Donald Trump: mentally, physically, temperamentally compromised #5

Not a shock, but terrifying:
vain, ignorant Trump apparently lured into middle of long, sensitive, violent dispute between two nuclear nations,
potentially harming a critical diplomatic relationship.

Edward Luce @EdwardGLuce (Financial Times) | 7/22/2019
https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce

Worth elaborating on the level of incompetence Trump showed today on Kashmir. Those unfamiliar with Indo-Pak situation may not realise that his offer to mediate on Kashmir dispute ranks among the most consequential mistakes he has made. But that's the least of it (1).

He lied in the most idiotic way possible - one that would e immediately refuted by a fellow leader. "I was with Modi two weeks ago and we talked about this subject. And he actually said, would you actually like to be a mediator or arbitrator? I said, where? He said Kashmir." (2)

Within an hour India declared that what Trump said was false: (link: https://twitter.com/MEAIndia/statu) twitter.com/MEAIndia/statu The slightest knowledge of India would have told Trump that this is the kind of lie that would a) immediately be shut down and b) cause material harm to a critical US diplomatic relationship (3)

Finally, it emboldens Pakistan in its belief that it can play America for a sucker. Imran Khan, Pakistan's PM, could not believe his luck. The question remains why Trump would conduct such an act of self-harm. Sadly, the answer his simple. It involves two core Trump traits (4)

He is the vainest leader on the planet; and he is profoundly ignorant. He thinks he can solve any crisis - his own genius is all that is missing. Therefore he does not need to know anything about said crisis. The only knowledge worth knowing is that Trump's skills are absent (5)

To recap: Trump lied on a big subject. He was instantly exposed. The slightest knowledge of the subject would have stopped him from lying. His lie directly harms his own overriding priority. He will probably never realise any of this because of his Olympian narcissism. (Ends).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Kelly @dkellyChi | 9:47 PM · Jul 22, 2019

It's quite impressive when someone can threaten to launch a nuclear strike on a country*, and have it not be the dumbest thing they've said that day.

*‘I just don’t want to kill 10 million people’: Trump’s comments reverberate in Afghanistan
Jon Gerberg | July 23, 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/i-just-dont-want-to-kill-10-mi...

The problem is that the many people who main-line the Trump Kool-Aid
~ GOPers/FOX News celebrities/wingnut radio show hosts/etc. ~
appear to think this kind of talk is A-OK.

Opinions sought:

Is racial hatred and bigotry a sign of poor mental health and, if so, is it sufficient cause to deem a president unfit to be the executive servant of the people?

>3 Limelite: It is my opinion that it is not. Everyone has feelings about what group they identify with (religious, ethnic, education, social status, etc.) and have feelings about other groups. I think people step over the line, however, when they act on those feelings. Then one might call their mental health subject to scrutiny.

>3 Limelite: I also believe that racial hatred and bigotry are not specifically signs of poor mental health.* However, I do think that expressed racial hatred and bigotry are sufficient cause to deem a president unfit to govern this country.

* I believe racial hatred and bigotry to be the product of bad education, bad upbringing, or both. I think all mammals have an innate instinct to favor their own "tribe" but that humans are perfectly capable of, and therefore obligated to, use their intellect to rise above those kinds of instincts.

>4 mamzel: and >5 amysisson:

Thanks for your replies. I agree, that humans have the capacity to rise above their DNA. I also believe they are obligated to remedy their ignorance once they're adults.

>5 amysisson:

"However, I do think that expressed racial hatred and bigotry are sufficient cause to deem a president unfit to govern this country."

So, then, as soon as there is enough popular opinion to make any other similar sort of thing a piece of conventional "wisdom," any president, your own personal favorite included, who might fall afoul of the new enlightened view of the unacceptable, eventually shall fall afoul of it-- regardless of party or other circumstantial details-- since it's of course only a matter of time before a president finds that he (or she) is deemed as having "expressed" various people's ideas of "racial hatred" or "bigotry" or whatever comes next in the march of intolerant political-correctness, and, on this account, he (or she) is then subject to (and, as you see it, ought to be subject to) being impeached in the U.S. House of Representatives, tried in the U.S. Senate and convicted and removed from office for "expressed racial hatred" and (or) "bigotry" (and its successor-(expressed)-thought-crimes).

At that point, we could as easily hear (the chants you probably condemned, "Lock her up! Lock her up!" as we now hear, "Impeach him! Impeach him!"

Rather than the current terms, ... "for Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" you'd have it read,

(amended per >9 amysisson: )

... " for Treason, Bribery, Consistently and Openly-Expressed Racial Hatred and Bigotry and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" ?

Thus, while you're not prepared to label these as "specifically signs of poor mental health," you are apparently prepared to see them made into criminal acts, punishable by law. So, while people aren't sent to coerced psychiatric supervision, they'd be liable to be arrested, charged, tried and convicted for their being so foolish as to express openly what until then they'd only thought "privately". How long before you assert that you have the technological means to demonstrate that, though not-yet-expressed, these forbidden sentiments are, nevertheless, going on in the suspected person's mind?

How long, then, before you move on to classifying this crime as also a mental disorder for which the convicted may be confined in prison and placed under psychiatric supervision as well?

Clearly, you've thought very carefully about this, now, haven't you!?

^
Disingenuous dirtbag or demented drama queen.

You make the call, folks.

>7 proximity1:

Your answer is way too long and overly convoluted for me to read to the end, but I'll revise my original statement:

"However, I do think that consistently and openly expressed racial hatred and bigotry are sufficient cause to deem a president unfit to govern this country."

In my opinion, this includes exhorting crowds to chant "send them back", saying that Mexicans are rapists, refusing to rent apartments to African Americans, overturning protections against LGTB and transgendered people in the military, and so on.

I'll also note that saying "go back to where you came from," when directed at minorities, constitutes illegal harassment in the workplace.

Finally, as usual, you put words into my mouth. I didn't say that expressed racial hatred and bigotry should be made into criminal acts, I said that they're sufficient cause to deem that a president is unfit to govern this country. Sort of like when Clinton was impeached; it was deemed that his behavior was unfit for a president -- yet it wasn't criminalized and he wasn't forced to resign.

>10 RickHarsch: I took a different take, Amysisson, I read only the end, to which I respond that Trump's rants recently are indeed evidence of a mental disorder, as is racism itself.

#8--he can't be both at the same time?

There is something seriously deficient in someone who is a second generation American* telling three women of colour to go home whose roots in the country may be many generations deep (I don't know, and he certainly doesn't).

Equally, there is something seriously deficient in an administration whose intel arm threatens, for fear of backdoors, to cut allies out of the loop if they permit Huawei into their 5G infrastructure, and whose justice arm simultaneously demands that domestic IT firms incorporate backdoors into their encryption algorithms:

"Tech firms 'can and must' put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says", Ars Technica July 23, 2019.

* and who at times claims to be first generation

Trump's 'Chosen One' Comment and Spat with Denmark Shows His 'Psychotic-Like State' Says Doctor Who First Warned About President's Mental Condition
Brendan Cole | 8/22/19
Greenland

...Dr. Lance Dodes, former assistant psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, contributed to the book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

He had warned in 2017 that Trump's mental condition would worsen and he said that his statements over the last few days have proven him right.

He told MSNBC that Trump had "a fundamental need to be all-powerful and all loved and can't stand challenges."

"He can't stand anything that disagrees with him, and the more you challenge him, the more unhinged he becomes, the more paranoid, and the more violent, potentially," Dodes said

"He doesn't really love anyone except himself. That's not a slur, that's a psychological fact. People like him are about him. If he's not useful to him, he stops loving him. That's part of the essential emptiness of Donald Trump. He doesn't have real relationships with people."

When Trump looked toward the heavens and bragged about being "the chosen one," Dodes said it was another example of Trump's grandiosity.

"There's something fundamentally different about him from normal people. It's a psychotic-like state. The more you press him, the more you see how disorganized and empty he is. The more he flies into a disorganized rage.

"He thinks of himself as a dictator, and it's all him and no one else really matters," Dodes told MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell.

...Among those questioning Trump's fitness for office is his former communications chief Anthony Scaramucci. In a TV interview with Sinclair Broadcast's "America This Week" he said of his former boss: "He's mentally declining," according to The Washington Post. He also called on his fellow Republicans to turn against Trump for the good of the country.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mental-illness-king-israel-msnbc-1455644

Commander-in-Chief is now ORDERING private companies...
He IS barking mad.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 10:59 AM · Aug 23, 2019

...Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA...

Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE...all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!)...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Frum @davidfrum | 11:29 AM · Aug 23, 2019

And when over the next days US companies ignore the president's latest Twitter outburst, as they must,
the Chinese state scores yet another win by exposing Trump to nervous US allies as - in the old Maoist phrase a "paper tiger"

From WSJ 8/21: https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1164922508270866432/photo/1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dow skids more than 300 points lower as Trump appears to mandate that U.S. companies make products domestically
Published: Aug 23, 2019 11:19 a.m. ET

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-skids-more-than-300-points-lower-as-trump-...

From Peter Whener today in The Atlantic

Trump Is Not Well

During the 2016 campaign, I received a phone call from an influential political journalist and author, who was soliciting my thoughts on Donald Trump. Trump’s rise in the Republican Party was still something of a shock, and he wanted to know the things I felt he should keep in mind as he went about the task of covering Trump.

At the top of my list: Talk to psychologists and psychiatrists about the state of Trump’s mental health, since I considered that to be the most important thing when it came to understanding him. It was Trump’s Rosetta stone.
I wasn’t shy about making the same case publicly. During a July 14, 2016, appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, for example, I responded to a pro-Trump caller who was upset that I opposed Trump despite my having been a Republican for my entire adult life and having served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and the George W. Bush White House.

“I don’t oppose Mr. Trump because I think he’s going to lose to Hillary Clinton,” I told Ben from Purcellville, Virginia. “I think he will, but as I said, he may well win. My opposition to him is based on something completely different, which is, first, I think he is temperamentally unfit to be president. I think he’s erratic, I think he’s unprincipled, I think he’s unstable, and I think that he has a personality disorder; I think he’s obsessive. And at the end of the day, having served in the White House for seven years in three administrations and worked for three presidents, one closely, and read a lot of history, I think the main requirement for president of the United States … is temperament, and disposition … whether you have wisdom and judgment and prudence.”

That statement has been validated.

Donald Trump’s disordered personality—his unhealthy patterns of thinking, functioning, and behaving—has become the defining characteristic of his presidency. It manifests itself in multiple ways: his extreme narcissism; his addiction to lying about things large and small, including his finances and bullying and silencing those who could expose them; his detachment from reality, including denying things he said even when there is video evidence to the contrary; his affinity for conspiracy theories; his demand for total loyalty from others while showing none to others; and his self-aggrandizement and petty cheating.

It manifests itself in Trump’s impulsiveness and vindictiveness; his craving for adulation; his misogyny, predatory sexual behavior, and sexualization of his daughters; his open admiration for brutal dictators; his remorselessness; and his lack of empathy and sympathy, including attacking a family whose son died while fighting for this country, mocking a reporter with a disability, and ridiculing a former POW. (When asked about Trump’s feelings for his fellow human beings, Trump’s mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, reportedly said, “He pisses ice water.”)

The most recent example is the president’s bizarre fixation on falsely insisting that he was correct to warn that Alabama faced a major risk from Hurricane Dorian, to the point that he doctored a hurricane map with a black Sharpie to include the state as being in the path of the storm.

“He’s deteriorating in plain sight,” one Republican strategist who is in frequent contact with the White House told Business Insider on Friday. Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, “You should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.”

We have repeatedly heard versions of that sentiment over the course of Trump’s presidency. It’s said that speculating on Trump’s mental health is inappropriate and unwise, especially for those who are not formally trained in the field of psychiatry or psychology.

That’s true, up to a point. Yes, it is best to leave it to experts to determine whether Trump satisfies the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, some combination of both, or nothing at all.

But if a clinical diagnosis is beyond my own expertise, Trump’s psychological impairments are obvious to all who are not willfully blind. On a daily basis we see the president’s chaotic, unstable mind on display. Are we supposed to ignore that?

An analogy may be helpful here. If smoke is coming out from under the hood of your car, if you notice puddles of oil under it, if the engine is overheating and you smell burning oil, you don’t have to be a car mechanic to know that something is wrong with your car.

Accepting the reality about Trump’s disordered personality is important and even essential. For one thing, it will help us to better react to Trump’s freak show.

Even now, almost a thousand days into his presidency, the latest Trump outrage elicits shock and disbelief in people. The reaction is, “Can you believe he said that and did this?”

To which my response is, “Why are you surprised?” It’s a shock only if the assumption is that we’re dealing with a psychologically normal human being. We’re not. Trump is profoundly compromised, acting just as you would imagine a person with a disordered personality would. Many Americans haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that we elected as president a man who is deeply damaged, an emotional misfit. But it would be helpful if they did.

Among other things, it would keep us feeling less startled and disoriented, less in a state of constant agitation, less susceptible to provocations. Donald Trump thrives on creating chaos, on gaslighting us, on creating antipathy among Americans, on keeping people on edge and off balance. He wants to dominate our every waking hour. We ought not grant him that power over us.

It might also take some of the edge off the hatred many people feel for Trump. Seeing him for what he is—a terribly damaged soul, a broken man, a person with a disordered mind—should not lessen our revulsion at how Trump mistreats others, at his cruelty and dehumanizing actions. Nor should it weaken our resolve to stand up to it. It does complicate the picture just a bit, though, eliciting some pity and sorrow for Trump.

But above all, accepting the truth about Trump’s mental state will cause us to take more seriously than we have our democratic duty, which is to prevent a psychologically and morally unfit person from becoming president.

The office is too powerful, and the consequences are too dangerous, to allow a person to become president who views morality only through the prism of whether an action advances his own narrow interests, his own distorted desires, his own twisted impulses. When an individual comes to believe his interests and those of the nation he leads are one and the same, it opens the door to all sorts of moral and constitutional devilry.

Whether or not his disorders are diagnosable, the president’s psychological flaws are all too apparent. They were alarming when he took the oath of office; they are worse now. Every day Donald Trump is president is a day of disgrace. And a day of danger.

>15 2wonderY:


TO Those who'd caution us against the supposed dangers of Trump's "temperament", his "diagnosable" "disorders," his "all-too-apparent" "psychological flaws," "the state of Trump’s mental health"

please bear in mind, as you read the following, that, according to its author, Donald Trump

“thrives on creating chaos,

on gaslighting us,

on creating antipathy among Americans,
"

and

"wants to dominate our every waking hour."

(Note to “margd”: Got that, “margd”?)

We're told,

“We ought not grant him that power over us.”

and that is because the president is a man who is

"deeply damaged, an emotional misfit"

"erratic"

"unprincipled"

"unstable"

"obsessive"

who exhibits

"unhealthy patterns of thinking, functioning, and behaving"

“detachment from reality”

"extreme narcissism”

“addiction to lying”

“affinity for conspiracy theories”

“self-aggrandizement and petty cheating”

“impulsiveness and vindictiveness”

“craving adulation”

“misogyny”,

“predatory sexual behavior”

“open admiration for brutal dictators”

“remorselessness”

“lack of empathy and sympathy”

TO THEM, I reply,

You need a better alternative than to be robotic touts for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. People might otherwise suspect that you are—what's the expression?—'full of shit'.

Our cited author of the foregoing excerpts continues,

... “one Republican strategist who is in frequent contact with the White House told Business Insider on Friday ... said, 'You should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.'

“We have repeatedly heard versions of that sentiment over the course of Trump’s presidency. It’s said that speculating on Trump’s mental health is inappropriate and unwise, especially for those who are not formally trained in the field of psychiatry or psychology.

"That’s true, up to a point. Yes, it is best to leave it to experts to determine whether Trump satisfies the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, some combination of both, or nothing at all.

"But if a clinical diagnosis is beyond my own expertise, Trump’s psychological impairments are obvious to all who are not wilfully blind. On a daily basis we see the president’s chaotic, unstable mind on display. Are we supposed to ignore that?

"An analogy may be helpful here. If smoke is coming out from under the hood of your car, if you notice puddles of oil under it, if the engine is overheating and you smell burning oil, you don’t have to be a car mechanic to know that something is wrong with your car.”

