In fact, if you go back to the original interview where Yermak denies the conversation, he again emphasizes the importance of a White House invitation, something I believe is still being withheld.
I note that he also acknowledges that Ukraine was painfully aware that aid was being withheld, even as he denies that it was tied to a request for an investigation.
(My emphasis)
In my opinion, the Ukrainians are desperately trying to walk the fine line of not pissing anybody off by not getting into the middle of anything so that they can get the assistance necessary to ensure their survival as an independent nation. Do you really accept the assurance of a hostage that they are being treated fine?
Hey, I lived in one of the reddest and the most pro-Trump state per capita in the country for a very long time, and I have to disagree somewhat with your friend’s take on things. It’s NOT a one-way street. People there laughed and scoffed at outsiders who wanted to know if kids rode horses to school or assumed everyone went to a one-room schoolhouse and and had to dodge tumbleweeds to cross Main Street. Silly city folk (or easterners or their favorite target, Californians)! The rage your friend talks about has been fed to them, and not by Mencken who, for God’s sake, has been dead over 60 years and whom very few of them have ever heard of.
I agree that hatred won’t result in progress, but for that to happen, you have to stop the flow of propaganda reenforcing the ol’ US vs. Them mindset. That would mean no Fox News or MSNBC. It would mean recognizing how certain media outlets manipulate their audiences. Most of all, it would mean convincing people that they’re going to have to undergo the painful process of recognizing that what they want to believe and what is true are two different things. Good luck with that.
I thought of using Mehran Karimi Nasseri but figured no one would remember who he was anymore and he is more sympathetic than Nolan, albeit a real-life person.
I was not aware of those two movements, thanks for that. Let’s add the movement for Texas to secede from the US:
I was planning to bring up an objection along these lines next time I see this person- maybe I will even forward those articles. I was thinking more along the lines of nelliebly’s post though- Every region get attacked by somebody in an insulting way, CA and NY especially. Heck, I have heard that cowboys in some regions will hang you just for serving them picante sauce made in New York City!
So why is it ok to attack those places but not red states? Why do their fee fees take precedence and others’ don’t matter? I have two theories. One, it is considered ‘punching down’ for ‘elites’ to look down from their ivory towers and criticize less fortunate places. But we aren’t supposed to acknowledge that it even Is punching down.
Or two, it is a racist thing even though they all deny that. Alabama may have a lot of problems but it is White Culture and NY and CA just have to zip it, who cares what regions full of brown people think. Or, Of Course black people in Chicago are miserable, they’re animals and what do you expect? At least the good white people in the rest of Illinois are capable of progress.
They contradict, but conservatives don’t really make sense. Heck, nationally they basically want the US to disengage from the whole rest of the world. The country is supposed to be some kind of Honky Jerusalem, and globalism is bad because… well, I have trouble interpreting it, it is nonsense to me but I think people do believe this stuff.
These aren’t my ideas but I grew up in Red State, too. Globalism is bad because of tainting from lesser races in shithole countries? And Jews too, somehow. I don’t know, but they think Trump is fighting this fight. The Civil War was a good idea to some people, so what is a little abuse of power when it is Us v Them?
Van Drew says he feels that the president will be strengthened when the impeachment process fails to remove him from office, and that that’s what elections are for.
So…the president is NOT strengthened when Dems jump off the impeachment bandwagon? <tilt> Why not go full-bore and make a point on the largely symbolic impeachment vote, **AND **remove him from office with the election? Oh, I get it:
Straddling the bob-wahr* fence like that can be injurious to the private parts, Rep. Van Drew.
Every time I think they’ve jumped the shark, they find an even higher one.
Watching the live debate, a new defence being used over and over is “How come you’re only impeaching for these two articles? Doesn’t that imply you didn’t have evidence for all the other stuff that the president has been accused of?”
(To which my two answers would be: “No, as you know, if we had many articles of impeachment the GOP would have greater scope to confuse the public and claim the whole thing is a scattershot attempt to find any mud” and “So what? How is that an argument against these two articles?”)
What a pathetic show the GOP is putting up today. One of the MAGAbots on the panel said the Democrats passed the NAFTA revision to be able to say they did something but doing nothing about infrastructure. Somehow he failed to mention the scores of bills sitting on McConnell’s desk because he sees his job as ratifying right wing judges and nothing else.
Oh pleasepleaseplease let this be one of the times when Donnie stamps his foot and says, “No, you’re not the boss of me!” to Mitch. Let him stage a public defense and try his best to damage his political rivals. Maybe Mitch will ditch the proceedings and Donnie can go on a whistle-stop tour of the country shouting his defense from every “Middlesex [as it were] village and farm.” He will be following in the horse steps of patriot Paul Revere, warning the country of impending doom.
