As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the….
…People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!
He will start a civil war if he can. This is an effort in that direction.
In fact, according to Scott Stedman of Forensic News Net…
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Pompeo’s office in recent days asked State Department HR/IG if they could “discipline” officers for “failure to follow direction” if they cooperate with Congress.
This, I’m told, is PART of the IG’s urgent request to Congress.
New request, or the one we learned about last week? I’m guessing the latter but was Pompeo threatening people before the news broke? I don’t know.
There is written documentation.
State Department staffers were truly shocked by the directive, which the IG denied. It appears that Pompeo is threatening his officers if they comply with Congressional inquiries.
The IG denied Pompeo’s request? Or the IG denied the staffers were shocked? I don’t know.
The IG and HR teams wouldn’t go along with Pompeo’s ask.
For when this is confirmed please credit me as the founder of @forensicnewsnet
The IG for State was appointed by Obama. Not sure about the HR people but the IG and HR are in lockstep against Pompeo’s ask.
Interesting.
It’s as if Trump’s entire administration has stolen a car and is drunk-driving all over the country crashing into barricades and running over the corn and playing death metal at top volume.
Pompeo’s attempt to demote Congress doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction:
The chairmen of three House committees say they expect “full compliance” from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as they investigate President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings fired back Tuesday after Pompeo said in a letter that lawmakers are trying to “intimidate” and “bully” his employees. Pompeo said depositions scheduled by the panels are “not feasible.”
The chairmen wrote Pompeo that “any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress” is illegal and could constitute obstruction of justice in their ongoing impeachment inquiry.
Meanwhile…
Ukraine’s president says no one explained to him why U.S. military aid to his country was delayed.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters Tuesday that he stressed the importance of the military aid repeatedly in discussions with President Donald Trump, but “it wasn’t explained to me” why the money didn’t come through until September.
Kings don’t have to explain themselves.
It’s starting already. A tweet cited Harrop:
They aren’t. But people who deny that exclusive same-sex or opposite-sex attraction exist, often in the name of transgender rights (nothing to do with transgender rights) are in conflict with gay and lesbian rights – being born this way. This from a gay supporter of trans rights:
The interlocutor said Harrop wouldn’t appreciate being cited, and in he popped to confirm.
Entirely. This comment is being taken out of context and my position and thinking is being misrepresented. Anyone using *my* words to justify *their* transphobia is doing so in bad faith, and / or is entirely ignorant re: what my opinion on this subject actually is.
So, I asked him a couple of questions.
Ok so explain it to us. Why do you get to say you can have a preference about genitals but feminist women don’t? Or to put it another way, why can’t you even try to understand that the issue is just as intractable for us as it is for you?
Why do you continue to call it “transphobia” when it’s NOT phobia – it’s just non-belief. You can’t help it about the genitals. We can’t either. Why do you see yourself as ok and us as evil? You could at least think about it.
We literally CAN’T see men as women no matter how strenuously they insist. Why does that make us evil but not you?
I think his view is that he does see trans women as women, it’s just that that doesn’t change his attraction or lack of attraction to the relevant genitals.
Our view is that that just doesn’t make any sense. Genitals are either female or male (barring a small number of intersex people); it’s everything else that’s fungible. Bodies are female or male; minds can mix things up however they choose. (Potentially. Socially speaking it’s not that easy, but at least it’s easier than pretending a penis is a vagina.) Harrop doesn’t actually disagree with us, but he’ll never let himself see it.
Pompeo is trying to bully the impeachment hearings:
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has written to the House foreign affairs committee chairman, New York Democrat Eliot Engel, vowing to prevent attempts to “intimidate, bully, and treat improperly” current and former members of the state department into testifying in relation to the impeachment inquiry.
In the letter, Pompeo said he would work to expose what he called any attempts to intimidate employees, the Wall Street Journal reports.
…
Pompeo said he is “concerned with aspects of the Committee’s request that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State, including several career [foreign-service officers].”
He works for Trump. Does he notice any attempts to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Congress or the press?