And, not merely by the way, there's also this 'point'

“Many Americans haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that we elected as president a man who is deeply damaged, an emotional misfit.”

They haven't.

"But it would be helpful if they did."

It would be helpful.

“Among other things, it would keep us feeling less startled and disoriented, less in a state of constant agitation, less susceptible to provocations."

Less agitated, less susceptible to provocations; clearly.

“It might also take some of the edge off the hatred many people feel for Trump."

Especially so. It's a problem: Trump suffers from a surfeit of others' hatred of him. This would help them “take the edge off” that hatred.

From a man who clearly knows what he's writing about.

Still, of course, at the same time,

“Seeing (Trump) for what he is—a terribly damaged soul, a broken man, a person with a disordered mind—should not lessen our revulsion at how Trump mistreats others, at his cruelty and dehumanizing actions. Nor should it weaken our resolve to stand up to it. It does complicate the picture just a bit, though, eliciting some pity and sorrow for Trump.

“But above all, accepting the truth about Trump’s mental state will cause us to take more seriously than we have our democratic duty, which is to prevent a psychologically and morally unfit person from becoming president."

I suppose my favorite words of warning come next, when the author tells us that,

“The office is too powerful, and the consequences are too dangerous, to allow a person to become president who views morality only through the prism of whether an action advances his own narrow interests, his own distorted desires, his own twisted impulses. When an individual comes to believe his interests and those of the nation he leads are one and the same, it opens the door to all sorts of moral and constitutional devilry.”

“an individual”? Could that possibly also include “Trump-critics”? I wonder.

To conclude,

“Whether or not his disorders are diagnosable, the president’s psychological flaws are all too apparent. They were alarming when he took the oath of office; they are worse now. Every day Donald Trump is president is a day of disgrace. And a day of danger."

Days of disgrace. Days of danger.

Learn the signs. Learn them well.

_______________________________________________________

(all emphasis in the cited portions above, italic and bold-face, is added.)

No we don't and didn't need a "better alternative." Democrats had superior alternatives to anything Republicans could beat out of the bushes and offer up to voters.

Normal is a better alternative. Competence is a better alternative. Reasonableness is a better alternative. Honesty is a better alternative. Law-abiding is a better alternative. Educated and educable are better alternatives.

None of those characteristics are beyond normal in either direction. They're not heroic, nor exceptional, nor worthy of adulation. They're just normal character traits of decent people. Millions of normal people who aren't narcissists would be normally qualified candidates. Republicans fell for and offered up the worst of the worst from their field of despicable and deplorable spineless characters.

How do we know this is true? Because all the Republicans rolled over and enabled their abnormal warlord out of fear no matter how loudly they proclaimed their loathing of him and bemoaned his insanity, vulgarity, and criminality before his election. On the other hand, and in stark contrast, the Democrats resisted Trump's tyranical ambitions and irrational provocations from the day he took office and continue to so. 2018 elections showed more normal people persisted over the abnormal lunatic fringe, sending a landslide of admirable legislators to state and national governments.

What inadequate gun worshiping males and religiously poisoned cultists want (and get in Trump) is just another cult leader, another Wayne LaPierre, another Billy Graham, Jr. who will legitimize their selected cults en masse. They are enamored of bankrupt grifters who play on they who are gullible Believers, who completely lack minds of their own.

Now they are reaping the whirlwind with a sub-cult of malicious assassins who turn innocents into sacrifices for their Gun God. They enjoy the leadership of a corrupt glob of mucous who is just fine with "fine people" who stomp their racial, religious, and women-hate on decent people with their lug-soled boots and Nazi salutes to white power.

There is little left for decent people to do to rid us of these dregs-of-the-barrel politicians and their ravening rabble of supporters. Except that when one of these creatures creeps out from under his rock, the humanitarian thing to do is drop a bigger rock on them.

>17 Limelite: Nicely put. Two thumbs up.

>18 2wonderY:

Yeah. I'm having one of those weeks. I've been dropping rant bombs all over the Internet. Well, two places, primarily. ;^)

You may want to avoid certain LT threads where my name appeared yesterday and today. Hint hint.

>17 Limelite:

What >18 2wonderY: said

>20 LolaWalser: What I said to >18 2wonderY:

Heh heh

David Frum writes today:

"Trump takes advantage of a human tendency to think: If he’s not ashamed, maybe he did nothing wrong. Normal people are taken aback by pathological people, and Trump is the most pathological president in American history."

We’ve Reached the Breaking Point

The White House is notorious for aging our presidents. Donald is beginning to show some wear and tear.

So it looks like impeachment is going to break today. The centrist democrats that surround Pelosi in house party leadership positions like Jeffries, Schiff and Lewis among numerous others have broken towards the impeachment side. If Nancy goes over too they will get 218 and it will go on to the Senate.

Trump's own actions have signalled that pretty much he'll stop at nothing to win re-election--that if not Biden as the democratic nominee he'll go underhanded on Warren or Sanders or whoever.

Donald Trump phones Speaker Pelosi today to try to work a Comey on her. Here's what transpired.

That the president actually said to Nancy Pelosi, ‘Hey, can we do something about this whistleblower complaint? Can we work something out?’ And she said, ‘Yes, you can tell your people to obey the law.’

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/speaker-pelosi-swatted-down-donald-trumps-reque...

It's not confirmed, but I suspect that before she hung up she told the Orange Shit-gibbon to watch TV at 5:00PM ET.

Here's what he saw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lon4fZaoXI

What a fuckstorm our country has become in only a couple or three years. Our entire future now rests in the crotch of a crotchety old turtle-faced bastard from the great state of Kentucky. Moscow Mitch will be making his calculation in the next couple of weeks. He has the power to force the Orange Shitbag to resign - like Goldwater did to Nixon in 1974. He will do it IF he decides the republican party needs to cut itself loose from the Orange Shitbag in order for it to survive. IF not, then the shitstorm of existential doom will continue to roll on to only Jesus knows where - with only Jesus's return being our saving grace - but since that seems to be indefinitely delayed, we could wind up as fucked a country as North Korea. If I weren't so high right now I would be severely depressed.

#26--Trump's a lot more popular in Kentucky than McConnell is. Just saying. Mitch ain't going to throw the Donald to the wolves. It would be political suicide on his part and beside his wife is a cabinet minister for Donald.

The man is obsessed today. He can't function as President.

Trump Attacks Whistle-Blower’s Sources and Alludes to Punishment for Spies

President Trump on Thursday morning told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently.

The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said. Mr. Trump made the statement about several minutes into his remarks before the group of about 50 people at the event intended to honor the United States Mission. At the outset, he condemned the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s role in Ukraine at a time when his son Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the whistle-blower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as “crooked.” He then said the whistle-blower never heard the call in question.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Mr. Trump said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

The complaint, which was made public on Thursday morning, said that the whistle-blower obtained information about the call from multiple United States officials.

“Over the past four months, more than half a dozen U.S. officials have informed me of various facts related to this effort,” the complaint stated.

Some in the crowd laughed, the person briefed on what took place said. The event was closed to reporters, and during his remarks, the president called the news media “scum” in addition to labeling them as crooked.

>28 2wonderY: Whistleblower sources = spies (execute)

Best not to draw this out.
(Witness tampering is illegal--another article of impeachment?)
ETA_________________________________________________

Trump criticizes Pelosi amid impeachment firestorm, saying she's 'no longer the speaker of the House'
Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY Published 3:45 p.m. ET Sept. 25, 2019
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/25/donald-trump-nancy-pelos...

Trump calls for Schiff's resignation...
John Wagner and Colby Itkowitz | September 27, 2019
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Trump-calls-for-Schiff-s-resignation-as-...

The EPA tells California its growing homeless population threatens the state’s water
Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Josh Dawsey | Sep 26, 2019
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2019/09/26/California-water-EPA-ho...

Trump to cut number of refugees allowed in U.S. to lowest ever
Camilo Montoya-Galvez | September 26, 2019
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-to-propose-lowest-ever-refugee-cap-...

(Hide the puppies!)

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:16 AM - Sep 28, 2019:
Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like Nadler, Schiff, AOC Plus 3, and many more,
had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. Oh well, maybe next time!
___________________________________________________________________

Brian Beutler @brianbeutler | 7:40 PM · Sep 28, 2019:
This story says the State Department suddenly revived it's "investigation" of Hillary Clinton's emails "in August," which is when the White House learned that a whistleblower had reported Trump's shakedown call with Zelensky to the CIA general counsel.

State Dept. intensifies email probe of Hillary Clinton’s former aides
Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Karoun Demirjian | September 28, 2019

...As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department investigators — a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton as well as others in lower-level jobs whose emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, said current and former State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that emails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now constitute potential security violations, according to letters reviewed by The Washington Post.

In virtually all of the cases, potentially sensitive information, now recategorized as “classified,” was sent to Clinton’s unsecure inbox...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/state-dept-intensifies-email-pr...

I have to say that I've had enough already of Pelosi's heartbroken--need to be prayerful line. Trump is narcissistic, vindictive and dangerous--a truly sick individual. What is needed is a clear and straightforward path to getting him out of office and not clouding it with all this extra pseudo religious psychology nonsense. I don't think she's ever been completely sure about this and so we get this half-hearted 'let's try to save his soul' shit. Stop playing games--explain what the hell the impeachment is about for those still trying to figure it out. It's there in black and white--how he tried to blackmail the leader of a foreign govt. to dig up dirt on a political opponent by withholding $391 million of military aid appropriated by congress for the express purpose of their defending their country against a hostile invader and how Trump used unauthorized proxies (Giuliani) and the secrets classification apparatus to try to cover up his criminal conduct. No prayers are necessary here--a prison cell will do.

Josh Dawsey @jdawsey1 | 10:17 AM · Sep 29, 2019
The president just retweeted 12* random users who praised radio host Mark Levin
for his handling of a segment with Fox News Ed Henry,
who was questioning Trump’s conduct.
One of them called Henry a “shit head.” One suggested Paul Ryan, now on the board of Fox, was to blame.

*Yashar Ali @yashar: 19 and counting
Josh Billinson @jbillinson: The president has retweeted a bot that takes his tweets and retweets and rewrites them to be about sharks

> 31

Can't be helped. Most people in the U.S., including political liberals, consider themselves religious in the sense that some sort of invisible immaterial all-powerful person hanging around doing shit is for real. Stupidity in action, sure, but nonetheless a factual fact of factuality.

Thus, Pelosi giving the nod to such "religious psychology nonsense" is just another day in the life. The non-superstitious minority is best served by just ignoring it and not commenting in public regarding insincere appeals to superstitious nonsensical belief.

That advantageous human moral choice is a naturally-occurring phenomenon among social primate species is unknown to hoi polloi - they believe gawd once delivered the rules to a guy named Moses up on a mountain a few thousand years back and so we all now must continually kiss gawd's ass, metaphorically-speaking, in appreciation of this great gift humans were too fucking dumb to come up with on their own, lol.

I mean, could an average Amurican religious asshole read a book, like say, "The Bonobos and the Atheist" and grok the message therein sufficiently to then self-extract his/her head from his/her own ass regarding the subject? Fuck no.

So let it go, Iriley. We have bigger fish to fry - like encouraging ALL anti-trump voters to actually vote in 2020, as each vote for the Democrat is important, regardless of the religious or non-religious convictions of each voter.

Common cause, my brother. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (including e.g. Mormons, lol).

#33--'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is one of the most overrated bits of philosophy I think there is. Just saying.

I don't hate Pelosi at all by the way. That doesn't mean I like her though either. She's a bit more conservative than my taste and she's way too cautious/calculating. I could see her point for a while of holding off but once Muller dropped---there was enough there. Nancy and her committee chairmen fret too much over wishy washy bullshit....and God doesn't come into this either way or he/she/it shouldn't and whether God is a figment or not.

Speaking of that though from the Christian angle--Jesus was as much Palestinian as Jew.

> 34

Pelosi is a politician of many years experience. She happens to be in the cat bird's sit as Speaker of the House. She calls all the shots in one-half of the legislative branch of the USA. She is next in line to the Presidency after the V.P. I see no use in bad-mouthing her.

I will trust her judgment up to and until she does something that is obviously wrong-headed, as judged by a significant majority of Democrats - and she has not done such to date.

In any case the famous phone call has brought most Democrats together on the impeachment issue, with her as its leader now, something that had not occurred before. It seems to me she has been vindicated in waiting until now - before it could have proven premature.

I.e. I think when the thing goes down - in late Nov. and in December - the case against Agent Orange may be so egregious we may have a chance at conviction - just a chance - whereas before the famous phone call it was much less of a chance.

Odds in Las Vegas say there are still very little chance of conviction but I myself will not predict until the process has been completed. At that time the odds will be 100 per cent one way and 0 per cent the other, whichever way it goes - lol.

Conviction or no conviction I remain confident that about 60 - 62 per cent of U.S. potential voters remain very anti Agent Orange and are sitting on go waiting for the opportunity to express their rejection of Mr. Worst. President. Ever. on election day 2020.

Much may depend on whether the unfudged transcripts of those other calls can be pried loose from that server where they should not be in the first place.

How many marginal republican Senate seats are up for grabs in 2020? At some point, as with Tricky Dick, senators may quickly decide it's time to cut their losses; then it will be Bye, Bye!

I continue to think that electoral defeat is the best resolution, and not only because it spares the world from President Pence.

Trump and lawyer tweet "fraud! treason! spying! Big Consequences! Civil War! domestic (in)tranquillity!"--
maybe it will have to be the 25th Amendment as well as impeachment and removal. #Hide the Football?

No bloody wonder "Lawyers express concern for whistleblower's safety" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463585-lawyers-whistleblower-concern...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 6:53 PM - Sep 29, 2019:

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!

__________________________________________________

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 9:11 PM · Sep 29, 2019:

“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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a decorated Air Force veteran who served as a pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan) @RepKinzinger | 9:59 PM · Sep 29, 2019
I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realDonaldTrump
I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.

Quote Tweet Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
....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

__________________________________________________

Rudy Giuliani @RudyGiuliani | 8:37 PM · Sep 28, 2019

I appeal to honest and fair minded Democrats to realize that “equal treatment under law” is necessary for domestic tranquillity.We are all Americans.The differing treatment by media and law enforcement for Trumps vs. Bidens and Clintons is a real problem for all of us to solve.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:12 AM · Sep 30, 2019:

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?

_____________________________________________________________

Diversion from 'someone's' high crimes, methinks:

Fact check: Breaking down Adam Schiff's account of Trump's Ukraine call
Analysis by Daniel Dale | September 27, 2019

...We can't endorse Trump's claim that Schiff "lied," since Schiff introduced his comments at Thursday's committee hearing by saying he would be outlining "the essence of what the president communicates," not providing "the exact transcribed version of the call." And it's important to note that we do not even have an "exact transcribed version" of the call -- the rough transcript released by the White House cautions explicitly that it is "not a verbatim transcript."

Still, Schiff's remarks did make it easy for viewers to get confused. He did not make clear which words he was taking directly from Trump's comments in the rough transcript, which words were his own analysis, and which words were meant to be the comedic "parody" he later said he was intending...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/fact-check-adam-schiff-trumps-ukraine-ca...

Trump is spouting very dangerous language.

Newsweek reports

At least one group identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist organization issued support for Trump's comments.

The Oath Keepers, a large organization of law enforcement and military officials known for endorsing conspiracy theories that the government is seeking to destroy the freedom of Americans, tweeted that the "whole thread is important to read," and backed Trump's idea that an impeachment inquiry is an attempt to undo the results of the 2016 election.

"The term 'civil war' is increasingly on people's tongue. And not just 'cold civil war' - full-blown 'hot' civil war. Fact is patriots consider the left to be domestic enemies of the Constitution bent on the destruction of the Republic," the organization wrote. "And we consider all that they are doing to impeach the President to be be illegitimate pretexts to simply undo the 2016 election results that they don't like. They expected to win and see Trump as an interloper and impediment to their 'rightful' power."

#CivilWar2 Trends After Donald Trump Makes Twitter Impeachment Threat

> 39

The United States, after its establishment as a representative democracy (of sorts), has had a long and dishonorable history of periodic insurrection by groups of citizens who decide extreme violence - death and destruction - is the only good reply to having their common will thwarted.

- Starting with the Whiskey Rebellion if not before.

