims of Crowd Strike and the DNC server and it being the Ukraine that interfered in his election to the Presidency, not the proven fact it was Russia and Putin and their troll bots who did so? He committed High Treason Against the United States. And ANY Republican who defends and supports the actions of Donald J Trump? Have also committed High Treason Against the United States.
I shall reveal his and the Republicans High Treason Against the United States by posting three news stories and nine video links that back up my assertions and my own comments after posting those stories and videos.
Donald J Trump and the Republicans who support and defend him? Have in fact? Given aid and comfort to Putin and the Russians in the Ukrainian fight against the Russian and Putin’s invasion of and annexation of Crimea and their proxy war against the Ukraine. The U.S. is in a “proxy war” with Putin and Russia in our support and defense of the Ukraine. By Traitor Trump withholding the money and weapons the Ukrainians need to fight Putin and Russia’s illegal invasion of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea? He gave aid and comfort to Putin and Russia and adhered to the will of Putin, and his own interests, not the intersts of the United States national security, or even Ukraines security against Russia.If President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or any other Democrat did any of this? The Republicans would be not only demanding their impeachment and removal from office, but their arrest and prosecution for High Treason Against the United States. But seeing it is their own Donald J Trump who did all of this? Why he gets a pass.
Story One: Impeachment Day 3: Republicans Continue Their Attack on Reason and Reality
Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman’s testimony was devastating. So GOP lawmakers resorted to spin and conspiracy theories.
By David Corn, Washington DC Bureau Chief, Mother Jones
On Tuesday, the third day of the House impeachment hearings, the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were confronted by witnesses, particularly Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official, who presented unambiguous evidence that President Donald Trump used his office to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch investigations to produce dirt on Joe Biden and prove a debunked conspiracy theory that absolved the Russians of hacking the 2016 US election.Vindman and Jennifer Williams, a State Department official assigned to Vice President Mike Pence’s office, each told the committee that Trump, during his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pressed the Ukrainian to initiate these two inquiries and that Burisma—the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, worked for—was referenced by name.(The reconstructed transcript of the call released by the White House, for some not-yet-explained reason, did not mention “Burisma.”) Vindman also testified about a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials in which Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who was working with the private channel overseen by Rudy Giuliani, piped up and said that before Zelensky could get a much-desired meeting with Trump, the Ukrainians had to “deliver specific investigations.” Other witnesses have told the committee that the release of nearly $400 million in security assistance that Trump put a hold on was also tied to Ukraine pursuing investigations of the Bidens and the conspiracy theory that holds that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the US election.
So it’s as clear as the sky is blue: Trump was muscling the Ukrainians to help him influence the 2020 election and to clear Moscow. The quasi-transcript of the July 25 call even shows Trump saying that if Zelensky wants more Javelin anti-tank weapons, he will have to do Trump the “favor” of kicking off these investigations.(And as Vindman said, considering the power disparity between the two men, this was not a polite request that could be turned down—it was a “demand.”)Yet when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the pro-Trump bulldog recently placed on the intelligence committee by the GOP leadership, had his chance to ask questions of Vindman and Williams, he seized his moment in the sun to declare the sky is green. Or purple. Or whatever. There is no evidence of “linkage,” he thundered. “The transcript shows no linkage…to an investigation.”
But that’s exactly what the transcript shows. You want Javelins? Then we have this favor for you to do—investigations. This is brazen linkage. And there’s now a mountain of testimony linking a White House meeting and the release of the security assistance to Ukraine opening the political investigations Trump craved. But…still…nevertheless, the Republicans on the committee won’t accept this basic reality.
Instead, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the committee, Jordan, and their party-mates have forged an alternative reality in which this controversy is no more than a “hoax” concocted by Democrats and the media and that the focus should be not on Trump’s action but on the whistleblower who initiated the Trump-Ukraine scandal and on the involvement of Hunter Biden in Burisma and the fact-free allegation that his dad took action to thwart an investigation of the firm.
Traitor Congressman Devin Nunes, defending Traitor Trump at all costs during the Impeachment Investigation of Donald J Trump.
In his opening statement, Nunes depicted a wide-ranging conspiracy of Democrats and mainstream media outlets that first cooked up “the Russia hoax” and then, when that scandal did not lead to Trump’s ouster, devised a whole new bogus Ukraine scandal. In this world, Russia’s attack on the 2016 election (which was mounted partly to help Trump win) does not exist. Rather, Ukraine was somehow the true meddler. (Republicans have repeatedly cited the public anti-Trump statements of a few Ukrainian officials who in 2016 were worried about Trump—and justifiably so, after Trump had said that perhaps Russia should be allowed to keep Crimea, the chunk of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin seized in 2014.) The Republicans were hardly slowed by Vindman’s reality-based statement that the Ukraine-meddled accusation “is a Russian narrative that President Putin has promoted.”
