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Originally posted by THG:
Let's just say I served when Nixon was president comrade. He was my commander and chief. Figure it out.

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Originally posted by THG:
Let's just say I served when Nixon was president missing comma comrade. He was my commander and IN chief. Figure it out.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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You STILL can't answer the question THUGGER? You know, it's an important question. Everyone says the reason what Trump did with Zelensky was bad was because it jeopardized national security.
So here is my question again, in gold ... just so you don't miss it: - explain to me EXACTLY how US national security is threatened by anything that happens in Ukraine. -KIKI

Better kiki. Not great but better.

Encouraged a foreign nation to interfere with U.S. elections.

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Baloney. Asked a foreign nation to cooperate with an ongoing investigation.

But if you think what Trump did was bad, how about ... asking Britain, Ukraine, and Australia to cooperate with an illegal counterintelligence operation against a candidate? Making shit up about that candidate (called the "steele dossier") and leaking it to the press?

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Opened up the President of the United States to blackmail.

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How? There was no crime, so ... no blackmail. Hard as you try to turn this event into something that it wasn't (Did you read the transcript?) there's no "there" there.

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Helps Russia,

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How?

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Stopped substantial military aid the U.S. Congress determined to be in America’s national interest from reaching its intended recipient (restored only after the scandal became public).

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Jeezus, are you saying that Ukraine is a vital ally in our fight against Russia?

Hmmm... are we at war with Russia? Is Ukraine an ally?

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Ukraine is a buffer between Putin’s aggressive Russia and four NATO allies the U.S. is sworn to defend if attacked.

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Ukraine is NOT an ally, theefore we are not "sworn" to defend it if it is attacked. Up until the USA-engineered coup in 2016, Ukraine was in fact a part of the Russian economic bloc. If Ukraine reverts to the Russian economic bloc, not much will have changed.

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If Russia takes over Ukraine due to an inability to defend themselves as a result of U.S. military aid not reaching them, the U.S. is more likely to either go to war, or have to invest substantially more in proactive defense. Russian troops just over the border from four more NATO members is dangerous.

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well, maybe WE xhould have thought of that before we expanded NATO eastward.

[qoute]Makes other countries less likely to take American promises of military aid seriously.

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Good. We promise too much military aid to too many nations. It might help them remember that aid is VOLUNTARY ... it can be started AND STOPPED based on our interests.

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Ukraine is vulnerable, in part, because the U.S. convinced them to give up their nuclear weapons, in exchange for assurance that we would help them defend themselves from Russia.

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More baloney from THUGR!

The USA, Russia and Britain agreed not to attack Ukraine or to threaten its economic or political integrity. We broke that promise when we engineered a coup in Ukraine. our agreement with Ukraine was NOT a defense agreement.

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Weakening a vulnerable nation under attack makes the world less stable and makes it more likely the U.S. will suffer negative reverberations.

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Maybe we should have thought of that before we engineered a coup and destroyed the Ukrainian economy.

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If Ukraine’s anti-Russia, anti-corruption leader ...

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who presumably would have an interest in investigating the corruption within Ukraine .. loses political power because the United States undermined him, his replacement may be more Putin-friendly and expand Putin’s influence against U.S. interests.

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OUR interests? Where? In Ukraine?

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Improperly using the highest national security secrecy systems to hide political secrets and misconduct weakens them.

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Obama used the same server for the same purpose. But since the content of he phone call was revaled, it seems there was no "there" there.

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Discourages other potential whistleblowers from reporting problems, making future national security vulnerabilities more likely.

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Son, a "whistleblower" is one who reports a wrongdoing within his own agency. Ed Snowden is whistelblower. Chelsea Manning is a whistleblower. John Kiriakou is a whistleblower. Thomas Drake is a whistleblower. Consider how THEY'RE being treated. Isn't THAT more discouraging to whistleblowers: Being arrested and persecuted by their onw government?

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Discourages dedicated American patriots from going into, or remaining in, public service (intelligence, military, law enforcement, politics, civil service, etc.) when the president is undermining their efforts, corrupting systems, cheating in elections, putting personal interests ahead of national interests, etc.

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"Dedicated" to hom and to what? The deep state?

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Allowing two straight U.S. elections to be undermined by foreign powers shows the U.S. to be weak and encourages future attacks.

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Sure.

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Wrong sig. Everything you post is wrong comrade. Not to worry though, I'm sure you're Putin's favorite.

And its dedicated to whom not hom. And its own not onw. And you spelled whistleblower whistelblower once. And its content of the phone call not he phone call. And its phone call revealed not reveled. And our in our agreement should be capitalized. It starts a new sentence.

T

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Originally posted by THG:
Wrong sig. Everything you post is wrong comrade.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Or do you have actual - yanno - FACTS at your disposal?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You know, in the Iraq days there was only one person on this board who TRULY believed that Iraq had WMD. He shall remain nameless, but the idea of Iraq having WMD rattled him to his bones, and left him with a case of PTSD that didn'tgo away for ... years, as far as I can tell.