- Might I also mention the big one - the Civil War - wherein around two million or more U.S. citizens died, one side attempting to preserve Constitutional government, the other side fighting to destroy it. As I recall, the preservers won.

- Might also mention the Jim Crow vs. Civil Rights Movement war a century later. Many people died, many were innocent children even, but in the end the Civil Rights Movement won.

- Might also mention the founding of the U.S. was an insurrection against G. Britain. Some people still argue that was a traitorous and unjustified action. Not me though. That was the good insurrection.

- In any event, if some right-wing people want to try to overthrow the rule of law then I can only predict they will not live to regret it - as most of them will be shot dead or blown up or whatever by the U.S. military. I doubt that the war would last more than a few weeks, at most.

Personally, I don't predict it will get that far. Thus, I am not going to build a shelter under my house and stock it with survival provisions.

But if I am wrong, then there you are. I assume the government will call off Martial Law after the waste of dead assholes is cleared away and we survivors will then return to some sort of normalcy. If not then I will "Seig Heil" our new dictator "Uncle Joe" Biden, just like everyone else will - who wants to live.

lol.

Could "civil war" be a pretext for Trump to declare martial law and close Congress, and thus impeachment inquiry?

>40 JGL53: - Might also mention the founding of the U.S. was an insurrection against G. Britain. Some people still argue that was a traitorous and unjustified action. Not me though. That was the good insurrection.

As a teenager, my understanding of the American Revolution was turned upside down by reading Kenneth Roberts' Oliver Wiswell. I've never reread it, so I wonder how it would strike me now one or two (!) decades later.

How many (numbers, please, IT'S A QUESTION) of you critics seeking Trump's impeachment OR his impeachment AND removal from office

would respect AND accept without favoring or promoting further efforts to frustrate, undermine his presidency a 2020 presidential election result which sees Trump returned to the White House as re-elected president of the United States?

just wondering how many of you actually respect the electoral process even if it goes against your personal preferences.

The Electoral process is severely outdated and needs to go. It's no better than the stupid gerrymandering that the Republicans are pulling in North Carolina.

In many ways, the electoral process is completely and utterly unfair. Here's why:

A) In a true democracy, it should be "one person, one vote". States should not monopolize on one candidate. If you are a Democrat that lives in South Carolina or a Republican that lives in California, why vote?

B) If you are going to use an electoral process to reduce the counting, it needs to be split, like Maine and Nebraska, based on popular vote.

C) If you are going to use the electoral process to determine the president, the electoral votes need to be in direct ratio to the population. Ratios are all related to Geometric sequences - Multiplication and Division. The moment you make arithmetic operations to the numbers, you skew in favor of the smaller states.

Think of it like this. Here is a subtraction example, but addition or subtraction have the same unfair skewing. If you have a project that 20 people are working on, and 19 of them are working and 1 is picking his nose, the project will still get done without any problems. The loss of one has no great impact. Now you have a project that 3 people are working on, and 2 of them are working and 1 is picking his nose. This has major impact on the project, and it will likely fail because that one person makes a greater difference.

So while I think the entire Electoral Process needs to be burned and rotted in hell, if it was strictly based on the House of Representatives, and the 100 Senators didn't factor in, then it would be far closer to fair. Here's an illustration using a smaller sample just to illustrate - Numbers are hypothetical:

Let's say there were only 12 states in the United States. The populations of these states are 3 million, 3 million, 3 million, 3 million, 2 million, 2 million, 2 million, 2 million, 1 million, 1 million, 1 million, and 1 million. You have 120 people in the House of Representatives. That would mean 15 for each of the states with 3 million, 10 for each state with 2 million, and 5 for each state with 1 million.

Let's say that every state victory is a 2:1 ratio of voters. The Democrats win the 4 biggest states (8 million to 4 million in favor of DEMS). The Republicans win the other 8 states (8 million to 4 million in favor of GOP). So both got 12 million votes, and with the electoral process, both get 60 votes, it's a tie.

However, now let's do a LINEAR OPERATION called ADDITION. Let's add 2 to each state for the Senators. Now you have 17 + 17 + 17 + 17 = 68 for the Democrats and 12 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 = 76 for the Republicans. At this point, you are gaining more for quantity of states won rather than getting more votes. Both sides got 12 million votes, but now the Republicans get a bonus because they can win all the small states? Linear Operations have greater impact on smaller numbers than bigger ones. Therefore, adding a linear number, which is what the Senate is, linear, not geometric like the House of Representatives, greatly favors the Republicans.

In the last 7 elections (Clinton x2, Bush x2, Obama x2, Trump), only ONCE has the Republicans won the popular vote - 2004. That's the only time they should have won. If you really insist on an electoral process, take the Senate out of it when figuring out the numbers and go with pure ratio to population, which is what the House of Representatives is.

So to answer your question - I don't respect the system at all! NOT EVEN ONE IOTA! Needs to be ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE - PERIOD END OF STORY! All other elected positions are exactly that! Senate, House, Mayor, State Senate, State House, etc.

#43--the fucked up thing about this post is Trump didn't win in 2016 on vote count. He came in 2.9 million behind Hillary Clinton. He won because of the electoral college which IMO is anti-democratic. The population didn't really decide--it was taken out of their hands. But I'm afraid Proximity only likes things his way and is going to continue to parse his garbage to his own favorable outcomes.

>43 proximity1:

I suspect the answer is that approximately the same number will respect the 2020 outcome as respected the outcomes of previous elections — including the botched process of 2000-2001.

That does not mean one is rendered mute about the shortcomings of the system.

> 45, 46

Exactly.

And so, if we are going to talk about "not accepting" the outcome of democratic elections, in 2008 Obama won by 9.9 million votes and in 2012 he won by about 5 million votes. Nevertheless, for all eight years of his Presidency, republican elected officials did everything they could to thwart, subvert, block, lie about, and destroy any effectiveness of Obama's Presidency, out of sheer hatred at being beaten by him. They insulted him at every turn, called him every filthy name in the book and tried to de-legitimize his Presidency in any immoral illegal way they could. And republican rank and file supported this effort 100 per cent. The lie that he was born in Kenya was the filthiest lie, but far from being the main or only lie.

In a nutshell, the republican minority sought to de-legitimize the democratic choice of the majority.

So then prox, as usual, has no leg to stand on, no point, is just rambling and throwing up his usual smoke screen of incoherent blather, non sequitur and gaseous eructations that he always hopes against hope to pass off as critical analysis and deep thinking.

LOL, prox - You LOSE AGAIN.

#47--Obama was not born in Kenya but even if he were it's not a bad thing and IMO I think that an American born in a foreign country should not necessarily be disqualified. Ted Cruz wasn't born in the United States either and very few republicans complained about his running for president.

I went into Obama's presidency a big fan--after 4 years that had worn off but yeah it was 8 years worth of invective from Republicans from every side and all angles and Trump himself was one of the main bullshitters. I don't mind when someone is critiqued for doing a shit job at something and there was plenty of reason to complain over 8 years about Obama but these people didn't critique him over policy or anything like that---they critiqued him for the most part because they were racists venting their hate and then they turned around and helped put into the presidency the worst example of themselves.

And when they take a critique now---'it's wah, wah, wah---woe is me!' Just the biggest fucking babies on the planet.

>43 proximity1:

So, briefly, of those whose comments here even rise to the level at which I bother to open and read them, -- of these, the rough-and-ready answer to my question is, so far, "none" or "Zero", "Zilch" or "Nada".

Go to hell, the lot of you.

Re-Elect President Trump in 2020, --impeached or not, impeached, convicted and removed from office or not. Just re-elect Donald Trump in 2020. Democrats have remembered only selectively and learned nothing.

>47 JGL53:

Why limit it to proximity1?

It just as much a problem when it comes to all the other Self-Centered Libertarians and Full-Of-Sh*t Lying Republicans as well. EVERY FREAKING ONE OF THEM! The last decent Republican to live on this planet died last year, and even told Donald Trump not to attend his funeral! Any other Republican with a brain has officially stepped down or left the party, such as the now Independent in Michigan who is also in favor of Impeachment of that 73-year old moronic clown that cheated his way into the oval office, and is cheating again now with The Ukraine and Australia!

>49 proximity1: "impeached, convicted and removed from office or not. Just re-elect Donald Trump"

This cuts to the chase.

"Elect a criminal"

If Donald Trump gunned down Proximity1's mother in Madison Avenue, it seems he would still vote for Donald Trump. Because character, morality, decency, integrity, competence and legality do not matter any more. All that matters is that their man wins.

Witch: FOUND

Hunt: OVER

Lock HIM Up! Lock HIM Up!

LOL.

>51 sirfurboy:

You have pretty much defined what a Republican is!

A corrupt, good for nothing human being that gerrymanders, breaks laws, sneaks in garbage, and has zero decency what-so-ever any more. The entire party is a complete sham, and all they want to do is cheat their way into office and watch the middle and lower classes suffer while they get to observe and laugh.

Need proof?

1) Donald Trump - Russia in 2016, now Ukraine and Austrailia for 2020, numerous rape alligations, hides his taxes, I could go on for ever and break the LibraryThing.com messaging system simply by putting in negative details about Donald Trump and having a post that is over a Trillion characters long.

2) North Carolina U.S. Congress Seat - The District 9 Repersentative seat was won by Mark Harris by 905 votes via corruption in 2 counties, hiring people to collect votes for people saying they will be delivered, targetting democrat neighborhoods, and then not reporting them. Now, probably something else rigged it on September 10th and some other corrupt republican is in that seat (I live in that district!)

3) North Carolina State Congress Veto - The NC State Congress chair, a Republican, announced that there would be no votes executed on September 11th, in respect of allowing people to go to 9/11 events or visit graves or whatever else. It was a day of mourning. Attendance was optional. So what happens? Out of 120 State Representatives, 55 Republicans show up and 9 Democrats show up. They call for an emergency vote to Veto the Democratic Governor's bill, and since it's based on attendance and not the 120 total, the 55 to 9 vote passed with basically a riot going on in the room. There were to be "no votes" on September 11th, when instead, all the Republicans were notified of the scam and the Democrats weren't, and they pull off GDMF Sh*t like this. This is precisely what the Republican Party is all about. Cheats, Scams, Shams, Liars, Dirt Bags, Criminals, etc.

F*CK THE RIGHT!!!!!

>53 ChessFanatic: "You have pretty much defined what a Republican is!"

No, I think that goes too far.

Full disclosure: I am not American and do not feel the need to define myself as sitting within one of your political camps. I also will not know the full nuance of policy areas nor the policies of the people in those camps.

But I think it is an error to treat the whole of an opposing ideology as an amorphous out group. I am sure there are good, decent and honourable Republicans. After all, I personally know some Republican voters who refused to vote for Donald Trump, because it turns out they are not hypocrites.

One such person (not one I know personally) actually wrote a book I read recently:

The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values - Ben Howe.

Ben Howe completely skewers the hypocrisy of the Trump voting evangelicals. Yet he is himself a right wing evangelical (who did not vote Trump), and my impression from reading his book is that the above characterisation would be unfairly applied to him.

And consider this: if you actually want to reach out and change people's minds, you need to stop treating them as an out group. If you want to persuade good and honourable moderate right wing voters to vote for your candidate in the future, it is better not to say things like "all republican voters are corrupt and immoral".

Some clearly are, but I don't think all are.

>54 sirfurboy:

Up until about 6 or 7 years ago, I wouldn't have said that, but at minimum 90% of the party has completely gone to sh*t.

I myself registerred as a Republican when I was first able to vote in the mid-90s. I voted for Dole (was only 17 in 1992) and Bush Junior twice. It was in 2005 that I switched from Republican to Independent (and still am, I'm not a bleeding liberal). It was a tough choice for me between McCain and Obama. I consider McCain one of the last decent Republicans out there. There was no way I was going Romney in 2012.

However, when Obama won, the Republican party basically changed completely! Unlike when Clinton was in office, when Obama won, all they did was go out of their way to block everything Obama did, and as another post earlier in the thread pointed out, they attacked in any way they could, including trying to claim Obama was born in Kenya.

Since then, Trump cheated in the 2016 election, gerrymandering in favor of the right has run rampant in North Carolina and Georgia. All Trump and other Republicans in the last 3 years have tried to do is increase the divide between the two parties rather than the original intent which was to unite the parties with a diverse, yet legitimate, system. We are supposed to be "One Nation", not a mob full of rich white men dictating middle class white men (where I fall), poor white men, and then all women, people of color, immigrants, etc. And yes, if Trump wins in 2020, he'll have enough time to convert himself to a dictator (the only reason he has been going to see Un who otherwise has made Trump look like a fool! Un is the devil, but a much smarter devil than Donnie boy!).

I still consider myself a moderate, possibly leaning slightly left, but I view the entire Republican party as one big corrupt warfare where the few that aren't corrupt have basically left the party and become independent while the rest are Trump's corrupt desciples!

Basically the parties have shifted:

Today's Republican is the definition of Corrupt!
Today's Independent is yesterday's Republican
Today's Moderate is yesterday's Democrat
Today's Democrat is yesterday's Bleeding Overly Progressive Liberal

I planned to post this in Truthiness thread (CNN did not build a $2m studio in NC, only to dismantle when R won, per Daniel Dale @ddale8), but scanning Bloomberg's annotated transcript of Trump's vengeful, lying, threatening private address of US diplomats and invited guests, I decided it belonged here. The man is really losing it. Hate to think he's always been like this?

Analyzing Trump’s Comments on the Whistle-Blower in a Private Meeting
Gregory Korte, Jennifer Jacobs and Nick Wadhams | September 27, 2019

Meeting behind closed doors with U.S. diplomats and invited guests in New York on Thursday, President Donald Trump gave a free-wheeling, rally-like performance in which he mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden, accused a whistle-blower of treason and falsely claimed that Australia had eradicated black lung disease. The speech Thursday came less than two hours after the release of a whistle-blower report alleging that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Here’s an annotated copy 👆 of that speech explaining key elements...

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-trump-speech-transcript-annotated/

"COUP"???

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 7:41 PM - Oct 1, 2019:

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!

>57 margd: Unfortunately, this throwing around of the term seems to be a standard set by Democrats in 1998:

Trump Calls It a 'Coup'; In 1998, Dems Supporting Bill Clinton Agreed Impeachment Effort Was a 'Coup'

The Wall obsession

From the meeting in March, just before Trump called for a total shutdown of the border ~

Shoot Migrants’ Legs, Build Alligator Moat: Behind Trump’s Ideas for Border

Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.
…
Mr. Trump’s order to close the border was a decision point that touched off a frenzied week of presidential rages, round-the-clock staff panic and far more White House turmoil than was known at the time. By the end of the week, the seat-of-the-pants president had backed off his threat but had retaliated with the beginning of a purge of the aides who had tried to contain him.
…
In the Oval Office that March afternoon, a 30-minute meeting extended to more than two hours as Mr. Trump’s team tried desperately to placate him.

“You are making me look like an idiot!” Mr. Trump shouted, adding in a profanity, as multiple officials in the room described it. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”

As Impeachment Moves Forward, Trump’s Language Turns Darker
Katie Rogers | Published Oct. 1, 2019. Updated Oct. 2, 2019

...The last time an American was convicted of treason was in the 1940s, in part because the Constitution defines it narrowly as levying war against the United States or giving aid or comfort to an enemy during wartime. But as the impeachment inquiry unfolds, Mr. Trump has used the term to accuse people of disloyalty and signal to his supporters that his political opponents are un-American.

The accusation is nothing new in the right-wing vocabulary — Ann Coulter, the president’s sometimes adviser, sometimes adversary — wrote a book on the topic. Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer who represents the whistle-blower, reviewed the book in 2003, saying it contained revelations that would “shock anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.”

But experts see a civic danger in the president frequently and falsely calling out what he labels treasonous behavior...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/trump-treason-impeachment.html

O.M.G.
(Poor Finnish president having to sit next to that!)
(Note that Trump SAYS he had Zelensky permission to release transcript--are you listening, Vlad? PUH-lease leave me out of this says Ukraine PM..)

Trump goes on unhinged Oval Office rant after being asked about Ukraine whistleblower: ‘What about Obama?’ (5:32)
Tana Ganeva / Raw Story | October 2, 2019
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-goes-on-unhinged-oval-office-rant-after-b...