Nunes even exclaimed that the Democratic media conspiracy against Trump included “a concerted campaign” of journalistic organizations “smearing” John Solomon, the writer for The Hill who published a series of stories that disseminated unfounded allegations about the Bidens and former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In a bizarre twist, Nunes pointed to the fact that The Hill is now reviewing Solomon’s articles as proof of this sub-conspiracy and an indication this despicable cabal would go to any lengths to prosecute its evil plan.
Nunes declared that what most needed exposing was the whistleblower’s contacts with the media and the Democrats on the committee. He did not explain the relevance of this. But Nunes was suggesting that the whole Ukraine business was manufactured by the Ds and the press—and the whistleblower is the key to uncovering this diabolical plot. The whistleblower’s lawyers have denied on the record that their client has been talking to the media or coordinating with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the intelligence committee, or other Democrats.
Nunes also promoted the never-will-die innuendo that Joe Biden pushed for the dismissal of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor to protect his son and Burisma. And there were other insinuations hurled by the Republicans. At one point, they dwelled on an anecdote—a Ukrainian official once asked Vindman if he wanted to serve as defense minister for Ukraine, and Vindman dismissed the offer as a joke—to hint that Vindman, who was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, possessed dual loyalties.
The Rs have concocted a dark world in which Trump is an innocent victim. In their view, he was the target of foreign intervention in 2016, not the beneficiary; there was nothing to the Russia investigation. (Don’t mention the convictions of his campaign manager, his national security adviser, his longtime political adviser, and others.) And the Ukraine scandal—based on a suspect whistleblower (disregard all the testimony from known officials)—is merely another front in the unrelenting war the Democrats have been waging against Trump because, as Jordan yelled on Tuesday, “the Democrats have never accepted the will of the American people.”
Toward the end of Vindman’s and Williams’ time before the panel, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Vindman to read aloud the last paragraph of the prepared testimony he delivered at the start of the hearing: “Dad, [that] I’m sitting here today in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.” Maloney asked why he reported Trump’s phone call to lawyers at the National Security Council. “Because that was my duty,” Vindman replied.
With his testimony, Maloney told Vindman, “You were putting yourself up against the president of the United States.” (Trump and his henchmen have viciously attacked Vindman.) Maloney asked the colonel, “Why did you have confidence you can do that?” Vindman, a recipient of the Purple Heart, answered, “Because, Congressman, this is America. This is the country I have served and defended…And here right matters.” The audience responded with loud applause. The Republicans on the panel looked glum. Moments later, when Nunes had the chance to make a concluding statement, he snorted, “Act One of today’s circus is over.”
Story Two: Impeachment hearings reveal the extent of the damage Trump’s inflicted on our national security
The GOP is trying to use the broken national security system to discredit and undermine the officials who are testifying, rather than fix it.
By Brett Bruen, former director of global engagement in the Obama White House. Brett Bruen was the director of global engagement in the Obama White House and a career American diplomat. He currently runs crisis communications agency the Global Situation Room and teaches crisis management at Georgetown.
We are in real danger. There are certainly many conclusions to be drawn from the recent days of detailed testimony by officials on the National Security Council and at the State Department in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. But beyond the political points scored and the possibility of removing a president, there’s an even more unsettling feeling that I can’t shake. These hearings have laid bare just how crippled the staff, systems and structures designed to protect our country really are.
This troubling state of insecurity ought to jolt even the most jaded member of Congress into sitting up straight and starting to think about how to straighten it out really fast. But instead of trying to address the damage to our defenses, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting the inquiry, opt to exacerbate matters. They are trying to use this broken system to discredit and undermine the witnesses who are testifying to Trump’s bad behavior.
Repeatedly, these members of Congress have asked the public servants testifying— who have information about Trump allegedly pressuring Ukraine into investigating a major political rival, Vice President Joe Biden, and his son in exchange for aid and a White House visit — whether they themselves had ever met the president. The implication they hope will be drawn from their answers that they never once met him is that these individuals lack the stature and direct knowledge to be credible.
Trump himself cast the same aspersion Tuesday, specifically about the top National Security Council expert on Ukraine, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who that day provided devastating testimony about the president’s impropriety in a now-infamous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Vindman and other staff had listened in on that call from a separate room.
“I don’t know him,” Trump said at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting
in response to a question about whether Vindman was credible. “I never
saw the man.” It’s worth bearing in mind he said the same thing about Brett McGurk, the former presidential envoy
to counter the Islamic State militant group when he left. It just seems
to be standard practice for the commander in chief not to meet his most
senior advisers.
At the hearing, Ohio Rep. Michael Turner asked Vindman directly: “You’ve never met the president of the United States, right?” And then followed up with, “So you’ve never advised the president of the United States on Ukraine?”
