He's really moooooved the bar lower.

Oof

Sorry...had to.

Don't worry. She is going on Fox News every day to explain her thinking. That's the best way to reach the Democratic constituents, right?

Trey Gowdy really is a moron, "Or is it only because he’s [Biden] in that status of potential candidate that this somehow is elevated to something for which he [Trump] should be removed from office."

Yes. That is exactly the reason. When a President is using the power of his office for personal gain, in this case trying to damage a potential presidential opponent, then you are going to get impeached.

Very interested in the details. Assume the Israelis know what will be proposed and have essentially bought on. Assume the Palestinians will say its DOA (but hopefully a foundation to work from).

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/polit...sit/index.html

Is that really a safe assumption these days?

Israel's busy having a third election in 11 months in March because no one wants to work with a Netenyahu under indictment. They literally can't do anything outside of a caretaker government using a 2018 budget, I believe. If they're meeting, it's for Netenyahu and Trump to proclaim a victory on something meaningless for votes.

Yeah. They've admitted they haven't spoken to the Palestinians, so it's all just for show.

#MarshaBlackburnIsTrash - Twitter Search

damn

Again, Fuck the GOP 4 who proclaims that they are always moderate mysteries. They absolutely will not do anything, in the end, but fall in line. I can't help but vomit any time I hear one of the talking heads on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, or Fox News talk about these 4 like they're not in the bag and they might surprise us. Bullshit. This is tribal politics at its worst and I wish for god's sake and our countries that we eventually move to a legitimate multiparty system.

When the next opposition President gets in office, no matter what they do, when the other side screams and cries fire in the theatre I'll point back to this era and say you said that they could do anything, you voted that they could dso anything, and you never held anyone to account. Now sleep in your fucking bed you made.

Of course, they'll ignore video proof of what they said and say that things are different now and the sad part is a subsection of our country will buy in again.

Huge march today in Iraq demanding the U.S. leave.

So much winning.

Sort of like the zero Senate votes on the impeachment of Bill Clinton? It's all a sideshow. The only people with any integrity are the no votes from the GOP house/Senate members for Clinton and the Democratic house members for Trump. Of course I know you and most of the board won't see it that way (This is serious this time! Nothing to do with my politics at all I would feel this way about anyone! Things are forever going to be different because a president from another party is in office! :lol: ) but from a non Republican/Democrat point of view it is all just bread and circuses for the masses.

Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V

I agree with you 100% panerd. My interest in politics was 0 for a long time because of that very fact. For some reason with Trump, I've been more interested because I want to see the d-bag fall. I eventually realized this is all the same BS, so I don't give a shit any more.

Just gonna live my life and enjoy what I'm doing.

Right. So in the future when they oppose the next president I hope that they are muted by the things they said to the contrary now. FWIW, I feel this way on a personal level too. When people around me support XYZ that's happening I hope that they understand that they have zero cred to get their panties in a wad when the next president does exactly XYZ.

Apparently, it's not possible to legitimately think that Clinton didn't deserve impeachment and that Trump does deserve impeachment. You must be a party hack.

I believe his post also contained about 3 paragraphs of hyperbole like "This is the end of politics as we know it!" "Now the Democrats will play this game as well!" Like they haven't already? My "Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V' is for these exact moments that don't think the two sides are part of a big giant game. The definition of politics contains this... the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power. I'll accept I am clearly a broken record you just have to realize I respond to the broken records on here that think somehow 2020 is really any different than 1972 or 1900 or 1804(There was a dual involving the Vice-President for Christ's sake)...

Yeah Larry always gets his panties in a wad about my posts for some reason but I'm in the same boat. Could give two shits about Trump and would love to see him fired like his tagline on his show. (Not sure most of this board understands what they are getting with Pence but that's a whole other topic all together) It's just the whole GW Bush is the end of politics, Obama's America is the love of the world, Trump is the end of politics contrasted with Bush is the savior from terrorism, Obama is making America Communists, Trump is making America Great Again fight where every year it's "the worst it's ever been". I mean I already mentioned the Burr/Hamilton duel, there have been presidential assassinations, a civil war, multiple World Wars, Watergate, an actor elected president... This is not the worst politics have ever been.