ETA_______________________________________________________

George Conway @gtconway3d | 1:04 PM · Oct 2, 2019
So *NOW* can we *FINALLY* have a serious national conversation about the psychological condition of the President of the United States?

I just discovered Trumpo is a D&D character--category "Monster" (what did you expect?):



Meet "Gibbering Mouther".

Gibbering. The mouther babbles incoherently while it can see any creature and isn't incapacitated... if it can, uses its Blinding Spittle.

>62 LolaWalser:

Good one!

#61--ranting and raving and more ranting and raving. Stable genius idiot.

Rick Wilson calls him "President Snowflake von Pissypants" today after Trump's performance yesterday. (It's a subscription article, so I can't access the whole thing.)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-going-to-burn-down-everything-and-everyon...

Trump’s Twitter tirades about treason and civil war reveal a dangerously unfit president
Lies, nonsense, and a threat to arrest his opponents in Congress.

Matthew Yglesias | Sep 30, 2019

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/30/20891128/trump-tweets-schiff-t...

Check out anecdotes in article--and cringe, weep...

Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have long worried aides, leaving some ‘genuinely horrified’
Carol D. Leonnig, Shane Harris and Josh Dawsey | Oct. 4, 2019

...long before revelations about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine’s president rocked Washington, Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders were an anxiety-ridden set of events for his aides and members of the administration, according to former and current officials. They worried that Trump would make promises he shouldn’t keep, endorse policies the United States long opposed, commit a diplomatic blunder that jeopardized a critical alliance, or simply pressure a counterpart for a personal favor.

“There was a constant undercurrent in the Trump administration of senior staff who were genuinely horrified by the things they saw that were happening on these calls,” said one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations. “Phone calls that were embarrassing, huge mistakes he made, months and months of work that were upended by one impulsive tweet.”

...Critics, including some former administration officials, contend that Trump’s behavior on calls with foreign leaders has at times created unneeded tensions with allies and sent troubling signals to adversaries or authoritarians that the United States supports or at least does not care about human rights or their aggressive behavior elsewhere in the world.

...“People who could do things for him — he was nice to,” said one former security official. “Leaders with trade deficits, strong female leaders, members of NATO — those tended to go badly.”

...staff fretted that Trump came across ill-informed in some calls, and even oafish.

...(after leaks) the White House tightened restrictions on who could access the transcripts and kept better track of who had custody of copies...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-calls-with-foreign-leaders-have-l...

Unfit for Office
George T. Conway III | Oct 3, 2019

Donald Trump’s narcissism makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires.

...The DSM-5 describes its conception of pathological narcissism this way: “The essential feature of narcissistic personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.” The manual sets out nine diagnostic criteria that are indicative of the disorder, but only five of the nine need be present for a diagnosis of NPD to be made...

...A second disorder also frequently ascribed to Trump by professionals is sociopathy—what the DSM-5 calls antisocial personality disorder.

...apart from any personality disorder, he may be suffering cognitive decline.

...when you line up what the Framers expected of a president with all that we know about Donald Trump, his unfitness becomes obvious. The question is whether he can possibly act as a public fiduciary for the nation’s highest public trust. To borrow from the Harvard Law Review article, can he follow the “proscriptions against profit, bad faith, and self-dealing,” manifest “a strong concern about avoiding ultra vires action” (that is, action exceeding the president’s legal authority), and maintain “a duty of diligence and carefulness”? Given that Trump displays the extreme behavioral characteristics of a pathological narcissist, a sociopath, or a malignant narcissist—take your pick—it’s clear that he can’t.

...In short, now that the House of Representatives has embarked on an impeachment inquiry, one of the most important judgments it must make is whether any identified breaches of duty are likely to be repeated. And if a Senate trial comes to pass, that issue would become central as well to the decision to remove the president from office. That’s when Trump’s behavioral and psychological characteristics should—must—come into play. From the evidence, it appears that he simply can’t stop himself from putting his own interests above the nation’s. Any serious impeachment proceedings should consider not only the evidence and the substance of all impeachable offenses, but also the psychological factors that may be relevant to the motivations underlying those offenses. Congress should make extensive use of experts—psychologists and psychiatrists. Is Trump so narcissistic that he can’t help but use his office for his own personal ends? Is he so sociopathic that he can’t be trusted to follow, let alone faithfully execute, the law?

Congress should consider all this because that’s what the question of impeachment demands. But there’s another reason as well. The people have a right to know, and a need to see. Many people have watched all of Trump’s behavior, and they’ve drawn the obvious conclusion. They know something’s wrong, just as football fans knew that the downed quarterback had shattered his leg. Others have changed the channel, or looked away, or chosen to deny what they’ve seen. But if Congress does its job and presents the evidence, those who are in denial won’t be able to ignore the problem any longer. Not only because of the evidence itself, but because Donald Trump will respond in pathological ways—and in doing so, he’ll prove the points against him in ways almost no one will be able to ignore.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/george-conway-trump-unfit-offi...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 10:27 PM · Oct 6, 2019:

Nancy Pelosi knew of all of the many Shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people, in the form of a fraudulent speech knowingly delivered as a ruthless con, and the illegal meetings with a highly partisan “Whistleblower” & lawyer...

....This makes Nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly “Colluded” with them, must all be immediately Impeached!

Orange ape's twittering sounds like a Chester Gould cartoon.

And look at today's bullsh*t! He tries to protest to not reveal his taxes, and his protest was axed just to be granted a stay by another clown group and allow the SOB to get away with more sh*t, at least temporarily.

Can we not all see what is going on here? Let's put 2 and 2 together.

1. Trump commits crimes including Treason, foreign aid for elections, setting up the G7 at his resort to charge people and make a profit which is completely conflict of interest, and many other financial crimes.
2. Trump refuses to show his taxes
3. Trump is having discussions with countries that either have rigged elections (Russia) or dictatorships (North Korea) behind closed doors. He's not negotiating with those clowns! He's getting ideas on how to turn f'ing America into a GDMFing Dictatorship!
4. Trump is using the "I can't be arrested in office" ploy
5. Trump is saying "If I rig the 2020 election, I have 4 more years to complete my project and by 2024, I will be King!", and then, of course, once he dies, he'll pass the torch to moron Ivanka!

TRUMP NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED AND KICKED OUT OF OFFICE (Impeachment alone is not enough!) ASAP! THE UNITED STATES IS UP SH*T CREEK IF THESE BRAINWASHED AMERICANS IN RURAL AREAS CONTINUE TO VOTE FOR THAT ORANGE MOTHER F**KER!

Bobby Fisher?

Top Military Officers Unload on Trump
Mark Bowden | November 2019 Issue

...Military officers are sworn to serve whomever voters send to the White House. Cognizant of the special authority they hold, high-level officers epitomize respect for the chain of command, and are extremely reticent about criticizing their civilian overseers. That those I spoke with made an exception in Trump’s case is telling, and much of what they told me is deeply disturbing. In 20 years of writing about the military, I have never heard officers in high positions express such alarm about a president. Trump’s pronouncements and orders have already risked catastrophic and unnecessary wars in the Middle East and Asia, and have created severe problems for field commanders engaged in combat operations. Frequently caught unawares by Trump’s statements, senior military officers have scrambled, in their aftermath, to steer the country away from tragedy. How many times can they successfully do that before faltering?...

...(he)
1) Disdains expertise
2) Trusts only his own instincts,
3) Resists coherent strategy
4) Is reflexively contrary
5) Has a simplistic and antiquated notion of soldiering

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598...

Great and unmatched wisdom? GREAT AND UNMATCHED WISDOM?

What an effing megalomaniac!

I'm not generally an alarmist, but I can certainly envision him trying to assume the role of Dictator-for-Life.

Minneapolis mayor: We saw Trump stiffing cities for his other rallies, so we told him to pay up
Jacob Frey | Oct. 12, 2019

...One constant in Trump’s public and private careers? He doesn’t like paying his bills. Just ask the cities of El Paso, Tucson or Lebanon, Ohio, all of which are still waiting for the president to pick up his tab for costs their cities incurred hosting his campaign events. Just as some of the cities are large and some are small, so are the expenses and the unpaid bills — $570,000 from El Paso, $16,200 from Lebanon.

In Minneapolis, we need to ensure that our limited funds are put to good uses. Every opportunity we have to save taxpayer dollars and dedicate them to important matters such as affordable housing policy is an opportunity we must seize.

When the president learned that Minneapolis was seeking reimbursement, he did not call me directly to discuss details. He did not seek to better understand the terms of the contract. He took to Twitter to make threats, inflame his base ahead of the event and lash out at me and the diverse city I represent.

Having seen the strain his rallies have placed on other municipalities, I decided to stand up for Minneapolis taxpayers. That meant pushing Trump to do something that is both fundamental to society and antithetical to the way he operates: pay what he owes...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/12/minneapolis-mayor-we-saw-trum...

Peter Alexander @PeterAlexander | 4:43 PM · Oct 16, 2019:

White House confirms authenticity of Trump letter to Erdogan, dated 10/9:
“History... will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.”

First reported by Fox Business.
Image (at) https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1184570682757337089/photo/1

(Also at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/16/us/politics/trump-letter-turkey.h...
_______________________________________________________________

Democrats say they left White House meeting on Syria after Trump ‘meltdown’
10/15.2019

...Pelosi told reporters that the president appeared “shaken up” by a House vote condemning his decision to remove U.S. forces from northern Syria. The House approved the resolution in an overwhelming 354-60 vote, as even a majority of Trump’s Republican Party supported it.

“That’s why we couldn’t continue in the meeting because he was just not relating to the reality of it,” Pelosi said outside the White House, in only the latest instance of a gathering between the president and Democrats blowing up.

...Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the meeting as more of a “nasty diatribe” than a “dialogue.” He said Trump called Pelosi a “third-rate politician” — though Pelosi later clarified the president used the term “third grade politician.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., added that he had “never” seen a president “treat so disrespectfully a coequal branch” of government.

...During the meeting Wednesday, Schumer brought up former Defense Secretary James Mattis’ recent comment that the Islamic State group “will resurge” in Syria after the troop withdrawal, according to NBC News. Trump then called the former United States Marine Corps general “the world’s most overrated general,” saying “he wasn’t tough enough,” NBC reported.

...Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., plan to introduce sanctions on Turkey on Thursday. Graham tweeted Wednesday that he fears “this is a complete and utter national security disaster in the making” and said he hopes Trump “will adjust his thinking.”

Responding to Graham’s criticism, the president said “Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next 1,000 years.”...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/16/house-opposes-trump-move-to-pull-forces-from-nor...

Love Pelosi's troll of Trump, dishing back the Republican staple for gun-massacred Americans: "Thoughts and prayers, Donnie, thoughts and prayers."

Actual quote from Pelosi: "Right now we have to pray for Trump's health because this was a very serious meltdown."

Who's having the last laugh?

>77 Limelite: Below, Trump's tweet reminded me of his "I'm not a puppet. You're a puppet." third grade retort to Hillary Clinton. Again, not exactly presidential timbre.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:00 PM · Oct 16, 2019:
Nancy Pelosi needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her “upstairs,” or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country. She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She's sure no "Nervous Nancy"!

Trump tweeted a photo attacking Nancy Pelosi. She made it her Twitter cover photo.
Paul LeBlanc | October 16, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/nancy-pelosi-trump-twitter-cover-photo/i...

David Lauter, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted, “This photo could be a Pelosi campaign poster -- the sole woman in the room, literally standing up to the President. Why he thinks this makes her look bad is a mystery.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/466204-lawmakers-social-media-users-...

(Cue the misogynist.)

RE "last-laughs": To Pelosi and her coven of "Dems" :
enjoy your laughs while you can.

THIS is a man who is "mentally, physically, temperamentally compromised"?!

It's been a good while since I've heard any president speak this forthrightly and with this much plain good-sense; certainly I never heard Obama demonstrate this kind of clarity.

If Trump keeps this up over the next twelve months, the Democrats had better plan on returning to complete spectator-minority-party-status in the federal government.

Trump, in this mode, is going to kick Dems' asses so hard at the polls.

No wonder Dems' entire game is premised on getting Trump out of office through a bogus impeachment effort. They can see he's a threat at the polling-place.

Fortunately for the American voters, their November 2020 ballots shall 'trump' those of the Senate in an impeachment-trial verdict. LOL!

And Nancy Pelosi can save her (bullshit insincere) prayers for her own mental health.

_____________________________________

It may be time now to simply sit back and silently watch pseudo-leftist morons and other Trump foes speak and write uninterrupted. Give them air-time, column-inches and lots and lots of rope--and let them run to their hearts' contents. Why bother countering their self-destructive tendencies when these are doing so much inadvertent good?

Knock yourself out, Pelosi. You go, girl! You fucking go! Full steam ahead! LOL!

Contrary to general consensus--bullies don't always back down. Sometimes you do have to fight them and sometimes more than once.

Erdogan and Putin have made the proper read of Trump's character and courage which in a nutshell is 1. he's corruptible and 2. he's spineless and is a bully who shrinks away from a challenge. He's windy and makes a lot of noise but he's neither hurricane nor tornado. Nothing but bluster. He can be shrugged off without worry. He's the kid in the schoolyard who other kids come up to and take his lunch money away. So erego his letter to Erdogan goes straight into the wastebasket....and don't think the heads of other nations from allies to enemies don't take note of that. They do.

Make America great again--my ass.

hahahahahaha, Erdogan trashing Trumpo's letter! Couldn't happen to two more deserving assholes.

>79 proximity1: Sounding like Putin's proxy puppet. Heh heh heh

I get it. You and 60 Republican Representatives can't be wrong. Guess somebody has to be the last rat to leave the sinking ship. Which one will it be?

The link in #79 appears to be a software transcript of That Man's remarks — a spew free associations verging on incoherent. By God, he is frightening!

The Trump administration has had an 80% turnover rate over a
1000-day period. A mechanical device which has an 80% part-
replacement history over a 1000 days would be called a LEMON.
Low-info voters turned a con man/cult personality into the leader
of the free world. YIKES

Never thought I'd be saying this, but Joe Scarborough is right when he says about Trump rally-goers, "They have a responsibility not to be stupid."

As in, why create a false "Deep State" conspiracy theory for the buses that left you stranded after the rally when the truth is they left you stranded because you didn't effing pay them?!" STUPID

Another tell-all book is coming out soon.

Anonymous author of Trump ‘resistance’ op-ed to publish a tell-all book

People involved in the project said that both Twelve and Javelin have verified that the book’s author is the same person who wrote the Times column but would not share the author’s identity with The Washington Post.

“There obviously will be those who want the author to reveal themselves publicly, but there are good reasons for that not to happen,” Latimer said. “The author feels their identity is almost irrelevant because there is scarcely a sentiment expressed in this book that is not shared by numerous others who have served and continue to serve this administration at its highest levels.”
…
Latimer said the anonymous author of “A Warning” did not take an advance and intends to donate some of the royalties to nonprofit organizations that focus on government accountability and supporting truth-tellers in repressive countries, including the White House Correspondents’ Association.

“The author could have received a seven-figure advance for writing this book,” Latimer said. “But ‘A WARNING’ was not written for financial reasons. The author sees this as an act of conscience and of duty, which is why the author refused any advance and is donating a substantial portion of any royalties to charities that protect those seeking the truth around the world.”

Lately I've had a Bruce Springsteen song running through my head, only I'm mentally substituting the word "He's" for "I'm":

Down, down, down, down
He's goin' down, down, down, down
He's goin' down, down, down, down
He's goin' down, down, down, down

A catchy tune, that one!

#87--he will be impeached. At this point in time though it seems (at least to me) that it's a long shot he'll be removed. Still--this is going to trial in the Senate and is going to air some of his dirty laundry right out in public. That is where the danger is for Senate Republicans--23 of whom are up for reelection (as opposed to 12 democrats) in 2020.....for at least some of them will be between a rock and a hard place---hang with Trump against the majority of voters and lose your seat or vote to remove and lose that 30-35% of die hard Trump knuckleheads and lose your seat. For Trump to be removed 20 Republican Senators are going to have to cross over. That's a tall order but it still needs to be done.

When people talk about how transactional Trump's administration is Ukraine is just one example of it. He is always looking for something that benefits him personally. In that case he holds up military assistance until he can get the incoming President to investigate a potential 2020 political rival and until they turn over a mythical DNC server--both of these are debunked right wing conspiracy theories that he might have picked off of 8chan and that he's decided are for real.