Republican Congressman Michael Turner, standing up for Traitor Trump while attacking a real hero, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Michael Turner and the rest of the Treasonous Repugnants standing up for Traitor Trump and attacking the witnesses and whistleblower? Do not even have the right to tie his or any of the other witnesses shoes.
While
Vindman said he advised him “indirectly,” through preparing calls and
materials for him without having met him, Walked rejoined: “But you’ve
never spoken to the president of the United States and told him advice
on Ukraine?” Vindman conceded, “That is correct.”
The problem with putting down Vindman and other witnesses because they never met Trump is that it shows the president’s gross negligence in handling national security rather than the inadequacy of those testifying on impeachment. The lack of contact and communications between the National Security Council and the Oval Office, especially on critical issues such as Ukraine and ISIS, should set off alarm bells; we are precariously close to a catastrophic crash.
When I was on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, the staff interacted fairly regularly with the big boss. Depending on the portfolio, someone at Vinman’s level could see him every week.
It was our job, as advisers on the White House
body devoted to gathering information and forming policy on
international and security issues, to brief President Barack Obama
before key calls and meetings. So even though I wasn’t particularly
senior, I occasionally spent up to two and a half hours meeting with
him, where there would be opportunities to both present and answer his
questions. Obama was notorious for calling on those sitting on the back
benches to get different views on key issues.
This president is flying blind. I was struck in listening to the testimony over the past week how few of his advisers are consulted on major policy decisions. Sure, we have long known about his tendency to freelance. Yet, there’s a difference between dismissing or discounting advice and never getting it in the first place. I was shocked that Trump had never spoken to either of our top diplomats in Ukraine prior to halting aid and endangering the country.
There are two primary effects of this
disconnect. First, as we have clearly seen in the testimony, our people
have no clue what they are supposed to do. They play an elaborate and
elusive game of telephone, trying to figure out how the heck they should
steer the ship through rough waters. Messages get relayed through
multiple layers in the Trump administration, often passed by external,
self-interested actors.
The second effect is that those who know national security best are unable to warn the president about potential risks or unintended consequences. Trump’s sudden decision to pull our troops out of northern Syria is a prime example of such impulsive and ill-informed decisions. Without the benefit of GPS, we regularly find ourselves driving far off course, as has been the case with North Korea. There is then the challenge of the president taking counsel directly from unscrupulous actors who often drive him into minefields, such as Rudy Giulliani and Lev Parnas, as they did on Ukraine.
And
Trump has gone even further. The president and the White House have
tweeted against Vindman and Vice President Mike Pence’s aide on Ukraine,
Jennifer Williams. During Vindman’s testimony, Trump tweeted that his boss “had concerns about Vindman’s judgment.” And he slammed Williams
as a Never Trumper “who I don’t know.” Attacks like these don’t just
shatter the confidence of Williams and Vindaman but also shake the
confidence of everyone working on the National Security Council.
Our
country is endangered when those responsible for the most serious
threats we face have to worry about personal threats from our leaders.
And the number of those interested in taking on this difficult if
important work will only decrease. Service on this National Security
Council was already fairly unpopular these days. I know from speaking
with friends that many are already shunning the previously prestigious
positions at the White House. The developments of the last few weeks
will make it untenable for many of those who are best qualified for
those positions.
We will end up in a
situation where the most important jobs for protecting our country are
going to be occupied by second- and third-string players. Again, this
creates massive vulnerabilities that should alarm lawmakers and those
responsible for the defense of our country.
What happens when the next person sees
something of concern? After having witnessed the fierce political
attacks to which we now subject whistleblowers and those such as
Williams and Vindman who reluctantly speak up publicly, many will be
simply too afraid to come forward. Instead, they will allow problems to
fester and dangerous decisions to go unchallenged. This again places our
nation in a very serious situation. Fraud, waste and abuse will spread,
eating away at the pillars of stability and security on which our way
of life has depended for so long.
Some may argue that I’m overdramatizing the risks. But the testimony has brought to light some of the dark developments of the last several years. Our national security officials now have little contact with an isolated and erratic president. They don’t have clear guidance or even a basic plan for how to execute our foreign policy. Many of them are overly afraid for their jobs, their colleagues and even their safety. It is exceptionally hard to keep America safe when you’re in the dark, alone and afraid.
Isn’t it amazing how at one time, Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy said that he thought Putin paid Trump. Now he got his nose buried so deep up inside of Traitor Trump’s asshole? His breath smells like a well used outhouse every time he opens it to defend the treasonous actions of Donald J Trump.
Story Three: Does Ukraine have the DNC server like Trump says? We fact checked that.
President Donald Trump, hitting back after a marathon week of public impeachment hearings, continued Friday to promote the debunked conspiracy that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, falsely claiming that “a Ukrainian company” is harboring a hacked server belonging to the Democratic National Committee.
