“Don't Be A Tough Guy.
Don't Be A Fool.”Russia
Takes Abandoned U.S. Bases October
17, 2019
Russians enter abandoned
American base west of Manbij (
YouTube)
Russian journalist shows off
former American base west of Manbij (
YouTube)
U.S.
troops have been scrambling to get out of the way of Russian forces and
Turkish forces, including freed ISIS terrorists. President Trump said
yesterday,
“If
Russia wants to get involved with Syria, that’s really up to
them.”Speaker
of the House Nancy Pelosi told Trump, “All roads with you
lead to
Putin.” Trump called her “a third-grade
politician.”
Whatever that means.
Russian
envoy to Syria
Alexander Lavrentyev told reporters Tuesday, “There is a
glimmer
of hope that U.S. troops will eventually leave Syria.”
On
Wednesday, the
U.S.
House of Representatives voted 354 to 60
for a nonbinding resolution expressing opposition to Mr.
Trump’s
decision to abandon the Kurds, a measure that drew support from
two-thirds of the House Republican caucus and all three of its top
leaders. Trump had Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R - Calif.) hand out copies of
his
letter to
Turkish President Erdogan from October 9, 2019 that did
nothing to stop Erdogan from attacking Syrian Kurds. Erdogan
threw
the letter away.
Music Association: The Beatles -
The Fool On The Hill
Election Interference
- Stupid Watergate 2
The
President of the United States is using the power of his office to
solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S.
election. September
27, 2019
President
Trump told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in the July
25th
phone call, to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the top
Democratic candidate for president in the 2020 election. He also wanted
Zelensky to find the computer server in Ukraine that was used to hack
the DNC during the 2016 election to pull attention away from the
Russian hackers. Trump told his acting chief of
staff, Mick Mulvaney, to freeze over $391
million of military aid to Ukraine one week before the phone call to
Zelensky.
On August
12th, a
government
whistleblower sent a letter, following the law in 50 U.S.C.
paragraph 3033 (k)(5)(A), to the Congressional intelligence committee
chairs saying, “
The
President of the United States is using the power of his office to
solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”
The letter details the Presidential phone call and subsequent cover-up
of the information. “
According
to multiple White House officials I spoke with,”
the letter says, White House lawyers had on other occasions used the
“
codeword-level
system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive
— rather than national security sensitive —
information.”
On Wednesday,
September 25th, the
White
House released a reconstructed, rough transcript
of the phone call. They also emailed talking points against the
transcript to Republicans in Congress and Democrats in Congress. Then
they sent a recall message to the Democrats to try to take back the
emailed talking points message.
Also
on September 25th, Ukraine's president told Trump to his face that he
didn't want to be involved in U.S. elections. “
I'm sorry, but I don't want to
be involved in democratic, open elections of USA,
”
Zelensky
said.
A few
Republican
senators, Romney and Nasse, have spoken out against the President
and his actions to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election.
A
letter dated September 27th (today) from
more
than 300 former federal officials [
pdf]
expressed concern that, “
President
Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the
highest office in the land to invite additional interference into our
democratic process. That would constitute an unconscionable abuse of
power. It also would represent an effort to subordinate America's
national interests — and those of our closest allies
and partners —
to the President's personal political interest.”
On
October 10th, President Trump will hold an
election
rally at Target Center in Minneapolis.
Music Association: Genesis - In
Too DeepPutin's Puppet President
Who
Told Trump About Ukraine? September
25, 2019
House
of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi answered the call to begin the
impeachment hearings of President Trump. Reluctantly.
The
impeachment path is neither quick nor definitive.
The
U.S. House of Representatives has “
the sole power of impeachment,”
according to Article II of the U.S. Constitution. The
U.S. Senate has “
the
sole power to try all impeachments.”
The chief justice of the Supreme Court has the duty of presiding over
impeachment trials in the Senate. The president, under the
Constitution, can be removed from office for “
treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors.”
What exactly that means is unclear. Historically, it can encompass
corruption and other abuses, including trying to obstruct judicial
proceedings. No president has ever been removed as a direct result of
impeachment. One, President Richard Nixon, resigned before he could be
removed. Two presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were
impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate.
Impeachment
begins in the House, which debates and
votes on whether to bring charges against the president via approval of
an impeachment resolution, or “articles of
impeachment,” by a simple
majority of the House’s 435 members. The House has 235
Democrats, 199 Republicans, and one independent. As a
result, the Democrats could impeach Trump with no Republican support.
The
idea of a president asking or coercing a foreign power to influence a
U.S. election should not be a partisan issue. But then, climate change
should not be a partisan issue. If climate change were viewed by its
economic consequences, instead of just environmental consequences,
maybe it wouldn't have partisan baggage.
Currently,
most Congressional Republicans do not support impeachment. (The New
York Times has kept a running list of
Impeachment
Inquiry Support since the Mueller Report was partly released.)