The rescinded G7 Doral thing was to benefit his business which has been losing money. Likewise there is reason to believe that his decision to betray the Kurds to Erdogan to benefit his Trump towers in Istanbul. This is why Presidents in the past have divested their assets or put them in trust so that this kind of thing doesn't even come up.

The troops to Saudi Arabia because they'll pay for them goes against longstanding American policy to never let a foreign power buy our soldiers services.

The hotelier Mr. Sondland gets the E. U. Ambassador job not because he's in anyway qualified for the job but because the job is for sale and what does Sondland know what's right or wrong about extorting another country. He's a hotel owning big shot who knows nothing but wants to show off. Probably it doesn't even occur to him that what Trump was asking him to do in Ukraine was illegal.....and for sure Donald hasn't figured it out either.

Over and over again we see shit like this in Trump's presidency. It's all about what's in it for him.

Ambassadorships are notoriously "prize" jobs but I can't think of one going to someone who so directly benefitted the president (an individual) rather than, more diffusedly, the party, "the cause" or some such. The "sale" at any rate isn't usually that blatant.

#90--Sondland is perfect for someone like Trump. It's another quid pro quo arrangement. He had Sondland at work subverting foreign policy goals to win his next election against an opponent (Biden) that's probably not going to be the democratic nominee (though it looked like he might back then) but he will undermine the elective process no matter who he has to face. He and his subordinates (like Pompeo) are at war with our foreign diplomats because whatever anyone thinks of them they are at least professionals and committed to working for the country. He doesn't give a rat's ass about the country--Trumps wants only that they're loyal to Trump.

I'm actually surprised that someone like John Bolton comes out of this looking alright. His ideas might be shit but at least he has some integrity--both Hill and Taylor have cited him for that. It would be good if he would testify.

> 88

That is the deal. The Orange Traitor will be impeached but probably not convicted. It is the airing of the 'dirty laundry' that is what will destroy him in the end, one imagines as the most likely scenario.

Here's the weird part for me right now. Not being that much of an optimist by nature, I still think odds are tremendous that The Orange Traitor will go down in 2020 regarding of what evil tricks, foreign and domestic, he tries. He is 10 points down now in all the polls , week after week, against every possible Democratic opponent.

However, most of my liberal friends stay quite pessimistic. They are still shell-shocked by 2016, apparently. They are still anxious to vote, and encourage all to vote, sure, but they still fear that somehow, someway, The Orange Traitor will win again. Or at least they say they think so.

I have told them to STFU but they just ignore me and ramble on about how he will probably win again - that we and the whole world are fucked now and forever.

It's got to the point where I avoid or opt out all political discussion now (in real life) because all the pessimism was starting to bring me down and harsh my buzz.

My view is that we should wait 'til about Sept. of next year, look at the polling, and THEN decide whether to celebrate or self-immolate.

Proof that Trump is, in fact, mad. (Not angry mad; foaming-at-the-mouth crazy.)

He coordinates/stages a riot by House Republicans who broke into the secured hearing room to publicly intimidate those legally investigating Trump's impeachable conduct in an illegal attack in support of abuse of power and against the Constitution.

Why haven't they been arrested and charged with rioting and public intimidation?

#92--Donald knows he can win if he can lose by 3 million votes overall. In the midterms he lost by 8 million though and since then he's doubled down on the stupid shit he's been doing all along. His path to victory this time is going to depend on unprecedented levels of cheating whether it's outside actors, voter suppression, voter fraud, tinkering with voter machines. The Democratic nominee is going to have to work hard and the democrats are going to have to be on top of all the cheating republican operatives are going to try. I'm thinking it won't be enough for Trump though. He's going to lose and IMO the Republicans are going to lose Senate seats--whether it's enough to give the Democrats a majority might be a question but it's a difficult task for a lesser popular party not to lose seats when they have twice as many up for reelection than a more popular party. Trump has his 35% or so--I don't see that he's built on that number--he plateaued four years ago and has very slowly from then to now been bleeding more voters than he's taken in--and his voters tending to be older have been dying in greater %'s as well.

That he's held on to that 35% tells me how many batshit crazy people we have in this country.

I want him impeached but I'm not sure I want him removed at this point. Because then Pence will be Prez, and voters may start to look at him as a desirable candidate. But he's yet another a-hold with a mandate from God.

So... impeach Trump. Let him flounder with ever-shrinking voter approval. Let him be trounced in the election, and then let his ass get charged with all the crimes he can't be charged with while he's a sitting President.

#95--Pence is a hard core conservative but he's also duller than dishwater. He's like a republican version of Walter Mondale. Ideally he's someone the Republicans would really like to be POTUS--the problem is he lacks charisma and he would try to drag the country back into the 1950's. He can win a conservative House seat in Indiana. He can even win the governorship in Indiana but that I think is as far as it goes for Mike Pence. The reason he was on Trump's ticket was simply to give Donald some conservative credibility because really Donald has none. The hard core right wingers say 'there's our guy' when they seen Pence the VP but there's not enough of that crowd to put him over the top.

Pence would ban abortion outright by the way. That's simply not going to fly. He starts his campaign with 80 to 85% of women already on the other side. The game for him is over right there. Mike Pence = Dan Quayle = Rick Santorum.

>90 LolaWalser:

http://afsa.org/appointments-william-j-clinton

https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=940393

https://littlesis.org/person/35023/Felix_G_Rohatyn

https://www.nndb.com/people/617/000120257/

(from Little Sis's website Felix G Rohatyn )

DNC-Non-Federal Individual
• 6 contributions · $340,000 ('92→'96)

DNC Non-Federal Unincorporated Association Account
• 1 contribution · $125,000 ('96)

Democratic National Committee
• 9 contributions · $107,300 ('92→'12)

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
• 12 contributions · $106,000 ('90→'08) +1

Barack Obama 44th President of the United States
• 8 contributions · $58,700 ('04→'12)

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Political Fundraising Committee for Democratic Senatorial Candidates
• 8 contributions · $54,500 ('89→'08)

DCCC-E Non-Federal Account 5 DCCC soft-money account
• 2 contributions · $50,000 ('96→Oct 11 '96)

Dscc/Non-Fed Unincorp Assoc
• 1 contribution · $25,000 ('02)

Andrew Cuomo Governor of New York State
• Donation · $18,169 (Mar 15 '10→Apr 12 '10) +1

Dscc Non-Federal Individuals
• 1 contribution · $12,500 ('96)

Chris Dodd President & CEO of MPAA; former US Senator from CT
• 12 contributions · $11,100 ('03→Mar 1 '10)

Dcccc Non-Federal Account 7
• 1 contribution · $10,000 (Oct 23 '02)

Effective Government Committee
• 2 contributions · $7,500 ('93→'94)

Erskine B Bowles Clinton's chief of staff from 1996-1998; investor; deficit hawk
• 5 contributions · $7,000 ('02→Sep 21 '04)

Joe Biden Former US Senator and Vice President
• 7 contributions · $6,500 ('01→May 21 '08)

Charles Rangel US Representative from New York
• 5 contributions · $6,300 ('03→'08)

Bob Kerrey Former US Senator from Nebraska
• 4 contributions · $6,250 ('92→'12)

Hillary Clinton US Secretary of State & NY Senator; 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate
• 6 contributions · $5,400 ('04→Jan 29 '16)

Voters for Choice/Friends of Family Planning
• 11 contributions · $5,250 ('90→'00)

John Kerry 68th US Secretary of State, Senator from Massachusetts
• 4 contributions · $5,000 ('89→'03)

a partial list of some of the Contributions to Democrats from the Rohatyn family of New York

(all family members conbined)
includes: Felix G. Rohatyn, Elizabeth Rohatyn (& as Elizabeth F.), Jeanette Rohatyn (& as Jeanne, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn), Michael Rohatyn, Nicholas Rohatyn & the Felix and Elizabeth Rohatyn Trust.

( in USD)
9,500
+ 1000
+ 2500
+ 2500
+ 1000
+ 22925
+ 500
+ 1000
+120494
+ 310
+ 1000
+ 2500
+ 2500
+ 250
+ 500
+ 10675
+ 200
+ 125
+ 4550
+ 17775

(total to this point = 201 804 (USD) )

source for the above figures: https://www.followthemoney.org/search-results/SearchForm?Search=Rohatyn

Say! Did you know that there's BIG ORGANIZED MONEY (a “Super Political Action Committee, (a.k.a. Legalized graft)) which actually pays people to go on-line and defend Hillary Clinton !?

2. Donald Sussman, Paloma Partners: $21,100,000

( From Investopedia | Economy |Government & Policy | 2020 Election Guide )

"Top 10 Contributors to the Clinton Campaign (FB, H) | By Deborah D'Souza |
Updated Jun 25, 2019 "

The president of this Connecticut-based hedge fund donated $21 million to the PUA super PAC and $100,000 to the Correct the Record super PAC. Correct the Record collects money to pay for personnel whose job it is to defend Clinton online. Of the total figure, $2 million was given in October for which the filings haven't been released yet.

>96 lriley: "Pence would ban abortion outright by the way. That's simply not going to fly. He starts his campaign with 80 to 85% of women already on the other side. The game for him is over right there."

If this were Wikipedia I would say "citation needed".

1. Would Pence ban abortion outright if made president? Possibly he would try - yet I am not clear that would even be in his gift; and if it were, I do not understand how abortion is always the big issue so many people vote on, and yet no Republican president already banned it. So the first statement looks wrong. I think it would be better to say "Pence would like to ban abortion outright." (but even that may not be strictly accurate. All we know is he would like it to be illegal in most cases).

2. 80-85% of women are already on the other side? (Presumably as opposed to men who you seem to imply would be less concerned by the issue). Not according to Pew Research. See here:

https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

60% of women believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, which is very slightly lower than the number of men (61%) in the survey. 38% of women believe it should be illegal in all or most cases, with just 2% apparently undecided. So - clearly a lot of people disagree with Pence on that, but nowhere near 80-85%. Also look at the Republican figures: 62% of Republicans believe it should be illegal in all/most cases. Only 36% of Republican voters believe it should be legal in all/most cases. Of that 36%, it is not clear that they believe Pence's view would be the single issue that causes them to stay away or back a Democrat.

>98 sirfurboy:

I think you're ignoring a whole lot of context here. Polls like that ask the question in a vacuum, whereas the prospect of getting a president who is militant on the issue changes the stakes dramatically. The real question is what's left for Pence to do--Trump's supreme court appointees may well have achieved enough to overturn Roe v. Wade in not too distant future.

As for why previous Republican presidents didn't ban it, it's funny you should ask--even that "theoretical" poll you link shows a steady significant majority of all Americans wish it to remain legal. Previous Republican presidents, whatever their private views, did not choose to die on that hill. They do, of course, use abortion as a dogwhistle in their campaigns--it's very convenient to have an issue that will perpetually make the blood of your base boil but which you can't win on popularly (and in practice may not even want to win on--rightwingers get abortions too) and can perpetually blame for this the other side.

But Pence may very well be different, a religious fanatic the like of hasn't been seen in that office for a while (or ever? I'm not very up on American Ps & VPs). And not for abortion alone, it's far from the only issue that makes Pence unpalatable to women.

So, while I wouldn't commit myself to specific numbers, I'd say Pence's candidacy (assuming he's not simply given the office should Trump be removed) would see an unprecedented mobilisation of antagonistic female vote. In fact this is already in evidence, although as a reaction to Trump, not necessarily at this stage focussed on Pence.

There are significant differences between white female and male voters already. There have been in 2016, when white women notoriously voted for Trump at about (high end) 53%. White men, however, supported him significantly more--63-75%. As an aside--while black voters in general overwhelmingly rejected Trump, the minority that did vote for him is also gender skewed, with black male Trump voters considerably more numerous than black female Trump voters. IOW, there is a real, "primary" gender difference in the reception of Trump.

Which, of course, comes as no surprise to anyone even just looking at the photos of his minions and supporters--a herd of white men.

ETA: cross-post with #99

ETA: Posts Illustrated. This is from, what, the day before yesterday? The valiant Republican stormers of a secure room on Capitol Hill--spot the repeating pattern.

#98--okay living in Britain I don't know if you've heard or understand a lot about Roe v. Wade. Generally it concerns a woman's rights over her own body. How it's been upheld is through the courts and Mr. Pence will go after a woman's right to choose in the courts. That will turn nationwide accepted law into a states rights problem. This is in part why the Republicans in the past have been all fired up about Supreme Court justices. If you also knew much about Pence's history as a politician this is a top if not his most key issue. He's always been on the right of the right. He is right wing fundamentalist christian politician.....and that's no secret to anyone who follows politics in the United States.

As far as 2. goes--that 61% will go higher when those rights are for real threatened. I'll let that sit as an opinion of mine that you can take or leave. I'll point out though that women are having a greater and greater influence on our elections and 2018 was pretty much a major rejection of the republican party and the rejection was led by women.

The attack against people's rights over their own bodies at least in the United States is pretty much driven by religious believers. On another level it could be the right to get your ears pierced or a tattoo or to blow your own brains out. Those are personal choices that people have a right to make. There isn't any 'should' or 'shouldn't' about it.

One might go and do a quick check on wikipedia of Pence as Governor of Indiana on LGBTQ rights and abortion. He is as on the right as it gets.

>99 LolaWalser: "Polls like that ask the question in a vacuum, whereas the prospect of getting a president who is militant on the issue changes the stakes dramatically." Looks like special pleading, sorry. My point was to add context (and data), not to ignore it. It is not the end of the story, but this was a challenge to a specific statement that is plucked out of the air and against the data. Is the data the end of the story? No, of course not. However, if you don't have any other data, then all you have is opinion.

Opinion is fine on here, but I am not arguing an opinion, so I will leave it there.

>100 lriley: "I don't know if you've heard or understand a lot about Roe v. Wade"

I am quite familiar with that, yes. But my point is that for Pence, as president, to ban abortion, he must do something that is not in his gift. Abortion can be banned through legislation, but this would be the role of the legislature. It can be banned through challenge and overturning of Roe Vs Wade, but this would be the role of the supreme court.

As you say, there has been this game of attempting to stack your Supreme Court with partisan judges over a long period, as though this will answer the issue (and to be honest, I think it is a great con to suggest it will). These justices are appointed by a president - but that does not need Pence. Any Republican president will do. Even Donald Trump somehow managed to see his way to doing this, and the Supreme Court now has a conservative majority.

As for legislation: that is the role of your legislature, not your executive. Although a president can veto legislation (as Clinton did regarding partial birth abortions), he cannot legislate himself. Executive orders will not do as these are designed to manage the operation of the federal government,so I am not clear that there is any kind of order that Pence could introduce that would ban abortion totally. If I have misunderstood that, I would be glad to know what it is that you think he could do that would be so radical and immediate that he would suddenly lose the support of so many people (who would otherwise support a Republican president).

#102--this has been an ongoing threat for a long time. Whether or not they're able to accomplish their goal I take their threat seriously. Mr. Pence has been at the forefront of that threat. He is very keen on his standing among evangelicals. It's been said by some he is the key to evangelical support for Trump who has hardly lived a stellar christian life prior to or even after his election. It's an unholy alliance. All these people can fuck off.

As far as legislating. What Roe v. Wade did was to legalize a woman's right to an abortion under a national umbrella. Take Roe v. Wade away and it turns into a states right thing. Some states it will have the imprimatur of law---other states it will be criminalized. Those states that would choose to criminalize the great weight of the law will fall on minorities and poorer people. And all this happy horseshit mainly because people who believe in one religion or another have to have the weight of their beliefs (not truths) fall on others who don't necessarily believe the same. That's fucked up and whatever their %'s they are in the minority but that doesn't mean they're going to necessarily lose--they're still trying to get their judges in place whether they're the smaller % or not.

>103 lriley: "It's been said by some he is the key to evangelical support for Trump"

It seems to me the key to evangelical support of Trump is the apostasy of American evangelicalism. If they believed what they claim to believe and lived by the ideals they have long espoused, there would be no thought of supporting Trump. A good book that shows both understanding of their beliefs and frustrations, whilst systematically dismantling all their arguments for support of Trump is:

The Immoral Majority - Ben Howe.

(But yeah, having Pence there helps!)