During a nearly
hourlong phone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump defended his
administration’s freeze on military aid to Ukraine this year as well as
his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president that prompted a whistleblower complaint, saying he was simply trying to root out corruption in the country.
“A
lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine,” he began, before alleging
that the country has the DNC server that was hacked in 2016.
“The FBI went in and they told them get out of here, we’re not giving it to you. They gave the server to CrowdStrike … which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server,” Trump said of the DNC’s actions upon learning that it had been hacked in the run-up to the election. “You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”
Almost none of these claims are remotely true.
CrowdStrike is the California-based cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to investigate a breach that turned out to be a Russian hack aimed at sowing discord and disrupting the U.S. election. It’s not owned by a wealthy Ukrainian — it’s publicly traded on the Nasdaq. Its largest shareholder is Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm with ties to Trump himself. One of CrowdStrike’s founders, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a Russian-born American citizen, which may be what Trump is getting at. But Alperovitch frequently consults with the U.S. government on cybersecurity, Esquire reported.
It is true that the FBI was not given the DNC’s physical computer equipment, but there’s no evidence that the Democratic Party held anything back from U.S. law enforcement investigating the breach. During investigations, it’s common for physical servers to be digitally copied and preserved as evidence, as Robert Johnston, a cybersecurity expert who led the investigation into the DNC hack in 2016, explained to NBC News earlier this year.
There’s also not just one server, as Trump seems to think. The DNC has said they decommissioned 140 servers and rebuilt 11, to be specific, related to 2016. One of them is on display at the DNC’s office in Washington, next to a filing cabinet broken into by Watergate burglars, according to this 2016 photo in The New York Times.
With those claims, Trump made clear Friday
that he is holding fast to the broader, debunked conspiracy that Ukraine
was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election. Republicans on
the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the impeachment
inquiry, framed much of their questioning around this idea, so much so
that Trump’s former Russia expert, Fiona Hill, targeted it in her
testimony Thursday for a thorough dismantling.
“Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill said. “In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
Hill, one of the foremost U.S. experts on Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterated in public — as she had in her closed-door testimony — that she would refuse to be a part of “an alternative narrative” that Ukraine was the country that attacked the U.S. in 2016, because it boosts Russian and not American interests.
“These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes,” she said.
The broader conspiracy of Ukraine election
interference Trump hints at in his interview purports that the
Democratic Party orchestrated, with that nation’s help, the hacking of
their own systems and framed Russia in order to discredit a Trump
presidency.
The president has for years been alluding to this baseless theory — the origins of which NBC News’ Ben Collins traced back
to far-right message boards as early as March 2017 — though he does not
spell it out, perhaps because it’s quite a stretch to suggest that
Democrats ran a massive, international conspiracy to lose the election.
Behind closed doors, Trump has claimed Ukraine tried to stop him from winning.
Ukraine “tried to take me down,” Trump said in a meeting with his advisers, according to the impeachment inquiry testimony of U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and Kurt Volker, then-U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.
Despite being repeatedly
dismissed by Trump’s own intelligence community and advisers, the theory
appears to have been a motivating factor behind the efforts of his
personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to run a highly unusual shadow policy
team with the goal of pressuring the Ukrainian government to announce
investigations into the 2016 election and Burisma Holdings — the
Ukrainian gas company that Hunter Biden joined as a board member in
2014.
Fox News’ Steve Doocy on Friday pressed the president on whether he was “sure” about the claims.
“Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?” he asked of the DNC server.
“Well, that’s what the word is,” Trump said.
“That’s
what I asked actually in my phone call, if you know. I mean I asked it
very point blank, because we’re looking for corruption. There’s
tremendous corruption. We’re looking for — why should we be giving
hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of
corruption?”
The foreign aid to Ukraine
that the Trump administration held up for 55 days is one aspect of the
Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, as witnesses have alleged that there was an effort
to condition the release of that aid on public assurances that Ukraine
would launch the politically advantageous investigations Giuliani and
Trump desired
Video One: Ukrainian forces at risk as Trump admin. withheld military aid
The lives of Ukrainian troops fighting a hot war against Russian forces were on the line as the Trump administration withheld aid now at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry. Retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis reacts.
Video Two: Jordan interrupts Holmes while answering his question
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, frequently interrupted David Holmes as he tried to answer his question about a call he overheard between President Trump and Amb. Gordon Sondland.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, who protected a pedo doctor, is now protecting a traitor to the United States: Donald J Trump.
Video Three: It doesn’t matter if Trump committed a crime. He should still be impeached.
With impeachment depositions set to begin soon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have narrowed the focus of the impeachment inquiry to Trump’s Ukraine call and the subsequent whistleblower complaint. Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science and policy at Brown University, joined THINK to explain why he thinks that’s a mistake.