More:
Pompeo says he won’t tolerate “tactics” of Dems in Congress seeking testimony from officials
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo continued his broadside against congressional committee chairman Eliot Engel, in his letter today.
Pompeo said that requested dates for officials voluntarily to appear on Capitol Hill for depositions related to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry were “not feasible.”
“I am concerned with aspects of your request,” Pompeo wrote to Engel, the Democratic congressmen from New York and chairman of the House foreign affairs committee.
“I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals,” Pompeo wrote, as reported by the AP.
The chairmen of three House committees, including Engel, made it clear last week that stonewalling their investigation would be considered obstruction of Congress in its investigation.
Pompeo is talking as if his boss were a dictator and he had the power to tell Congress to fuck off. He doesn’t.
So why doesn’t Harrop see it? Why do all the “TERF”-bashers not see it? Harrop’s claim is that people can’t overrule or overcome their sexual preferences and they shouldn’t be pressured to. What if that inability and right not to be pressured about it apply to more than just sexual preferences? What if they apply to other kinds of inter-relating?
What if, for instance, gender critical feminists can interact with trans women as women in some situations but not all? What if we want to reserve the right to talk to other women – literal women – about some subjects, especially those that affect us as women, because we’re women, and don’t affect men the same way, because they’re men? What if that wanting is something we cannot overcome, any more than Harrop can overcome his genital preferences? What if we can pretend to overcome but not actually overcome, and what if forcing us to do the first in all circumstances is not fair to us? What then?
The discussion continues.
Same. I feel like I’m being labelled here — as a gay man — as being somewhat problematic or “immoral” for being exclusively attracted to other men. I feel like I deal with enough of that kind of oppressive & invalidating rhetoric already, & I feel somewhat attacked by it tbh
Do you think it’s wrong for someone, who is sexually orientated to include men, not to date a trans man because he has a vagina?
I’ll just format the rest like play dialogue for ease of reading.
Harrop: I think choosing to be or not to be intimate with a man with a particular genital configuration or indeed any type of physical characteristic is a matter of personal choice, made by an individual for their own personal reasons, & a private matter for the individuals concerned.
McKinnon: That’s not quite an answer. Do you think it’s wrong or transphobic?
Harrop: It really depends on the basis for reaching one’s conclusion. Finding someone physically unattractive & thus excluding them as a potential sexual partner is not the same as invalidating & delegitimising their gender identity.
McKinnon: You’re still not quite answering my question. If someone is sexually orientated in a way that includes men, is it transphobic for them not to date a trans man with a vagina? This isn’t a question about consent.
Harrop: No I don’t think it is – it’s a matter of personal preference. Having preferences for certain physical attributes and characteristics, as a component of one’s sexuality, is a totally normal if not almost universal experience for human beings.
McKinnon: Fine. I think it is transphobic.
You can disagree with me, but the vitriol is not acceptable. I think it’s transphobic. I think it’s transphobic because genital preferences produce this outcome. This I think genital preferences are transphobic. Disagree. Fine. But at least understand my position.
Harrop: I think you’re entitled to your opinion Rachel, for sure. But I do think it lacks substance, and that it ignores multiple aspects of the reality of human sexuality. I figure we’ll just have to respectfully agree to disagree.
It seems to have ended there for now.
What’s fascinating about this is how Harrop can see it when it applies to him but it hasn’t – so far – caused him to budge a centimeter from his position that women who see it are hateful TERFs who need to be bullied and harroped out of public life.
Originally a comment by Roj Blake on Tiny favor, Scott.
Where do they get off? Why would they think Morrison has any interest in meddling with US internal affairs? Is Trump also asking other heads of state to wash his underpants, scrub his toilet, pick the nits out of his combover?
On December 27, 1941, Australian Prime Minister wrote in a “Letter to The Australian People” and published in that day’s Newspapers, “Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.” Although Curtin saw an equal partnership with the US, that has not always been the case. Historically, Liberal governments have tended to treat Australia’s role in the alliance as one of subservience, from Holt’s ‘All the way with LBJ’ to Howard’s ‘deputy sheriff’ doctrine.