This is the part of your post I was responding to. And I think it's a ridiculous assertion. Certainly the two impeachments concern vastly different issues and it's not necessarily inconsistent to have differing opinions about them.

My issue with your repetitive posts is that you never want to discuss the issues involved. For instance, do you think Trump deserves to be impeached? Did Clinton deserve to be impeached? Should there be witnesses? Why or why not? Instead you just resort to your usual spiel about how both sides are hypocrites and everything is the same as it's always been, which is a convenient way of avoiding discussion of any substantive issues.

So you aren't confused that the impeachment votes and debt ceiling votes etc always happen on party lines? Every 4-8 years everyone on both parties changes their philosophy? Or it's just a complete sham/shell game? One seems a lot more likely to me.

I think both impeachments were pure politics. Unfortunately this current one is going to backfire and cost us with 4 more years of Trump. And I will walk that back a bit, technically Clinton and Trump both probably committed impeachable offenses to the letter of the law but the impeachments are all just political games. They have been wanting to impeach Trump since the minute he won the election. Mueller report comes out, let's move on to the next thing we can grip onto...

I hate Trump. I actually tossed and turned the night of the Iran missile attack. Normally that would just be Middle East being the Middle East but with him it could be a nuclear catastrophe. But for the most part he really is just an idiot that says what other politicians just lie about. Not the worst ever, not the end of American politics...

This man has my proxy. I couldnt have said it better.

--- Separate though ----

I generally avoid tin foil hat conspiracy theories but the older I get the more I believe that all the fighting and back and forth is truly orchestrated chaos. Its the red cape that both sides wave to distract us.
The sword behind the cape is the elitest remaining in power. Through the history of mankind a populace will organize and attack a common enemy.
If the population is left happy they will demand happiness. By manufacturing strife and conflict you ensure the unwashed masses feud amongst themselves and isolate the aristocrats from true unified scrutiny.

Then they systemically attack masculinity and aggression and convince the populace that the very willingness to fight is cause in and of itself of condemnation.

The last debt ceiling vote happened August 1 and the vote was 67-28 on the basis of DEMOCRATIC votes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...06e_story.html


So no, they don't always seem to happen on party lines, do they?

You're pointing out one exception and using it as a counterpoint to another poster saying that partisan politics is prevalent.

Am I understanding that correct?

Of course!

I was depressed in college and played Russian Roulette. Pulled the trigger 3x and the gun never went off.
It perfectly safe to do this. Everyone should.

Had flashbacks to Deer Hunter.

The difference between the words prevalent and always might be useful here.

But if we need more examples, then the 2011 debt ceiling was also not along partisan lines, as it included votes from 45 Democrats and 28 Republicans. The House version of that same bill was 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats.

I'd like someone from the "OMG Both Sidez" camp to answer this question. Is this possible?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reco...ry?id=68506437

Tapes!

Both should have been impeached and removed from office. We should have higher standards for leaders. Clinton committed perjury and used his position of power to have an affair with a subordinate. Maybe that doesn't fall under "high crimes" but we should expect more. Trump tried to bribe a foreign country by withholding Congressionally approved taxpayer funds till the country investigated his political rival. Puts national security at risk and shit that should be for banana republics. Sure it's politicized now but that doesn't mean you shouldn't report the right thing.

So... what does "always" mean in your dictionary?


Yep. He literally used the debt ceiling as an example of always partisan voting when the recent history of it just hasn't really been the case. And the 2011 debt ceiling crisis was just due to saber rattling statements by some GOP leaders that lead to a delay in approving it. Not to mention the debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 19 times since 2000. How many times did you see partisan saber rattling? Twice?

The condensed story of the debt limit:

Both sides played games with the debt limit, but neither party went so far as to use it to hold the government hostage, knowing how damaging that could be.

And then one day the GOP began using it to take hostages as a standard tactic.

I agree both should have been impeached but differ somewhat on rationale. Clinton because of perjury, don't really think an affair rises to the level. Trump for pushing a foreign country to investigate a political rival, not necessarily the act of withholding of aid which I believe, right or wrong, is done (or similar) all the time.