Video Four: Trump calls impeachment proceedings an ‘overthrow attempt’ during interview
President Trump dismissed the impeachment proceedings as an “overthrow attempt” during a phone interview with Fox News. NBC News’ Hans Nichols details how this plays into the White House’s strategy.
Video Five: Day 1,037: Trump floats Russian conspiracy theory on Ukraine on FOX News
After Fiona Hill blasted lawmakers on the Hill for sharing a Russian-created conspiracy theory about Ukraine hacking the 2016 U.S. election, Trump went on FOX News and again repeated the bogus allegation.
Video Six: Russia expert Fiona Hill blasts ‘fictional narrative’ of Ukraine election interference
President Trump’s former top Russia advisor Fiona Hill testified on the fifth day of public impeachment hearings, blasting Republicans for unfounded theories of Ukrainian election interference and taking aim at the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Embassy aide David Holmes also testified, detailing a cell phone conversation he says he overheard between Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Trump.
Video Seven: Hill and Holmes: Everyone knew Burisma investigation was about the Bidens
After Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker testified they did not realize talk of a Burisma investigation was about the Bidens, Fiona Hill and David Holmes tore that claim apart in their testimony.
Video Nine: ‘I don’t know what the hell Jim Jordan is doing’: Congressman says
Rep. Adam Smith discusses the impeachment inquiry hearings this week and the Republican defense of President Trump. Smith says about Rep. Jim Jordan, “I don’t know what the hell he is doing. He is obviously sticking to this narrative that is untrue.”
House Republicans make it clear they feel Trump has done nothing wrong
House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., talking to reporters at the
GOP House leadership press conference, was asked by a reporter if he
would say Trump has done nothing wrong.
“A very clear
yes,” he responded. The cadre of House GOP leaders standing behind him
yelled in affirmation as McCarthy responded.
Responding
to a subsequent question, McCarthy claimed Republicans in Congress will
vote on impeachment — if and when articles are formally introduced —
“based on the facts.”
“Show us the truth. We always vote based on the facts,” he said.
Rep. Jim Jordan: Americans ‘will not tolerate this’
Republican
House leaders, speaking at their post-vote press conference, continued
their criticism of House Democrats, accusing their rival party’s leaders
of going against the wishes of the American people
“The
American people see this for what it is,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the
ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said.
“They will not tolerate this.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, a
member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claimed the Democrats’
procedural approach to the impeachment inquiry “defies historic
precedent.”
Rep. Dingell ‘very disturbed by the undue influence’ being put on Republicans
Rep. Debbie Dingell, R-Mich., said Friday that she was “very
disturbed” by the pressure she said is being put on Republican
lawmakers to toe the line during the House impeachment inquiry.
Asked
on Fox News whether Democrats should move forward with impeachment
without GOP backing, Dingell responded, “First of all, I don’t know that
there is no Republican support. I have talked to a number of people who
are deeply disturbed, and they’re being very cautious in their words.
Their arms are being broken, and I’m very disturbed by the undue
influence I’m seeing put on Republicans too.”
Dingell
said what she heard in testimony over the last two weeks “deeply
disturbed” her and would accurately be described as bribery.
“It
is very clear that the Ukrainian president was — the word ‘bribe’ does
work with being told you are not going to get this aid that you need
unless you agree to do this investigation, and you do it publicly,” she
said. “And we do have evidence that money was held up.”
The
congresswoman added that the Intelligence Committee was already
drafting its report, after which the Judiciary Committee will make its
recommendations, and she would wait to see those before coming to any
conclusions about impeachment.
Dingell also weighed in on
the debunked conspiracy theory Trump and his allies have been chasing
that it was really Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016
election — which former top Russia expert Fiona Hill called a “fictional narrative” that echoed Russian propaganda during her testimony on Thursday.
“One
of the things we do know and one of the reasons why I have been fearful
about impeachment, but I am getting madder and madder … is that we do
know, there were Republican Cabinet members that testified that Russia
interfered in our last elections. Russia is trying to divide us as a
country. That’s documented in the Mueller report. Intelligence agency
after intelligence agency around the world is saying that they’re trying
to destabilize democracy.
“We need a president that’s
going to protect the United States of America, not help destabilize
democracies around the world,” she said.
DONALD J TRUMP, RUDY GUILIANI, WILLIAM BARR, RICK PERRY, MIKE POMPEO, MITCH MCCONNELL, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MICK MULVANEY, DEVIN NUNES, JIM JORDAN, AND THE REST OF THE REPUBLICANS WHO SUPPORT AND DEFEND DONALD J TRUMP? HAVE ALL COMMITTED HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
Treason is an act of disloyalty or betrayal of trust to a person’s own government. Examples include assassination of a state figure, fighting against his or her own nation in a war, assisting enemy combatants, or passing vital government information to the enemy. Historically, this crime has been severely punished, because an act of treason can destroy a nation. In the modern day, a conviction is accompanied at a minimum by a long jail sentence and a heavy fine, and may merit the death penaltyunder certain circumstances.