Morrison is a Liberal in the same mould as Howard, and also an adherent of Hillsong Church, so no doubt Trump saw him as another easily manipulated evangelical.
I doubt most Americans are aware of it but in Australia the ANZUS Treaty has the status of Holy Writ amongst the Australian Right. In the aftermath of 9/11, John “Deputy Sherrif” Howard invoked the Treaty and thus began our national descent into yet another American Colonial War.
Yet, when Australia attempted to use the Treaty to get US support in standing up to Indonesian aggression in East Timor, the Seppos basically said, “Fuggedaboudit. What did you ever do for us?”
So yes, Australian Prime Ministers do make a habit of washing underpants, scrubbing toilets, picking the nits out of Presidential combovers.
Even Adrian Harrop can see it.
I‘ve stayed out of a certain discussion today — if you know, you know. However, what I will say is that it’s so disappointing to see such disrespect & division between folks within our community. I hope that folks will, in the fullness of time, try to find some common ground.
There is always room for debate and disagreement. Everyone sees things through the prism of their own life experience, and often our individual “takes” will come into conflict with one another. But please — for want of a better expression — let’s try to keep it above the belt.
When folks make things personal, & make disparaging or disrespectful remarks about each other, it does nothing to serve the needs of the wider community. Indeed, doing so tends to feed ammunition to our shared enemies, who’ll have been gleefully observing this whole thing unfold.
Above which belt? McKinnon explains the belt:
No preferences are inherent and immutable.
Here’s the thing I think some of people’s opposition to this is about sexual orientation. I don’t think sexual orientation is inherent or immutable either.
Hear me out.
No seriously.
But it sounds like what homophobes have been saying to same-sex attracted people for decades…a small improvement on throwing them into prison, but still a long way from Not Telling Them Which Genitals To Desire.
But ok, let’s hear McKinnon out:
I think people bristle & boch at this because they think saying this means that non-heterosexual orientation arr not valid. No. That does not follow at all. That is not an implication of what I just said. It’s a mistake to think that it is.
Uncareful people I think that this is the same thing as homophobic people saying that non hetero sexual orientations are unnatural and so you should just change to being hetero. I’m not saying that at all. Kind of literally the opposite.
I actually think any sexual orientation other than pan is immoral because sexual genital preferences immoral. But that means I think hetero people are just as bad off.
In other words…everyone on the planet should get rid of genital preferences entirely, and that way trans people will no longer have such difficulty finding people willing to have sex with them. Seems fair.
I’m just thinking about all the gay people who’ve felt pressured to be attracted to their opposite gender but simply don’t, and have been bullied, ostracized, and killed for it. To then imply that their complete lack of opposite sex attraction is immoral feels like further harm.
Right? It’s fine to do that to “cis” women…but anyone else? Hey now!
That’s where Harrop comes in.
Same. I feel like I’m being labelled here — as a gay man — as being somewhat problematic or “immoral” for being exclusively attracted to other men. I feel like I deal with enough of that kind of oppressive & invalidating rhetoric already, & I feel somewhat attacked by it tbh [feeling attacked emojis not included]
Do you think it’s wrong for someone, who is sexually orientated to include men, not to date a trans man because he has a vagina?
If no, then we can stop there for now. If yes, why?
tbh, a guy’s genitals *are* a factor in whether I find them sexually attractive or not – in the same way that many other aspects of a guy’s physicality type are. I’d theoretically be open to challenging these “preferences”, but I’m not going to pretend it wouldn’t be difficult…
… the idea that this gets me labelled as immoral or transphobic is frankly, ridiculous. And let’s face it, if you’re making someone like me feel this way & start to doubt himself, god knows how folks less familiar with this discourse would feel looking in from the outside.
Or…women? How women would feel looking in from the outside? Is that relevant at all? Or nah?
Nah, of course. There was an attempt:
So now you know how Lesbians have been feeling all along. Congratulations.
But naturally it was ignored.
The Post has more. A lot more.
Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.
In other words the top law official is using the Justice Department as a personal weapon to defend Trump against all accusations, no matter how well-founded.
The direct involvement of the nation’s top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.