Today, there is only one person on this board... JO ... who TRULY believes that Russia is the evil behind all distasteful events. Everyone else is just using it as a rationalization for "Why I hate Trump". And since Russia/racism/Ukraine/whatever are just rationalization, well, one rationalization is just as good as another and they can be easily interchanged.

It would e useful TO THESE PEOPLE if they did a little soul-searching as to why they TRULY hate Trump. I'm sure there are reasons, mostly emotional ones having nothing to do with current events, Trump, Russia, or anything else that's outside of their own personal demons. I have my own idea on why they feel the way they do (for example, THUGR is still trying to live down his dishonorable discharge by proving over and over again how loyal he is. As Frem said, we spend our adult lives fighting the battles we lost as children) but until they reach clarity about their own motivations I'm afarid their thinking will be all screwed up.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY

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Sorry sig but its afraid not afarid. It should be didn't go not didn'tgo. It should be, be useful not e useful. You kiki and Jack insist upon perfection in writing when it suits you. So...
T

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:


A billion flies eat shit.

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And so must you...I say that because you seem to be fascinated by it. It shows up in all your posts. I guess it's a birds of a feather thing aye kiki?

T

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Meanwhile...

Trump's approval rating back up to 44% in the aggregate.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_app
roval-6179.html

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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See if my signature is working.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Originally posted by THG:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Meanwhile...

Trump's approval rating back up to 44% in the aggregate.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_app
roval-6179.html

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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See if my signature is working.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by THG:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Meanwhile...

Trump's approval rating back up to 44% in the aggregate.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_app
roval-6179.html

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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See if my signature is working.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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TEST


Looks like you've got three open font color tags and only two closing them.




Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Try again...

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Originally posted by THG:


Try again...

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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https://summit.news/2019/11/15/rand-paul-to-initiate-senate-vote-to-fo
rce-hunter-biden-impeachment-testimony/

Rand Paul To Initiate Senate Vote To Force Hunter Biden Impeachment Testimony

Senator Rand Paul threatened Thursday to trigger a vote that would force Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to testify as a witness to the impeachment trial against President Trump.

“I believe very strongly the president should be able to call his own witnesses,” Paul told reporters.

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Hearsay, Your Honor!

Watching Day 1 yesterday of the impeachment inquiry that isn’t one, I was thinking about an old children’s game, which is just as useful for adults, in which, in a wide circle of persons, no. 1 tells no. 2 a story, no. 2 tells no. 3, and so forth. If the total numbers of persons in the circle is large enough, it’s certain that the story, if it has enough details, will have changed unrecognizably by, say, no. 20.

That little game is a nice illustration of why you’ve all heard the words “Hearsay, Your Honor” spoken by some lawyer or another in 1000+ movies and TV series. And hearsay was all there was yesterday from “witnesses” Bill Taylor and George Kent. They are both “witnesses” who didn’t witness anything related to the hearing in course and neither ever met or spoke to President Trump, but both claim to know exactly what he was thinking, why he did what he did, and said what he said, based on things they heard from third parties, quite a few of whom remain anonymous.

Little of what they said would therefore be ruled admissible in a court of law. But the House inquiry is not a court of law. It can probably best be compared to a grand jury, a very one-sided format designed to let a prosecutor find and present enough evidence to let a case go to court. If Taylor and Kent had been in a court room, you would have heard “Hearsay, Your Honor” about once in every ten seconds. That gets old fast.

So why do we have this circus going on when it is obvious that round 2 (or 3, if you think the basement hearings were round 1), the Senate trial which must follow if the Dems decide to impeach Trump, has to acquit him because the House based its entire case on hearsay? I don’t know, but perhaps we see some of it in Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley (IL)’s statement: “Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct … and it’s certainly valid in this instance”

Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) on evidence: “Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct … and it’s certainly valid in this instance” pic.twitter.com/JD0Ui6acxD

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 13, 2019

Note that Quigley in that little video got shut down very rapidly in his enthusiasm for using hearsay by someone (I can’t see who) saying none of the exceptions he seemed to refer to applied to “this testimony”. And that’s the crux here: courts may have in the past, after much deliberation, allowed hearsay in specific cases, but Quigley tries to make it look as if that is now some general rule, and that is certainly not true.

Before I forget, something that struck me at the start yesterday was how both Adam Schiff and Bill Taylor in their openings emphasized their focus on Russia, while this case is not about that, but about Ukraine. And Russia Russia Russia has been shot down along with Robert Muller in his memorably awful “defense” of his failed report a few months ago.

Schiff’s opening words:

In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire. In the following years, thirteen thousand Ukrainians died as they battled superior Russian forces.

There is so much wrong and debatable and leading and what not in just those few words, I don’t even know where to start. I guess perhaps I should be shouting out “Hearsay, Your Honor” at the top of my lungs. Then there’s Taylor:

After his opening statement, Taylor answers questions. He tells committee members: “If we withdraw or suspend or threaten to withdraw our security assistance” to Ukraine, it sends a “message to Ukrainians, but its just as important to the Russians who are looking for any sign of weakness”. “That affects us” he adds. It affects the world that we live in; that our children and grandchildren will grow up in,” he adds, appearing to become emotional. “Ukraine is on the front line of that conflict,” he concludes.

