Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Ugh.
japhy
Contributor
Posts: 4736
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:04 pm
Location: The Tartarian Empire

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by japhy »

DCHawk1 wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 4:27 pm Trump's greatest skill remains his ability to pick adversaries.
The reality is that anyone who doesn't suck his dick, he considers his adversary.

So all together now trumpublicans, blow real hard. Cuz 5 more years of tax cuts and I will retire even more comfortably, you owe it to me you sleazy bitches, I am a job creator! Blow him like my tax cuts depend on it!

Thank you for your servicing, I don't have the stomach for it and frankly I find it beneath me, but if you don't then I will be happy to pass you the hand towel so you can wipe yourselves afterwards, it's the least I can do. No really, it is the absolute least I can do.

How to sell you soul to donald trump.......

There’s no way that Mike Pompeo actually venerates Donald Trump. I doubt he even likes the president much.

Pompeo graduated first in his class at West Point decades ago, a feat that suggests enormous reserves of discipline, a profound respect for tradition and a talent for self-effacement when the circumstances warrant it. Trump possesses none of those qualities.

Pompeo is an evangelical Christian, steeped in the very dictums that Trump has spent a lifetime mocking with both his words and his deeds. And Pompeo has long believed in the importance of American military intervention abroad, the kind of activist role that Trump railed against during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

In fact Pompeo, who was then a congressman from Kansas, supported Marco Rubio — and publicly praised him, while disparaging Trump, just before the state’s Republican caucus in March 2016. As Susan Glasser of The New Yorker recalled in an excellent recent profile of Pompeo, he sounded an alarm that Trump would be “an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution.” He urged Republicans to come to their senses and resist the lure of the surging Trump campaign. “It’s time,” he said, “to turn down the lights on the circus.”

But the lights continued to burn bright, so Pompeo just put on a clown suit, put away his ethics and finagled a big role under the Big Top.

He had plenty of company in that transformation. It’s the wonder of the Trump era and one of the saddest, scariest themes of the impeachment inquiry so far: the teeming crowd of sellouts and suck-ups who eagerly traded principle for position and are in some cases doubling and tripling down on that transaction, to a point where it’s fair to ask if there was ever much principle to begin with.

I’m looking at you, Lindsey Graham, who somehow decided that Trump was the new John McCain, which is like deeming tripe the new tenderloin. Hell, I’m looking at most of the Republicans in the Senate. I’m not so much looking at Attorney General William Barr, odious as his behavior has been, because it’s clear in retrospect that he never made much of a pretense of rectitude, at least not in the context of Trump. He also wasn’t on record trashing Trump, not the way Pompeo and Graham and so many others who now dutifully echo him and gaze beatifically at him were. They must have broken necks from their moral whiplash. Barr’s neck supports that big head of his just fine.

Pompeo, who first signed on as Trump’s C.I.A. director and then flattered his way to secretary of state, is a paragon of these lackeys-come-lately, and he’s especially vivid proof of how easily and completely the lure of power can overwhelm any call to conscience.

He raised his hand for secretary of state after he’d seen his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, humiliated by Trump and fired by tweet. This was more than a year into Trump’s presidency, by which point the rationalizations of other supposedly serious conservatives who took top administration jobs no longer held water. It was clear that Trump wasn’t just a few artful nudges away from proper presidential bearing. He couldn’t be lifted up because he was too busy cruelly dragging everyone else down.

But Pompeo had a heady shot at a vaunted job that almost surely wasn’t going to come his way any other time. So he lunged for it, then demonstrated with his obsequiousness that doing good and doing right were never high on the agenda.

He wrote an op-ed article that essentially broke with his fellow Republicans to promote Trump’s view that Saudi Arabia’s butchery of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi shouldn’t give anyone pause. What are a few severed body parts among allies?

He recalled the ambassador to Ukraine just to please the president and his babbling Beelzebub, Rudy Giuliani. He listened mutely to that July 25 phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, decided to ignore what he heard and then claimed — until a few days ago — that he was utterly in the dark about any pressure on Ukraine to kneecap Joe Biden.

Had he spoken up or pushed back, he would have risked ending up on the outside, among the swelling Trump administration diaspora. He preferred the inside, with its glossier trappings and cushier thrones. He and his wife were diplomatic royalty, jetting around the world. He could bear the ache of a tongue full of tooth marks. Better to be a wretched part of history than no part at all.

The tale sounds familiar because it is. It’s the story of Faust, who sold his soul for renown, then endured the ugliness of that deal. It’s also the story of too many of Trump’s Republican enablers to count. Sure, many of them decided to prop and pretty him up, a man whose unfitness for the Oval Office was never really in doubt, out of tribal loyalty, a force far too potent in American politics today. But some rushed to him because that’s where the riches were, at least metaphorically. That’s where the fame was.

And they weren’t simply burying the hatchet with a politician who hadn’t been their preferred candidate or whose positions differed from theirs only slightly. They were dismantling the chain saw that they’d wielded in the face of a fraud whose conduct, along with some of his proposals, was antithetical to who they claimed to be.

Few people remember anymore, but just years before she became the dark empress of “alternative facts,” Kellyanne Conway was a respected, reasonably mainstream, uncontroversial Republican pollster and strategist. Just months before she joined Team Trump, she correctly labeled him “vulgar,” said that he wasn’t presidential, called him a liar and demanded his tax returns. Then he offered her the lofty job of managing his presidential campaign — and all the television airtime that came with it — and she turned herself into a kowtowing cartoon. She’ll never be seen the same way again. Was the ride really worth it?