The attorney general’s active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in re-examining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.
Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, these people said.
I could see doing this if the objective were to investigate how elections anywhere can be hacked…but that doesn’t seem to be the objective.
David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the early stages of the Russia probe, said it was “fairly unorthodox for the attorney general personally to be flying around the world as a point person to further evidence-gathering for a specific Justice Department investigation,” and especially so in Barr’s case.
“Even if one questions, as a threshold matter, the propriety of conducting a re-investigation of the Justice Department’s own prior investigation of Russia’s interference, the appointment of John Durham — a seasoned, nonpartisan prosecutor — provided some reason to believe that it would be handled in a professional, nonpartisan manner,” Laufman said. “But if the attorney general is essentially running this investigation, that entire premise is out the window.”
In other words Barr is neither professional nor nonpartisan.
Democrats are likely to bristle at the notion of the attorney general devoting personal time and energy to traveling overseas asking foreign countries to assist in an investigation of U.S. agencies and personnel, particularly since Democrats have accused Barr in the past of acting in Trump’s interests at the expense of the Justice Department’s independence.
Yes, I daresay they are.
Richard Dawkins is promoting far right, white nationalist, Christian crank conferences now. That’s what’s happening. https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1178170072537264129
Also, Helen Pluckrose and her gang of bold warriors for intellectual truth are *speaking* at far-right, white nationalist crank conferences, in case any one still doubted the quality of their work and the rigour of their research.
The tweet is gone but
Pretentious postmodern nonsense is a serious menace in universities & contemporary culture. Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay & Helen Pluckrose are heroes in the fight against it. Hear them at the London conference on “Speaking Truth to Social Justice.”
They are thought leaders! Thought leaders of the finest kind!
H/t Screechy Monkey
The headlines are piling up this afternoon (or evening or morning where you are).
The Democratic chairmen of three House committees announced they have subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
The former New York mayor has reportedly played a key role in trying to convince Ukraine to launch an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, a claim that Giuliani himself has confirmed in television appearances.
When pressed last week by CNN’s Chris Cuomo whether he urged Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, Giuliani eventually said, “Of course I did.”
And Cuomo’s eyes bugged out of his head.
Adam Schiff of the intelligence committee, Eliot Engel of the foreign affairs committee and Elijah Cummings of the oversight committee wrote a letter to Giuliani asking him to hand over materials relevant to the impeachment inquiry by Oct. 15.
The three Democratic committee chairmen wrote: “Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President.”
The subpoena goes on to specifically request any communications Giuliani may have showing evidence that other Trump administration officials were involved in the “scheme.”
Also, Pompeo was on the call.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo took part in Trump’s controversial call with the Ukrainian president, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
Pompeo has already been sent a subpoena from three House committees, and some senior state department officials are scheduled to speak to the panels.
If Pompeo has firsthand information about the call, it could drag the state department even more directly into the impeachment inquiry.
Ya think?
But most astounding of all…Trump also tried to rope Australia’s PM into his dirty game.
The New York Times is now reporting that Trump similarly encouraged the Australian prime minister to work with attorney general William Barr in an investigation meant to discredit the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller.
The Times reports:
The White House restricted access to the call’s transcript to a small group of the president’s aides, one of the officials said, an unusual decision that is similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump. Like that call, the discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the extent to which Mr. Trump sees the attorney general as a critical partner in his goal to show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt and partisan origins, and the extent that Mr. Trump sees the Justice Department inquiry as a potential way to gain leverage over America’s closest allies.
And like the call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the discussion with Mr. Morrison shows the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.
President Trump initiated the discussion in recent weeks with Mr. Morrison explicitly for the purpose of requesting Australia’s help in the Justice Department review of the Russia investigation, according to the two people with knowledge of the discussion. Mr. Barr requested that Mr. Trump speak to Mr. Morrison, one of the people said.
Where do they get off? Why would they think Morrison has any interest in meddling with US internal affairs? Is Trump also asking other heads of state to wash his underpants, scrub his toilet, pick the nits out of his combover?
Not to mention what business does he think he has asking heads of other states to help him get away with crimes.