I would clearly not disagree with your analysis that repeal of Roe Vs. Wade makes abortion a state issue. Yet my point remains: the actual "outright ban" of abortion by Mike Pence is just not in his gift. Repeal of Roe Vs. Wade is not in his gift, and appointing a conservative Supreme Court justice is no more in his gift than any other Republican.

>96 lriley: ff

There's no way anyone in the WH or the Senate is going to ban abortion prior to 2021 when, perhaps, the majority in the House will change. SCOTUS, of course, is another matter.

A hypothetical President Pence in 2021 might, if hypothetically gifted with a Republican Congress, choose to take that hill, in Lola's metaphor. Government functions by an ongoing process of horse-trading: Congress might give him that one in return for something else it wanted equally or more and something that he opposed.

If any part of the government gets that shit passed, it's definitely Lysistrata time.

Trump Wants You to Know He’s Smart and Capable Enough to ‘Do Quid Pro Quo’

Book by ‘Anonymous’ describes Trump as cruel, inept and a danger to the nation
Philip Rucker | November 7, 2019

...The author...describes Trump careening from one self-inflicted crisis to the next, “like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport.”

...“I am not qualified to diagnose the president’s mental acuity,” the author writes. “All I can tell you is that normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness. He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity. Those who would claim otherwise are lying to themselves or to the country.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/book-by-anonymous-describes-trump-as-cru...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New book by anonymous op-ed author details difficulties staff had in briefing Trump
Marty Johnson - 11/07/19

...when discussing matters of life and death, or particularly weighty matters, the president would not prepare himself for meetings. Briefers were told early on in the administration not to bring in lengthy memos because “Trump wouldn’t read them.”

The book also described the ways in which briefing material had to be simplified and broken down to a few points in a visual presentation.

“PowerPoint was preferred because Trump is a visual learner” recalls "A Warning" author.

But the whittling down of the briefing process didn’t stop there, according to the excerpts.

The author writes, “then officials were told that the PowerPoint decks needed to be slimmed down. The president couldn’t digest too many slides. He needed more images to keep his interest – and fewer words.”

Further still, briefers were told “to cut back the overall message (on complicated issues such as military readiness or the federal budget) to just three main points,” but even doing that “was still too much.”

Soon, the author notes, the best practice to briefing the president became “come in with one main point and repeat it – over and over again, even if the president inevitably goes off on tangents – until he gets it.”

When briefers did attempt to give Trump a traditional memo and it didn’t end well, the author writes.

“’What the f*** is this?’” the president would shout, looking at a document one of them handed him. ‘These are just words. A bunch of words. It doesn’t mean anything.’”

Continuing, the author completes their thought, writing “sometimes he would throw the papers back on the table. He definitely wouldn’t read them."...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/469550-maddow-anonymous-op-ed-author...

>108 margd: In thinking about how Trump could have been elected President, it reminds me of the movie Being There where people hear the words of a mentally challenged man and twist them to mean whatever they need them to be. Only Chance Gardner was a much more sympathetic figure than Trump.

>109 jjwilson61:

A cult may form around and be unified by its consuming focus on a "scape-goat" figure rather than by a devotion to a single charismatic cult leader (living or dead) who is typically adored up to the point of being worshiped.

In the absence of such a cult-leader, cult-members know themselves and their fellow cult-members by their single-minded devotion to the shared opposition to a key designated "enemy"--the self-same scape-goat figure on whose elimination the salvation of the cult, and even the wider world beyond it, is believed to depend.

Those who don't subscribe to this shared faith in the absolute validity of the group's recognition and identification of its enemy/scape-goat are, by definition, "lost", deluded, suckers who, unlike the cult's members, have been "taken in", who have fallen for the snares and tricks of the enemy.

The cult members define themselves in contradistinction to their enemy's characteristics —

• We're aware, our enemy is unaware. We're clever, smart; our enemy (as well as those who fail to recognize him) are foolish, deluded, stupid.

• We have "special" knowledge, understanding, the ability to interpret and 'read-between-the-lines' —all of which those outside our group conspicuously lack. Thus, we are the enlightened minority as distinguished from the mass of those lost to the treacherous tactics of the enemy.

• some of our current fellows were once victim-followers of the enemy but they were fortunate enough to have escaped in one way or another, typically by their having found the way to grasp and accept our enlightened veiws. Others of us were always from the start outside of and opposed to the enemy and his ways. Together, whether converts to or originals to our cause, we comprise the resistance to the enemy.

__________________________

Remember how that enemy was described in the early days of the cult's formation?

in a recent commentary published in The Hill (Washington, D.C.), Sharyl Attkisson looks back at that time, three years ago and describes how early-subscribers to the anti-Trump hysteria saw the imanent dangers of Trump's election :

Trump's election, these clueless cultists claimed, posed imanent dangers to the American people and to the rest of the world and this was because, they assured us with complete confidence, Trump

• "might have been conspiring with Hillary Clinton all along," ...

• "worked for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin," ...

• "would crash the U.S. stock market his first week in office,"...

• "would ban all Muslims," ...

• "would send illegal immigrants home en masse on buses and trains," ...

and

• "would start a nuclear war" ...

So-called "very serious people" warned of these as very serious imanent dangers. Because they were utterly convinced that they were correct in their assessments of both Trump's incapacity for his office and the dangers he posed as a result of the workings of the Electoral College system, Trump's opponents were blind to the fact that they were ready and willing to pervert and undermine the Constitution in order to reverse his election. Claiming to defend the Constitution, they actually betrayed and violated it again and again, or they openly advocated this or applauded those who did so, or did some or all of these in their cultish quest to get Trump out of office. They were then (and, for example, they remain today) blind to the fact that they were doing just that—even when it was patiently pointed out to them.

At every juncture, with each fresh train-wreck of their chains of reasoning, they doubled down on their convictions that they were right and Trump presented an unprecedented danger as long as he remained in office. They took upon themselves the task of "saving the nation" from the recklessness of those, the clueless fools, who cast their ballots for Trump—"deplorables", Moscow's neo-"Useful-Idiots."

As we all know today, they were correct. Each and every one of these things has happened just as they predicted it would, right? Didn't it?

"It’s three full years since President Trump was elected.

"Among those who predicted he could never win the election — or that he might have been conspiring with Hillary Clinton all along, worked for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, would crash the U.S. stock market his first week in office, would ban all Muslims, would send illegal immigrants home en masse on buses and trains, and would start a nuclear war —"

"The curious timeline for taking down Trump" | By Sharyl Attkisson, opinion contributor — 11/08/19 09:00 AM EST | The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

(continued from above)

there have been real concerns.

"But to others, there are different concerns that have borne out. We continue to get evidence of an orchestrated effort among government insiders and the well-connected to take down President Trump at all costs. The public evidence indicates that the effort was hatched even before he took office.

"Trump critics would argue that there was good reason to devise plots against him before he was inaugurated. His supporters would argue that the opposition has crossed the line into unlawful actions involving wiretapping and attempts to frame Trump and his associates.

"In any event, we can build an oversimplified timeline to make the point:"

• "Aug. 15, 2016: After FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page met with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok texts Page that they couldn’t take the risk of Trump getting elected without having “an insurance policy” ...

• "October 2016: Benjamin Wittes, founder of a left-wing liberal blog called “Lawfare” — as in the “use of law as a weapon of conflict” — writes, “What if Trump wins? We need an insurance policy against the unthinkable: Donald Trump’s actually winning the Presidency.” ,,,

• "Jan. 3, 2017: Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly warns Trump that if he took on the intelligence community, it has 'six ways from Sunday to get back at you.'

• "Jan. 11, 2017: A Politico investigation concludes that Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump in the 2016 election with help from a Ukrainian American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee.

• "Jan. 30, 2017: Days after President Trump takes office, attorney Mark Zaid tweets that a 'coup has started' and 'impeachment will follow ultimately.' ... "A few months later, still in 2017, Zaid tweets: 'I predict @C(able)N(ews)N(etwork) will play a key role in @realDonaldTrump not finishing out his full term as president' and 'We will get rid of him, and this country is strong enough to survive even him and his supporters.' ...

• "May 17, 2017: Special counsel Robert Mueller begins investigating Trump."

• "August 2017: Trump critic and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is hired as an analyst at C(able)N(ews)N(etwork).

• "Jan. 23, 2018: Former Vice President Joe Biden publicly brags that he got Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor by threatening to withhold U.S. aid. The prosecutor was investigating Burisma, an energy company where Biden’s son had served on the board since 2014, when his father was vice president."

• "Feb. 1, 2018: Trump critic and former CIA Director John Brennan is hired as an analyst for NBC and MSNBC," ...

• "March 22, 2019: The special counsel’s probe ends without concluding that Trump or his associates conspired with Russia, despite what critics such as Brennan and Clapper long had claimed." ...

• "April 2019: Ukraine elects a new president. Former Vice President Biden’s son Hunter Biden steps down from the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma."

• "July 25, 2019: President Trump calls the newly elected president of Ukraine and asks for cooperation in a probe involving long-standing corruption in Ukraine along with alleged ties to U.S. Democrats and the 2016 campaign."

• "Aug. 12, 2019: Someone alleging to be a whistleblower files a complaint about the phone call with the intelligence community’s inspector general. The anonymous person alleges President Trump sought political dirt to use against Biden in 2020 as part of a 'quid pro quo.' " ...

• "Sept. 9, 2019: The inspector general notifies the House Intelligence Committee about the complaint. Although Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) initially denies doing so, it turns out that he and his staff already had met with — or conspired with, depending on your view — the alleged whistleblower."

• "Sept. 24, 2019: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announces an impeachment inquiry based on the alleged whistleblower’s claims.

"On the same date, President Trump releases the transcript of his call with Ukraine’s president. There is no mention of a quid pro quo, political dirt, withholding aid or campaign 2020. Trump’s critics counter that these things were implicit." ...

• "Sept. 25, 2019: The president of Ukraine says he did not feel pushed by President Trump to investigate Biden or to take other action."

• "Oct. 31, 2019: The House approves impeachment process rules. The vote is largely along party lines, with two Democrats siding with Republicans."

... ...

In the absence of a consistent and openly-recognized cult-leader figure, the anti-Trump cultists took the initiative individually to seize upon one after another public figure and hail this person as a or as the key "champion" of their cause. Thus, On ABC Television's The View, Host/Panelist Whoopi Goldberg wore a shirt emblazoned with the slogan, "It's Mueller Time" —a pun referring to special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into the allegations of collusion between the Trump presidential campaign or any of its members with the Vladimir Putin or any of his regime's officials or unofficial friends.

In a bizarre twist for some people who were long-time "liberals", such former officials as the Intelligence chiefs James Clapper, or John Brennan, or F.B.I. Director James Comey, were either virtually or literally hailed as heroic figures by anti-Trump cultists.

#110--what you're trying to describe the 'opposition' as is a lynch mob and not a cult. In the wild west or in the Ku Klux Klan a mob of people grab some person out of a prison believing he's done some nefarious deed or off the street because he happens to have another skin tone--they lynch their victim and then go back to the hum drum lives they've been living previous. They don't worship a leader but they will in most cases find the justifications necessary to live their lives with some semblance of peace of mind. They also tend to be right wingers---the Klan undoubtedly is anyway.

The republicans have circled their wagons and futures around Donald J. Trump. Wagons and futures and when you're fucked up enough to put your foreseeable future in someone else's hands that's kind of cult-like. Republican politicians and operatives have been endlessly praising this reality show plutocrat and basking in his praise back at least when it comes. That's cult like too....but he's very touchy about critique and that's cult like too. He wants absolute loyalty---another cultish characteristic. Why? oh why, why, why has this semi-literate clown with hardly an iota of political acumen become such a fixture to all these party apparatchiks (good Russian word, don't you think?) in such a short time? Well it's because he's become a kind of God-like figure to the resentful, hating rank and file voters of the GOP. They worship him so Lindsay Graham has to worship him too. Even long standing semi-moderate right wing pols like Peter King would rather jump in a vat of boiling oil than to utter a word that's not in support of this charlatan.

So really the ones who need to examine their consciences (if their consciences can still be found) are his voters and supporters. People like Graham and King have already succumbed to suiciding theirs. They've turned politics into a get the libs entertainment and Trump into their king. They don't care about truth, justice or any respect for the law or anything that doesn't coincide with the warped brain of their master. They think in fact that winning an election without a plurality is enough for them to decide what truth, justice and the law are and to their minds all that is anything that Trump says it should be.

Luckily though courts still do exist and there is an opposition. Whatever politicians there are leading the opposition no one in the opposition thinks any of them are beyond any kind of critique or that they can break the law with impunity. Almost no one who would vote for them believes they're not going to have issues with at least some of the shit they do if or after they're elected. Even the center right of the democratic party is somewhat grounded in that knowledge. Is there some corruption? For sure but it's never approached anything like we see from this fucker.

Why Trumpists Are Cultists and Liberals Aren't

1. Cult are attractive because they promote an illusion of comfort.
Liberals are not cultists because they are reality based and accept uncomfortable facts.

2. Cults satisfy the need of the conservative mind for absolute answers.
Scientific research has shown liberal minds are OK, even comfortable, with uncertainty and
ambiguity. Conservative aren't.

3. Those with low self-esteem are more likely to be persuaded by a cult environment. Higher
education is viewed as "elite" and is envied and denigrated by the undereducated whom Trump
claims to love. They largely love him back.
Demographics of elections show liberal candidates are significantly supported by higher educated
voters, but people with little or no college prefer conservative candidates.

4. Cults maintain their power by maintaining an "us vs. them" mentality. Trump shares and depends
on this mentality. Denigrates the press, defies evidence with claims of hoax and sham, disowns his
own acquaintances and appointees as soon as they break fealty.
Liberals have no fear of legitimate press, they believe evidence, they correctly assess credibility
of witnesses, they are tolerant of contesting ideas, they are capable of changing their minds in
the face of new facts.

5. Cult leaders are masters at mind control. Brainwashing is Trump's go-to tool to keep his followers
aligned. He repeats lies, distortions, and conspiracy theories over and over again and cultist
believers are unable to discern his fiction from actuality because they live in the Limbaugh-Faux
News echo chamber.
Liberals keep control over their own minds by seeking diverse opinions, fact-checking, and logical
reasoning. They accomplish this by reading broadly and critically, by discerning legitimate
information sources, by eschewing conspiracy theories, and by not revising history.

Taken, in parts applicable to secular cults, from https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/what-to-know-about-the-psychology-of-cul...

One thing about conservatives---they're always going on about tradition. 'This is the way things use to be. Things were better way back when'. Yeah--for some people maybe.....but gay people better hide, women needed to know their place, black people weren't as good as white people. That was their good old days. And Donald J. is always harkening back to those times. He may not know shit about politics but he's got a good line for a lot of these people. He makes them feel good about themselves. He gives them this sense of empowerment again.....and here's the other thing technology is continually taking us to whole different places. Nobody can really afford that status quo static lifestyle that people supporting Trump yearn for. Things are spinning faster than they ever have and these Trumpistas are only going to fall further and further behind following this goofy clown.

Trump playbook 101. Say something that is so obviously wrong, and pretend it is self evidently true. Provide no sources. Let people talk about it until they forget that it is self evidently wrong.

>110 proximity1: "A cult may form around and be unified by its consuming focus on a "scape-goat" figure rather than by a devotion to a single charismatic cult leader "

Nope.

Proximity1: the remainder of your post after this was 1582 words long. That is reaching essay length, but I would award this 0, because your opening proposition is unsourced, and clearly wrong. The term "cult" is pejorative, but inasmuch as cults can be suitably defined, there are simply no examples that define themselves by opposition to one particular figure. It is clear what you are trying to do here, but you are importing.

When you assume your conclusion in your initial proposition, you are indulging in circular reasoning.

>112 Limelite:

"Liberals are not cultists because they..."

• ... "accept uncomfortable facts."

Where in these controversies have you demonstrated doing that about a disputed fact concerning Trump—to be precise, can you cite even a single example of "accepting" something which your fellow-critics of Trump have, in nearly unanimous fashion, refused to accept?

I contend that you haven't and that you cannot and shall not be able to cite a single fair and valid example of it.

