Impeachment hearings

[_Jersey Girl]

Can you? Can you do it in under 20 pages of exchanges?

Time will tell won't it?

We should start a pool. Who’s in? : D

Nah. I'd have to wait for someone to tell me what to do.

[_Jersey Girl]

Man. Yet again Markk can’t keep who said what, and when they said it straight even though it’s right here in one self-contained thread.

Typical.

- Doc

Wait a sec. Aren't you suppose to be waiting for me to say something and then your job is to repeat it? Know your place, Cam. You sit on that porch and wait. Got it? Meanwhile get a rake and be ready to clean up. It's raining bird crap around here.

[_EAllusion]

The Whitehouse is dropping its nomination of Elaine McCusker for Pentagon comptroller because she internally reported that the Ukraine aid hold was against the law when it was, in fact, against the law.

One day after the DoJ recommended 7-9 years for Roger Stone for his role in the Trump campaign's attempts to corroborate with and benefit from Russian espionage in the 2016 election and subsequently cover it up, senior leadership at the DoJ reversed course to attack its own recommendation as excessive. This happened around the time Trump tweet-criticized it and complained that nothing is happening to the "real criminals" on "the other side." Trump has later asserted his "absolute right" to determine the DoJ's course of action. This has prompted four resignations from the Stone case.

New unredacted emails show even more detail on how seriously the OMB misled Congress in its impeachment inquiry.

https://www.justsecurity.org/68614/excl ... n-ukraine/

Trump also recently encouraged military punishment of Lt. Col. Vindman.

These aren't warning signs of a future authoritarian state. They are active symptoms of one occurring in the present.

[_EAllusion]

Republicans also blocked several election security bills today, one of which seems fairly common-sense / innocuous in terms of creating requirements to report illegal foreign election interference to appropriate authorities.

[_Res Ipsa]

The Whitehouse is dropping its nomination of Elaine McCusker for Pentagon comptroller because she internally reported that the Ukraine aid hold was against the law when it was, in fact, against the law.

One day after the DoJ recommended 7-9 years for Roger Stone for his role in the Trump campaign's attempts to corroborate with and benefit from Russian espionage in the 2016 election and subsequently cover it up, senior leadership at the DoJ reversed course to attack its own recommendation as excessive. This happened around the time Trump tweet-criticized it and complained that nothing is happening to the "real criminals" on "the other side." Trump has later asserted his "absolute right" to determine the DoJ's course of action. This has prompted four resignations from the Stone case.

New unredacted emails show even more detail on how seriously the OMB misled Congress in its impeachment inquiry.

https://www.justsecurity.org/68614/excl ... n-ukraine/

Trump also recently encouraged military punishment of Lt. Col. Vindman.

These aren't warning signs of a future authoritarian state. They are active symptoms of one occurring in the present.

While you were posting, I was reading the e-mail chain. All she did was her job. As the hold dragged on and on, she kept warning OMB that any funds not spent by September 30 would, by law, be impounded by the treasury and that the DOD needed several weeks to go through the process of spending the money. She was right.
A chunk of the money was impounded because OMB kept the hold on for so long.

She didn't testify or take her problems with OMB public. The e-mails were released in response to a FOIA request followed by a court order to comply. But she gets the hatchet because she did her best to comply with the law.

[_EAllusion]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... g-n1135231

Again, this isn't a warning sign of some possible future authoritarianism within the US government. This is literally what authoritarianism is. When people say, "authoritarianism is bad" they mean this exact sort of thing is bad.

Donald Trump is President right now because his opponent's husband had an encounter that Republicans performed outrage about under the logic it gave the appearance of a light touch of this kind of impropriety.

[_subgenius]

dropping its nomination = gets the hatchet

please explain.

[_canpakes]

Meanwhile, forgetting for a moment that the President willfully hired a Ukrainian corruption participant and crony (Manafort) and is now attempting to politicize the DoJ in order to minimize any possible jail time for another corrupt crony (Stone), we have this completely predictable development:

The MAGA machine is attempting to turn President Donald Trump’s latest nemesis — Sen. Mitt Romney — into the next Hunter Biden.