NBC News confirms the Times story:
NBC News: A Justice Department official confirms that President Trump recently asked the Prime Minister of Australia, over the phone, for help in a Justice Department effort to look into the origins of the Mueller probe, @PeteWilliamsNBC reports.
First reported by the NY Times.
So that’s about a month’s worth of scandals in an afternoon.
Bolsonaro has a weird sense of humor.
Bolsonaro, an outspoken fan of the 1964-1985 military regime during which hundreds of political opponents were murdered and thousands more tortured, met with students at the gates of the presidential palace in the capital, Brasília, on Monday.
Video of the encounter shows one of the students saying, “Send a hug to my teacher.”
“You teacher is a leftist?” the president replies, as the crowd erupts with laughter.
“Tell her to read the book The Suffocated Truth. Just read it,” Bolsonaro says. “There are facts, not the blah blah blah of the left.”
The book he recommended was written by Col Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who in 2008 became Brazil’s first military man convicted for kidnap and torture during the dictatorship.
So read his book! He gives the facts! After he’s kidnapped and tortured you.
In a recent interview with the Brazilian media, one Ustra victim, Gilberto Natalini, described sadistic torture sessions that had played out under the watch of the man Bolsonaro considers a role model.
“It was a house of horrors,” Natalini said of the torture centre where he was held by Ustra’s men. “Once I saw them hang a man upside down by his feet and leave him there for almost 48 hours.”
Yeah but everybody should read his book though.
Sâmia Bomfim, a São Paulo congresswoman with the leftwing Socialism and Liberty party tweeted: “Those who encourage this monstrosity are accomplices to the suffering that plagued countless families during the dictatorship. Bolsonaro drinks from the sewers of our history.”
But with the rise of Brazil’s far right, Ustra has become a cult hero for some, with T-shirts bearing his face and chants of “Ustra lives” sometimes seen at rallies and events.
Hooray for torture. Reminds me of the Bush-Cheney years – hey waterboarding is no big deal, relax, pansy liberals.
Matt Yglesias at Vox reminds us why Congress isn’t getting much done (spoiler: it’s not because the Dems are “Do Nothing” as Trump keeps tweeting):
Both parties’ congressional campaign committees have polling that indicates the public is frustrated with Congress’ lack of progress on policy issues and therefore have adopted strategies centered on blaming the other party for inaction.
This theme recurs in recent Trump tweets on subjects ranging from China to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to nothing in particular, all of which repeat the phrase “Do Nothing Democrats.”
Under the circumstances, it’s worth emphasizing that this is simply false. House Democrats have passed a lot of bills, including conceptually ambitious legislation to curb corruption in politics and begin to address climate change along with a host of smaller measures. They’ve passed legislation on background checks for gun buyers, tried to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, tried to extend nondiscrimination rules to LGBTQ people, and tried to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. The reason these bills — and measures addressing prescription drug prices, insurance for people with preexisting conditions, and consumer protection in financial services — aren’t going anywhere is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring them up for votes.
It isn’t even that these bills are being defeated in the Senate. McConnell is aware that these are popular measures, and he doesn’t want to make his members cast unpopular votes against them. Consequently, Republicans have simply refused to let them come to the floor, even while pretending to be mad that Democrats are too busy with impeachment to legislate.
Great. The Republicans don’t want these bills, because they would be good for people, but they don’t want to be seen to vote down these bills, because they would be good for people…so they just throttle them out of sight.
A little McKinnon for refreshment after all that Trump on crack.
You: “I like dick”
Girl with dick says ‘Hey, wanna date?’
“Oh…no…I only like dick on guys”Guy responds to date ad: ‘Sup girl’ …guy has a vagina
“Oh, sorry, I only like guys with dicks”Both cases trans people are left in the cold. ‘Genital preferences’ are transphobic.
But not wanting to have sex with X isn’t phobia of X. We’re not obliged to want to have sex with anyone and everyone, with no preferences of any kind. McKinnon’s assertion makes nonsense of both heterosexual and homosexual – it asserts that we all have to be omnisexual. But we don’t have to. We don’t have to stop having preferences, and we don’t have to have sex with “Rachel” McKinnon. “Rachel” may be left out in the cold but that doesn’t translate to we are all obliged to have sex with him if he asks.