18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
While we may not be officially at war with Russia and Putin, we are in a proxy war with them through the Ukraine. The Ukraine is an ally of ours. We are supporting and helping them because of the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea and their proxy war, using Russians, to overtake the Ukraine. We are in essence? In a proxy war, defending the Ukraine against Russia and Putin against their invasion of the Ukraine.
This would be similar to what Traitor Trump just did in helping his disgusting, dicktater buddy Erdogan in Turkey and Syria and his now allowing the Kurds to be slaughtered by the Russian backed and supported Turkish government.
By Traitor Trump withholding the funds and the military weapons that were to go to the Ukraine, under the rules and laws of Congress, that approved these funds and military weapons for the Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion and Putin? All so he could have the Ukrainians dig up dirt on Biden and all the bullshit con of the DNC server? He immediately gave aid and comfort to his Puppet Master, Putin and Russia and by his actions? Caused Ukrainians to be killed. This again? Is giving aid and comfort to our enemy Russia and Putin.
Russia’s Crimea plan detailed, secret and successful
The annexation of Crimea was the
smoothest invasion of modern times. It was over before the outside world
realised it had even started.
And until Tuesday 18 March, when a
group of pro-Russian gunmen attacked a small Ukrainian army base in
Simferopol, killing one officer and injuring another, it was entirely
bloodless.
For much of February, thousands of extra soldiers were
quietly sent in to the bases which Russia was permitted by treaty to
own in Crimea. Civilian “volunteers” moved in too. The plan was carried
out secretly and with complete success.
The first obvious sign that Crimea was being taken over was on Friday 28 February, when checkpoints were established at Armyansk and Chongar – the two main road crossings from mainland Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula.
These
cut-off points were controlled by men wearing a variety of uniforms:
Ukrainian army, Ukrainian police, as well as camouflage without national
insignia. Several wore civilian clothes.
When I tried to get
through the Armyansk checkpoint on Saturday 1 March, together with a BBC
cameraman, these men were hostile and threatening.
They stole the
bags containing our body armour from the boot of our taxi, and went
through our suitcases aggressively, pulling out the things inside and
dropping some of them on the road. They took our camera away and filched
the expensive electronic recording cards from it, together with the
camera battery.
They knew exactly what they were looking for.
There were more bags containing body armour piled up at the side of the
road, where other journalists had tried to get through before us.
The
men at the checkpoint were stopping everyone except local people from
passing through. I found it hard to work out what was going on.
It was only when one of them, wearing a police uniform, called out “Welcome to Russia!” that I understood – their uniforms might be Ukrainian, but they were sealing off Crimea on behalf of Moscow.
By the next day, Sunday 2 March, it was all over. The outside world
was still expecting Russian ships to arrive and capture Crimea. But it
had already happened by stealth.
On Sunday and Monday the
Ukrainian military bases were taken over by tough-looking soldiers. They
carried the latest Russian military weapons, but their uniforms had
neither national or unit markings, nor badges of rank.
Alongside
them were the “volunteers” – usually older men, many of whom had
apparently come in from Russia itself. Some wore bits and pieces of
uniform, others plain clothes. They lined up outside the Ukrainian bases
and prevented anyone getting too close.
Presumably they were
Russian reservists. They were tough and aggressive, but they obeyed the
orders of their superiors. Many were obviously heavy drinkers, and at
night a few were openly drunk.
Yet their discipline held. There was no looting, and although their behaviour was threatening they did not attack civilians.
In the days that followed, other groups appeared. These were genuine volunteers, who had come from Moscow to join what they saw as the liberation of Crimea. I spoke to three members of an ultra-nationalist group whose uniforms bore the colours of an extreme royalist organisation.
They were all from Moscow, and they all planned to move on from Crimea to the mainly Russian-speaking cities of Kharkiv and Donetsk. Why? To show solidarity, they said.
Later I came across a
group of seven or eight bikers wearing leathers with badges of rank on
them – president, vice-president and so on. They had also come down from
Moscow, and were planning to head off to Kharkiv and Donetsk. “It’s a
great day,” the “president” said.
But these were
Johnny-come-latelys – amateurs who just wanted to join the fun. There
was absolutely no sign the Russian government had sent them.
In
modern times, Moscow has staged three major invasions: Hungary in
November 1956 and Czechoslovakia in August 1968, when the Communist
governments there began showing dangerously Western tendencies; and
Afghanistan in December 1979, when the pro-Communist regime was on the
point of collapse.
These were huge and brutal operations, involving large numbers of tanks, and sometimes great bloodshed.
The
takeover of Crimea has been completely different. This was an
infiltration, not an invasion. And unlike in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Afghanistan it was welcomed by a large proportion of the local
population.
