The Impeachment of President Donald J Trump

[Eddie Teach]

"You don't have to be crazy to work here- but it helps."

[viper37]

Besides I know you'd never stoop so low to work in the Trump White House.

Sometimes, reading the US newspapers, I wonder if I shouldn't take anti-psychotic for my hallucinations problem...   

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UrWOGP3Oqo

Kaisich now on board with impeachment.  Unfortunately he's a paid CNN consultant, which kind of undercuts the message.

At some point we should change the usage of impeachment to fit the common understanding of it.  Senate vote for conviction=impeachment.

[Admiral Yi]

@Joan

I'm halfway through the Economist briefing on Ukrainegate, and they do not support your claim that Hunter was brought in as part of the solution.  Their take is much more in line with mine, that a greasy cheating oligarch company hired him to a greasy board job in hopes of aquiring greasy influence.

[DGuller]

I do wonder what people were thinking with Biden's son taking that job.  Surely this has all the appearances of impropriety, which on its own is enough to qualify as one.  I guess Biden can't really control his son if his son decides to share his corporate madskillz with the Ukrainians, but someone should've tried to put a stop to that anyway.

[The Minsky Moment]

It wasn't just Hunter Biden; it was Biden and Kwasniewski, and Mitt Romney's old foreign policy advisor.  It's the kind of thing that tarnished companies do all the time when they trying to polish up their image - they hire a bunch of international names for the Board.  None of these people were part of a "solution" - it never works that way.  It's a way for the company's executives to signal to investors and regulators they are changing their ways, really, this time.  Whether Burisma did really clean up, I don't know, what I do know is that there aren't allegations of wrongdoing after Biden joined the board.  The allegations were that two years before Biden joined, the company founder used improper influence when acting as ecology minister to favor the company; a somewhat ironic allegation given what is happening now in the US.

[Admiral Yi]

Well fuck and shit Joan, don't make me hunt back six pages of posts to show you where you said Hunter was part of the solution.

[The Minsky Moment]

I said this in the Facebook thread:

Also the inquiry into Burisma was basically a garden variety tax probe.  They were accused on underpaying tax in the years prior to Hunter Biden joining the board.  The matter was settled when Burisma made some back tax payments.  There was no reason for Hunter Biden to believe himself personally at risk from the probe.  On the contrary, he and several other "names" were hired to make the company look better.

That's pretty much what I just said above, except that I missed the other probes into the founder's influence peddling while a minister.

[The Minsky Moment]

This is going to real messy for Rudy.  It seems he was using two very shady characters as "associates" who met with all sorts of Ukrainian officials saying god knows what.  These guys used an LLC to funnel tons of money to the Trump campaign (using/abusing Citizens United).  Privileged status of any or all of these conversations or reports to Rudy is dubious.  The whole issue of the ambassador's firing is going to come back up.  This looks like it could be a Watergate-esque carnival of "colorful" witnesses and plots within plots.

Meanwhile this post from last month is holding up pretty good ...

[garbon]

So now he has called impeachment - a lynching.

[Razgovory]

So now he has called impeachment - a lynching.

Well if he insists...

[Sophie Scholl]

So now he has called impeachment - a lynching.

...with all of the usual suspects backing up his usage and not acknowledging what the term means in American history and to African Americans in particular.  That or saying that what Trump is enduring is worse.  Every step further along this path we go, I wonder if we'll ever truly be able to mend as a nation.  The mask has been removed and it will never be able to fit on properly again.

[Oexmelin]

"The President never really means what he says. He's just joking. But he's right."

[Malthus]

"The President never really means what he says. He's just joking. But he's right."

Making him right in this particular case is looking more and more appealing. 

[Admiral Yi]

US Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor's opening statement at Congressional hearing.  Link to whole thing at bottom.  I saw a news clip that said the testimony is still ongoing.

During this same phone call I had with Mr. Morrison [NSC Ukraine guy], he went on to describe a
conversation Ambassador Sondland had with Mr. Yermak at Warsaw.
Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that the security assistance money would
not come until President Zelenskyy committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.
I was alarmed by what Mr. Morrison told me about the Sondland-Yermak conversation.

This was the first time I had heard that the security assistance—not
just the White House meeting—was conditioned on the investigations.

Very concerned, on that same day I sent Ambassador Sondland a text message
asking if "we [are] now saying that security assistance and [a] WH meeting are
conditioned on investigations?" Ambassador Sondland responded asking me to
call him, which I did. During that phone call, Ambassador Sondland told me that
President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly
that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the
2016 U.S. election.

Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a
mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White
House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement
of investigations—in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, "everything" was dependent
on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President
Trump wanted President Zelenskyy "in a public box" by making a public statement
about ordering such investigations.

https://time.com/5707713/bill-taylor-opening-statement-impeachment-inquiry/