I don’t think there’s a principled distinction between:
1. “I like dick, not vaginas,” and
2. “I like ‘real’ vaginas, not trans women’s vaginas”If you think (1) is okay but (2) isn’t, I don’t think you can draw a principled reason, it’ll have to be ad hoc.
But 2. contains a lie. Trans women don’t have vaginas. They have inverted penises. Fun fact: an inverted penis is not like a vagina. This apparently comes as a nasty surprise to many people, but it’s true. Trans women don’t have vaginas, and what they do have doesn’t function like a vagina, so there are plenty of reasons to prefer a vagina to an inverted penis if vaginas are your sexual preference.
Y’all, I think many of you have let the transphobes condition trans women to vehemently reject this for fear of looking ‘rapey’ (which is NOT what the cotton ceiling is about).
You have a right to be loved and appreciated as you are, and people who don’t are transphobic.
No. You don’t. Nobody does. I daresay that formula sounds right and “inclusive” if you don’t think about it at all, but it’s complete nonsense. We don’t have a “right” to be loved. (Children have a right to parental love, or a damn good simulacrum of it, I think, but that’s a special case because the parents make those children, so they owe them.) If we did, what would follow from that? How would we police it? How would we monitor it?
We don’t have a right to be loved at all, and we doubly don’t have a right to be loved as we are. What if we’re smelly and bad-tempered and selfish? No. Love isn’t a right or a duty (except for parents), it has to have reasons. Different people have different reasons, so different kinds of people can find love, but that’s not because anyone has a right to it “as they are.”
I’m not sure I think McKinnon is a very good philosopher.
Trump raving on.
“State Department has stepped up Hillary Clinton Email probe.” @foxandfriends You mean the 33,000 Emails that she has deleted and acid washed so they can never be found, even though she said that all 33,000 pertained only to her daughter’s wedding, and her Yoga!
“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats can’t put down the Impeachment match. They know they couldn’t beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and they’re increasingly aware of the fact that they won’t win against him in 2020, and Impeachment is the only tool they have to get……..rid of Donald J. Trump – And the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process. I have never seen the Evangelical Christians more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this President from office, overturn the 2016……..Election, and negate the votes of millions of Evangelicals in the process. They know the only Impeachable offense that President Trump has committed was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s the unpardonable sin for which the Democrats will never forgive him………If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews
He’s threatening us with civil war. He swore to uphold the Constitution, but he’s threatening us with civil war – to save his own sorry ass. He’d kill every last one of us to save his own sorry ass.
He retweets Lou Dobbs, he retweets Giuliani, he retweets Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation, he retweets himself screaming that he’s DRAINING THE SWAMP, he retweets Kevin McCarthy.
Then he sleeps.
The Greatest Witch Hunt in the history of our Country!
[China something something China]
The Fake Whistleblower complaint is not holding up. It is mostly about the call to the Ukrainian President which, in the name of transparency, I immediately released to Congress & the public. The Whistleblower knew almost nothing, its 2ND HAND description of the call is a fraud!
Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people. It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?
[more China something something]
Again, the President of Ukraine said there was NO (ZERO) PRESSURE PUT ON HIM BY ME. Case closed!
WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!
#FakeWhistleblower
All very healthy and normal.
Say what? The Guardian:
Elon Musk has unveiled a SpaceX spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo to the moon, Mars or anywhere else in the solar system and land back on Earth perpendicularly.
What are they talking about? SpaceX has as of now designed a spacecraft that can carry crew anywhere in the solar system? That’s nonsense.
In a live-streamed speech from SpaceX’s launch facility near the southern tip of Texas, Musk said on Saturday that the space venture’s Starship is expected to take off for the first time in about one or two months and reach 19,800 meters (65,000ft) before returning to Earth and landing.
So they’re working on being able to reach 65,000 feet and return. That’s not exactly the same as carrying a crew to Pluto.