Trump in recent days took a new turn in his attacks on the Utah senator, veering from assailing his character and loyalty and tossing him into the wilds of Ukraine.

Trump over the weekend retweeted several conservative personalities and stories attempting to connect the Republican senator to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and its former board member Hunter Biden, two parties at the center of Trump’s attempted quid pro quo. The allegation was featured in several far-right blog posts: A senior adviser from Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign was on Burisma’s board of directors, and that by voting to impeach Trump last week, Romney was covering for his fellow swamp crony.

While Trump’s campaign had highlighted the allegation earlier, the post-impeachment flurry of tweets was the first time Trump himself acknowledged the theory. At one point, the president retweeted a random follower’s newfound suspicion: “Romney is covering up his part in corruption in Ukraine. This has nothing to do with truth or God. He is a desperate man. The truth will come out.”

Prior to Sunday, Trump and the GOP’s first anti-Mitt salvo centered on a familiar set of name-calling: Romney is a “failed presidential candidate” jealous that Trump won the presidency; Romney craves the attention of the liberal media; Romney, a sanctimonious do-gooder, is a coward who wears mom jeans.

The Burisma attack signaled a new front in Trump world’s attempts to punish Romney, as well as keep the Burisma narrative alive.

Does any of this actual corruption bother Trumpologists like Markk? Will any of them “look into it” someday, let alone scream apoplectically about how corruptly corrupt these corrupted dirtbags are?

Nahhhhhh. : : D

[_MissTish]

Meanwhile, forgetting for a moment that the President willfully hired a Ukrainian corruption participant and crony (Manafort) and is now attempting to politicize the DoJ in order to minimize any possible jail time for another corrupt crony (Stone), we have this completely predictable development:

Markk won't have trouble forgetting Manafort. He was still looking for context or a link on him as of yesterday. Odd that in all his research into Ukraine corruption that name never came up.

[_EAllusion]

Meanwhile, forgetting for a moment that the President willfully hired a Ukrainian corruption participant and crony (Manafort) and is now attempting to politicize the DoJ in order to minimize any possible jail time for another corrupt crony (Stone), we have this completely predictable development:

The MAGA machine is attempting to turn President Donald Trump’s latest nemesis — Sen. Mitt Romney — into the next Hunter Biden.

Trump in recent days took a new turn in his attacks on the Utah senator, veering from assailing his character and loyalty and tossing him into the wilds of Ukraine.

Trump over the weekend retweeted several conservative personalities and stories attempting to connect the Republican senator to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and its former board member Hunter Biden, two parties at the center of Trump’s attempted quid pro quo. The allegation was featured in several far-right blog posts: A senior adviser from Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign was on Burisma’s board of directors, and that by voting to impeach Trump last week, Romney was covering for his fellow swamp crony.

While Trump’s campaign had highlighted the allegation earlier, the post-impeachment flurry of tweets was the first time Trump himself acknowledged the theory. At one point, the president retweeted a random follower’s newfound suspicion: “Romney is covering up his part in corruption in Ukraine. This has nothing to do with truth or God. He is a desperate man. The truth will come out.”

Prior to Sunday, Trump and the GOP’s first anti-Mitt salvo centered on a familiar set of name-calling: Romney is a “failed presidential candidate” jealous that Trump won the presidency; Romney craves the attention of the liberal media; Romney, a sanctimonious do-gooder, is a coward who wears mom jeans.

The Burisma attack signaled a new front in Trump world’s attempts to punish Romney, as well as keep the Burisma narrative alive.

Does any of this actual corruption bother Trumpologists like Markk? Will any of them “look into it” someday, let alone scream apoplectically about how corruptly corrupt these corrupted dirtbags are?

Nahhhhhh. : : D

Remember 75 years ago when Adam Schiff referred to the "head on a pike" story in reference to Trump planning to retaliate against Republicans who didn't vote to defend him and Republicans pretended to be outraged and horrified at the suggestion?

Romney's also been getting jokey, but not jokey death threats in the far right media ecosystem.