• ... "are OK, even comfortable, with uncertainty and
ambiguity." per ( (Scientific research has shown liberal minds); never mind that this is a grossly exaggerated over-simplification)

Again, where in these controversies have you demonstrated doing that about a disputed fact concerning Trump? I've seen no such example so far from you.

Your point No. 3 doesn't properly relate to cults since you don't show us any valid negative correlation between higher or advanced education—university and post-graduate school studies—and the practice of cult thinking. So we pass on to the next.

• ... are distinguished from "Cults (which (I grant)) maintain their power by maintaining an "us vs. them" mentality.

So where are the examples in these matters which distinguish your habits from this "us vs. them" mentality? Where, when and how do you deviate significantly from the camp which defines itself as opposed to Trump?

• ... "believe evidence, they correctly assess credibility of witnesses, they are tolerant of contesting ideas, they are capable of changing their minds in the face of new facts."

Our problem here is that, as with cult behavior, Trump's critics have, in the absence of evidence, repeatedly seized on, as true and correct, wildly absurd claims and allegations whenever--and typcially only whenever—these seem to support their preconceived hostile and negative notions about Trump. They show no such tendency to seize on positive views of Trump which are similarly lacking in evidence.

Now, where, when and how have you demonstrated that you "correctly assess credibility of witnesses," where Trump's defenders have failed to do so? or that you "are tolerant of contesting ideas," and "are capable of changing (your) mind in the face of new facts" in these circumstances where Trump's defenders do not compare as favorably as your——"examples"!? of this?

• ... "Liberals keep control over their own minds by seeking diverse opinions, fact-checking, and logical reasoning."

Where are your habits of doing all that on display here? Where are your examples?

• ... "They accomplish this by reading broadly and critically, by discerning legitimate information sources, by eschewing conspiracy theories, and by not revising history."

Again, where are your habits of doing all that on display here? Where are your examples?

And, if, as I suspect to be the case, you can't supply examples from your own behavior, then where, among Trump's conspicuous critics are others who are significant exemplars of the practices you claim typically distinguish liberals (i.e. Trump's adversaries) from Trump's defenders?

>115 proximity1:

Just because I have a few moments to kill, I have to ask, proximity1, how you feel about the quid pro quo situation that is clearly reflected in the transcript that the White House released of Trump's call.

If you can answer concisely, it will be easier for me to understand your position.

Thank you.

>115 proximity1: (and related >112 Limelite:)

Just to be clear-- "Limelite", challenged to show us just where and how he (or she) has, in actual exampled deeds, lived up to and exemplified all of the aspects of the "liberals' " profile (set out in >115 proximity1:), did not, as I predicted, have any valid examples to offer us. This means, in effect, then, that, by his own measures, he doesn't have examples which show how he's to be distinguished from cultists.

Similarly, in this thread, "Impeachment, Indictment, 25th Amendment 3", I had challenged BruceCoulson to explain just how his reasoning in this, his post #17, of that discussion thread, with its premises and conclusions that,

(Since) "Impeachment, ultimately, is a decision by Congress" (and since) "as long as Congress follows the rules" (it is not shown but implied as 'true') "(as laid down by the Constitution and their own procedures)", (then) "it's legitimate."

________________________________

(the latter (where italics are added by me) parentheses are in the original, rather than my additions.)

was valid by asking him to specify what he considers to be "the rules"--both "as laid down by the Constitution" as well as "their own" (i.e. the House of Representatives as directed by the Democratic party's majority leadership)--conform to what can be called "legitimate."

I got no response at all, not even a poor one.

_____________________________________

Next: >116 amysisson: asks me :

"how (I) feel about the quid pro quo situation that is clearly reflected in the transcript that the White House released of Trump's call."

Notice, first, that a disputed and disputable conclusion is asumed as part of the text of the request itself: "clearly reflectedi the transcript that the White House released". This is a question of kind in which the questioner includes an invitation to the respondant's own self-incrimination, as in the well-known model:

"Do you still beat your wife?"

But, passing over that factor, here are my "feelings" about it, even supposing that we take grant, for the purpose of this exchange, that there was or might have been such a "quid pro quo,"

Given the details in this instance, I ask several questions in reply,

What did Trump request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a telephone conversation of 25 July 2019? (1)

And why and how is any of it in any way improper, let alone "illegal"?

Those are not rhetorical questions. They're challenges to you to do what, so far, I have not seen anyone do: explain clearly how something in this exchange is either an improper or an illegal request by President Trump asked of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the latter's government's knowledge of and information about potential illegal acts in Ukraine by Hunter Biden, a U.S. citizen.

If done as just described, since when is this either improper or illegal on the part of either the U.S. president or the president of Ukraine? No one has explained that to my satisfaction. Can you?

Since when do heads of state, in their official communications in the course of diplomatic relations, not engage, whether expressly or implicitly, in such "quid pro quo" offers and acceptances?

That's not a rhetorical question. It's a challenge to you to explain to us how this is any different in any practical and fair sense from what has always gone on and, really, must go on between heads of state if we're to see any agreements reached at all.

(Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis (a.k.a. "October Crisis of 1962 "))

"After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to avoid invading Cuba again.

and, get this!: the article goes on to state that:

"Secretly, the United States agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter MRBMs, which had been deployed in Turkey against the Soviet Union; there has been debate on whether or not Italy was included in the agreement as well."
____________________________

(emphasis added for cult-following adversaries of President Trump, the blind and the feeble-minded.)

How is that not a "quid pro quo"?

Trust me when I tell you that no one at the time quibbled about whether such a "quid pro quo" was legal or illegal. LOL!

Are you seriously suggesting that, even if it was desirable, and they wanted to, the world's leaders could dispense with such "give-and-take"?

Too far back in "history" for you? Do you need a more recent example?

Alright then, tell us:

Where is Julian Assange today? (hint)

In closing, then, this brief exposition of my "feelings" about the current international scandal of these "quæ pro quibus" (pl. of "quid pro quo") my concluding "feeling" is that a great many people would do well to gain something significant in wha they possess as their own maturity. Or, as I'd put it: they ought to try to "Grow the fuck up" a bit.

On that I am not optimistic.

And, Amy, I don't for a second expect anything like a respectable reply to any of these question/challenges. As usual, you'll dodge or simply ignore them. LOL!

I didn't have "a few moments to kill". Instead, I took time to read and thoroughly respond to your question since, of course, these things (which I'm addressing and which you're ignoring) are important.

_____________________________________

(1) (Souce: ( declassified U.S. govt. .pdf file ) via The Chicago Sun-Times)

MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

SUBJECT: (C) Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine

PARTICIPANTS: President Zelenskyy of Ukraine

Notetakers: The White House Situation Room

DATE, TIME July 25, 2019, 9:03 - 9:33 a.m. EDT
AND PLACE: Residence

(S/NF) The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn’t given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It’s a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to

(U.S. govt. Editors' p. 1 Footnote) "CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and-NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word “inaudible” is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear."

(continued at top, p. 2)

"achieve a unique success. I’m able to tell you the following; the first time, you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.

(S/NF) The President: (laughter) That’s a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.

(S/NF) The President: Well it’s very nice of you to say that. I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I’m very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

(S/NF) The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.

(S/NF) The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor bf New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

(S/NF) The President: Well, she’ s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I’m sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It’s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want to ensure you that we will be very serious about.the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support

(S/NF) The President: Good. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we’ll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. I am looking forward to our meeting and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September 1 we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.

(S/NF) The President: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.

(S/NF) The President: Congratulations on a fantastic job you’ve done. The whole world was watching. I’m not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.

(S/NF) President Zelenskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye.

- - End of Conversation - -

MORE STUFF WHICH TRUMP'S ADVERSARIES JUST WON'T HAVE TIME TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT--because they're so busy keeping their minds made up and closed. Isn't that right, Amy?

from The Washington Examiner,

ANALYSIS: Democrats have a Colonel Vindman problem |
by Byron York | November 11, 2019 08:29 PM
_______________

... ...

Yes, Vindman testified repeatedly that he "thought it was wrong" for Trump, speaking with Zelensky, to bring up the 2016 election and allegations of Ukraine-related corruption on the part of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. But the Vindman transcript also showed a witness whose testimony was filled with opinion, with impressions, who had little new to offer, who withheld important information from the committee, who was steeped in a bureaucracy that has often been hostile to the president, and whose lawyer, presumably with Vindman's approval, expressed unmistakable disdain, verging on contempt, for members of Congress who asked inconvenient questions. In short, Vindman's testimony was not the slam-dunk hit Democrats portrayed it to be. And that raises questions about how it will play when Vindman goes before the world in a public impeachment hearing.

Here are four problems with the Vindman testimony:

1) Beyond his opinions, he had few new facts to offer. Vindman seemed to be an important fact witness, the first who had actually been on the July 25 call when Trump talked to Zelensky. But the White House weeks ago released the rough transcript of that call, which meant everyone in the secure room in which Vindman testified, and everyone on the planet, for that matter, already knew what had been said.

Indeed, Vindman attested to the overall accuracy of the rough transcript, contrary to some impeachment supporters who have suggested the White House is hiding an exact transcript that would reveal everything Trump said to the Ukrainian president. As one of a half-dozen White House note-takers listening to the call, Vindman testified that he tried unsuccessfully to make a few edits to the rough transcript as it was being prepared. In particular, Vindman believed that Zelensky specifically said the word "Burisma," the corrupt Ukrainian energy company that hired Hunter Biden, when the rough transcript referred only to "the company." But beyond that, Vindman had no problems with the transcript, and he specifically said he did not believe any changes were made with ill intent.

"You don't think there was any malicious intent to specifically not add those edits?" asked Republican counsel Steve Castor.

"I don't think so."

"So otherwise, this record is complete and I think you used the term 'very accurate'?"

"Yes," said Vindman.

Once Vindman had vouched for the rough transcript, his testimony mostly concerned his own interpretation of Trump's words. And that interpretation, as Vindman discovered during questioning, was itself open to interpretation.

Vindman said he was "concerned" about Trump's statements to Zelensky, so concerned that he reported it to top National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg. (Vindman had also reported concerns to Eisenberg two weeks before the Trump-Zelensky call, after a Ukraine-related meeting that included Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.) Vindman said several times that he was not a lawyer and did not know if Trump's words amounted to a crime but that he felt they were "wrong." That was when Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney, tried to get to the root of Vindman's concerns. What was really bothering him?

"I'm trying to find out if you were reporting it because you thought there was something wrong with respect to policy or there was something wrong with respect to the law," Ratcliffe said to Vindman. "And what I understand you to say is that you weren't certain that there was anything improper with respect to the law, but you had concerns about U.S. policy. Is that a fair characterization?"

"So I would recharacterize it as I thought it was wrong and I was sharing those views," Vindman answered. "And I was deeply concerned about the implications for bilateral relations, U.S. national security interests, in that if this was exposed, it would be seen as a partisan play by Ukraine. It loses the bipartisan support. And then for — "

"I understand that," Ratcliffe said, "but that sounds like a policy reason, not a legal reason."

Indeed it did. Elsewhere in Vindman's testimony, he repeated that his greatest worry was that if the Trump-Zelensky conversation were made public, then Ukraine might lose the bipartisan support it currently has in Congress. That, to Ratcliffe and other Republicans, did not seem a sufficient reason to report the call to the NSC's top lawyer, nor did it seem the basis to begin a process leading to impeachment and a charge of presidential high crimes or misdemeanors.

At another point, Castor asked Vindman whether he was interpreting Trump's words in an overly alarmist way, especially when Vindman contended that Trump issued a "demand" to Zelensky.

"The president in the transcript uses some, you know, words of hedging from time to time," Castor said. "You know, on page 3, he says 'whatever you can do.' He ends the first paragraph on page 3, 'if that's possible.' At the top of page 4, 'if you could speak to him, that would be great.' 'So whatever you can do.' Again, at the top of page 4, 'if you can look into it.' Is it reasonable to conclude that those words hedging for some might, you know, lead people to conclude that the president wasn't trying to be demanding here?"

"I think people want to hear, you know, what they have as already preconceived notions," Vindman answered, in what may have been one of the more revealing moments of the deposition. "I'd also point your attention to 'whatever you can do, it's very important to do it if that's possible.'"

"'If that's possible,'" Castor stressed.

"Yeah," said Vindman. "So I guess you can interpret it in different ways."

2) Vindman withheld important information from investigators. Vindman ended his opening statement in the standard way, by saying, "Now, I would be happy to answer your questions." As it turned out, that cooperation did not extend to both parties.

The only news in Vindman's testimony was the fact that he had twice taken his concerns to Eisenberg. He also told his twin brother, Yevgeny Vindman, who is also an Army lieutenant colonel and serves as a National Security Council lawyer. He also told another NSC official, John Erath, and he gave what he characterized as a partial readout of the call to George Kent, a career State Department official who dealt with Ukraine. That led to an obvious question: Did Vindman take his concerns to anyone else? Did he discuss the Trump-Zelensky call with anyone else? It was a reasonable question and an important one. Republicans asked it time and time again. Vindman refused to answer, with his lawyer, Michael Volkov, sometimes belligerently joining in. Through it all, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff stood firm in favor of keeping his committee in the dark.

Vindman openly conceded that he told other people about the call. The obvious suspicion from Republicans was that Vindman told the person who became the whistleblower, who reported the call to the Intelligence Community inspector general, and who, in a carefully crafted legal document, framed the issue in a way that Democrats have adopted in their drive to remove the president from office.

Vindman addressed the suspicion before anyone raised it. In his opening statement, he said, "I am not the whistleblower ... I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower."

Fine, said Republicans. We won't ask you who the whistleblower is. But if your story is that you were so concerned by the Trump-Zelensky issue that you reported it to Eisenberg, and also to others, well, who all did you tell? That is when the GOP hit a brick wall from Vindman, his lawyer Volkov, and, most importantly, Schiff. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, charged with overseeing the intelligence community, Schiff might normally want to know about any intelligence community involvement in the matter under investigation. But in the Vindman deposition, Schiff strictly forbade any questions about it. "Can I just caution again," he said at one point, "not to go into names of people affiliated with the IC in any way." The purpose of it all was to protect the identity of the whistleblower, who Schiff incorrectly claimed has "a statutory right to anonymity."

... ...

#116--don't you just like how when you ask Prox for an explanation and to keep it simple and straightforward he writes about 5000 words worth of gobbledegook and finishes it off with --End of Conversation--

>118 lriley: Truly! I was just about to say:

>116 amysisson: asked: "If you can answer concisely, it will be easier for me to understand your position."

To which proximity1 wrote 2845 words in reply, including such questionable phrases as "supposing that we take grant," among other examples. Google confirms that no-one in the world talks like that. That phrase literally gets no hits. It is a lot of words written in a style that appears designed to be obscure. I think proximity1 has taken amysisson seriously, and decided it would be much better if neither she nor anyone should understand his position. Although it is a lot of work to go to when he simply could have not answered and had the same effect.

I did not read the whole of these 2845 words, but scanning through it, I found that proximity1 follows the current standard lines by some partisan defenders of Trump. He asks:

"Since when do heads of state, in their official communications in the course of diplomatic relations, not engage, whether expressly or implicitly, in such "quid pro quo" offers and acceptances?"

Which conveniently and deliberately ignores the core issue: that Trump requested a foreign government for a quid pro quo that would not benefit the US that his administration represents, but his political electoral prospects and his own self. And that, of course, is illegal in the US as it would be in most countries with a low tolerance for corruption and a high regard for the rule of law.

It is no wonder proximity1 seeks to hide that glaring hole below the waterline in his position, by obscuring the matter with almost 3000 extraneous words.

If anyone thinks I'm reading that mess, he or she is living in la-la land.

>120 amysisson:

What was that about "la-la land"?



As if anyone had doubted.

But, but, but, Amy reads so much! LMFAO!

A very important message from Amy:

"If anyone thinks I'm reading that mess, he or she is living in la-la land."

LOL! Or, if that was too long for some of you, here's the gist of it:

"I don't read."

Signed, "Yours, 'Amy' "

In other words, if it wasn't already clear, Amy posts from ignorance while mocking Donald Trump as a dummy!

Oh, Amy? Psssst. Pay attention now, because this is as brief as it gets:

I shall never again take seriously a single word of your fucking bullshit posts (FBPs) here. Got that?

;^)

>121 proximity1:

Oh dear, whatever shall I do? proximity1 isn't going to take me seriously anymore.