If
the House approves such a resolution to impeach, a trial is then held
in the
Senate. House members act as the prosecutors, the senators as jurors,
and
the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides. A two-thirds
majority vote is required in the 100-member Senate to convict and
remove a president. This has never happened. The Senate now has 53
Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents
who usually vote with the Democrats. Conviction and removal of a
president would require 67 votes. So, for Trump to be removed from
office via impeachment, at least 20 Republicans and all the Democrats
and independents would have to vote against him. In the unlikely event
the Senate convicted Trump, Vice President Mike
Pence would become president for the remainder of Trump’s
term,
which
ends on January 20, 2021. (The selection of vice-president/ running
mates has often seemed to be an insurance policy against impeachment.)
Again,
the path is neither quick nor definitive.
Impeachment
doesn't make the Democrats look good. It doesn't make the the
Republicans look good. It doesn't make Trump look good. The discussion
doesn't make Ukraine look good.
So who benefits?
Who planted this idea in President Trump's head?
I'm
guessing Putin.
I
don't think Trump could find Ukraine on a map with clear labels. I
don't think Trump could find Ukraine on Google. Someone planted the
idea of calling Ukraine for help in interfering with the next U.S.
election, and that has its own chapter in Putin's play book.
Music Association: Frank Sinatra
- It Had To Be YouImpeachment: Last Week Tonight
with John Oliver (HBO)Call For Investigation
Election
Interference - Stupid Watergate 2 September
24, 2019
At least eight times
in a phone call on July 25, 2019, President Trump told Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky to
investigate
Democratic presidential candidate
and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Trump
told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to freeze over $391
million of military aid to Ukraine one week before the phone call to
Zelensky.
Background from WikipediaPresident
Donald Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani reportedly pressed
the Ukrainian government repeatedly since at least May 2019 to
investigate Hunter Biden, the son of 2020 presidential candidate Joe
Biden. A whistleblower complaint from someone within the intelligence
community is believed to be related to this situation, but the
complaint has not been forwarded to Congress as the law requires,
because it has been blocked by the White House and the Department of
Justice.In 2014,
Hunter Biden joined the board of directors
of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. He was paid a variable
amount, up to $50,000 a month some months, for his services. Burisma is
the largest non-governmental natural gas producer in Ukraine.[8][9]
Since 2012, the Ukrainian prosecutor general had been investigating
Burisma's owner, oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, over allegations of money
laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. In 2015, Viktor Shokin became
the prosecutor general, inheriting the investigation. The Obama
administration and other governments and non-governmental organizations
soon became concerned that Shokin was not adequately pursuing
corruption in Ukraine, was protecting the political elite, and was
regarded as "an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts". Among other
issues, he was slow-walking the investigation into Zlochevsky and
Burisma - to the extent that Obama officials were considering launching
their own criminal investigation into the company for possible money
laundering. In March 2016 then-vice president Biden issued an ultimatum
to the Ukrainian parliament that $1 billion in loan guarantees would be
withheld unless Shokin was removed. As of September 2019, there is no
evidence that Biden acted to protect his son's involvement with
Burisma, although Trump and Giuliani have fueled speculation. Shokin
was ousted within the month. His successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, initially
took a hard line against Burisma, but within a year he announced that
all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations against
Zlochevsky had been "fully closed". He stated in May 2019 that there
was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, but he was planning to
provide information to attorney general Bill Barr about Burisma board
payments so American authorities could verify whether Hunter Biden had
paid US taxes.Hunter
Biden’s ties to Burisma Holdings was
criticized as a conflict of interest in a New York Times editorial.
Some critics accuse the United States of maneuvering the Ukraine
situation so that Western oil companies would have unfettered access to
Ukraine's shale gas reserves. With the revelation that Hunter Biden was
serving on the board of the Ukrainian company Burisma, many raised
concerns about Hunter Biden's interests conflicting with official US
government positions. The White House dismissed nepotism accusations
against Biden's son. But the director of the US-Ukraine Business
Council, Morgan Williams, pointed to an "American tradition that frowns
on close family members of government working for organizations with
business links to active politics." Williams stated Biden appeared to
have violated this unwritten principle: "... when you're trying to keep
the political sector separate from the business sector, and reduce
corruption, then it's not just about holding down corruption, it's also
the appearance." Hunter Biden's father, Vice-President Joe Biden,
traveled to Kiev on April 22, 2014, and urged the Ukraine government
"... to reduce its dependence on Russia for supplies of natural gas."