But, the OMB came out and said, "that was against the law." It's hard to argue the right or wrong part, and it's harder to speculate on the 'I think it's done all the time' when there's no other documentation of it, and furthermore, if we take that logic and put it back on the Nixon administration, then, shouldn't we believe that what he did was normal and 'happens all the time'?

I have never heard of aid being withheld till you can get a personal favor done.


The affair thing doesn't bother me, but the fact it is with a subordinate makes it different. Lot of CEOs get the boot for doing that. McDonalds just fired theirs. Don't want people working in the White House thinking they need to fuck the President to keep their job (or move up).

Though in fairness, in the late 90s was when that stuff started to be really not ok. I remember going to law school in the early 2000s, and one of the professors had married one of his law students and it was just about that time that people were like, I dunno if that's ok (where a lot of older folks were like what's the issue, it was after she graduated, etc).

There's nothing savvy about an argument that because a past impeachment was partisan, no impeachment can ever be valid again.

lol

They copied the Starfleet logo.

After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military! pic.twitter.com/TC8pT4yHFT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020

If Trump appoints William Shatner as Secretary of the Space Force then I will become a Trump supporter.

That logo is cool as fuck.

Panerd saying it is "always" partisan is of course incorrect. It only takes one to disprove him, so he set hinself up to fail there.

But it is entirely disingenious for you or Issidiqui to do so and not acknowledge that his general point that partisanship reigns heavily at Congress is true. The extremely partisan nature of today's poltiics is why we're where we are today.

It's quite honestly one of the best things Trump has done. It's totally half-assed and stupid and typical of his particular idiocy, but it is really effing cool.

Sign me up!

It also tells me that whoever "designed" the logo knew he wasn't getting paid because we all know there's no way they asked whoever owns the rights to Star Trek.

With any other administration, if you saw something like that released, you'd assume it was homage to Star Trek and was likely done with their knowledge.

With this administration everyone knows it was half-assed, no one was asked before using their copyright, and Trump probably has no idea what Starfleet is but it sounds cool so use it.

While it is obviously influenced by the UFoP logo, there are enough different elements to have a law suit dismissed.

New Court Documents Reveal That Corruption at the Trump Inaugural Fund Went to the Very Top

Any other timeline, this would be all it would take to impeach & remove The Criminal In-Chief. I hope he lives long enough so he and his family can go to jail.

I love that he just had an unlabeled map at the ready.

To be fair, the Air Force committed THAT act of plagiarism a while ago; this is just an updated version of that plagiarism.

To be fair, even NASA copies logos. :D

So the defense is wrapping with the Moscow Mitch theory of you can’t do this in an election year. :rolleyes:

Being reported that 3 rockets hit the U.S. embassy in Iraq.

Anyone else seeing reports of 3 rockets hitting the US embassy in Baghdad?

You don't carry a map around to randomly challenge people with geography questions?

You're slacking.

I'd give Trump a 50/50 chance of finding Ukraine on the map simply because I'm sure he's been in enough briefings that it's stuck by now.

Outside of that I'd put the over/under on number of countries he can point out on a map at 15.

I could maybe see him staring at the real-time flight map on his private planes (if those exist on private planes), and sending up instructions to the pilot on the direction they should go. Maybe he could pick up a few country names that way.

It's part of how the administration operates. Trump handed out copies of his electoral map victory to people all the time the first year or two

According to the NY Times, in John Bolton's unpublished book, he says Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue freezing Ukraine's assets until they helped with investigations into Biden and other Democrats

Don’t worry. It’s a nothing burger. Everything is. The R’s in Congress are too far up Trump’s ass to see common sense if it smacked them in face.

You know, the funny thing is, that spattered across my FB feed in NKY, it is 100% the opposite. Not a shocker, but it's certainly indicative of the current state of affairs.

Dems should be careful about Bolton. I get that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that, but he's still a don't-trust-him-as-far-as-you-can-throw-him kind of guy.