And what was Mick Mulvaney thinking when he agreed to be Trump’s third chief of staff, having witnessed the tortures of chiefs Nos. 1 and 2? Before Trump was elected, Mulvaney called him and Hillary Clinton “two of the most flawed human beings running for president in the history of the country,” and lest you think Trump was merely collateral damage in her disparagement, Mulvaney separately called Trump “a terrible human being.” Now he calls him boss. Amazing how revulsion crumbles when relevance is in the equation.

Graham was oddly and briefly honest about this in an interview with The Times’s Mark Leibovich, framing his kinship with Trump, whom he once called “the world’s biggest jackass,” as part of his career-long quest “to try to be relevant.” This quest now involves the insistence that Trump, rather than abusing the presidency to dig up imagined dirt on a political rival, is the victim of some setup.

You can hear Graham’s version as predictably loopy illogic from a senator up for re-election next year in the deep-red state of South Carolina, but it’s more than that. It’s the fee for being able to get the president on the phone, for being invited to play golf with him, for feeling the rush of access, for getting to crow about your perch at the epicenter of the action. He and Pompeo will have insider anecdotes to last the rest of their lives. They’ll need just as long to convince themselves that they didn’t overpay.
Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

Excellent post japhy. Excellent.

“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
twocoach
Posts: 21046
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:33 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by twocoach »

The White House is now openly obstructing the Congressional impeachment proceedings. DoJ and State Department employees are being ordered by the White House to avoid testimony and to not provide the documents requested via subpoena.
User avatar
chiknbut
Posts: 1783
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:49 pm
Location: JRP Lunchroom

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by chiknbut »

twocoach wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:16 am The White House is now openly obstructing the Congressional impeachment proceedings. DoJ and State Department employees are being ordered by the White House to avoid testimony and to not provide the documents requested via subpoena.
Schiff and Co. better grow a pair of hairy boys or this will be the norm.
User avatar
twocoach
Posts: 21046
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:33 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by twocoach »

chiknbut wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:52 am
twocoach wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:16 am The White House is now openly obstructing the Congressional impeachment proceedings. DoJ and State Department employees are being ordered by the White House to avoid testimony and to not provide the documents requested via subpoena.
Schiff and Co. better grow a pair of hairy boys or this will be the norm.
Punishment for contempt of congress is 1-12 months in jail and a fine of no more than $100,000. Maybe they will do Trump a favor and lock up that crack pot Giuliani.
User avatar
twocoach
Posts: 21046
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:33 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by twocoach »

Ambassador Sondland had not been giving a subpoena to testify, instead having simply been requested to testify.

He will now be receiving a subpoena. Let's see if his loyalty to Trump holds up under threat of prison time.
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

When you've lost Trey Goudy, who do you turn to? (Don't answer that, I don't want to know.)

“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

Trey Gowdy insists on having the worst hair in the room so he couldn't risk working with Trump:

Image
“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

Or not?

“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
DCHawk1
Contributor
Posts: 8563
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:45 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by DCHawk1 »

First, I'm SHOCKED that it has taken this long for the White House to get around to hiring outside counsel. Good Gaia. Anyone who paid attention 21 years ago knows that the two people most responsible for turning an affair with an intern and a lie under oath into the Republicans' problem were Bob Bennett and Mike McCurry (the latter of which points out the other obvious failure of the current White House "strategy.") Given Bennett's list of clients -- Clinton, Cap Weinberger, Clark Clifford, Paul Wolfowitz... -- I think he'd be a natural for Trump, age notwithstanding.

Second, "A White House official described President Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president as 'crazy' and 'frightening' to the whistelblower....the official was 'visibly shaken by what had transpired....'"

Is it too much to hope that it was Bolton?
Imjustheretohelpyoubuycrypto
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

From the response to the 8 page letter the WH sent to Pelosi, it would appear they can use the help:





“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
zsn
Contributor
Posts: 3808
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:39 pm
Location: SF Bay Area

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by zsn »

Two items for Congress: i. Issue subpeonas; 2. Give the Seargent at Arms something to do.
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

zsn wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:01 pm Two items for Congress: i. Issue subpeonas; 2. Give the Seargent at Arms something to do.
^^^
“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
DCHawk1
Contributor
Posts: 8563
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:45 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by DCHawk1 »

Feral wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:40 pm From the response to the 8 page letter the WH sent to Pelosi, it would appear they can use the help:





Completely insane.
Imjustheretohelpyoubuycrypto
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

In light of what Trump and his republican enablers have already admitted to, why wouldn't they?

<
“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
User avatar
Shirley
Contributor
Posts: 16568
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2018 11:29 am

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by Shirley »

Republicans need some new material:

#sameasiteverwas

“The Electoral College is DEI for rural white folks.”
Derek Cressman
seahawk
Posts: 1994
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:38 pm

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by seahawk »

What I remember about Watergate and impeachment is that people were just tired of Nixon, not just about the break-in or the tapes, but just in general. Using the words of kids, he was "putting the drama on us" all the time and the public was just done with it.

Trump has been putting the drama on us since the moment he came down the escalator, but I think he's worn out his welcome a lot sooner than Nixon.
Don't inject Lysol.
seahawk
Posts: 1994
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:38 pm

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by seahawk »

Feral wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 4:47 pm Trey Gowdy insists on having the worst hair in the room so he couldn't risk working with Trump:

Image
Every time my husband saw Gowdy on TV, he would say, "What law school did this guy attend? Did he graduate?"
Don't inject Lysol.
japhy
Contributor
Posts: 4736
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:04 pm
Location: The Tartarian Empire

Re: Where TF is the Impeachment Inquiry Thread?

Post by japhy »

I vote for #6, stoned straw man hair Gowdy.
Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness
Post Reply