And he discussed how the United States could help provide technical
expertise for expanding domestic production of natural gas.Since
at least May 2019, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani
has
been pushing for Volodymyr Zelensky, the newly elected president of
Ukraine, to investigate Burisma, as well as to check if there were any
irregularities in the Ukrainian investigation of Paul Manafort. He said
such investigations would be beneficial to his client, Trump, and that
his efforts had Trump's full support. On May 10 Giuliani canceled a
scheduled trip to Ukraine where he had intended to urge president-elect
Zelensky to pursue inquiries into Hunter Biden, as well as whether
Democrats colluded with Ukrainians to release information about
Manafort. Giuliani claimed he has sworn statements from five Ukrainians
stating they were brought into the Obama White House in January 2016
and told to "go dig up dirt on Trump and Manafort," although he has not
produced evidence for the claim. Giuliani asserted he cancelled the
trip because he had been "set up" by Ukrainians who objected to his
efforts, and blamed Democrats for trying to "spin" the trip. Giuliani
met with Ukranian officials to press the case for an investigation in
June 2019 and August 2019.Whistleblower
complaintOn
August 12, 2019, an unnamed intelligence official filed a whistleblower
complaint with Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the
Intelligence Community (ICIG), under the provisions of the Intelligence
Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA). Having found the
complaint both urgent and credible, on August 26 Atkinson transmitted
the complaint to Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National
Intelligence (DNI). Under ICWPA, the DNI "shall" within seven days of
receipt forward the complaint to the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees. Maguire did not do so, and the deadline passed on September
2. On September 9 Atkinson wrote to several lawmakers, telling them
about the existence of the whistleblower report which Maguire had not
forwarded to Congress. On September 10 House Intelligence Committee
(HPSCI) chairman Adam Schiff wrote to Maguire, asking why he had not
provided it. Schiff asserted Maguire stated he had been told to
withhold it on direction from a "higher authority" because it involved
an "issue of privileged communications." The DNI is a cabinet-level
position. Schiff stated he was also told "the complaint concerns
conduct by someone outside of the Intelligence Community." On that
basis, the White House and the Justice Department informed Maguire that
the complaint was not within the purview of the ICWPA and thus it
should be withheld. On September 13, Schiff subpoenaed Maguire to
appear before the HPSCI.On
September 18, The Washington Post
broke the story of the whistleblower report, saying that the complaint
concerned a "promise" Trump had made during communication with an
unnamed foreign leader. White House records showed Trump had had
communications or interactions with five foreign leaders during the
five weeks before the whistleblower complaint was filed. During a
previously scheduled closed-door hearing before the HPSCI on September
19, Atkinson told lawmakers that the complaint referred to a series of
events, and that he disagreed with the position that the complaint lay
outside the scope of the ICWPA, but declined to provide details. On
September 19 the Washington Post reported that the complaint related to
Ukraine.Communications
with Ukrainian officialsOn
September 20 the Washington Post reported that Trump had in a July 25
conversation pressed Ukraine's President Zelensky to investigate
matters relating to Hunter Biden. The New York Times reported that
Trump told Zelensky to speak to Giuliani, and according to The Wall
Street Journal he urged Zelensky "about eight times" to work with
Giuliani and investigate Biden's son. On September 22, Trump
acknowledged that he had discussed Joe Biden during the call with
Zelensky, and that he had said, "we don’t want our people
like
Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in
the Ukraine."Days
before Trump's July 25 call with Zelensky,
Giuliani spoke on the phone with Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak about a
Biden investigation, as well as a prospective White House meeting
between Zelensky and Trump that was sought by Ukrainian officials. Days
after the Trump call, Giuliani met with Yermak in Madrid. Giuliani
stated on September 23 that the State Department had asked him to "go
on a mission for them" to speak with Yermak. The State Department had
stated on August 22 that its Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker had connected
the men, but that Giuliani was acting as a private citizen and Trump
attorney, although he briefed the State Department after the trip.
American embassy officials in Kiev repeatedly expressed concerns about
Giuliani's meetings. Giuliani stated he told Yermak, "Your country owes
it to us and to your country to find out what really happened." Yermak
stated he was not clear if Giuliani was representing Trump, but
Giuliani stated he was not, and the White House referred questions
about Giuliani's role to the State Department, which did not respond.
Appearing on television on September 19, Giuliani first denied he had
asked Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden, but moments later
stated, "of course I did."Witholding
Ukrainian military aidIn
early July 2019, the Trump administration placed military aid to
Ukraine, which had been appropriated by Congress, on hold. Trump did
not mention the aid during his July 25 call with Zelensky, and Ukraine
did not know until August that it was being withheld. Ukraine relies on
extensive American military aid to fight Russian-backed separatists in
the eastern part of the country, and the suspension of the
Congressionally-mandated aid was reportedly a "shock" to Ukrainian
government officials.On
September 9, 2019, before news of the
whistleblower complaint, three Democrat-controlled House committees
— the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, and the Committee on Oversight and Reform
— announced they would investigate whether Trump and Giuliani
attempted to coerce Ukraine into investigating the Bidens, by
withholding the military aid.On
September 12, the Trump administration released the aid.In
a September 20 tweet, Giuliani seemed to confirm suspicion that there
was a connection between the withholding of military assistance funds
and the investigation he and Trump wanted Ukraine to undertake. He
said, "The reality is that the President of the United States, whoever
he is, has every right to tell the president of another country you
better straighten out the corruption in your country if you want me to
give you a lot of money. If you're so damn corrupt that you can't
investigate allegations -- our money is going to get squandered."The
Washington Post reported on September 23 that at least a week before
his July 25 call with Zelensky, Trump directed his acting chief of
staff Mick Mulvaney to withhold $400 million in military aid to
Ukraine. This directive was conveyed by the Office of Management and
Budget to the State Department and Pentagon, stating Trump had concerns
about whether the money should be spent, with instructions to tell
lawmakers that the funds were being delayed due to an "interagency
process."
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Telephone Line
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