Trump can’t testify before Congress, or let any of his involved cabinet testify before Congress, because lying to Congress is an actual crime and also impeachable. They can’t continue their “defense” without lying.
The witnesses he would want to call are people who will share slanted innuendo against the Bidens or whackadoodles who will parrot the “Ukraine meddled in our elections!!!” line that the Republicans are attempting to fly. Those are the witnesses they’re complaining they can’t call. If they wanted to call someone from the OMB, or the DOJ, or the White House, the Dems would certainly allow it, because that is pertinent to the matter at hand. Of course, the President made those witnesses categorically off-limits.
I’d welcome fact witnesses from the involved departments. I’d love Trump to testify, or Pence, or Mulvaney, or Bolton, or anyone who was actually involved. I’m afraid, however, that any witnesses they’d want to allow to come in for a Senate trial would be more smoke and mirrors conspiracy theorists.
Any chance that Roberts, as a Supreme Court Justice and judge at the impeachment trial in the Senate, could compel those holdouts to testify if called?
“Chief Justice John Roberts could rule on the scope of executive privilege with respect to these high-ranking administration officials as well as any diplomats, national security staff or budget office staff barred up until now by the White House from providing evidence. Under the Senate rules, the chief justice’s decision would be final, subject only to a vote of the full Senate.”
If this is accurate, best I can figure, Roberts can compel to appear any witnesses the Dems call, as long as a majority of the Senate approves. So 4 GOP senators would have to vote yes. If they don’t, they can’t go on complaining that they didn’t “get to share their side.” And the Dems can make sure the voting public knows it was Republicans who voted to keep Trump from testifying.
Then the 2020 campaign them can be What are they hiding?
I haven’t been listening to much of the last few weeks, but today I heard:
[ul]
[li]Hunter Biden is a drug addict who interacted with homeless people, and while I don’t have anything against those who suffer from addiction (which Trump is eliminating AS WE SPEAK), can we ever really trust a guy who has done drugs? And even went to HOMELESS PEOPLE to get those drugs!? And, if druggies, I mean addicts, who Trump loves and is helping RIGHT NOW, are just washed-up no-goodnicks who get everything handed to them on a silver platter, then obviously Trump has done nothing wrong.[/li][li]Democrats are just posturing, performing and pandering to the American people because they have nothing real to say, and they’re using the facade of patriotism to dupe the public. Also, my limbless war veteran friend who is totally an American Hero and gave up his limbs for OUR FREEDOM just texted me just now this minute to tell me not to let the Dems get away with it![/li][/ul]
My father was watching the impeachment trial today a few rooms away so I couldn’t hear who was speaking or what was being said, but I could hear the general rhythm and volume dynamics of the various speeches. Without fail, I could tell when a Republican was speaking because the rhythm, etc. had a vague quality of disingenuous outrage. MPSIMS?
Given the intellectual capacity of some of these guys, he could be hearing Congressman Brick Tamland saying, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE ARE YELLING ABOUT! LOUD NOISES!!”
This is what I was thinking. It doesn’t look like the GOP has any good options right now. Ironically, their best option is to impeach and hope Pence can give them the 2020 election.
Yeah - If the Republicans win, their prize is Trump.
Now that’s weird!
I still believe their best strategy is to dump Trump by one vote in the Senate, blame the Dems, let Pence Pardon Trump for whatever and then dredge up a real candidate to run in 2020.
With all this nonsense about how Democrats are “trying to undo the 2016 election” via impeachment, I wonder how many Republican voters think that, if Trump is removed from office, Hillary Clinton becomes president.
And the Dems have decided hes guilty no matter what so let’s just have an up/down vote in the House and then an up/down vote in the Senate and move on.
I really think this impeachment is a giant waste of time and effort and political capital and it is a stupid, stupid, STUPID gamble by the Democrats - if they fail, and I believe they will, it’s going to make the Democrats collectively look weak, Trump will of course act and campaign as if he has been vindicated, the Republican voters will be energized, and he will be re-elected.
What the Dems don’t realize is that these proceedings are giving a platform for Republicans to grandstand. Every time one of them speaks, they’re campaigning for Trump.
No, the facts show that he is guilty. The call summary the White House itself released shows that he is guilty.
If you are correct, then our government cannot function anymore. If there is no objective right or wrong in regards to soliciting foreign assistance in our elections, then we do not have free elections anymore. We either decide that we are a democracy still or we are not one any longer. This is what is at stake here. If it is ok for the President to sell our our national security interests for his or her own personal electoral gain, then this will forever be the standard and we will no longer be able to determine our own fate as a country.
Somebody has to actually defend the constitution and our national sovereignty at some point. If the Democrats don’t do it now, then what exactly are we? Because it won’t be a free country. Not if our elections no longer matter, the way it is in Russia.