According to a well-known opponent of Mr Putin’s, the
vote in Crimea to join the Russian Federation was “a referendum under
the Kalashnikov”. But it wasn’t. The outcome was what the vast majority
of Russian-speakers in Crimea really wanted, and there was little need
for Kalashnikovs in the streets.
Those who wanted to keep Crimea a part of Ukraine were far too shocked and intimidated to resist.
The
entire operation was very cleverly planned and carried out. But there
is absolutely no doubt what it was – a remarkable, quick and mostly
bloodless coup d’etat.
How U.S. military aid became a lifeline for Ukraine
The U.S. provided about $1.5 billion in military aid to Kiev between 2014 and this past June, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis.
The military aid scandal that spawned
the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump has a very different
significance for Ukraine, where years of U.S. assistance have just
begun to turn a ragtag army into a better-armed and professional force to counter Russian aggression.
The U.S. has provided about $1.5 billion in military support to Kiev between 2014 and this past June, according to an updated analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. And Trump’s temporary cut off of the aid represented a significant setback for the country.
“Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States,” said Ash Carter, who served as President Barack Obama’s defense secretary from 2015 to 2017. “Everything we were doing there to train their military forces, their National Guard, to improve the professionalism and reduce corruption in the defense ministry … all that was critical.”
Before the aid influx, “the
Ukrainian military was in woeful shape,” said Mariya Omelicheva, a
professor of national security strategy at the Pentagon’s National
Defense University who specializes in the region.
“There has been a tangible, measurable impact,” added Omelicheva, who visited the Ukrainian training center in March. And beyond that, she said, the help created “an immeasurable, psychological impact — that the U.S. has our back.”
Now Trump’s aborted aid cutoff — first reported by POLITICO in late August
— has mushroomed into a titanic political fight, centered on
allegations that the president was using the military assistance as
leverage to push Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. House oversight committees are
demanding more data from the White House Office of Management and Budget
on when and how the decision to sever the aid arose, including
requesting that some documentation be delivered to Capitol Hill by
Tuesday.
The military aid program has steadily
shifted American support in recent years much more heavily toward
security after economic development, loan guarantees and anti-corruption
programs defined much of the support following Ukraine’s independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The U.S. bumped up its military support in 2014, soon after a popular uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russian troops annexed the Crimean peninsula while fomenting a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.
The vast majority of the funds, approved with bipartisan support in Congress, has financed items such as sniper rifles; rocket-propelled grenade launchers; counter-artillery radars; command and control and communications systems; night vision goggles; medical equipment; as well training and logistical support.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is especially interested in buying more Javelin anti-tank missiles to combat Russian tanks and other armored vehicles — a topic he broached during his July 25 telephone call with Trump that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry .
“Mr. Trump brought up American aid to
that country — without explicitly mentioning that he had just frozen a
military aid package of hundreds of millions of dollars — and then
pressed the Ukrainian leader to investigate Mr. Biden,” says the unclassified
copy of the whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration
released last week. “White House officials believed they had witnessed
Trump abuse his power for personal political gain.”
The call came a week after Trump ordered his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to instruct OMB to halt the remainder of $390 million in military aid appropriated by Congress this year in the Pentagon and State Department budgets. The administration released the aid earlier this month after demands from Congress.
Even before the current furor,
questions of how much or how little to help Ukraine’s military counter
Russian aggression have embroiled Washington for years.
Nowhere was it more pointed than the Ukrainians’ request, as far back as 2014, to purchase the advanced Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The Javelin issue “became fetishized
and it became a litmus test: ‘Will you stand up to Putin or will you
kowtow to him?’” said Samuel Charap, a former senior adviser at the
State Department specializing in Russia and Eurasia. “It was like a
Rorschach test.
“It had nothing to do with the merits
of the Javelin or the question of what would actually be most effective
and important for helping Ukraine,” added Charap, who is now a senior
political scientist at the government-funded Rand Corp.
The Obama administration agonized over
the issue but never approved the sale out of fear of escalating the
conflict — despite entreaties from Carter, who served in several top
Pentagon positions at the time.
The aim was to “do everything we could within the boundaries of what was wise without baiting the Russians into doing something worse,” recalled Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator who was Obama’s secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015.
The Javelins also helped spur a controversy over the Republican Party’s platform in 2016, after Trump’s campaign succeeded in watering down anti-Russia language and ensuring it would not call for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine.
Yet once Trump was in office , the Ukrainian government and its allies in Congress kept pushing the request.
Finally, in 2018, long after the
Russian tanks pulled back from the front, the State Department finally
approved a foreign military sale of 210 Javelin missiles, along with
launchers and training, for $47 million.
Charap said the missiles’ military value was limited — they “ended up on the other side of the country from where the conflict is and under lock and key.” But they held significant value in eastern Ukraine, where retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Gronski credits the missiles with helping to stabilize the military crisis by “deterring the separatists from bringing armor into the region.”