Reporting on the realities of space flight can be wildly misleading.
So, the whistleblower is under federal protection. I hope it’s the independent of Trump kind of federal, and not the other kind.
The intelligence whistleblower whose complaint on the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine triggered an impeachment inquiry into the president is under federal protection because they fear for their safety, “60 Minutes” first reported.
Why it matters: The letter from the whistleblower’s lawyer that the CBS News program first obtained outlining [outlines?] their concerns that the whistleblower may be identified. The lawyer specifically cites President Trump’s demand to know who gave the whistleblower the information and states that a $50,000 “bounty” relating to information identifying them has been issued by “certain individuals.”
The big picture: Trump stepped up his days-long rhetoric against the whistleblower and House Democrats Sunday, accusing House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff of treason and declaring: “I deserve to meet my accuser.”
Axios includes the letter itself.
This is all very…disquieting. Trump feels like some kind of rampaging uncontrollable monster out of a horror movie. It’s frightening that no one can persuade him to stop hurling threats and abuse in all directions. He’s crazy, he’s a narcissist, he’s enraged, and he has the nukes.
Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress……His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason………In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!
These Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, are doing great harm to our Country. They are lying & cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America & it’s upcoming 2020 Election. They & the Fake News Media are Dangerous & Bad!
Trump’s implication that he wants @RepAdamSchiff executed for treason is unhinged, disgusting, and beyond intolerable. The president is acting like a raving lunatic.
Trump saying he wants Schiff “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason” is terrifying—not for Schiff, mind you, but for Trump’s allies. It’s like the final thing you’d expect Hans Gruber to shout back up at John McClane while falling, if they were both politicians.
25th. He’s a danger to us all.
One Gregg Opelka in the Wall Street Journal:
If Democrats really wanted to understand the President, they would read Shakespeare’s King Lear. All the ageing monarch wants is to be loved and appreciated by his three daughters. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child,” he laments about his eldest, Goneril.
Trump is Lear, and the country is the king’s daughters. What wounded the king more than anything was filial ingratitude.
Er…no. That’s not Shakespeare’s play. “All the aging monarch wants” is everything – to quit being a king but to go right on getting all the perks and all the groveling, to get everyone to declare infinite love for him, to be surrounded with flatterers who never tell him the truth about himself, to have his dinner the instant he wants it, to throw his only honest and genuinely loving daughter to the wolves and his only honest and genuinely loving courtier right after her, to treat everyone else like slaves while he expects to be treated like a god. Trump is very like him in the pre-storm half of the play, but unlike Trump, Lear finally learns better.
Lear is most definitely not the deeply-wronged noble hero of the play: he’s the bad king and bad father and bad man who has to be stripped of everything before he can see himself clearly.
After a series of seemingly never-ending assaults on his dignity, Lear painfully observes out on the rainy heath: “I am a man / More sinn’d against than sinning.” It isn’t difficult to envision Trump saying the same.
Indeed it’s not, and he’d be just as wrong. Lear has sinned against others far more than even Goneril and Regan have sinned against him. Trump of course never ever admits he’s wrong about anything, even a simple fact.
Even adamant supporters of the President aren’t blind to his annoying character flaws — the endless self-aggrandisement, the bravado, the hyperbole, the unpresidential disregard for language. Trump’s brashness invites his mistreatment to some extent.
Shakespeare’s Lear was full of himself too. And like the king, Trump has been subjected to a daily barrage of indignities, distortions and outright falsehoods, which render him a folk hero to his followers.
The king is not “subjected to a daily barrage of indignities, distortions and outright falsehoods.” He has his retinue steadily reduced over the course of two short scenes, and his two older daughters speak dismissively to him. That’s all. It’s bad enough but it’s less than what he’s done. The more sinned against than sinning in this play are Cordelia and Kent, not Lear.
In the Trump-Lear story, Trump’s champions resemble the faithful Kent, who called the monarch “every inch a king”.
Er, no. It’s Lear who says that, with deep irony, when he’s wandering the heath after going mad.
Gregg Opelka might consider actually reading the play.
