Zelensky also has extensive experience as a comic actor, even if this gig is improv, not scripted.
I reported that cyrillic post, so no one else needs to.
Reported as spam. Translation:
Coded message from the Russians. My Russian is rusty but it says something about the “Manchurian Candidate”.
It’s an ad for the “Ukrainian National Lottery”, if you’re wondering. I’m sure it’s all aboveboard. Its placement in this thread can only be a coincidence.
Yep. You also don’t want the headlines when you go home to say “President Zelensky lets Ukraine get pushed around by crazy American.” That wouldn’t be good for either himself or his country. His “I don’t want to be involved” answer was pretty good for the moment and can be expanded upon later in more than a sound bite for a Ukranian journalist.
He played the President in a TV show where he was elected as a high school teacher who had a viral video about, get this - corruption in Ukraine.
Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk
I saw that footage. The poor guy looked like the hostage in a proof-of-life video. All he needed was an ISIS fighter kitted out with a balaclava and an AR-15 standing behind him to complete the picture.
Nope, nope, nope. Not pressured at all.
That disclaimer looks a lot like arse covering in the event there’s an error. I would be surprised if there were any significant differences between what was recorded and what was said. The disclaimer itself states that staffers are specifically assigned to record the conversation. It reads as though it’s as close to a transcript as you can get without physically recording the audio and transcribing it from that.
That’s probably true, and 99% of the time the difference between the two things in your last sentence wouldn’t matter, but this time they just might. A single omitted word (not for nefarious reasons) could make all the difference for some on-the-fencers, in the voting public as well as in positions of power during the impeachment process.
For example, if in a phone conversation Trump talked about about getting dirt on H. Biden, Zelensky assenting, and then Trump talked about how the security assistance would be delivered soon, Republicans could spin this as simply changing to a different subject — but if the pivot started with the word “now” — e.g., “We’ll deliver that assistance soon” vs. “Now, we’ll deliver that assistance soon” — that little three-letter word could be a big deal, and could have been innocently omitted from the almost-a-transcript.
(Just to be clear, I don’t need to hear that “now” to deem this an impeachable offense, but some people might.)
My newspaper reports today that one part of the whistleblower’s complaint states that a full verbatim transcript of the conversation was removed from the usual computer storage system and transferred to a high-security, limited access database.
Yes, that is a (likely) huge part of all this. Eric Swalwell well explained what we know so far during the questioning of McGuire yesterday. Clearly, multiple people privy to the call understood right away it was likely a serious ethical breach or worse. This undercuts much of the White House contention that the call was routine — AND in itself appears to be an unethical act (or worse), though probably not at Trump’s request.
Basically, Trump is too dumb to realize what he did was wrong. This is a sliver of hope for his supporters — that, unlike Nixon, Trump wasn’t part of the cover-up, because Trump never thought (and still doesn’t understand) that there was anything to cover up.
Personally, that scares me more — I’d rather have a self-aware crook in the White House than a complete and utter moron — but I guess it might make the cover-up portion of this incident less damning (to Trump) than otherwise, in the eyes of some.
Reported
I ran that spam through the Google translator. Turns out the spammer works in a nail salon and would like you to visit an online casino.
Just had a thought:
Anybody think that from Putin’s viewpoint, seeing his puppet go rogue, trying to get his vig off a shipment of weapons sent to kill Putin’s expensive tanks and crews in alliance with Putin’s enemy…
… you think Putin is pissed about this?
I need something cleared up: Was the Ukraine money Trump was holding hostage ever released?
Hell no. Remember: the ultimate goal was to destabilize the American government.
Yes.
It’s not that he went rogue: Trump tried to block the aid to Ukraine for 7 months. It’s just that when the pressure built to provide Ukraine with the support, Trump decided to use it as a chip to get something for himself. We have the president trying to bribe a foreign government (a crime) and he uses military aid paid for by American taxpayers to pay the bribe. What’s amazing is how simple it all really is.