Yep, he's nothing that should be celebrated. It should be one piece, not some sort of of shocking revelation that the world hinges on. How many other people do we deserve to hear from, who was barred from testifying? They get tunnel vision, lose focus, and can't keep their expectations straight.

While Dems see the Bolton confirmation of a quid pro quo as a smoking gun, recall that one (among the many) lines of defense that Cult 45 has tossed out there is that of course they held up the aid, get over it, but it's not for personal politics, it's just that there's a national interest in Ukriane being rid of internal corruption.

And while that's pretty preposterous on its face to me/us, surely there are 50 or so GOP Senators who will find that perfectly adequate to hang their hats (and place in history) upon.

I think it's as simple as, the trial will be over before the State of the Union. That's always been the plan so that he can take a victory lap. There isn't time to call witnesses and meet that deadline, so there won't be any witnesses regardless of what news breaks.

The "will he?" angle is a fascinating twist...

Hoping for Roberts to do that is a sign of how screwed this country has been for 3+ years

John Bolton - Hardcore leftist

I didn't see that coming a few years ago.

We've seen it with Flake, Bob Mueller, and others but the line for what's considered a leftist by most Trump supporters just moved several miles to the right. We're a couple more scandals away from Steven King being a moderate.

With credit going to Pink Floyd ... "Another brick in the wall".

I assume a Democratic administration can reverse this relatively easily.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/polit...rge/index.html

McConnell says he currently does not have enough Republican votes to block witnesses

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcc...es-bolton-book

When your strategy is this "GOP doesn't have votes yet to block impeachment witnesses"...I just don't know what to say when it is written in black and white.

We all knew it would happen, but it's still gob smacking to see the GOP jump to a defense of, sure he did it, who cares?

The plan is public now and as expected Israelis like it and the Palestinians say its DOA.

IMHO the Palestinians just need to negotiate the best deal possible for them now and move on with their lives/country (e.g. bet the Clinton sponsored plan looks pretty good right 15+ years later). Won't be perfect especially since everyone knows who has most/all leverage and the other Arab countries are too busy dealing with other things e.g. the Palestinian problem is now Page 5.

$50B over 10 years doesn't seem to be enough. It should be increased to really sweeten (e.g. bribe) the deal.

My guess is there is "some" give in all except for #2.

Trump’s Israel-Palestine peace plan, explained - Vox

Saw this elsewhere, and it caused a chuckled.

ALL THE WITNESSES: Ok we all agree. This is what happened.

REPUBLICANS: None of you were in the room!

BOLTON: *raises hand* Well I was in the...

REPUBLICANS: Who asked you?! Shut up! You’re a liberal pawn!

BOLTON: Um... I’m actually I’m a lifelong Republican and I was literally Trump’s national security advi...

REPUBLICANS: Shut your mustache! Somebody bring back the first national security advisor.

FLYNN: *in orange jumpsuit* Hey sorry guys I’m in jail lol.

REPUBLICANS: What? Why?

FLYNN: For lying to the FBI about the Russia investigation.

REPUBLICANS: Well what idiot told you to do that?!

FLYNN: The Pres...

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! No one believes either of you!

KELLY: *raises hand* I believe them. And I was Trump’s Chief of sta...

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! Let’s talk to the real chief of staff. Who is he?

MULVANEY: *raises hand* It’s me.

REPUBLICANS: Shit. Never mind.

PARNAS: *raises hand* I was also in the room. In fact, here’s a cell phone video of the President saying that...

REPUBLICANS: Wait what?! How in hell did you sneak a cell phone into a meeting with the President?

PARNAS: It was easy I just walked right in and...

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! You’re a criminal!

PARNAS: Correct. And I just walked right into...

TRUMP: I don’t know him.

PARNAS: And here’s 500 pictures of me with the President because we’re besties.

REPUBLICANS: Wait... What idiot introduced you to the President??

PARNAS: His personal lawyer.

REPUBLICANS: Cohen??

COHEN: *also in orange jumpsuit* Hey no sorry guys I’m in jail too.

REPUBLICANS: Why?

COHEN: For campaign finance violations.

REPUBLICANS: Who’s campaign?