These statements are important because they tell us that Schiff and Taylor both see the world through the same glasses. The Russians are looking for signs of US weakness that they can use to advance their grand plan to (re) build a grand empire. That comes with the idea that the US didn’t cause the mayhem in Ukraine in 2014 with their coup, no, it was Russia which reacted so it wouldn’t lose its only warm water port.



Back to the hearing. Taylor said it was his “clear understanding” that President Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine until the Bidens and other matters were investigated. At the very least there is no proof of that. It’s much more likely from what we know today that Ukraine didn’t know Trump withheld the aid until after the July 25 phone call this whole thing rests on. It was suggested yesterday that they didn’t know until the end of August, but I’ve seen people claim that they knew a few weeks earlier. But Zelensky didn’t know on July 25, that we can agree on.

And anyway, this is merely Taylor’s opinion. Based on hearsay. Based on what some guy told him some other guy told him etc etc. And though Taylor never met Trump, the very idea of withholding aid to one of the most corrupt nations on the planet scares the heebees out of him because Russia Russia Russia.

Taylor is a career diplomat who has bought hook line and sinker into established US policy in the region, and who will defend it until his dying breath. And if that means going against the president of the country he allegedly serves, who has every right to rebalance that policy, Taylor will do it. That is what he was saying.

Taylor came close to matching Mueller’s uber-bumbling performance the other day, though he didn’t quite get there. Kent was not quite that bad, but he’s in the same camp, the same career field, and the same deep state, FBI-CIA controlled policy-making no matter who gets elected president. And looking at Bill Taylor, how can one not question the wisdom of people like him making decisions on matters such as that?

Republican counsel Steve Castor started off strong, at least from what I saw, but seemed to fizzle out a little because he became lost in his own one question every five seconds model. Perhaps it was the format, maximum time limits etc., which you don’t have in a courtroom. Jim Jordan did well, he just got named to the committee, but he could have been more effective as well. Still, this part was strong:

You didn’t listen in on President Trump & Zelensky’s call?

Taylor: I did not.

Jordan: You’ve never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney?

Taylor: I never did.

Jordan: You’ve never met the President?

Taylor: That’s correct.

Jordan: And you’re their star witness.

All in all, if you thought yesterday was a good day for the Democrats, for the inquiry, or for Adam Schiff, you really need to check a few fundamental issues. All Schiff managed to bring to the table was hearsay. And it’s only because of the grand jury-like format that he even gets to start day 2. No judge would have let him. But there is no judge, and there is no jury. There’s only an executioner.

PS I found this thing from the BBC intriguing and illustrative:

Bill Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, said a member of his staff was told Mr Trump was preoccupied with pushing for a probe into Mr Biden. He was speaking at the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry.


[..] During a detailed opening statement, Mr Taylor said a member of his staff had overheard a telephone call in which the president inquired about “the investigations” into Mr Biden. The call was with Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, who reportedly told the president over the phone from a restaurant in Kyiv that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward”. After the call, the staff member “asked ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine”, Mr Taylor said. Mr Taylor said: “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden.”

First, it argues that a member of Taylor’s staff was told something by a third party, but later it changes to him/her hearing the president “live”. Albeit through an allegedly private phone call in which Trump may have sounded a bit loud. You want to impeach your president on the basis of a maybe overheard phone call that someone told you someone told someone else about?

By the way, that phone call allegedly was between Trump and Gordon Sondland, hotelier cum US ambassador to the EU, the same person who testified in the famous Schiff basement and whose laywer at some point contested Taylor’s statements about what Sondland told him, after which the latter went back to the basement to change his testimony. He said she said but then he said and then she said and so on.

What’s on the schedule for the circus today, is it the clowns or the elephants? I may take a day off. We have weeks more of this. And already I have no idea left of who told whom what.

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/11/hearsay-your-honor/

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Originally posted by captaincrunch:

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Originally posted by THG:
Pence aide testified that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine were 'inappropriate'

A top national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence told House impeachment investigators that President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents were “unusual and inappropriate,” and “shed some light on possible other motivations” for the president’s order to freeze military aid to the U.S. ally.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-aide-testified-that-trum
ps-efforts-to-pressure-ukraine-were-inappropriate/ar-BBWRWIA?ocid=spartandhp

There is no defense for Trump. Only the continued destruction of our Democratic institutions. This time it's the constitution.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Originally posted by THG:
The Constitution Says ‘Bribery’ Is Impeachable. What Does That Mean?

The Founders had a broader conception of bribery than what’s in the criminal code. Their understanding was derived from English law, under which bribery was understood as an officeholder’s abuse of the power of an office to obtain a private benefit rather than for the public interest. This definition not only encompasses Trump’s conduct—it practically defines it.

The memorandum released by the White House describing that call—which is consistent with the accounts of the whistleblower complaint that first brought this scandal to light—reads like a classic shakedown.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitution-says-bribery-impeachable-what
-does-mean

If in the face of overwhelming evidence the senate fails to convict, then not only have they denied the constitution its due, but changed our concept of fair play in this country forever.

We would now have to allow for all future presidents to bribe, blackmail and extort the rest of the world leaders for personal gain further damaging our national security.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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