The Ukrainians “really appreciate the
Javelins,” said Gronski, who served as the deputy commanding general of
U.S. Army Europe until June of this year.
Michael Kofman, a senior research
scientist at CNA, a government-funded think tank, also called the
Javelins an “insurance policy” against Russian escalation.
But in Carter’s view, “its political significance was greater than its military significance.”
However, the less controversial military aid — including some of the $390 million dollars slated to go to Ukraine this year from the Pentagon and State Department — has come to represent a lifeline for the Ukrainian military, which has achieved key milestones in recent months.
And Trump’s recent assertion that the
aid initiated under Obama has merely provided “sheets and pillows” is
directly refuted by those who oversaw it.
The Pentagon, which opposed cutting off the
aid this summer, told Congress in May that efforts to help reform the
country’s military and armaments industry, which has historically been
notoriously corrupt, have paid major dividends.
“Through these engagements, the United
States has effectively helped Ukraine advance institutional reforms
through a number of substantial actions to align Ukraine’s defense
enterprise more closely with NATO standards and principles,” John Rood,
the undersecretary of Defense for policy, told oversight committees.
He certified that Ukraine’s military
“has taken substantial actions” to tackle corruption, improve
accountability and is “sustaining improvements to combat capability
enabled by U.S. assistance.”
That applies especially to the
U.S.-financed military training, which takes place at the Yavoriv
training center in western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Initially, American, Polish,
Lithuanian and Canadian troops conducted the training of Ukrainian
forces — first for smaller, company-sized units of several hundred
soldiers and then up to the level of a brigade, which can include
thousands of troops.
But now, battle-experienced Ukrainian troops are conducting most of the training, Gronski said, leaving the U.S. forces “in more of an observer role.”
And U.S. instruction in combat
medicine has had a direct impact on the battlefield in the east, Gronski
said. “Several times, across several visits, Ukrainian battalion
commanders told me that those kits and that training absolutely saved
lives.”
So here we see that Traitor Trump, in his actions, gave aid and comfort to our enemy Russia and his Puppet Master Putin, in his withholding the funds and military weapons to the Ukraine to fight the Russians annexation of Crimea and their proxy war against the Ukraine. And this costed Ukrainians lives by his actions.
And by Traitor Trump and the Republicans spreading the bullshit story that it was the Ukraine and not the Russians and Putin who interfered in the election of Traitor Donald J Trump? They are all giving aid and comfort to the enemy Russia and Putin.They are spreading the bullshit propoganda of Putin and Russia on Ukraine everywhere to defend the actions of this treasonous scumbag Donald J Trump.
While we are in essence a peacetime and not at officially declared war with Putin and Russia? Historical prosecution of people who have been arrested, tried and convicted and executed for Treason against the United States during peacetime? Is the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg née Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born May 12, 1918, New York, New York, U.S.—died June 19, 1953, Ossining, New York; born September 28, 1915, New York City—died June 19, 1953, Ossining), the first American civilians to be executed for espionage and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime.
The Rosenbergs were charged with espionage and brought to trial on March 6, 1951; Greenglass was the chief witness for the prosecution. On March 29 they were found guilty, and on April 5 the couple was sentenced to death. (Sobell and Gold received 30-year prison terms, and Greenglass, who was tried separately, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.) For two years the Rosenberg case was appealed through the courts and before world opinion. The constitutionality and applicability of the Espionage Act of 1917, under which the Rosenbergs were tried, as well as the impartiality of the trial judge, Irving R. Kaufman—who in pronouncing sentence had accused them of a crime “worse than murder”—were key issues during the appeals process. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Harry Truman in 1952 and Pres. Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. A worldwide campaign for mercy failed, and the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Ethel became the first woman executed by the U.S. government since Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
If Julius and Ethel Rosenberg can be prosecuted for High Treason against the United States, during peacetime? Then the same rules and laws can be used that prosecuted them, 18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason , and sedition: 18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy for the treasonous actions on the crimes of Donald J Trump, Rudy Guiliani, William Barr, Mick Mulvaney, et al and their withholding Congressionally approved funds and military weapons to go to the Ukraine, to fight the Russians and Putin’s invasion of and annexation of Crimea and their war against Ukraine, who are our ally. This gave aid and comfort to our enemy, Russia and Putin.
Any Republican Senator or Congressperson who stands up and defends Traitor Trump and spreads the bullshit lies that it was the Ukraine that interfered in our elections and not the Russians, as has been proven? Then they are in fact? Guilty of 18 U.S. Code § 2382. Misprision of treason. Such as Senators Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Congressmen Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and many others.
Moscow Mitch, Putin Puppet and Treasonous Russian Republican Traitor to the United States.
Atheist Militants Rising 
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