COHEN: The Pres...

REPUBLICANS: Shut up!

PARNAS: It was Giuliani.

YOVANOVITCH: Giuliani! That’s the guy who had me fired from my job!

REPUBLICANS: Who are you??

YOVANOVITCH: I was the ambassador to Ukraine.

REPUBLICANS: Wait, you had her fired? Do you work for the government??

GIULIANI: Nope.

REPUBLICANS: Well who is the ambassador to the European Union??

SONDLAND: *raises hand* Me. I was also in the roo...

REPUBLICANS: F@$&!!!

PUTIN: *rubs his bare chest*

I’m not a fan of Trump’s tweets, but I’ll give credit where it’s due. His point that if he’d listened to John Bolton “we’d be in World War Six by now” is pretty funny.

trump repeating opposition (to Bolton's nomination) talking points and calling them his own, IS funny.

Well it makes sense that Bolton was a deep liberal plant all these years, unleashed just now to damage the President's impeachment defense. That mustache (there's no way it's real, right?) should've been a dead giveaway a long time ago.

It's total bullshit. It's an annexation plan disguised as a peace plan. Not only were the Palestinians ignored in creating this, they are only given sovereignty at a later date if the Israelis choose to do so. There are no dates or enforcement mechanisms that guarantee a future Palestinian state. It's a plan fr a permanent apartheid state.

I don't disagree, its heavily tilted towards the Israelis. All I am saying is the Palestinians should negotiate knowing they won't get all they want and will very likely have to "give/compromise" more than the Israelis.

Their peak leverage is in the past ... the Palestians have fractured between West Bank & Gaza. ISIL and like, Iran and Iraq are in the headlines, not the Palestinians. The Israeli "wall" has worked to significantly reduced terrorist attacks. US has made inroads in allying with Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia ... who can the Palestians look to as a champion or benefactor? Zippo, nada

With that said, its best for them to wait until after the US elections and for the Israeli elections to be settled (with Netanyahu hopefully gone). A Democrat President & House will be "better" for them but they still won't get near/everything they want.

You know Alex Jones is going to pick this up and run with it right? :D

Is there any sort of article that using hindsight suggests what should have been done post WWI and WWII to minimize the issues in the middle east?

Agreeing to this is worse than doing nothing. What do they get from the deal?

I'm not saying agree to this plan. I am saying start to negotiate with reality of their situation (and lack of leverage) in mind.

One can write literal books about this subject or simply put in one line:

White people, stop interfering in regions you don't know anything about and don't try to know anything about.

Not very helpful but thanks

This sounds nearly like the american south, post civil war. They should just take what we give them. They're going to be permanent second class citizens as far as our country goes.

Considering the relatively constant chaos in the middle east, negotiating when your leverage is at its lowest seems like a horrible strategy, regardless of who you are.

Unfortunately, I would go further. The balance of power and how Palestinians are treated are like US Government and American Indians back in the 19th century (well, maybe not quite that bad). They don't have to take 100% of what is asked but to expect 100% of their demands is not real.

I agree assuming you believe your situation/leverage will improve anytime soon. I think there is a good chance it won't markedly improve anytime soon with all the other distractions and higher priorities the Arab countries have.

How things might have been different if Ariel Sharon hadn't had a stroke...

I looked but wasn't able to find an easy comparison on all the recent ME peace proposals. I think the Clinton deal was probably the best the Palestinians could have hoped for and that was 20+ years ago.

White House has issued a legal threat to try to stop Bolton's book from being published. Good luck with that

Sharon pulled out of Gaza and was expected to pull out of the West Bank. He seemed to understand that Israel could survive as a democracy only if the occupation ended.

That peace plan was already in shambles before Sharon had a stroke. So many missed opportunities for the Palestinian people.

Road map for peace - Wikipedia

Yeah, and he was expected to go further. He decided not to wait on the Palestinians and to save a democratic Israel on his own. Who knows how far he would have gone after the West Bank, but his intentions were pretty clear.

dola

lol Dershowitz

As long as a president believes his actions are in the national interest it's impossible for them to be corrupt.

The Nixon argument.