A Pompous Ass -- I met one on a trail while walking along the cliffs on the Greek island Hydra. It had a refrigerator tied on its back. No gas-powered vehicular traffic allowed on this island. Anyway, this ass thought it knew better than the handler which was the correct route to town. It ran off the trail up the hillside and soon tripped and fell, only to roll over on its back on top of the fridge, legs striking empty air.

Naturally, the handler hadn't bothered to chase after the wayward animal now demanding attention and aid with raucous brays and struggles. Eventually, he clambered up the slope, produced a small hand shovel and dug a few times on the ass' downhill side. With a gentle push and the help of gravity, the ass was right side up struggling to regain its footing.

Again, without the handler doing anything, the animal scooted downhill back onto the trail, the refrigerator now askew and off balance, causing the creature discomfort and putting it off balance. I watched the whole scene until the handler shrugged at me and spoke a short Greek sentiment. I didn't understand it word for word, but the message was clear. The ass was a know-it-all beast, had done this before, never tired of making a fool of itself, and would do it again.

Since that event, I've encountered a few humans who cause me to flashback and reflect again how alike the ass of Hydra those individuals can be. I also learned a lesson. It's best to interact with such people as little as possible, ignore their discomfort when others don't acknowledge their self-importance, and let them continue living out of whack and off track. A pompous ass always knows more than anybody else, brays loudly, and invariably makes a fool of itself "proving it."

Prox can't admit he's wrong on anything. It's like he's in a deep dark cell with the door open and no guards and he refuses to come out. I guess he's afraid he'll be assassinated as soon as he steps into the light. True that he might be blinded for a minute or two but eventually his eyes would open and adjust to the light and maybe he could see again. He cannot liberate himself and defends himself with 5000 word rants replete with insults towards anyone who would help him. He's come to love his darkness--love his cell. He refuses to come out. And those who cannot liberate themselves often end up hating those who can.

Some advice to him from Bob Marley via Marcus Garvey--'Emancipate yourself from mental slavery--none but ourselves can free our minds'.

Trump is his own dark place which I think is at least one reason why Prox shares an affinity with this clown. Donald J. lies and cheats at everything. He also wants the world to know he's smarter than his diplomats at what they do, smarter than his generals on war, smarter than scientists on climate change, smarter than economists on finance, smarter than lawyers and judges on the law and smarter than all other politicians. FWIW if you asked Trump he'd be smarter than Prox on Shakespeare or any other of Prox's favorite writers. It's all laughable but parsed out to his base as real truth. One main difference between Trump and Prox is that Trump cannot liberate himself from his cheating and lies---he's in a cell of his own making and there's no getting out without going into a real cell, with real jailers and a real warden. Well there are ways out but either he would have to find another nation that would take him into exile or he would have to die. To make it short his future is bleaker than his dark place.

THE QUOTE OF THE DAY

Diplomat Kent, "You can't promote anti-corruption to a government when the officials in that government are themselves corrupt."

Swoosh! Slam! Bang!

>124 lriley:

Very well said.

Twitter: Trump suffered chest discomfort on Saturday. Calendar largely cleared through Monday. Still on Twitter, though: 40 (re)tweets on Sunday?

Trump's visit to Walter Reed 'not protocol' for routine visit, source says
Jeremy Diamond | November 17, 2019
Trump reports to Walter Reed for part of annual exam

(CNN)President Donald Trump's visit to Walter Reed on Saturday did not follow the protocol of a routine presidential medical exam...

Medical staff at Walter Reed (medical center in Bethesda, Maryland) did not get a staff-wide...general notice about a "VIP" visit to the medical center ahead of a presidential visit, notifying them of certain closures at the facility. That did not happen this time, indicating the visit was a non-routine visit and scheduled last minute.

...the President's unannounced trip to the medical center was not even on the President's internal schedule as of Saturday morning.

...motorcade drove to the medical center unannounced, with reporters under direction not to report his movement until they arrived Saturday at Walter Reed. Trump typically takes the Marine One helicopter to Walter Reed

...Trump can get routine labwork done at the White House's on-site clinic, indicating Trump needed tests that can't be done there...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/17/politics/trump-physical-walter-reed-protocol-rout...

Eamon Javers @EamonJavers (CNBC)| 11:08 AM · Nov 18, 2019
A White House official tells me
this morning’s Fed meeting took place in the White House residence - the president’s personal quarters-
not in the West Wing, where the Oval Office is. I am told the president has not yet been in the West Wing today.

Angry Staffer @AngrierWHStaff | 1h 11/18/2019
Anyone still think Trump went to Walter Reed for a physical?

I'm guessing severe heartburn from bedtime burger. Probably overdid the onions or fries.

#129--his diet is as dumb as he is.

A Warning by Anonymous (iBook)

Anonymous takes the reader on a pedal-to-the-metal ride. I've
finished about 10% of the book in record time. It appears to me
that the Electoral College has turned out to be a timebomb that
unfortunately exploded during this decade.

Ex-Obama Doctor Is Worried About Trump's Alleged Inability to Find Words, Suggests He's Having 'Small Strokes'
Christina Zhao | 11/18/19 at 10:46 PM EST

Barack Obama's former doctor, who served the 44th president for over two decades before his presidency...Dr. David Scheiner expressed his worries about the president's allegedly failing mental health, which he claims is demonstrated by his occasional inability to string together coherent sentences.

"These aren't words, these are slips of the tongue," Scheiner said. "These are words he can't find and this is happening over and over again. Comedians joke about it, but it's not a joking matter. I think there is a neurological issue that is not being addressed. And if he's having an MRI of his head over there, I would be very pleased because I think he needs it."

Tom Joseph @TomJChicago | 8:38 PM · Nov 18, 2019
Obama’s Doctor, new:
-Extremely worried a/b Trump’s inability to find words
-cites unaddressed neurological issues
-suggests MRI
-poss small strokes

If you read this TL you know word finding issues are a key symptom of the PSP* version of Frontotemporal dementia. It gets worse.
0:34 ( View CNN video at https://twitter.com/TomJChicago/status/1196603597561237506 )

https://www.newsweek.com/ex-obama-doctor-worried-about-trumps-alleged-inability-...
_________________________________________________________________

*Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is an uncommon brain disorder that affects movement, control of walking (gait) and balance, speech, swallowing, vision, mood and behavior, and thinking. The disease results from damage to nerve cells in the brain.
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Prog...

>132 margd:

Suggested same in re TIAs to Lime Spouse when we discussed this news story after it broke. We're entertaining the possibility as one that easily meets "likelihood" test of Occam's Razor. Perhaps he had an event of severe enough degree to register with Trump that something wasn't right.

Trump takes statins to help control his elevated cholesterol and his dose has been increased while he's been in office. He is clinically obese and a 20-25 lb. weight loss might help his well-being. Both these factors contribute to higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Trump has a coronary CT calcium score of 133, an increase of 100 pts since medcal records reports dating from 2009. Scores above 100 indicate presence of plaque and heart disease.

FYI

Initial routine tests for suspected TIA event include
Blood pressure tests. Your blood pressure will be checked, because high blood pressure (hypertension) can lead to TIAs.
Blood tests. You might need blood tests to check whether you have high cholesterol or diabetes.
Electrocardiogram (ECG)

All of the above can be performed in the WH medical office, although I don't know if lab results can be obtained there.

Other normal diagnostic tests include imaging procedures that require some prep and can be time consuming, and would appropriately be undertaken at a hospital or imaging center..

Well, then, mystery solved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leXMQCTWJSM

Anonymous' book came out yesterday. No surprises.

Trump regularly 'can't remember what he says or has been told.' White House insider says

Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts | 9:42 PM · Nov 26, 2019
What’s a sock rocket?

(6 sec Fox News clip from Trump's FL rally posted at https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts)

>136 margd:

If you're him, it's where you cry and bell rocks and, y'know, sell shorts.

After trip to Walter Reed, barking mad--as are the yingyangs who cheer him on like the truth doesn't matter:

Florida crowd roars as Trump says he ‘beat Barack Hussein Obama’ (Trump never ran against Obama)
Sky Palma | November 27, 2019

During a rally in Sunrise, Florida, Tuesday night, President Trump made a lot of claims — two of which were completely news to me: that liberals are trying to change the name of “Thanksgiving,” and that he once “beat” Barack Obama.

...“As we gather together for Thanksgiving, you know, some people want to change the name Thanksgiving,” Trump said. “They don’t want to use the term Thanksgiving. And that was true also with Christmas. But now everybody’s using Christmas again. Remember this? But now we’re going to have to do a little work on Thanksgiving...People have different ideas. Why it shouldn’t be called Thanksgiving. But everybody in this room, I know, loves the name Thanksgiving. And we’re not changing.”

“So I get elected, and I beat the Bush dynasty...I get elected, and I beat — and again with no experience, I didn’t have experience, I have tremendous world experience but I didn’t have political experience — so I get elected and we beat the Clinton dynasty, right?...And then we beat Barack Hussein Obama and whatever the hell dynasty that is”...

https://deadstate.org/florida-crowd-roars-as-trump-says-he-beat-barack-hussein-o...

What say you? Left arm use is much less than right--stroke?

9-2, baby! @tromano | 11:53 AM · Nov 29, 2019
As @andylassner pointed out... Trump's left arm is not moving in the majority of this video.
Notice, how limp it is when he's doling out food, or giving the thumbs up.
They shot every close up frame of him from his right side. He's had a stroke.

Quote Tweet
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 4:42 PM · Nov 28, 2019
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
0:50 (see video at https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1200168067075981313

Lucky for the orange traitor that the stroke was right brain causing only a paralyzed left arm

If it had been left brain causing the right arm to be paralyzed - well, there would go his entire sex life.

Still gnashing the teeth, eh? God bless.

>139 margd: I am not convinced. He moves his arm at 19 seconds before the video cuts away and it is hardly surprising that a right hander leads with his right. The weird way his left arm seems to hang forgotten is not unusual for Trump, who strikes many weird poses. No one can assess someone's health from a video with so many cuts as that one.

Yeah, the way he pitches forward arms dangling awkwardly in front when standing beside the podium has some suggesting there are lifts in them thar shoes...

As the earth burns:

Dan Zak @MrDanZak | 3:54 PM · Dec 6, 2019

Abridged version of Trump's monologue during a small-business roundtable at the White House this afternoon.
Actual quotes.
Image ( https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1203055010118094851/photo/1 )

>144 margd: Was that the rant on water use? That was so completely incoherent. At first I thought the headlines were satire. But, no, they were actual quotes.

#145--not enough water when he flushes the toilet. The kind of diet he has it wouldn't surprise if he were continually staining the sides of the toilet bowl whenever he has a bowel movement. The light bulbs are making him look orange. He says he doesn't like it. Stories recently out from former undocumented workers at one of his resorts that he slathers himself in Bronx Colors makeup every day--that that's really where his weird coloring comes from--not from tanning beds or light bulbs. He is vain---the hair business with the comb over covering the back of his head--almost certainly trying to hide a large bald area. The idea he wears lots of makeup is something to be hidden or explained away too. What would a midwestern farmer or West Virginian coal miner think of that? Donald is very self-conscious about his manhood. Photo-oping his face over Rocky's body. Getting behind the wheel of a tractor trailer. His bellicose foreign policy--always going on about how tough he is and how weak others are. It's necessary for him to project as a Man's Man and a Man's Man (a lot of whom voted for him) doesn't wear makeup--so it's got to be the lightbulbs. He's a pathetic human being and it's amazing to me how many can't see behind all his phoniness or else just don't care that he bullshits and lies. The fact is that he like a lot of other Republican figureheads is a chicken hawk who avoided Vietnam---not like someone like Muhammed Ali who took a real stand---did not hide and went off to prison because he had real conviction but because really they are cowards--are fine with war as long as they aren't in it. Trump wraps himself in the flag every chance he gets but when the country called on him he made up his phony bone spurs thing.

>145 2wonderY: It's 'abridged"--like transcript of Zelinski call?.

WaPo has a couple video clips posted on Twitter (lightbulbs, twitter), and they sound the same:
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1203048075759095808

The comedy obscures the tragedy, though--he's going after still more environmental standards from Obama era...

Comment of the Day

Burke Swenson @Burkely74
Replying to @MrDanZak

10 flushes seems excessive. I’d personally stop after 2 or 3 and find a different way to get rid of Eric and Don Jr.

They keep on coming... Now Trump wants to stop babies from being born. (I assume he meant aborted?)

ETA:

Noga Tarnopolsky @NTarnopolsky | 5:05 PM · Dec 7, 2019
Statement from The President: "Right now in a number of states the laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother's womb in the 9th month. It is wrong. It has to change."

Watch...( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1203435271611650048 )

Yeah, I heard about that one margd! Can't give birth in the 9th month. I guess if it doesn't come out early, by the end of month 8, he wants women to hold it until the end of Month 10.

He has got to be the dumbest person EVER, alive or dead!

The next dumbest person is William Barr

The next dumbest person is anybody stupid enough to vote Trump in 2020. Those that made the mistake in 2016, thinking he'd be a bright spot in America due to him not being from another branch of government, can be excused, but now that you've seen almost 3 years of his BS first hand, if you vote for him, you are too stupid to vote and should have your voting rights revoked due to ignorance!

Trump, 73, tweeted that Thunberg, 16, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, had an “anger management problem” and should “chill” – no pun apparently intended.

“So ridiculous,” the president wrote. “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

She has anger issues, you orange pig's dick?

How does it feel to have a president who insults 16-year-olds on Twitter?

#151--Trump's envy is always close to the surface. For him being Time magazine's person of the year is a thing. It's just another one of his ridiculous obsessions like he thinks he should win the Nobel Peace prize. Unfortunately for him though and I'm sure he doesn't realize it there's a five member Norwegian Nobel committee that decides on that prize. He's got no chance.

FWIW my son was diagnosed with Asperger's when he was in the second grade. He's smart as a whip and very shy though he use to be painfully shy...progress comes as it comes. He's a natural when it comes to music--he was making intricate 3 dimensional drawings when he was in kindergarten and scored a 790 out of 800 on his SAT's. His best friend is also Asperger's--not quite as smart but a lot more social and talkative. It's kind of a loose diagnosis. Asperger's people are usually very very intelligent but socially awkward. More males than females I think but it's nice to see someone like Greta represent for them.

It's quite likely girls are getting overlooked, especially in the "high functioning" group. But the whole field of autism research is a morass of crap data and worse theory. The "spectrum" covers so much it means nothing.

#153--I agree it's likely. I think when our son was diagnosed they were telling us it was around 90 to 10% which seemed outlandish. Categorization is kind of all over the map. I think Asperger's is really just a category for higher functioning people with Autistic traits. From what I see it's kind of a tradeoff---social awkwardness vs. enhanced learning and intuitive abilities. FWIW though there are real athletes who have it too---some people have this idea it's just geeky kids. Not the case at all.

>154 lriley: social awkwardness vs. enhanced learning and intuitive abilities. FWIW though there are real athletes who have it too

The common trait is the capacity for unusually intense focus? If so, I would expect to see it among musicians, no?

>151 LolaWalser:

"How does it feel to have a president who insults 16-year-olds on Twitter?"

Typical of Walser's ill-considered nonsense.

So what if she's 16 years old!? Indeed, she most objects to Trump's attempt to dismiss her for nothing other than the fact of her youth. She wants none of that.

The last thing Greta Thunberg, who is, yes, sixteen years old*, needs or wants is your dumb-shit rush to her defense via appeals which cite as part of objections to Trump's criticisms, as though it were a significant factor in defense of her, her indisputably notable but largely irrelevant (in this context) youth.

But, you--you're so damned determined to jump at any occasion to rant and vent your anger at this president, who you describe as "the orange pig's-dick" (classy!, that!)--you leap into the fray and demonstrate that Trump isn't alone in making the issue this young woman's age.

You're priceless!, Walser: my hands-down favorite example of the idiocy of contemporary feminists' thinking.

________________________

Memo to Trump and Walser:

*Greta Thunberg turns 17 years old on January 3rd, 2020.

Happy birthday!, Greta! ;^)

_________________________

See also: "Making Sense" Podcast from Sam Harris) #180 - Sex & Power | A Conversation with Meghan Daum

Daum is author of The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the Culture Wars (2019) New York, Simon & Schuster